Read LEGACY OF RUIN :: THE FIRST BITE

📜 NEW CHAPTER 6 — THE FIRST BITE

The day after the steward fled, the wind changed. It blew harsh and wet from the north, driving cold rain down the salt road like a blade across bare skin.

In the village tavern, the old gossip-mongers huddled closer to the hearth, whispering:

“Baek won’t let that boy keep his salt.”

“The steward’s bruised pride will cost him blood.”

They were right.

By dusk, Jin stood alone at the broken gate again, watching shadows gather under the trees.

A single rider approached — cloak black as pitch, horse foaming at the mouth from a hard ride.

Tae came to stand beside Jin, hand on the short sword strapped under his cloak.

“Baek’s dogs,” he said.

Jin didn’t answer. He stepped forward as the rider pulled up short, mud splattering his boots.

The rider tossed a bundle into the dirt at Jin’s feet — a crude burlap sack, wet with rain, darker wet seeping through the bottom.

Tae’s fingers twitched on his sword hilt.

Jin crouched, loosened the rope tie. Inside lay a mess of hair and cloth and blood — Gil’s steward boy. His head.

Soha’s gasp cut through the rain behind them.

The rider spat into the mud. “Lord Baek sends his regards. Pay your tribute, or the salt runs red.”

Without waiting for an answer, the rider wheeled and galloped back down the rutted road, hooves churning muck behind him.

Inside, the hall stank of wet wool and fear.

Gil himself knelt at the hearth’s edge, rocking back and forth, knuckles white on his knees.

“He was just a boy,” Gil rasped. “Just a boy, Lord Jin — they didn’t have to—”

Jin stood at the head of the hall, Soha at his right, Tae at his left. The old retainer Master Oh hovered near the door, eyes on the rain-slick floor.

“They did it because you let them,” Jin said quietly.

Gil looked up, eyes red-rimmed. “I—”

“You think Baek’s dogs care about boys?” Jin’s voice cracked like frost. “They care about fear. They care that you spread your knees to any master with enough silver to buy your silence.”

He stepped closer — not shouting, not raging. Just cold.

“If you run now, they’ll gut you in the next ditch. If you stay, you stand behind House Ryu — or you’re worth less than the salt you mine.”

Gil bowed his head to the floorboards. “Lord Jin — I’ll stand. I swear it.”

Jin nodded. “Then stand tonight. Or die with your belly open. No middle path.”

When Gil fled the hall, Tae let out a low whistle.

“You just threatened the only salt keeper we have left.”

“I gave him a choice,” Jin said. He sank onto the low bench by the hearth, staring into the guttering flame. “The same one Baek gave him — but colder.”

Soha knelt beside him, fingers brushing soot off his sleeve.

“You sound like Father,” she whispered.

Jin looked at her — really looked. The flicker of fear in her eyes. The spark of something else too — relief, maybe. Hope.

“I sound like the man Father should’ve been,” he said.

That night, House Ryu’s main gate opened for the first time in months.

Jin stood under the battered archway as Master Oh and Tae carried out the old family banner — moth-eaten silk, dragon crest faded to a ghost.

They hoisted it on a splintered pole above the courtyard wall. Rain plastered it to the stones, but the dragon still gleamed in the torchlight.

Below it, villagers gathered — a few dozen shapes hunched against the downpour. Mothers clutching children, old men with salt burns on their hands, hungry boys who’d never seen the banner fly in their lifetime.

Jin stepped onto the low wall. Rain soaked his hair flat, dripped from his jaw. He didn’t care.

He raised his voice over the storm:

“This house is open again,” he called. “Our salt is ours. Baek can come for it — but he will not take it.”

A ripple through the crowd — disbelief, hope, terror.

Jin raised his hand, fingers wrapped tight around the iron dragon ring. The villagers’ eyes followed the glint of it like moths to a guttering flame.

“You want work?” Jin called. “There’s work. You want bread? There’s bread. You want to hide behind Baek’s cloak? Then you’re already dead.”

He let the silence hang — the rain drumming like war drums on the slate tiles.

Then, softly: “I stand here tonight as Jin Ryu — heir to nothing, son of ruin. But tomorrow, this house feeds you again. Stand with me, or crawl for Baek.”

One by one, the villagers knelt in the mud.

Old salt men. Millers. A stable boy with crooked teeth and eyes too big for his face. A widow clutching her baby under a straw wrap.

They knelt — not to the banner, not to the broken walls, but to him.

Tae stood at Jin’s shoulder, a grin slicing his rain-slicked face.

Soha wept into her sleeve, half-laughing through it.

When the last torch guttered out, Jin stood alone under the banner.

Wind whipped the silk around his shoulders like a shroud.

Somewhere beyond the hills, Baek would hear of this. Would rage. Would send sharper teeth next time.

Jin pressed the iron dragon ring to his lips. The rain washed the blood from his palm where he’d clenched his fist too hard.

One claw buried, he thought. One hidden.

For now, that was enough.

To be continued.