Walking in the Darkness || Yeosang (A Treasure Tale)

Last Hour

Yeosang didn't know how many hours were left. He'd stopped keeping track.

In the moments when he awoke, once again prone on the sleeping mat of the log cabin, this time with a bandit staring him down and blood dried on him, he realised that his fate was no longer in his own hands.

It never really had been.

The only hope he had left was that this Captain Seongho wanted the money more than he wanted Yeosang dead.

Eventually the grumbling of his stomach won out and he cleared his throat to ask his guard if he would be granted some food.

Apparently unsure whether to listen to the prisoner or not, the man left the room briefly and returned with the Captain.

Sunlight beamed through the crack beneath the sliding door and Yeosang wondered if they'd let him look at the sky before they killed him. He had missed his chance to see the stars.

"So, you think you're of superior intelligence, boy? Pulling tricks to run away again?" The pirate chuckled when the two of them were alone. It wasn't an outright denial of his request, as he handed over a scrap of bread and watched him eat it, hawklike. "Don't think you can pull tricks on me. I'm not the idiot that missed when he threw a rock at your observatory to knock you unconscious and capture you and then opened the door and let you stab him in the arm last night. He's been released from service."

Yeosang finally met his captor's eyes, confused.

"Yes," Seongho went on. "My bandits have been loitering around your mansion to capture you all week, despite doing a very poor job at it. It was fate that served you up to me on a silver platter in the woods. Now, if only your father would appear with your ransom."

Yeosang choked on tears and lowered his head in despair. "He won't. He's far away."

"Then he will regret it," Seongho muttered. There wasn't much else in his voice to indicate how he felt about the matter. Yeosang doubted he was capable of feeling anything at all anymore.

Yeosang didn't have a chance to beg for mercy before the sudden boom of an explosion interrupted them.

Shocked by the loud noise, he backed into the corner of the room and covered his ears with his hands, watching Seongho shoot to his feet and run out to see what was happening.

From the screams and the continuing shots, it seemed the pirates were under attack and even as he trembled at the violent bang of gunfire, a glimmer of hope sparked in his mind.

Could Father be coming to save him?

The sudden thought had him opening his mouth to call out his location when, in a flash of movement, the pirate captain was back in the room, restraining him quickly and dragging him away.

He yelled into the hand muffling his screams and struggled the whole way out the door but a voice broke into his struggles and both he and the pirate stilled.

There were bodies on the grass, unmoving and bloodied. Yeosang squeezed his eyes shut.

"We've got you surrounded!"

It wasn't Father, but Yeosang recognised the voice.

"Hand him over now and you won't be harmed."

Bang Si-Hyuk. It was Privateer Bang Si-Hyuk.

Prying open his eyes, Yeosang finally saw him. Despite being the same person, he looked completely different than he did that night of the ball, all smiles and gentlemanly grace.

This man had fire in his eyes, and he was pointing a gun at the pirate unwaveringly.

Yeosang could feel Seongho seize up, his hold tightening painfully. Tears gathered much to his embarrassment as a knife was pressed to his neck.