TLP (LoY Prequel) Ch 2

And like that, I became the priestess here at Snow Mountain.

The cold never left this place all year. It was frozen solid and did not permit just anyone’s feet from walking on its grounds. It was a place where one could look down at the sharp, sword-like boulders sticking out below.

I lived here for fifteen years.

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“Aholiuyeo”

When I heard someone call for me, I stopped praying, stood up, and turned around.

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Bisal, whose entire body was hidden behind a black veiled hat, appeared.

“It is time.”

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When I heard those words, I bit my lips. I didn’t want to do this. But I must do it. Once again, I gathered all my strength to suppress the fierce battle inside my heart.

“Let us go.”

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Bisal coldly turned around. I couldn’t tell if she was aware of the conflict and strife in my heart.

A faint light streamed down from the ceiling and shone down on her back.

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I hesitated for a moment. I let out a sigh and followed her.

We walked out from my small, long room and into the corridor. The female shamans were standing in a line along the walls of the corridor. This completely dark castle was made up entirely of black marble. And these women were also wearing long, black robes. They wore tall crowns on their heads, but they were all wearing black veiled hats that covered their bodies, so I’ve never gotten a proper look at their faces.

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Among them, I was the only one who wore a long white robe made up of wool.

They did not light torches in the castle. The only source of light came from the natural light coming from the tall ceilings, but it was faint and weak like the light that reached the bottom of a deep well.

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From before I could remember, I had always lived in this castle. My daily routine was always the same. When the moon rose, I would get up and read the scriptures and begin to pray. I would recite the chants that had been passed down since ancient times.

And then I would pass the central palace of this stone fortress and go down a long flight of stairs. Still unable to turn on any source of light, I would go down until I reached a large underground cave. Once there, a pond full of moonwater would appear. I would have to completely undress and dunk my body in the pond every single day. And with that, my day in Paran would begin.

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The moonwater was the essence of this entire stone fortress. The Snow Mountain, a difficult place for people to climb, and this fortress, surrounded by sharp, piercing swords, was for the sole purpose of protecting the moonwater.

 

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“It is said that there is an ancient monster that is asleep at the bottom of the moonwater.”

 

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Shahamu, the one who taught me the scriptures, told me this.

 

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“It is a black bird that has consumed nine suns.”

“Nine suns?”

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“Yes.”

 

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Shahamu gestured to a section of the scriptures and told me to read it.

 

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“In the beginning of the third five-thousandth year, ten suns rose in the sky.”

“Ten suns?”

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“Yes. Ten suns rose in the sky.”

“But you said the bird ate nine of them.”

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“Yes. It was supposed to leave one behind.”

 

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A faint smile stretched across Shahamu’s old, dry face.

 

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“With ten suns in the sky, neither human nor beast could survive. Therefore, the moon goddess ordered Wolryung Sang to bring out the monster that was confined in the deep darkness.”

“Wolryung told that monster to eat the suns?”

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“Yes, that is correct.”

“And now it’s asleep underneath this mountain?”

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My eyes widened. Why didn’t they kill it?

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Well, I guess it wouldn’t be easy to kill a monster that managed to eat nine suns.

 

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“Yes. And our job is to keep that monster asleep.”

“How do we keep it asleep?”

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“Once every day, the priestess must enter the moonwater.”

 

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So that’s why I continued to do this daily routine.

 

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“If I don’t do it, will the monster wake up?”

“That’s right.”

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“What happens if it wakes up?”

“The world will end.”

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To think that this was all to prevent the end of the world…

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It was quite an important job.

However, one day a month, I hated doing this job to death.

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Even on nights with a full moon, I went through my daily routine and went into the moonwater.

However, on those days, the female shamans and I were not the only ones present in the underground cave.

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On those days, the Nine Families participated in the ceremony. I was told that the Nine Families represented the nine suns that protected the priestess. The problem was that they were all men, and I entered the moonwater in the nude.

When I was too young to have a sense of shame, there wasn’t a problem. What was so embarrassing about a naked young child entering the water under the watchful eyes of the men who surrounded the cave?

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However, as I gradually grew, as the swells of my chest increased, I felt uneasy showing my naked body to the Nine Families.

 

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“Why do the Nine Families have to enter the cave one day a month?”

 

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In the end, I couldn’t hold it in anymore and asked Bisal. She answered me in a firm voice.

 

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“It is merely tradition.”

“Tradition?”

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“Yes. A tradition that goes back thousands of years.”

 

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Thousands of years?

That was an incredibly long time.

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But I guess it made sense. The sleeping monster was said to have fallen asleep thousands of years ago.

But to think that the world was going to end if the monster woke up… And to think that I was the priestess who was charged with keeping it from waking up…

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Just how many priestesses had kept to this ritual all those years?

In order to protect the world…

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Isolated inside this black castle on the dangerous Snow Mountain, countless people had followed these rules. Just thinking about all the work they did, taking off my clothes in front of men did not seem like much at all.

I walked down the stairs and entered the long corridor once again. Although the moonlight did not enter through the ceilings here, the blue shadows of the moonwater’s rippling surface filled the corridor.

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I recognized the shadow of a large man in front of the door leading to the underground cave.

Hwan.

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He was the head of the Nine Families. No, he was no different from the king. The other men in the Nine Families could not disobey a single word if it came from him. The female shamans of this castle were no different.

And as always, I was afraid of him.

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He was a head taller than other people. His shoulders were wide, draped with the pelt of a black wolf. He had a protruding brow and terrifying, gleaming eyes. He had a cruel aura. It was as if he were ready to charge in and snap my neck at any moment.

He was always surrounded by a disgusting odor. As if it were mixed with the scent of blood… Whenever I smelled it, I could barely handle it. It always made me catch my breath…

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“Hwan-nim.”

As soon as Bisal saw him, she hurriedly straightened up before giving him a deep bow. Her behavior stemmed from more than showing obedience to the most powerful man in this castle. A mixture of awe and fear, a servile action that was mixed with a hint of flirting.

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Hwan’s eyes were not fixed on Bisal but on the person behind her. Me. His eyes seemed to persistently graze down my thin body. My body began to tremble out of fear and anxiety. His gaze was as disgusting as a snake, and it felt strange.

“Hurry up.”

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Taking his eyes off of me, he ordered in a low voice as he walked through the door. The men from the Nine Families were already seated on the platform above the moonwater.

The shamans who brought me inside hurriedly unfastened the buttons on my back. I gritted my teeth and only looked at the moonwater. The blue light looked like it was swimming across the surface of the water. The place where the terrifying monster that ate nine suns slept. The moonwater was cold, and I did not know how deep it went. Once I entered the moonwater, my naked body would no longer be visible.

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As soon as my clothes slid down my body, I frantically tried to cover my breasts and groin with my long hair. My swollen chest, my privates that were now sparsely covered in pubic hair, and my long, thin limbs seemed to glow in this dark underground cave.

As I walked into the moonwater, little by little, I felt a little relieved. I swam to the center of the moonwater. As I moved my limbs to stay afloat, I felt nine pairs of eyes silently follow me.

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I gritted my teeth and plunged into the moonwater.

I closed my eyes in the darkness of the water’s depths.

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Boom, boom. My heartbeat rang inside my chest.

The Nine Families who surrounded me, claiming they were protecting me. The black shamans who never left my side for a single hour. This unfamiliar castle in which I only walked from my room to the sanctuary and the underground cave. The rules that suffocated me all day long.

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Even within all this, I had a secret that no one knew about.