We reached the northern camp on the twenty-third day.
It was worse than I imagined.
Rows of tents in frozen mud. Soldiers with frostbitten fingers. The smell of blood and horse shit everywhere. Wounded men screamed at night. I threw up the first time I saw the medical tent.
Taehyun made me stay in the main command tent most days. I hated it, but he was right. I wasn't trained to fight.
But I was trained to read the future.
Every night I sat with the generals and told them where the next attack would come from. At first they laughed.
"The barbarian tribes don't follow patterns," one old general said.
"They will tomorrow," I answered. "At dawn, from the eastern pass. Trust me."
Taehyun trusted me. That was enough.
We set the trap.
Dawn came gray and cold.
The tribes attacked exactly where I said.
We crushed them.
After the battle, the same old general bowed to me in front of everyone.
"Lady Seo-Hwa," he said, "your wisdom saved five hundred lives today."
Word spread fast.
The villainess wasn't just the emperor's favorite anymore.
She was the army's lucky charm.
Taehyun watched me with proud eyes. At night he started calling me "my general" in bed. I laughed every time.
But not everything was perfect.
Some soldiers still hated me. They remembered the rumors. The poison. The red cord.
One night, three weeks into camp, I woke up to shouting.
Fire arrows were raining down on the tents.
Night attack.
I grabbed my cloak and ran outside.
Chaos everywhere. Men running, horses screaming, flames eating tents like paper.
Taehyun was already in armor, sword out, shouting orders.
I saw Min-Jun fighting three men at once, moving like smoke.
Then I saw it.
A group of soldiers... our own soldiers... breaking away from the fight. Heading straight for the command tent.
For me.
Traitors.
I didn't think. I just ran.
I made it inside the command tent and grabbed the sword Taehyun kept by the bed. It was heavy but I could lift it.
The first traitor came in laughing.
"There she is. The witch who thinks she's a general."
He raised his sword.
I didn't wait.
I swung with everything I had.
The blade caught his arm. Blood sprayed.
He screamed.
The second man came at me from the side.
Then Min-Jun was there. Silent. Deadly. Two seconds later both traitors were on the ground bleeding out.
More were coming.
I backed up until I hit the table.
Then Taehyun burst in.
Covered in blood and ash, eyes wild.
He saw me holding the sword, saw the bodies, saw the fear on my face.
He dropped his own sword and ran to me.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, hands checking everywhere.
"I'm okay," I said. My voice was shaking.
He pulled me into his arms so hard I couldn't breathe.
"I saw them running here," he said into my hair. "I thought... I thought I was too late."
I clung to him.
Behind us, Min-Jun was dragging bodies out.
Taehyun didn't let go for a long time.
Later, when the fires were out and the dead counted, he held a meeting.
Twenty traitors caught alive.
All of them paid by phoenix-seal gold.
The Empress Dowager's money.
Taehyun stood in front of the whole army at dawn.
His voice carried like thunder.
"Anyone who touches Lady Seo-Hwa answers to me," he said. "She is under my protection. She is the reason we won yesterday. She is the reason many of you are still breathing."
Then he did something no emperor had ever done.
He took my hand in front of ten thousand men and raised it high.
"She is my future empress," he shouted. "Remember her face."
The army cheered.
Some looked shocked. Some looked scared.
But no one looked at me like a villainess anymore.
That night Taehyun didn't sleep.
He sat on the edge of the mat and cleaned his sword over and over.
I crawled to him and put my arms around his waist from behind.
"Hey," I whispered. "I'm still here."
He turned fast and pulled me into his lap.
"I almost lost you tonight," he said, voice breaking for the first time.
"You didn't," I said. "I fought. You came. We won."
He kissed me like he was drowning again.
When we finally lay down, he held me so tight it hurt.
"Marry me," he whispered into the dark. "When this war is over. Marry me for real."
I smiled against his chest.
"I already said yes in the library, remember?"
"I want the whole world to hear it," he said.
"Then win this war," I told him. "Come back to the capital with me. And I'll marry you in front of everyone."
He kissed my forehead.
"Deal."
Outside, the wind howled across the frozen plains.
Inside our tent, we held each other like tomorrow might not come.
But for the first time since I transmigrated, I really believed it would.
We would win.
We had to.