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foxymoxynoona · 19 days ago

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To Kill A King (Chapter 16)

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

No one was getting close to the prince’s room. Dulce couldn’t even get to the hall; guards formed an impenetrable wall across the path and she had no reason to push her way through. She tried the back hallway instead, the one that ran around his courtyard, thinking she might be able to catch a glimpse from there of what was happening. Doctors must be in with him now, attempting to remove the blade and stop the bleeding of whatever organs it had penetrated. If it hit the heart, there was no hope; he’d slowly bleed out around the knife or quickly once they removed it. Even if the heart was just nicked, the pressure would cause it to rupture, perhaps after he thought he was perfectly healed, just out of the blue. His lung would be bad too. Yes he had two of them, but if blood or oxygen built up in his chest cavity, his lungs wouldn’t be able to expand and he’d suffocate or drown on his own blood. Dulce had heard it was possible to survive with a good surgeon but did not believe that was true, based on what she had seen in life.

She knew too much about all of it, that was the problem. She knew how to make a clean, quick kill and that doing so was a mercy. She also knew how to drag it out, make someone suffer, though that was not her style. There had been a few times when the kill had not been clean, or in the early days when she was open to working alongside someone else and learned from their shoddy work. A bad kill meant a slow, painful death. Sometimes that’s what the person calling the shots wanted but Dulce didn’t take those jobs. There was no joy or glory in death to her. Even death of truly detestable, irredeemable people left her hollow. Suffering didn’t undo the pain they had caused others, it only stopped it. There was no justice in death, just an end.

Where had the knife penetrated? Were the doctors competent? Was he alert and suffering or was he still unconscious from the pain? Was he losing blood and would never wake up?

The hallway around the courtyard was blocked off too, no way to get through and spy. She could try to scale the roof and gave it a great deal of thought, but likely they’d be on high alert for any movement up there at the moment. She’d get caught and probably not learn anything. She needed to be in the room, and there was no way or reason for her to be in the room, because why did the maid of his fiance need to be in the room?

Nasimiyu ought to be here, though it was better for her own safety that she was shut up elsewhere. Dulce felt her blood boiling into her ears. If you loved someone, wasn’t your place beside them no matter what? Seokjin might die and Nasimiyu wouldn’t know until someone came to tell her. Dulce knew Nasimiyu didn’t love Seokjin but she’d seemed to grow more fond of him, and at least she was concerned about appearances, and anyway didn’t her crown hang in the balance of whether Seokjin lived? Wasn’t that enough to bring her around despite the risk? How could she be anywhere, doing anything else, if she was supposed to love him? Just because her maid had sent her to her room? She had obeyed, Nasimiyu who was never obedient, which meant it was what she had wanted to do anyway. But she didn’t love him.

Dulce pressed against the wall and tried to slow her breathing in the middle of the churning chaos. At least he wasn’t alone. Seokjin was surrounded by his closest friends right now, surely –at least Jimin and Jungkook must be in there with him, maybe Taehyung too. His friends the servants, the only friends he really seemed to have. Was the king there? At least if Seokjin was conscious, he’d have someone there to hold his hand if he wanted it. Dulce knew how frightening those final moments could be. She’d seen so many of them, and she tried not to stick around, but sometimes… sometimes it was impossible not to notice the fear and loneliness, as people called out for a wife or a mother or a husband, as they begged for death to pass them by today, as they tried to barter with any gods listening for more time. But there were no gods, only Dulce. And she didn’t have time to give, only to take. This time, it was the prince. Maybe hers had not been the hand to plunge the knife but she knew about the plots to kill him and the king. She had done nothing to stop them –had in fact been helping one of those plots. It might as well have been her hand. What if the letter she had delivered was a set up for this?

That was entirely likely, she realized. Her hands were stained after all.

She hadn’t been close enough to see his face but she could imagine it based on his body language, how calm he’d been, as though the knife was nothing but a hand pressed against him for balance. He’d been conscious in the wagon, trying to make jokes and put those around him at ease even as he shuddered in pain. She’d never unsee it. It couldn’t be the last thing she saw of him, the prince in profound but masked pain, and yet it might be.

A hand grabbing her arm made her exhale and spin, reaching instinctively for a blade she’d never get from her pocket in time. Taehyung’s face staring down into hers, wide eyes, hair wild and shirt crumbled, brought the hum of the hall back into hearing.

“The Queen’s room! The Queen’s room too!” The cry rippled up and down the hall, another armload of kindling on the fires of panic.

Taehyung leaned in close, his lips pressed to her ear as he murmured, “The rooms have been noticed.”

“How’s the prince?”

“Damned if I know,” Taehyung breathed, and bodied her closer to the wall in an effort to stop the jostling. “Where did you stash?”

Dulce leaned away with a shock and demanded, “Onto that already? Aren’t you worried–”

“Yah, what can I do? You think they’ll let a stablehand in there?” he quickly corrected. “You think I can do the stitches or anything at all? Focus on what we can do.”

It was practical. Usually she’d be the one pointing that out, and it shook some sense back into her. Right.

“They saw the rooms,” she repeated, trying to latch onto something concrete and focus. It didn’t need to be asked; she could hear the alarm about it, but she felt frazzled in a way that was not familiar. “They’ll think it’s related…”

“Yes, so we’d better make sure it isn’t!” Taehyung hissed.

She gave a sharp shake of her head and argued, “No, it is. That’s good. Cover. But not to us.”

“Yeah, you think? Then the whole thing gets tied to–”

“You need to move the things,” she whispered.

“Did anyone see you? Anything get left behind–”

“One of those masters saw me– or didn’t see me, but knew someone was down there and told me the way out.”

“Fuck,” Taehyung said.

“Just move the stuff and that’ll be the end. If they saw me at all, they’ll be looking for a woman in the caves, not you.”

“Where you said?”

“Yes, it’s–”

Taehyung was gone before she could finish the reminder. She hoped he was certain, hoped he knew where he was going, and hoped he had a good plan for where he was moving things. She especially hoped no one saw him or missed him while he was there.

She stayed backed against the wall as the hallway began to clear, folks off to find whatever shelter they thought would help them right now against these invisible forces. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to be. Probably Nasimiyu was waiting for her but Dulce couldn’t think of anywhere she’d rather be less. If Nasimiyu wanted to be a leader it was time to figure out her own way during a crisis, it wasn’t Dulce’s job, certainly not anymore. Her job was–

She was still a maid, damnit! She took off down the hall to the nearest linen closet and piled her arms high with towels, and a bowl for good measure, then circled back at an urgent clip.

“Towels,” she shouted at the guards blocking the hallway to the Prince’s rooms. “They called for towels.”

“No one in or out,” a guard told her.

“Then you take them in, they said there’s blood everywhere,” she snapped and tried to shove the armful at the guards. “You think I want to deal with that and being out of a job because they don’t have the supplies they called for?”

“No one called,” another one said.

“The other hall, but you’re faster– nevermind then, take the towels in and clean! You think the King and Prince want to shelter in a room filthy with blood–”

“Just go,” the guard huffed and stepped aside to shove her through. Over her shoulder she heard him insist, “You know that brat belongs to the princess, she checks out.”

Fools, every one of you.

But she didn’t stop because she was through, miraculously through! She kicked the door frantically until a guard on the inside opened it, then bustled through with her towels and promptly froze.

Seokjin lay on a board resting across the parlor table, his shirt open and bright smears of blood drying across his stomach and arms. His face was pale and unmoving, eyes closed and lips parted like a mask of death. She couldn’t see the wound itself because two men hunched over it, working. Her stomach churned. A dozen people stood around the room besides, half watching with rapt attention, the other half intentionally diverted. The King was nowhere to be seen.

“Who are you? What the hell are you doing here?” an older man shouted at her –that older bodyguard of Seokjin’s, the one who’d been with Seokjin on the wall the other day. He recognized her in a second and scowled, “You can’t be here.”

“I brought towels… they were sent for…?” It did not take effort to look dazed by the scene before her.

It was different. A body was different when you’d known the person in it.

“Nobody sent for towels! They shouldn’t be letting anyone through!” The man flung open the door and began shouting down the hall.

But he hadn’t thrown Dulce out so she dove forward and dropped the armload of towels onto the sofa. Seokjin’s skin was parted like curled flower petals, instruments sticking out as they did whatever was necessary to save his life. How odd that she and these men stood on opposite sides of the table, dragging a toy back and forth across the veil of death –a tug-of-war that ultimately could only end one way, though they might hold the line for years, if they were any good.

I didn’t do this.

I did do this.

Who had actually done it, though? She looked around for anyone who might have answers they would give her, but the only familiar faces were Jimin and Jungkook, both staring blankly at their prince on the table.

She approached them anyway, bumping Jimin’s arm before whispering, “Do they know anything yet?”

“No whispering!” one of the doctors shouted, and before Jimin could say a word Jungkook grabbed Dulce’s arm and dragged her to the door the older bodyguard opened.

“Hey!”

“Get out of here. You shouldn’t be here,” Jungkook repeated the line.

“Let go of me–”

“Go hide with your princess,” he said and promptly bodied her out and slammed the door.

Her whole body shook. She had not seen signs of life and to be pushed out like that stung –not her ego, but because of the absolute terror on Jungkook’s face. She wasn’t sure why he’d suddenly evicted her other than needing something to do when there was nothing he, nor anyone else in that room save the doctors, could do. Likely not even the doctors.

She would not go hide with Nasimiyu, not when there was a guilty party to find here, not when they might be bumbling the investigation right this very moment. They must be, if they believed the queen’s rooms being ransacked was related to the death of Seokjin’s bodyguard and the stabbing of the prince. They would believe the obvious thing in front of them, but what would they miss?

She moved quickly through the halls, trying not to blink to avoid the image of the Prince’s blank face. How close had Nasimiyu been? Should she have been able to stop it? Why hadn’t the bodyguards stopped it? Things were avoidable if you paid attention, unless someone was as good as Dulce, but Dulce would never have done this out in the open.

Someone wanted to be caught. They wanted the attention.

She paused, right in the middle of the hall, just as another quartet of guards ran in front of her in the direction of the queen’s rooms. Probably every guard and inspector in the city was being called out. Her mind had caught a fragment of a moment, the moment he’d been stabbed– he had been with his father, and twisted his father or himself. Had the Prince not been the target? The prince was much easier to access than the king. Maybe a commoner, maybe someone taking advantage of the king being among the people and loosely guarded when otherwise it was not so easy to gain access to the ruler of the country…

They must at least have the man in custody. Surely they had managed at least that. They would get answers from him, whether truthful or not. Who was investigating the dead bodyguard? Namjoon? That seemed like a potential conflict of interests, for vaguely political reasons Dulce didn’t understand other than that he and Seokjin were not friends.

She deliberated, standing in the center of the path, which direction to go? Where to start: to find the King, to find the assassin, to find the dead bodyguard? How exhausting, inspecting was much more complicated than assassinating.

Well she couldn’t just stand here and wait for the shout of the Prince’s death to echo down the hallways. If she moved quickly, maybe she could figure out who was behind this before that surrender was given. Maybe she could pinch out those wicks before the investigators had a chance to fumble justice. Just in case the ransacking of the queen’s rooms did get tied to her, and idiot investigators lumped the whole thing on her, she better move quickly with her vengeance.

She picked a path and set off.

Seokjin’s head throbbed. He felt his heartbeat in his temples and in the ankle he’d sprained as a boy and in his shoulder. There was something odd about it, his heartbeat, but he couldn’t figure out what; it seemed steady and strong, as far as he could remember. That was it, he wasn’t used to noticing his heartbeat.

A buzzing in his ears turned into the hum of voices and then time began to move more quickly. He blinked crusty eyes open and tried to make sense of the crowd, especially as background details of his own bedroom sharpened into focus. Why were all these people in his bedroom?!

“Jimin,” he croaked out, then coughed at the effort, then flinched at the sharp pain in his chest. That was all it took for events to rapidly fall into place: a man with a knife aimed at his father, a knife in his own chest, a bumpy ride in the back of a wagon.

“What do you need?” Hoseok asked, crouched instantly by his side. The voices had all hushed and Seokjin felt like a fish in a tank now, all these faces blinking at him like hungry birds. Lying down was suddenly oppressive but as soon as he tried to move, the pain burned in his chest and shoulder. Hands reached for him, which he hated more than lying down, so he batted them away and just tried again, putting weight on his right side only this time until Hoseok shuffled the pillows behind him to prop him up.

No Jimin, but Jungkook and Alonzo and Marks were close, Hoseok, the doctors, a nurse whose name he did not know. For the briefest moment he thought it was Dulce with her dark hair but as soon as the woman began to move he saw at once it was not her, even before she turned a very different face. Her movements were all wrong; she carried a cup of water differently.

“Do you know where you are?” Hoseok asked, gentler than Seokjin had ever heard him. That’s how he knew it was serious, that Hoseok wasn’t thinking a whit about appearances or decorum but let the concern show openly on his face.

“I know what happened,” Seokjin said. His voice was gravelly from disuse. Instinctively he reached for the cup the nurse held out only to flinch and pull back. Hoseok gave her a scathing look and took the cup, then clearly deliberated whether to hold it for him. “I can take it,” Seokjin said, willing it to be true. “But what happened?”

“You were stabbed,” Jungkook answered.

“You’ve suffered an injury to the chest, a narrow margin to the right of your heart–” one of the doctors began as the other spoke over him, something about narrowly avoided anything critical alongside but significant blood loss and risk of clots or empyema, which meant nothing to Seokjin.

“Am I dying?” he asked, not interested in trying to parse their medical jargon.

“No,” the first doctor said. “However you should remain in bed and resting for at least a week as we watch for infection or–”

“How long have I been in bed already?” he asked Hoseok, agog at the subsequent answer the festival was day before yesterday.

“Two days,” Jungkook clarified. “Less than two days but more than a day.”

Could no one give him straight answers? He carefully lifted the cup to his lips, not appreciating the way it trembled. His stomach grumbled, a sharp cramp of hunger that was hopefully a good sign. Really, almost two days he’d been asleep? He craned his neck to see the injury but taped gauze obscured whatever grotesque stitching job they’d done. He’d made it this far in life with few scars but this would likely be a gnarly one.

The memory of that cut on Dulce’s throat intruded and he frowned.

“I’ll help,” Jungkook offered, trying to reach for the cup of water.

“I want food and answers,” Seokjin clarified, handing the cup to Hoseok instead. “Where’s my father?”

“Uninjured,” Hoseok quickly assured him. “But…”

“Not visiting,” Jungkook added when no one else did. Seokjin wasn’t surprised. Nothing kept his father away like illness or injury. He’d have gone to the funeral, but anything short of that and he’d keep a wide berth until Seokjin was well enough to go to him –which he would probably need to do soon for any real answers. He doubted anyone in this room was privy to valuable information. The doctors were talking about his condition again and he didn’t really care to hear it. He lived, time to move forward.

“Anyone else injured?”

Alonzo cleared his throat before answering, “We found Edmund.”

“Wha?”

“Strung up in the courtyard when we brought you here–”

Marks scoffed, “Don’t act like you were bringing him in. You were off–”

“Not working! Maybe if I had been, we wouldn’t be in here right now–”

Seokjin waved his hand, which quieted no one, so he ignored their bickering and demanded of Hoseok and Jungkook, “What about Edmund?”

“Hanging in the courtyard but dead before that,” Jungkook said. “Had a paper on his chest but no one’s saying what it said.”

“Dead before that as in–”

“Someone killed him before and put him there.”

Seokjin heard this but couldn’t make sense of it. This was all such substance to wake up to from a dreamless sleep. He was pretty sure there had been no dreams. He didn’t feel rested at all, just brittle and empty. His heartbeat still felt too loud, like it should rattle his teeth.

“Who someone?”

“Nobody’s telling us,” Hoseok pointed out. Seokjin looked around the room. It felt too quiet without any of his animals in here.

“Has someone been feeding–”

“Yeah I did it and Jimin,” Jungkook said. “They don’t like all the people coming through so they’re all shut up in your study.”

“It’s not hygienic to have all those animals around someone healing,” one of the doctors scoffed, disdain on full display.

“Ok,” Seokjin said. He began to twist on the bed, tugging the blankets away from his legs. The shouts of protest were immediate but he ignored them and said, “Bring me a robe or something.”

“Your Highness, you should remain in bed–”

“Yah, I’m sure I will come right back after I talk to my father.”

“There’s nothing you need from him right now,” Hoseok too tried to argue.

Jungkook, though, brought the robe and then Hoseok snatched it from him to help Seokjin from the bed and slide the robe on himself, clearly realizing he wasn’t going to be able to dissuade the prince.

Standing was more exhausting than he’d expected, but between Hoseok and Jungkook he got to his feet and began the shuffle towards the door.

“Wait wait, you need slippers at least,” the nurse said.

“This is absurd, he should remain in bed! He is not well enough to go strolling through the palace!”

“I will avoid strolling, understood.”

“Walking though is good for him,” the second doctor mused, tapping his chin in thought. “When he feels up for it. Get the blood pumping through his body again.”

“Unless his heart ruptures!”

“Was my heart damaged?” Seokjin asked. It would be just perfect if it was, if now his body was a ticking time bomb. He had so much still to do in life, right? Something something. That’s what people always said. Technically it was true, he had a kingdom to rule someday and all that, but it seemed very far beyond him right now. Just walking to the door with Hoseok and Jungkook holding his arms was challenging enough.

“We don’t think so but the injury was close, it’s impossible to say for sure! You need to rest and recover for at least a month–”

“Didn’t he say a week before?” Seokjin asked Hoseok. He was trying to be funny and saw on their faces that they knew it too and didn’t appreciate it, but jokes were preferable to admitting that this hurt quite a lot and he was beginning to wonder why he felt so strongly about getting out of bed right now. He needed answers, sure, but it wasn’t like he could do anything with those answers. Maybe he needed to see the palace and that it was still standing, or needed to see the limits of his own body, or just needed to see his father, nothing more than a little boy once again. No mother anymore for him to run and clutch the skirts of, sadly, so father would have to do.

Walking made him dizzy so he went slow, and limped a little not because his legs hurt but because the rhythm helped him keep moving. Hoseok and Jungkook pressed by his side until Jimin saw them in the hallway and sprinted over with a gasp to usurp Hoseok’s place and try to convince Seokjin back to bed.

“Once I see my father, you won’t have to convince me,” he promised.

“No one expects you to be up yet! You’re supposed to be resting! Why did the doctors allow this?”

“He’s the… prince…” Jungkook argued, looking perplexed.

“Damn right I am and I want answers about who did this!” Seokjin shouted. “It’s annoying! I’m going to have a tragic scar right over my heart and I want answers!” It was for the benefit of the huddle of maids nearby who gave him wide-eyed stares before scurrying away. He hoped he looked more strong than crazy, sashaying through the palace in his robe and slippers, but the performance had winded him and he had to pause for a moment, leaning heavily against Jungkook to catch his breath. Breathing hurt more than being stabbed had; this was what he thought being stabbed should feel like. At the time it hadn’t hurt, he’d just felt like… butter. The knife had just carved into him like he was nothing, nothing at all.

“Can we at least find a rolling chair for him?” Jimin asked Hoseok and Marks.

“I’ll be there before you find one!” Seokjin called after Hoseok’s retreating back. Eager for it to be true because he knew his father would never let him live it down if he was wheeled in, he pushed further, harder, until finally the door of his father’s study loomed in the distance.

He couldn’t make out the words this far, but the raised voices could not be missed.

“Well?” King Donggun asked as Seokjin opened the door, so sharply that at first Seokjin thought it was aimed at him. Instead the barbed question glanced off his uncle, sitting comfortably on the sofa, an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

Instead of answering, Dongsuk looked at Seokjin and greeted cooly, “You’ve awoken, have you?”

“Seokjin.”

“All’s well,” Seokjin assured them both and shuffled heavily into the room before sinking into the chair. With a gesture Donggun sent Jimin and Jungkook from the room. A pitcher of water sat on the table beside him and Seokjin wanted it but did not have confidence he could pour and then hold the glass without trembling.

“I didn’t expect to see you up and about so soon,” his father said, drawing closer, as if the tense scene Seokjin interrupted was nothing at all. “Are you well?”

“He said so.”

“I’m all right,” Seokjin told him. “A bit hassled but more interested in what the whole point of this was. They were after you, weren’t they?”

A great breath rushed from the king and for a brief moment he looked ancient.

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown, eh?” Dongsuk asked, a derisive sneer curling around the cigarette as he lifted it to his lips to light. “The people grow bold when that head slumps with lazy entitlement–”

“The people grow bold when they are desperate,” King Donggun argued. “Why are they desperate, brother?”

“Because they do not understand to be grateful.”

“What should they be grateful for?” Donggun asked, settling back in his own overstuffed chair. He lifted a skull from the table beside him and rolled it between his fingers, exploring the cracks and crevices with detachment, as if he’d memorized them years ago in similar fits of musing. “Life isn’t about gratitude. There’s nothing I can do to make them grateful. People will always think they could be better off ruling themselves and it is the burden of those above to protect them from the horrors of what that would truly be like.”

Dongsuk took a long drag and puffed it out; Seokjin thought it was intended in his direction but perhaps his uncle simply forgot to notice him further. Seokjin was no more than the chair now, there to soak up the scent of cigarettes and cradle the ass of men with allegedly great minds and a blessed birthright.

“Gratitude that you allow them still to live it,” Dongsuk corrected. “Do you think this will be the last attempt? There will be more until they succeed. You ought to have nipped this when it was still a bud.”

“Destin was behind this?” Seokjin dared to clarify.

“Did you get anything else out of the man?” the king asked his brother.

“‘Freedom for Destin!’” Dongsuk mocked, his voice suddenly a low, bellowing shout. “Nothing but those words. Obstinate, I’ll give him that. He said nothing else and now he will say no more.”

Donggun’s glare narrowed as he gritted through his teeth, “You were not to kill him.”

“It wasn’t done to annoy you.”

“There are other methods beside the brutal, we might have learned more–”

Dongsuk shook his head and huffed, “You are weak, brother. That dagger would have sliced through your soft body, hand and arm to follow because you’re made of custard. You see the core of a man when you bring him to the brink, and he had nothing more to say. You would not have coaxed something different from him with cookies and wine.”

“Now we will never know,” Donggun mused, gaze still trained on Dongsuk. Seokjin watched them back and forth, waiting for the next volley. It was good to catch his breath for a moment anyway, and he found they were answering the questions he hadn’t thought of yet anyway. Destin behind the attempted murder of the king, was it? Not surprising given their growing unrest. Dongsuk had tried to torture anything further out of the man who was now dead and had given them nothing except the obvious, but apparently Donggun thought there might have been more to be got.

“Do you think there was more to it?” he asked his father. “Not Destin, as the man claimed?”

Dongsuk interrupted whatever response might follow, “Your father listens to the gossip of scullery maids. What do the rumors say, brother? That I tried to have my brother killed to frame Destin and so set the stage for my war?”

Seokjin felt a cold shiver rush through his body. The room was very cold, wasn’t it?

“I don’t need to frame Destin for a war,” Dongsuk scoffed. “They’re so stupid, they’re begging for a war and you’re running out of reasons not to give it to them, unless you’re twice the coward I think you are. I have no reason to murder my own brother. I do not want your crown.”

Donggun shrugged and let the skull fall with a heavy thud back to the table.

“Your motives have always been beyond my understanding,” Donggun admitted. “Why crave the battlefield instead of a life of peace and prosperity?”

“The battlefield is merely the path.”

“I think the path is a velvet couch and fine horses and a ball with good music–”

“The starving people to the east disagree.”

“So feed them,” Donggun countered. “Have your soldiers distribute bread while they’re marching through the streets flashing their overpolished swords.”

“Is that your order? They nearly killed your son in an attempt to kill you and you want us to make them cakes?”

Seokjin felt like a boy again and the adults were talking over his head. Was there not a straight-forward solution? The Destin people wanted independence, so why not grant it? If it led to their misery, at least they chose it themselves. Ah, but where would they get the steaks he and his father enjoyed so much? Where the chicken for their stews and the dairy for their cheeses and the leather for their armor and boots? Was it not possible to establish proper trade with an independent Destin? He knew the counter-arguments though, he’d heard them the one time he dared ask such a “stupid” question at council: they would pay triple or more for the things they now took for free, or very close to it. An independent Destin might be unwilling to trade at all, and then what? Paloma and Minsk would have to supply these things, they would be crushed by the demand and claim independence next, and who after them? The quality of life, the wealth of the kingdom, the strength of the kingdom would fall. They would be left a small, humbled palace, open once again to invasion. Everything his family had built for themselves would crumble. Wouldn’t that be tragic?

“That is not my command,” Donggun said, again with that ancient sigh.

“Then what is? Already you are too slow to act.”

“What, will Desitin grow more bold?” Donggun demanded. “They are in my city driving a knife into my chest. They are in my palace plucking off my son’s guards and dangling them in front of my nose. They’re in my wife’s rooms, desecrating– to hell with them all–”

“Mother’s rooms?” Seokjin interrupted.

“They were ransacked while we were at the festival,” Donggun said, sinking back into his chair. “Don’t ask me more, I can’t talk about it.”

“Yes you’ve made that dramatically clear,” Dongsuk scoffed. “Perhaps your enfeebled son can face the rooms in your stead and make a catalog of what’s missing, since it’s beyond your ability?” The disdain for the king’s grief was clear in his voice, but it missed Donggun; he nodded and mumbled, “Yes, perhaps so…”

For a moment Seokjin sat with this. It was too much to make sense of. It felt like something should be more dramatically changed around the palace for all of this to have taken place: he’d been nearly killed, his father had been the target, his bodyguard was found dead after an absence, and his late mother the beloved queen’s rooms had been robbed? Should the whole palace be in shambles? Or deserted? Or absolutely overrun with guards at the very least?

There was something beyond it all that felt unsettling to him but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Perhaps that was silly, it was plenty to feel unsettled about. An assassination attempt on a monarch, yes, all right that made sense. Killing a bodyguard to weaken security, sure, although why was the body held for so long and revealed at just this moment? And then to destroy the Queen’s rooms, the queen who was no longer alive to care, it had to be to send a message but it was just… so personal. It felt different. There was something strange here when so far Destin’s demands were very direct –though Seokjin didn’t expect he’d be the one to figure it out. His head felt a little swimmy and fluffy now and he began to wonder if maybe he really ought to have stayed in bed a bit longer.

“What did the note on Edmund say?” Seokjin asked, trying to ignore the horror of his own words. He couldn’t stop to think about what those words meant, about what that young, inoffensive, dumb but kind-hearted youth had gone through for only the crime of guarding the Prince. A life snuffed out and for why? It wasn’t fair. If they wanted to kill Seokjin, have at it, but Edmund hadn’t deserved death.

The king gestured to the table in between the men, near the water Seokjin still longed for. He hadn’t noticed anything else on the table, ignoring what he had assumed were the familiar macabre trinkets his father kept scattered there. Now on closer look he saw a crinkled, torn paper, a folded note, a pile of bloody cloths, two knives, and a silver ring.

He picked up the papers first. The folded note was worn as if it had been folded and unfolded a dozen times. The message inside was simple, written in a shaky poor hand: FREE DESTIN.

“In the pocket of the man who tried to kill us,” Donggun said, watching Seokjin’s study while Dongsuk watched the curl of smoke from his cigarette glide up to the ceiling.

Seokjin folded it closed and tossed it back to the table. The second note was crinkled and torn but not folded; a giant rip at the top muddled a few of the letters but the message was not lost:

We are here. We know everything. We will take everything from you until we get what we want. Each cut will hurt more. FREE DESTIN.

Seokjin dropped the paper quickly back onto the table to mask the shiver.

“Well they sure know how to write a threat,” he muttered. “Brutal and to the point, but there’s a sort of poetry to it, isn’t there?”

“There’s only one way to answer a threat and come out victorious,” Dongsuk said, reaching forward to tap his cigarette into an upturned skull that was certainly not intended for that purpose –but then a skull really only had one and it had stopped protecting a living person’s mind a long time ago. “With decisive action. They took your home, so take theirs. They tried to take your son, so take theirs.”

“Yes, crush them so there’s no spirit left, only a spark of hatred to simmer for the next generation or so until it catches again and burns our kingdom to the ground,” Donggun sneered.

“Is that your command?”

“No it’s not my command! What is my command! I haven’t decided what my command is yet! These things require thought!”

“If your son had waited to think, you would be dead now,” Dongsuk pointed out and pushed to his feet. It was the closest to praise Seokjin had ever received from him and made him feel instantly like he had done something wrong. He was not here to side with his uncle; he agreed the situation required time to think. He was glad this didn’t rest on his shoulders and yet… if the assassination had been successful, it would. He would be the one sitting in front of this table, looking over these items that had brought about the death of his father, trying to decide the fate of a nation and the people within it. How, how was anyone supposed to know what to do with a situation like this?

“Seokjin?”

He had missed whatever they asked him but answered anyway, “We’ve already been stabbed. If we react too quickly we’re more likely to expose some new place for them to sink a knife…” He trailed off, head tilting and gaze narrowing as he surveyed the knives on the table, one of them in particular which was actually a dagger, sharp on both sides. Gingerly he picked up the blade, certain he was mistaken. His thumb brushed across the bumps of rubies lodged in the golden handle, flecks of dried blood falling to his lap. The same swirls etched into the blade dipped in and out of view behind streaks of dried blood. The weight felt the same in his hand.

“Seem familiar?” Dongsuk asked. Seokjin startled that his mind was so easily read --it had to be, otherwise his uncle had no way of knowing he had held this exact dagger when it fell from Dulce’s boot the night of the masquerade ball. “A wound knows its maker,” his uncle continued. “Did you feel a twinge in your chest when you touched it?”

He had indeed felt a twinge in his chest.

How the fuck had Dulce’s dagger wound up lodged next to his heart after an attempt on the king’s life?

But it wasn’t Dulce, it couldn’t be. She wasn’t not the one who had stabbed him. She hadn’t even been at the festival until, possibly, the moment it all happened… had she? Now he doubted his mind because he felt sure he had seen her face and just as sure she had not accompanied Nasimiyu that day. He might have hallucinated her.

He threw the dagger down on the table, convinced he was mistaken. Somehow that united his father and uncle in a laugh at his expense. He didn’t care. Likely the blade was mass produced, a common souvenir in some stall where anyone might get an identical weapon. He sure didn’t know how to tell if the rubies were real; he’d never seen a fake as far as he knew.

“He realized it’s his own blood,” Donggun chuckled, like Seokjin was a toddler confused by his reflection in the mirror instead of a grown man feeling a panic of confusion as to why Dulce’s dagger had nearly ended his life.

“It’s a nice piece of metal. Someone should clean it,” he mused, pushing up from the chair onto unsteady feet.

“We’ll give it to you as a keepsake,” Dongsuk suggested. “It will be your reminder that you’re resilient after all.”

“Once we figure out who it belongs to,” Donggun corrected.

“Destin, right?” Seokjin reminded. That didn’t make sense, Dulce had no connection to Destin. Paloma and Marvono were different, and her mentions of Paloma were too casual, too sincere feeling to be a mask for a true Destin origin.

… Right?

“Unfortunately, Destin is more than a single person,” Dongsuk scoffed and then strode from the room. End of discussion. Seokjin regretted that, because he wanted to stride from the room, but now it would look like he was following his uncle. Instead he looked at his father, afraid of being trapped alone with him.

He ought to have known better. Donggun seemed to be looking anywhere except at him. He lifted the skull again, then set it down. For a moment they both stared at the knives on the table, and Seokjin braced himself for a question he was not prepared to answer: have you ever seen either of those knives before? Do you have any idea who could be behind this? But Dulce couldn’t be involved, it just didn’t make any sense! What, she was skulking about plotting treason in between beating towels in the laundry and lacing up Nasimiyu’s dresses? She was, what, luring his bodyguards away to torture and murder? Jimin and Taehyung and Yoongi, all of them escaped the murderous intentions of this ridiculous handmaid assassin but Edmund, he was the target that made sense? At the very least she would have sliced up Namjoon by now, hm? Overpowered men much larger than herself, then gone home and rebraided her hair?

“Well I think I’ll–”

“About time for me to take a turn,” the King interrupted, standing briskly from his chair. “Mind you, don’t sit for too long, it’ll let the blood pool in your ass and you might never get up again.”

“Wha??” But then, what had Seokjin expected? His father didn’t cast a second look at him, just left him alone in his own parlor and went off to do who knew what. Not even a good to see you up after Seokjin had nearly died saving his life –an impulse, and arguably a bad one, unappreciated as it were. But then if he hadn’t, he’d be king now, and Seokjin supposed that was even worse than being the wrong son.

For a brief moment he relished sitting alone in a room. Unfortunately, it left him at the mercy of his thoughts, which then drifted back to the dagger on the table in front of him. No, it wasn’t right. Dulce. There was some other obvious explanation. Nasimiyu would be able to tell him that the blade wasn’t Dulce’s.

Since there was no one to stop him, he wrapped the dagger up in the bloody cloth beside it and tucked it into the deep pocket of his dressing gown.

Hoseok, Jimin, and Jungkook all waited for him just outside, two of them springing from the wall as he opened the door and Jungkook leaping back like he’d been about to break it down.

“It got quiet suddenly,” Jungkook explained.

“I had a moment to myself. Let’s go, to Mother’s room.”

All three men looked at him confused; Jimin clarified, “To… the Queen’s rooms?”

“Yes, let’s go. No one mentioned they were ransacked while I was out.”

“We were dealing with bigger concerns,” Hoseok defended. “You.”

“How bad is it?”

Jimin’s expression mirrored Hoseok’s as he answered, “We don’t know, we don’t go in there.”

“Where’s Taehyung?”

None had any idea where he might be off to, though Jungkook said that Taehyung had come by multiple times until Jimin chased him off because it was going to look suspicious. Seokjin didn’t need appeasement about whether Taehyung had worried about him dying. For a brief moment he found himself wondering if, should he have died, his father would have legitimized Taehyung. He’d need an heir quickly unless he wanted to risk everything falling to uncle Dongsuk, next of kin. Then Destin would be lucky to have a single survivor…

The guard had been increased outside of his mother’s rooms but they moved quickly aside to let him through. They would only have ever allowed he or his father through, and no one had mentioned dead guards, so how had anyone got inside? But Taehyung regularly got in, so there must be a way to sneak past, or distract. Probably the guards were already looking into it on threat of job loss or death, without the bodies of overpowered guards to show for their dedication.

He thought his father might have already put everything back into place, but that was not the case –or if it had been worse than this, he had not got very far. Seokjin couldn’t remember the last time he had been in here, but the damage was obvious. Easels overturned, clothing crinkled on the floor, jewels scattered like someone had been in a rush and not sure what they wanted. The bedding was ripped from the bed, all the drawers tumbled on the mattress. He picked his way through the mess, feeling a stone settle in his stomach –not from the destruction itself, per se, but because his mother wasn’t here to put everything back and he didn’t know the way she would have done.

He stooped to lift a broken hair comb from the ground, fitting the floral decoration back into place but the twine was snapped and it didn’t stay.

“Who the fuck would do something like this?” Jimin muttered, equally as horrified.

“Yes, murder is one thing, but this is just rude,” Seokjin joked with no heart in it. Behind Jimin, he noticed the empty spaces on the walls and found himself wondering which paintings had been taken. Maybe he could figure it out, if he sat and tried to remember all of them, and struck out the ones he could still see, but he thought it unlikely. As a boy he was always a blur running through the rooms in search of his mother, taking for granted she would always materialize from behind an easel.

The painting Taehyung loved so much was gone, he grew certain of that as he looked over the walls. There were so many missing, without knowing what they were, he couldn’t have said whether that was the target or was simply grabbed alongside the others. Taehyung would be devastated. He couldn’t think why the thieves would have taken it, since he didn’t think it was any more or less valuable than the others, but maybe they didn’t have a reason. Just grabbing whatever they could to sell, to fund their rebellion. He supposed he should be grateful they hadn’t simply put a torch to the whole thing. Maybe some of the missing things would turn up in the black market over time and he could get them back. He’d recognize something of hers if he saw it, he had a good eye for that sort of thing. Once he’d recognized a necklace of his mother’s on another woman at dinner and innocently pointed it out, accidentally fueling rumors that the king was sleeping with Lady Aukem. Later he’d seen a ring he gave Delphine in the window of a pawn shop while traveling through Sartia and despite Zselyke saying he was paranoid because no self-respecting noble would pawn their jewelry in a shop, it had turned out he was right.

He’d bought the ring a second time and given it to a random beggar on the street so at least some good would come from it.

Once he recognized a piece of jewelry or an item of clothing, once his mind had made an impression of it, he was always right. Always.

The dagger couldn’t be Dulce’s, it couldn’t.

“Can you tell what’s missing?” Jungkook asked.

“I don’t come in here,” Seokjin reminded him. “Paintings, jewelry.”

“Should we clean this up?” Jimin asked, and it was so kindly offered that Seokjin felt a tear sneak past the blinking.

Why did someone have to come in here? They were just rooms, the Queen was gone, but it felt so personal, to attack the memory of his mother like this. She’d never done anything wrong. She was a champion for the poor and the frustrated, she would have been an ally for the angry Destin –was that why they’d done this? Whoever it was? Had they felt no guilt or shame, knocking over a dead woman’s things, dumping her gowns on the ground like they’d never been worn by the living, breathing queen? He did not usually care so much about inanimate objects like this but standing in the rooms was messing with his head, it was all starting to spin together: his mother’s smile in the mirror as the maids styled her hair, his mother’s real smile as she playfully scolded Seokjin to hold the puppy still as she painted their likeness, the broken floral comb he thought now might have been a gift from his brother when they were children, a cascade of rubies and emeralds and sapphires tumbling from a vanity because a stranger had entered these rooms and– no, because careless children were running through, a broken blue vase another victim, a little boy knocked to the ground because he’d touched a dead queen’s throne –which little boy, was it himself, or Taehyung? Or Yori, his secret nephew? Kanna had reached out because she was afraid and wise to be so –he’d only met her and his nephews because of the letter Dulce delivered to him.

Dulce knew about his nephews and Kanna. She’d read the letter and resealed it, he was certain.

But that was ok, Dulce was not a threat. Dulce was… was warm sparkling eyes over a cup of the best hot chocolate to be found in Yeonhalbi, and raspberry filling smeared on a red lip, and the pink hues of the sunset painted across her cheeks and–

So what if Dulce had known he was meeting Kanna where and at what time? It didn’t tell her anything that would have implicated her in assassinating the king. She hadn’t been holding the dagger, she hadn’t even been there, the events were unrelated. Being a nosy maid did not make someone an accomplice to murder.

“Was Nasimiyu’s maid at the festival?” he asked quite suddenly, not trusting his own thoughts. Jungkook and Jimin could clear it up for him straight away. “Dulce, I mean.”

“She was there when you got st– attacked,” Jungkook answered. “She wasn’t with us before that, I think she just got there.”

“She was here in the palace most of the day. I saw her carrying laundry around,” Hoseok added. After a pause, he added, “Taking her time, like she’d rather be anywhere else.”

“Yeah, probably at the festival,” Jimin snorted. “You know she’s got the worst tasks since she fell out of favor with the Princess.”

“So she was here… and then she went to the festival…” Seokjin’s head was still swimming but he tried to make sense of a timeline. “Hoseok, you never saw whoever it was that placed Edmund’s body?”

Hoseok’s eyes went wide and he gasped, “You don’t think–”

“No I don’t think Dulce placed his body,” Seokjin immediately snapped, more sharply than he’d meant to. “I’m just asking because no one even told me where it was.”

“You’re tired. We told you it was hanging in the courtyard,” Jungkook reminded him.

“And no, I didn’t see anyone. It wasn’t there one minute and then suddenly it was, while we were all distracted by you all roaring into the courtyard.”

Jungkook glanced at Seokjin and suggested, “She’s pretty small to hang a heavy dead body over a railing– and she was back at the festival, there’s no way she beat us here–”

“No no, I don’t think that,” Seokjin insisted. “She didn’t stab me, she didn’t– I only asked because I’m trying to make sense of my own memories and I didn’t think she was with Nasimiyu but then I thought I saw her when I was injured.”

“Yeah, she stopped someone right before they yanked the dagger out of you,” Jungkook told him. “You would have died if they did. Idiots, everyone knows you don’t take the knife out.”

“Lovely. I’ll have to thank her.”

“Not everyone knows that,” Hoseok argued. “I didn’t know that.”

“Who was it tried to take the knife out?” Jimin asked.

“Don’t know, I didn’t see.”

Seokjin nodded, only half listening. It was too much for him to understand except that Jungkook was right, he was tired, and his brain was doing something very strange and trying to convince him that Dulce was somehow involved in all of this when he knew very well she was not. That made no sense. That a farm girl knew not to yank out a knife and had hurried to the festival as soon as her duties were done all made perfect sense. Besides, if it was her knife, she would yanked it out and run away to hide the evidence!

There, irrefutable proof. He let out a sigh of relief that caused immediate and immense pain. All his efforts to ignore his pain were catching up with him and he could feel it hitting his body at once now that adrenaline was not propelling him through the pursuit of answers. His chest hurt, but his shoulder was worse. His arms and legs hurt. His head hurt most of all. How was he supposed to stumble back to his room and rest when all of this made so little sense and another strike might come at any moment? But how was he supposed to do anything else?

Each cut will hurt worse.

Seokjin pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and admitted, “I think I will rest in bed for a bit longer.” Jungkook and Hoseok had his arms before he could even think about overbalancing, and he grimaced as the pain of shifting rippled through his chest. Slowly he opened his eyes as it passed, and took a single step forward, careful not to step on any of the scattered items.

He froze, gaze caught by the aged flatness of cheap silver among all the fine jewels and polished gold tossed about.

“Hand me that,” he said, unable to gesture with his arms held. The rock settled in his stomach again, heavy, dragging him down in such a physical way that he felt Jungkook’s and Hoseok’s fingers tighten on his arms.

“Um… this?” Jimin asked, following his gaze and lifting a diamond bracelet.

“No,” Seokjin corrected. “That locket.”

Lady Zselyke was leaving Seokjin’s room, one hand to her mouth, one hand to her heart, tears shimmering in her eyes. It gave Nasimiyu pause, not sure she wanted to visit in the wake of whatever had set the royal cousin off. Was Seokjin really in such bad shape? Was that why he had called for her, to say his goodbyes?! She’d been told he was stable but badly injured and sleeping the last two days, not that he was taking a turn for the worst!

Not that she’d been told much at all. For two days now she’d been coddled and brushed off each time she tried to get information about what had actually happened and why. “We’re working on it, you’re perfectly safe,” she was told by every council member serving as a gatekeeper for her access to the king, in the same tone of voice one might say don’t worry your pretty little head over man-stuff like death and danger.

Dulce had shared nothing, claimed to know nothing, even when Nasimiyu had snapped at her that she wasn’t a very good informant then, was she? Nasimiyu didn’t believe her anyway; Dulce was missing for long periods of time in which she said only that she wasn’t supposed to be “on shift” –as if being close to Nasimiyu at a time like this was really a matter of scheduling! As if she was just a maid who ought to adhere to a schedule in the first place! She wouldn’t even tell Nasimiyu where she was and Nasimiyu was too angry to degrade herself asking a second time.

Nasimiyu had never felt so alone in her life, and so the summons from Seokjin to his room was a shocking comfort. Here at least was someone who actually cared about her and would answer her questions and thankfully was not dead when Nasimiyu still needed him. The certainty of some respect at last steeled her resolve to enter the room in the wake of Zselyke’s tearful departure.

She’d expected him to be in bed but instead Seokjin sat on the couch in his parlor, a fluffy red rat on his shoulder and a bundle of fluff in his lap –not the rabbit she’d kidnapped before, something else without big floppy ears. She almost thought it was a pillow at first but it made a chirpy-purry sound and twitched as he pet it.

“Nasimiyu,” Seokjin greeted with a broad grin that caught Nasimiyu off guard.

“Yes… you asked for me,” she reminded him, then added, “How are you? No one will tell me anything.”

“Yes ah, well… a little heartsick,” he joked, lifting a hand to his heart. “Cured now that you’re here.” The shoulder rat immediately reached for his hand and he lifted it, palm up for the thing to inspect before it turned away from the empty hand. It was a squirrel. He had a pet squirrel.

Belatedly she prickled and insisted, “I tried to visit before.”

“Oh… you did?”

“Yes and I was chased away. Honestly, it was insulting, as if I’m not your fiance!”

“Who denied you?” he asked.

Before she could respond, his valet cleared his throat –Jimin, that one– and admitted, “The doctors said you needed peace and quiet… we did let her know you were stable and resting…”

Seokjin cut him off with a wave of his hand but he was smiling, so obviously not angry. Nasimiyu thought that a bit unfair.

“Exactly the right time to have his fiance by his side,” she scolded.

“My apologies, Princess. If you had asked again, I would have given in. I won’t be so rigid next time.”

Nasimiyu’s eyebrows shot up at the gall and she stared Jimin down, certain he could not possibly have meant to give her that much cheek. Her blood began to boil and she opened her mouth, fully prepared to give him the tongue lashing such impropriety deserved.

But Seokjin once again flapped his hand at Jimin and at the two guards and the doctor who’d just come from washing vials in the bathroom and ordered, “All right, everyone may leave now. Except you, Nasimiyu.”

“Ser, it’s time for–”

“For me to spend some time with my concerned fiance, now go,” he said, more sternly this time. Nasimiyu watched this with fascination, drawn by the serious look he gave everyone present until they all shuffled from the room. Seokjin so rarely looked serious, it was rather becoming on him. Jimin looked more hesitant than even the guards, but when Seokjin narrowed his eyes and grinned it both broke the spell and compelled Jimin out the door.

“I’m sorry for that,” he told her. “For them keeping you out, I mean. I would have liked you here. They’ve been… coddling, to say the least.”

“You didn’t even wake up for two days,” she pointed out. “They were right to be frightened.”

He patted the couch next to him to invite her closer and asked, “And you? Were you frightened on my behalf?”

“I was worried,” she said, perfectly true. She took a step closer, then looked warily at the animals. As if to punctuate her uncertainty, two more balls of fur went running past her, under and through her skirt hem as if she wasn’t even there. She gasped and leaned against the couch.

Seokjin’s laugh quickly turned to a grimace that he seemed just as eager to brush past, gesturing, “Those were Daffodil and Nutmeg. This squirming worm who’s tired of my pats is Petunia.” He set Petunia on the floor and she tore off on legs Nasimiyu couldn’t see. “And this distinguished gentleman is Lord Sciurus.”

“He’s a… squirrel.”

“He is.”

“I didn’t think you could keep those as pets.”

“Well normally you shouldn’t, no, but I found him when he was an abandoned baby. His mother had just been killed and I didn’t want to leave him to die as well so I brought him home, raised him up, and he’s repaid the kindness with endless amusement.” Lord Sciurus scurried from his shoulder down to the ground to briefly touch the back of a slow moving tortoise, then raced over to a tree in the corner. “He’s very fond of Tuga, I think because they came from the same place.”

Nasimiyu nodded, not sure what else to say.

“Are you fond of animals? Did you have any pets growing up?” he asked her.

“No. Animals are all right,” she quickly corrected herself. “I like horses.”

“I already know that.”

“I like dogs,” she admitted.

“More than cats?”

“My father is allergic, we weren’t allowed,” she admitted.

“I’d say you could have cats here but they might eat my children… maybe we can find a very well behaved one…”

“I don’t need a cat,” she assured him, then sat because he’d glanced at the couch again. This was in fact the first time she’d spent time in his room, a fact which only now dawned on her. His rooms were not as extravagant as she would have expected for the royal prince, though certainly eccentric. The wall of cages –for animals, not even for anything sexual– were… notable.

Well, it didn’t quite matter what his rooms were like. They would have separate rooms still while married, and she could insist he just always came to hers.

Belatedly she realized he was watching her, and quickly asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got stabbed. But it’s not that bad, you don’t need to worry about it. They said I’m healing very well and will be back to my usual behavior in no time.”

“Then what was Zselyke crying about as she left here?”

“Ah…” He grimaced again and scratched his neck and admitted, “She’s just… excitable. Too many deaths in the family before this so she gets all worked up when there’s almost another.”

“You’re very casual for having almost just died.”

His hand stretched out and across hers, resting in her lap, and he insisted, “I’m fine. Really. How are you? They told me you’re doing all right and haven’t had any trouble but I’d rather hear it from you.”

“No, no trouble unless you count my fiance getting stabbed in the middle of a festival and then coming home to find his bodyguard hanging in the courtyard–” His hand squeezed hers and she wished he’d let go, she did not appreciate the coddling even if she understood she ought to play the role of soft, worried fiance right now. She was afraid, secretly, but not in a way she wanted to admit to him.

Who had done this?

Did her father have someone else acting without telling her?

Or was it someone else, and she, as another royal and the future queen, was on the list?

“I’m sorry you had to see it,” he told her, coddling, patronizing, and for a brief moment she warred with whether to shove it away. Didn’t he know she was too strong to be bothered by something like that? But she’d never seen something like that so close before. She’d never seen blood run so freely. It had been everywhere by the time they got back to the palace, his body coated in it, him unresponsive and –well, in the moment, her concern for him had not been faked.

“I’m not falling to pieces,” she insisted.

“I know but I can pretend.”

“Pretend what?”

“I’m just glad you are safe and I’ll make sure everyone understands that my door is never closed to you,” he told her. “I’m sorry that you were left in the dark, it won’t happen again.”

“Do you know who did it then? It’s over?”

“Ah…” He stalled, nudging a rabbit with his foot as she came over to inspect, then hopped away. “I don’t want to worry you…”

“I’m already worried. You just said, no secrets between us.”

“I know, I did. I don’t… I don’t think we can be happy in our marriage if we keep secrets from each other. I never want to,” he said. His gaze met hers, brown eyes so earnest it almost made her squirm, like if he looked too long he would realize just how many secrets she had. Honestly, she didn’t think you could be a very good ruler if you didn’t understand the value of secrets, but there was certainly something romantic and ridiculous about the idea that you and your spouse would have none between you. She’d never stopped to question whether her parents did, but she didn’t think so.

“Yes, I agree. Your worries are mine as well, so just tell me.”

“Destin insurgents,” he answered. “I wasn’t the target, my father was. The man who did it has already been… dispatched, after saying nothing other than a call for Destin independence.”

Nasimiyu frowned and pointed out, “The restlessness is getting worse.”

“I’d say it’s far beyond restlessness now,” he chuckled, then let out the quietest grunt and grimaced.

“Stop laughing if it hurts you. Not everything calls for jokes, you know. I’d say this moment in particular is a very serious one!”

“It’s how I cope.”

“Yes I know but maybe find a better way.”

“Like what? How do you cope?”

“By learning everything I can. You said your father was the target but then why in the world was your guard murdered?”

“That…” His face scrunched up and she braced herself for another stupid joke, but instead he admitted, “There was a note with Edmund clearly meant to threaten and intimidate, saying how they’re here among us. I don’t want to frighten you–”

“I’d say I am a healthy amount of frightened. Anyone who isn’t worried hasn’t got a brain in their skull.”

“I don’t think you’re a target but of course this is why… why we have increased the guard. No more lone guards. Shifting rosters. Background checks. I want to protect you but we both know the reality of our positions.”

Not once I’ve taken over, she bit back. This sort of thing didn’t happen in Marvono because her father didn’t allow it, and it wouldn’t happen once her reign was in place either. If Donggun was a better, stronger king, the unrest would never have even started, much less reached this boiling point.

“Well what are you going to do about it?”

“About which part?”

“Destin,” she said. “It’s your father who’s got us to this state but you’re the one who’s hurt from it. Tomorrow it will be our problem so we shouldn’t let things get even worse.”

“I… I’m not sure yet what to do about Destin,” he admitted. “It’s… complicated.”

“Everything about being a king is complicated, but you can’t drag your feet about it.”

“First we need to get our palace safe again and then we can think about–”

“Treat the symptom, ignore the cause?” she interrupted, incredulous. “That’s not–”

“It’s not my decision right now,” he argued. “There’s only so much I can do. My father is the king, not me.”

Nasimiyu felt her face heating up with frustration. Didn’t Seokjin see that was exactly why it would be so useful to step forward now as a brave, better leader? If Donggun stepped aside –or was pushed aside– then they could change Yeonhalbi’s future even sooner, no need to wait years for her father’s plan with all its steps.

“For now,” she huffed. “But you can’t let him give us a broken kingdom to fix. We can’t wait to get involved. Get your head out of the sand, Seokjin. You almost died for him!”

Despite her outburst, Seokjin remained wholly calm. He nodded, as if he’d expected all this and was not bothered.

“We’ll know more tomorrow,” he told her. “I’ve only been awake a few hours, Nasimiyu. The doctors keep squawking at me about being out of bed this long. I went straight to my father and uncle to get involved with what we do now. I’m not hiding but I don’t know enough to fight for anything yet. I hear what my father says, I hear what my uncle says, and I know that Destin is a province of people who are struggling. Not everyone there is an assassin, they’re just… people. We can’t make a rushed decision about their future without knowing more.”

“Does your uncle want to declare war?”

“Yes,” Seokjin confirmed. Of course he did.

“And your father wants…”

“Undecided.”

“I don’t like your uncle, but you’re being too much like your father. Too cautious.”

“You agree with my uncle then?”

“I…” Nasimiyu quailed as the question turned back on her. “I don’t know the same things you do yet about Destin. Obviously the insurgents have to be found out so they can’t try again–”

“But it’s treating the symptoms while ignoring the cause of it all,” Seokjin countered, tossing her own words back at her. “But if we focus on humanitarian efforts, does it send the message to everyone that they ought to assassinate their king to get what they want? Is it even possible to placate them, and how, or will nothing short of independence work? Then the kingdom crumbles… these are big, difficult questions, Nasimiyu. I’m glad you want to be involved in solving them because I sure don’t fucking know…” He sighed and shook his head. “But you don’t either, so work with me here. You’re right, this is our future.”

“So then where do you think we should start?”

“Well we both need to learn more about Destin,” he pointed out.

She avoided his gaze, annoyed by a very practical answer. She had studied up on everything she could before coming to the palace but nothing about Destin or the splitting off of provinces that seemed useful now. Her father would never consider such a thing and so her schooling hadn’t either.

“Speaking of,” he mused. “Is Dulce connected to Destin somehow?”

“Dulce?” The name was so out of nowhere that for a moment Nasimiyu couldn’t even place it. “My… handmaid, Dulce?”

“I don’t know any others,” he pointed out, grinning, but at least not chuckling.

“She’s from Paloma.”

“Yes… hm… how do I put this…”

“Plainly, I hope.” Nasimiyu felt her mood darken even further. Why was he bringing up Dulce at a time like this? Ought she bring up Namjoon? Here they were having what was arguably a good, weight conversation for the future king and queen and he suddenly changed the subject to someone she didn’t want to think about?

“Do you know she’s from Paloma, or is that something she told you?”

“What exactly are you asking me? I have no reason to doubt where she’s from. It’s not exactly information she’s forthcoming about anyway so I’m not sure how you know–”

“How well do you know her?” Seokjin asked. “For how long?”

“I… well enough. What is your point, Seokjin?”

He hesitated, blinked at her, and Nasimiyu felt nervous flutter in her stomach.

Oh. Fuck.

A rush of cold through her body was chased by a flush.

What had he found?

She tried to hold herself steady because if he was asking her, it meant he hadn’t connected Nasimiyu to anything yet. It could all be a mistake because certainly neither of them had anything to do with Destin!

Seokjin reached for his robe, discarded over the arm of the couch, and fished out a bundle of fabric. Once undone, it unveiled a knife, crusted with dried blood. Dulce’s knife.

She wasn’t sure she’d succeeded in keeping her face neutral, but asked as carefully as she could, “What is this?”

“The dagger that stabbed me,” he said. “Have you ever seen it before?”

“No. No, I haven’t.”

Dulce, what have you done?

“I saw it once, among Dulce’s things, or one that looked very much like it.”

“Dulce didn’t stab you,” Nasimiyu pointed out. “It was a man I’ve never seen before.”

“Yes, I know. I’m not accusing her of stabbing me, I’m just trying to understand… I wanted to know if you had any… any doubts or suspicions…”

“That my handmaid is part of a Destin plot to overthrow the royal family? I am absolutely certain that’s not the case,” Nasimiyu assured him. She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt in the moment. Obviously Dulce wasn’t part of a plot with Destin, but she was part of a different plot, and that was absolutely her dagger. It had to be. There were only two of them in the world; Nasimiyu had the pair made especially for the two of them, with that exact etching in the blades that showed a very abstract version of the constellation in the sky the night they’d met. Nasimiyu hadn’t even told Dulce that’s what it was, abashed by her own streak of romantic grandeur after having them made. It was a mortifying gesture, but Dulce had liked the sharpness and the weight and the rubies.

“The thing is…” Seokjin looked loath to say this next part. “Isn’t this hers too?” He pulled another something out of the pocket of that cursed robe, and let it fall into Nasimiyu’s outstretched hand.

“A… necklace?” Nasimiyu choked out. Not just any necklace. Dulce’s locket, that one she picked at with her nail sometimes.

“I don’t know if you’d heard about someone ransacking my mother’s rooms at the same time as all of this.”

“Yes, I heard though I don’t really understand it. They stole valuable things?”

“Paintings, jewelry, who knows what else. I went to look for myself and I found that,” he explained. “That definitely did not belong to my mother.”

Dulce, what have you done?!

Nasimiyu didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t think quickly enough. The dagger was bad enough but the locket too, it absolutely meant Dulce had to be involved somehow –but then why was Destin getting credit? Had her father gone ahead with an assassination plot so soon? Was he intentionally framing Destin? Did he have Dulce acting without Nasimiyu being informed? Or had Dulce gone rogue? Had Dulce been playing them all along?

All Dulce’s skulking the last few days came immediately to mind. No, even further back than that. Dulce had been cagey for a while. And angry, she’d be a fool not to have noticed that Dulce was angry, and volatile, and pushing back. Distancing herself from Nasimiyu. Distracted with someone –or something– else.

What if it wasn’t Nasimiyu’s father who was acting, but something else? It would be just like Dulce to double-cross, wouldn’t it? Maybe she was playing two sides right now. Maybe… maybe she and Namjoon?! Speaking of mysterious people…

But it was just a hunch. If her first guess was right that Dulce was involved in this at Prince Hamisi’s command, Nasimiyu needed to know right fucking now so she didn’t accidentally bring the house down on herself by saying something wrong that led it all back to herself.

“That’s not Dulce’s,” Nasimiyu said, popping it open with her nail. Seokjin leaned forward, as if he hadn’t thought to do that earlier, but there was nothing inside to prove Nasimiyu a liar –no images, no lock of hair, no engravings. “This looks like some cheap trinket you’d buy at a pawn shop.”

“She has a locket just like this, I’ve seen it before.”

Nasimiyu gave him a curious look and mused, “You seem to notice an awful lot of my maid’s possessions.”

“I have an eye for jewelry,” he said, and had the humility to at least look shamefaced.

“She keeps it tucked inside her dress,” Nasimiyu countered.

“It fell off once, when she was in the kitchen fetching food. I picked it up and it looked just like this.”

Nasimiyu did not like being questioned and insisted, “I can promise you I know much more about Dulce’s possessions and this isn’t the right locket. I give all my handmaids a locket with a photo of me inside so they can remember their duty to me as first above anyone else. I would never give them something as cheap as this.”

“Your other handmaids have them too?” he asked, outright skeptical of her admittedly insipid lie.

“Only Dulce wears it,” she scoffed. “So you can see why she’s my favorite.”

“I know she’s your favorite and I’m sorry to be asking questions like this, it just seems odd, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t. For all I know those things belong to Jimin.”

“They… don’t.”

“Well they don’t belong to Dulce, either, I know her much better than you do. She has no ties to Destin but she is tied to me, so if you’re accusing her of something, you’re accusing me!”

“I’m not, Nasimiyu, I’m not,” he insisted, immediately placating. “I’m sorry, I knew it would be uncomfortable but I had to ask. I really thought… but I’m relieved, truth be told. I had to ask but I was hoping you would call me crazy.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Nasimiyu agreed, eager to lean into that very suggestion. “I know it’s been frightening, Seokjin, but Dulce is one of the most trusted people in my life. I vouch for her completely.” For at least a little longer.

Seokjin nodded and sank back against the pillows, looking absolutely spent now, somehow both flushed and pale at the same time.

“Ah. I’m relieved,” he said again. “Thank you. You see why I wanted to talk to you in private. The last thing I’d want to do is hurt either one of you.”

She patted his hand this time, shocked by how cold it felt, and assured him, “I know. You’re just tired. Have you looked at your own staff though? There’s that stablehand who’s always stepping out of his place, or… or I’ve heard kitchen staff tend to be shifty and think they can sneak around unnoticed.”

“We’re looking into everyone,” Seokjin promised, but the strength was gone from his voice in a way that genuinely alarmed Nasimiyu. He looked sickly now. Fading.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m just tired. I’m all right.”

“You look like you’re going to faint,” Nasimiyu realized. “Here, lie down, I’ll get the doctor–”

“I’m not going to faint, definitely not in front of you. Maybe just– I’ll get some rest. Today has been… but will you come back later? We can talk about happier things. We still have a wedding to plan.”

Alarmed by his compliance as she nudged him to stretch out, Nasimiyu found herself joking, “If Zselyke can stop crying long enough to help.”

“Be kind, she’s not made of the stern stuff you are.”

“I’m calling for the doctor.”

“I’m fine.”

Nasimiyu was worried he had pushed himself too hard and might not be out of danger yet, and she was also not much interested in catching her fiance in a dead faint, so she spared them both and hurried to the door to trade places with the doctor.

She needed to talk to Dulce. She needed an explanation immediately as to how Dulce’s dagger and locket were involved with this assassination attempt –one in which Seokjin had almost been killed, completely ruining the plans to get Nasimiyu on the throne. Was that Dulce’s plan? Was she trying to sabotage Nasimiyu? Which was more likely, that, or that Prince Hamisi had changed the plan and not told Nasimiyu, maybe told Dulce not to tell her? Would Dulce keep a secret like that from her?

Nasimiyu’s own guards and attendant fell into step around her as she strode down the hall. Where would that woman be right now? Nasimiyu had no interest in chasing her all over the palace, not only because she felt very tired now but also it would leave her looking rattled if she was running all over, and this was not a time to look out of control of herself.

Realizing she didn’t need to do the work herself, she snapped at the maid trailing her, “Find Dulce and send her to my room immediately.”

The maid’s eyes were wide as she nodded and scurried away to do so, leaving only the guards to flank Nasimiyu back to her room where she promptly shut them outside so she could calm herself. She was absolutely sweating now. What was going on? Why was Dulce’s locket in the queen’s ransacked rooms? Stupid locket was empty anyway. She’d always wondered what Dulce kept locked inside but it really said something, didn’t it, that she had nothing precious to carry within.

Nasimiyu sat heavily on the sofa and clenched her head in her hands. If she couldn’t trust Dulce, she wasn’t sure she could trust anyone. Who else could she be certain had her best interest at heart? The shocking thought that it was only Seokjin was most unwelcome. She had more people in her life than that. Obviously she needed to send a note to her parents –she realized with a start that she hadn’t done that yet, which made no sense. She could have them send a quick note by bird and follow with a longer letter. Obviously her parents should return to Priva at once and not leave again until the marriage was complete. No one in this royal family knew what they were doing; they needed Prince Hamisi’s firm hand to get this place in order.

Unless that firm hand had betrayed her using her own handmaid.

She moved to her desk and dashed out the simplest note she could think of and stepped out into the hall to call for someone to have it sent immediately to her parents, then returned to work on the longer letter, only to find herself at a loss for words. How was she supposed to explain these things in a way that sounded neither too revealing nor as frightened as a little girl? She wasn’t confident her parents could read between the lines; she’d never been much of a letter writer to begin with, certainly not with an embedded message. She couldn’t strike the right tone, coming across with each attempt as accusatory or frail.

She paused her efforts, mind wandering for a moment back to the actual assassination attempt. Dulce had come out of nowhere. She was supposed to be at the palace doing chores and tasks and anything other than enjoying herself, so Nasimiyu didn’t know why she was suddenly at the festival in the first place. There to watch the success of her efforts? Maybe the assassin was someone Dulce had hired, in order to put a space between herself and the act for security. The target was the king, after all, not Seokjin. But to use her own dagger was too careless, Nasimiyu would never have thought Dulce was so stupid. It wasn’t like her at all. Dulce’s expression of horror when she’d reached Seokjin had looked so sincere, as if she too fully understood the potential consequences of what had just happened… or was it just guilt from botching the assassination of the king?

Oh where the fuck was that woman to answer for herself already?!

Nasimiyu ripped up the papers and tossed them into the wastebasket, then reached for a new sheet but the surface was empty. She yanked open the desk drawer to dig for more and froze.

The drawer was empty. Completely empty. No paper, no ink, but more importantly, no dagger.

Nasimiyu pushed back from her desk as if it had burned her. The entire time Seokjin had been talking about the dagger, she’d been thinking only of Dulce’s. He’d asked if it was Dulce’s. Of course that was Dulce’s dagger; Nasimiyu knew exactly what it looked like; she’d had it custom made; she carried its twin under her clothes –but in a fit of anger after finding out about Dulce fucking Namjoon she’d shoved it in this very drawer, refusing to carry that token of their bond.

No, maybe she’d moved it and only couldn’t recall. Things had been so crazy since then, probably she’d put it somewhere else. She checked the other two drawers in the desk but it wasn’t there because yes, she must have moved it. Or a maid had. Just because she didn’t think they’d have any reason to poke around her desk drawers, didn’t mean they wouldn’t; maybe one of them was nosy and needed to be promptly let go.

Nasimiyu left her desk and instead tore through her jewelry boxes and shoe boxes but found only two ornate knives from Marvono, undecorated practice blades Dulce had used to train her with. She checked the shelves with her hair pieces and perfumes all the way to the back of the wardrobe. She felt around the bottom of the wardrobe, then began ripping gowns from their hangers and digging through any pockets or bundles in the fabric. When she still didn’t find anything, she crawled around looking under the tables and couches, under the bed. She swiped her things around the bathroom to clear drawers and shelves. Her room looked like it had been ransacked after the queen’s but still no ruby dagger had been found.

Did Dulce still have hers after all? Was it Nasimiyu’s dagger that had been used to stab the prince?!

Nobody knew that though. Only she and Dulce knew about the knives and Dulce wouldn’t frame her or blame her. No one else knew about the knives, right? She racked her brain, trying to recall if anyone else of her household would ever have seen the dagger. What if the king released a drawing, asking for anyone who recognized it, would someone point to her? Or to Dulce? But nobody dug through Dulce’s things daily to clean and organize the way they did Nasimiyu’s.

A knock at the door made Nasimiyu’s heart leap that it was Dulce, but only crochety old Mirte walked through.

The head maid gasped, “Princess! What has happened?”

“I’m looking for something,” she said, darting forward. If she was careful, she could test it out here.

“My goodness! What are you looking for? We can find whatever it is for you, there’s no need to… to worry yourself.”

“I’m looking for my dagger,” Nasimiyu explained.

“Your dagger? Which one?”

It was not the answer she had hoped for. She had not been sure any of her maids even knew she ever carried one. The whole point of a concealed weapon was for it to be concealed.

“Well I don’t have many of them,” Nasimiyu snapped.

“Of course not, my lady. I suppose it’s all relative… tell me which one and we will find it for you. There’s the silver one with the turquoise in the handle, or the plain silver pair –oh I see them there.” She watched Mirte go to where the silver training daggers were tossed to the floor. “There’s the one with the rubies in the handle, and–”

“No, that one doesn’t belong to me,” Nasimiyu interrupted. Quickly she added, “I’m looking for the one with the black leather handle.” Such a dagger didn’t exist.

“Doesn’t belong to you?” Mirte repeated, obviously convinced it did.

“It’s Dulce’s,” Nasimiyu corrected.

“She has a gold and ruby dagger?!” Mirte asked, incredulous.

Nasimiyu glared, “Yes, and so? It belonged to her father or something, I don’t know, she’s very careless with it, it’s always falling off her when she’s working, I’ve given it back a dozen times.”

“I haven’t seen one with a black leather handle…” At Nasimiyu’s glare, Mirte amended, “I’ll get the girls in here right away and we won’t stop looking until we’ve found it!”

“See that you do!”

Nasimiyu strode from the room with no destination in mind but afraid she’d crumble if she kept up the lies. Where the fuck was Dulce? They were really in it now. Nasimiyu’s dagger gone missing was too much of a coincidence. Someone knew it was Nasimiyu’s and wanted to frame her for trying to kill the king, though she didn’t understand how Destin played into that kind of a plot. No one would be able to tie Nasimiyu to anything to do with Destin. If they tried, she would just say her dagger been stolen. After all, someone had hidden a body, why not also take a dagger she didn’t notice was missing until later?

But dammit, she’d just admitted to her own maids that she recognized a dagger by that description and it belonged to Dulce, minutes after telling Seokjin she’d never seen a dagger like that in her life. Her own staff would identify the blade if they went asking, and point to Dulce, and Nasimiyu would obviously say her staff was lying or misquoting her, but if it cast doubts on her… doubts might be enough rope to hang her by.

What if she admitted to Seokjin the dagger was hers but that someone had stolen it from her room? There was already the dead body in her closet, surely that gave a foundation for someone entering her room again to steal a blade to frame her. Would he believe her? He would. He must!

But would King Donggun? Would General Dongsuk? She shuddered at the thought of questioning under them, if they thought she was involved in any way. The fact was that Dulce was a far better liar than she was, and if those heartless men did the interrogation, Dulce would have the more convincing answers. Nasimiyu’s title ought to protect her but what if it didn’t? The whole problem in Destin right now was exactly why they needed new leadership in this country, and that couldn’t happen if Nasimiyu went down for trying to assassinate the king! No matter what, no matter what sacrifices had to be made, that couldn’t happen. It wasn’t just about saving her own skin, this was for the greater good.

Probably the king’s men were already interrogating the household staff. It was a miracle that hadn’t already happened, and someone in her household was going to betray her and say the dagger was hers, she was certain of it. You couldn’t get loyalty anywhere these days.

Nasimiyu turned and ran to Seokjin’s room. At first the door only cracked at her knocking and one of his bodyguards said,

“Mind you, the prince is sleeping!”

“How dare you use that tone with me!”

The man practically gasped, “My apologies, Princess, I didn’t see it was you! I–”

“Let me in right this moment.”

“He is resting though–”

“He said his door is never closed to me, now stand aside, I will not say it again.”

The guard shuffled aside and let her enter. Jimin and another guard both looked up and Jimin repeated what the guard had said, that Seokjin was sleeping.

“This cannot wait and he wouldn’t want me to,” she snapped and strode past them down the hall where his bedroom must be. She had only a passing glimpse that actually his chambers were more rooms than she had expected, much bigger in fact and with a perfect view of the sea if one liked that sort of thing. She didn’t bother to notice anything else, just pushed the curtain open for light and sat on the side of his bed to shake him awake.

“Nasimiyu?” he stammered, bleary-eyed and confused. “What’s wrong? Why are you here? Is everything all right?”

“I lied to you earlier,” she confessed. “Not on purpose, I was just in shock… I panicked… I wasn’t sure what you might think but you’re right, there shouldn’t be secrets between us, and especially not a secret like this–”

“Nasimiyu, wait, wait.” He pushed himself up to sitting, stiff and grimacing, before reaching for her arm. “Slow down. What is it?”

“Oh Seokjin,” she cried and threw her arms around his shoulders. “The dagger and locket are Dulce’s!”

Dulce walked toward the kitchen with purpose, annoyed beyond measure.

Rumor had it that the Prince had been walking the halls for the first time, that he was seen heading towards the king’s sitting room and then back to his room, and people had been coming and going from his room all afternoon.

The state of his health was less agreed-upon, with some whispering he’d shuffled like an elderly man, and others saying he’d stumbled like a drunk, and still others saying he’d practically skipped, as if he was in a full state of health so that they wondered if he’d even been stabbed at all.

Dulce believed no one. She wanted to see with her own eyes but sneakily wandering past the prince’s room did her no good; he was clearly tucked away inside with an increased guard she had no way of striding confidently past this time. The next best thing to seeing with her own eyes was to hear it straight from a reliable source. Taehyung wasn’t in the stable or yard, Jimin wasn't in the servants’ wing, so the only place she knew to hope for that encounter was the kitchens.

This close to dinner time, the kitchen bustled with the clang of trays and spoons against pots and inevitably a dropped glass or dish. She realized her mistake almost immediately; none of the prince’s inner circle would be casually lolling about here. The best she could hope for a quick update from Yoongi, or maybe she would luck out and Jimin or Jungkook would be there.

Was it really true, that the prince was awake? Not only awake, but moving about the palace? Stable but sleeping –as the report had been for the last two days– was no comfort. Stable just meant the likely incompetent doctors couldn’t necessarily see any battles raging beneath the surface of his skin. Infection could be entering his blood, or blood quietly seeping throughout his chest cavity, entering his lungs or compressing his heart until symptoms showed too late. She also knew his “stable” health could all be lies spread to keep people from panicking until the prince’s fate was known. Just because it came from Jimin didn’t mean anything; he’d looked pale and worried, and might have told Dulce what he too wanted to believe was true. She’d have felt better with just a glimpse with her own eyes –not that she could have done a single fucking thing to help in any way, but at least… at least she’d know.

Staff bumped into her, chasing her to the wall with annoyed glares. She opened her mouth to tell them she needed food for the Princess but no words came out and the staff ignored her anyway. Maybe taking food to Nasimiyu would be a good thing, give her some purpose amidst all this waiting, but probably Nasimiyu was dressing for supper anyway. With no information to give, she’d been avoiding her.

No, that wasn’t true. Dulce avoided her because she didn’t want to be bothered with petty tasks right now until she knew whether the Prince was going to die or not. She couldn’t deal with Nasimiyu’s fretting about the plan or danger or whatever other ridiculous things were making the princess snappish and sharp, according to the other maids. She was a fucking princess, being in danger came with the territory, dead people came with the title, Nasimiyu needed to steal her spine and learn how to carry on in a crisis. It made Dulce so angry that Nasimiyu was utterly useless right now. The one time Dulce had been by her room and asked her for updates, Nasimiyu had none, refused to force her way into the room, and seemed insulted that someone hadn’t come to cater and coddle her, that in fact they were all far more concerned with the targeted king and dying prince and captured assassin and dead bodyguard.

It’s not her fault, Dulce tried to remind herself. It wasn’t Nasimiyu’s fault that wealthy people were born into privilege and made useless for it. It wasn’t Nasimiyu’s fault she had no power or standing in the palace and no actual idea how to get things that weren’t given to her. It wasn’t Nasimiyu’s fault that the prince had apparently thrown himself on the blade instead of letting his father suffer the consequences of his own policies –fool man!

Dulce’s neck itched. It was all the noise and bustle of the kitchen, she hated being here. She picked her way around the edge of the kitchen, craning her neck to find Yoongi through the throng while also knowing full well that Yoongi probably didn’t know anything that she didn’t. In fact she probably knew more because she’d done her damndest the last two days to find out anything she could about what had happened –but had learned only that the lousy assassin and the note on Edmund both gave credit to Destin, that whispers suggested it might be Dongsuk framing Destin to instigate a war, that there might be no way to find out the truth because he’d conveniently tortured the assassin to death. Of course.

Dulce didn’t have an opinion yet. Dongsuk was capable, certainly. Destin might be angry enough too though. It wasn’t like there were any shortage of assassination plots bubbling around the king, take your pick. For all she knew Prince Hamisi was impatient and sent another man after the king, told him to frame Destin, and now here they were because the stupid Prince had a self sacrificing nature, damn him! What a stupid way to be. Absolutely stupid.

There, she saw him at the far corner. Yoongi hunched over a pot, glaring at whatever was inside and not up to his standards. He scolded the lower servant beside him and turned to the next dish for review as Dulce dodged the people around her to get within view. Once there, she waved her hand, both wanting and wanting to avoid his attention. If he could just tell her that the Prince had sent for something to eat, she’d finally be able to rest. Focus on whatever she needed to do next. Which was, honestly, to talk to the prince and tell him everything she knew. It had almost been too late. What if she’d talked to him sooner and it could have prevented any of this…

“Yoongi!” she called. She felt like she’d shouted so loudly but the bustle of the kitchen swallowed it up. It was embarrassing to shout. She wasn’t someone who shouted ever and it felt ridiculous. She cupped her hands around her mouth for volume and tried again, “Yoongi!” This was stupid, she realized that, she should just come back later once the supper service was done. But she needed to know right now, was it true? Was the prince finally awake? Was he going to be all right? Somebody had to know!

“Yoongi!” she shouted, loudest of all, and this time he turned to her, startled by her shout. No, not by her shout. A strong hand grabbed her arm, pinched it like a crab right below the shoulder and lifted to get her off balance.

“Hey, wait!” Yoongi called in the background. It cut through the noise as a second guard grabbing her other arm. Her feet barely touched the ground now, her body twisting at the discomfort of how tightly they gripped, how high, her shoulders aching as they wrenched this way and that because the guards both tried to turn opposite directions.

“Found you,” one said, on top of the other saying, “You’re under arrest.”

“For what?” she asked, going wide eyed with genuine surprise. Not that there wasn’t plenty to arrest her for, but she hadn’t actually done anything illegal this time. Recently. Well, except for the queen’s chambers and stolen paintings but surely they hadn’t connected that to her. Unless that gamemaster in the caves had seen her after all….

“You’ll get your answers when they want you to get your answers,” the burlier of the two told her and managed with his own strength to haul her his direction.

Yoongi reached them and tried to grab at her, demanding, “What are you doing? Where are you taking her?”

“I need to speak to my lady, the princess,” Dulce told them. She tried to sound calm and confident since it was immediately apparent a wilting damsel approach wouldn’t work.

“No.”

“What’s she done? Let her go, there’s some misunderstanding,” Yoongi said. Behind him the kitchen had gone eerily quiet and still, everyone frozen, watching this. Dulce realized there were in fact at least six guards here to grab her. She’d been so lost in her own worried thoughts, she hadn’t realized they were approaching. She’d been so overwhelmed by the kitchen but blind in her impatience that she’d lost her mind and now–

“I need to speak to the Prince then,” she said. “Tell him. Tell him I have important information he needs to–”

“Yeah I’m sure you do,” one chuckled. They were rough with her arms, careless of her small size between them. She thought they were going to rip her in half when they reached that door due to their poor coordination.

“I will talk to the Prince,” Yoongi insisted, valiant in his efforts. “There’s some misunderstanding–”

“The prince is the one what ordered her arrest!” the second snapped. “For attempt to murder the king, so unless you want to join her in the cell, shut your mouth and get back to your little pots!”

Dulce went silent and stopped all resistance as they hauled her out of the kitchens and through the halls, the noise of their armor and boots making up for the absolute silence of everyone who froze to watch.

Prince Seokjin had ordered her arrest? For attempting to kill the king?! The one thing she hadn’t yet done?

The palace dungeons were far down twisting black stone corridors, shiny and reeking with the stench of stale sea water. Dulce’s toes barely scraped the ground as they dragged her this way and that, careless of the strain on her shoulders and back, or the way her head glazed the stone wall as they thrust her through the cell door and slammed it shut behind her. They’d thrown her hard but she landed on her feet and sprang back to the small barred window in the heavy metal door.

“I need to talk to the Prince!” she said again. “It’s important! It’s a matter of life or death!”

“Sure it is,” the guard sneered. “Yours! Think the Prince will be sending his regards through the General so don’t worry, you’ll have someone to talk to soon. So long as you’re saying what he wants to hear.”

With that they slammed a small door shut over the opening. Dulce was left in total and complete darkness, not even a sliver of light from a non-existent window to let her see the outline of herself.

It had all happened so fast.

Well, apparently the prince was indeed awake.

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