Chapter 19: The Pendants' Secret
Yura stood frozen. Her breath visible in the cold air, Mu-won's blade still resting against her neck.
But she wasn't afraid.
She was waiting.
Waiting for him to flinch.
Waiting for him to remember.
---
Mu-won stepped back slowly, lowering his dagger.
He hadn't noticed until now—but his hand was trembling.
> That scream… from the pendant. It wasn't just pain. It was a call.
A connection.
Somehow, when Yura tried to destroy hers, his pendant—miles, years, worlds away—felt it.
---
"You said it screamed," Mu-won said. "What do you mean?"
Yura knelt in the snow and pulled her pendant from beneath her armor. Up close, it looked ancient. The crack split the blood-red crystal like a lightning bolt frozen in time.
> "The moment you died… or vanished," she said bitterly, "I felt something inside it shatter."
> "Not just grief. Not just rage. It howled in my mind."
> "I tried to destroy it. But the blade broke."
Mu-won swallowed.
His own pendant felt heavy around his neck, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
> "They're linked," he muttered. "Fragments of something older."
> "They were forged in the Valley of the Three Heavens," Yura said.
Mu-won blinked. "How do you know that?"
Yura looked up at him.
> "Because you told me."
---
Flashback — Past Life
He stood over a jade altar, wind howling around him, robes stained with warblood.
Atop the altar lay three pendants, each shaped like an eye—watching, waiting, pulsing with divine energy.
> "These are the Echo Shards," he'd said.
> "Only three exist. Each holds a part of my soul. If I fall, they will remember me."
Yura had taken one.
Another general, a man named Baekrin, took the second.
And Mu-won himself wore the third.
> But where's the third pendant now? he wondered, snapping back to the present.
---
"The Echo Shards," he whispered. "That's what they're called."
Yura nodded.
> "They were made to hold your soul—and your memories."
> "But something went wrong."
> "When you died, the shards were supposed to guide your rebirth. Instead…" She looked away. "They fractured."
Mu-won felt a sharp pain behind his eyes. Not physical. Spiritual.
Memories trying to break through.
A battlefield. A betrayal. A name—
> "Baekrin," he whispered.
Yura turned sharply.
> "You remember him?"
> "Another general. Tall. Arrogant. Brilliant."
> "He disappeared after you died," she said.
> "But some say he didn't die at all."
---
Mu-won clenched his fists.
> If he has the third pendant… he may remember everything. Including who really betrayed us.
> Or worse… he may be the one who orchestrated it all.
---
Suddenly, Mu-won's pendant pulsed again.
Then… glowed.
A projection burst forth—red energy shaping itself into a crude map.
Mountains. Rivers. A valley of stone pillars.
At the center: a symbol glowing like a sun.
> The location of the third shard.
---
Yura stepped closer, eyes wide.
> "That's the Valley of the Three Heavens."
> "If the third shard is still there…"
> "Then the war we started is far from over," Mu-won said darkly.
> "It never ended," she replied.
> "It just waited for us to return."
---
To be continued...