The rope was itchy.
That was Han Dan-Bi's last thought as she stood on the execution platform, the cold wind of the Northern Mountains biting at her exposed neck.
Below her, the disciples of the Dark Moon Sect chanted like a swarm of angry hornets.
"Traitor!"
"Witch!"
"Seller of children!"
Dan-Bi looked down at her feet. She wanted to scream that it wasn't fair. She wanted to yell that she had only been seventeen years old when the Sect Leader died. She had been a terrified girl surrounded by wolves in human skin. When the Elders demanded she hand over the authority—and the children—in exchange for her life and a pouch of gold, what was she supposed to do? Fight them with her embroidery needle?
She had been scared. She had run away.
And now, four years later, they had found her.
She lifted her gaze, her eyes burning from the cold wind, and locked eyes with the four people standing at the front of the crowd.
They weren't children anymore.
Wi Jin-Hyuk, the new Sect Leader, stared at her with eyes so cold they made the snow look warm. His hand rested on the pommel of his sword—the sword that used to belong to his father. There was no pity in his gaze. Only disgust.
Beside him, Wi Min-Ho smiled. It was a beautiful smile, charming and sweet, but his eyes were dead. He looked at her like she was a particularly interesting bug he was about to crush.
And the twins. The twins she had once tried to sing to sleep, only for them to set her dress on fire. They stood silently, watching her demise with the blank curiosity of predators.
I guess I deserve this, Dan-Bi thought bitterly. I was their mother in name, and I sold them to save my own skin.
"Execute her!" the Elder shouted.
The floor beneath her dropped.
Snap.
Pain. Then, nothing.
"Haa... Haa...!"
Dan-Bi shot up, gasping for air, her hands flying to her throat.
She expected to feel the rough hemp rope, the crushed cartilage, the cold embrace of death. Instead, her fingers touched smooth, warm skin. She wasn't outside in the snow. She was sitting on a bed.
And not just any bed. A bed covered in red silk sheets, smelling heavily of medicinal herbs and burning incense.
"Are you finished having your panic attack?"
A deep, gravelly voice echoed from the other side of the room.
Dan-Bi froze. She knew that voice. It was the voice that had haunted her nightmares for four years. She slowly turned her head.
Sitting on a wide mahogany chair, bare-chested and covered in scars, was Wi Cheon-Hwang.
The Demon Lord. The Sect Leader of the Dark Moon Sect.
He looked exactly as she remembered him from that night. He was forty-five years old, a giant of a man with broad shoulders that looked like they could carry the sky. His hair was streaked with gray, and a long, jagged scar ran from his jaw down to his collarbone.
But despite his terrifying aura, he looked... gray. His skin had the pallor of ash, and his breathing was shallow.
Dan-Bi blinked. She looked down at her hands. They were trembling, but they were unblemished. She looked at her reflection in the bronze mirror on the vanity.
She looked seventeen again.
The wedding robes. The red candles. The smell of sickness masking the smell of alcohol.
I went back, she realized, her heart hammering against her ribs. I'm back to the wedding night.
"Girl," the Demon Lord grunted, extending his arm. A nasty, purple bruise throbbed on his bicep—the result of an old poison acting up. "The water is getting cold."
Dan-Bi operated on autopilot. In her past life, she had been so terrified at this moment she had spilled the water bowl three times.
This time, she felt a strange sense of calm.
I'm going to be a widow tomorrow anyway, she thought dryly.
She stood up, grabbed the warm towel from the basin of medicinal water, and walked over to him. She knelt beside his chair and began to gently wipe his arm.
The Demon Lord watched her, his dark eyes unreadable. He didn't look like a man who had just married a young, beautiful wife. He looked like a man settling his affairs.
"Listen to me, Han Dan-Bi," he said, his voice rough.
"Yes, my lord?"
"Do not misunderstand your place here." He looked down at her, his expression hardening. "You are here to warm the seat of the Matriarch because the Elders required a marriage alliance. You are here to keep the household running."
He paused, letting the words hang in the heavy air.
"You will never be my wife in anything but name. Do not expect affection. Do not expect to share my bed after tonight."
Dan-Bi paused in her cleaning.
In her first life, these words had crushed her. She had felt humiliated, unwanted. She had cried herself to sleep on the floor.
But now?
Sir, with all due respect, you're going to be dead by breakfast. I wasn't exactly planning a honeymoon.
"I understand, my lord," Dan-Bi said softly, wringing out the towel. "I have no such expectations."
Wi Cheon-Hwang seemed surprised by her calmness. He studied her face for a moment, looking for fear. He found none. Just a strange, weary acceptance.
"Good," he grunted. A coughing fit overtook him, racking his massive frame. He grabbed a handkerchief and covered his mouth. When he pulled it away, it was stained black.
He stared at the blood, then sighed.
"The children," he rasped. "You met them at the ceremony?"
"I did."
"They are... difficult. They are not of my blood. I picked them up from the gutters, from burning villages, from the pits of hell. They are broken things."
He leaned back, closing his eyes. For a second, the terrifying Demon Lord just looked like a tired father.
"But they are all I have. The Elders... those old vultures are waiting for me to die so they can tear the sect apart. They will try to use the children, or kill them."
He opened his eyes and pinned Dan-Bi with an intense glare.
"Guard them. You are the Lady of the House now. Even if you are just a paper wife... protect them until Jin-Hyuk is old enough to take the sword."
Dan-Bi looked at this dying man.
He knew. He knew he was leaving a seventeen-year-old girl in a pit of vipers. He knew it was an impossible task. But he asked anyway, because he had no one else.
In her first life, she had nodded, terrified, and then failed him completely.
"I will do my best," she said. It was the standard answer.
He seemed satisfied. He waved his hand. "Go to sleep. Take the bed. I will meditate."
Dan-Bi climbed into the massive bed. She didn't sleep. She just watched the back of the man who was technically her husband.
He really cared about them, she thought, a pang of bitterness rising in her chest. He's a mass murderer, a tyrant, a villain... and yet, he spent his dying breath begging a stranger to protect adopted orphans.
Then she thought of her own father. Her flesh and blood. A scholar who prided himself on righteousness.
He had sold her to this evil sect for a promotion and three chests of silver. He hadn't even looked back as the carriage drove away.
Life is a comedy, she thought, closing her eyes. The hero sells his daughter, and the villain dies for his orphans.
The next morning, the Demon Lord didn't wake up.