Winter blinked and she was burning.

Not literally. 

She was standing under the scorching heat of the sun in the middle of an archery shooting field. The palace is made of pale coral colored stone, shining in the sunlight almost too bright to look at, tiny galaxies of dust motes floating in the light. Above her, the sky was clear of clouds, the sun dominating its vastness.

"Halt!" Someone barreled past Winter, leather boots slapping the cobblestones, and she realized she was surrounded by guards. They were stationed at the mouth of the hallway, all wearing masks.

Winter grabbed at a handmaiden’s sleeve, or tried to, but her fingers passed through it. She shouted at her—“Where am I, what is this?”—but the servant did not look at her. Did not even seem to hear her voice.

This had to be a nightmare. Winter thought, though she knows she did not fall asleep.

"We have been practicing this for hundreds of days now, you should at least can hit the target." Winter whipped her head when she heard Jimin's voice. She was talking to her, yes but not to her now but to her before, to Minjeong.

"Well, I didn't get to pick up a bow until my First Knight decided I should learn how to protect myself. I was fine using the sword alone," Minjeong said.

"Did the Queen told you that? That you can survive with just a sword alone?"

"Well, the Queen wanted me to focus on important things"

"Like learning how to dance?"

"No. Like learning to speak fourteen languages, making medicines that can heal wounds easily. A little alchemy and calculation."

"And combat?"

"I've read about hand-to-hand, long range, spear fighting, wrestling, guerilla warfare"

"Read? Didn't Lady Miyoung taught you the basics at least? Isn't she the most skilled Dame in the Palace?"

"When did you first held a bow? I heard General Yu taught you personally." Minjeong asked, attempting to change the subject.

"Does a Princess go around sticking her nose into everyone's business or just mine?"

"Pick the arrows and do it again. We're not taking a break until you hit the inner target. The First hunt is a month away."

Winter watched as Jimin and Minjeong exchange words with each other. Judging by the looks on Jimin, the wounds she had were all cleared which means this happened days after the Conclave. Winter sat on one of the steps in the stairs waiting for the practice to end.

When it ended, Winter followed Jimin and Minjeong to the palace. Inside, all the floors, the walls, the two long tables bisecting the room even the chairs around the table were all made with spotless snow white marble, somehow paler and cleaner than the rest of the palace she already saw in her dreams. The walls were lined with windows facing east; afternoon sun streamed in, falling in the bright squares on the tabletop. Dust motes floated in the air, like tiny glowing pinpricks.

When they reach Minjeong's bedchamber, Winter watched as three handmaidens strip Minjeong with her tunic to wash the sweat and dirt of the . It felt weird watching herself bathe so Winter went to look for Jimin who already left to her own quarters followed by her own handmaiden.

When Minjeong was done, she asked the handmaidens including Yizhou to leave. Minjeong looked like she could sleep for years, curled up right there, hide herself in the shadows and just sleep for a decade. It was the kind of tired that left her head all foggy and tipsy and slow. She'd imagine the fieldwork would be easy, but she underestimated the exhaustion of being constantly watched and monitored, of controlling her expression and stifling, any suggestion of fatigue.

Winter watched as the room fades in darkness. 

Then—flashes of memory, so quick she could barely follow—

***

Winter found herself inside a carriage. The outside of it was a dull, scratched-up black, so as not to draw attention, but the inside was like a miniature version of the palace: white-walled with a carved, gemstone-set ceiling, velvet seats. Winter felt like she was riding along inside a heavily decorated skull.

Of course, she wasn’t traveling alone. Aside from the driver, she was sitting with Jimin and Minjeong.

In the beginning the view was gold: the miles of hills surrounding Kwangya. As their party traveled farther north, toward the border, the hills became shallower, like small creases in the earth, and the yellow grass became shrubland, with short scrubby trees sprouting up like burrs on an animal’s hide. The sky became paler, the air colder. Sharper in the lungs.

They were riding parallel to the River Kallen, headed in the general direction of Lake Kangta—one of the bigger points of entry into KOSMO. Winter recognized this path, it's the same path they took to the Conclave grounds only this time, they will be going to the Queen's Cove to prepare her for the First Hunt.

The camp that Jimin prepared was a ways down the river, hidden within a copse of fir trees. It was really just a small section of forest floor with the undergrowth cleared away, creating enough space for a campfire and a few sleeping mats. Two ponies were tied nearby, the carriage left as soon as they've set up.

The world began to dissipitate again, tranforming into a new location of a memory. 

***

Winter is standing just beside the mouth of the Queen's cove. Unlike the beach earlier, the sand here was white as salt. The inlet was shaped like a keyhole, the dark water looked like a face, the white sand a crescent-moon crown, the black rocks beyond that a tangle of wild black hair.

Only distantly away from her, Minjeong slipped off her horse. The ground crunched beneath her boots. Not sand, then—crushed white shells.  She was walking across a carpet of crushed bones. She studied the great black walls of the cove.

Suddenly, a scuffling noise. A tiny rain of pebbles from above.

No.

“What . . . ?” Jimin hissed.

Time slowed. Winter and Minjeong turned around and it felt like they were moving through water instead of air; a surge of adrenaline had taken over, her mind leaping ahead. Jimin hadn’t dismounted. She were still hovering at the mouth of the cove, watching Minjeong as if waiting for instruction and she was following her cues.

“Run,” said Minjeong. Winter didn't know what to do but watch as everything unfold in front of her. They wouldn't be able to hear her even if she try.

She watched Jimin’s eyes widen. The whites of her eyes in the dark.

There was a sudden pressure in her right shoulder, as if she’d been pinched by an invisible hand. She ignored it. Minjeong raced forward, closing the distance between her and her horse in a fraction of a second. Minjeong swung back up onto her horse, dug her heels in, “Run,” Jimin seemed to realize what was happening, the bolt of a crossbow glanced off the rocks only a few feet from Jimin’s head, “Run,” Minjeong kept saying, quiet and controlled, “Run, run!”

A nightmare, to be attacked in the dark. It was hard enough for Winter to see, and she knew the Jimin and Minjeong were basically blind. The three of them made it back out of the bottleneck, out of the cove and back onto the lakeshore, but—“On your right!” Jimin gasped, catching a flicker of movement, a brief silhouette against the moonlit water. A soldier, a border guard, quick as a jumping spider, there and gone. There. An