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“Your Majesty.” Erich—no—Jung Heewon wipes the blood off her face with the back of her hand. She only succeeds in smearing it further across her face, a dash of red all the way to the corner of her mouth. Whose blood is it? Her entire body is littered with so many different wounds and injuries that she can hardly tell the pain apart from the adrenaline of battle. “Are you hurt?”
“Fine.” The queen brushes dirt off the hem of her cloak. She only spares Jung Heewon a passing glance before turning away. “Come back. This is no place to remain in for long.”
Jung Heewon picks herself up, gritting her teeth to keep the pain lancing up her legs from bringing her back down. “As you wish.”
She knows, logically speaking, that this is Yuri di Aristel, newfound queen, first triple master of the Kaizenix Archipelago, the youngest-ever Ninth Circle archmage, controller of the evil black dragon, and many more other titles that Jung Heewon can’t be bothered to remember. But looking in that face—those sharp, narrow eyes, the cruel curve of those lips, even the sweep of her lashes over her cheeks—always drives all thought of this person being a stranger out of Jung Heewon’s head. Sometimes she imagines Yuri might even, just maybe, still have just a little bit of Han Sooyoung left in her—but the thought always passes, too. Han Sooyoung would have said something by now, if she still remembered Jung Heewon.
The role suits her, though. The beautiful, prodigal queen who overcame all the struggles and challenges in her way throughout the past forty or so years of her life. It’s only been a little under a decade for Jung Heewon, and already she knows she’s at her limits. There’s no way even Han Sooyoung could fight back against the cruel hands of time.
The march back to the kingdom is brutal. Han Sooyoung—no, Yuri—ugh, one of those—had insisted she be present when they wiped out the revolutionary camp one of their scouts reported, despite her advisors’ pleas to remain safe in the palace, and she had watched the bloody proceedings with a stoic, unwavering gaze. Now she walks at the front of the knights’ procession, the red-stained hem of her cloak dragging along the path behind her, each of her steps almost comically confident. Jung Heewon, in contrast, has to relearn how to inhale and exhale when it feels like her lungs keep coughing oxygen back up every time she puts one foot in front of the other.
There shouldn’t have been poison on any of the revolutionaries’ weapons—they’re too poor for that, and Jung Heewon would have noticed by now anyway. No, she’d just been too preoccupied trying to make sure not a single enemy got past her and to Han Sooyoung that she’d taken far more damage than usual, and now she’s paying the price for it. Part of her wants to blame this on Han Sooyoung, which would be so much easier and downright effortless if this person really were Han Sooyoung, but the alter ego inside Jung Heewon, the personality this body originally belonged to, has nothing but loyalty and adoration for the false queen.
She sucks in one breath, then another. How much longer until they return to the palace? The sooner Jung Heewon gets away from Yuri-not-Han-Sooyoung, the better, for both her injuries and her state of mind. Her consciousness is fading, she knows, slowly being buried under the sands of time, but if she can just prolong it, second by second by second, for as long as it takes Kim Dokja and the rest to arrive…
Jung Heewon closes her eyes, tries to convince herself the pain is a distant, faraway thing. How much easier would this be if she and Lee Hyunsung weren’t on opposite sides of a war?
Being the captain of the knights comes with its benefits, one of them being Jung Heewon gets to have a room all to herself rather than sharing the barracks with the other soldiers.
After finally arriving back at the palace, hauling herself up several flights of stairs, and cleaning up her various wounds as best as she can with only a measly first-aid kit, Jung Heewon can’t be bothered to do anything else—she curls up to rest, still bare aside from sleep shorts and the bandages covering most of her upper body. She dearly hopes the plot doesn’t make her do anything else right now, because if she so much as stands up she has a feeling the wound on her thigh is going to open up and then she can say goodbye to that leg…
“Sir Erich.”
Jung Heewon shoots out of bed and fumbles at her waist for a sword that isn’t there. “You dare—oh,” she says, weakly, when her mind catches up to her eyes and she realizes who’s perched daintily atop the edge of her bed, “Your Majesty—wait, w-what are you doing here? How did you get in?”
Yuri-not-Han-Sooyoung’s gaze remains perfectly passive. “Through the door.”
“I… Wasn’t it locked?”
“No.”
Jung Heewon distinctly remembers locking the door. Arguing about that with Her Majesty probably isn’t the best idea right now, though. “Oh,” she repeats, feeling more and more stupid with every word she speaks. “Er… well, to what do I owe the pleasure?” she asks. The noble, respectful language feels awkward and stilted on her tongue, but Yuri had ordered someone executed once for being rude with her, and Jung Heewon quite likes her head where it is right now.
Yuri only tilts her head. “No need for that. You may speak as informally as you wish.”
“But, Your Majesty, that…”
“That was an order. Will you defy it?”
Had Han Sooyoung been transferred into this body because of how difficult they both are? Jung Heewon takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “No, Your Majesty. Uh… then… what are you here for?” she tries again.
Thankfully, Yuri doesn’t tell her to head straight for the execution square. Instead she looks down at Jung Heewon’s thigh, wrinkling her nose at the blood-soaked bandages. “Aren’t you going to replace those? They’ve been dirtied.”
“Ahh, well…” It’s too much trouble. Also, she ran out of bandages. Now that she thinks about it, Jung Heewon is still pretty much naked, isn’t she? Still, they’re both women (sort of), and she’s still so tired that she really can’t be bothered to care about modesty right now. Besides, Yuri doesn’t seem like she particularly cares either way. “It’s fine,” Jung Heewon remembers to say, when Yuri only stares expectantly at her. “It doesn’t hurt.”
Yuri raises one perfectly arched eyebrow. “You dare lie to your ruler?”
This is going to drive Jung Heewon insane. “My apolo… ahem, I’m sorry. But it’s nothing you should concern yourself with, really…”
“Take those off.”
“…it’ll heal by itse—um, what?”
Yuri tilts her chin haughtily upwards in an action so reminiscent of Han Sooyoung that Jung Heewon feels dizzy. “Take those off. I will not repeat myself again.”
This woman is crazy, Jung Heewon thinks. She has no good reason to actually take the bandages off, especially since she knows she’s just going to bleed all over her bed sheets and get an earful from the laundry staff again, but when Yuri is glaring impatiently at her, Jung Heewon will take a lecture over a beheading. “A… As you wish,” she mumbles, reaching to undo the gauze and trying not to wince when she brushes against the wound. Okay, maybe it hurts a lot more than she thought it would… but this is nothing. She’s suffered much worse in the past, and she’s come out all the stronger for it. Never mind that she can barely remember much of the past anymore…
When the bandages have been removed and the giant gash on her thigh is uncovered, Jung Heewon leans back and awaits Yuri’s next instructions, gritting her teeth through the pain the whole while. Yuri stares at the wound for several long, torturous seconds, then finally, silently, places her palm over her thigh.
Jung Heewon nearly rips straight through the fabric of her bed sheets at the sudden, startling shock of pain, but that fades as quickly as it had come, replaced by a warmth so soothing her eyelids grow heavy of their own accord. “Wait,” she manages, “Your Majesty, what are you… you shouldn’t… use your magic for…”
“For someone like you?” Yuri finishes. “You are my loyal knight. I should repay you in kind.”
“Ah…” Jung Heewon doesn’t know what to say to that, mostly because there are too many options for her to choose from. I’m not yours, for one. I’m only doing this because I have to, for another. But the healing magic feels so good, so calming, that she can feel her mind drifting away, the words dying in her throat as the magic spreads throughout the rest of her body, fixing what her patchwork medical knowledge couldn’t.
For several long seconds neither of them say anything and Jung Heewon closes her eyes, trying not to slump forward and fall asleep right away. Han Sooyoung would never do this for her, she thinks, half-amused and half-nostalgic, but then she remembers Han Sooyoung did use to do this for her, would sit with her after a challenging scenario and help slap bandages on the parts of her body she couldn’t reach, like the middle of her back, so Jung Heewon would do the same for her. They rarely said anything during those times, too, working silently because anything they might have said would have ruined the fragile atmosphere around them.
Even with her eyes closed Jung Heewon can feel the heat building behind them. She hasn’t seen so many of their companions in so long. With their conflicting parties it’s hard for her to meet up with Lee Hyunsung now, which means Yuri-not-Han-Sooyoung is the only familiar face around here, and even then she’s obviously long gone.
How much longer does she have to endure this? Would it be better if she just… forgot? If she just let Erich Striker’s ego take over so she can sink back and rest for eternity?
The magic fades, and Jung Heewon waits for its lingering warmth to disappear entirely before opening her eyes. Yuri is sitting closer than she realized, their faces only a handful of inches apart, her eyes still as sharp and piercing as ever but something about them gentler than usual. “Sir Erich,” Yuri says, but just for a moment it sounds like Han Sooyoung calling Jung Heewon, “does it still hurt?”
Her throat feels too thick for words. Jung Heewon only shakes her head, the barest movement possible, because if she moves too much she might only bring their faces closer than they already are.
“Good.” Yuri’s hand moves from her thigh to her arm, the crook of her elbow. Her rough, sword-calloused fingers are cold, but they feel like heated brands on Jung Heewon’s skin. “It can feel like that all the time, you know. Just relax. Let me help you.”
“But…” Is this magic, too? Jung Heewon’s head is swimming, her thoughts vague, like her skull has been stuffed with cotton. “I-I can’t. I have… a duty…”
“Yes. To serve me. Isn’t that right?”
“To serve you…”
“Give in,” Yuri whispers. Her voice is a siren song, lulling Jung Heewon to be dashed against the rocks. “Waiting and waiting and waiting for so long… it must be awful. But you don’t have to suffer like this. Let me take care of everything, and just go on serving as my loyal knight… doesn’t that sound nice? Mine, forever.”
Forever? Jung Heewon knows she shouldn’t like the sound of that word, but when Yuri says it like that everything in her yearns for it, the everlasting stretch of eternity. And how bad would it be, really, if she did forget? How bad would it be, if she remained forever on her knees before her queen, who only need place a hand on her skin to make her feel good, feel so much better than she has in such a long, long while? She leans forward, just slightly, her eyes fluttering closed the same time Yuri reaches up to cup her cheek with one cold hand. “I swore to protect you,” she says, but her voice sounds so far away.
“Yes. You did.” Yuri’s fingers brush against the corner of her eye. “Now get some rest. You’ve been working so hard.”
Han Sooyoung closes the door behind her without a sound, leaving Jung Heewon dead asleep on her bed. When next she wakes there will only be Erich Striker. No more occasional flashes of defiance in those eyes, no more too-familiar laughs Han Sooyoung only ever catches the tail ends of, no more of the tics she used to look for to remind herself she was still holding on for a reason.
Her hands are shaking in a way they haven’t in a very long while. Han Sooyoung coats them in fire magic to keep them warm, but it isn’t because of the cold.
She could have lasted longer, Yuri whispers to her. She sounds both pleased and confused. Not much longer, but a few days is a few days. Why speed up the process?
There’s no real need to give her a response—even if Yuri’s consciousness has begun to creep in the edges of her own, Han Sooyoung still has enough self-awareness to keep a hold on their shared body. She remains silent as she strides away from the knight captain’s room towards her own, ignoring Yuri’s indignant huff when she gets no answer.
Maybe it had been cruel to snuff Jung Heewon out like that. But she doesn’t have the Avatar skill. She doesn’t have the luxury to pick and choose which memories to keep and which to kill off, quite literally. One day Kim Dokja will arrive, and on that day Han Sooyoung knows he’ll be able to bring both Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung back, but for now—for now, what use is there in waiting any longer for him? Why would Jung Heewon want to torture herself like this, when Han Sooyoung could take care of her, could take that pain away, could make sure she needn’t suffer more than necessary?
Oh, Yuri sneers, so it’s like that. You poor thing.
Han Sooyoung fixes her gaze ever forward, crosses the hall as fast as she can. If she turns back now—if she’d spent any longer in that room—no, she doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to think about how the adoring loyalty in those eyes will soon make her feel.