Petals on Blades
Chapter 15 – Petals on Blades
“Are you,” she asked, her voice too calm, “Han Si‑woo?”
“....No.”
I told the truth. It was simple, really. If I lied and they found out, I didn’t know what they would do.
Telling the truth felt safer.
Between a torturous death and a less painful one, I chose the easier option.
Of course, I didn’t know what was going on inside those women’s heads.
But it turned red.
My lie became the truth.
She asked. Twice.
Both times the orb had burned my hand red, like I’d spit in its face.
Then Cha Eun-ha asked again, her eyes locked on mine.
“Are you really Han Si-woo?”
This time, I said, “Yes.”
And the damn thing had turned: Blue
Truth.
…What truth.
I’m not him. I knew that much. I was a squatter wearing his skin.
But whatever the reason, why the orb didn’t work or whoever hand it was in. It didn’t matter. I got to live to see another day.
Eun‑ha’s knees hit the snow.
The orb slipped from our hands and rolled into a dirty patch of slush.
She stared at it like it had reached up and slapped her.
The wind howled.
Eun‑ha’s head bowed. Her shoulders shook.
For the first time since I woke up in his body, she looked small.
Yeonhwa watched her for a moment.
Then her gaze slid down to the truth artifact half‑buried in the snow.
She stepped forward and nudged it with the tip of her boot, sending it rolling back toward us. The faint blue glow didn’t flicker.
“Now that he’s answered your question, it’s my turn. I have a question of my own,” she said lightly.
She bent, picked up the orb, wiped it on her coat, then shoved it back into my palm again.
Her hand came up over mine.
“Hold it,” she said. “Properly this time. Don’t try to drop it when you don’t like the answer.”
Her eyes turned back to me.
“Si‑woo,” she said. “Do you love me?”
The snow suddenly felt louder.
I glanced at the orb. At her.
Her expression was very calm. That wasn’t good.
If I said no, and the orb agreed, she’d break.
If I said no, and the orb called it a lie, she’d break differently.
But if I said yes, Eun-ha would…
No. They both would.
“Yes,” I said.
The orb flared.
Blue.
Soft. Warm. Smug.
Yeonhwa’s lips curved.
“See?” she said, almost gently. “He loves me.”
Enough for her, maybe.
Not for the woman slowly getting back up out of the snow.
Eun‑ha’s head lifted.
Her eyes found the orb, then my face.
“Ask him again,” she said.
“Why?” Yeon‑hwa replied. “You heard it. He loves me.”
“No,” Eun-ha said as she stood. “There has to be something wrong. It has to be.”
Yeonhwa’s jaw clenched.
She didn’t let go of my hand.
Eun‑ha stepped closer anyway, until she was sharing the same thin space around the orb.
“Si‑woo,” she said. “Look at me.”
I did.
Her eyes were red‑rimmed, veins stark against the whites.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
It was the same question, different mouth.
Same trap.
If I said no, she might finally burn me alive and then chain herself. Or she might decide to fix the answer by burning my brain until it matched.
“Yes,” I said.
Blue.
Again.
The stone didn’t even pause. It just accepted it. Easy as breathing.
This was going too smoothly.
Maybe love, as far as the orb was concerned, simply meant: Willing to die for them.
Didn’t mean I wanted to.
Yeon‑hwa’s smile evaporated.
“He didn’t hesitate with me,” she said. “You notice?”
“He lied first,” Eun‑ha said. “Twice. You notice?”
“The orb turned blue three seconds faster when I asked,” Yeon-hwa said.
“So what?” Eun-ha snapped. “Mine turned blue too.”
The two of them glared at each other over our joined hands.
“It means,” Yeonhwa said slowly. “He loves me.”
“No, he loves me.” Eun‑ha said.
Silence.
Then:
“Answer me—did you ever want to leave me?” Eun-ha said. “It shouldn’t matter whether you have memory or not.”
“No,” I said.
Orb turned blue.
“Yeonhwa,” Eun-ha said. “He would never have left me if it weren’t for his memories and he would've hated you now.”
Yeonhwa paused for a moment and asked, “Did you ever hated me, Si-woo?”
“No, I don’t.”
Orb turned blue again. The orb seemed to be working in my favour.
“Bitch, you heard it,” Yeonhwa went on. “He wouldn’t have said it before. Old Si‑woo, was too righteous to lie like that. He even chose me first in Madrid. Even the artifact confirms it now.”
“Don’t twist it,” Eun‑ha spat. “You cornered him in your sewer and whispered in his ear until he forgot there was sky. He loves you like a stray loves the first hand that feeds it.”
“Strays,” Yeon‑hwa said. “We were strays together. You were the one who leashed him. Don’t insult what we survived.”
“Survived?” Eun‑ha laughed once, harsh. “You call that survival? Hiding in shadows while he bled in public with my logo on his back?”
“And now where is he standing?” Yeon‑hwa snapped. “Not in your office. Not in your guild. With me.”
And so they kept going—asking the most random things: How did I make you feel that day? Do you like this about me or not? Did I ever annoy you? Do you think about me when you are alone?
Every answer would just offend the other. They would get jealous, start bickering and cursing at each other, and then ask me again and it would repeat.
***
“Are you guys fucking done asking?” I asked, my head hurting.
“Not yet,” Eun‑ha said sharply.
Her eyes didn’t leave Yeonhwa’s face.
“Yeonhwa, If you’re going to twist this into a contest, let’s not pretend,” she said. “Si‑woo.”
She looked back at me.
The next question was obvious.
“Who do you love more?” she asked. “Her or me?”
There it was.
Yeon‑hwa watched me too. Quiet. Waiting. Shadows around her ankles whispering in the snow.
If I said one name, the other would explode.
If I refused to answer, they’d keep asking until one of them decided to kill me.
“Answer,” Eun‑ha said. “You held the stone. You said yes to both. Fine. Who more.”
The orb pulsed in my hand. Hungry.
I inhaled slowly.
“Neither,” I said.
Blue.
Both women froze.
“That’s impossible,” Yeon‑hwa said quietly.
“If he didn’t love either of us, the stone wouldn’t have turned blue before,” Eun‑ha said. "It's wrong."
“Somethings wrong,” Yeon‑hwa agreed. “Try again. Properly.”
They were united for once.
Against me.
“Pick one,” Yeon‑hwa said. “For real.”
“No,” I said.
Red again. The orb sizzled hot.
Pain bit into my palm.
The truth artifact, apparently, had decided that even my refusal counted as a statement: “I’m not choosing.”
And that that was a lie.
I didn’t want to know how.
“Again,” Eun‑ha said. “Her or me.”
“Why does it matter?” I asked, voice low. “You both heard what you wanted.”
“It matters,” Eun‑ha said, “because if he loves you more, I rip you out of this story now.”
“It matters,” Yeon‑hwa said calmly, “because if he loves you more, I cut out the part of him that remembers you.”
The air around them changed.
Their grips on me went from possessive to armed.
I could feel mana rising again, raw and ugly, ready to shape into something lethal.
“So?” Yeonhwa’s smile went razor-thin. “We both cut the other out.”
“That’s the first thing you’ve said I agree with,” Eun‑ha said. “ I don’t share what’s mine.”
The shadows at Yeon‑hwa’s feet lengthened. Her fingers flexed, just slightly.
Fire sparked along Eun‑ha’s knuckles, climbing her hand in tiny, eager licks.
Their attention was off me now.
Back on each other.
Which, on paper, was good.
In reality, watching two natural disasters aim at each other while you stood in the overlapping blast radius was not comforting.
“Try me,” she said to Eun‑ha. “You’ve already burned him once. If you do it again, I’ll cut your heart out and feed it to whatever crawls under this ice.”
“Come,” Eun‑ha said. “Let’s see if your shadows can drag him out from under my fire twice.”
They pulled me away from them without realising it.
Fire built on one side, shadow on the other, each flaring to kill, not just threaten this time. And they started clashing again.
Fuck.
If one of them dies. The other one would completely chain me here, away from human civilisation. At least with two, one would keep the other in check.
And in case, both of them were injured or died fighting each other, I wouldn’t survive a day here without them, in this forsaken place.
I had to make them stop. Before this escalated any further.
I moved.
Forward.
Into the attack that had been meant for Eun-ha.
The shadow spike caught me high in the shoulder instead of Eun‑ha’s throat.
It felt like being hit by a very fast, very cold hammer from the inside out.
I heard myself make a sound.
I didn’t recognise it as my own.
The world tilted.
Blood exploded warm down my arm, hot against the freezing air. My fingers went numb.
“Si‑woo!”
Eun‑ha’s scream wasn’t a word. It was an open wound.
Her fire lashed out, wild, instinctive, aiming straight for the source of the spike.
Yeon‑hwa.
I didn’t think.
Thinking was for people who had time.
I shoved my body sideways, between them again.
Fire kissed my back, wrapped around my ribs like a too‑tight band, then cut off as Eun‑ha yanked it back. It still hurt. Less than it should have.
Enough to make my vision spot for a second.
“Stop,” I rasped.
They did.
Not because I had commanded it.
Because for one second, they were both staring at the same thing: the red soaking through my shirt, blooming fast over my chest and shoulder.
Their hands finally let go of my wrists.
I stumbled, caught myself badly, and dropped to one knee in the snow.
The orb fell, rolling in a crooked line between us, still faintly blue.
“Are you insane?” Yeon‑hwa hissed, stepping toward me. Her face had gone even paler, mouth tight. “Why did you jump?”
“Because if one of you dies,” I said, breathing hard, “I wouldn't be able to live with that. I would rather die now."
It wasn’t a lie, I would die without them here.
“I—” she started, then bit the words off.
“Move,” Eun‑ha said.
Her hands were on my shoulders, trying to turn me so she could see the wound better. When I hissed, she flinched as if she’d been burned.
“This is your fault,” she snapped at Yeon‑hwa.
“You’re the one who overreacted,” Yeon‑hwa shot back. “I wanted to pin you. You went straight for the kill.”
“He stepped into it!” Eun‑ha shouted. “He always steps into it!”
They were winding back up.
Even now.
Even with my blood on their hands.
I laughed.
It came out wrong. Sharp, thin, edged with too much air.
“Both of you,” I said. “Shut up.”
They looked at me.
“You want me alive?” I asked. “Prove it. Stop trying to be the only one standing.”
The words weren’t noble.
They weren’t about who they were.
They were about what I needed.
Two guards.
Not jailer.
Their mouths worked.
No sound came out, for once.
The pain in my shoulder was getting worse.
Cold chewed at the edges of it.
Heat fluttered from Eun‑ha’s palm, hovering very, very close to the wound without touching it, as if she was terrified of me leaving again.
Yeonhwa’s shadows coiled tighter around her feet, like leashes she’d wrapped around herself deliberately.
Slowly, without another word, they stepped back.
Away from each other.
Toward me instead.
“We’re going back,” Eun‑ha said. Her voice had gone flat. “Now.”
“Don’t drag him like last time,” Yeon‑hwa muttered. “You will tear the stitches.”
“I’ll carry him,” Eun‑ha said.
“I’m not letting you take him alone,” Yeon‑hwa replied.
“Then take the other side.”
They bickered the whole walk back.
Short. Sharp. Whispered like curses to themselves.
Their hands, when they grabbed me again, were careful.
It didn’t make them less dangerous.
It just made the cage little warmer.
