Chapter 46: The Second Bed

Seolhwa

I arrived early.

The student dormitories occupied a long pavilion at the northern edge of the Academy grounds, set against the mountain wall where the valley narrowed.

Different from the examination housing.

The temporary barracks had been divided by track. Sword candidates in Martial Pavilion East. Support Court West. Medical Court South.

The pavilion wasn't divided by track.

Everyone lived under the same roof. Martial, Support, Medical, Seal, Scholarly. The only separation was sex. The men's wing ran along the eastern half of the building. The women's wing occupied the west. A central common area connected the two, with the understanding that students were expected to behave like adults.

Or at least like adults who wouldn't cause an incident severe enough to warrant expulsion.

I registered at the ground-floor desk. The clerk was a woman in Alliance gray with ink on three of her fingers and a pile of room assignments that reached her elbow.

She found my name without looking up.

“Haeun Seol. Team Seventeen. First rank.”

“Yes.”

Her brush paused.

“Men's wing, tenth floor. Room one. Priority assignment.” She stamped the ledger, tore a slip, and slid it across the counter. “Key is on the hook inside. Meals at the drum. Don't lose the key.”

The tenth floor of the men's wing was a corridor lined with doors on both sides. Each bore a brass number plate.

Room one sat at the end of the hall. The door was unlocked. I stepped through.

A window faced the valley.

A weapons rack stood against the near wall, proper slotted pine, not the leaning-stick arrangements from the barracks. A desk. A chair. A bed with clean linen.

And a door at the back of the room.

I opened it.

Tile floor. A washing basin set into a stone counter. A drain in the center. A privacy screen in the corner, behind which sat a low wooden tub large enough for one person.

Private.

My shoulders dropped.

No shared bathhouse. No timing a wash for the dead of night.

I could breathe here.

I stepped back into the main room and set my travel pack on the bed. Leaned the swords against the weapons rack.

Then I stood in the center of the room and listened to the building settle around me.

Distant voices from the ground floor. Footsteps on the stairs. The clatter of a dropped spear and someone swearing about it two floors down.

Male voices. All male. Of course.

I pressed my back against the wall and closed my eyes.

The night had been long.

I hadn't slept. My mind had refused to stop replaying.

He knows.

He'd seen me.

He hadn't exposed me. He'd protected my secret.

If Jinhae told anyone — anyone — what he'd seen, my Academy enrollment would end.

Father would know.

Everything I'd built since I was six years old would be worth nothing.

And Jinhae held all of it in one hand.

I pushed off the wall.

The binding needed to be changed. What I had on was the torn vault linen, not one of the three sets I kept for the road. The fabric was holding.

Barely.

Every step loosened the wrap a fraction. By the time I'd reached Martial Pavilion East last night, I was pressing my forearm against my chest and praying the dark hid the motion.

I needed to wash. To rebind properly. To check the bruise.

I pulled the outer robe off.

It smelled like him.

I folded it. Set it on the desk.

The inner robe followed. My own travel robe, what was left of it.

I reached behind my back. Found the first knot. The linen was stiff with dried sweat.

The pressure eased. My ribs expanded. The ache where the fox's tail had struck me throbbed deep as the compression released.

I pulled the last knot.

The binding fell.

I exhaled. The relief was immediate and almost dizzying.

I looked down.

The bruise was worse than I'd thought. A dark purple-green bloom that covered the left side of my ribcage from the armpit to the lowest rib.

The skin across both breasts was flushed — pink where the binding had pressed hardest, pale where it hadn't. The improvised wrap had left red lines that crossed the original binding marks.

I needed the salve from my pack.

I turned toward the bed where my pack sat.

My gaze passed over the room and stopped.

Two beds.

There were two beds in this room. One against the near wall, where I'd set my pack. One against the far wall, beneath the window. Two desks. Two chairs.

A room for two.

I had walked in, seen the bathroom, and stopped counting.

The door opened.

The latch clicked. The door swung inward on its iron hinges, and the corridor light cut across the floorboards in a bright wedge.

Jinhae stood in the doorway.

He had a pack over one shoulder. The cane was in his right hand.

His eyes found me.

I couldn't move.

Every instinct I'd trained since childhood vanished. My body locked in place as if the floor had grown hands and seized my ankles.

I was standing in the center of the room with nothing above my waist.

The binding lay in a coil on the floor at my feet.

My breasts were fully bare. Rising and falling with the shallow, panicked breaths I couldn't control.

His gaze moved downward.

Then back to my face.

He did not look away.

He set his pack on the second bed and leaned the cane against the far wall.

“I—” My voice cracked. “I can explain.”