The Disgraced Heir

Chapter 1. Eight Was Enough

The blade came down.

Seojin jerked his head aside. Steel struck stone beside his ear. Something warm spattered his eyelid.

Blood from the cut across his cheek. A fraction later, and he would have lost an eye.

“Still alive, are you?”

The man holding the sword bared his teeth.

One cheek pressed to the stone floor, Seojin looked up at him. Brown leather clothes. A scar beneath his chin. A hand already raising the sword again. A yellow oil lamp swung from the ceiling, shifting the light across his face.

That wasn’t a stage light.

A moment ago, there had been stage lights. Seoul, 2026. The last show of VANTA’s world tour. The platform rose beneath his feet, and tens of thousands of lights swayed in the darkness. Seojin moved his right foot into the next eight-count.

Then the stage tilted.

A dancer beside him slipped. Seojin shoved him in the back. He saw the man tumble onto solid flooring. Then the floor beneath his own feet vanished.

A scream.

A bandmate’s outstretched hand.

Then the fall.

“I said check on him. Who told you to cut his throat?”

The voice came from his left.

Another man stood there with a short club in one hand and a young laborer’s collar in the other. One of the laborer’s eyes was swollen almost shut. On his knees, he clutched something to his chest.

A third man stood at the door. He wore a sword too.

Three.

Without thinking, Seojin measured the gaps between them. The sword that would fall first. A step and a half to the left. Four steps to the door. Sacks of flour on his right, a low shelf behind him.

The club struck the laborer’s shoulder.

He fell without letting go of what he held. A torn sack. Dry, yellowed grain spilled into the cracks between the stones.

“That’s enough.”

An unfamiliar voice came out of Seojin’s mouth.

Lower than his own. Rougher.

The swordsman narrowed his eyes.

“What was that?”

Instead of answering, Seojin drew his right foot beneath him. His knee folded closer to his body than he expected. His arms were a little longer. A familiar scar was missing from his hand.

No time to check.

The sword rose again.

He couldn’t block that with his hands.

But even before it rose, he could see where it would fall. The man loaded his weight onto his right foot. His shoulder opened first. His body gave the answer before the blade did.

There was no music.

Seojin didn’t need it.

One.

The ball of his right foot pushed against the floor. Seojin rose, slipping outside the man’s sword hand. The blade skimmed down past his shoulder, tearing cloth but missing skin.

Two.

He laid his left hand against the wrist following the sword down. He didn’t grab it and wrestle for control. He pulled it a little farther in the direction it was already going. At the same time, he turned and tucked his right shoulder beneath the man’s elbow.

The unfamiliar body followed.

As his shoulder turned, heat stirred beneath his ribs. Like strong liquor swallowed on an empty stomach. Seojin clenched his teeth and breathed out.

Three.

He swept his foot behind the man’s leading knee.

Pitched forward, the man lost his support. Seojin drove the falling elbow against the edge of the shelf. The man’s fingers opened. The sword’s falling hilt landed in Seojin’s right hand.

Heavy.

Nothing like a stage prop. It dragged his wrist down. Rather than force the sword upright, Seojin let its weight carry on falling.

Four.

He shoved the first man’s shoulder to the left. The man beating the laborer raised his club and collided with his companion. Their feet tangled.

The third man drew his sword at the door.

His eyes followed Seojin’s shoulder. Seojin opened that shoulder a little farther for him.

Five.

With his shoulders still angled right, he twisted left through the waist and drew the falling blade close to his body. The point the guard was watching vanished briefly behind his hip.

Six.

Seojin drove the pommel into the inside of the club arm. The club fell. He shoved the man’s shoulder with his left arm, slamming him into the shelves. The laborer crawled away in the opposite direction, clutching his empty sack.

Only the man at the door remained.

A sword point drove toward Seojin’s chest. He moved his foot.

Seven.

The instant his heel met stone, the heat inside him plunged downward.

Grain leaped from the cracks in the floor.

The recoil traveled up through his ankle and knee. His hips turned. His shoulder opened. Seojin let his right arm ride the motion. He hadn’t forced any extra strength into it, yet the sword grew light.

Eight.

The clash of steel tore through the storehouse.

The guard’s blade flew upward. Seojin checked his own swing before it could follow through, folding his wrist to shorten the arc. He struck the man’s forearm with the back of the blade and stepped in.

His heel settled on the floor.

His sword point stopped beneath the man’s throat.

No one moved.

The first attacker gasped beneath the shelves. The man who had dropped the club cradled his wrist. The guard looked at the sword in his own hand, then at Seojin’s blade against his throat.

“Drop it.”

The sword fell.

Only after the sound faded did Seojin realize he had been holding his breath.

He exhaled. His knees nearly gave way.

He pressed the point a little closer. Taking it for a threat, the man lifted his chin. That kept him from getting a good look at Seojin’s face while Seojin steadied his stance.

The heat was gone.

Nothing remained in his belly of the force that had driven his whole body a moment earlier. His right hand felt numb. The hilt kept slipping in his grip.

He might not be able to take all three again.

He had to end this now.

“Take your friends and get out.”

“Master Aaron, we were only—”

“Leave the swords.”

The man’s eyes dropped to the floor.

Seojin tightened his grip. He pinned his trembling thumb against the hilt with his other fingers.

He had known moments like this in front of tens of thousands of people. Even when he could barely breathe and the microphone was slick with sweat, he smiled for those few seconds the camera found him. He took his next breath offscreen.

All three men were watching him now.

Seojin let one corner of his mouth lift.

“Do I need to say it again?”

“No, sir.”

The guard backed away first. The man who had carried the club hauled his companion off the floor. Emerging from beneath the shelves, that man looked for his sword, saw it in Seojin’s hand, and gave up.

His scarred chin trembled.

“Master Pell said he expects an answer before the day is out.”

“Tell him to come himself.”

Seojin had no idea who Pell was.

Looking as though he did was easy.

The three crossed the threshold. The last man turned to spit on the floor. Seojin lifted the sword a fraction, and the man thought better of it.

Footsteps retreated up the stairs.

Seojin shut the door and dropped the bar into place.

His sword point touched the stone.

At last, he could gasp for air.

Nothing moved beyond the barred door. Seojin listened again. No shoes coming down the steps. Only the faint hiss of the lamp’s burning wick. It must have been making that sound all along. He could hear it now.

He tasted metal. As he tried to work out whether he had cut his mouth, he realized how hard he was clenching his teeth. Relaxing his jaw pulled the wound in his cheek open.

He leaned back against the door and slid slowly to the floor. When he clutched his stomach, his ribs shifted painfully beneath his palm. Blood ran from his cheek to his chin. He tried to uncurl his fingers. They resisted.

That man had meant to kill him.

He looked at the mark the first blow had left. A white gouge in the stone where his head had been. A chip of broken stone clung to his knee. When he picked it off, its bloody tip left a spot on his palm.

He had swung a sword too.

A little farther, and it would have gone into the last man’s throat.

Seojin laid the weapon down, turning its edge away from himself. Even that small movement made his whole arm ache.

“Is there… water?”

The laborer stirred.

He looked first at the grain on the floor. Then at Seojin’s hand. Only then did he fetch a wooden cup from beneath the shelves. He favored one side as he walked to the water barrel in the corner.

Instead of handing Seojin the cup, he set it on the floor an arm’s length away.

Seojin didn’t ask why.

He coughed as he drank. An unfamiliar nose appeared over the rim of the cup. The face reflected in the cloudy water was unfamiliar too. When he looked up at the laborer again, the young man was already two steps back.

“Where am I?”

The laborer’s lips parted.

“The west storehouse.”

“What… whose storehouse?”

“House Vale’s.”

Seojin closed his eyes.

With the answer came a building he had never seen. Cracked white walls. A gate carved with three spreading branches. Someone bowing in front of it.

The scene vanished when he opened his eyes.

“What did you call me?”

The laborer swallowed.

“Master Aaron.”

“Aaron.”

The name felt familiar on his tongue.

Aaron Vale.

The surname followed, though he had no idea where he had learned it.

Seojin looked down at his hands. The old calluses across his knuckles were gone. So was the scar beneath his right thumb from a fall during practice. His hands were a little larger, his skin pale, as if it had seen far less sun.

Instead of a watch, a thin red cord circled his wrist.

He pulled it aside. A bruise lay beneath it. More bruises marked his elbow and the base of his neck.

Someone had beaten this body badly.

These weren’t injuries from an accident.

“Those men. Were they here to collect money I owe?”

The laborer nodded.

“Then why were they hitting you?”

“I was trying to take some barley for supper…”

His gaze went to the torn sack.

Seojin looked at the grain scattered across the floor. A man had been beaten in front of him. A sword had come down at his head. People were calling him by a name he had never heard. Yet this young man still seemed more worried about the barley they needed for tonight’s meal.

Seojin straightened.

The laborer’s shoulders drew in.

Something about that small movement troubled him.

“Take it.”

“How much?”

“As much as you need.”

The young man said nothing. He didn’t look confused by the order. He looked as though he was waiting to hear the condition attached to it.

“I’m not asking you to pay.”

He still didn’t move.

Seojin reached for the empty sack.

The laborer threw up his hands to shield his face.

Seojin’s hand stopped in midair.

Only now did he understand why the young man had kept his distance after the swordsmen left. Why he couldn’t bring the water any closer. The lopsided walk. The old yellow bruise beneath his eye, with a fresh red mark spreading over it.

Seojin withdrew his hand.

“Did I… hit you?”

The laborer went even paler.

Another scene flashed through Seojin’s mind.

A broken wine cup. Wet boots. A hand pressing down on the back of someone’s neck. Red hair above a face that couldn’t lift.

Seojin drew a breath.

A red cord circled that hand’s wrist.

“What’s your name?”

“Toma.”

“Toma.”

“Reed, sir. Toma Reed.”

He enunciated the addition carefully, like someone giving his name before a punishment.

Seojin moved closer to the door, leaving Toma room to pass between the sack and the barrel without going near him.

Onstage, everyone had wanted him closer.

Here, when he stepped back, the beaten young man’s shoulders eased a little.

Toma checked the space he had cleared first. Now there was room to reach the door without someone catching his arm.

“I won’t hit you.”

Toma’s gaze stayed on the red cord around his wrist.

Seojin untied it. Twice he lost his grip on the knot before finally working it loose and putting the cord in his pocket. Hiding it now wouldn’t change anything. But he didn’t want to keep waving it in front of Toma’s eyes.

Toma knelt to gather the barley. When Seojin shifted, his hands stopped again.

“Let me help.”

Toma didn’t answer.

Seojin sat a little way off. He gathered a few grains in his palm, noticed the blood on his fingers, and put that handful aside. Then he began again with his clean left hand.

Toma watched him.

Longer than he had after Seojin put three men on the floor.

A bell rang outside. Its low, cracked note carried through the ceiling. Once. Twice.

Seojin raised his head.

Beneath the ringing, he could make out men’s voices. Someone ran toward the main gate. The three he had driven off seemed to be explaining something to someone else.

It wasn’t over.

Seojin looked at the sword on the floor.

For the first time in his life, he had held a real blade. A power he didn’t understand had moved through him. Moments ago he had nearly died. Now he was alive.

He would hold on to that first.

Finding a way home, finding out why he was in this body—he had to stay alive to do either.

“Toma. The room above the door. Can I use it?”

“Your room is in the east wing, sir.”

Toma tipped the grain into the sack, then added carefully, “For now.”

Seojin looked at him.

“For now?”

“Master Pell said the locks would be changed after today.”

He had gained a sword.

Now he was about to lose the home he needed it to defend.