“Final... gateway?”

Even as she spoke, her tongue stiffened, heavy in her mouth. It was that one-sided, horrific training they had been dragged into at the Winter Castle—forced to face the Russian probationary recruits.

For them it had been the final test. For the children, it had been nothing but death—a program that raised them only to tear them apart.

And now, the heir of the Solzhenitsyns had reopened the last gateway? Seoryeong froze, the knife she had been using to slice sausage halted mid-air. The hand gripping the handle seemed to tremble.

Just that single word brought memories surging up like bile, and when she turned to look at Kiya, his expression was cold and rigid too.

His jaw clenched as though chewing down on filth. Still, Kiya refused to look her way. His gaze slid past as he continued.

“The Winter Castle was destroyed, and that method should’ve disappeared with it. But with Solzhenitsyn’s return, the Federal Security Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, and even the special unit Zaslon—he declared to them all that he’d resurrect the final gateway for probationary recruits. Only the higher-ups who remember that era would understand what that means.”

“......”

“But this time, it isn’t the Korean kids...”

Korean. The word itself froze her insides.

“It’s the blind.”

Wait, if blind... She opened her mouth, disbelieving.

“That Solzhenitsyn who came back—he became the gateway himself?”

“......”

Kiya didn’t answer. He turned his back instead, roughly throwing logs into the fireplace, as if trying to revive the dying embers. But the more he threw in, the more the fire blackened and died.

“Why? What does Solzhenitsyn have to lose, that he’d subject himself to something like that?”

Seoryeong frowned, questioning the man who kept stoking the fire without a word. She couldn’t make sense of it.

Kiya flung the log he held with nervous irritation, his shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths. After a long silence, he finally spoke. His voice, rough and cracked, carried a cutting chill.

“Sonia, do you... want revenge?”

The flames roared up. At last the fireplace filled with fire, the blaze quivering wildly as it heated the room.

Her lips closed, words failing her. Until now, her whole world had revolved around Kim Hyun, nothing else. But suddenly, the word revenge carved ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ a deep mark inside her chest.

And yet—like the morning runs through the mountain paths—she also didn’t want to look back anymore.

Still... to brazenly call it the “last gateway”—her teeth ground together.

“I do want to see just how important he thinks he is.”

When she thought of her brothers—far too young, far too small—her stomach turned cold. When she had done nothing but hide under the blankets, frozen stiff. When her memories had finally returned, the one thing she wanted to know was their fate.

Whether they lived or died. If alive, where they were; if dead, where they were buried. Kiya had defected on his own the moment he regained his senses, so he hadn’t known where his brothers ended up.

She closed her eyes in resignation.

“I’m just... curious.”

What kind of family those Solzhenitsyns were. They had used her brothers like livestock. She wanted to see with her own eyes how luxurious his life had been—so she could laugh in his face now that he was blind.

Yes. That way, maybe she could settle her past a little. As she stared at the fire, Kiya finally raised his head.

“But there’s a condition, Sonia.”

In the black of his pupils, the red flames wavered.

“Whatever you see there—don’t waver.”

His words were vague, an admonition. I once lived blind myself—surely you won’t falter.

“If you so much as tremble, I won’t be able to hold back. You know what that means? That I’ll turn you into a bitch, the way I was Russia’s dog.”

“...What?”

“If you step foot back into the Sakhalin Monastery, Interpol warrants or whatever else—it can all be taken care of. Forget turning yourself in. You just do what I tell you to do.”

“......”

“Understand? That means my patience runs out that day.”

His eyes pierced into her like a warning. Seoryeong knew this was an unspoken bargain.

“So don’t hesitate. Go straight for the weak point. Get through the gateway, and come back. Please....”

His face looked strangely uneasy, as if watching to see if she would pass some hidden test.

Back then, she hadn’t understood the weight of his ominous request. She just scoffed. What was there she couldn’t pass?

“What’s there to be afraid of? You said he’s blind.”

She answered, brimming with confidence.

Cold, raw skin clung to her own like sticky pig hide, merging into one.

She watched in fascination as every line of her face—eye corners, brows, nostrils, lip line—shifted and reshaped, everything but her eyes morphing into someone else entirely.

Her face changed moment by moment. Han Seoryeong as she knew herself vanished in an instant, and a stranger’s face stared back from the mirror.

She pressed the rounded lump of her Adam’s apple, then covered it with a thin hydrogel film. For the first time, she pulled the overhead mask down over her head.

The very technology that had once deceived and toyed with her was now stuck seamlessly to her own face and throat. Her skin was freckled from cheekbone to nose bridge, her hair brown, her eyes brown—Seoryeong became an ordinary short-haired foreign woman.

When Kiya opened a hard gun case and displayed several faces, she couldn’t help but think of Kim Hyun. Her brows drew tight.

The feeling was like being born as someone new. The reckless illusion that she could do anything.

Was that why Lee Wooshin had been able to be gentle and kind, the way Kim Hyun once was?

“This thing costs as much as a house, so don’t wrinkle it.”

Kiya scolded curtly. But if she didn’t furrow her brows, she couldn’t bear the pain starting in her heart and scraping up her throat.

She wore a tight-fitting black jumpsuit, and packed what Kiya handed her: a karambit curved like a crescent moon, a spring-loaded flick knife, a fixed blade, and a butterfly knife in every pocket. Every time her childhood spirit flickered through, Kiya grinned wide.

“If the heir dies without issue, the Solzhenitsyn fortune naturally goes to the state. But the Kremlin plans to exploit the symbolism of that bastard’s survival. If the order had come down, I’d have killed him on the spot....”

His eyes glinted darkly.

“But instead, Russian agents have infiltrated the estate in numbers. Do you know what that means, Sonia? They’ll do whatever it takes to get Solzhenitsyn’s child conceived, so the inheritance tilts in Russia’s favor.”

“......”

“For a trained agent, seducing one blind man is nothing.”

She paused, hands still on her laces, but tied them without showing it. Was it her dried-out heart, or was he really asking, You’ve been through it yourself, haven’t you? She shook the thought off quickly.

“The Kremlin wants Solzhenitsyn crippled worse than he is now. I heard they’re aiming straight for his spine, to leave him paralyzed. Tempting a man who’s useless and miserable is much faster.”

She didn’t want to pity him, but that Solzhenitsyn did seem wretched. What profit did he think he’d gain, offering up his broken body as the gateway? She couldn’t understand.

It felt like being drenched in filthy water—her mood sinking. Solzhenitsyn. Maybe it was his name itself stirring her up.

***

How much farther did the car drive?

Her eyes widened at the sight of a vast lake, round as the bright moon.

Seoryeong couldn’t tear her gaze from the water for a long while, then looked toward the mansion that resembled the Winter Castle.

Kiya showed an ID that only those in the know could read, and the guards opened the gates without a word. From the moment she stepped foot inside, déjà vu clung to her nape like damp hair. Even the detached annex standing apart felt familiar.

Getting out of the car, Sonia braced her legs against the surge of tension. After half a year huddled in hiding, the constricting feel of the operations uniform was foreign.

So what if she thought of this as just another Special Security Team contract? With that thought, her fists—hard as stone—gradually unclenched.

By then Kiya had already opened the annex door. Without a breath’s pause, she followed him, crossing the parlor in an instant.

――

Just for today. She was not that shivering child hiding in the dark.

An eternity had passed. Now, what lay hidden here was Solzhenitsyn blood—and what approached with a blade was a Korean survivor.

Even as the roles seemed reversed, Seoryeong bent low, calm. Kiya had already vanished, and her footsteps made no sound.

How dare he speak of a “final gateway” without even knowing. She clenched her teeth. She would see his face for herself. Just how great, just how pitiful—she would see it with her own eyes.

Beep, beep, beep, beep—.

The instant she turned the corner of the hall, warning lights shrilled. She bit her lip and sprinted down the long corridor.

But the alarms never stopped. Each time her feet struck the floor or turned a corner, new beeps overlapped.

Beep, beep, beep-beep, beep-beep-beep—!

A curse bit off, breath ragged in her throat. No matter which way she twisted, she was caught like prey in a transparent web. Sensors everywhere mapped her direction and speed in real time.

She hadn’t even found Solzhenitsyn yet, but her position was laid bare. Her lips dried, cold sweat trickling down. And Kiya—what the hell was he doing?

At last she found a blind spot and slipped inside. The chopping alarms cut off, silence pressing down. Haa... she let out a breath of relief.

“You came?”

Click—the icy barrel of a gun pressed to the back of her head.

Her gasping breaths froze. At the scrape of that familiar metallic voice, her mind went blank, and she turned.

It was an utterly unreal sight.