Chapter Text
The winter wind howled down the sheer stone face of a soaring mountain range, its icy blades impaling itself mercilessly in any life it encountered along the way.
Mother Nature cowered, shedding her trees, hiding her animals, protecting her beauty for when the sun warmed her skin once again.
But while the rivers froze and the flowers wilted, a small village, tucked away at the base of the mountains, rattled with every gust of wind, and shivered during every merciless night of ice.
Winter that year had been worse than usual.
It was obvious. At least to Minji.
A girl of ten years old, her ruddy cheeks and missing teeth reflected her still childish character.
Like other children, she liked to play with her friends, tease her siblings, and go to school.
But unlike other children, she lived in a poor rural province north of nowhere, in a small farming town named Taisin.
So when the farm stopped providing enough food for her family that winter, unlike other children, she had to be okay with that.
When she had to walk through the icy mud to get to the local school three days a week, she never complained.
When the school closed because their teacher had left to the south to escape the cold, she had to be okay with that too.
And when the last crop wilted, their last hen died, and money ran out, Minji knew something was wrong.
In the village of Taisin, people had a word for winters like this: tàn diệt. A season of reduction. A season that did not kill fast or generously, but chipped away slowly at the things that made life livable, till life itself had fled. The village people knew that they had to worry about the season not only taking their farms, but also their lives.
She also knew, even if no one said it, that something was about to give.
Minji lived in a one-room hut made of sturdy pale mountain stone and roofed with wood that her father patched every spring with resin-soaked bark. Their hay beds lay together in the corner of the room on top of a dirt floor. A dented kettle sat above a small fire in the middle of the room.
The hut sat on the northern slope of the valley, with a view of the pine-covered ridges curling behind it like folded paper. To the left was a small well, dug four years ago with the help of neighbors. To the right: a lean-to for their ox, an empty chicken pen, and a squat storage shed lined with baskets of dried herbs. Along the slope leading up to their house was their modest farm, where they grew rice.
There were three children: Minji, the eldest; Vu, her younger brother, whose loud and energetic personality had slowly diminished along with the sun's warmth, and little Lien, who was too small to carry a basket but not too small to understand when dinner was thinner than usual.
Outside of the house, down a small beaten trail, lay a hidden opening.
Knowing there would be no dinner, Minji decided to visit the path on that particular evening, in an attempt to ignore the gnawing hunger in her stomach.
The path was covered in twisted roots, and jumped a small creek.
But just when the canopy felt too dense overhead, its shadows too looming, the path broke out into a large clearing of swaying grass, an impenetrable mountain face enclosing the area, hiding it away from the rest of the world.
In summer, gentle rays of sun would shine into the area, warming the earth and blooming an array of beautiful flowers.
During the winter, the grass was limp, and the flowers were gone.
Only one feature remained. All year round, in the center of the clearing, lay a grand willow tree.
She approached the tree alone.
Every inch of her body was bundled up, her nose and cheeks red from the stinging cold. But the clearing was like a little oasis—the surrounding mountains kept the angry winds out, and a gentle warmth in.
Maybe that’s why her mother had loved it so much here.
Minji approached the base of the tree, kneeling silently in front of a rectangular gravestone carved from mountain rock. The grass rustled around her knees, like a silent acknowledgment of her presence.
Minji let her forehead rest against the cool stone, closing her eyes. She could almost imagine her mother was still there next to her.
She let her mind wander to a different time, now many years ago.
In the years before her mother's passing, they would often come down to this tree together.
Sometimes, she would tell Minji stories--about how when she was a little girl, she discovered this hidden oasis and always came here to escape when life became difficult. And how, many years later, she took Minji here as a baby, before she could even hold her own head up. About how she took her first steps right under this very tree.
Together, they would lie together in the soft grass under the shade of the willow tree, her mother gently combing through Minji's hair as she dozed off in her lap.
Minji was younger then. Some of the memories were fuzzy. Others were still so clear that Minji forgets about the time in between, like it happened yesterday.
Minji loved her family equally, and she knew her mother felt the same way too. They were both very excited for the birth of her younger sister.
But they both knew what they had together was special. Minji would always be her first baby, and nothing could ever quite replace that.
Her mother never played favorites, but she still knew.
Her mother's sudden passing had been a terrible burden on all of them, but Minji felt that weight particularly heavy.
She fell into a terrible grief, and couldn’t bring herself to walk down their beaten path alone.
The path grew neglected, almost disappearing back into nature.
But this hidden oasis was also one of the things that she felt still kept them connected, so, on days like these, she would seek what was left of her mother's memory.
Still, the passing years still sat heavy on her shoulders. The summer breeze no longer lingered on her skin, and her mother's loving warmth was forever buried six feet below the ground.
There would never be another moment for them to sit beneath the tree together. It would only ever be Minji, alone.
Minji did not cry in the cold anymore. Not because she didn’t want to. Because her tears froze before they fell.
Minji went to the village square every morning. It was ritual more than reason.
Her boots skidded over the icy stones, past the dried husks of the herb vendor’s stall, past the shuttered teahouse, to the old map post that hadn’t held anything new in years. There was a single parchment nailed to it, yellowed and soft with age.
The seal was still clear, though: the emperor’s dragon, stamped in red ink.
Minji struggled to read what it said.
An older woman approached her side, perhaps noticing her predicament.
“I can read what that says, if you’d like”
Minji nodded meekly
“Voluntary Enrollment to the Southern Corps — Han Dynasty Royal Army
By decree of the Emperor Han Duy Minh, all children aged 10 to 19 of peasant birth are eligible for enlistment under the Provisional Wartime Compensation Act. Any child admitted will serve the Southern Corps under imperial tutelage and receive:
• 20 taels of silver per annum
• a goat, 2 sacks of rice, 1 bolt of silk, and a tin of medicine delivered to their family yearly
• Lifetime merit status for military service upon reaching 10 years of service
This order shall be enforced with due grace and reward, in gratitude for the service of the people.”
The signature at the bottom was in a long, curling calligraphy she couldn’t read. But the words above were already burnt into her mind like a prayer.
It’s not like she wasn’t aware of the existence of the military mandate.
The first child to go had been Bao Linh, from the ridge farm closest to the eastern edge of the valley. She had been eleven, tall for her age, and known for climbing trees faster than the boys. Her father had brought her to the enrollment post at the district town of Hội Kinh eight months ago, and though he returned with coin and silk, he never smiled again.
Minji had not seen Bao Linh since.
But she saw how her siblings stopped looking gaunt from a lack of food, how they were able to afford firewood, and how their livestock grew generously.
Minji chewed on her lip as she trudged towards her house, observing the empty rice paddies and thin ox.
Something had to give.
She waited until the fourth night of the windstorm to say it aloud.
They were all huddled around the stove, the flame so weak it barely glowed under the pot of rice gruel. Her father had hung burlap across the windows, and Vu and Lien were bundled together under their shared blanket, faces pink from cold.
Minji’s voice came out low, flat. Like a spoon tapping stone.
“I want to go.”
Her father didn’t answer. He was stirring the pot slowly, not looking up.
“I can do it,” she said again. “The papers say from age ten. I’m ten now.”
This time Vu looked up, mouth half-open, but Lien buried her face deeper under the cloth.
Still, her father didn’t speak.
Minji waited until the next morning. She rose at dawn, quietly leaving the house so as to not disturb her younger siblings. Her father was already toiling away on the field.
She walked to her mother’s grave.
The sky above was steel-colored, heavy and wide. The air cut into her lips and cheeks like salt.
She didn’t kneel. Just stood there, head hung in resignation.
“You wouldn’t have let them starve.”
She said it aloud, though the wind took most of the words away.
“I’ll protect them for you.”
She stood for another second. Waited. As if her mother might appear in front of her.
But only for a beat.
After a moment of hesitation, she turned on her heels, making her way back into the forest. But before her mothers tree disappeared from sight, she turned back once more, knowing somehow that it would be the last time she would visit for a very, very long time.
“Goodbye” she whispered.
And then, she vanished from the clearing entirely.
She returned to the house, face frail but her eyes determined beyond her years.
Her father was waiting inside. He had taken his winter cloak down from the hook and folded it. He simply looked at her, his face ghosted with pain but set with resignation.
There was no ceremony. Her father gave her his old riding cloak—thick, worn, patched at the collar—and a satchel made from one of her mother’s old dresses, the fabric sun-faded to a muted blue. Inside: four rice cakes wrapped in bamboo leaf, a strip of dried venison, and half a flask of chili oil. They’d boiled the oil twice to get the bitterness out.
Minji didn’t cry. She bowed to her father and kissed Lien’s forehead while she slept. Vu walked her halfway down the ridge path before turning back, face pinched in a poor attempt not to cry, arms folded tight to keep from waving.
Her father led her to the edge of the village. The path was known and well worn, but still long for a little girl.
“I can’t take you any further.” He said, his voice cracking.
Minji cast her eyes downwards, before looking back up.
“I know. But don’t worry about me. Take care of Lien and Vu for me”
Her expression startled her father.
It was like seeing a ghost—she couldn’t have looked more identical to her mother in that moment.
And somehow that brought peace to his heart. Somehow, somewhere, he knew her mother would always watch out for their daughter.
“Goodbye, Minji” he said through their last hug
Minji smiled. Then, she turned and started to walk.
She didn’t look back.
Hội Kinh was two days’ walk downhill, the road twisting through farmlands and cedar groves. She passed shepherds wrapped in horsehair cloaks, old women carrying baskets of ash wood, and once, a shrine maid sweeping snow off a road marker carved with the emperor’s sigil.
None of them asked her why she was alone. They had probably seen a hundred children on the same path as her now.
She stayed the first night at a river bend, curled under her cloak beside a stone outcrop. The moon was pale and wide. The sky above it cloudless. She counted the sounds: the shift of deer hooves in the brush, the call of an owl, the snapping of a branch that made her sit upright until her heart settled again. Then, only wind.
The second morning, her legs ached, but she didn’t stop. By noon, the hills opened up to a flat valley basin, and she could see Hội Kinh ahead: a walled town with smoke rising from tiled rooftops and a line of flags flapping over the west gate.
It was bigger than any place she’d ever seen. It was dense, both in terms of people, houses, shops, and vendors.
Minji entered with the next group of travelers—mostly farmers hauling carts of hay and dried fish. A guard in a red vest checked her satchel but didn’t speak. Inside the walls, the streets were lined with stalls covered in tarps, and the smell of frying sesame oil clung to everything. She paused once in front of a stall selling lacquer hair combs, watching a girl her age try one on in a murky hand mirror. Minji had never seen a mirror before. She tried not to gawk, especially at all the nice things on display that she could not in a million years afford. She moved on reluctantly.
The imperial enlistment office sat beside the grain house near the north end of town. It was a squat stone building with green-painted doors and a carved plaque over the arch that read:
“The strong serve. The willing lead.”
Minji didn’t know what it said, of course. But there were already four others in line—two boys, one older girl, and a man with no left foot who seemed to be negotiating something with the clerk through the barred window.
Minji waited.
When it was her turn, the clerk, a man with thinning hair and an ink-stained sleeve, squinted at her face.
“Name.”
“Minji, daughter of Minh Quyen, village of Taisin.”
“Age?”
“Ten. Just turned.”
He raised his brow. “A little young, aren't you?”
“I know what the decree said. The minimum is ten.”
A pause. Then he shrugged and reached for the paper forms.
“Sign here.”
Minji hesitated. “I don’t know how.”
He didn’t look up. “Make your mark, then.”
She took the brush, dipped it in ink, and pressed a straight vertical line at the bottom of the parchment.
The man blotted the signature dry.
“Go inside. They’ll record your height and weight. If you’re not lying, you’ll get your coin and departure date by tomorrow.”
The back room was colder than the front. A woman in a quilted robe stood with a ledger and a measuring stick. She asked no questions. Just recorded her name and placed her thumbprint in red wax next to it. Then she took a small sack from a lacquered chest and handed it over.
Inside were five silver taels, a clean uniform, and new boots.
Minji felt spoiled beyond comprehension, never having owned her own set of anything before.
Before she forgot, she asked about her family's rewards. She was told they would receive it within the month.
“Go to the east dormitory tonight,” the woman said, not unkindly. “You’ll leave with the next supply caravan at dawn.”
That night, Minji shared a room with ten other children. Most were older. Some had done this before, rotated between forts for years, sent home only to gather their next siblings. A boy named Namjun showed her how to wear her boots so they didn’t blister on forced marches. A girl named Thi from a fishing village in the south said she once saw a corpse pulled from a trench in spring.
Minji didn’t say much. But she listened.
She slept on her back, one hand on the satchel beneath her head. At some point before sleep claimed her, she thought of her sister’s tiny fingers, curled in her blanket like shoots of ginger.
She closed her eyes and held the picture there until it faded.
At dawn, the supply caravan rolled out of Hội Kinh in a staggered line of wagons and mule carts, all creaking under the weight of dried grain, iron tools, and thick canvas crates of salt. Minji rode in the second cart, seated between two boys from another district. One of them was pale from the rocking, the other fell asleep with his chin on his knees. She stayed upright the entire ride, hands clenched around her satchel.
They traveled for three days, following the river southward until the land opened into flat scrub plains broken only by narrow trails and old stone boundary markers. On the fourth morning, they passed under an iron gate flanked by two rusted statues of cranes—one with a cracked beak.
A banner hung from a crooked pole overhead:
LANG SU TRAINING FORT — 17th PROVINCIAL BATTALION, SOUTHERN CORPS
No drums. No horns. No welcome.
Just the bark of a sergeant who looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
“Out. Line up. Now.”
The children stumbled from the wagons and stood in uneven rows. Minji adjusted her cloak, stepped forward, and took a place near the front.
“No speaking unless spoken to. Anyone caught stealing from the stores will lose a finger. Anyone caught running will be returned and whipped. Anyone who fights without orders will be punished by the field marshal directly.”
“This is a military compound, not a rice field. You are soldiers now. Act like it.”
Minji’s assigned quarters were in Block D, an old wooden barrack with narrow beds stacked two-high and a draft that crept through the floorboards at night. Her bunkmate was a silent girl named Nga who kept a needle hidden in her sleeve and muttered prayers before bed.
The food was a bowl of rice, broth, and boiled roots. Breakfast and supper were the same. Water came from a tin jug shared by three rooms.
She memorized the daily routine within the week.
It was a blur of harsh wake up calls before dawn, attendance in the freezing cold courtyard, running laps barefoot, a measly lunch, weapons drills, grueling full body endurance, discipline drills, dinner, cleaning up the lavatory’s and dorms, then lights out.
Minji did not speak much. Not because she was afraid, but because she had nothing to say. She watched. She learned. She listened when older cadets whispered how to avoid the quartermaster’s wrath or which training instructors handed out bruises without reason.
She was the smallest in her group. But not the weakest.
By the third week, she could run longer than the older boys. She stopped crying when her fingers split from the cold. She learned how to roll after a fall, how to take a strike across the collarbone and keep moving. Her feet bled from calluses. Her knuckles grew thick and hard.
Her favorite time was dusk, after the final bell. She would sit just outside the barracks and stretch her legs beneath the crooked pine tree. No one else liked the spot, the roots jutted up from the dirt like knives, but it faced the open field, and when the sky turned gold-orange, the light felt almost warm again.
She thought about home, then. Not with longing, but with discipline. She pictured Vu feeding the ox. Lien running in real shoes to fetch firewood. Her father resting his hands over the large fire to chase the feeling back into them.
She let herself remember—but only for a moment. Then she pushed the images away.
The winter only got worse.
Some could not bear the cold any longer. The oldest boy, a fifteen-year-old from Kim Đan named Thanh, coughed blood into his pillow for three nights before a medic was called. By the time help came, two more cadets had collapsed. The staff doubled the drills to keep them from freezing.
Minji tied strips of rag around her feet at night. She bit her tongue to stay silent during push-ups in snow. When the skin peeled from her palms, she used ash and vinegar to keep them clean.
On the coldest night of the year, she woke to find Nga, her bunk mate, shivering too hard to breathe. The girl’s lips were blue.
Minji didn’t wait this time.
She wrapped her own coat around Nga and climbed into her bunk to press their bodies together for warmth.
Neither of them spoke.
When the bell rang the next morning, they stood together.
In her second year, Minji received her first real blade—a half-length training sabre worn at the waist. She learned to clean it with crushed bark and to hold it loose, not tight, in her hand. She was assigned to the field squad under Captain Bảo, a heavy-shouldered woman with a scar across her jaw.
Captain Bảo said only one thing to her the first week:
“You look small, but your eyes don’t lie.”
By her third year, she was promoted to junior lead. She was much taller now, at least compared to the other girls.
She could climb rope walls, hold a horse’s reins with her knees, and throw a spear farther than half the squad. At twelve, she rode for the first time into the highlands for field drills. She didn’t flinch when an arrow tore her sleeve or when a horse collapsed mid-charge. She was already something else—sharpened, but not hardened. Not yet.
And she never once asked to go home.