SWNOVELXO Chapter 5: The year the stars died
Chapter Five: The Year the Stars Died
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> "In another lifetime, I held your hand as the sky collapsed.
And you looked at me like you already knew I would be the reason it fell."
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1837 — Joseon Era
The first time Seorin saw Lord Harin, he was bleeding.
It was the end of winter, and the snows had not yet melted from the palace walls. The guards dragged him through the temple grounds, chains biting into his wrists, mud staining his noble robes.
And yet he stood tall.
Eyes like obsidian. Calm. Cold. Almost… arrogant.
Seorin had only been seventeen. A temple scribe. Quiet. Invisible. A girl too plain to be noticed.
But he saw her.
Even with blood in his mouth, even when priests spit curses at him, he saw her.
> "You don't belong here," he told her.
And then he smiled.
As if he already knew her.
As if they had met before.
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Present Day – Ji-hye's Apartment
Ji-hye jolted awake, heart hammering.
Her sheets were soaked with sweat. Her fingertips numb. Her lips had whispered his name in her sleep:
> "Harin…"
She stared at the ceiling, the fragments of memory already slipping — but one image refused to fade:
She was holding a lantern.
He was holding a sword.
And the stars were falling.
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Back in the past…
Lord Harin was never supposed to live.
Convicted of treason for speaking against the King's decision to sacrifice innocent villagers to stop a plague, he had been sentenced to execution at dawn.
But the plague never came.
And Harin didn't die.
Because someone wrote a letter to the Queen Mother — detailing the truth of what Harin uncovered. The corruption. The cover-up. The lives stolen.
That letter saved him.
And it had been written by a temple scribe.
A girl with ink-stained fingers and too much fire in her chest.
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Seorin's punishment came swiftly.
She was exiled to the outer quarters. Forbidden to write. Forbidden to speak to him.
But Harin found her.
He always did.
He climbed the wall of the women's quarters one night, cloaked in black and moonlight, and stood by her window.
> "You saved me," he whispered.
She tried to close the shutters.
He caught her wrist.
> "Say it. Say it was you."
Seorin didn't speak.
But her eyes said everything.
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That night, they spoke until the stars disappeared.
She asked him why he was willing to die for people who would never know his name.
He said,
> "Because I've died before. And no one remembered."
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In the weeks that followed, they met in secret.
Old temples. Storage rooms. The garden no one visited.
They memorized each other.
Her scent. His hands. The way he never bowed to anyone but her.
But war was coming.
And it was older than any kingdom.
A curse had taken root in the royal bloodline — one that required a pure soul to be sacrificed every generation.
This time, the burden had fallen to Seorin.
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Back to present day…
Ji-hye sat in the library, reading through a banned collection of Joseon myths. Her eyes scanned stories of soul-binding, sacrificial rites, red strings of fate… until one line made her freeze.
> "A bloodline cursed by betrayal will relive its sin every hundred winters.
Only when the blade spares the heart… will the cycle break."
She swallowed.
Her phone buzzed.
It was a message from an unknown number.
> "Meet me where the red string first appeared."
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Eun-woo waited at the river.
The wind had picked up, and snow was falling sideways.
He watched Ji-hye approach, her scarf pulled high over her mouth.
He didn't speak.
He simply held out a piece of paper.
She unfolded it.
A charcoal drawing.
Her face.
But in another life.
And she was dying.
> "You drew this?" she whispered.
He nodded. "In my dream last night."
Ji-hye's hand trembled.
"So we really… lived before?"
"I think we never stopped."
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Silence stretched between them.
Then she stepped forward and reached for his hand.
And once again — the red thread appeared.
But this time, it didn't fade.
It tightened.
Their breath caught.
Ji-hye tried to let go.
She couldn't.
Eun-woo gripped her hand tighter.
His voice cracked:
> "If I'm the one who killed you before… I won't let it happen again."
The sky darkened.
Snow fell harder.
And the red thread burned.