Let me perish...

Terror stabbed him at her words. Unlike the swift slash that extinguished life, it was the cruel knife that punctured, twisted and then left just enough life that it would seep out. Drop, drop, drop...each rife with awareness that made one yearn for the darkness and suffer, knowing it was out of reach.

Minjae had barely reached the door when he caught up with her, his long legs devouring the ground like a hungry predator. Seizing her by the arms, he spun her around and pushed her against the cold, smooth beam by the door.

His senses were overpowered by the salt and lavender of her scent and the sickening force of her wounded emotions. A pool of hurt swam in her eyes as if her soul was stripped bare.

Yet he wasn't ready to let her move past the pain she had inflicted on him. Was it selfish? Possibly. Did he care? Doubtful. He felt buried under the avalanche of anguish, desperate to claw his way out.

"Take it back!" His voice shook. "I said, Take. It. Back!"

Their eyes were locked in a battle, both betrayed, both anguished and none willing to forgive.

"You should have let them arrest me, Dari. I... I can't live with your cruelty, your pity," she whispered, tears brimming.

"Cruelty? You think I am being cruel? It was you who toyed with my emotions!" The words reverberated around the room like arrows flying past before hitting their target. "Pity! Really? You think pity has anything to do with how I feel? You damn well know why I saved you." Pale, green around the mouth, Seung breathed so hard it seemed each gasp might crack a rib. "Even after all the tricks you pulled, what I feel for you shakes my world. The thought of you hurt -" His hands dug into her arms as if to physically hold together the pieces of himself that threatened to shatter. "Do you think I can just turn it off? Every time I close my eyes, it's your face I see. I can't escape you, not in my waking hours, not in my sleep."

Liquid embers looked back at him with emotions so raw that it hurt to look at them.

"I deeply regret that I lied to you, Dari," Minjae curled a hand at the base of her throat.

"Lied?" Contempt dripped like poison from his voice. "Do not dare make it sound harmless like a stolen sweet or sneaking out for an innocent meeting! Your entire existence is a falsehood! And I had reconciled myself to that, but—" His breath expelled a painful puff of memories. "Do you know who I used to be before I came here? A spy. I took down the most cunning and pried out secrets from hell's knot. And yet I can't find anything about you. Do you know why? Do you?"

Her only answer was a deep, shivering inhaling of air.

"Because I am terrified of what I would find. Because now I can at least feign I already know the worst!" Seung's voice rose, breaking with emotion, not caring who heard.

A sob escaped her.

"How many times do I have to say I never betrayed you? Do you truly believe I am a traitor?" Her voice trembled like a guillotine over the thin thread that held them together.

Seung inhaled deeply, his heart at a crossroads.

Was she?

A spiteful part of him wanted her to be to justify his anger towards her. Another part of him foolishly wished to enfold her in his arms and never let go, no matter her transgressions. Yet, his pragmatic, logical part knew she wasn't a traitor.

There was only one way to find out.

Seung released her arms. Circling his desk, he dug into one of his drawers and pried at something. He unfolded small pieces of paper and slammed it on the desk.

Minjae's eyes adjusted to the striking brevity and exquisite calligraphy of the Chinese letters drawn on the scraps of paper spread on the table.

'Get the layout of the Mayor's house.'

'Why is the Interior Minister visiting the island?'

'Cargo ready to be dispatched. Ensure seamless operation.'

'Send word to the Capital. Find heads in the Royal Guard unit.'

'Engage Lee Seung. Neutralise.'

She read and blinked. There were several more that she didn't get to. Seung watched her intently, noticing every little movement on her emotionally ravaged face. Her eyes narrowed in concentration, widened with comprehension and finally, darkened with confusion.

She had not seen these before, Seung thought to himself. Seung could bet everything precious to him on this. And in all the time she had been in the chamber, her eyes had not strayed towards the vase. Not even once.

He had dealt with enough deceitful people to read body language in extreme conditions. Minjae's lack of fear during her capture had surprised him, but now it made sense.

She had not been the recipient of the letters. She had been so disdainful of the entire allegation because she had never been guilty.

His gut instinct was not wrong.

A ribbon of relief unfurled inside him, along with something else - hope.

He was not surprised when she exclaimed, "What do these mean, Dari?"

"They are missives found in your room," He said, still watching her closely.

Shock filled the creases of her face. "It's not possible. I have never seen these before." She raised her anguished eyes. "I do not know how they came to be in my room. Please believe me. I do not know anyone who could have sent these missives. They..they are Chinese characters. No one can even recognise them on this island, leave alone write them...." her voice trailed out, horrified at the implication. "I am the only commoner who can read this," She uttered quietly, her voice laced with horror. "I didn't write them; someone else did. Who would do this? Why?"

"To frame you. They know some of their men have been caught, and we are on their trail."

"Why, no, how did they get to my room? Everyone who has access to it..." her voice trailed off. "Who found them, and how do you know they didn't put them there?"

"The man who found them had no reason to plant them. You met him in Hanyang."

Comprehension flitted across her beautiful face, and dullness settled in her eyes. "Did they come and search while you kept me busy in Hanyang?"

The look of betrayal was back in her eyes.

Guilt poured in like mercury into blood channels. He was aware of the thrush creeping up the column of his throat.

Tainted memories.

Not at first, Seung wanted to cry out. Not during the first few days of bliss when I was ready to accept anything you threw at me - until reality forced me to see beyond it......your lies that kept piling on thicker than the ivy on an ancient wall, strangling every attempt to reach the truth, your protectiveness for a strange man too deep to warrant belief it was innocent.

He didn't say any of it.

"You didn't say anything in Hanyang. Why tell me now?" she asked, her hurt cutting deep.

He rubbed his hand across his face. "I never believed you were a spy. But everything points at you. Whoever planted this knew what they were doing, and they had to be someone close to you because the slips were hidden craftily. A few drawings were also found. Your room is bare, so they needed time and access to hide these in your screen and sewing box."

Seung could see her mind whirling as she digested the information, considered and discarded faces in her mind while her fingers rubbed the coarse material of her skirt. She compressed her lips. The extent of her peril was starting to finally sink in.

"How old are these notes?" Minjae asked.

"We could trace some of them back to at least three years, based on the written instructions."

Her face fell, disbelief etching the exquisite planes of her face, the reality that someone close to her might have been setting a trap for her for this long palpable in a myriad of emotions flocking her eyes. Seung felt an insane desire to take her into his arms, to comfort her, to kiss her distress away, but he resisted.

His voice was steady when he spoke. "You have to be vigilant and report to me directly about anything that arouses your suspicion. It does not matter when. You see something, you tell me right away. Understand?"

She nodded.

"We only have five more days before the ship arrives with the 'cargo', he added. "And while you might not be a spy, I do not trust you either," he said, a hard edge creeping u in his tone. "You allowed yourself to be a pawn in this game; even if your motivation was to help others, you have ended up doing more harm than good. You have practically laid bare every safe place for the enemy."

"I'm sorry....I- I had no idea. I'd never do that willingly. You must know that, Dari!" She implored.

She was too kind, compassionate, and strong of a person to engage in what she was being accused of, and he knew it well. He had not risked his career and life for nothing, but she was still guilty of deceiving him. He had begged her to let him into her world, but she refused.

"I only know what you showed me!" He ground out.

A flush crawled up her cheek.

He filled his lungs with frustrated air. "Do you suspect anyone?"

Something flickered in her eyes like a memory surfaced, but then she shook her head.

Minjae was visibly struggling to come to terms with the breach of loyalty, her brows furrowed in her pale face, her fist clenching and unclenching around her skirts. The defences around his heart melted faster than a snow bank under the scorching sun. He had to cease his wayward thoughts before they seized his brain and forced him to do something asinine, like skirt the table and crush her to his chest.

"You can go now," he said gruffly.

Bowing, she turned to leave.

"Are you not forgetting something?" He asked.

To her questioning glance, he pointed a raised eyebrow to the bracelet. A part of him hated doing this to her, but the raging part of him was not yet satisfied with the blood he had drawn over her betrayal.

She paled, a shadow settling over her ethereal features. "It does not belong to me anymore. That innocent girl who lost that bracelet died on that hilltop five years ago."

Seung gave up. He was before her in a flash, inches away from her face. "Talk to me," he ordered, his walls crumbling under the weight of the pain sketched like ghosts on her face.

An ocean of resignation drowned her luminous eyes. Yet, a flame of defiance licked the outer rim of her iris.

"I can't," she said.

"Try," Seung countered.

Her lower lip disappeared between her teeth as she mulled on something before her eyes cleared. Seung wondered what was running through that brilliant brain of hers.

"You mentioned you were a spy," Minjae enunciated each word slowly as if testing them for authenticity.

He looked at her warily.

"If I showed you more, do you think you can find out all about me?" She asked.

He didn't know what he expected, but never in a million years did he think she would ask of him something like that. "I can find out all about you in two days if I really want to," He bit out.

"Without coercing or torturing anyone?" She asked, her gaze honest as she looked at him.

His mouth compressed into a thin line.

"I'll give you two clues about my past. But I have two conditions," Minjae said.

"You think this is all a game or a jest?" He asked, exasperated.

"My life has been a jest for a long time, Dari," Minjae said sadly. "If you don't want to know, say so because before I say anything, I must caution you about something."

"Why should I go to all of that trouble, Kim Minjae? Why can you not simply tell me!" If it sounded ridiculous, it was!

"Perhaps because I hope you never find out? Or because - because if I did, people could die. I would not be able to live with it."

"I supposed I should thank you for the warning? I never took you for being self-aggrandising," he mocked. "Not even ministers are that important. What did you do? Collect blackmail material?"

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"I am not important; I am an inconvenience. It's not a warning; it's a fact. I have never indulged in anything that would trouble my conscience," Minjae said, her shoulders straight, graceful as only she could be.

Seung's expression darkened with remorse. He shut his eyes; he loathed the dishonourable wretch he had become.

"I am sorry. Go on."

"You might hate me even more than you do now. It might indeed reveal what you consider treachery and deceit," she quoted him. "I'll understand if you can't accept it, and we shall never meet again."

Over his dead body, Seung thought to himself. "Let me be the judge of that."

She looked him in the eye. "I was fifteen years old, about to be married to a wonderful man when those thugs abducted me that day." A shuddering revulsion ripped through her, and his heart flipped. Seung regretted very few things in his life the way he regretted taking her to that hilltop.

"The marriage happened, but it broke. And two," she paused, and her swallow moved her throat delicately. Then, she forged ahead, taking a deep breath. "There are two people on this island who know who I used to be in another life. They would never tell you on their own, but if you asked them, they would confirm. And none of them are my adopted family."

Startled, he schooled his surprise even as jealousy nibbled at him that others knew about her what he didn't while his traitorous heart galloped. A strange elation filled him that Minjae was agreeable to letting him enter the world she wanted to keep hidden from everyone else.

But..there was always a but with Kim Minjae....

He waited. She swallowed.

"My first condition, Lord Choi Se-min mustn't know about my presence on this island, and no matter what you uncover, it should never reach his ears," she said, and he hated the tremble in her voice.

The scourge of betrayal knocked, furled in a scroll of surprise. Seung chose to ignore both.

For now.

"And your second condition?"

The silence stretched so long that he feared she had changed her mind. When she spoke, it felt like she was choking on her words. "If and when you uncover my past, you will not do anything about it without my permission. That's not negotiable."

"Do you... still harbour the desire to return to your husband?" He couldn't pinpoint the moment when the conversation had shifted so drastically, leaving him yearning to reclaim a place in her heart.

Minjae's gaze faltered. After what felt like an eternity, she finally answered, "Returning to my husband's home as his wife is a dream I am no longer in a position to chase."

Seung let out a dry, bitter laugh. "If he is your dream, then what am I?" His arms folded across his chest. He teetered on the edge of hatred and love, unable to discern where one ended and the other began. It was maddening to think that the same woman who shattered his trust was also the one who had the power to heal the wounds she had inflicted.

"You are my reality, Dari," she replied, her voice soft yet steady. "The one I know will be wounded by the shadows of my past."

Seung's blood hummed at her admission, but he held himself stoic.

"More than I am now?" He arched a brow, scepticism lacing his words. "I find that hard to believe. What if, in the end, I find myself untroubled by it all?" Seung's gaze bore into hers.

"Then," she said with a faint, almost careless shrug, "you must decide whether you still wish to welcome this pit viper into your life." But her bravado frayed, the pain in her words too raw to disguise, seeping out like cold air through the rents in a hanji cover of a window.

Shame invaded Seung's veins, making them stand out in repentance. "Minjae -" he rasped, raising a hand to cup her face.

She stepped back, turning her face away. Seung's hand fell to his side.

When she turned to leave, he did not stop her but called after her, "People say things in anger they don't mean!" With only the slightest pause, Minjae maintained her stride, bowed, and departed, leaving him feeling empty and hollow yet strangely exhilarated.

As Seung lay in his dark room a few nights later, Minjae's words played like a broken loop in his mind. He combed through his memories of Kim Minjae, searching for clarity.

The anger had catheterised out of him, replaced with the pressing need to chip away every obstacle that Minjae erected around herself.

He had lied to her, too. Somewhere, during the time he learned she wasn't who the world thought she was, to possibly unearthing her real identity, his feelings had shifted. What started as betrayal had morphed into a disorienting sense of loss, eventually settling into a nameless feeling where knowing her had seemed more important than knowing about her. His anger had sprung from the belief that she would never keep secrets from him, that she would trust him to protect her, to protect them. It tore at his heart to realise how much she had distanced herself from him, even in the moments when their bodies were entwined, not an inch between them.

But he understood that he would have to breach the wall that kept her trapped in fear if he was to make her unequivocally his own.

He couldn't piece the puzzles together yet and had only a vague idea of where to start. Kim Minjae wasn't a slave; Kang Do addressed her with honorifics. He could eventually find the list of Yangban men who married around that time, but what role did Choi Se-wan play in her life? Why would his henchmen recognise her after all these years and try to kill her? Did her husband's family discover her connection to gambling dens and cast her out?

He felt a pressure to act. Minjae getting into trouble with the authorities was a real danger. The idea of another man searching Minjae's room had gnawed at his gut; he couldn't even imagine how he would react if someone laid a hand on her. The prospect of her still in danger coursed like arsenic in his blood. Though he planned to hide her if necessary, they still had a good chance of catching the culprits as long as the miscreants on the island were not tipped off.

The following morning, during his morning respects to his mother, Seung was distracted even though his mother was amid another emotional outburst, her distress palpable.

"How can you disobey your mother, Lee Seung? Make me a fool? The servants are talking behind our backs!" Lady Ryu seldom raised her voice.

"Fire them then," Seung said disinterestedly.

"Oraboni!" Gil-ae exclaimed, appalled.

Seung sighed. His mother had been getting increasingly agitated lately. "I am sorry, Omoni," he apologised. "Please forgive me for my rudeness."

"I demand you and Choi Jina speak immediately about this matter," his mother said sternly. 'This has gone on long enough. I cannot suffer this indignity anymore."

Later, Gil-ae was contrite. "I am sorry for raising my voice, Oraboni, but Omoni has been in a terrible mood since she received that letter from Hanyang from your father-in-law."

Seung's instinct sharpened.

"What letter?"

"Omoni didn't share, but she has been upset since then," Gil-ae said unhappily.

That was news. He thought his mother was upset because she had been visited by a select few ladies on the island, and somehow, his relationship with his wife, or rather the lack of it, became fodder for gossip.

"Find that letter and bring it to me," he commanded.

Since the disastrous encounter the week prior, Seung had not glimpsed nor encountered Choi Jina. He instructed Choi Jina to stay away from his chambers to prevent a repeat of the embarrassing evening. While he had little feelings for his wife and was greatly inconvenienced because of her presence, he was still a gentleman enough not to denigrate her as a woman.

He could scarcely believe that he had attempted to succumb to his most primal desires with his wife and had failed so abysmally. He might have even harboured doubts about his capacity to fulfil his conjugal obligations were it not for the excruciating manner in which his body had responded to Kim Minjae the evening before. Even when he longed to throttle the life from her, he found himself furiously, gloriously aroused, and had stayed awake all night, piecing the puzzles of her words in his head while longing to sink himself in her luxurious essence at the same time.

Seung sighed. He didn't want to set foot in Choi Jina's quarters and didn't want her in his, so he settled for the common area of the tea room.

An awkward silence stretched between them.

Choi Jina waited silently.

"I apologise for what happened that night. It will not happen again," he said.

"Please, Dari, pray do not discard me thus. My father will punish me severely."

Seung paused.

"Have you received any missives from your father?" He asked.

Choi Jina paled in reply.

"He has no hold over you while you live in my house as my wife," Seung's voice was deathly quiet. He didn't take to coercion happily, not even from his all-powerful father-in-law. Especially not from him.

She shook her head. "You do not know my father. He is capable of great harm."

Lord Choi is a ruthless man. Minjae's words spiked through his mind. The images of Choi's henchmen trying to kill Minjae on the riverbank sent a chill through his blood.

Conflicting thoughts and emotions raged within Seung's mind. For a woman believed to have her father entirely at her beck and call, Choi Jina seemed uncommonly frightened today.

"The gossip has reached my father's ears, and he is very unhappy," she said.

"Even if we hypothesise your honourable father still has that kind of power over you, why should he punish you?" Seung frowned. "I mean no disrespect, but he let you do whatever you wished instead of guiding you, and now he wants to impose his parenting mistakes on me? I never agreed to take you back. He thinks so poorly of my mother and my late father that he didn't think twice before foisting an unwanted, unchaste, unfilial daughter-in-law on my grieving mother and wants us to pretend everything should be normal. And I will not even start on what he did to my sister. I find it exceptionally disagreeable."

Choi Jina flinched. Tears filled her eyes, along with unmistakable fear. "Dari, will you punish me for my entire life? Will you never forgive me?"

Seung cursed himself mentally and expelled a breath. "I have forgiven you for what you did a while ago. However, my stance on the divorce has not changed. It is just that it's too late for us, Choi Jina."

"I beg you for a child, just one. I promise I shall never show you my face again," she said, a suspicious break in her voice altering him that she was crying.

Seung expelled a frustrated breath.

To his dismay, she dropped to her knees. Her hands shook.

"Please, give me this one chance," she sobbed.

Exasperation and impatience gnawed at him. Choi Jina had been young and immature, guilty of a grave blunder, but he had more pressing concerns than holding a grudge for a woman he had no feelings for and ignoring the sympathy that stirred his heart.

Like figuring out what had put shadows under Minjae's eyes and how to get her back into his life without bursting a vein.

"All right, let's speak tonight. I need to leave now. You can come to my chamber after I return," Seung said, not looking ahead at the long day of exhausting work with Prince Bongrim and the machinations of royal politics.

It was business as usual on the work front, with two new developments. Captain Park apparently lived in Ganghwa for a while after his father had lost the King's favour before being called back to the Capital. During this time, Park developed a deep relationship with Han So Ye. His parents had threatened to cut him off if Park didn't stop seeing her.

Captain Park needed money to buy Kisaeng Han from the state.

The showdown with the embattled captain had been intriguing.

"We are human," Captain Park had returned Seung's glacial eyes unflinchingly in the ship's cabin. "We make questionable choices. We fail. I failed, too. But I would be six feet under before I hurt someone innocent, that too, a friend. And I am not a traitor."

"Never heard a traitor confess he is one," Sim Junho had quipped.

"Do you think I would be here in Ganghwa if I was, Sir? Trust me, no army can hold a traitor back if they want to switch sides. Too many are eager to help you with it."

Captain Park had a point.

They later reviewed the details gathered in their investigations in Sim Junho's office chamber in the past month.

Sim Junho had found his way to the island as a Minister of Advisory to the young Queen while she was on the island. He was also her older half-brother, but that was a minor detail. So far, he had kept the entire affair out of Prince Bongrim's ears, who was not known to take kindly to any hint of deception against the state.

"Could they be setting up Kim Minjae?" Sim Junho asked. He had finagled another apple from somewhere and was crunching it noisily.

Seung would take Park Hyun Ki and Han So Ye apart limb by limb if they had. "I have set a tail on Han So ye, but I do not think they were the one to set up Minjae. At least not directly. None of them have access to Minjae's room," he said.

"Unless she hid the notes herself," Sim Junho mused, then raised his arm in appeasement under Seung's glare.

The other development was more interesting. Choi Se-min had confessed to drawing maps and layouts of homes in Hanyang, but he claimed he did it as a part of a secret society of artists that had been formed by young Yangban men and a few women who had to hide their talent from their disapproving parents who were more likely to carry out threats of disowning the displeasing children than not.

Seung decided to meet his embattled brother-in-law. He always ended up feeling sorry for the man.

"Am I in trouble, Brother-in-law Lee?" Se-min was hunched. He was tall and thin. With melancholy mahogany eyes set in a long, oval face defined by sharp cheekbones and a strong jawline, Se-min bore no resemblance to his sister. Yet, a nagging sense of familiarity gnawed at Seung, as though he had glimpsed those features somewhere.

"I cannot say for certain. But you must be forthright to Lord Sim Junho in all matters. Do not leave anything out," Seung suggested with gentle firmness.

Se-min inclined his head in acknowledgement. "What if Father learns of this? I am burdened with shame, knowing that it might cast a shadow upon his good name."

Seung forced a reassuring smile, a decision forming as he spoke. "Why not join me for a morning meal tomorrow?"

Se-min's expression clouded with unease. "I-I fear I must decline. I have pressing duties to attend to for His Highness," he stammered.

Seung leaned back in his chair, his gaze steady. "It strikes me as most peculiar that you have neither visited your sister nor paid your respects to my mother. I suspect your honourable father would be more disheartened by such neglect of decorum."

Choi Se-min's face blanched.

The decision to summon Se-min to Ganghwa as a part of the young Yangban men accompanying the Prince had been wrested from Lord Choi Si-wan's control by a last-minute decree from King Injo, influenced by none other than Prince Bong-rim. Few dared to oppose the fiery prince, yet Seung suspected his father-in-law extended his influence from the Capital, likely seeking to distance his son from his sister, with Se-min deemed as a 'bad influence.'

Seung imagined the siblings missed one another dearly. While he, like any man of his station, held filial piety in the highest regard, he also recognised that the heart often defied the strictures of societal expectations. His own remorse over his recent conduct toward Choi Ji-na weighed heavily on him, and he longed to offer her some small joy to assuage his guilt.

∞

Preoccupied, Seung returned home, his mind charting out stages of unearthing Minjae's past. He had already sent Wang Jung to Hanyang to retrieve records of marriages. A brief visit to Kim Da-bom had yielded intriguing details but no definitive results. Minjae had been rescued, injured, by two boatmen and attended to by Park Seo Jun, who introduced her as his daughter to everyone. The husband, a man named Jo Sung Ha, bewitched by Minjae's beauty, had attempted to force himself upon her. Kim Da-bom, who had previously harboured resentment towards Minjae for pretending to be her sister, intervened and thwarted the man by threatening to make him a eunuch, an effective poke of a needle that had impressed Minjae so much that she had taken up learning everything she could about the art form. This decisive act marked a turning point in their relationship. However, beyond that, Kim Da-bom knew little else.

Park Seo-Jun had refused to answer any questions.

"Do not hurt my daughter, Royal Commander Lee. I have nothing else to tell you," Park Seo-Jun had carried on with grinding herbs in a large mortar and pestle.

Gil-ae pulled Seung back to the present. "Oraboni, Mother seeks your company urgently. There is something going on but I will let you handle it." Furrows creased Gil-ae's smooth forehead. "But before you go, here, I have the letter. You must take a look."

A strange foreboding settled between his shoulder blades as he took the letter from his sister's hand and unfolded it. It had been written in bold, sweeping calligraphy which jumped out of the paper aggressively.

Most Honourable Lady Ryu,

I send this letter with hopes that you are in good health. However, I must convey my deep concern over unsettling rumours that have reached me, suggesting that my daughter is not receiving the care she deserves within your household. Such reports are troubling, and I trust you are aware that I hold firm confidence in the values of filial piety that you have instilled in your son, ensuring his full understanding of his duties.

You must be aware that it is imperative our families be blessed with the arrival of a grandson in due course. Should this matter remain unresolved, I fear I will be unable to uphold the promise I made to you upon the passing of my late friend, Lord Lee.

I implore you to consider this matter with the utmost seriousness.

With sincere respect,

Choi Si-wan

Moments later, Gil-ae followed her enraged brother to their mother's chamber and quietly shut the door behind her, only to stop in her tracks at the sight of her sister-in-law seated beside their mother.

Lady Ryu looked up from her bed, her smile trembling with emotion. "Lee Seung, come closer, my son," she called gently.

With cautious steps, Seung approached his mother, bowing deeply before settling onto his folded knees.

"You have brought me great joy by accepting Choi Ji-na," Lady Ryu said with a tender smile. "To honour this, I wish to bless your union with the sacred water of our ancestors. May the grace of our revered spirits bestow their blessings upon you both tonight. I hope to cradle a grandchild soon," she added, gesturing for her maid to present a cup of alcohol to Seung and Choi Ji-na.