The fabric brushed against her face, her arms. It felt like water, like air, like nothing at all. She pushed through it, one step, two steps, three steps.
Her foot came down on grass.
Soyeon stopped.
Slowly, she turned around.
The wardrobe was gone.
She was standing in a forest. A real forest, with towering pine trees and dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy. The air smelled clean and sharp, nothing like Seoul's pollution. Birds sang overhead. A stream gurgled somewhere nearby.
"What the—"
She looked down at herself and screamed.
Her clothes were gone. No, not gone, replaced. She was wearing hanfu. Real, traditional Chinese hanfu in layers of soft blue silk embroidered with tiny white flowers. Her jeans, her coat, her phone in her pocket, all gone.
Her hands flew to her head. Her hair, her shoulder-length bob was gone. Instead, long, heavy hair fell past her waist, pinned up with jade ornaments she could feel but not see.
"No. No no no no—" She spun in a circle, searching for the wardrobe, for any sign of how she got here. "This isn't real. I'm dreaming. I fell asleep reading and—"
A grunt of pain.
Soyeon froze.
It came from her left, deeper in the forest. A man's voice.
Every instinct screamed at her to run. But Soyeon was a med student. Three years of training had hard-wired a different response into her brain: someone's hurt.
She hiked up her ridiculous silk robes and moved toward the sound.
The man was slumped against a tree, half-hidden in shadow.
And he was the most beautiful thing Soyeon had ever seen.
Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in black robes that were torn and bloodstained. Long black hair had come loose from its tie, falling across a face that looked like it had been carved by a sculptor with a focus on sharp lines and intensity. High cheekbones, a strong jaw, lips pressed thin with pain.
And his eyes.
Cold, dark eyes that snapped to her the moment she stepped into view. Eyes like a winter storm.
A thin scar cut through his left eyebrow, down across his eyelid to his cheekbone. It should have ruined his face. Instead, it made him devastating.
He had a bow in his hand. An arrow nocked and aimed at her chest.
"Who are you?" he demanded in Mandarin.
And Soyeon understood him perfectly.
"I—" she stammered, also in Mandarin, what the hell, when did she become fluent in Mandarin— "I'm not—don't shoot—"
"Are you with them?" His voice was harsh, breathless with pain. "Did Prime Minister Li send you?"
"I don't know who that is!" Soyeon raised her hands. Her medical training kicked in, overriding her panic. "You're hurt. Let me help."
"I don't need—" He tried to stand and failed, his face going gray. The arrow clattered from his hand.
Soyeon made her decision. She rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside him. Blood, there was so much blood, seeping through his robes from a wound in his side.
"Arrow wound," she muttered, her hands moving automatically to press against the injury. "Recent. You're losing blood too fast—"
"What are you doing?" He tried to push her away, but his strength was failing.
"Saving your life. Stop moving." She looked around desperately. Herbs. She needed herbs. This was a forest, there had to be something she could use.
There. Wild mugwort growing by the stream. And was that.…yes, yarrow. Common hemostatic herbs.
"Don't move," she ordered, and ran for the plants.
Two minutes later, she was back, ripping the mugwort leaves with her teeth (no mortar and pestle, had to improvise) and packing the paste against his wound. It wouldn't be enough, but it would slow the bleeding. She tore strips from her inner robe and bound the wound tight.
The man watched her the entire time with his eyes, assessing quietly.
"Who are you?" he asked again, quieter now.
"I'm…." What was she supposed to say? Hi, I'm from the future and I fell through a magic wardrobe? "My name is Su Yan."
The lie came to her lips easily. Su Yan. Her Chinese name, the one she had made up for herself after concluding a drama. It felt right.
"You're not from the capital," he said. "Your accent is strange."
"I'm from... far away."
"Clearly." His eyes traced her face, lingering on features that must look foreign to him. "Are you a physician?"
"Something like that."
He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a cough. "You appear in the forest like a ghost, speak with a strange accent, know medicine. Are you a fox spirit?"
"I'm not a—wait, you believe in fox spirits?"
"I believe in what I see." His eyes were starting to glaze with blood loss. "And I see that you just saved my life."
"Don't pass out yet," Soyeon said sharply, checking the bandage. Still seeping but slower. "Who are you? Why were you shot?"
"My name.…" His head lolled back against the tree. "Prince Liang Jian. Second Prince. And if you're smart... you'll run."
"Why would I—"
The sound of horses. Shouting. Getting closer.
Prince Liang Jian's eyes snapped open, suddenly alert despite the blood loss. "They're coming. The assassins. You need to—"
"I'm not leaving you here to die."
"You are a foolish woman."
"Call me whatever you want. You're going to live." She grabbed his arm, trying to pull him up. He was too heavy, too tall. "Can you walk?"
For a moment, he kept his eyes on her. Then he smiled. A small, pained smile that transformed his entire face.
"You're either the bravest woman I've ever met," he said, "or the most insane."
"Both. Now get up."