#prince jin
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To Kill A King (Chapter 14)
Banner and linebreaks by the talented @awrkives
Summary: What’s more charming than Prince Seokjin? Nothing, obviously. Except maybe the rotating palace guests who each smile and bow and charm in an attempt to hide their true motives. Fortunately Seokjin has a close circle of friends (well, servants) who watch his back and endure his humor and help him navigate the tumultuous seas of heartbreak, love, and an arranged marriage, not necessarily in that order. If only they had helped him keep a closer eye on his bride-to-be’s handmaiden, who arrives with her own agenda… or maybe it would have been better if he had noticed her less? One thing is certain as this royal drama of the heart plays out: there are many people competing to kill a king.
Main Pairing: Prince Seokjin x Female OC Genre: Historical Fantasy World, political conspiracy, romance Rating: 18+ Content Warnings & story tags: includes explicit sex (mxf, fxf), possibly graphic violence/injury later, love and sex triangles or uh quadrangles?, sort of e 2 l, sort of bodyguard trope, sort of arranged marriage, a lot of plotting murder (it’s literally in the title), maybe character death, grief, pining, angst, love, oral (f & m receiving), public sex, I don’t know everything yet as the story is long and still being written
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NOTE: check out the Character & Setting Cheat Sheet for a refresher on who’s who
Old habits die hard. Though Dulce had shifted her purpose to finding some way to prove Nasimiyu and her father were planning to overthrow the Kim family –a thing she hadn’t the faintest idea how to accomplish– an opportunity presented itself in her quest for information that was simply too good to pass up. King Dong-gun quit the palace to go on another of those maniacal cave hunting expeditions, and took most of the palace with him, including Nasimiyu and that ice-cold uncle.
It had almost been funny, that brief moment in which Nasimiyu debated whether to take Dulce. Dulce was back on laundry duty –surprise, surprise– but was carting clean clothes up to the princess’ room. Nasimiyu called for something she could wear on a hunt, then informed Dulce they were going to the caves in the morning, then looked at her in silence for a long moment… before deciding Eula would go. Eula had cried about it all night because she was scared of caves and guns.
Mirta had given Dulce a day’s worth of tasks which she utterly ignored. Was Mirta going to fire her? That would suit her just fine; the only thing keeping her from quitting was needing time to find whatever she could take to Prince Seokjin or King Dong-gun.
As soon as Nasimiyu left for the hunting trip, Dulce ransacked her room. She put everything back so it wouldn’t be obvious, of course, but she dug through all the spaces she normally didn’t care about –the drawers in the writing desk, the false bottom of her jewelry box, the tiara box in the wardrobe that used to house a secret supply of snacks until Nasimiyu ate through them within days of arriving in Priva.
Rooting through the wardrobe made Dulce wonder if Nasimiyu would rat her out about killing the spying man at some point. She could. A princess’ word against a maids would result in nothing other than the death penalty for the maid. Nasimiyu could toss in that Dulce had threatened her about it. It didn’t even have to be true, Nasimiyu could say whatever she wanted and have Dulce’s head off in a moment. Rather than frighten her, this power disparity pissed Dulce off.
She clearly and obviously ought to leave immediately, before that could happen. What was holding Nasimiyu back from doing so this very day? She was clearly angry about Namjoon still, and hadn’t said a word to Dulce since she’d walked in on her and Prince Seokjin fucking. Was she waiting and hoping for Dulce to come groveling to her? Or just biding her time until she could surprise Dulce with an accusation and death?
It didn’t make any sense, and Dulce hated not knowing. She was too close to this one; she wouldn’t be able to leap away before Nasimiyu’s dagger plunged in.
She had to be fast. Faster than this.
But there was nothing incriminating to be found anywhere in Nasimiyu’s room. The letters from her mother were dull and saccharine. There were no letters from her father. She didn’t keep a diary, not even a fake, so there was nothing to betray her as a fiance either, no pining for Namjoon inked onto pages in her hand. Dulce had taught her too well, it seemed.
Dulce paid a visit to the old room Nasimiyu had stayed in, but there likely hadn’t been anything notable there either before it was wiped clean. Same for the rooms Prince Hamisi and Princess Simisola had lived in.
What was Dulce’s next step here? She felt hopelessly out of options. She could approach Prince Seokjin and just tell him… but why would he believe her against his own fiance? He wouldn’t. Dulce was just an out of favor maid. Well, she could tell him more than that if she was willing to sacrifice her own security…
But how did one prove they were an assassin hired to spy and assassinate you? She had no written orders. No secret society brand on her shoulder. No poisoned dagger bearing Prince Hamisi’s emblem or any of the other clues that led to the capture of the villains in the Kalamouche novels. The emblemed dagger in the most recent book she’d read had really done her in, it was nearly enough to make her laugh, it was such a stupid idea. What idiot gave an assassin a clear and obvious connection back to the purse-holder? Dulce had found herself wishing she could meet the author and give him a good thrashing and tell him to do better –nobles were absolute idiots but in a very different way than that. But it had then led to the mental play of Prince Seokjin meeting the author and probably being so exuberant and excited about it because he probably read these ideas and thought they were genius and it had ticked her off so much, this day dream, the fact that she was daydreaming about Prince Seokjin.
What was this man doing to her?! Why?! She had met so many men in her life and this one was… was ignorant and naive and too trusting and… honestly, a clown. And thoughtful and considerate and inappropriately chivalrous and unfortunately almost funny and generous and from what she could see, honest. If he was not honest, he had fooled her. Otherwise, he might be one of the only honest people she had ever met in her life. Everything about him seemed so sincere. Was that true? He did not seem to consider himself when he put himself forward to help someone –a maid who didn’t need rescuing, a crying child, a servant who was secretly his brother and an inherent threat to his throne.
Fuck that guy, he was messing with her head. She had to figure something out and then get the fuck out of here. She’d do her best to find some way to open his eyes to the dangers around him, but she couldn’t die for him. She needed to be gone before Nasimiyu figured it out. Possibly the only thing staying Nasimiyu’s hand right now was that she’d never directly caused someone’s death before. Could that be it? Was there some conscience after all beneath that ridiculous flower crown Prince Seokjin had given Nasimiyu for dinner last night?
She circled the palace trying to look like she had somewhere to be without actually having an aim. Prince Hamisi was too smart to leave anything incriminating in the Kim palace. Nasimiyu never had anything to leave around. She could try interrogating Nasimiyu’s guards or maids for anything but it would raise suspicion on herself unless she killed them afterwards, likely not get her anything, and another death around Nasimiyu would probably send the palace into another frenzy.
How ironic. Dulce was possibly the greatest threat to Nasimiyu, wasn’t she? It occurred to her that striking Nasimiyu down and lying in wait for Prince Hamisi to come running back would be the quickest way to ensure they couldn’t harm Prince Seokjin.
But actually killing Nasimiyu… It made Dulce’s stomach turn. She didn’t need to go that far right now. Dulce was efficient and purposeful, but she wasn’t wasteful. Death was inevitable, but that didn’t mean Dulce was eager to dole it out, not to someone she had so recently been so close to. Honestly, did Nasimiyu deserve to die? She shouldn’t be queen but..
Dulce was compromised. She was too sentimental. The objective truth was that no one person was worth more than the lives of dozens or hundreds of others, but right now Nasimiyu wasn’t a threat to dozens or even hundreds of people. If she died today, there would be a new and probably worse princess betrothed to the prince tomorrow. Nasimiyu was selfish and stubborn but supposedly had good intentions, so in a world where her rule wasn’t a threat to Seokjin’s life, Dulce would have left her alone.
“I have a packet for the King,” a deep voice said, traveling closer up the hallway.
Another voice scoffed, “And I told you, he is not in the palace today so you will have to wait or leave your missives with me.” Dulce recognized the voice of Han-gyeol Jung –that weasley old man constantly looking down his nose at young men and squinting like he could see through the dresses of young women. Allegedly he served as a ‘deportment’ tutor for Prince Seokjin but seemed to leave his more palatable son to do most of the actual refining work.
“I’m in a hurry,” the man said, which struck Dulce as odd. If you had things to deliver to the king, wasn’t that the most important thing you could do? Unless you were just impatient, but he didn’t sound impatient, he sounded… nervous. “They must be delivered directly to the King.”
When Lord Jung or whatever the fuck his proper title was refused to go and physically retrieve the King from the caves, the man snapped that he would try again tomorrow but he wasn’t spending a night here and stomped off. Dulce watched the elder Jung subtly around the corner. He looked completely unbothered by the man’s insistence, as if this sort of urgent entitled demand to see the king was a common occurrence. She found it more curious that he would act as a kind of butler or intermediary for the King in his absence rather than the Castellan or literally anyone else. It seemed outside of his job scope. But what did she know? Besides, most of those people had gone on the hunt.
He strode off to do another task. So the King must not be lying in wait expecting anything urgent, otherwise surely he would let his butler know to fetch him at once should a messenger arrive. Unless Han-gyeol Jung didn’t know anything either and had just unknowingly thwarted something actually very important
Dulce had nothing better to do though (what, maid chores?) and decided to follow the man with the message. He’d not gone far and anyway his steps were loud enough to easily find him, the idiot. She tailed him out of the palace and down into the city, right out the front doors. Nobody looked at him, and she supposed she struck the right balance of looking like a nobody maid that nobody bothered with her either. The man did keep looking anxious around himself but he clearly wasn’t worried about an innocent looking maid with her hair wrapped in a white kerchief the only time he might have seen her over his shoulder.
They moved further into the city. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, which made it easier to keep up with him because his movements were purposeful and obvious. They passed through a couple neighborhoods before he entered an unremarkable tavern, the Bear and Beer.
“Need a room?” the innkeeper asked as the man went straight to the counter.
“Yes, only the night. Middle of the row if you’ve got it,” he said, already dumping coin on the counter as though he knew the cost. They didn’t seem to know each other but he must have been here before; he didn’t wait for further instructions about how to reach “Room 4” before taking the key and heading up. Locking doors meant this was a nicer place, though Dulce could have guessed that from the quiet and decently clean downstairs. The innkeeper kept the keys on a loop that jangled at his hip, which would make it harder to get the spare for Room 4 that he surely kept.
“What about you, need a room?” he called, unfortunately spotting her right away.
Annoyed, she said she was hoping to meet someone and ordered a beer for while she waited. Since it was early in the day, she had her pick of tables where she could watch the few folks who came and went. No one looked suspicious, or even remarkably unsuspicious which could itself be suspicious. Those who came down looked like they’d had a late night to sleep off. Three went up during the time she watched –a maid with an armful of clean linens and a pair with a massive bag between them and the air of disappointment, whatever their business had been that morning.
This was stupid. She was wasting her time on what was likely one of a thousand people who tried to visit the king on any given day and were turned away, and for what reason, because she was bored and frustrated around the palace? She’d have as much luck finding something useful blindly wandering the streets.
She paid for her beer and headed for the door but felt the shuffle of movement close behind her. Turning, she caught only the back of a figure heading purposefully for the stairs as several other people moved around the room at once, getting up to refill mugs of beer or empty tables or step closer to the fire. All normal gestures, but Dulce felt as if the world had thawed quite suddenly, which struck her as odd. Not everyone seemed to be orchestrating something, but rather like something predictable had happened –the waitress had brought in a large tray of food– just as she had risen from the table and others had moved in synchrony too. Coincidence.
But the two people who slipped quickly up the stairs as if they did not wish to be seen felt more intentional. Like people trained to take advantage of a predicted moment of distraction.
Dulce strode forward and bumped into the waitress, who promptly toppled the whole tray onto the table. The patrons leapt up and the waitress leapt back and the innkeeper came running around from the bar squawking about the mess, shoving the waitress out of the way in his rush to apologize –which was just enough physical distraction for Dulce to unhook the ring of keys from his belt. It wasn’t even a twist latch! The fool.
She disappeared up the stairs in the chaos, shedding her cloak and the kerchief in the process, wrapping them into a bundle to mute the jingling of the remaining keys once she’d pulled off the one with the 4 scratched into it.
She put on her best oops wrong room face and rushed through door four… to be met with an empty room. The man had either left or met his fate, but it was definitely his pack still sitting on the bed. She frowned at the stillness and pulled her blade from her pocket, the little shitty one Nasimiyu had given her since it was the closet on hand. If she reached for her boot, he might rush out of the wardrobe or something.
He wasn’t there when she checked though, nor under the bed. Convinced she was alone, she promptly upended his bag. She shoved aside some light clothing, a miniscule bag of money, no more than a handful of jerky and a cheap necklace, and instead focused on the small leatherbound journal –oddly expensive compared to everything else– and a short stack of sealed envelopes. Everything else she shoved back inside, hoping it would buy her some time before the man realized he’d been robbed –of what was probably just a complaint about his neighbor. Dulce realized she was being very rash right now.
A noise in the hallway made her freeze, then leap into the wardrobe mere seconds before the door swung open again. In walked the man she had followed, pulling at his waistband as if he’d just pulled his pants up.
Well shit.
If he had any wits about him, he was going to check the wardrobe in a moment to make sure his room was secure and find her, and what was she going to do? If he was rotten folk, she could kill him and be on her way, but if he wasn’t, she’d rather knock him out.
He didn’t check the wardrobe yet. Instead he sat at the table and produced some cheese and a hunk of bread from his pocket. She held her breath, expecting he’d open his pack for the jerky and notice his precious papers were gone– but he didn’t.
Were people really such fools they didn’t check their rooms first?!
Dulce set the keys in the bottom of the wardrobe with her cloak, moving slowly and carefully so as not to produce even the faintest brushing sound. Then, by the light creeping in through the shoddy cabinetry, she eased open the seal on the first paper and did her best to read. The hand was scratchy and rushed, masculine she thought but couldn’t be sure –her own hand was masculine, she’d been told long ago, as if that mattered.
HD not in Sartia as directed – SD alone
HD crossed border near Ft Gaysa, could not follow, gone 3 days
HD headed north
Dulce’s brow knitted. How annoying to be simultaneously in code but not really. Per request sure sounded like this man had been sent somewhere, to trail this HD to Sartia–
Hamisi Dabo. Dulce was no font of knowledge on famous or infamous persons, but Prince Hamisi had been headed to Sartia with his wife, Simisola Dabo. People were stupid and often the most obvious answer was right.
Her heart leapt into her throat. Was this important? That Prince Hamisi had lied about going to Sartia? What was at Ft Gaysa? If that wasn’t notable, the fact he had crossed the border down there sure was; no one was allowed to cross the southern Therepin border, it would nullify the very precarious treaty after the Therepin Border Wars.
She shoved the note down the front of her dress, blood pounding in her ears as she carefully opened the next. It was in a different hand and dated separately, sealed differently, as if the letters had been sent by two different people completely which left her unsure how they had both wound up with this man.
Summary report on investigation into recent Therepin skirmishes. Full reports arriving separately
1: No witnesses survived. Entire village dead and burned. Civilian deaths: 76.
2: Reliable eyewitness reports invasion of village at dawn. Military arrived 22 minutes later. Military deaths: 1, Assailants: 14 reported - bodies burned could not verify, Citizens: 7.
3: Eyewitness claims assailants came around from the north not south!!! Military arrived in 11 minutes. Military death: 1, Assailants: 13 - bodies burned could not verify, Citizens: 18.
4: Two witnesses survived by hiding under floorboards, have gone missing since interview. Claimed to have heard assailants speak of belonging to Sons of Sunset. Military deaths: 0, Assailants: 32 reported - 3 bodies produced, rest burned could not verify; Civilian deaths: 49 + assuming 2 witnesses
Dulce’s mind was racing. These reports were exactly what she was looking for! Proof that Hamisi was up to something. He shouldn’t be crossing the border, and if the Sons of Sunset were attacking towns and blaming another country, the king needed to know!
But maybe he already knew? She couldn’t tell from just these notes if the King was investigating Prince Hamisi on his own, or if he was just looking into the skirmishes, or what. She knew the royal family had a network of spies, though they tended to be clumsy and easy to identify. This man seemed excessively clumsy though to be carrying such precious documents only to leave them unattended in his room for even a moment. He must not know what he had.
Damn she wished she knew more about what was going on at the border for the notes to make more sense. Namjoon had ranted within earshot at some point but she wasn’t very political and had ignored him. Nonetheless, she would now make sure these landed in the King’s hand directly.
The third didn’t have a seal. Just a dashed, unsigned note on a thin slip of paper.
Delso dead. I’m followed. Take this copy in case I’m done. Watch your back cmdr dsk on the move hunting for squeakers
Cmdr Dsk… Commander Dong-suk Kim? These things weren’t even in code! Any good spy knew the point of code! Though she considered that if the point was to get this information to the King, maybe code wasn’t useful. After all, she was not part of his spy network but understood at least some of the message that needed to make it to the king. It wasn’t actually in the King’s interest for these things to be secret, it was only in the interest of the messengers themselves but by the point someone was reading them, you were likely already dead–
A knock at the door to the room made her head jolt up as quickly as this messenger’s. He rose slowly from the table at another knock. He took a step forward and drew his blade at an even harder knock, nearly enough to take the door off its hinges.
The man started to run for the window, but the act of grabbing his pack from the bed was too slow –he ought to have grabbed and run first, the fool! And he paid dearly for it as the door crashed in, the lock shattering right out of the doorframe as one of the suspicious men she’d seen slide upstairs earlier launched himself through.
A thrown dagger caught the messenger in the back of the neck and he toppled forward, metal protruding through the front. Still his body dragged him forward but there was no fight for life possible and by the time the large man carelessly ripped the bag from his shoulder, he was still and limp.
“Is it the right room this time?” a second voice demanded. He elbowed the door back into place after a peek down the hallway. “You sure it’s him?”
“This is the guy.”
“--Is what you said about the other.”
Dulce waited, calculating. If they’d made short work of someone in another room without even her hearing, they were a trifle better at their jobs than this careless messenger. She could remain hidden and hope they left, but only an idiot wouldn’t check the fucking wardrobe.
Two to one… she’d faced worse odds. All three notes carefully down her bodice, she eased her favorite dagger from under her skirt, touched the one in her boot to make sure it was at hand, took a deep breath, then launched herself from the cabinet.
They’d upended the backpack and the bigger man’s wrist tangled in the straps, which slowed him down enough for Dulce’s blade to slash his upper arm. His other first swung around and would probably have knocked her out cold if she hadn’t ducked just as the smaller man’s blade sliced at her back. Fabric caught and tore thanks to a hook on the tip of his blade that would do even nastier things to skin if she let it, but also presented a weakness. She tried to catch her blade in it to yank it away but misjudged the angle once, twice, three times; their blades struck and slid against each other, the metal grating noise making her skin crawl. It was too much thinking and not enough movement to keep her out of reach of the second man who wasn’t that bothered after all by his cut arm: he plucked her around the waist and threw her against the wall like a rag doll.
“Quiet,” the small man hissed at him after the thud. Dulce groaned and rolled onto her stomach, wheezing. But she’d managed to save some of the breath in her lungs by curling as she flew, and took advantage of their assumption she’d be down. She dragged herself deceptively slowly forward and when the smaller man lifted a leather boot to kick her, she stabbed her smaller blade right down into the toe of his boot as hard as she could. Those fine leather boots of his parted like butter; the toes she stabbed through put up more resistance. He yowled.
“Quiet!” the bigger man mocked and lifted Dulce from the ground by the torn back of her dress, his other blade already slicing at her middle as if to gut her. She slashed at his wrist with the second knife. He tried to knock it away, opening himself up to a straight stab to the gut with the blade from her boot, and another and another. Her blade sank in several inches each time, blood rushing out as she pulled it out, but nowhere deep enough to hit anything vital.
“Fucking whore!” he bellowed and dropped her just as the other man stabbed forward. They weren’t well coordinated and managed to knock into each other while she ducked down and spun away. It only saved her a moment though before both were on her again, small blades biting anywhere they reached. The room’s space was too tight to really maneuver away and they shoved furniture, blundered into the walls, tripped over the body of the messenger, crashed against the bed.
“Just grab her!” the smaller man shouted. Dulce instinctively leapt away from the larger man as his fist clipped the back of her head, but maybe intentionally so, it had been a distraction and the smaller man slashed at her throat, just missing. Dulce struck back but another blow to her back pushed her right into the man’s blade; she knocked it away from her belly but he brought a second around to stab at her back. She slammed her foot onto his thigh and jumped high so that his blade sliced the side of her leg instead, tangling in her ridiculous skirt and tearing fabric and skin both. She returned the favor against the man’s face, an attempt to kill him that sadly missed.
Dulce felt a meaty hand grab the front of her dress and turn her for what was undoubtedly a death blow. She turned faster than the larger man expected and wrapped around him, the strings of her bodice ripping and tangling around his hand as she slid onto his back, her blade dragging across his throat like a caress. It was butchery; she couldn’t risk her cut being too shallow again. He threw himself backwards to avoid the depth, crushing her against the dresser as his blood fountained out and his body began to thrash in in a fit of primal survival. It took all the muscles of her arm to tear that pipe. She managed to slide away from him, diving after the other man who seemed monentarily shocked that she’d managed to down his companion –but not shocked enough to meet the same fate.
He leapt towards her as the other man still flailed, blade extended. Dulce tripped on the dead messenger and it saved her skin; neither she nor the smaller man expected her to drop just then. She rolled around him instead and stabbed at his thigh; the blade sank in but her fingers were locked too tight so when he leapt away it jerked her along too, exposing her side. Her skirt twisted around her leg and later she’d curse herself for wearing such a stupid thing. He took the opportunity, blade going right for her ribs. Her turn dragged it instead across the tops of her breasts, a shallow slice that stung like a bitch. the other side of her torn bodice caught the actual hook of his blade. She stabbed in the direction of his arm.
He surprised her, shoving his hand down the front of her chemise. She thought he was stabbing and tried to twist away.
Instead he pulled out the notes she’d tucked, dashed with her blood and sweat and crumbled beyond belief. He flashed her a grin and was out the window in a heartbeat, unbothered by the knife she threw at his back. Dulce tried to stumble after him, to follow him out, but her legs refused and she merely crawled forward. By the time she reached the, he was long gone and she was alone in the bloodied, broken room with two corpses, the larger one still blinking and gasping but beyond consciousness.
Dulce panted for breath and felt herself, searching for anything fatal. It had all happened so fast. Bruises and cuts she hadn’t noted in the moment competed for attention but adrenaline kept her from surrendering to any of it just yet.
The notes were gone.
Fuck!
That’s what they’d been looking for.
She didn’t have time to think about it right now. They’d been noisy; any moment someone was going to crash through the broken door and she couldn’t be here. She refused to take the fall for whatever she had stumbled into.
Fuck, the notes were gone. It killed her. They were exactly what she had needed! She didn’t want to leave empty handed but pounding steps in the hall told her she had seconds to act. She grabbed the messenger’s coat he had previously hung on the chair and yanked it on over her torn clothes and with her braid tucked down, pulled his hat on low, and rushed towards the door.
“Hey! What’s going on in there!! Open up!” the inn keeper or someone matching his anger shouted ahead of themself, storming down the hall. Dulce weighed her options. She could rush out but didn’t know how many people were there. The other man had gone out the window, so there was a way. He might be waiting but it was her best change.
She grabbed her favorite blade and leapt onto the windowsill, eying the likeliest path he had taken.
Shake all you want, but you’re moving on, she told her legs and took the leap. It was a tight scrabble. Her fingers ached for purchase. She shimmied along the narrow ledge until she reached the lower roof, then tore over it before anyone from the ground would hopefully notice her. The stables on the other side had enough boxes to leap down like a cat and off she raced as soon as her boots touched ground. Some globs of blood dotted the hay-strew ground; she’d got the man good at least once and wished now she’d at least had a good look at his face. She would never recognize him in a room and that pissed her off. He might recognize her.
She noticed the gasps and curious, nervous glances as she sprinted down the street until she knew her legs really were about to buckle. Then she slid into an alley, turned the coat inside out, and did her best to piece herself back together.
In doing so, she discovered she still had one paper: HD not in Sartia as directed – SD alone
Useless on its own.
Now what to fucking do. She was injured, unclear how badly. She knew she looked awful and would raise too many questions if she limped into the palace like that, but where else did she have to go? She didn’t even have the money for a room to wash her face in.
Taehyung or Yoongi? Which could she get to without being seen? Which did she trust to help and not question? What a loss that Nasimiyu couldn’t shield her now.
Neither, she didn’t trust anyone. Ever. People were only loyal as long as it served them. No oath in the world was sacred, even one of love, and they had sworn her nothing.
But she had no other options.
She took her bet and set off, already crafting her story.
“Come on,” Drin cajoled, jostling Seokjin’s arm in the hallway. “You can’t avoid the hunt.”
“I’m not avoiding anything,” Seokjin lied, lied as big and strong as the angry surf that had crashed against the sea wall all night. It called to him, that sea. Only slightly in a macabre way –and not because of the wedding planning, that was fine. He wasn’t avoiding wedding planning. Why would he be avoiding wedding planning? Nor was he avoiding his uncle, as Drin now gracefully hinted it:
“You’re either avoiding your uncle or the caves but either way, you’re fucked. Your father has sent for you. A tummyache ain’t a good reason to skip the hunt.”
“Actually I find it a very good reason,” Seokjin quipped. “Would he have me shit my horse?”
“You can’t blame a stomach to avoid uncomfortable things, little prince. Turn right around and suit up for the hunt. Wear a baby’s swaddle to hold the shit, if you need to.”
“Does no one take me seriously?”
“We know you’ve a history of avoiding–”
“I’m not avoiding anything, except maybe the kitchen.”
Because god save him if he ran into Dulce there. Not after Dulce had walked in on him… with Nasimiyu… A cold shudder ran through his body, followed by the flush of a fever of mortification. It would have been bad for anyone to walk in –didn’t anyone fucking knock?! But of all people, for it to be Dulce, it just…
He wanted to scream. To cry. To throw up. He’d done none of those things. He had quickly dressed and fled to his room and taken a hot bath to wash the sex off and considered drowning himself more than once. For all he knew, his dick had shriveled into his body and would never emerge. Certainly he was never going to have sex again. He was private about sex, thank you very much, so for an unwelcome guest to intrude–
And for it to be Dulce– on or around her birthday, of all times!
Seokjin was not easy to embarrass. But this had done it. And, with little practice in recovering from an embarrassment he rarely felt, he was, in fact, hiding from a maid. Utter shock had emboldened him to hastily scribble the note with the book and send Jimin to deliver it to wherever Dulce slept and now his interactions with her were done and he would never look her in the eye again. Which meant avoiding any of the places they might ever run into each other, including but not limited to: the kitchen where she went for food, the yard where she sometimes passed by, any of the hallways near Nasimiyu’s room, and possibly the queen’s garden where she seemed to appreciate the flowers. He wondered if Nasimiyu would be willing to come to his room from now on… assuming this hadn’t just rendered him impotent for life.
Honestly wandering into a bullet’s path in the caves seemed like not the worst way to go right now.
Because in truth Seokjin also knew he could not avoid Dulce forever, particularly if she remained Nasimiyu’s maid.
He felt like he’d assaulted Dulce. His note wasn’t enough. He didn’t know what else to do. He’d never been in the wrong in this way towards a woman before! And she might be around any corner in this palace, ready to turn to look right through him with those dark eyes that looked so warm behind a mug of hot chocolate. The whole thing was ghastly. How his father had allegedly carried on orgies in the dining hall was beyond Seokjin. Would it have been less devastating if it was someone else? He decided not to answer that, even to himself.
“Is Nasimiyu really going?” Seokjin asked Jimin over his shoulder. “Who’s she taking with her?” The question probably said too much but Jimin was sworn to loyalty and wouldn’t rat him out, even if he figured out the question behind Seokjin’s question. Which he probably did, seeing as Seokjin had told him what happened and had him deliver the book.
“She is, Sir, and expects you are too. She’s not taking any of her maids.”
That was good enough for Seokjin.
“Fine, I’ll go,” Seokjin said to Drin.
“What now, really?”
“I’ll go change.”
“No, you’re off to hide. You’re dressed fine, just take your jacket off. A fight doesn’t always wait for the prince go get changed into clothes he doesn’t mind bloodying!” Drin barked, and clapped Seokjin on the shoulder. He seemed shockingly sober, likely a result of Uncle Dong-suk’s arrival. The two had served together when they were younger, as peers. But Dong-suk was royal and rose to commander and Drin shattered his arm and decided to train the prince instead of remain on the battlefield. Dong-suk was of the mindset you should die on the battlefield instead of “give in to disability,” which Seokjin thought was rich to say when you had no such injury. As if being the private arms tutor to the prince was a mark of weakness!
“Why are you so eager?” Seokjin demanded, already regretting it. “We aren’t fighting, we’re hunting.”
“Is it different?” Drin cryptically asked and strode ahead, trusting Seokjin to follow to the courtyard where the hunting party gathered.
“Did you really think you could avoid the hunt?” Jungkook asked, sidling up to Seokjin’s elbow as the prince dragged his feet but followed his trainer. Seokjin gave him a look, because obviously yes, he did and would have, even if it meant lying to his father and uncle that he was shitting his brains out. But also no, he had known he couldn’t, because Nasimiyu was going and he couldn’t leave her to hunt alone. Why had she decided to go?! It was that bit of information from Jimin that had dragged Seokjin from his hiding place.
She sat atop her horse with only two of her guards at hand. Taehyung wasn’t far off, a horse lead in each hand, though he looked confused. Seokjin assumed it was concern over whether Seokjin would show and went right to him, hairs on the back of his neck prickling as his father and uncle no doubt noted his late arrival.
“I’m to go with you,” Taehyung said quietly.
“You? Why, you’re a stable boy,” Seokjin scoffed for any who might hear.
“I don’t know, your uncle said so.”
Seokjin glanced over at the two elder Kim men now. Uncle Dong-suk didn’t hide that he was watching.
“Do you think he–” Taehyung broke off and looked away, poorly hiding his nerves.
Seokjin slapped a hand on Taehyung’s shoulder and announced loudly, “Congratulations on winning the honor of joining us on the hunt! Every month we’ll take along someone new from the household staff so that you may all experience the wonder and prestige of spending a day skulking around in the dark, looking for things to kill that aren’t even good to eat. You’ll ride with me today, aren’t you lucky?”
“So lucky,” Taehyung murmured. “Here’s your horse…” He glanced at the path down to the hunting caves as if considering whether he ought to just set out for Paloma now. Seokjin thought he should. This did seem suspicious, for Dong-suk to take any notice of Taehyung. He had visited Priva a couple times since Seokjin brought Taehyung to live here and never even looked at the stablehand, but Seokjin had always assumed his uncle knew and didn’t give a shit, as he didn’t have a direct descendent in line for the throne anyway. Nothing changed for Dong-suk if it was Seokjin’s ass on the throne someday or Taehyung’s.
But this was a change. Either he hadn’t know before and now did, or he was trying to make a point that something had changed now, and Seokjin didn’t like it either way.
“Lady,” he called to Nasimiyu as he mounted his horse, one last prayer of bailing. “Are you well today?”
Nasimiyu’s brow knit as she demanded, clearly offended, “I am, why do you ask?”
“Are you sure this is how you want to spend a day? We might do… anything else your heart desires. Literally anything.”
“Oh there are Lord Jothi and Lord Theo, should we ride with them again?” Nasimiyu asked. “I do hope you’re able to catch something this time.”
“I caught your heart last time, can’t imagine what greater prize there exists then–”
“Let’s ride!” Seokjin’s father called as if recognizing his son was still trying to weasel out of this. The two dozen mounts in the courtyard moved as one, Taehyung rushing to swing into his saddle and pulling into line next to Jungkook in Seokjin’s wake.
Conversation with Nasimiyu ran dry during the ride down. She didn’t seem much inclined to talk, giving him the suspicion he’d done something to anger her, but he couldn’t fix it because he didn’t know what. She hadn’t seemed angry at dinner last night.
“You decided to hunt alone?” he asked as they waited for servants to bring them weapons.
“I have my guards and you. Who else would I want?” Nasimiyu asked with what he thought might be feigned confusion.
“Last time you brought a couple of maids, didn’t you?”
“Yes and they all begged not to come again.” She said it so casually, Seokjin had no reason not to believe her. With any luck, Dulce was avoiding him the same way, and they would never cross paths again despite living in the same palace.
Yay?
Once in the grand entrance cave, Jungkook pulled his horse close to Seokjin and leaned as near he could to murmur, “It’s going to be impossible to keep an eye on Taehyung and you at the same time.”
Seokjin knew he was right. This was the easiest place in the world to kill someone. He’d always thought how stupid that man who’d tried to assassinate him had been, sending a pig to do it, when one could just do it from a ledge or around a corner and no one would ever catch you. It was a wonder more people weren’t killed here –though he had his suspicions that the dark rumors his great-grandfather had hunted men down here for sport might be very true. He suspected Grandfather had too, though the old bastard had died when Seokjin was young enough to not remember much about him except his ice-cold hands.
“Watch him closer,” Seokjin told Jungkook.
“Than–”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine. That’s your order.”
“Ok…” Jungkook said as he leaned back in his saddle. He didn’t look pleased about this but he’d never disobeyed an order before.
“I mean it. Jimin will watch after me,” Seokjin said, turning to his right-hand man.
Jimin let out a guffaw and asked, “Did you just assign me bodyguard status? You must be joking, haha.” He hesitated to accept the gun handed to him by a staff of the hunt before taking it with a look of disgust.
Nasimiyu, having heard some bits of this, asked, “Is there a problem? Why is your butler being a bodyguard?”
“It’s just a joke,” Seokjin assured her. “Are we ready? Let’s get a head start.”
“Don’t we have to wait for your father to–”
“I’m the prince so I’ll do as I please,” he said, full of shallow bravado. “Besides, I don’t want to ride with Theo and Jothi again. They were flirting with you last time.”
Nasimiyu looked surprisingly thrilled as she argued, “No they weren’t… were they? I don’t think so…”
“Eager to lead the charge, my son?” Dong-gun called, giving his horse a swift kick to catch up before Seokjin’s party made it through the first cave. Dong-suk pulled up beside his elder brother and Seokjin bit back his frustration.
Instead he teased, “Shall we make a competition of it, father?”
“I’d rather watch your technique and see the catch myself,” Dong-suk interjected, which was of course exactly the opposite of what Seokjin wanted. Did his uncle mean to shoot Taehyung himself?! He brought no guards, only the servant assigned to fetch his kills trotting along beside him, looking terrified by his assignment as if he too realized how disposable he was as a witness.
“Well you shall… certainly be in awe…” Seokjin stammered out as Drin too pulled forward.
“A full party, eh? Just like old times,” he beamed at Dong-suk. Dong-suk did not beam back. “He’s made good progress in arms since you were here last but his sharpshooting is second to none. Fantastic aim, that one’s got.”
Dong-gun clapped his hands and pulled his horse ahead, taking an uncontested lead that Seokjin had no choice at the moment but to follow –with every intention of carving Taehyung and Nasimiyu off to get “lost” down a side cave at the first chance.
Dong-gun and Dong-suk weren’t going to make it easy. They led them, practically boxed them in, down the central corridor, right past all the twisty windy smaller paths that would have made it easier to “take a wrong turn.” No one dared rush past them, so they were the first to enter the grand central cavern with its massive forest and craggy peak –not too dissimilar from the cavern he’d explored with Nasimiyu and Dulce and those bratty upstarts last time, so that an average person might think they were the same place. That was the danger with this place, it was a death trap if you didn’t have a good guide.
Dong-gun and Dong-suk wasted no time along the way shooting anything that moved, no hesitation. Despite his uncle’s constant criticism of Priva and its excesses, he loved the hunt. It was about the only time he saw his uncle smile, just a tight-lipped slant when a deathcry followed the crack of his rifle. He scowled when Dong-gun would get one first, their array of servants running to and fro in the dark with low lanterns trying to find whatever they’d felled or take the long way round to chase what lay strewn against the far cliffs.
“They’re going to shoot someone,” Nasimiyu gasped as a goat went stock still in the distance, illuminated by those shimmering blue lights overhead, then collapsed not too far off from a game master who raised his hands in a silent plea not to be shot next.
Seokjin’s father heard her and scoffed, “Never, Princess. You doubt our aim?”
In one swift motion he’d turned his rifle towards Taehyung on his horse and fired, knocking Taehyung’s hat clean off. A pinch from taking Taehyung’s head with it, most likely.
Taehyung didn’t scream, just tightened his hold on his horse as it took a couple nervous steps.
Seokjin screamed loud enough for both of them. He shouted, “Ah ya, what’s that!? You take aim at our staff guest? Are you confused, old man? Aim your gun that way!” His heart pounded in his chest, his fear urging him to take flight and trust Taehyung to follow and get away from this place. He’d brought his only living brother into a deathtrap, that’s what he’d just done. Was their own father the threat, not Dong-suk? Seokjin was shocked by what had just happened.
His father laughed and pointed out, “See? Horse or man, Privan stallions are made of stern stuff.”
Nasimiyu’s horror showed on her face and Seokjin was glad his father couldn’t see it, afraid it would only encourage him.
“Onwards,” Seokjin gritted out and pulled his horse forward, nudging Taehyung to ride beside him, against the wall.
Seokjin fucking hated it here.
It wasn’t long before Nasimiyu nudged her horse up beside him, forcing Taehyung to fall back, which was probably for the best anyway.
“Shoot something,” she hissed at him.
“What?”
“We’re here to hunt, so hunt, or they’re going to be shooting at you next,” she whispered harshly. “The whole thing is a test, isn’t it? Your uncle is watching you so do something!”
Seokjin didn’t know how to explain a lifetime of misery and fear of his uncle to her. He didn’t think she’d be impressed anyway. What was he going to tell her, that anything more intelligent than a fish he found nauseating to kill? It wasn’t like they were killing to eat out of necessity down here. The game alway tasted like rocks.
He was glad she realized there were politics going on but disappointed she wanted him to play into them, even though he recognized she was probably right.
Drin was right that his aim was good; if he aimed true, he could fell something quickly, appease his father and uncle, impress his bride-to-be, and maybe protect Taehyung in case that had been meant as some kind of weird show of power.
“Very well,” he murmured. “Yes, it’s about time I show off my marksmanship.” He took his time loading his gun as their horses dawdled after the others. He looked around for something inoffensive to murder, but the blue lights gave everything the same unearthly glow and made it hard to distinguish a mouse from a monkey in the trees. He looked at the ridge instead, and in doing so noted a something-or-other silhouetted against the stream trickling through the center of this stretch of cavern.
“Perfect shot, I should think,” Dong-suk mused from ahead, his horse blocking the path for everyone. His gaze tore into Seokjin, digging in deep, finding him lacking as always.
Seokjin raised his gun and aimed. It didn’t matter what it was at this point, he didn’t have a way out without further ridicule. His brother’s life might be in danger. He had to pull the trigger.
He hesitated.
A crack erupted, bouncing around them, echoing in Seokjin’s ears. The black lump slipped from the tree branch. Seokjin wanted to do the same from his horse but remained frozen.
“Fantastic shot, my son!” Dong-gun cheered. “Go fetch it, whatever it was. An owl?”
“I hope not…” Seokjin joked vaguely, and resisted looking except out of his periphery at Taehyung shoving the smoking barrel of his gun out of view under the pretense he was looking down the barrel still trying to find something to shoot.
“That was a great shot, Your Highness,” he called over his shoulder to Seokjin.
“Marvelous,” Nasimiyu agreed. She gave him a smirk, leaving him unsure if she had been fooled or not.
“Hm,” his uncle said. Seokjin doubted he was fooled but either way, didn’t say anything.
It was a kestrel. Beautiful. Seokjin hadn’t even actually killed it and still looked away.
They rode on, into a smaller cave called The Aviary thanks to the hundreds of birds that roosted in the trees that grew up and the vines that dangled down and the clear space in between.
“Can’t miss in here,” Dong-gun called back. “Want a go, Princess? I think your rifle’s still cold.”
“Of course!” she called back. “I’ve just been watching to learn the layout of the caves.” Seokjin started to tell her she didn’t have to –he’d take the attention away– but Nasimiyu lifted her rifle and fired once– twice– nothing. She handed it to her servant to reload, hand waving for them to hurry. Seokjin didn’t think she’d aimed at anything and decided she must be firing wide.
Except her next shot connected. Seokjin didn’t see what it was as he had been watching her face, but the cheer went up, he heard the broken cry behind him, and he saw Nasimiyu’s face –shocked, horrified, for only a moment, and then triumphant. Had she had a change of heart or pulled on a mask?
The bird was brought to her, a beautiful yellow-feathered song bird that draped across her hands, a bright messy red spot on its stomach where her bullet had punctured and killed. She stared at it and then at Seokjin, like she wasn’t sure what to do with this.
“What is it?”
“We call them Sun Singers,” Seokjin told her. “They sing every morning when the sun rises but not down here. They can’t see the sun so they never sing.” Do you understand how fucking sad that is? He was afraid she wouldn’t get it. He felt an innate certainty Dulce would.
“My lady, do you wish to have it stuffed?” the servant asked her.
Her face flickered with emotions he couldn’t name as she asked, “Can it not be eaten?”
“No, they only sing, they aren’t good for eating.”
“Take it away,” she said, thrusting it back at the servant. Dong-gun and Dong-suk had both brought down geese and Taehyung a duck. Rifle cracks left and right made Seokjin flinch. And the niggling worry in his stomach that his uncle knew he’d faked the shot earlier. He felt his uncle’s eyes on him even when they weren’t, the man sitting proudly on his horse obnoxiously nearby, in between Drin and Taehyung. Shit, he didn’t want his uncle anywhere near Taehyung!
In a hurry to cause a commotion and separate them, Seokjin raised his rifle. He’d shoot a bird, a duck if he could manage it, and invite his uncle over to inspect the bird and feel his warm rifle for proof he’d shot it, and then growl at Jungkook and Jimin to bookend Taehyung and not leave his side until they got out of this place.
There, a bird perfectly arching into view. Seokjin aimed, calculated, and pulled the trigger.
No one would be able to say whether it was the shot that spooked the horse or not, except that Jungkook would swear the horse jumped before the shot and Seokjin believed him because Privan horses didn’t spook. It was too quick. He was certain there had been nothing even close to his line of firing at the moment he pulled the trigger and yet suddenly there was Drin, nearly taking a bullet through the head.
This time Seokjin didn’t scream, just dropped from his horse and ran over as Drin did the same, slapping at his head like a bee had stung him.
“Damn horse!” Drin shouted.
Seokjin grabbed his arms but Drin shoved him away in his startle, leaving a bloody handprint on Seokjin’s arm.
I’ve killed him. I’ve fucking killed him.
“Your head’s still on,” Dong-suk called, his voice cutting through the chaos. Seokjin reached for Drin again but Dong-gun took hold of him first and shone a light to the back of Drin’s head where the bullet had grazed but not penetrated. A red line across his scalp wept blood.
“I… I’m sorry…” Seokjin stammered, stumbling backwards.
Suddenly Drin laughed and gestured at Dong-suk, “That’s right, old man. I told you he’s got a good aim, eh? Bends bullets in mid-flight. Could have blown my head off thanks to that damn horse startling!”
But it didn’t make sense. Seokjin was too horrified to figure out what would. All he knew was that he’d almost killed his arms master, one of his friends. He didn’t know how he would have dealt with that. He couldn’t comprehend it.
Drin planted a shaking hand on Seokjin’s shoulder and laughed, “Good one, Sir. Think I’ll head back and get my rock stitched up now, no more hunting competition from me today!”
“I’ll go back with you,” Seokjin insisted.
“Nah, don’t bother. Still need to get your duck for dinner like you vowed!”
A crack over their heads echoed, followed shortly by the thump of a carcass hitting the path not far off. Taehyung lowered his smoking gun.
“I saved you the trouble, Your Highness,” Taehyung said to Seokjin, his brow lowered and serious. “There’s a duck for you.”
Uncle Dong-suk slid from the horse himself to pick it up and mused, “Nice shot, boy.”
“Great. That’s the end of the day for me. Nasimiyu, will you accompany me back to the palace as well? You come too, my horse will only settle for you,” Seokjin rattled off, calling his people to him, prepared for his father and uncle to protest his rapid departure. But terror strengthened his blood to iron and he would have shouted down his own father to get out of there
He’d almost killed Drin.
By the time he was in his saddle, Dong-gun and Dong-suk were laughing at these “children with their brief stamina” and venturing further into the cave.
“I’ll lead us out,” he said. “Drin, are you able to stay horsed?”
“It’s not that bloody bad, nothing a stiff drink won’t pull me through,” the man insisted, sounding more like himself as he fished a flask out of his saddlebag. He needed help getting back into his saddle after the servants finished tying the makeshift bandage around his head, but once there seemed stable enough.
“Do you know the way out?” Nasimiyu asked. She’d been quiet for a while. Seokjin had forgotten all about her, to be honest. What would she make of this? But it almost seemed like she’d missed it all; she kept glancing at the game bag attached to her saddle. She reached out and pushed the golden feathers peeking out deeper into the sack.
“I do,” Seokjin said simply and pulled his horse ahead.
It wasn’t until they were safely in the sunny courtyard, Drin off to the hands of the palace doctors, that Jungkook came right to Seokjin’s side and said quietly, “The horse jumped before the gunshot.”
“I almost killed him,” Seokjin rushed out, grabbing Jungkook’s arm. He felt less steady now than he had in the cave.
“It wouldn’t have been your fault. I’m telling you, the horse jumped at nothing.”
“I don’t think it was nothing,” Taehyung argued. “But whatever he did, I couldn’t see it clearly.”
“Who?” Seokjin asked even though he already knew the answer.
“Your uncle. Had to be him, but I couldn’t see it…”
“There were other servants around and it was dark,” Jimin pointed out. “Could have been someone else.”
“Why would anyone else give Drin’s horse a kick? Everyone around here likes Drin,” Jungkook argued.
It was Taehyung who swallowed and suggested, “Maybe they didn’t mean to kick his horse. Maybe it was supposed to be mine.”
The suggestion made Seokjin feel even clammier than he already did. As bad as it would have been to kill his swordsmaster, to kill Taehyung would be worse. He wasn’t sure he could live with it. He didn’t even want to kill a duck.
Seokjin didn’t know what to do about any of this. He didn’t want Taehyung to go, but clearly he wasn’t safe right now. If Dong-suk wanted him dead, nowhere would be safe though.
“Jungkook, stay with Taehyung. I’m going to my room so I don’t need a guard. Taehyung you should… pack.”
Taehyung’s face shifted quickly into complaint, as if he hadn’t just faced his own death once or possibly twice.
“But I can’t leave yet.”
“Or die? You have to go if I have to wrap you in a carpet and toss you on a ship myself.” He paused, watching Nasimiyu speaking to the servant near her own horse, gesturing with disdain at the game bag the servant kept trying to press on her.
Taehyung stomped off without further comment but clearly pissed. As if Seokjin wanted him to go! He couldn’t put into words how much he wanted Taehyung to stay here. He’d never been good at expressing brotherly devotion of any sort, and Seok-ho was the brother he’d been with for most of his life, but Taehyung must know that Seokjin cared very much for him! They would always be brothers, even if they couldn’t be in the same city, at least for now.
Nasimiyu was gone. Seokjin was glad. He didn’t feel like facing her right now either. He wished he could just disappear. Even his bedroom wasn’t far remote enough, but it’s the only place he had, and so he went.
Nasimiyu bit back her sigh when the summons from Lady Zselyke came. The summons. Obviously it wasn’t worded quite as such but the intention was clear, and for now she had to endure it because until she actually wed Seokjin, the two of them were in an odd inversion of their proper roles. Lady Zselyke was the only female member of the Kim family, and older, and clearly extending her hand in an attempt to be some sort of mentor.
Annoying.
Nasimiyu had begged off the last invitation(s), and planned to do so again, claiming exhaustion from the hunt that morning. A week wouldn’t have been enough time to recover from all that and it had only been a few hours.
But the invitation had included a warning that the party was at risk, and anyway what else was she going to do, pace her room and try to get that dead bird out of her mind? How stupid to be bothered by a dead bird. Not that she thought the bird was the worst part of it, but that was the ghost her mind chose to haunt her with in every still moment right now, rather than the almost two deaths she had witnessed, one at her own fiance’s hand and the other by her father-in-law’s atrocious bravado.
So she went. Lady Zselyke wanted to discuss some of the details of the wedding party –unavoidable. The wedding itself was being carefully managed by the planner, but the party afterwards was supposed to be planned by Nasimiyu as a first show of her critically important role… as the royal party planner.
Annoying.
Nasimiyu put herself into a dress that already had a tricky seam on the verge of ripping, intentionally, so she could do so after an acceptable period of time and excuse herself to have it fixed. That was something Dulce had taught her early on –Nasimiyu could recall it in vivid detail: shortly after they’d finished fucking, Dulce had gone to get her trousers and a heavy ball had fallen out of her pocket and emitted a horrible stench that drove them both coughing from the room. A literal stink bomb. Laughing, Dulce had explained one should always plan an exit, though it was regrettable, she had not intended to use it with Nasimiyu. At least not that day.
Always plan your exit.
Even from an romantic entanglement?, Nasimiyu had teased.
Always.
Nasimiyu frowned at the maid who stepped ahead to open the door of Lady Zselyke’s parlor. Babs. She had Babs, hated that name, hated how overly eager the woman was to do the things Nasimiyu wanted ahead of her even asking. She didn’t like maids who acted like she was a cruel or unfair mistress when she really tried not to be unreasonable. She tried to treat them kindly. For example, when they had all looked horrified about who she would take on the hunt with her since it wasn’t going to be Dulce, she’d decided to take none of them. Kindness! It wasn’t like she wanted to be there either, but she needed the respect of the king and that nightmare military brother of his.
Anyway she had strongly believed Seokjin would beg off anyway and then she would decline the invitation without him… but he’d bloody gone! And shot nothing and nearly killed someone. What sort of man took credit for a stablehand’s shot? Not that she was going to point that out in the moment.
ANNOYING.
Nasimiyu sat across from Lady Zselyke in the elegant, tastefully decorated parlor. So much of the palace was ostentatious but these rooms were slightly less so.
“Did you decorate in here?” Nasimiyu asked when Lady Zselyke had said nothing, only watched with her hands folded, clearly waiting for something.
“I did.”
“Did you decorate the rest of the palace?”
Lady Zselyke’s lips gave a tight tremble before she answered, “Some… it’s largely set by the late Queen’s tastes and the King’s though, and the King requires me to uphold it.”
“That’s a shame. You have lovely taste,” Nasimiyu said. Then, realizing it would be easy to read an insult to her royal in-laws from what she’d said, she appended, “I just mean–”
“You don’t have to excuse flattery towards me. I appreciate a discerning eye. The Queen had other interests. The King has other talents.” She said it in such a coy way that Nasimiyu wanted to recoil from; it sounded sexual. As far as she knew, there was no sex between these cousins, but the gutcheck made her tread a bit more cautiously. She wondered what Dulce would make of that idea…
“Well soon it will be yours to redecorate the palace as you like,” Lady Zselyke mused, looking around her room as though trying to picture it with Nasimiyu’s style. “Will you make it look very different, do you think?”
“Do you mean like home? It would take a monumental effort to make this Privan palace look Marvonese.”
“You will have all the money and workers you could hope for at your disposal. You could make this palace look exactly like… there.” The word sounded loaded, like a single syllable conveyed all Lady Zselyke had to say about Marvonese style. In short, she didn’t like it.
Nasimiyu felt insulted and said archly, “It ought to reflect the convergence of mine and Seokjin’s styles, don’t you think? Where is it you spent your childhood, Lady Zselyke? I don’t think it was here, was it?”
“Sartia.”
“Is that what this style is? I’ve never been to Sartia.”
“I don’t think it would be to your liking, since you don’t like the sea.”
Nasimiyu found it interesting Zselyke knew that about her. She had certainly never admitted that to anyone except Dulce. It made her wonder if Dulce and Zselyke had gotten close. She certainly didn’t know everything Dulce had gotten up to. She couldn’t be trusted after all; maybe she was fucking the king’s cousin to get information, who even knew with that girl anymore?
“Sugar?” Lady Zselyke offered
“No, thank you. The tea here is already so sweet,” Nasimiyu quickly intervened, reaching for the tea cup Lady Zselyke had poured.
“You don’t like sweet things?”
“Not particularly, no.”
“The world runs on sweet things,” Lady Zselyke said, which Nasimiyu didn’t even pretend to understand. Her face must have shown it, because Zselyke clarified, “Any party must have sweet things. The nobles here prefer them. If you mean not to have sweets…”
Nasimiyu’s nose crinkled before she decided, “Why don’t you just choose the sweets for the wedding party then. That’s what we’re here to talk about, right?”
“Yes, we need to, I’m afraid we’re woefully behind schedule, especially if you have any grand ambitions.”
“I really don’t.”
“You should.”
“I’ll be honest, Lady Zselyke, I love attending parties, but I do not love planning them,” Nasimiyu said because she might as well be upfront about it.
Lady Zselyke looked aghast and argued, “You must learn to love it then, because it will be the most important thing you do as queen.”
“I hope that’s not true.”
“The delicate balance of maintaining power by managing the nobles– do you think Seokjin will do that?!” Zselyke screeched at her.
“He’s… charming, isn’t it?” Nasimiyu tried. She had not expected this cousin to shout at her and it caught her off-guard.
“Charming my left foot!” In her anger, she yanked up the teapot and refilled Nasimiyu’s empty cup and seemed to have forgotten Nasimiyu didn’t like sugar because she spooned some right in as she continued to berate, “Do you mean to say you won’t learn these skills and plan to let the social structure of the palace just die? The nobles here expect a certain schedule of entertainment! When important guests arrive from other places, they must be tended to! They–”
“It’s not that I don’t recognize how important it is,” Nasimiyu assured her, lifting her cup. Her own mother had certainly never yelled like this and she didn’t know what to do about it. It ought to fill her with rage but she was genuinely just stupefied. “I just don’t…”
“Like it?!
“Well no, not the planning part. I don’t have any talent for it and you do. Do you like doing it?”
“It is one of the most sacred tasks I’ve had since coming to the palace after the late Queen passed. Her taste in decor may have been questionable but she threw marvelous parties and I knew I needed to carefully maintain that so that her death wouldn’t pitch the nobility and thus the country into absolute chaos.”
“Well if you like it and you’re good at it, why don’t you keep doing it?”
Lady Zselyke’s brow knitted as she explained, “Because I will not be here.”
“Why not?” Nasimiyu set the tea cup down without sipping it, intending to ask for a new one without sugar.
“Because… because you will be queen and not want an older woman here interfering with your work…” Lady Zselyke had stopped yelling and suddenly looked uncertain. “You did not know I would be sent away?”
“Who would send you away? Not I.” Nasimiyu did her best to look sincere about it. Honestly she had no love for this stuffy older woman but it hadn’t occurred to her that Zselyke would be gone. She saw at once how dismal it would be to take on the things Zselyke already managed. Dreary enough that enduring her was likely worth it. Besides, she managed Dong-gun and Seokjin to a degree, and even Dong-suk. She knew a great deal. Maybe it was at least worth keeping her around until they were gone. Nasimiyu couldn’t see Zselyke supporting her as queen if the Kim men were dead, and she might not want that, but… she might. Zselyke might do it, if she didn’t think Nasimiyu had any hands in the deaths. Regardless of her personal feelings about Zselyke, she knew things, she seemed actually quite good at what she did. That could be useful.
Lady Zselyke was watching her with unmasked confusion now and clarified, “You would not make me leave? Queen Soon-hee did the moment she married Dong-gun.”
“Why?”
“Well, that… that’s not something I can know…” she instantly fumbled out, clearly hiding some truth or at least suspicion. “It’s tradition, though. A queen mother will be sent to retire in Sartia and I am almost like a queen mother.” As soon as she said it, she looked like she regretted it.
Nasimiyu grinned. She felt like she had just found a very pretty knife.
“I think you are too,” she agreed. “In a good way. I can’t imagine running this palace without you, it never occurred to me I would need to. I don’t want to. I refuse.”
Zselyke’s light skin turned a fascinating shade of pink, like she’d sat in the sun too long.
“Oh! But…”
“Maybe if the King retires at some point to someplace nice like Sartia, you would want to go with him, but I expect he will remain on the throne for a long time even once Seokjin and I marry.”
“Yes, you won’t be queen but you’ll be the crown princess which is the same thing in the absence of a queen,” Zselyke countered.
“I don’t think tradition should dictate what we do when it’s not… convenient. I don’t see why you should be sent away or robbed of the duties you enjoy just because I’m here.” She mindlessly picked up the teacup again. “I can easily see a world where you maintain your status here and oversee the things you care so much about and are recognized and appreciated for it, which frees me up to attend to the things I care about –like supporting Seokjin, for instance. Raising his children.” She suspected Zselyke would struggle to accept an ambitious political princess just yet.
“He does need a great deal of support,” Lady Zselyke said slowly. “The kingly duties don’t come naturally to him…”
Nasimiyu smiled and nodded, agreeing, “He can learn with a wife nudging him along, and King Dong-gun can rest easier seeing his son take his future role more seriously.”
“Two women have never run the palace together before,” Zselyke said. Her words seemed to be poking at Nasimiyu, trying to find a lie or a threat.
“Women in Marvono know how to work together and rely on each other. I very much want to rely on you, Lady Zselyke. I wouldn’t dream of replacing you. Your balls would be a crucial loss to Priva!”
“I…” Lady Zselyke blinked rapidly at her, heavily stained eyelashes leaving residue on the tops of her cheeks. Clearly none of this had occurred to her.
“Together we can keep the Kim line respectable and strong, don’t you think?” Nasimiyu suggested as her finishing move. She lifted her tea cup to take a dramatic sip.
“Oh dear!” Lady Zselyke gasped, lunging forward. “You don’t like sugar! I put sugar in there! Let me trade that for you.” She wrenched the cup out of Nasimiyu’s hand in the blink of an eye and set it hastily on another saucer. “I think eventually you will need to take over these things from me… but maybe not… and in the meantime you can learn from me. It doesn’t seem you’ve been trained in any of these types of things. Things must be done very differently in Marvono…” She sloshed a little tea out of the cup in her haste to pour Nasimiyu a new one.
The door flung open before Nasimiyu could respond and in strode Mindeulle. Nasimiyu did not miss the way Lady Zselyke’s face hardened, despite Mindeulle’s bright smile and polite curtsy.
“I’m so sorry to intrude, but I’ve been looking for the Princess. Might I have a word?”
“Why don’t you join us?” Lady Zselyke offered instead. “We need to discuss wedding plans and then you can have her.”
“It will only take me a moment.”
“It can wait, I’m sure. Have a seat.” There was an edge to Lady Zselyke’s words that got Mindeulle to promptly do so. “Sugar?”
“No thank you,” Mindeulle muttered as Lady Zselyke poured her a cup. Servants fluttered in at a snap of her finger to refill the pot, which was getting low. Flowers and leaves danced inside the glass pot, briefly mesmerizing Nasimiyu.
“We are discussing Nasimiyu’s elaborate wedding party and what will best capture the deep love she and Seokjin share.”
Do we? was on the tip of Nasimiyu’s tongue. She didn’t say it, but Mindeulle gave her an amused smile as if she had, which gave her a start.
“I’m sure it’s going to be beautiful,” Mindeulle said.
“The wedding of a century,” Zselyke agreed. Nasimiyu did not understand why Zselyke sounded so defensive about it, unless this was just her enthusiasm about remaining here as a royal party planner showing through. “Seokjin has told me to spare no expense, he wants the world to understand how deep his love and devotion to his bride are.”
“That’s lovely,” Mindeulle said.
“It is,” Zselyke agreed.
The fact they hated each other seemed very obvious to Nasimiyu and now it was her turn to smile. If they both remained in the palace with her after she married, that would be perfect. The two of them hating each other would make them eager to be her most trusted and relied upon, and she could trust they would never join forces to work against her.
It amused her to watch them politely bicker as more details of the party were discussed; Mindeulle seemed just as eager for it to be perfect and her own suggestions seemed to rile Lady Zselyke into even grander plans. Nasimiyu would have been happy to eat her olive and thyme biscuits and let them have at it and giggle through whatever resulting wedding party they planned but the door opened again and in came Lidmila.
“It’s a regular party isn’t it? I didn’t plan for this,” Lady Zselyke murmured as Lidmila curtsied and sat in the final chair at the table without being asked.
“I apologize for my unexpected arrival. My parents are here but I wanted to find the Princess for company instead. Is it all right if I join?”
“Yes yes of course. What business do your parents have here?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. Something with the tax collector or the city planner?”
“That seems like business for your father, not your mother,” Lady Zselyke said.
“Sometimes my mother helps with those things, I think…”
Lady Zselyke shook her head at this and sighed, “It’s quite a business, being a wife.”
“Have you never regretted not marrying?” Mindeulle asked, a twinkle coming to her eye that hooked Nasimiyu’s attention.
“Heavens, no! Of course it’s a high calling to be a wife, however…” Lady Zselyke looked embarrassed by her answer and like she wasn’t sure how to respond. “I’m sure you will all make good little wives. My hands are quite full supporting the King.”
Honestly, did she hear herself? Probably Dulce could find out in an instant what the real relationship was there but Nasimiyu was not sure she wanted to know.
“But what will you do once Nasimiyu is queen?” Mindeulle asked. “You won’t be needed here anymore.”
“Actually I’ve asked Lady Zselyke to stay and support just the way she does now,” Nasimiyu quickly interjected.
Lady Zselyke gave Mindeulle a smirk and agreed, “Of course I have accepted. Nasimiyu recognizes the value of this work and her own untrained skill for it so it will be an honor.” She dumped a spoonful of sugar in Mindeulle’s drink and poured more black for Nasimiyu. Lidmila had not yet touched the cup on her saucer, Nasimiyu’s discarded sugared tea from earlier, now gone cold.
“Oh, I don’t like sugar in my tea,” Mindeulle said. “May I have a different glass?”
“Dear, I forgot. Well it’s only a little bit of sugar,” Lady Zselyke dismissed.
“I’m sure we can get a new tea cup,” Nasimiyu laughed.
“I don’t mind sugar and I didn’t add any to mine. Why don’t we trade, Mindeulle? It’s a little cold though,” Lidmila suggested, passing hers across the table.
“Don’t be silly, that’s a perfect way to get sick.” Zselyke tutted and blocked the pass with her hand, nudging both cups back towards their original owners. Nasimiyu could not make sense of such crazy behavior but thought it was rather funny. Lidmila and Mindeulle seemed briefly mystified and set their cups back in their sauces.
“I’m not very thirsty. I’ll have a cookie instead,” Mindeulle decided. She nudged her tea setting closer to Lady Zselyke to make room for a plate, helping herself to several different pastries from the trays in the center.
“I’ve had enough tea and I can assure you I’m not ill,” Nasimiyu offered, pushing her cup closer to Mindeulle. “I’ve taken no sugar so you can have my cup.”
“Oh, there’s sugar in mine after all,” Lidmila realized, looking into her cup.
“Have you tasted it?” Lady Zselyke asked her, her voice rising so abruptly in pitch it startled them all. She pounded her chest and couch delicately into a napkin. “Did you like the tea? How much did you try?”
“I haven’t yet. Is it very special? Is it better to taste it without sugar then?” Lidmila considered.
Lady Zselyke nodded and reached for the cup, insisting, “Yes, you’ll like it better without. That’s the Princess’ old cup. We’ll get you a fresh cup.”
“I do like sugar and sweet things though, is it bitter? I don’t mind that it’s cold for a first taste so it won’t burn my tongue.”
“Try it without,” Lady Zselyke insisted, snatching the tea cup away from her. She went to set it on her own saucer but paused, hand hovering over hers and Mindeulle’s cups now right next to each other.
Nasimiyu laughed, “It’s like a game. I’m not sure which is yours anymore, they’re all mixed up. It doesn’t matter though does it? I’m sure we’re all healthy here and close companions can share a tea cup.” She hoped it would encourage a sort of bond between the group to begin forming. Lady Zselyke was older but not old. It would be good to have some close companions who weren’t all younger than herself. She could learn to like Zselyke, probably.
“Oh nonsense, we don’t have to go so far as trading tea cups,” Zselyke immediately intervened. “We need another setting!” she called to the servants with a clap of her hands. “Take these three away,” she commanded. “And bring a fresh bowl of sugar, Miss Lidmila likes her tea sweet.”
Lidmila giggled and pointed to the full sugar bowl, insisting, “I don’t need more than that in my tea!”
“If you like sweet things, I think raw sugar will taste better than this refined stuff,” Lady Zselyke told her. “Minor details matter. A subtle change can have a great impact, it’s an important lesson for young ladies.”
“My brother says the same thing,” Mindeulle chirped.
Lady Zselyke looked down her nose at Mindeulle and insisted, “I don’t think we need to talk about your brother’s words to young ladies. There is more to discuss than men.”
Nasimiyu reached out to grab Mindeulle’s hand, fully expecting her to launch from the table. She did not, just stared at Zselyke so blankly that it felt menacing.
“Like Nasimiyu’s wedding! Oh, but that’s to a man…” Lidmila mused with a thoughtful frown. It was endearing. Nasimiyu found herself chuckling under her breath. Honestly she would have expected to find someone with Lidmila’s innocence obnoxious, but it was actually refreshing to be around someone so sincere and good-intentioned. Nasimiyu wasn’t used to those sorts of people. Lidmila might be one of the only truly good people she had ever met. Simple, but good.
Mindeulle must be on that list too, though the sharpness of her mind as she gradually revealed it made her seem less doe-eyed about the world. She too had that air of enthusiasm as she pressed Lady Zselyke on what else she was thinking of for Nasimiyu’s wedding, and if she intended to plan the honeymoon too. There was an edge to her Nasimiyu liked a lot.
“What do you mean by that? Of course I will, if you’d like me to, Nasimiyu darling.”
“You suggested Sartia before–”
“But you don’t like the sea, so… hm, I will think on it,” Zselyke said.
“You don’t like the sea?” Mindeulle and Lidmila both parroted.
“It’s all right. Maybe I should take Seokjin to Marvono instead…”
“Maybe you’d like Therepin more,” Mindeulle suggested. “It has the elegance and beauty and splendor of Sartia, but no seas.”
Zselyke looked repulsed and gasped, “Therepin is no place for a honeymoon!”
“Why, because you don’t like the government there? I’ve never honeymooned but I don’t think government is very involved…” Mindeulle tittered. Lidmila’s face opened up in surprised laughter and Zselyke seemed angry. “None of us have honeymooned, maybe we should ask someone else to plan it.”
“I am quite capable!” Zselyke scowled. “Less taunting me and more eating, girls, it’s important to keep our strength up until supper.”
“But our figures…” Lidmila pointed out.
Zselyke gave her a gentle smile and assured her, “You have nothing to worry about. And Therepin adheres to no such beauty standards, so Mindeulle’s prospects won’t be upset by some extra padding.”
“Not that I care about my weight, but why would I look for a husband in Therepin?” Mindeulle countered.
Nasimiyu ate her cookies and felt like this was all rather a lot of fun, watching the back and forth. Dulce would hate this, but she found it amusing.
“I suppose your brother and parents will, regardless.”
“They take into account my wishes. They’ll let me choose the partner I want.”
“Will they?” Zselyke pressed and it seemed so pointed, Nasimiyu could tell she must know something and be taunting Mindeulle with it. She wanted to know too –not to taunt, but just to know.
“What does that mean?” Nasimiyu intervened as Mindeulle looked troubled. “Do you have a personal tragedy, Mindeulle? You don’t need to say at the table but if you’d like to talk in private– if there’s anything I can do to aid you–”
Mindeulle pressed a hand to her flushed cheek and insisted, “No, Princess, there’s nothing. Lady Zselyke only speaks in riddles to make it sound like she knows more than she does.”
“Didn’t you come here to find a husband? To Priva, I mean?” Lidmila suggested, perhaps in an attempt to help. “There are so many men here who I’m sure would be honored by your attention.”
“I came with my brother,” Mindeulle said simply, even though Nasimiyu vaguely thought she’d heard Mindeulle mention before she wanted to marry here and remain. Hadn’t that been a hope she had for the ball? She couldn’t recall clearly now.
“Well you certainly aren’t going to find a husband spending all your time with your brother and Seokjin,” Lady Zselyke scoffed. “They are related and taken. I suspect your parents will call you home soon for a match.”
“Not if I don’t wish to marry,” Mindeulle countered. “You have never married, Lady Zselyke, and you spoke moments ago about it as a burden. Surely you had your reasons?”
Lady Zselyke filled their tea cups and said airly, “I did. There are many types of love which are worthy of a life’s devotion. Your devotion to the prince is admirable but inappropriate now that he will have a wife.”
“I–!” Mindeulle gasped. She looked quickly to Nasimiyu and insisted, “It’s not that, I promise. He is like a brother to me!”
“I know that,” Nasimiyu assured her. For all she knew, Mindeulle did have a crush on Seokjin, but it failed to trigger any jealousy in Nasimiyu. There didn’t seem to be anything adult about it if it was there, more like childish admiration. She hadn’t witnessed a single ambitious attempt, nor did Seokjin act any way towards her but brotherly. “I’m sure Lady Zselyke didn’t mean to be a gossip,” Nasimiyu admonished, arching her eyebrow at the older woman smirking to herself as she served Mindeulle more tea.
“Oh yes, I meant nothing by it, except that with men, you can never be too careful. You will have to curb your closeness with him so that it doesn’t cause… problems,” Zselyke scolded as she dumped a heaping spoonful of sugar thoughtlessly into Mindeulle’s tea. “I’m sorry I ruffled your feathers. Have some tea and settle down about it, have another pastry.”
“You’ve put sugar in it again,” Nasimiyu said, deftly reaching for Mindeulle’s tea cup and handing over her own. “Mine has none, we can trade.”
“You don’t like sweet things,” Mindeulle said. Nasimiyu found herself surprised each time the people around her knew things about her she had not explicitly told them. It made her feel very special and admired and flattered her into insisting,
“It’s not a hard rule. My lips are plenty puckered by now, some sweet on my tongue may be a relief.”
“No, the tea is much better without that refined stuff–” Lady Zselyke said, rising from her seat and reaching for Nasimiyu’s cup.
Lidmila suddenly kicked the table hard and cried out, “Ah! My ankle got caught in my skirt and I’ve hit my shin…”
The flurry of commotion was all startling enough that Nasimiyu put her cup down, laughing, “Is there alcohol in the tea? Why is everyone so clumsy suddenly?”
“There is certainly nothing like that in the tea,” Zselyke sniffed. “But if you tire of it, I can bring coffee or wine or juice or–”
“Nothing else, thank you,” Nasimiyu dismissed.
“She’s right that the raw sugar is better though,” Lidmila said, still rubbing her leg beneath the table as she lifted her saucer and passed it over. “Let’s trade.”
“I really don’t mind.”
“You are going to be queen, Nasimiyu, you should let those around you take care of simple things,” Mindeulle insisted. So Nasimiyu was shamed into trading teacups with Lidmila, who looked adorably proud to have made the swap and settled herself with the apparently less-desirable white sugared tea.
However before she could even have a sip, Lady Zselyke reached for a pastry but her dragging sleeve managed to upset the whole sugar bowl and Lidmila’s tea cup.
“Oh goodness,” Zselyke gasped. “I’ve made a mess of my own tea…” She gave Nasimiyu the kindest smile of their acquaintance so far and laughed, “Maybe the tea did get us all a little drunk! It’s only flowers in there… maybe it’s the talk of weddings going to our heads!”
The table was soaked now though, they’d all logged themselves with unsweetened tea, and the pastries were going stale. Nasimiyu thought everyone seemed relieved when she suggested tea come to a close for now, and promised to meet with Zselyke again the next day to resume their wedding chat, and suggested Lidmila take a turn with her in the garden, and Mindeulle too if she wished.
“I would love to, but I really only need to ask you a question and then return a letter to my parents,” Mindeulle said as the three women left Zselyke’s parlor.
“That’s right, you said you needed to speak with me.”
“Yes… privately, if that’s all right? It’s about… some private business,” she murmured, glancing at Lidmila. “I hope you understand.”
“Of course. Why don’t I meet you in the garden, Princess? Have your servant bring a parasol though, it looks like it might rain.”
“Don’t you need one too then?”
“Oh… maybe I can share yours? I didn’t bring one…”
“I’m sure we can,” Nasimiyu said, or else she would bring another, or they could find someplace else to walk, it really wasn’t a big deal. Lidmila seemed content with this plan and flitted off, hopefully not to wander out into the rain before Nasimiyu arrived. She was sweet but perhaps not the brightest.
Mindeulle insisted on leading Nasimiyu into a room with a closed door before she admitted, “I’m sorry if I seem so cryptic, but I’m looking into this mystery with my brother and Çiğdem.”
Nasimiyu instantly cringed and suggested gently, “Does your brother know? He may not want you poking into his personal affairs…”
“So you think he did it then?” Mindeulle caught.
“I don’t know but…” Nasimiyu thought of Namjoon fucking Dulce at the masquerade ball. “I don’t know him well enough to say anything regarding his relationships with women but I think we can all move on.”
“We can’t move on. You saw how Lady Zselyke treated me at tea, and she’s not the only one.”
“You think it was because of that? I suppose that comment was rather… barbed.”
“Lady Zselyke already dislikes me and Namjoon because of the trouble with the Prince’s former fiance… but he has you now, that can be behind us. But this… this wasn’t him either, I’m sure of it! And now the families here want even less to do with us because they think my brother has a habit of leading women on, which he most definitely does not! He’s been framed both times and I intend to figure out who’s doing it.”
“I think you should let it go,” Nasimiyu admitted.
“But we’re being ostracized.”
“Does he care about something like that?”
“No, but… but I do. If society here shuns me I’ll have to go back to Therepin. I want to stay here.”
“I’ll protect you and your reputation, it doesn’t need to be tied to your brother’s.”
“You don’t believe me and won’t help me,” Mindeulle frowned, taking a step away.
“I didn’t say that, I just think…”
“Çiğdem’s family are not kind people. They aren’t the sort of people I want as family enemies. They are going to make you choose and if I can’t prove my brother is innocent, you’ll have to choose them.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
“There are politics here you don’t understand yet,” Mindeulle said. When Nasimiyu shifted unhappily, Mindeulle hurried to add, “Only because you are new here and you aren’t used to these families. They are sensitive and vengeful. The only reason they haven’t outright attacked us yet is because it means admitting Çiğdem was writing letters to a man, so they’re trying to figure out something else to pin on us.”
“I’m not interested in their petty accusations–”
“But if you anger them, they will interfere with your marriage,” Mindeulle insisted. “They’re powerful enough to do it.” Mindeulle paused and seemed to think about what she said, then shook her head to clear it. “I need to clear my brother’s name. Please let me at least try.”
Nasimiyu sighed and conceded only, “What help are you asking from me?”
“I need the letters from Çiğdem. So I can compare to my brother’s handwriting and language and prove they aren’t his.” Nasimiyu had to admit that was a good plan.
“What makes you think she still has them?”
Mindeulle looked stunned and nearly laughed, “Why wouldn’t she? Don’t you keep every letter anyone has ever written you?”
“No one has ever written me letters,” Nasimiyu admitted. “Is that strange?”
Mindeulle seemed to think it was very sad.
“Well… I believe she has them,” Mindeulle insisted. “I bet even though she’s angry, she still has them. She might give them to you if you ask.”
“I’m not that close with her.”
“Or if you ask Lidmila to ask for them, even better.”
“I don’t know…
“But Lidmila will do anything you say, she worships the ground you walk on.”
Nasimiyu had to admit that seemed true. So in the end, she agreed to try.
And as Mindeulle predicted, when Nasimiyu brought the subject up of investigating things herself with Lidmila as they strolled through the warm summer rain under a shared parasol, Lidmila readily vowed to try, too –no, to succeed! It wouldn’t be easy but she would convince Çiğdem to let them see the letters under the guise of Nasimiyu wanting to understand Namjoon’s sins for herself. Lidmila admitted Çiğdem seemed to be having a hard time letting go of it all and probably would be eager to share.
All the moving of social chess pieces left Nasimiyu exhausted by the time Lidmila left with her parents and Nasimiyu could finally flee to solitude. She tossed the parasol to the ground and slipped off her damp shoes as soon as she was through the door. She’d take a bath to get that humid sea-city slime off her skin, she decided, and called for the maids to draw the bath.
As she moved around her room undressing, trying not to notice how quiet it seemed in here lately without Dulce emerging from the shadows to slide into the bed or bath with her, she began to notice things. Little things, small things that someone without her eye for detail might not: her gowns twisted in the wardrobe in a way she nor the maids would ever leave them; her shoes lined up too perfectly when she only ever lazily kicked them off; the papers on the wrong side of the desk from where Dulce had sat writing a coded message to send to Prince Hamisi (Nasimiyu sure hadn’t touched them since then), obvious because Dulce was left handed and scratched things out hunched over the right corner of the desk like someone who’d barely learned to hold a pen.
Had someone been here?
She didn’t like that feeling. It didn’t just scare her, it angered her, this idea that someone had come into her room –somehow, despite the guards posted outside. She looked around herself, trying to determine what someone had been looking for, what they might have found, though there weren’t secret things to find. The letters from her mother were nothing but that, nothing notable in them. She didn’t think any of her jewelry was missing, at least none of her favorites. What else would they have taken?
“Did you girls clean in here today?” she asked as she shed her clothing for a bath. The two maids looked at each other, uncertain how to answer. “If someone did, they didn’t do a very good job. My gowns are tangled up in the wardrobe.”
“We’re sorry, Princess,” they quickly said. “We’ll fix it right away.”
Well, mystery solved then. Nasimiyu sank into the bath and washed it all away.
The palace was stifling.
Seokjin had almost killed a man.
Taehyung had almost been killed too.
He had to get out of here. Hiding in his room with the comfort of his fur babies wasn’t enough, but Jungkook wasn’t on duty so Seokjin couldn’t pull off his disguised anonymous jaunt into the city. It would be too much for him right now anyway. He needed to be alone but not alone… he didn’t have a solution for that.
Muhtar followed him at a bothersome distance, not quite far enough, as he set out for the sea wall. The sun was setting, drawing some touristy crowds to admire the vibrant hues brushed across the cloudy sky, but for the most part the people of Priva did not find a regular sunset anything remarkable. They saw this every day. They had other things to do.
Seokjin, however, still found it remarkable. He hoped the day never came that he forgot about the miracle of a sunset, how the air itself became orange and red and that honey warmth seeped into your skin. He paused once a respectable distance from the palace to take it in.
And then saw her.
He should keep walking, he knew immediately. He had no reason to approach. She sat there, legs dangling recklessly over the edge, face cast towards the sun and a hood on so that he shouldn’t have even recognized her. He could not have explained how he did. And he’d been avoiding her for days now! Muhtar was with him; he didn’t trust any of his bodyguards to keep his secrets the way he trusted Jungkook, and sitting to enjoy the sunset with the maid of his fiance was one of those things that deserved to be a secret. The last time he’d seen her, he was fucking said fiance. The last time he’d spoken to her, she’d been furious.
He should keep walking.
He fully intended to keep walking.
He eased himself down on the ledge beside her, careful not to lose his step and plummet to his death because that would just really be the icing on this shit-cake day.
She didn’t even glance at him, as if not surprised at all. Maybe she’d somehow sensed him standing behind him. She so rarely seemed surprised by anything.
She had looked surprised when she walked in on him and Nasimiyu.
“About what you saw…”
“I didn’t see anything,” she said, voice a low murmur weaving through the aggressive crash of waves against the rocks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
So it would be like that. Yes, that was for the best.
“I only see the sunset,” she told him.
“It’s a good one.”
They sat in silence for a while. Gradually Seokjin’s mortification settled into a dull hum in the back of his mind, beat away by the waves. That experience seemed fake. Nasimiyu seemed fake, his engagement seemed fake. Certainly less real than the hues streaking the wispy clouds dawdling over their heads.
“What’s your favorite color in the sunset?” he asked. She didn’t look at him, but he could see enough of her profile to watch her brow pinch.
Why, why was he so desperate to reach out and smooth it down?! She was just some woman. It didn’t make sense. He barely knew her at all, as she had made crystal clear. Why was it so easy to think of a thousand things he wanted to say to her, and equally easy, for once in his life, to say none of them and simply sit there watching the sunset?
“Pink,” she finally said. He’d forgotten the question and gave her a confused look. “I don’t seem like the kind of woman who likes pink?”
“I like that it makes my hair look pink,” he told her. “I think I’d look really good with pink hair.”
“Your hair doesn’t look pink.”
“A little bit.”
“Not at all,” she insisted, so seriously as she looked at it that he couldn’t help the laughter.
It died quickly as he noticed the bruise on her cheek, the bandage on the side of her neck.
“What happened to you?” he asked, quickly turning towards her, reaching only to hover because he had no right to touch her.
“Hm?”
“You’re injured!”
“Oh. Accident in the laundry room,” she said, lifting a hand to her cheek like she’d forgotten all about it. He thought he saw the shadow of another bruise on her jaw and resisted the urge to turn her face and confirm.
“What the hells happened in the laundry room?!”
“Everything is fine. How was the hunting trip?”
He didn’t answer, torn now between the dread of what had already happened and a desire to not be shaken off from her injuries. He wasn’t sure she was telling him the truth. He hadn’t heard of an accident in the laundry that had caused serious harm to a maid. If there were safety issues, they needed to be taken care of immediately!
“What happened in the laundry room?” he tried again.
“How was the hunting trip?”
He narrowed his eyes. She stared a moment, then turned her gaze out at the sunset in a way that made clear she would not be answering his question.
“You know,” he shrugged. “It was… unpleasant. It’s good you didn’t go along today.”
“Might have been better than the laundry room.”
“No.” He thought of Dulce witnessing what had happened. Or, worse, Dulce being involved with what had happened. He didn’t say anything more, uncomfortable with imagining it. A horrible thought came to him, of his uncle somehow figuring out that Dulce was… notable to him. She’d be in grave danger, he was sure of it. A princess had some protection from a sadistic uncle-in-law. A maid had none. He glanced back at Murtah, worried his own bodyguard might report this to his uncle. Could anyone be trusted? Murtah was older, kind, formal, serious. He looked up and down the seawall, always on alert.
“I don’t think it’s safe for you to go hunting down there,” Dulce said, a rush of words he hadn’t expected. He raised his eyebrows at her unexpected concern. “It’s too easy for an accident to happen. It feels like it was designed for accidents.”
“Nowhere is safe from accidents. Apparently not even laundry rooms.”
“Your joke makes it clear you’ve never been in one,” she muttered.
He had to admit, “No. Are they dangerous?”
“Yes. But a hunting party in the caves is particularly dangerous for you, I think. You’re the crown prince. You’re never safe.”
“I have a bodyguard,” he said, jerking his head towards Murtah.
“He doesn’t look very good.”
“He is.”
“He’s not even listening to our conversation to know I insulted him.”
“He’s discreet,” Seokjin argued. “He’s like you, he’s not reactive.” Dulce scrutinized the bodyguard like a duel partner, then looked back out at the water. The wind tangled in loose strands of her long hair and danced it around her face. He wondered how wild it would look if she let the hood down and her braid out. It seemed to want to curl around her neck; a perfect ringlet had formed and he had that intrusive urge to reach out and tug it. The hood made her look particularly beautiful.
Brooding. He’d meant she looked particularly brooding.
He felt so calm right now. It was strange, he’d come out here hoping to feel that way but not expecting too. The nervous energy that had kept him restless all day got washed out to sea with each tug of the tide below. It was almost embarrassing for Dulce to see him all calm. He had an image to uphold, after all. Funny, energetic, charming.
He was tired.
“Have you ever been fishing? What’s your favorite fish?” he asked, deciding to make an effort.
“Are you ever just silent– nevermind,” she said quickly. Then, “My apologies, sorry.” He wasn’t sure that she’d ever apologized for being blunt before and was surprised to see her cheeks darken with a flush.
“What?” he laughed. “Say what you were going to say. Am I ever just silent? Not really, even when I’m alone I talk to myself.” Her lips tightened. “What does that face mean?” he laughed.
“It’s just my face.”
“No it’s not. Are you… blushing? About what?”
“I am not,” she snapped, scowling at him, and in any other lifetime he would have grabbed and kissed her right then. He couldn’t explain it. She was so put out with him.
You want to kiss her. You need to get and stay away from her. He knew that was true. He understood this clearly in a way he had danced around for days now. Weeks? He didn’t know how long but he knew he wanted to kiss the bruise on her cheek and the one on her jaw and her fingers and that this feeling of his would get her fired at best. He couldn’t think of the worst.
“You’re quiet when you fuck, that’s what I meant,” she suddenly said, tearing her gaze away from his and crossing her arms. “Maybe that’s the only time.”
“I thought you didn’t see anything,” he cried, now his turn to blush a bright red. Here he was contemplating the tragedy of this woman bringing out the romantic in him when nothing could ever come of it and then she had to wallop him in the face like that.
“I didn’t hear anything either, that’s my point.”
Now silence enveloped them again, a less happy one. Seokjin didn’t know what to say. The thought of having sex with Nasimiyu made him want to run away screaming. Not a great foundation for a marriage but one he was going to have to work through, just like he was going to have to keep distance from Dulce, and neither thing seemed possible right now.
No, he could do it. He would. He was the crown prince, he did tons of things he didn’t want to simply because it was his duty.
He wanted more than a duty marriage with Nasimiyu.
He needed to squash these feelings about Dulce immediately.
“I didn’t mean to criticize,” she murmured, glancing nervously at him. Probably because he was staring. She had a very pretty profile. He bet she would hate it if someone pinched her chin but it was perfectly pinchable. “Nasimiyu speaks… highly of your time together.”
He grabbed for the lifeline she’d thrown him and laughed awkwardly loudly, “Oh, lovely. She speaks of it?”
“Brags, more like.”
He knew he should be flattered. A small part of him was.
“Yes, well, good. What can I say? I have many talents and pleasing women is one of them.” Dear gods what was he saying?
“I don’t need to hear that. When I said you don’t know me, I didn’t mean we should get to know each other,” she said.
He laughed, flat out laughed, “Dulce, why are you so mean?”
“I… sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah for me too but I’m still my pleasant charming self. You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. I almost watched my father kill another of my friends. It was the shittiest hunting trip you can imagine.”
“Did you shoot anything?”
“I almost killed another of my friends, does that count?”
“Taehyung?”
“No… what made you think of him?” She shrugged. “No, Master Drin, my arms masters. His horse reared and threw him in the path of bullet right as I aimed at some mysterious creature in the woods that didn’t deserve to be shot at in the first place. Sliced the back of his head open but he lives.” The words poured out, a tirade meant to make her laugh even though it wasn’t funny and he didn’t even mean it to be funny. His laugh cracked as he repeated, “I almost killed someone today.”
“People die.”
“Come now.”
“People die in hunting accidents all the time,” she said again. “That’s what I meant by you shouldn’t go.”
He grinned and nudged her arm without thinking about it, teasing, “Are you worried about me?” She stiffened and he immediately leaned away. Oops.
She didn’t comment on the physical contact, just asked, “Have you never killed anything before?”
“I’ve shot ducks.”
“A dark stain on your soul.”
“I see their eyes every night before I sleep,” he joked. “I remember their names.”
“I don’t,” she said thoughtfully.
“Killed a lot of ducks, have you?”
“A few.” She said it so seriously, he couldn’t decide if she was joking or not. That made things she said even funnier, when he genuinely couldn’t tell. He had an inkling she did it on purpose. He wondered if Nasimiyu knew that about her.
“We’re still talking about ducks, aren’t we?” he teased.
“What would we be talking about?”
“Didn’t you grow up on a farm? I don’t think I have the guts for it.”
“I didn’t tell you that,” Dulce said sharply and Seokjin felt a ridiculous victory at very clearly having guessed something correctly about her. “I seem like a farm girl to you?”
“Is there anything besides farms in Paloma?” Her eyebrows raised and he snickered, “Oh no, did I just insult you?”
“You don’t know anything about Paloma.”
“No but I know you grew up on a farm.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Your reaction gave it away.”
“I don’t react,” she insisted and he felt laughter bubbling brighter in his chest. He had the playful childish urge to knock her over and wrestle now, to crow about his victory.
“You’re wrong. You have very big reactions, if you know what to look for.”
“I do not.”
“The more you deny it…”
Her face twisted in what seemed like a fake rage. She kept her mouth pressed tightly closed and stared at the sky now sliding to purples and blues. What she said earlier might seem right, that darker colors suited her style more, but he loved knowing now that she liked pink.
“I hate farms,” she said, possibly the closest to a confirmation he would ever get. He didn’t think it was a joke. There was an air of sadness to her voice that seemed shockingly sincere.
Or was he projecting it all? He realized that was possible. He might be sitting here feeling like their hearts were stitching together in a way that was going to hurt very much when he stood up, and she was sitting there thinking what a nuisance he was. It wasn’t like she said or did anything that hinted at feelings for him. She endured him. Humored him at best. She had no choice. The power imbalance was real and he’d be a fool not to remember that his company might be less welcome than Namjoon’s –which she may have loudly hinted at before.
He stared out at the water, debating. He should leave her alone. He knew that. Everything in him knew that. But he didn’t want to just yet… could she endure him for a few more minutes? That was the least guilt and horror he had felt all day. He had almost killed Drin.
“You didn’t kill him.”
“Wha?”
“You didn’t kill the man so you shouldn’t let it haunt you. Even if you had, accidents happen.”
He stared at her, eyes wide, stumbling over the words, “How did you–”
“I won’t reveal my methods.”
He was struck dumb for a moment, astonished at her acuity. Could she read minds? Oh, he’d be so fucked if she could read his mind right now. The threat of her seeing what kind of man he actually was –the kind who developed affection and desire for their fiance’s maid– was horror beyond belief.
Just to test it, he thought of some really crazy things. Six foot tall rabbits and a throne made of spaghetti and a giant fish leaping from the water to swallow them and carry them down to meet the king of the sea. She did not seem to read those thoughts.
“If you don’t want people to know what you’re thinking, don’t think so loud.”
“Don’t listen,” he countered. Which clearly brought her up short. She gave him what could only be characterized as a scandalized look, then stared out again at the sunset as if it was the most compelling thing she had ever seen.
He still felt like she was listening. Worse, he felt like he could talk to her. He felt like she could say anything and nothing would surprise him and she’d tell him her direct thoughts, he could count on it. Alone but not alone, that’s how he felt with her.
“I don’t even want to be the cause of someone’s death,” he admitted, verbalizing it this time.
“You’re going to be king. You’ll be the cause of many people’s deaths.” Yep, just like that.
He blew air out and looked down, for a moment allowing the intrusive thought of what it would feel like to just plummet down to the rocks and die. Then he’d never hurt anyone.
“I’ll be a different kind of king,” he tried to convince them both. “No wars, no hunting, no more hunger or… no poverty. I’ll take care of Destin and Paloma and… we’ll just all have good lives reading books and playing games and…”
At least she was kind enough not to tell him what a fucking idiot he was. She struck a nice balance of silence and directness. He appreciated that about her.
“And birthdays!” he said, suddenly recalling. “Is it your birthday soon?”
“What?”
“Is your birthday soon?”
“No, why?”
“Are you telling the truth?” he pressed, leaning closer and scrutinizing her closely.
She batted him away, revealing bandages on her hand that was quickly tucked back under her cloak despite the warm evening.
“My birthday is in the winter,” she said.
“An answer! Or close to one. Look how far we’ve come,” he teased.
“Why do you think my birthday is soon?”
“Nasimiyu asked Yoongi to make a Paloman dish and he thought your birthday was soon.”
Dulce considered this before admitting, “Maybe she thinks it is.”
“She doesn’t know?”
“Do you know the birthdays of your servants?”
“Yes,” he answered easily. “Murtah’s is in late August and then Jungkook’s is September first.”
Dulce didn’t seem to know what to say to this. He watched the pensive look on her face out of the corner of his eye, trying not to look like he was watching her.
“Are your injuries bothering you?” he guessed.
“No.”
“Are you sure? You were hurt at the palace, it’s understandable you should see the palace doctor to make sure–”
“I’m fine.”
“I don’t think you’re fine. You seem…” He couldn’t think of the word. Not that she was usually chatty but she seemed… “Weighed down.”
“So do you.”
“I think I’m my usual charming self.” When she didn’t respond, like she wasn’t buying it, he conceded, “I told you I almost killed my friend. I feel that on my handsome broad shoulders.”
She was silent for a while. He couldn’t tell if she was debating an answer or simply not going to give one. Which was fine. He would like for her to say but it was always unpredictable.
“I think you need to be extra careful,” she said. “You should be more concerned that your bodyguard went missing.”
Seokjin frowned and pressed, “What do you know about that?”
“You don’t think servants notice when one goes missing? You aren’t careful enough. People wish to harm you.”
“Well… yes. I’m the crown prince. That’s always been true and always will be true,” he admitted. “I’ve learned to live without worrying about it. If I die… well, I’ll be dead and won’t care about it anymore, will I?”
Her head snapped up, her face showing how absolutely incomprehensible she found his answer. It made him laugh again, he couldn’t help it.
“Did you think I’d scream and cry and hide away? I don’t want to die but it happens to all of us eventually. My mother, my brother… it won’t change my fate to sit around worrying about it every day.” He couldn’t believe how brave he sounded about it, although the things he said were true. He tried not to think about death every day. He tried to live as best he could.
“You aren’t afraid to die but you’re afraid to kill?”
“Well see… yes. Yes, that’s about right.” He gave her a bright grin. “I don’t want to, but I can endure a lot. Of course I guess you don’t really endure death, at that point you stop enduring–”
“What is a lot to you?”
“I’m still alive, so I suppose I don’t know yet.” She was taking this so seriously and he felt bad about that. “You don’t need to worry about me. I was born into this life and I’ll die in it too someday. But not today. Some days closer than others but…” He shrugged. “Best I don’t go into the laundry room, I guess.”
She didn’t laugh at his joke and he realized it was a bad one. She’d been badly injured in one. He was inclined to march back to the palace and ask someone working in the laundry what the hells had happened, but based on the last time he intervened in Dulce’s well-being, he suspected she would not be pleased. Did he care? It depended how badly she was hurt…
He sighed, not sure how to navigate anything. He wouldn’t intervene. She’d made clear she didn’t want him to. He was supposed to be putting more space between them now. He had promised to respect her wishes. Soon he was going to promise to love and devote his whole heart to Nasimiyu.
He wanted to say something but the longer the silence lasted, the less inclined he felt to. She didn’t demand anything of him, and he felt tired now by what he’d managed for her entertainment. Wrung out. This was a long day. He didn’t know what to do about his father shooting at Taehyung. Who was that a warning for? It would take a couple days to bundle Taehyung off to somewhere else since they were arguing about where that someplace else would be; was it better to spend those days in the palace or in an anonymous inn? Seokjin was debating having Taehyung just sleep in his room, gossip be damned.
“I have something for you,” she said eventually.
He immediately realized his gift must have felt like an obligation instead of an apology, especially since it wasn’t her birthday.
He waved his hand, “No, no, you don’t need to–”
“Not a gift. Someone gave me a letter to pass on to you.” She dug around and pulled it out of a bag across her body, looked at it a moment, then handed it over.
“What is this?” he asked. The front was blank, the envelope crinkled from passage. The red seal on the back immediately brought recognition and understanding –he’d recognize the imprint of his brother’s ring anywhere.
“A letter.”
“Yes I managed to figure that much out on my own,” he snickered. He had an idea who it was from, so instead he asked, “How did you get this?”
“Someone gave it to me while I was out walking here and begged me to put it in your hands,” she said.
“A woman,” Seokjin guessed.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what it’s about?”
“I didn’t read it,” Dulce said. “She didn’t say.” She looked him right in the face as she said this, direct eye contact that made him want to believe her… and yet he had melted and reattached enough seals to notice the telltale sign of staining on the paper.
“Please keep the existence of this letter between us,” he said lowly, tucking it into the pocket on the inside of his vest so it couldn’t be stolen until he got a chance to read it. After which he would probably need to burn it, depending on what it said, and if he was right about the sender. After all this time, he figured she was dead, in which case this letter might be something different. Either way, it was probably something dangerous for Dulce to know.
“What letter?” she asked, holding her hands out to show they were empty. He believed she would keep the secret, anyway, whatever she could actually glean from the contents. “I thought about not giving it to you, in case it’s trouble,” she admitted.
“I’m glad you did. Not every prince is a damsel who needs protecting, you know.”
“I think you may be a particularly reckless one.”
“How many princes do you know? Nevermind, Prince Hamisi, that was too easy. Well, this prince would be happy to walk you back to the palace now.”
“I’m fine. I’ll stay here a bit longer.”
“Is it safe?”
“It’s no laundry room so…yes.”
He was loath to leave her, but at least guards roamed the sea wall and she was less likely to meet trouble here than anywhere else.
Still, “Will you at least promise to stay out of the laundry room from now on?”
“It’s my job.”
“I can make it illegal for them to put you on laundry duty. I’m a prince. I don’t mind being an eccentric one.” She gave him a baleful look that felt like victory but she shook her head and he wasn’t going to push her. He didn’t want to undo what had felt like progress towards forgiveness.
“Thank you for your company,” he told her with a slight bow. He meant it. The events of the day still troubled him but he felt soothed, despite the fact she hadn’t actually had anything comforting to say –clearly she did not understand the magnitude of what it meant to take, or nearly take, a human life. He was glad of that though.
Murtah shortened the distance between them as they walked back towards the palace so that within a few minutes they were side by side.
“Your Highness.”
“Murtah.”
“This wasn’t wise.”
“I believe you are here to guard, not to advise,” Seokjin pointed out. “I was only watching the sunset.”
“With your fiance’s maid.”
“A coincidence,” Seokjin insisted, then quickly added, “But don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”
“It can’t.”
“No, it can’t,” Seokjin agreed with a sigh. He was projecting an attachment on a woman he barely knew. Was he just frightened by his impending promotion to husband and flailing about for diversion?
Her bruises and bandages bothered him more than his own troubles, he couldn’t stop thinking of them.
The safest thing for them both was not to get close enough to notice them next time.
Maybe Taehyung wasn’t the only one he needed to find a safe, cushy place for, far from Priva. How much money would it take Dulce to go away and not tell Nasimiyu why?
Yes, that was the answer. Money. See? Seokjin was already thinking like a king.
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#word of honor#woh#shan he ling#shl#das känguru#känguru#die känguru chroniken#helian yi#jin wang#prince jin#山河令#proletarier#goldkettchen
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𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚆𝚘𝚗
Pairing ~ Jin Grandet x Reader
Warnings ~ Insecurity, depression, heartbreak, fluff
Word Count ~ 1707
Author's Comments ~ Me? Writing another Jin fic? Surely not. lol This is a hurt/comfort fic, so don't get too scared by all the sad warnings. Hope you enjoy this addition to the Jin-pool!
Rain trickled down the panes of glass, mimicking the tears that seeped from your eyes and ran down your reddened cheeks. The room was dim, the fire in the fireplace a stark contrast to the study you were huddled up in. He had forgotten you. The disparaging thought pulled you further and further in on yourself, and it wrapped thorny vines around your heart; the heart that was filled with so much joy just that morning. It kept you locked in an endless battle between your self preservation and your shattered heart. You had seen him with that woman earlier; the woman at the flower stall in town. You had seen his smile, had seen hers. You knew what she wanted with him, and you knew how he was, but for some reason you had believed that he wouldn’t be so flippant as to abandon you on an evening that he had promised he would spend with you.
Your love was unrequited, you knew. He was a man who had both caused and received enough pain to make the devil his slave, and it was not in his nature to give his battleworn heart away; not even to you, who had made a silent vow to treasure it even more so than your own. Yves had helped you make his favorite, chocolate honey spice cakes, in preparation for tonight and plate them. He had looked at you with a sad smile, as if he knew what would happen and wanted to warn you. It wasn’t like you would have listened anyway. You wanted to believe he was wrong. But the spice cakes sat neglected on a table beside the settee and you cursed yourself for even wanting to believe in love again; for daring to hope that this time would be different. It would never be different. You sniffled, smearing the carefully painted makeup from your eyes. You were finally out of tears. It had taken nearly the whole two hours you had waited on Jin to empty your body of the initial stab of pain. Now, all that was left was a dull ache, and a gaping absence.
You sighed loudly, unfurling your body slowly, as though moving any quicker would snap your bones, and rose from the spot you had occupied for the last one hundred and twenty minutes, accepting your fate at last. ‘Perhaps Leon is awake, you’ thought. ‘He’ll enjoy the sweets. At least that way they won’t go bad.’ You sighed again, as though trying to expel the chasm of grief that haunted the place where your heart should be, but nothing worked. Nothing ever worked. You simply had to live with a hole in your chest until it decided to let you breathe again. You stared down at the full plate of cakes and another tear found its way to the surface, gliding down the slopes of your face, almost gracefully. With chagrin, you picked up the tray and turned to blow out the sconce on the wall - you would return for the fire after delivery - , but you heard the door begin to creak open and you paused.
“I’m sorry I’m so late!” a cheerful voice permeated the room. “I had to wait for them to make our dinner and they were packed. What’d I miss?” You couldn’t move; you couldn’t even speak. You couldn’t believe how easily he swept in, how oblivious he was to how you had waited; to how you had hurt; to what you had assumed had happened.
“Emma,” You could hear in his voice that he had finally realized something was amiss. When you finally unbolted your feet from the floor and turned towards him, his face fell immediately. Bags were forgotten on the floor in favor of reaching you in a few long strides. You still held the plate of spice cakes in your hands, unmoving. He gingerly took them from you and set them back on the table before reaching for your hands. You flinched and pulled back. The dejection in his face was evident, but it only vilified you further.
“Dinner?” you muttered scornfully. “You’re telling me dinner is what kept you for two hours? Jin Grandet, what kind of fool do you take me for?”
“Wha-?” he looked down at you in surprise. You had never spoken to him like this before. He was used to the you with shining eyes and a glittering smile, accompanied by bursts of boisterous joy that filled him to the brim. He didn’t like seeing you like this, and he wanted to fix it.
“I know you were with her.” you murmured, barely audible, and he finally understood.
“Oh-” the thought came out before he could stop it, but it lit a fire in your eyes.
“I told you!” you cried. “I told you not to make me feel special! I told you I couldn’t handle it, but you couldn’t help yourself, could you?! You saw a pretty woman and it was all over!” you were nearly shouting now and the tears had returned full force. Jin stepped towards you and wrapped his sturdy arms around you. You tried to fight him, to push him away; you even beat on his chest, but he wouldn’t budge. “Jin Grandet, let me go!” you sobbed, the pain inside you willing you to both run as far away as possible and to snuggle impossibly closer.
“No.” he whispered, and clutched to you tighter. At last, you stopped fighting him, and collapsed into his hold, allowing the sobs to wrack through your body, causing you to tremble wildly against Jin’s broad chest. In a strange sense, you still wouldn’t want to be with anyone else to help comfort you. Even though he caused you so much pain, no one else could comfort you the way Jin did. One strong arm was wrapped firmly around your waist, holding you against him, while his opposing hand had been tangled into your hair, keeping your head just under his chin. At last, your weeping subsided, and you simply stood there against him; limp; empty.
“You saw me talking to the woman who sells the flowers at the market, didn’t you?” he asked gently, rubbing soft circles into your scalp as he held you. You nodded silently, too spent to even verbally confirm. “She did ask me to spend the evening with her, but I had to inform her that I had other plans, but that I would gladly contribute to her business.” he placed a tender kiss against the crown of your head, and you cursed the few butterflies that came to life at his simple touch. “Look in the bags, Emma.” he said pleadingly. “At least let me show you what’s inside. Here, come sit down.” He led you back over to the settee and practically laid you down on it. You adjusted yourself once you were sitting, and he came back around with the bags in his hands before he sat down next to you.
Tears threatened to prickle in your eyes again when he pulled the first item out of the bag. “Jin,” you muttered softly. Flowers. It was a bouquet of flowers from the lady’s shop. He handed them to you with a sheepish look on his face.
“I don’t have a vase or anything, but I figured I could go back and buy you one if you didn’t have one you liked here..” he trailed off somewhat and you took the flowers from him, gathering them in your arms and sniffing them. Guilt began to wash over you, but you stayed silent; he still had 2 hours to account for. “Anyway,” he continued, turning back to the bags on the floor in front of him. “I, uhm… well, I got sidetracked on the way to get our dinner. I walked past a shop and a guy was in there making these, and, well, I couldn’t resist. But I had to wait for him to make ‘em, and it took awhile for the whole process because he had to heat up the glass, and form it and stuff, and put the colors in it, and then let it dry and all…” he trailed off again as he pulled out several blown glass ornaments from one of the bags and an audible gasp escaped your lips. They were beautiful. One was red, pink, white and clear in the shape of a Rhodolitian rose, another was a jewel-toned replica of the exterior of the palace, and the last was a purple and gold-
“Heart,” you uttered quietly.
“All the things that make me think of you.” Jin replied, a small smile forming on his face as he watched you study each one.
“Jin,” you stuttered, the tears falling again. “Jin, I’m so sorry. God I’m so sorry, Jin.”
“No, no I’m sorry.” he said, scooting over to you and scooping you into his arms yet again. “You expected me here a long time ago, and I broke my word without even sending anyone to tell you what was going on. I didn’t expect that you’d… care all that much, about hanging out with this old guy.”
“Jin, you’re not that old.” you retorted, giggling for the first time this evening. “Besides, of course I care. In fact, I probably care too much. There’s nothing like being with you, Jin.” Your last sentence tugged at Jin’s heart in a way he couldn’t have possibly imagined and he pulled you closer.
“There’s nothing like being with you either, Emma.” he whispered back to you, daring to place another kiss on your head. You surprised him by snuggling into the kiss and he chuckled into your hair. “Be careful, Emma. You may get more than you bargained for if you keep on like this.”
You laughed in return and turned your gaze upwards to meet his stunning garnet eyes. “I don’t bargain, Jin. I play for keeps.”
And as the atmosphere lightened, and you went to retrieve the spice cakes from the table, Jin watched you with a contented smile on his face, cozy in the firelight with the only woman who could possibly capture his heart the way you had.
‘Well, you’ve won.’
~
Tags for the Lovelies: @aquagirl1978 @violettduchess @ikehoe @rhodolitesroseforclavis @atelieredux
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Bring The Fire: character intro
Warnings: Mentions of blood, implied mutilation and violence.
Princes; Seokjin
others: PJM&KTY // MYG&JH // JJK // KMJ
chapter one
If there was one thing the eldest prince was known for, it was his inhumanly good looks. He was six years old when his father finally revealed his identity, and even at such a young age he was praised for his beauty.
And yet, here he sat, watching another get his treatment? Ridiculous really.
It would seem ridiculous that a prince of his calibre was jealous of a woman getting praised for her youthful looks. But what about him?
Prince Seokjin had a unique beauty to him. Not entirely masculine like the youngest of the seven, Jeongguk, and not entirely soft and feminine like Jimin. He was his own make.
Soft skin and plush lips, a nose that rounded at the tip— some of his features were soft and pretty, almost womanly to some. But his wide, unwavering eyes and sharp jaw, paired off with his broad shoulders, long neck and prominent Adam's apple, just went on to prove he also had physical masculinity.
And yet, he was still going unpraised.
The woman wasn’t anything special in his opinion. He personally thought she looked just like every other woman . She clearly held no status, not dressed like that. Her skin was somewhat clear, but dark. She was a worker. Nothing was striking about the girl, and this caused him greater frustrations.
Why isn’t he getting any attention?
Heaving himself out of his seat, Seokjin all but glided across the room toward the woman. Those surrounding her quickly dispersed, the hard look settled on his features was enough for them to know he wasn’t in a good mood.
Unfortunately, the girl had her back to him and didn’t see the venomous look he was practically drilling into her skull. Instead, when she turned and acknowledged his presence, a sweet smile was on his lips.
He looked different.
The woman was a foreigner from the East. She knew of the seven princes, and had seen the delicate portraits of them all. Even the aura the paintings gave off were cold and stiff, and yet, here in person the prince felt warm and homey.
Which is why she didn’t hesitate when he asked her to follow him.
The door to his room was shut, as usual. But this time, he wasn’t alone. The girl sat awkwardly on his bed watching the prince flutter around his room, both staying silent until he finally spoke up.
“I’m not used to someone else having all the attention,” He began, fingers tapping over the blades that decorated his wall. “And for someone so mediocre at best.”
The girl stayed silent, cheeks bright red.
Seokjin sighed dramatically, spinning on his heel. The heavy materials of his clothes filled the silence before he continued. He waltzed up to the girl, grabbing her chin softly, almost as if he were picking up a shard of glass, forcing the girl to meet his dark gaze.
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
The girl felt her heart leap to her mouth, her tiny body stiffening. She nodded quickly, unable to pry her eyes away from his.
“I think so too,” he grinned, his fingers tightening their hold. “I think I’m incredibly attractive, and I don’t appreciate poor, dirty women taking my attention.”
Seokjin watched as the woman’s eyes filled with tears, her lips trembling as she tried to force out an apology. It was a pitiful sight, almost enough to make the prince reconsider his next course of action.
Almost, but not quite.
Blindly reaching for one of the three weapons on the wall, Seokjin stepped back. He held the light sword an arms length away, the cold tip cutting into the girl's cheek.
“Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
#kim seokjin#bts jin#yandere jin#dark!bts#yandere#jinxreader#seokjinxreader#btsxreader#ot7xreader#prince jin#prince seokjin#bts fanfic#royal bts#yandere bts
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Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Qin Huaizhang & Zhou Zishu, Qin Jiuxiao & Zhou Zishu, Jin Wang & Zhou Zishu
Characters: Zhou Zishu, Jin Wang (Word of Honor), Qin Huaizhang, Qin Jiuxiao, Bi Changfeng
Additional Tags: Character Death, Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Monsters, Graphic Description of Corpses, Blood and Gore, Self-Harm, Child Murder, Animal Death, Violence, Pre-Canon
Summary:
Zhou Zishu is changing inside.
#word of honor#shan he ling#zhou zishu#jin wang#prince jin#qin jiuxiao#qin huaizhang#horror#mind the tags#my fics
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Six Fanart Challenge!
#sixfanarts#cdrama#alucard#castlevania#tang lian#the blood of youth#gilbert redford#word of honor#prince jin#dongfang qingcang#love between fairy and devil#wuxi
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FALL OF THE CRIMSON FLOWER: CHARACTERS INTRODUCTION
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Luo Fumeng
The presiding Empress of the Qingya Empire. Due to her ailing health, her hair turned white despite her still not being advanced in age.
She was very much loved by her people.
To this day, the enigmatic Empress had yet to be betrothed.
Rumors said that she harbored feelings for one of the high officials in court, but the late Emperor was strongly against it. Thus, she chose to remain unwed.
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Helian Yi
Despite not being being the eldest prince, Helian Yi had been highly favored by the Jin Emperor from a young age due to his brilliance, who made him the Crown Prince despite others' oppositions.
He held great influence over the Emperor's judgment. The Jin Empire's General, Zhou Zishu, was his most trusted aide. Though unfounded, there had been unpleasant hearsays surrounding their ruler-subject relationship.
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Zhou Zishu
The Jin Empire's highest-ranking General who leads the whole Imperial Battalion.
Steadfast and extremely loyal, he was willing to sacrifice everything—even his life—for the glory of the Jin Empire.
His father used to be a high-ranking General in the army who was sentenced to exile due to a sudden accusation of treason. However, thanks to the Crown Prince's benevolence, Zhou Zishu was saved from the punishment.
He was subsequently sent into the palace to be the Crown Prince's study partner and grew up alongside him.
Ever since then, Helian Yi became Zhou Zishu's greatest benefactor.
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Wen Kexing
Famed General of the Qingya Empire's Imperial Army. His merciless onslaughts on the battlefield earned him the nickname "Demon General" from allies and foes alike.
Despite not being born into a military family, his impeccable achievements and meritorious deeds sent his career soaring until he became the highest-ranking General at a much younger age compared to his predecessors.
He blamed the Jin Empire for the death of his parents and despised them to the core.
Strangely enough, he held complicated sentiments toward Zhou Zishu, the General of his enemies, who was supposed to be his archrival.
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"Fall of the Crimson Flower" is a " A “Word of Honor - WenZhou War Lords AU” collaboration project between @brilcrist and @akatsuki-shin
You can also follow our updates here on Twitter.
#Word of Honor#Shan He Ling#SHL#Zhou Zishu#Wen Kexing#WenZhou#WoH#Luo Fumeng#Tragicomic Ghost#Helian Yi#Jin Wang#Prince Jin#WenZhou War Lords AU#Fan Fiction
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Happy 5th Anniversay my dear boys💕 I truly can't believe that it has been 5 years since I started on this journey with you all! I'm truly thankful for everything that you all have given me. I am so excited to continue on this journey with you all! I know that you all will only achieve great and wonderful things in the future. Know that there's nothing in this world that can stop you as long as STAY are here! 🥂 Cheers to making new and wonderful memories together in the future. I love you all, always💕
#stray kids#chris bang#lover boy#lee minho#dancing gem#seo changbin#rap king#hwang hyunjin#prince jin#han jisung#smiling angel#felix lee#sunshine boy#kim seungmin#sweet puppy#yang jeongin#baby bub
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WOH is a great spectacle, thanks to the great teamwork of many people. It contains unforgettable scenes that are deeply remembered. Many of these scenes concern ZZH. There are scenes when ZZH as ZZS steals the viewer's attention, no attention is paid to other actors. There is only him, his silhouette, majestic silhouette and feline movement. Beautiful face expressing different emotions. Commander Window of Heaven, ragged beggar, lonely wanderer and finally the master - the lord of Siji Manor. These different faces of ZZS were played by one actor - ZZH and he did a phenomenal job in this role. Here I chose a shot from episode 30. ZZS meets his cousin Prince Jin. The shot shows us one of the show's most emotional scenes. ZZS was forcibly taken out of his home, his manor was burnt down, and his family was taken away. He faced someone who was also family to him, but they had nothing in common. The prince unscrupulously used the naivety of the young ZZS and turned it into an obedient tool. He molded him like wax, taking everything ZZS loved and respected from him. ZZS's conversation with the prince is a masterpiece. ZZH's facial expressions are also a masterpiece. All the time, from the moment the prince cut the shackles, his face showed no emotion. The breakthrough moment was the confirmation of what ZZS suspected, the prince's ambitions were huge and he did not count on anyone and nothing. The overturning of the table was an expression of the rebellion of the ZZS. The prince did not know that he had already lost, that from then on ZZS was playing with him on its own terms. ZZS bravely faced his cousin, did not hesitate to put a blade to his neck. He knew what awaited him, but hearing the prince's words that others as ambitious as himself would come for him, ZZS understood what to do. And he did it knowing it might be the last thing he would do in his life. In this scene from the photo of ZZH, he is dressed in the robes of the commander Window of Heaven his hair is tied tightly. He looks dignified, almost regal, more regal than the prince in front of him. Poised, with a hard gaze fixed on the ruler. How I love this shot. Within these few minutes, ZZH showed its great talent.
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To Kill A King (Chapter 13)
Banner and linebreaks by the talented @awrkives
Summary: What’s more charming than Prince Seokjin? Nothing, obviously. Except maybe the rotating palace guests who each smile and bow and charm in an attempt to hide their true motives. Fortunately Seokjin has a close circle of friends (well, servants) who watch his back and endure his humor and help him navigate the tumultuous seas of heartbreak, love, and an arranged marriage, not necessarily in that order. If only they had helped him keep a closer eye on his bride-to-be’s handmaiden, who arrives with her own agenda… or maybe it would have been better if he had noticed her less? One thing is certain as this royal drama of the heart plays out: there are many people competing to kill a king.
Main Pairing: Prince Seokjin x Female OC
Genre: Historical Fantasy World, political conspiracy, romance
Rating: 18+ Content Warnings & story tags: includes explicit sex (mxf, fxf), possibly graphic violence/injury later, love and sex triangles or uh quadrangles?, sort of e 2 l, sort of bodyguard trope, sort of arranged marriage, a lot of plotting murder (it’s literally in the title), maybe character death, grief, pining, angst, love, oral (f & m receiving), public sex, I don’t know everything yet as the story is long and still being written
PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT
NOTE: check out the Character & Setting Cheat Sheet for a refresher on who’s who
Nasimiyu didn’t know how to feel other than smug. Word of Seokjin’s fight with Namjoon shot through the palace like the smell of fish. Nasimiyu couldn’t believe it at first. Seokjin? Throwing fists?! She saw Namjoon’s black eye on her way to the private dining room for supper –which Namjoon chose to take in his room– and Seokjin’s busted lip but still couldn’t believe it until King Dong-gun himself sank into his chair and laughed,
“Well. Who’d have thought this son would be brawling in the courtyard, eh?”
Beside him, Lady Zselyke turned up her nose and teased, with a trace of a smile, “I suppose he had to inherit something from you.”
“Besides my dashing good looks?”
“He looks more like his mother,” General Dong-suk mumbled around a forkful of food already buried in his mouth. Nasimiyu glanced at the man and quickly away, afraid of making eye contact. General Dong-suk’s reputation preceded him. The King’s younger brother was notorious for winning wars, no matter the cost, and while Nasimiyu didn’t know specifics, she did know her father thought he was both terrifying and genius. We’ll want him on our side, Prince Hamisi had said. Another reason we need to do this the right way. The last thing we need are losses along the border during the transition of power. Dong-suk is undefeatable.
High praise from her father, who himself bragged a great deal about having the most peaceful principality in Marvono so that they had no need of war to begin with. Yet he clearly admired Dong-suk. She’d expected a scarred, muscular old soldier based on the things she’d heard and instead found herself breaking bread with a razor sharp man, crisp and clean and unemotional. It felt like he sucked the warmth from the air just by his presence. He was far, far more frightening in person than any of the people she’d met in those tavern backrooms could possibly understand. Hatred for this man had streamed from them like blood and sweat, stories of his depraved acts, his prolific use of torture to get answers, his scorched earth tactics for any boarder villages “harboring” soldiers from the other side –whether they knew it or not. Such stories had seemed impossible to pin onto one man’s shoulders, impossible to believe without some bigger outcry than a couple dozen angry youths shouting about it in Marvonese taverns, far from those borders and battles and truth.
And yet, she was glad Seokjin sat in between them.
Nasimiyu supposed General Dong-suk had meant that as an insult to his brother, though it was a compliment to Seokjin and the beauty of his mother captured in portraits around the palace. Dong-gun laughed like he expected nothing differently from his brother and Seokjin buried his face in his food.
Lady Zselyke smoothed it over with, “That he does, and there’s no harm in being good in the face and with an uppercut, eh?”
“What do you know about fighting, Aunt?” Seokjin asked her. Apparently this was also a joke that Nasimiyu didn’t get because Zselyke laughed fondly and waved her napkin at him.
“Oh stop. You know, I used to be right there to the side any time your father brawled, ready to clean up the mess afterwards.”
“You weren’t very good at it,” Dong-gun chuckled. “I had to learn my own way out of messes.”
“How can you say that?! I smoothed things over with your father so many times.”
“Ah, yes, with him, I suppose he was fond of you, he’d wait until you were out of sight to whip my backside so you wouldn’t be distressed.”
Nasimiyu couldn’t believe they were laughing about this, but they did. Except for General Dong-suk, who ate tidily but quickly, as if it had been weeks since his last feed but he had somewhere to be.
“Sometimes it takes a firm hand,” he said, chasing a sip of wine. “Perhaps you needed firmer hands. Your boys did.”
Nasimiyu couldn’t help the stare out of the corner of her eye, curious how the king would take to such a jab at his parenting methods.
King Dong-gun’s voice seemed steelier as he countered, “I raised a fine soldier, didn’t I? And Seokjin will make a… king.”
“Thank you, father, I appreciate your bold, unflagging support,” Seokjin quipped and Nasimiyu wanted to kick him beneath the table but withheld. Did he really not know the right time to make a joke and the right time to abstain? No jokes could exist around that General uncle of his.
But maybe he didn’t intend it as a joke; he didn’t have his usual bold smile as he lifted his own glass of wine. He kept blinking, like there was something in his eye. As soon as his wine glass was done, he shoveled food into his cheek like he, too, had somewhere to be. He didn’t look like a valiant champion, though earlier he’d strutted into dinner like he’d just been crowned one, and bowed low to Nasimiyu after she placed her hand in his.
Never in a million years had Nasimiyu expected Seokjin to hear a complaint from her and go right to resolve the problem himself. A fist to Namjoon’s face! Damn, she wished she could have seen it.
“A fine king such as yourself,” General Dong-suk said in a sharp voice that Nasimiyu saw made King Dong-gun stiffen. “He’ll go around throwing balls and punishing fops for fucking maids? Who cares? Take care of the problem or get over it, it’s a trivial matter and not something you should be brawling like a fresh pup about.”
Seokjin looked startled and rushed to clarify, “I assure you, the cause of the exchange is well in hand–”
“Maybe they’re both fucking the maid,” King Dong-gun suggested with a laugh, then quickly added, “My apologies, Princess. I forgot you were here, you’re so quiet tonight.”
“Just taking it all in,” she mumbled, but it was missed beneath Lady Zselyke insisting, “She has a sense of humor about it too, Dong-gun, don’t worry about her.” Nasimiyu saw the quickest flicker of Zselyke’s eyes in her direction but didn’t understand the meaning of it. And she most certainly would not have a sense of humor about Seokjin fucking any maid, particularly hers.
“I am confident he is not,” she said coolly, and smirked at Seokjin in the hopes people would see it and murmur. Seokjin gave her the smallest smile but it was like something pressed heavily down on him. She wished he would take more pride in his own fight!
“Besides, I think it’s admirable,” Lady Zselyke rushed on to cover Nasimiyu’s response. “When there’s an issue, you go right to solve it. No skulking around waiting for someone else to handle it or hope it will handle itself. It’s the proper way to deal with things, isn’t that right, Dong-suk?”
Honestly Nasimiyu couldn’t believe Zselyke had addressed him at all, much less so casually. She seemed to puff herself up further as Dong-suk looked at her, wine glass steady in his hand. Nasimiyu couldn’t decide whether it was stupid or admirable.
“I don’t believe you wish to hear how I deal with things,” Dong-suk said, looking away from Lady Zselyke like she no longer interested him in the least. He gestured brusquely to a servant to clear his plate away.
King Dong-gun chuckled, “Here to tell me how you’d run things differently if it was your ass in my seat?”
“I don’t need to tell you,” General Dong-suk said, and didn’t look at his elder brother either. “There’s no point in wasting our breath, I don’t want your chair.”
“Yes, good, it’s molded to my ass.”
“And his will fit?” Dong-suk asked with a gesture towards Seokjin. Flippant. Unimpressed. With one sentence Nasimiyu understood precisely what uncle thought of nephew. Not that she had expected anything different.
“I’ve already started my special diet to gain the weight,” Seokjin mumbled under his breath. Nasimiyu had never seen him so… wilted. He couldn’t even endorse his own jokes. Everyone else at the table ignored him.
Lady Zselyke sniffed, nose in the air, “King Dong-gun has done a fine job molding Seokjin into a prince who will rule well when the day comes, but that day will not be for a very, very long time.”
“You think so?” General Dong-suk asked evenly. Nasimiyu bit her lip in an effort not to react. She kept her head down, shocked to hear the brother of the king so brazenly suggest, “There are a dozen plots to take his head today alone and you think he will stay king for a very long time?”
“Dong-suk,” Zselyke scolded, her voice soft.
King Dong-gun rolled his eyes and laughed, “You exaggerate, little brother. Maybe four, maximum. I am not nearly terrible enough to warrant that many plots.” Something harder came into his voice as he added, “Not as terrible as you would have me be.”
“‘Terrible’ is a clever choice of word, old brother,” Dong-suk returned. “It can mean many things. To be feared, respected. That would keep you alive.”
“He’s a good king,” Zselyke argued. “The people–”
“The people,” Dong-suk laughed, cold and empty sounding. “The only good king to the people is a dead one. There is no wisdom in trying to be a good king for the people, they will always want something other than what you provide, and should they get it anyway, they will immediately want something else instead.”
“And yet here I sit,” Dong-gun said, and lifted his wine glass for a sip.
Nasimiyu startled as something brushed her leg –Seokjin’s hand. He gave a look, but she wasn’t sure what he was trying to convey to her.
“Ignoring my warnings.”
“I heed your warnings,” Dong-gun argued. “The legitimate ones. We have the Destin rebellions under control–”
“It’s not Destin you should be worried about, they’re nothing, a ragtag band of nobodies. Embarrassments, every one of them.”
“The whole principality?” Seokjin mumbled. He glanced over his shoulder, smiling, like he thought at least his footman or bodyguards would laugh, but he’d said it so quietly, probably they couldn’t even hear him. Seokjin was afraid, that seemed obvious, and Nasimiyu –despite feeling the same– found herself disappointed by him. This was his own uncle. Surely you should at least be brave against your own family? If you weren’t, who else could be?
His uncle only spared a disgusted flicker of his gaze and forged ahead, “It’s not Destin you should concern yourself with. Cut them off with one clean slice, it can be done in an hour.”
“And how many dead would it be?” King Dong-gun asked with a shake of his head.
“Numbers do not matter at a time like this. What number is order worth?”
“How many lives is my reign worth, do you mean?” King Dong-gun clarified, a nuance of language that clearly did not amuse Dong-suk. But Nasimiyu found herself briefly fascinated… was Dong-gun saying he would not take extreme measures to curb a rebellion because he did not consider the loss of lives worth it for a threat against his life? Was that really what he was saying? Nasimiyu was sure she must be misunderstanding, filling in blanks since the two of them argued about political things she only knew crumbs about.
“I’d say at least five,” Seokjin said. And, further baffling to Nasimiyu, King Dong-gun burst into laughter.
“Come, son, at least ten!”
“Let’s call it seven.”
“Idiots,” Dong-suk sighed, letting his eyes close. “Every one of you, idiots.”
“And it’s already been two,” King Dong-gun said, smiling at his brother. But then the chuckle died away as his words caught up to everyone, maybe even himself. The smile remained but it looked more threatening than amused now. “I’ve lost a wife and a son, brother. You would have my other son?”
“I don’t want Seokjin on the lines,” Dong-suk scoffed. “I’ve seen him brawl. I’d take his fucking valet before I’d take him anywhere.”
“That is what it would cost me to give you the war you ask for. How could he face his people if he did not go to fight, as his brother did? And yet…”
Nasimiyu’s eyebrows raised. She glanced at Seokjin, her only near-ally in this, curious if he knew what war was being asked for. This was the first she had heard of war as a current event other than the unrest in Destin and maybe an occasional skirmish along the border in Therepin.
“I don’t ask for a war but the means to stop one before it begins.”
Nasimiyu felt herself getting twisted up. It certainly sounded better to stop a war before it began. The ‘Therepin Border Skirmishes’ had happened during her lifetime but she had been young and shielded, raised on the far side of Yeonhalbi from the battles. Marvono sent soldiers but not too many, not anyone within reach of her.
“You grow idle, brother,” King Dong-gun said, his knife scraping noisily against his plate as he cut his steak. “Without war, you have no purpose, is that how you feel? I can put you to other tasks.”
“Destin? You won’t let me do what needs to be done.”
“I’m handling Destin.”
“I am your general, I should handle it all.”
“A rather bothersome one,” King Dong-gun scoffed. “I can’t even eat the steak I requested just for you without you nipping my ear off about war this, death threat that. Your job is to end wars, not monger them. Get a wife or a hobby and stop trying to kindle unrest. If war erupts along the border–”
“I will have warned you!” General Dong-suk shouted and slammed his fist on the table. It was a sudden and explosive outburst after he’d maintained such tight composure. Steady. Menacing by subtlety, not volume. Now Nasimiyu suspected he could do both. “If you continue to ignore the threats along the border… Your people there suffer. Unrest grows. You grow fat and lazy in your capital by the sea and the people will come for you.”
“Find another way. That is my final word.”
“It may very well be, Dong-gun.” Dong-suk rose from the table and gave the king and Lady Zselyke both a withering stare, as if she’d had much to say in it. His gaze slid blindly over Seokjin, who clearly had no merit for Dong-suk. Nasimiyu leaned back, feeling the briefest moment of Dong-suk’s eyes on her –it couldn’t have been but a second.
Perhaps Dong-gun saw it too, or maybe he had decided to try and drive the dismissal home further; he laughed, “Ah, did you meet Prince Hamisi on your way here, by chance? He’s gone south, I believe. I’ll be curious to hear what he reports about the people there and whether things are really as bad as you say. But I’m afraid you won’t find support for your war from him. He’ll laugh in your face before he sends soldiers from Marvono to die simply because you’re bored.”
“I’ve never met the man in my life and if he sells his daughter to this idiot family, I don’t care to.”
The private dining room was perfectly silent for a solid minute in the wake of his departure. For that reason, Nasimiyu thought it a ridiculously dramatic exit –but he had totally cleared his plate in remarkable speed, so maybe his only purpose at dinner had been to quickly eat and try one more time to continue this argument he and his brother had clearly broken off earlier. Nasimiyu regretted not knowing more. If the borders were full of unrest again and it posed a threat to the crown, that would be her problem to solve someday, possibly someday soon.
But it was also confusing because… well, her father hadn’t mentioned there was the risk of war along the border, nor rebellion from Yeonhalbian people. There was that remark her father had made, which Nasimiyu was proud of herself to recollect now, that he felt King Dong-gun’s ways of doing things led to the borders needing protecting, of also that he thought many people wanted King Dong-gun dead. Was that what General Dong-suk had meant…? It was annoying, feeling like she was short a few cards to understand what they were talking about. It further annoyed her that Lord Namjoon probably could have filled her in on everything and given her a reliable account of whether General Dong-suk really was as out of hand as rumor had it.
She could ask Seokjin, of course. Of course. She wanted to laugh at the idea. Seokjin had his face down in his bowl of soup and couldn’t have looked less interested in discussing politics. She never got the sense he knew much about anything, despite getting to sit in council. He just took it for granted to know what they were talking about, even though the outcome of a dinner argument like this could change the future of Yeonhalbi. Even his own future! If war did happen, Seokjin would either have to go fight or rule as his father went to die instead. Dong-gun didn’t seem like the self-sacrificing type…
For a moment, war loomed up as a real thing, more than it had ever felt before. She’d thought of war as undesirable but sometimes a necessity, but never stopped to consider who made the call about whether it was necessary or not. Probably you decided which way –war or no war– would lead to fewer deaths and better long-term outcomes… but for whom? For the monarch wanting to maintain their crown? Or the people who lived in the warzone?
War hadn’t touched Marvono since the uniting of Yeonhalbi. The nation to the north was quiet, peaceful, their relationship good with Marvono and the borders never contested –partially because they were a relation. Prince Hamisi had no sons to send to the Therepin Border Wars, even if he’d wanted to, and daughters were never expected to be soldiers. War didn’t hurt people like them.
But Nasimiyu would have her own children someday, likely sons and daughters both. It would be honorable for her sons to serve in a necessary war, but how necessary would a war have to be for her to be willing to send them?
Seokjin leaned close to her and said in what seemed to have been intended as a whisper, “Sorry about that. Family… you know how it is. I almost wish we’d go back to talking about my fight…”
“My family doesn’t have quite the… characters yours does,” Nasimiyu whispered back, aware that at least Lady Zselyke was listening closely to her. King Dong-gun had called his footman over and was telling him about some meeting he wanted to have the next day now, and also to let him know if Dong-suk left the palace at any point.
“No? No heated debates at dinner about who wants to kill you or what wars to wage?”
“No, never,” Nasimiyu said, and didn’t keep the wistfulness from her voice, though she knew she’d sounded critical a moment ago. She wanted to sound critical, because this had all seemed so inappropriate, but truthfully, she wanted in. She wanted to know. She wanted to be one of the ones having to make even those difficult decisions about what was right and how to help people best. She would have loved if her father included her in those debates around the dinner table –war, ethics, philosophy, danger, whatever! If he had, maybe she wouldn’t have felt compelled to seek it out herself –and she never would have met Dulce.
“Ah, your father loves you more than mine,” Seokjin said loudly. “He wanted to protect you from it all.”
King Dong-gun shook his head and argued, “Why do you think we ate privately in here tonight? Sometimes you have to let the stink air out for a few days. I would have done you a disservice to hide the shit of ruling from you. Someday you’ll be the one fanning the stench out.”
“Not for a long time!” Lady Zselyke bubbled over, and downed the remnants of her wine. “Honestly, all this talk of death and war and–”
“There there, Zelly, don’t you worry about it. Suk and I will make up in a few hours. He knows I’ll never give my permission and I know that he manages to get it done another way and everything will be fine.”
“But if the borders really are unquiet–”
“They’re not. Ask Namjoon, wherever he’s sulked off to hide. Why don’t you ask him, Seokjin? While the two of you fix whatever this was?”
Seokjin’s brow lowered as he said, “That… isn’t likely to happen.”
“You don’t have to like him, but you do have to find a way to work with the people in position to best help you.”
“I don’t need his help. Not someone like him.”
“You’ll have to let go of this idea of liking people,” King Dong-gun continued. “It leaves you worried about whether people like you, and once you care about that, you’re damned.”
Seokjin gave his father a wide grin and promised, “Well I’m safe there, I’ve never worried about that.”
“Good. Because the rest of your life is going to be spent working with people you hate, and arguing with people you care for. You think you’re always going to see eye to eye with me? Or your advisors? Even your wife… her father… it’s harder to hold your ground with people like that but you have to.”
Seokjin looked stunned. Nasimiyu wasn’t sure why. At first Seokjin struggled to find the words, before he pressed, “You think I should stand my ground? You believe I’ll have the right way of things–”
“Well you’d better figure it out eventually,” King Dong-gun laughed and Seokjin visibly deflated. “Otherwise the people around you will figure it out for you, but no one except the king can ever see all there is to see. It’s your uncle’s job to ask for what he wants to get the job done in the easiest way, and it’s my job to tell him no, to get it done in the best way. Get good at telling people no, Seokjin. Zselyke, let’s go for a walk, I need to get some unkind words about my brother out of my mind.”
In only a moment, Nasimiyu and Seokjin were alone in the dining room, silent and still though neither touched another bite.
Eventually Seokjin snorted, “Won’t it be a sight to see if my uncle has to answer to me someday? I know you’re thinking it. How in the world am I going to hold someone like that in line?” He shook his head and for a moment looked so sincere and open and casual –except this time instead of putting Nasimiyu off, she felt like he’d reached a hand out to her. Vulnerable, but in a good way. Like he’d gestured to his uncle and said this is a problem we’ll have to address as king and queen someday, how do you think we should do it?
“He’ll have to listen to us, or he’ll lose his head,” she suggested.
“Us,” Seokjin insisted and his grin grew. Nasimiyu’s eyes narrowed. But instead of saying exactly the wrong thing, which is what she expected, he nodded, “Yes, all right. You’ve managed your father, haven’t you? Is he anything like that? You’ll be an asset on the throne.”
Nasimiyu was not sure she had managed her father but insisted, “Of course I have. It’s wise of you to… to recognize that. That I would be an asset, I mean.” She paused. “Do you mean that?”
“That you would be an asset?”
“That you would have me by your side. In council or ruling or dealing with… problems,” she clarified.
“The king always takes his queen into confidence–”
“I mean openly. Not a listening ear as you dress for bed but a partner in–”
Seokjin laughed and Nasimiyu bristled, but once again his words surprised her as he insisted, “I get the feeling I couldn’t keep you out if I tried, but I wouldn’t pick that fight. If you show a head for politics, at least that would make one of us.”
“Even though it would be breaking with tradition,” she said, standing because he did, trying to sound calm as a surge of energy bubbled in her chest. “If I did more than just plan balls and suppers and–”
“I hope life with me can be good for you, Nasimiyu. If you’d rather do this or that, it’s yours. I don’t care if you don’t want to plan balls. Zselyke can keep doing that since she likes it so much. If you want to be involved with council and hold court, we do that together, or you take it over, I sure don’t mind. Maybe we’ll actually be good at it all together. Yes, Jimin, I’m going in for the night, can you tell Drin I’m not sparring after all? I think I got my workout in today.”
“What are you going to do about Namjoon?” Nasimiyu asked before he could disappear.
Seokjin hesitated, then asked, “Well what do you think I should do? Did I do enough? My father thinks I need to just learn to work with him, but…” He sighed deeply and looked away. “A guy like that…”
“May be of use to us,” Nasimiyu decided. “I think you’ve done enough for now. Hopefully he will behave himself, and if not, we’ll send him away. Besides, he’d probably take Mindeulle with him but I’d like to keep her here.”
“I’m glad you’ve made friends with her.”
“I’m glad you took my complaint about Namjoon seriously,” she said, feeling benevolent. “Thank you, Seokjin.” He gave her an indecipherable look, chased away quickly by his typical smile.
“Always, my princess.”
Nasimiyu’s spirits lifted as she returned to her room, yanked back and forth between the fight for her sake and the appearance of this frightening possibly-war-criminal uncle, but then Seokjin’s easy acceptance of her value in ruling this country. It had never occurred to her that Seokjin might just… let her. Sure, it was possible he’d still be in the way. But… maybe not. There might be value in having the “true King” in the wings as she ruled, to keep the loyalty of those who actually did support the Kim line. Namjoon certainly wasn’t going to have that honor now. And while Nasimiyu wasn’t sure exactly how many children she planned on having –because honestly the whole ordeal sounded rather unpleasant and also frustrating because why couldn’t a queen rule on their own rather than worrying about heirs to take it from her– maybe she would enjoy having daughters. She’d never have to send them to war, and no one would expect her to turn the crown over to them simply because a male ruler took priority over a female one. And Seokjin was handsome; probably he would lend himself well to beautiful daughters. He might be a loving father and could see after their care while Nasimiyu ruled. And he had fought his cousin at the drop of a word from her, and he had been very good in bed.
For a moment she thought to invite him back into it. Why not? He’d done well and deserved a reward and so did she. But he had already gone, and she didn’t feel like chasing him down. She would just send for Dulce instead and let her earn her affection back.
Besides, she shouldn’t totally lose her head about Seokjin. She wasn’t sure she wanted to change their plans and keep him around… but maybe they ought to think more about this before they did anything so final as kill him. At least not yet…
Although Nasimiyu recognized –and perhaps this made the potential change of plans both more and less appealing– her father would not abide by it. Could she tell her father no any more than Seokjin could his uncle?
Dulce had volunteered for the laundry that afternoon and stayed hidden when Nasimiyu sent for her after dinner –easy enough when Taehyung invited her along to the nearest tavern the staff liked to frequent. Probably the head maid and Nasimiyu would give her hell later but she wouldn’t regret the evening drinking and playing cards with Taehyung, Jimin, and several other staff who seemed to warm to her since Taehyung had her under wing. He seemed to charm people on first meeting. It was wild to Dulce that no one suspected he was royal –not that she believed royals were actually born better than anyone else, but if such a thing existed, he sure had it. Seokjin had the looks for it but he was too…
“Involved,” Jimin had sighed as they walked back to the palace together late in the night. Dulce had thought soft or foolish but involved seemed right as well. With quite a bit of alcohol now warming her blood, Dulce nodded at Jimin’s rant, his tongue loosened by a few shots too many. “What’s he doing throwing punches with Namjoon in the middle of the courtyard? He’s got other things to be worried about right now, like his wedding!”
Jimin had not been there for the fight. He’d arrived late, too late to hear Seokjin shout at his cousin: Keep your fucking hands off Dulce!
She shuddered. Her name didn’t belong in the prince’s mouth. It always sounded wrong. His concern for her was misplaced. Her business was none of his. And while she didn’t know how the fuck he’d found out, she did not need some knight in velvet and jewels rallying to her defense.
“Yeah,” she agreed, realizing Jimin was waiting for her to say something.
“He’s so eager to impress your mistress though,” Jimin continued. “I worry he’d do anything for her at this point. At dinner it sounded like it all had something to do with Nasimiyu… she had a problem with Namjoon?”
So Jimin didn’t know.
“I don’t know,” Dulce admitted. “I wasn’t with her. I only showed up at the end of the fight.”
“With Taehyung.”
“Yeah.”
“You two are getting… close.”
Dulce arched her eyebrow and asked, “Are we? Says… Taehyung?”
Jimin laughed and admitted, “I know him too well to trust anything he says. But last time he invited you along, you didn’t join and this time you did.”
“Last time was for a fuck, this was for a game of cards.”
“Yeah, beginner’s luck,” Jimin grumbled because he’d lost and badly. Dulce had won just enough to not seem suspicious, but the men had made a big fuss out of it, like she’d never played cards before, like she needed to be coddled. Because she was a woman. And apparently that made you less good at cards or something? They were all terrible; it was a challenge to lose.
“Everyone in this palace worries too much about who’s fucking who,” she told him, assuming he was trying to clumsily ask if she and Taehyung were fucking, or maybe if she wanted to fuck, or if fucking was off the table.
“Be nice, it’s all they have to do,” Jimin laughed. “It’s Priva! The capital of the world! Live in Priva –live in the palace of Priva– and enjoy infinite wealth, splendors out your ass, nonstop fun!” he shouted, his voice echoing around the empty yard as they crossed it.
Dulce tried not to smile at his drunk antics and gave him a friendly shove, scolding, “Be quiet, you’re a public nuisance.”
“Even the staff here live the life of dreams!”
“If you’re so miserable, leave.”
“I’m not miserable, I love my job. Taehyung’s the one shoveling horse shit, I just fluff collars and make sure the pets get fed and tell people the prince isn’t in his room when he’s got a comic he wants to read,” Jimin corrected.
“Yes, sounds awful.”
“I know what awful is. I know I have it good,” Jimin corrected. “You have it good.”
“Do I?”
“Don’t you?”
“Sure,” Dulce said.
“Is the princess good to you? They say you can tell a lot about someone by how they treat their staff. What does it tell us about the princess, hm? Will she be a good queen, Dulce? What will the world look like when we’re shining the shoes of the people in charge?”
He was drunk and rambling and thinking big thoughts but Dulce wasn’t in the mood to follow. And certainly she would never get so drunk as to start spilling secrets, even Nasimiyu’s. Not only could she hold her liquor better than that, she’d never let herself drink that much. He laughed when she said nothing.
“Enigmatic Dulce.”
“Big word for a Destin.”
“Ha! Classist!”
“Paloman. I believe we’re beneath you in education so I’m punching up.”
“We’re trash people from trash principalities, it’s true,” Jimin sighed. “I don’t have much lost love for my homeland but Prince Seokjin will do right by them. He promised.”
“Hm.”
“He seems to like you, maybe he’ll be a good benefactor to Paloma too.”
“I’m not sure he could find it on a map.”
She hadn’t meant to say that part, but it set Jimin off in a peal of laughter that had him stumbling on the stairs. She felt obligated to see him to his room, which he made a big show of thanking her for, bowing low and kissing her hand, then giving her a gentle tug to see if she’d follow him into his private room. Because of course he got a private room, lucky ass. Why didn’t she get a private room?
But Dulce didn’t feel like fucking anyone right now. Sex would be a chore, despite Jimin’s good looks. The alcohol made her numb and there was too much drama and she was annoyed and not in the mood to be exposed in any way with anyone.
So she declined, pinching Jimin’s ear when he pouted about it. She’d walked away before realizing at least she could have slept in his room, away from so many people. Maybe she ought to have taken him up on it but then “fallen asleep drunkenly” before they could get their clothes off.
This regret mixed with the others from the day, from the past few days, and she felt her spirits sink the further she walked from Jimin and his bright presence. Even his complaints seemed more like bragging and gratitude; he was dedicated to the Prince thoroughly, even when smashed. He belonged here.
Dulce got that bubbling feeling under her skin again, the same one that had made her freeze earlier when Seokjin had said that, making it clear she’d stupidly stepped into a trap without noticing. A feeling that, to be honest, she had been trying to ignore for a while now:
Get out of here.
The strains of that warning threaded through just about every encounter she’d had since she arrived here. She didn’t belong in this palace, with these people, with Nasimiyu, anywhere in sight of this Prince with the walking target on his forehead that he’d practically painted there himself. And what was she doing this all for, to protect a family who hadn’t even tried to find her when she left? No, why would they? All anyone cared about in her family was themself and their own interests. Everything she’d learned about her family as a child was just a lie. It was all a lie, all the good things in the world…
Realizing she was too tired and more than a little drunk and probably going to get in a fight with the other maids when she crept into the sleeping quarters, she took a detour to the kitchen instead. Might as well get some food and water to clear her mind.
It was so late the kitchens were actually quiet, which only happened for a couple hours in the middle of the night, and even then, there was no guarantee that no one would ring the bell with some midnight demand to rouse the overnight staff.
Perhaps that had happened because she heard voices deep in the kitchen, too muffled to make out until she drew close. The door to the outside swung shut as Yoongi turned to her, a bleary look to his eyes.
“Are you cooking?” she asked with confusion because there was no food out.
“Just finished,” he said, gesturing to the dishes piled in the sinks, ready for the washers in the morning. “Did you come for food or company?”
“Food.”
“Had enough company already?” he pressed. “You smell like a tavern.”
“That is probably because I was in one.”
“Really? Didn’t take you for the going out type,” Yoongi mused, beginning to rummage.
“I can find something, you don’t have to.”
“I don’t want you digging around, just sit.”
“I go out,” she belatedly answered. “Sometimes.” She watched his back as he found bread and butter and a bowl of small berries she wasn’t familiar with.
“Me too, when I’m avoiding someone.”
“Who said I was avoiding someone?”
“Were you?”
“What is that berry?”
“They’re called cloudberries,” he explained as she picked from the bowl to inspect. She’d never seen anything like the misshapen orange sphere before. “They’re imported.”
“Too expensive to feed a maid,” she pointed out before popping it into her mouth. She felt very comfortable with Yoongi right now. She didn’t want to but it couldn’t be helped. Sometimes it was lonely, never getting close to anyone. She couldn’t get close to him either but she could settle into a corner with him in a different way than she could with Nasimiyu or with Jimin or Taehyung and somehow all these little pieces of herself she showed in flashes to different because it was human nature to crave connection had to be enough.
No, it was enough!
She didn’t need more than that.
“The king won’t know and the prince won’t mind,” Yoongi assured her.
“You might be surprised…” she mumbled.
“Who are you avoiding?”
“No one,” she answered again, glare brief in Yoongi’s direction because he had fed her, after all.
A thud against the outside wall made them both look over and Yoongi sighed.
“Does someone need you?”
“Are you avoiding… Namjoon?” Yoongi asked. Even before she could roll her eyes he pressed on in an almost deadpan voice, “Did he cause you harm or take advantage of you in any way that makes you feel unsafe?”
For a moment she just looked at him, not sure why the look or voice. He looked like someone had a dagger to his throat, forcing him to ask the question.
Then an idea came to her. She set the bread down before she’d even had a bite, and pushed away from the counter, marching over to the door that led to the outside and threw it open.
Prince Seokjin stood just outside, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed although he straightened immediately at the rush of the door.
She looked back at Yoongi and demanded, “Really? You’re voiceboxing for him? If you have a question, Prince Seokjin, you can ask it to my face.”
“I…” He looked startled and she belatedly recognized her own inappropriate intensity and familiarity. The alcohol might not make her divulge secrets, but there had been a lot of it, and it did make her a little…loose. Informal. Irritable.
Just as quickly, he cleared his throat and asked with all the propriety of a lord asking a lady for a dance, “Did he hurt you?”
“No!” she scoffed and strode back into the kitchen to get her food. He followed, as she suspected he would.
“I don’t mean to offend you by asking the question–”
“You do offend me. Who I fuck is none of your business.”
He blinked rapidly, maybe at her language, and assured her, “Yes, I– yes, of course it’s not, but– except that I wanted to make sure–”
“You wanted to make sure,” she repeated, grabbing the hunk of bread. “So instead of asking me, you brawled in the courtyard and then shouted my name, associating me– spreading my private business–”
“I suspected he had– Nasimiyu told me– I only wanted to protect you,” he said, and recoiled as if he had tossed her a hot potato and suspected she would throw it back in his face.
“To protect me,” she repeated in utter disbelief.
“He’s a lord and you’re a… a maid.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“I don’t mean it as an insult,” he hurried to say. “But it wouldn’t be the first time someone used their title to take advantage of a woman who– who might feel as if no one cares or that there is no justice to be had.”
“Noble of you. Do you run around fighting everyone who does such a thing? Before there is even a complaint from the woman?”
“I… well…” He clearly floundered for words and Dulce bit into the bread because she felt too loud herself and didn’t like it. She was furious, she realized about herself. She didn’t even fully understand why, except that this man had done something stupid and she was furious about it. “I don’t often have it brought to my attention,” he stammered out. “If I did, yes, of course I would defend any woman who needed it.”
“This one didn’t.”
“Well…”
“Not every woman is a damsel in distress.”
“Yes, certainly, of course not. And I’m no knight,” he offered, smiling with that supplicating grin like he hoped he could soothe her anger with a joke.
“I don’t think a knight would shout a woman’s private affairs right in the middle of the courtyard–”
“What did you shout?” Yoongi asked, eyes going wide. “You didn’t mention that part.”
“I– well, you see, it was just– ah, you know how it goes when you have a fight and your blood is pumping and the nerves, maybe you don’t think through everything… I don’t know what I said, I don’t think it was important…”
“It was private,” she said, lowering her voice, lowering her eyes, playing into the very image of demure lady she realized he expected of her. Soft little sweet maid. Quiet. Unassuming. Violated.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just– I know him, and I don’t want him taking advantage of you– or anyone! But especially–”
Yoongi coughed and pounded on his chest so Dulce didn’t hear what Seokjin said.
“I mean that I’m sorry I said anything. I’m sorry I got involved in your affairs, it just never occurred to me that you would… I mean that you…”
“That I have sex?” she blurted out. “I do. I have sex. I’m not this blushing virgin maid you seem to think I am! You don’t have to come swooping in to fight off men for me.”
“Well I just– in the city that day, those men were bothering–”
“I could have taken care of them too! I don’t need your help!”
“Yes of course not,” he said, and pinched his cheek and turned away. “Of course you don’t. You um… you have feelings for him and it’s not my right to interfere–”
“Your idea of women is so…”
Yoongi held his hand up to her, an interruption that gave her just the pause she needed to realize she was saying too much. Expressing too much. She was just so mad that he of all people could so greatly misunderstand her. Underestimate her! And the infuriating thing was that she couldn’t actually even tell him the truth! That she’d been thinking of–
NO, not that truth! That she had murdered–
No, not that one either! That she could kill if she needed to, that she could defend herself–
“Sometimes women have sex for fun,” Yoongi informed Seokjin. “It doesn’t have to be profound.”
Seokjin’s face had turned a deep shade of scarlet, his ears practically emitting flames in the low light of the kitchen lamps, as he stammered, “Yes, of course, I know that. I just meant– I didn’t realize it was your way of passing the time– but that’s fine! I’m not here to judge. I just misunderstood but it was– it was a good faith mistake! I just want to make sure you feel safe and happy here. Namjoon is known to have– well there was this business before where he inserted himself into the wrong woman– I mean situation!” he cried. “Honestly the fight wasn’t even about you, we go way back, I’ve had problems with him and how he treats women for a long time.”
Yoongi swept crumbs from the counter where her abandoned bread sat hardening, and mumbled, “I don’t know, maybe he treats them well…”
“You aren’t helping here,” Seokjin said, the only thing he’d managed to say that didn’t sound like a stuttering, stumbling mess.
“I fed her, helpful,” Yoongi countered. “You overstepped, so just say you’re sorry and move on.”
“I’m sorry, move on,” Seokjin said, then covered his face and cried, “Fuck, I meant–”
Dulce genuinely couldn’t believe this guy, so worked up about her anger that he clearly couldn’t think straight. She hated herself for wanting to laugh at what he’d said. It was funny, if he’d meant it as a joke. She hated how much she liked that he told jokes at the worst times. But she was furious with him! Mortified! Ashamed! How dare he say something funny right now!
“I would love to move on but now I might lose my job because of my private… happenings,” she said. Not entirely true, but not totally a lie, and she couldn’t let go of her anger so easily.
“You won’t,” Seokjin said, as if he had any control of it. “There’s no way Nasimiyu would lose you over this. Just because you have terrible taste in men doesn’t mean–”
“Jin…” Yoongi mumbled.
“Well she deserves to know– you deserve to know he’s not a good man. Maybe it’s just sex, I don’t know, that’s your– that’s your own private affair, but you should know he’s not a good man so don’t expect anything good from him.”
“Stop worrying about me!”
“Yes, right, fine, I’ll just turn it off!” he said, throwing up his hands. “I’m sorry I tried to be a decent man.”
“You have bigger things to worry about than the sex life of a maid,” she huffed. “I didn’t ask for your help or your worry or your– your saving or whatever you thought you were doing!”
“Yes, I see that now. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. I’ll just mind my own business. Pretend I don’t even know you.”
“You don’t know me!” she pointed out.
He didn’t say anything. Just threw his hands up and walked out the door of the kitchen into the yard. It enraged Dulce. She felt a nearly-impossible-to-ignore urge to chase after him and grab his arm because how dare he just walk off during an argument? Nearly, but not quite; she stopped herself because Yoongi was there, and the sight of him was enough to sober her the pinch she needed to realize she was behaving like a drunk lunatic. She never lost control like this. She never bickered like this! There was no point! Bickering gave someone else power over you. Needing to have the last word or prove a point or correct someone’s thinking meant you cared, and she didn’t have space to care –certainly not about what some stupid prince who was going to die anyway thought about her. Who gave a shit if he thought she was fucking around? Who gave a shit if he thought she was inexperienced and shy and helpless? Who gave a shit what he thought at all?
She’d shouted at him. She’d shown too much, cared too much, let her feelings take over in a way that made everything a thousand times more embarrassing. She’d shouted at the crown prince. And Yoongi had witnessed the whole thing.
Cover cover cover!
“I’m drunk,” she told Yoongi, not a lie. She let her eyes get really wide and asked, “Do you think he’ll have me thrown in prison for talking to him like–”
“If you want him to stop infantilizing you, you should stop it with the eyes,” Yoongi dismissed her with a gesture.
“What?” She was genuinely surprised. No one had ever cut so sharply through that sort of thing with her before.
“Honestly, I’m beginning to wonder if you’re doing it on purpose.”
“Doing what on purpose?”
“Interfering.”
“Interfering with what?” she asked, her confusion genuine because what could he possibly mean by that?! Interfering with… “With the Prince and Lord Namjoon? It’s not a secret they hate each other but why would anything I do with Lord Namjoon have anything to do with the other? It was just alcohol-induced sex after the ball! Fucking isn’t always that deep!”
“Ah, he’d have a quip for that,” Yoongi snickered. Dulce didn’t know if that meant she’d managed to clear his suspicions that she was up to something. But honestly, to think she’d fucked Namjoon as a way to… to what? To piss off Nasimiyu, if anything!
“I don’t know what you’re accusing me of doing.”
“Nothing,” he said. “I don’t either. Why don’t you head off though? Take your bread. Damn, what a mess.”
“The crumbs?” she asked, knowing it wasn’t the crumbs, knowing that apparently he didn’t buy the innocent act. And Seokjin had bought it too much. And she was angry about him buying the very act she had fed him and for why? Because he’d believed it so much he was willing to fight a man about it? That couldn’t really truly actually be the reason he’d fought Namjoon and yet…
She took her bread and the cloudberries and left, but the berries tasted too sweet right now, like they’d make her sick.
The first person to ever fight for Dulce and it had to be him?
What a mess.
“He was on duty when he disappeared?” Dong-gun asked, looking down his nose at Jungkook as Seokjin stood by. Jungkook nodded, glancing at Seokjin for confirmation. The remaining three men of Seokjin’s bodyguard rotation stood by, with a space in between where Edmung ought to be. Five, five men who followed Seokjin around the clock, even stood outside to do nothing but wait when he slept or pissed or attended council. Even checked the washroom before he entered if it was outside his own chamber. And fuck him if he had bubble-guts or something and needed to spend some extra time in there, because they just stood there on the outside, waiting, knowing.
The guards had been assigned to him since that time he’d been just about assassinate years ago, but Seokjin didn’t complain about it anymore because the truth was he dodged them all the fucking time so it wasn’t too much of a burden. Jungkook wound up with an unfair balance of shifts because Jungkook was the one he was least inclined to dodge. But Alonzo, Muhtar, and Marks were old, annoying, judgmental, and never laughed at any of Seokjin’s jokes. He also suspected they reported everything he said and did to his father –or would have if he did anything worthy of mention, good or bad. He didn’t trust them much, though he supposed they were good at their job. There hadn’t been any close calls since that hunting trip. It could also be that no one cared enough to try anymore.
“Seokjin?”
“He was just gone,” Seokjin confirmed with a shrug. “I didn’t lose him on purpose. I don’t remember the last time I saw him.”
“It’s a window of two hours between when his rotation began and when Jungkook noticed he was missing,” Muhtar explained. That was a long time in which Seokjin couldn’t recall a single interaction with the man. Not that they usually interacted. He was sort of… annoying. A few years older than Jungkook, and he did laugh at Seokjin’s jokes sometimes, but he just took himself and his job so seriously. The older guards did too, but they were calmer about it. Sometimes Seokjin wanted to take Edmund by the shoulders and shake him and insist This isn’t an impressive assignment! The only person who ever tried to kill me was a crazy guy who thought I looked too much like my dead mother to live! He insisted he could talk to animals and that he controlled the boar he sent after me with his mind! He was nuts!
Damn, he hated to remember it. The immediate formation of his guard might make it appear as though his father was deeply concerned about the attempt, rather than embarrassed at his son’s incompetence. Seokho was off winning a war and Seokjin was nearly killed by a wild boar in the caves while holding a gun. He’d shot ducks before, he’d caught and cleaned his own fish, he wasn’t –as his father laughed and lectured for years to come– incapable of getting his hands dirty with the matters of life and death. Incapable of defending himself while his older brother was off fighting and killing people.
The boar had nearly killed him. Gouged him in the side, knocked him off a cliff, and he’d hung there bleeding to death as Jungkook shot the boar in the head, shot the assassin in the leg from his perch in the trees, and pulled Seokjin up from the branch. At nineteen. Home on a brief leave from the military and allowed to hunt with them as a favor to his late father who’d died defending Dong-gun. A hero at nineteen while Seokjin couldn’t even shoot a boar that was about to kill him.
He’d never said it, but sometimes Seokjin wondered if his father wished the boar had finished the job. Or that his sons had traded places, and it was Seokjin who’d died in the Therepin border skirmish two months later. He himself felt like that sometimes too. Not that he wanted to die –because actually there were many things he enjoyed in life– but that it wouldn’t be so bad to die because he didn’t really get to live much anyway. That’s how he felt sometimes. If he died, eh, maybe it was meant to be, and he’d done his best to wring enjoyment from his short life while he could.
So he snuck into the city to enjoy himself. He broke away from his bodyguards so they wouldn’t watch him with those dull, judgmental, disappointed gazes, pretending not to but observing everything. Even Edmund, who acted like it was a great honor to be hired to guard the crown prince. It led him to wish the bodyguards weren’t there, to act like it, so that a man who dedicated his life to Seokjin’s safety disappeared and Seokjin couldn’t even say the last time he’d seen him.
“There’s been no body found?” King Dong-gun asked the head of palace security.
“No, sir.”
“Which means he could still be alive and talking,” Uncle Dong-suk pointed out, standing by the window. Seokjin was surprised his father had allowed his uncle into this meeting on palace security affairs after they’d fought nonstop since his uncle’s arrival, but maybe Uncle Dong-suk had just invited himself and his father simply hadn’t wanted to argue any more.
Seokjin shrugged, “He won’t have anything to talk about. He doesn’t go into council with me. I don’t have anything confidential in my rooms and he doesn’t go into them anyway.”
“Guards don’t have free access to all places in the palace,” the head of palace security insisted. “If Edmund was attempting to access anything important, the guards posted at those rooms would deny him entry.”
Marks –who, notably, had hired Edmund– insisted, “We have no reason to believe he was a traitor. It’s more likely he was captured and is loyal and innocent of wrong-doing.”
“Except for getting captured, leaving my son open to danger.”
“But how would he actually be captured in the middle of the palace while on duty?” Alonzo pointed out. “He wouldn’t go without a fight.”
“Unless he’s guilty is my point.”
“In which case he would probably leave while off duty,” Jungkook pointed out. “I don’t know how he was taken but I think he was, ser. Quickly and quietly.”
“Could this be related to the body found in the Princess’s bureau?” Muhtar suggested.
“Should we double up bodyguards? Two at a time?”
“No,” Seokjin said quickly. “I’ll just be more aware of what’s around me.” No one had a comment on that, which he took poorly; they clearly didn’t think him capable of being aware of his surroundings, a low fucking bar. “We don’t even know what happened, I don’t see any reason to double up my guards, especially when I don’t even leave the palace. For all we know he went to help a cat and slipped over the sea wall or something…”
The debate went on. Ultimately Seokjin won about not increasing his bodyguard, but lost about increasing palace guards. Two attacks within the walls was two too many. The search for Edmund would continue, though without a single lead, it seemed as likely to be solved as the dead body in Nasimiyu’s bedroom.
Seokjin felt a headache coming on. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse. Everything had been so quiet and dull before Nasimiyu arrived and now he couldn’t keep up with it all. His father wanted to spend the afternoon holding court as a way to show there was nothing wrong, but intelligence had come in about another demonstration in Destin and Uncle Dong-suk wanted to “talk about it.” Which probably meant arguing with Dong-gun about whether he could take several hundred soldiers and just raze the principality to the ground. The more Seokjin learned about his uncle’s policies –both on and off the books– the more he feared his father had an absolute sadist running the military.
They won wars. Their borders were safe. But if the things he heard said about his uncle’s campaigns were true, how could his father possibly let the man be the top general of all Yeonhalbi’s military? Yet at the same time, he saw his father constantly checking his uncle, telling him no about this, no about that. Did they genuinely disagree? Did his uncle do those things anyway? Did his father feel like it just gave him plausible deniability?
Seokjin didn’t know what the truth was. He was scared to know more. All he knew for a fact was that his uncle was cruel, had frightened him since he was a child, beaten him plenty of times to instill that fear, and seemed incapable of joy or mercy. When Seokjin was king someday, Dong-suk would have to go. Surely there was a man who could run the armies for Yeonhalbi and not give off the impression, true or not, that he was committing war atrocities –or, what seemed to be his father’s latest accusation, lying about unrest simply to get permission for a war. If nothing else, Seokjin would need a general he could say no to, who would listen to that no. In this fictional world where suddenly Seokjin knew the right thing to do and just needed people to execute his grand plans.
But how were you supposed to know? As he sat through the debate about Destin –which had his father and uncle arguing so loudly he thought they’d come to blows– all Seokjin could think was, how are you supposed to know? How did you know which wars were worth fighting? How did you know which sacrifices were worth making? Which risks worth taking? It was one thing to refuse a doubled guard because it was his own life at risk; it was another entirely to debate whether the time had come to handle Destin with overwhelming violence or if they could afford to ignore the new alleged raids happening along the Therepin border. Those were Yeonhalbin lives being lost either path you took.
All Seokjin could think was that it was good there were adults handling these decisions. Adult who knew what to do. But did they? They had all differing opinions. And he was an adult! At twenty-nine, shouldn’t he have a clear idea of the right things to do, the proper choices to make? Seok-ho had died at thirty-one, but by twenty-nine he’d already been so sure of himself.
Seokjin couldn’t even manage to be friends with a maid. He’d been so sure he was finally doing the right thing for her, for women in general. Finally taking a stand against Namjoon and his greed. Nasimiyu seemed happy about it but Dulce… damn. Dulce had really put him in his place about it, in a way he’d never expected. He felt like shit about the whole thing –that he’d gotten it so wrong, that he’d insulted her without meaning to, and maybe worst of all, that she’d chosen Namjoon.
She’d chosen him.
It didn’t matter whether it was just sex or something more. Dulce tolerated Seokjin’s jokes and drank hot chocolate with him and tried his culinary masterpieces in the kitchen, but when it came to actual attraction, her eyes went right to Namjoon. Not that Seokjin expected Dulce would choose him or anything, but couldn’t it have been anyone but Namjoon? If she wanted “just sex” so badly? Yoongi was right there! Hell, Jimin and Taehyung had made it annoyingly obvious she was welcome to their dick, and Jungkook had slid right in at the ball–
Who was he kidding? Seokjin knew he’d sulk at least a little no matter who she chose. For reasons he was not particularly interested in analyzing, thank you very much. It wasn’t important. It wasn’t personal. Maybe he just respected her opinions, and would have liked for her to think highly of him. Maybe he’d like to be chosen by someone for once. No one ever chose him. Nasimiyu wasn’t even choosing him, she was just stuck with him.
For some reason, girls always chose Namjoon.
He failed to wipe the scowl from his face as he crossed paths with Namjoon and Mindeulle in the hall. It was pure coincidence; he would have simply avoided making eye contact and hurried away. Instead his gaze just happened to narrow as he came face to face with both of them.
“You can’t be like this forever, please, Seokjin,” Mindeulle leapt into the middle.
For once, Seokjin said nothing, because he wasn’t sure what to say. On one hand, he might owe Namjoon an apology. On the other hand, he meant what he’d said. In fact, he meant it even more now that Dulce had confirmed it was consensual. Looking at Namjoon’s dumb face and broad muscular body and incessant talking about intelligent and profound things and understanding now that this was what Dulce had been drawn to made feelings begin to boil again. So he kept his mouth shut. Because he could be intelligent and profound too and he thought Dulce knew that but apparently she didn’t like his kind of intelligent and profound, or at least not his face. And it didn’t matter because she was just the maid of his future wife but all the same.
“It’s fine,” Namjoon mumbled and grabbed Mindeulle’s arm to drag her away.
“But–”
“I said it’s fine.”
Seokjin didn’t feel fine about any bit of it, and he didn’t appreciate Namjoon taking some kind of high road either. But all he could do was stride down the hall away from them, trying to look like he had not a single care in the world. He wanted to be that man again, the one who didn’t care, who didn’t worry, who just let himself be carried along by the inevitable and did his best because nothing more could be asked for. But ever since Nasimiyu had arrived, he’d been confronted again and again by all the ways his best was wrong or ridiculous or not good enough.
And now one of his bodyguards was either dead or betraying him. Personally, his money was on dead, but did he really know anyone? Anyone? Maybe Edmund had been tracking his movements or eavesdropping on things around the palace for months and just split because the time was right! That was better though. Otherwise a man had quietly died for him. It made him feel sick.
Seokjin needed out of here. He needed to get away from this place and people for a few days and decompress. Not Prince Seokjin, not Dong-gun’s leftover son, most certainly not the future king. He wanted to sit on a dinky little fishing boat and catch his own dinner and invent a new spice rub. He never got to go fishing these days. The most he managed was hiding away in his room and even that seemed impossible lately. His poor pets were suffering without him! Everything just felt too big and heavy.
Hands on his back made him jump and spin with a shout that Marks pretended not to see as Nasimiyu looked up at him with surprise.
“Ah, you. Hey you,” he grinned at her, stumbling to match the energy that flowed just from her hands pressed against his chest and the curve of her lips.
“Nasimiyu. Your fiance. Remember me?”
“Yes, I think so,” he joked. “Um…” Her hand slid down his chest to tap his belt loop before she pulled her hands away. His mind tripped, confused by the openly fond way she looked at him now. Yes they’d had sex, but she seemed so different towards him than she had even before yesterday.
“Are you rushing off to something important?” she asked him.
“No, leaving. Hoping to avoid anything else important today. Mundane activities only.”
“Oh. Hm. I had an idea, but it’s not very mundane.”
“Oh? Uh…” He looked up and down the hall but they were alone (except for Marks. Fucking Marks.) “What did you have in mind?” He figured he must be reading unintended flirtiness into her behavior and wasn���t disappointed by that fact. His mind was a million places at once right now and he did not feel up to the task of being a very good lover.
“I wanted to thank you. For taking me seriously yesterday.” She dropped her voice and clarified, “About Lord Namjoon and my maid.”
“Ah. Right. You don’t have to thank me. You’re to be my wife, of course I’ll take you seriously.” He gave her a serious nod to drive the point home.
“I know you’ve had to endure teasing about it. From your father and uncle.” Teasing wasn’t the word he’d use but it didn’t matter; he shrugged. “So let’s spend some time together.”
“Ah, I’m sorry Nasimiyu, I’m a little distracted this afternoon. I don’t have the energy to go out–”
“Not to go out, to stay in. Come on,” she said, taking his hand and tugging him along. He knew he must be misunderstanding, and truthfully he wanted to just go back to his room and be alone, but he also knew that Nasimiyu was being openly affectionate with him for the first time ever and he’d be an idiot not to encourage it. Wasn’t this what he had longed for –for years? His future bride tossing a coy smile over her shoulder and leading him by the hand to her bedroom? Shutting the door and the world outside and guiding his hands to the laces of her dress?
“Right now?” he asked with surprise.
“Something wrong? Do you have a schedule?”
“No. No, I just– I’m surprised. That’s all.” He wasn’t prepared for this, mentally. He willed himself to prepare as her clothing fell away –even though it felt all wrong. The sun was out. That had never occurred to him as something wrong for sex, but it’s what he blamed the wrongness on now. Or the stress of the day.
“Seokjin?”
“Sorry, I…” He almost told her that Edmund was missing but decided it was better not to frighten her. Not until he knew there was actually a reason to be frightened. “Just distracted. A lot on my mind today.”
“I don’t suppose your uncle had anything good to say today either, did he?” she asked. To his surprise, she didn’t seem angry about his confession or the delay. Her body was all feline grace as she walked, totally nude, to her vanity and removed her jewelry. “Just war war war, I supposed?”
“Yes. War war war.”
“I don’t like him,” she admitted, meeting his gaze through the mirror. She was beautiful. She was so beautiful. Why wasn’t his body responding to this beautiful woman standing so comfortably naked in front of him?
“Me either.”
“I want him gone. As soon as possible,” Nasimiyu said.
Seokjin cracked a crooked grin and admitted, “I don’t make decisions like that.”
“Yet. Someday you will, when you’re king.”
“Yes, someday.”
“And we’ll get someone else to be our general then,” she said. “Right? Even my father would be better. Or maybe not my father, I don’t know, but someone we can trust not to– do you think the rumors about what he’s done are true?”
“I don’t know what rumors you’ve heard. I hope not. It’s making me cold; let’s not talk about him more while you’re naked. I don’t want those things to get crossed in my mind.”
“Yes, of course. But I just mean, you agree? That we’ll replace him?”
“It can be the very first thing we do someday.”
Nasimiyu turned back to him and took hold of the lapel of his jacket, all grins as she cooed, “Our first agreement for our future rule.”
“I hope we’ll agree on a lot more than that.”
“I’m sure we will. You’re far more reasonable than I initially thought. But right now, you seem overly burdened with your work today and taking care of that nonsense with Namjoon and my maid yesterday so let me take a load off your mind.”
“Uh… yes?” She nudged him backwards to the bed, unbuttoning his jacket and shirt, undoing his belt and pants.
“You just lay back and do exactly as I say and I think we can both be very happy.”
Seokjin would have been a fool not to go along with this, and so he lay back, and tried to will his mind clear. He was a lucky man. With a beautiful bride. The way she rode him felt good, so good, what more could he possibly ask for?
***
“Hang these in the closet,” Mirte told her, draping the gowns across Dulce’s arms. “No need to linger, you’re going on a cleaning shift after that.”
Dulce’s arms itched beneath the heavy silks and velvets and beadwork –totally the wrong clothing for a salty city like Priva– as she complained, “Can’t I take them in the morning?” She suspected Nasimiyu was in the room and wasn’t in the mood to see her. She’d managed to avoid her since their argument, and was even more convinced now that she ought to keep herself scarce, in case somehow Seokjin’s shout had reached Nasimiyu’s ears: Keep your fucking hands off Dulce! Dulce was a failure at her mission. The target shouldn’t know your name like that.
Her getting assigned to laundry and cleaning had Nasimiyu’s other maids delighted, since it was obvious Dulce had fallen out of favor. She didn’t care; she was glad for the distance.
“She’s wearing the orange tomorrow, it must be hung in there tonight, do not question your orders,” Mirte scolded. Older, gray-haired, a total bitch ever since Princess Simisola had insisted Dulce be brought along as part of Nasimiyu’s household despite her obvious bumbling skills as a maid. If Mirte had half a brain she knew there was something suspicious about it, but apparently she had the other half that wanted to keep her job and life and so she had accepted this inconvenience without further question. But plenty of barbs towards Dulce.
Fine, Dulce would hang the gowns and leave quickly, no matter what Nasimiyu might say or do. How like her to demand a specific dress for the next day. Who cared? Grab something from your dozens of gowns already hanging and don’t force a maid to run around the palace with your ridiculously expensive clothing when she’d rather do the laundry and get some rest.
Dulce knocked at the door and paused a moment to make sure Nasimiyu didn’t shout at her to go away. It was normal for servants to slip in and out otherwise unnoticed. They weren’t important, after all, not people, just tools, pieces of furniture there to serve the house without question or notice.
The guard had to pull the door for her to slip inside, which she couldn’t do quietly with so much fabric draped over her. She could barely see around herself, a veritable moving mountain, as she shuffled sideways so as not to bash her shins on any wayward furniture or drag the hems and have to wash them all over again.
Which meant her mind lagged without a visual and with her senses focused on safety. The moans didn’t register at first, the dull thud of a mattress. The masculine shout coincided with the moment her mind registered the sounds, wait a moment. Instinct made her twist quickly to see the source of the cry just as Prince Seokjin leapt from the bed, dragging a sheet around his waist and turning his back to her.
Nasimiyu looked lazily over her shoulder, the long curve of her body stretched across the bed. She looked neither bothered nor surprised to see Dulce, as if she looked right through her. Dulce couldn’t decide if this was cruelty on display, if Nasimiyu had engineered her to walk in on her and the Prince fucking, or if Nasimiyu only meant her cold indifference at this happenstance to be the barb.
“Ah, hi… Dulce…” Seokjin stammered, body curled away from her as if he could disappear, as if she might not notice he was nude except for the sheet. Mid-fuck. Flushed and sweaty. Dulce’s insides grated against each other, shredding. “Uh…”
Nasimiyu rolled her eyes and insisted, “Come back to bed, Seokjin, she’s just hanging my gowns.”
Cruel cruel cruel. It was one thing to have listened to Nasimiyu wax poetic about Seokjin’s cock, it was another to interrupt their lovemaking. Dulce turned her back to them, desperate to look as unbothered. She didn’t want to give Nasimiyu the satisfaction. It didn’t matter if this had been intentional. It seemed like a game Nasimiyu might play to get revenge about Namjoon, to prove to Dulce how replaceable she was, the make sure she understood that Nasimiyu was fucking someone else too. Her future husband. She had no way of knowing Dulce would feel more bothered by Seokjin’s naked, muscular back than the soft curves covering the sharp edges of Nasimiyu’s anger. Dulce snipped quickly, easily, at the cords connecting her to Nasimiyu, but tangled herself up confronted by the prince. Naked. Interrupted mid-fuck. An image that would never leave her mind now. He looked even taller out of his clothes. There was definition to his leanness she had not anticipated, lines of muscle along his arms and across his stomach. Knowing how he ate, how was his waist so thin?
And he’d just had his cock in Nasimiyu, that one she raved about so eloquently.
Dulce said nothing and moved as quietly as she could, as if she could undo her presence. She shuffled into the closet and drew deep, trembling breaths to control herself. She was good at control. There was nothing remarkable here. Just a servant going about their business while their mistress lived her life. She hung the gowns quickly, nauseated by every brush of her hand against the fabric. How stupid, how ridiculous that people were born into such different lives like that. Because of the circumstances of her birth, here was Nasimiyu, a princess spending her evening stretched out beneath a prince. And Dulce hung her gowns, each one probably worth more than her family’s entire property, gowns which must be delivered tonight so that Nasimiyu could wear the one of her choosing tomorrow, even while the princess was busy being fucked by a prince. The prince.
It took an eternity to hang the damn gowns. Probably the hems were wrinkling and she’d done a bad job but fuck everyone, Dulce didn’t care. She wasn’t a laundress. She wasn’t even a fucking maid. She was sick of this whole fucking place and the people in it and her reason for being here was irrevocably broken. Nasimiyu’s cruelty had turned towards her now and she wasn’t going to sit around and be her punching bag, a plaything. She’d leave tonight and never look back and Prince Hamisi could throw his tantrum. Maybe she’d even go back to her family and move them. Maybe Prince Hamisi was full of bluff and shit anyway. Maybe she’d kill Prince Hamisi, just for fun.
She tried not to look at either of them as she left the room. Nasimiyu lay on her back, chest clearly pushed up, probably hoping Dulce would notice her tits, ever vain. Prince Seokjin sat on the edge of the bed, blanket still wrapped around his waist, back to both women and face cast down and away. His shoulders slumped miserably. Poor baby, had he lost his erection? Not an exhibitionist? Good luck keeping up with Nasimiyu if one maid walking through was enough to interrupt him. Most men wouldn’t stop. Some men would make eye contact and enjoy the audience. Half the noblemen were probably fucking their maids anyway. King Dong-gun had been after all. Had it started when the Queen’s handmaid walked through the room, just like this? Had it been a secret at first, or had the Queen extended her hand and asked Taehyung’s mother to join? Nasimiyu extended her hand and Dulce saw her smile out of the periphery, almost like she was going to suggest it.
But Prince Seokjin wasn’t his father. Dulce couldn’t imagine he’d agree to that, not if he couldn’t even keep fucking his wife while a piece of furniture brought in the laundry.
Dulce was only too glad to close the door behind herself. The guards laughed and she realized they had known what they were letting her in to. They thought it was funny, a maid passing into a room where people were fucking. Everyone was a sick voyeur, was that it?
No, in another situation Dulce might have seen the humor. She might have rolled her eyes about the whole thing. Maybe in a different situation, she would have invited herself. That was the dark thought she wouldn’t let her mind entertain –a world in which she didn’t hate Nasimiyu, in which Nasimiyu wasn’t angry with her, in which she would be invited into that bed and–
No, she wouldn’t let that fantasy linger for even a moment! She wouldn’t think about what she would do, what Nasimiyu would do, what the prince might do in that situation. Never. Some thoughts were too destructive to think, and right now she was frazzled and shocked and…
…and distressed. She recognized the pounding of her heart but at least it was invisible to anyone who saw her as she charged through the hallways of the palace and headed for the gate down to the street. Her mind turned to the idea of sex as a defense, to strip away the emotion. Because there was emotion. There shouldn’t be emotion. But Dulce felt stabbed in a place harder to reach, harder to heal. Maybe impossible to heal. Nasimiyu and the prince were only doing what was normal and their right to do and yet she felt…
It was time to go. Right this moment. There was no one and nothing to stop her. All this time her chains had only been made of loyalty and blackmail, far too weak to hold her. She broke free of them and focused only on the soft taps of her shoes against the stone steps as she took to the staircase leading to the sea wall and away from this cursed place.
The sea wall would be the most direct path through Priva. She’d calm down by the time she reached the far side of the city and think of what to do and where to go next. Obviously she couldn’t stay here, not even in a city this large, because she’d see them. She didn’t want to be anywhere near them. No Marvono. No Therepin. Sartia? Destin? Maybe Rinsk. Nothing ever fucking happened in Rinsk, but then it would be hard to find work. Maybe she really should go south, find mercenary work instead of assassin work. Drink her way through a lot of money and hack things to death until a blade caught up to her and silenced it all. It wasn’t like there was anything else holding her anywhere for any reason.
Dulce sat heavily on one of the benches looking over the dark sea and let the wave of emotions crest over her head and roll further along without her. It was too much. Living life several steps ahead of emotion left her unprepared for the way feelings tore at her now. She couldn’t name them, couldn’t understand them, just knew that they were there and they were drowning her and she couldn’t endure this. She didn’t want to feel like this. She gripped the edge of the bench and breathed the humid, warm air in deep and tried to sink into the dark waves below, tried to let the loud crash of them breaking against the rocks drown out everything. Tried to match her heartbeat to their steady cadence. It was slow. A large wave broke and then several smaller ones failed to match it until the next large one came along. The noise of it felt like ringing in her ears.
For a long time she sat there, letting herself be rocked by the sound of the waves. How unfair that Priva had to be on the sea. She liked the sea, she had learned that while living here. There was a sea on the far side of Paloma but she’d never been there. Maybe she ought to. She could go to Sartia to stay by the sea but it would mean dealing with more nobles and frankly she felt on the verge of a murderous rage from which no noble was safe.
No nobles lived in Paloma. The Paloma sea was colder though, she was pretty sure. Further north. There was something about the sticky heat of this sea that would linger with her. She’d never come here again but she was glad to take this moment and let this feeling drown out everything else. This was what she would try to remember of her time in Priva –not evenings in the kitchen, not an afternoon drinking hot chocolate in an expensive cafe in the city, not ballrooms and ballgowns or longing to join the sparring in the yard or any of it. Fuck this place and all the people here.
She felt the eyes on her later than she ought to have. In a moment she knew someone was watching her and had been for a while. For a brief moment she wondered if it was Nasimiyu or the Prince –more likely to be him because Nasimiyu wouldn’t patiently await acknowledgement, but less likely to be him because why would he come after her?
Slowly she turned her head to identify who it was. Her hand slid into her skirt for her blade –not the one Nasimiyu had given her, the one she actually preferred– as a hooded figure stepped along the seawall towards her. The person seemed to shy away from the others walking past, leaving a wide berth between themself and the evening strollers. Dulce realized how effectively she had blocked everyone out. The seawall was a popular destination at this time of evening, with the sun only just set. An unlikely place for anyone to threaten her but not impossible.
The woman sat on the bench beside Dulce and shifted the hood of her cloak just enough for Dulce to see her face, soft and nervous and not the least bit threatening. It took a moment longer for her to place where she had seen this person before: in court weeks ago. King Dong-gun had thrown her child and he’d been hurt.
Dulce felt her stomach cramp with the certainty that she was about to learn something she did not want to know.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said by way of introduction. “I’ve been looking for a way to cross paths with you.”
“With me?”
“Yes. You see, I need to get a letter to the prince, and I can’t trust anyone to deliver it for me. You were kind before, when my child was injured, and you are in proximity to him. You serve his fiance, the Princess.”
“Anyone might deliver a letter,” Dulce pointed out.
“I’ve been trying to catch you for a week,” the woman continued. “I need to be sure the letter gets to him, it’s very important. And… and I have to ask that you don’t read it. It’s for the prince’s eyes only. It’s very important.”
“What makes you think I won’t read the letter the way anyone might? Why me?”
The woman laughed, a sad laugh, and admitted, “I don’t know that. I have to take the risk. I’m desperate.” She held the letter out with a trembling hand.
“What’s in the letter?”
“I can’t tell you.” The woman hesitated, then added, “I’m trying to keep my children safe. That’s all. I don’t know you and I know you don’t owe me anything, but I’m just a mother trying to keep her children safe.”
Dulce took the letter. She felt the woman’s close study as she tucked it into her pocket.
“I don’t know why you’d trust me,” Dulce admitted, “but I’ll deliver your letter.”
“When my child was hurt, you were the first to move to help.”
“My mistress helped. And the prince.”
“You were the first to move, I saw it. You were the only one to see us out afterwards and ask if my son was all right. You gave my children candy…” Dulce had. She’d swiped it from the kitchen on her way to find the women and her sons before they left the palace that day, hoping the gesture would loosen the woman’s lips and she could understand why King Dong-gun had reacted so strangely at the sight of her. The answer to her questions might very well be in that letter.
“That doesn’t make me a good person. Anyone could read your letter and sell your secrets.”
The woman nodded and closed her eyes. Everything about her seemed a breath away from shattering.
“I know that. I’m begging you not to.”
“I won’t,” Dulce found herself agreeing. “I’ll deliver your letter, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“When?”
“I can leave it in his room tonight,” Dulce suggested. He’s not in there anyway.
“No, no, please hand it to him. I can’t risk that he misses it.”
“All right, I’ll hand it to him tomorrow morning,” Dulce said. Maybe it was a lie. She hadn’t planned on going back to the palace. She’d see what was in the letter and then decide.
“Thank you.” The woman looked like she wanted to say more, her eyes watering and catching the silvery moonlight. She had a beautiful face. Sad, but beautiful. Instead she simply said, “Thank you,” again and then quickly departed.
Dulce didn’t love finding out the woman had been specifically trying to catch her, though in a way she could understand why. Small gestures could have big impacts. She didn’t think anyone had noticed Nasimiyu didn’t move when the child was hurt until Dulce did. Maybe everyone had.
The letter was burning a hole in her pocket now. She wanted to open it but not where the woman would see her, just in case she still watched. Sympathy for the woman cut through her own noisy emotions; curiosity managed the rest. At least it was only herself she had to manage. She couldn’t imagine trying to make it in this world with children. What a curse to have children whom you loved but born into a life in which you couldn’t protect them.
Dulce rose and returned to the palace, where she could be sure of finding a place to read the letter where the woman couldn’t see. The laundry was quiet at night, since the noise would wake the nobles in the nearby wing, so she went there and leaned against the wall to carefully pry up the seal with a candle and the blade of her knife. The fact that the woman had a seal already struck her as odd and she wished she knew anything about the symbol on it.
Inside, the message was simple: Please meet with me on the first day of the sunflower festival by the clock tower. It concerns your brother and the danger you are now in too. Hoya told me to say this if I needed your help: Hoya broke the blue vase.
Dulce read the message again and again and searched the paper but couldn’t make sense of it. This didn’t seem to be about her sons at all. Who was Hoya? Someone they both must have known, someone who had a secret message with Seokjin. It was curious. It made her curious. She liked to be on the knowing side of secrets. But more importantly, this woman seemed to know something about his dead brother and an implication of danger towards the Prince.
Was it about Nasimiyu’s plot? Probably not; Nasimiyu’s family had nothing to do with Seok-ho’s death. Probably there were other plots. Maybe it had to do with the missing bodyguard? Dulce was unsettled about the disappearance, even though it wasn’t any concern of hers. It wasn’t her fault if the prince got himself killed with weak security. Yes, it would lead to a failure of Nasimiyu’s plan but quite frankly, Dulce didn’t care about Nasimiyu’s plan anymore. She hated Nasimiyu. She hated the prince.
She didn’t hate the prince, she was just angry with him. For fucking Nasimiyu? No, no, yes, but no. For fighting Namjoon on her behalf. For making assumptions about her. For not seeing her through the disguise. It was all stupid. She wasn’t drunk but she didn’t want to look closer at it.
What if the brother mentioned was Taehyung, not Seok-ho?
She resealed the letter and shoved it back into her pocket, not sure whether to deliver it. Maybe if she didn’t, the prince would get killed and Nasimiyu’s plan would be ruined.
But the prince would be killed.
But he was going to get killed anyway, no matter what.
But she didn’t want to be around to see it.
She went to her room. She’d grab her things and leave and decide at the last minute whether to deliver the letter. The servants’ dorms were mostly quiet at this time of night; she had only the faintest light to work by. She dragged out her bag and packed as quietly as she could. The last thing she needed was someone waking up and asking where she was going and why. Abandoning her post would bring some of them joy but they wouldn’t want her to get away without trouble.
She needed to lift her mattress to get a few things from beneath it –nothing valuable, because that was the most obvious place to look, but things that looked sentimental, so she’d look like a normal maid if anyone did snoop. A little hedgehog, for example.
When she crouched to lift it though, she noticed a book sitting on the foot of her bed. Book four of the Kalamouche series. She knew who it was from the instant her fingers brushed the title. Who else would send her a copy of this book? She’d already read this one, but he didn’t know that because the last time it had briefly come up in the kitchen, she’d only admitted to reading two and three.
The note fell out as she opened the front cover:
I’m sorry.
Dulce felt an uncomfortable throb in her chest. I’m sorry.
For what?
When had he sent this here? It was him, she would have recognized his handwriting from the papers on his desk, he was the only one this made sense for. Even if it didn’t make sense. Was he sorry about fighting Namjoon? Or sorry for thinking she was some young, unsexed, innocent child? Or sorry for airing her affair in the middle of a courtyard for all to hear?
Or sorry to be caught in bed with her mistress, his fiance?
It couldn’t be the last one. Really it couldn’t be any of them. What did he mean, sending her this stupid book with this stupid little unsigned note? A prince had no business apologizing to a maid. A prince had no business giving a gift to a maid. How dare he? How dare he act like this and be so stupid and make her so confused and make it so difficult for her to leave?
She couldn’t leave.
She slumped against her bed and closed her eyes, the book clutched in her lap alongside the hedgehog from that day in the city. Usually it was in her pocket but she had shoved it under the mattress after they’d argued in the kitchen, as a show of her anger that no one would see but herself.
I’m sorry too, she allowed the words to form in her mind, the letter she would write if things were different. I’m sorry that I let myself get too close to you. I’m sorry that you were born into this life you don’t seem to want and that you will always be in danger for the rest of it. I’m sorry that you don’t get to wander the city and enjoy the mundane things in life the way you want to. I’m sorry that you are going to marry Nasimiyu and she will never be the woman you deserve. I’m sorry that you’re so stupid you’d fight your cousin for my honor or dignity or safety or whatever noble idea you had. I’m sorry that I am not who you think I am, I have lied to you every day I’ve been here, but I’m sorry that some truth snuck through too and you were tricked into believing that was all of me. I’m sorry that I came here to help you along to your death. I’m sorry that even though it won’t be me, someone else will do it instead, because you weren’t born with the venom and claws you need to survive.
But it won’t be me that does it.
She wished she could write a letter to Nasimiyu, too, but then it would give everything away. I’m sorry, Simi, but you are never going to be queen.
Dulce tucked the hedgehog back into her pocket, alongside the letter, alongside the other letters she had sewn into the foot of the mattress and now tugged free –the ones Seokjin had written to his betrothed. She wouldn’t read them. She didn’t want to. Instead she would sneak them back into his room tomorrow, and then she would give him the letter from the woman with the sons, and then she would find whatever it took to unequivocally expose Prince Hamisi and the Marvonese family’s treason to King Dong-gun and Prince Seokjin.
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#seokjin fics#kim seokjin ff#seokjin x oc#seokjin fic#prince jin#bts ff#bts fanfiction#kim seokjin fanfiction#kim seokjin fic#kim seokjin smut#kim seokjin x oc#seokjin x reader#kim seokjin e2l#arranged marriage#kim seokjin#royalty au#jin smut#jin fic#bts smut#jin x oc#jin e2l#tkak#to kill a king
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Chapters: 15/15
Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Kim Namjoon | RM/Original Female Character(s), Jeon Jungkook/Original Female Character(s), Kim Taehyung | V/Park Jimin, Min Yoongi | Suga/Original Female Character(s)
Characters: Kim Namjoon | RM, Kim Seokjin | Jin, Kim Taehyung | V, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, Park Jimin (BTS), Min Yoongi | Suga, Bangtan Boys | BTS Ensemble
Additional Tags: Merman Kim Namjoon, Top Kim Namjoon | RM, University Student Kim Namjoon | RM, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Merman Kim Taehyung, taehyung is a prince, King Kim Namjoon | RM, Jeon Jungkook is Whipped, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope & Min Yoongi | Suga are Best Friends, Alpha Kim Seokjin | Jin, University Student Park Jimin (BTS), Cute Park Jimin (BTS), Fucking, Jungkook TOTALLY doesn't have a crush on his best friend, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Kim Namjoon | RM Has a Big Dick, Kim Namjoon | RM-centric, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change, Mentions of TXT, Smut, Mentioned Choi Soobin, Kim Namjoon | RM is Whipped, Prince Kim Namjoon | RM, Prince Kim Taehyung | V, King Kim Seokjin | Jin, Alternate Universe - Magic, Siren Kim Namjoon | RM, Black Character(s), Original Character(s)
Series: Part 1 of RoomMates Universe
Summary:
Liyana is 22 year old college student in Atlanta, Georgia. She spends most of her time outside of school chilling with her best friends Yoongi, Jungkook, and Rena. Everything is going just fine for her until one day a new student shows up. He's everything she's ever dreamed of. But with every great thing comes a price. He's hiding a dark secret from the world and from his new roommate. What will happen when she finds out?
#bts namjoon#kim namjoon#namjoon smut#namjoon ff#namjoon fanfic#merman namjoon#prince namjoon#prince taehyung#prince jin#mermaid#bts fanfic#bts au fanfic#bts au#alternate universe
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🚅WIP anon, on a Sunday? Yes! I'll be on holiday for several weeks and wanted to say Bon Voyage to my favorite Ikemen writers. And if you feel like it, post a Wednesday WIP early in my honour! ✈
Aww, enjoy your holiday, wip anon! 🥰 Also, I'm honored to be one of your favorite ikemen writers. 🥺 And since you're doing something different, I'll do something different too. Here's an art wip of Jin Grandet I'm working on! ❤️
#holiday wip anon#wip sunday#wip anon#ikemen prince#ikepri#ikepri fanart#ikemen fanart#prince jin#jin grandet#ikepri jin#ikemen prince jin#art wip
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this happened... trust
#jetko#my art#lps468 art#digital art#meme#zuko#prince zuko#atla zuko#atla#jet#jet atla#atla jet#avatar#avatar the last airbender#jin atla#atla jin#jin#fanart#atla fanart#i HATE THEM
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Blood (1635 words) by owlpockets
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Jin Wang/Zhou Zishu
Characters: Zhou Zishu, Jin Wang (Word of Honor)
Additional Tags: Power Imbalance, Abuse, Blood and Injury, Dubious Consent, Pre-Canon, Violence
Series: Part 1 of JinZhou Week 2022
Summary:
Zhou Zishu does not like blood.
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#fanart#atla fanart#zuko#prince zuko#he’s too shy tee hee#him and Jin >>>#zuko x jin#my art#taakiitoo
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so I just discovered today that JP Zhou Zishu calls Prince Jin "Ani-ue" and now I'm not sure what to do with this information
#Word of Honor#Shan He Ling#SHL#Zhou Zishu#Wen Kexing#WenZhou#Prince Jin#Jin Wang#Word of Honor JP#SHL JP
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