Chapter Text
Sheltered behind the gates of Eighth Prince’s residence, Soo forgets. Goryeo, or modern Korea; it’s all the same where it truly counts. There is always a war. Here, it’s waged for power and riches and politics, the battlegrounds called drawing rooms and libraries, pavilions where the powerful take tea and slash at each other with words if not swords. Where conscription is called marriage and children have no choice but to comply.
Unni is gone, Eighth Prince is broken, and Soo forgets.
Her uncles arrive as the grass turns green and snowdrops bloom where Unni rests. They gather their spoils before her, piling her arms high with richly coloured silks and jewelled pins for her hair.
The maids take her to the bathing pool and scrub away the topmost layer of her skin, leaving her clean and pink and glowing and raw. Steam rises in wisps around her, as they massage warm oil into her scalp and she struggles against them because it is only here that she can. She flails her limbs about, splashing them with water, screaming her frustration at her helplessness. Go Ha Jin was a normal working girl, but Hae Soo is a noble lady. She wears luxurious hanboks and has maids attending her needs. Yet in the end, her status means nothing in the face of her uncles’ greed.
Soo cannot weep for the injustice. Chae Ryung does it in her stead.
With gentle hands, they wash her hair with shampoo flavoured with oranges, letting it dry loosely over her shoulders as they paint her lips and powder her cheeks with peach-coloured blush. They dress her in finer robes than she’s ever worn, the silk underclothes like crushed petals against her skin, the mahogany skirt embroidered and cumbersome. Her hair is braided into a coil; jewels are tucked into the folds, the braided ropes sitting heavily atop her head, the rest tumbling over her shoulders. Her sash is tied like a vise around her ribs. Her wrists are bare underneath her long white sleeves, but she sees shackles, anyway.
“The first daughter of the Hae clan will be wed to the Fourth Prince,” reads the king’s decree.
Three seasons have passed since Go Ha Jin took the name Hae Soo. That’s three seasons that she’s known the man who is to be her husband.
(Small consolation: it could be worse.)
Slaves dressed in the Hae clan’s colours carry her to the palace in an ornamental palanquin. They weave their way through the dusty streets of Songak, while Soo presses her fingers to the bars covering the window and watches the citizens line up along the streets, in front of the merchants’ stalls. They talk eagerly amongst themselves, the children beaming at her as she passes, chirping excitedly when they catch the uneasy smiles she gives them.
The procession is a declaration of the festivities to come. Soon, one of Goryeo’s princes will be wed.
There will be a feast and a festival, Songak’s marketplace will be bustling, the merchant city thriving. It’s a blessing for the people at a time when they stand on pins and needles, hoping for precious rain. They cannot call it a drought, yet. But with no rain to wash it away, dust clings to every surface, floating in the air, crawling into their lungs. They cough up clouds and watch the dust rain back onto the ground.
Whatever else it might mean, the talk of her wedding brings smiles to their faces. Soo isn’t so selfish as to begrudge them that.
“The Astronomer will choose a wedding date today,” she’s told by Oh Sang Goong when she arrives at the palace, “And you will stay at the Damiwon until you are married. So, please make yourself comfortable, Lady.”
That task is near impossible. Her head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, from the jewels, the braids, the screaming urge to run—which she knows she cannot. She shouldn’t. It could be far worse, she reminds herself. She gets to stay in the city that’s become her home. And the Fourth Prince is almost a friend. Half a friend. Maybe even three quarters.
In this era where marriages are alliances first and foremost, she is lucky.
All the same, she cannot breathe in this prison of a room as she waits for what feels like her trial. She pokes at her hair and strands unceremoniously fall out of their pins. She stands up, then sits back on the bed, then stands up again, her hanbok rustling as she moves. When the confines of the room go from stifling to suffocating, she makes for the door. She’s a guest here, not a prisoner, and she’s about to go crazy from claustrophobia.
Soo rounds the corner—
And runs right into someone, her forehead knocking into his pointed chin. Her foot catches on the hem of her skirt, and she’s tripping, tumbling backwards, bracing herself for the fall that doesn’t come. His arm snakes its way around her waist, and she’s pulled against the hard plane of his chest.
There’s a moment, a pause. She looks at him, at the sculpted lines of his face, and he looks at her. His eyes reflecting the image of her in their dark pools. This thought has struck her a few times; if he’d give people the chance to actually take a good look at him, they wouldn’t be so quick to believe the rumours of his being ugly. It’s fairly ridiculous. Fourth Prince is many things. Ugly isn’t one of them.
(She says this from a professional standpoint—she is a makeup artist.)
He lets her go when she’s steady, taking a step back and looking studiously away.
“Ow,” she complains, rubbing at her forehead.
“You bumped into me,” grumbles Fourth Prince.
He’s dressed more formally than she’s ever seen him, in a black version of Eighth Prince’s blue formal hanbok. It suits him; the gold brocade on the black silk. She’d told him months ago, that he finally looked the part of the prince now that he’d moved to the palace, but it is here that he truly does. He’s clean-shaven, his hair is tied neatly back, his fringe tamed, and he’s really quite—
It’s the fact that he’s her fiancé. It really is. It’s her survival instinct trying to make the whole situation more palatable.
(She can almost believe that.)
“Did you come to see me?”
“Oh. Yeah…Baek Ah told me about that stuff you talked to him about—about being free? I know this marriage…” he winces, “If you don’t want to go through with this, tell me. I’ll find a way to get you out of the palace.”
“I never thought you’d be on my side, Your Highness,” she says softly.
“It’s not that, just,” he says gruffly, “I won’t be your prison. Nothing’s worth living like that.”
“It’s a royal decree—you and I must get married,” she says tiredly, “What’s the punishment for disobeying one of those?”
“Death,” he replies, without missing a beat, “But I’ve never put much stock in Paeha’s judgements.”
“But I’d have to live on the run. We both would.”
“Well, yeah.”
She could run away. It’s really not an option, if she thinks about it logically. But she looks at Fourth Prince, at the stubborn line of his jaw, and. She’s almost sure he’s serious. If she tells him right then that she doesn’t want this, then he will find a horse and spirit her away before the guards can so much as sneeze. And it’s—the first real choice anyone has given her.
Ironically, it’s this that makes the decision for her.
“Thank you—I appreciate the sentiment, but—I’d rather just go ahead with it, if it’s all the same to you,” she exhales shakily, “I’ll marry you.”
He frowns, his brows furrowing, as if he’s disbelieving. “Are you…sure? You’re okay with me?”
She huffs. “You’re not so bad that I’d rather die than marry you. I’ve told you before, haven’t I? I like my head where it is, I’d rather not lose it.”
“So…we’re doing this, then.” his smile is rusty, unpracticed, and—
She finds herself smiling back. Fourth Prince is someone she can trust, she thinks. He won’t—whatever else he might be to the rest of the world; he won’t be cruel to her. He’s more than three quarters of a friend. He’s easily ninety-percent of one. Maybe even the full deal.
“I guess we are,” she steps forward and grabs his arm, “But first, you have to get me out of here. I need fresh air.”
“Okay,” he nods, “I can do that.”
(The gardens behind the Damiwon is the first corner of the palace he shares with her.)
“Hyung-nim isn’t like what the rumours say, you know,” Baek Ah-nim says to Soo when he comes to have tea with her, before the betrothal ceremony. “He acts scary, but that’s only because…”
He shakes his head. “Anyways, my point is, I think you two could be good for each other.”
Soo sighs. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to run, or anything. It was stupid of me to believe I’d be able to marry for love, anyway. I’ll just. Make the best of this situation. I think that’s wise, under the circumstances, don’t you?”
Baek Ah-nim smiles, but it’s—bittersweet. “It looks like the daughters of the Hae clan are destined to be my sisters-in-law.”
Soo presses her chin into her hands and closes her eyes. “It would’ve been nice to have Unni around, today.”
“I miss her everyday,” he says quietly.
So does she.
Astronomer speaks of stars aligning and fate and how theirs are entwined, and its. Overwhelming if she thinks about it seriously. That everything that has happened to her has had a purpose. From being robbed to drowning in Lake Cheonjuho, to stumbling upon Fourth Prince bleeding and bloodstained, in the midst of a destructive rage. To finding him in his gentler state, alone, staring at the palace as if it was a wish. If it’s to be called home, I need a family, he’d said.
She wonders if it’s home yet.
Fourth Prince scoffs as Astronomer speaks, rolling his eyes and sipping his tea.
“You don’t believe what Astronomer is saying?” she asks him in whispers.
“Man moves the heavens,” he tells her, “Not the other way, around. Why? Do you believe it?”
“No!” she blusters, “I’m not crazy!”
But that’s a lie. It’s a ridiculous explanation for why she’s here, but it’s an explanation better than what she has.
(The wedding is set for the end of the half moon cyle.)
Eighth Prince visits her in the Damiwon after the betrothal ceremony, but he is quiet and distant and he won’t look at her. It is not the norm between them, but these days they don’t have one. She looks at him and she sees how she’d betrayed the person who’d been a mother to her. She remembers Eighth Prince’s heartbroken sobs on the floor of his study, his repeating it had been love, it had been love, it had been love, until he was hoarse. And—she’s sick to her stomach. That she’d taken his affections while her dying Unni had craved them. She’d denied them their final, fleeting chance at happiness.
This political marriage is more than she deserves.
“I’m sorry,” he says to her, “I promised Lady Hae I’d look after you, and now…”
“Don’t worry,” Soo shakes her head, “I don’t think it’s going to be so bad, living here. I’ll get to see Baek Ah-nim and Jungie-nim and Eunie-nim every day, too.”
“If I’d known the elders would be marrying you to So, I would’ve stepped in. I would’ve—”
Married her. He would’ve. Of this Soo is sure. And maybe if the circumstances had been different, if he hadn’t been the man her Unni had loved, the man whose affections she’d stolen, the man who Unni had given to her even as it broke her heart. Because she loved the two of them and she wanted them to be happy.
A marriage to Eighth Prince would’ve been worse.
“It’s okay,” she says gently, “You were grieving, Your Highness. And I’m going to be fine. Fourth Prince is my friend. He’ll be good to me.”
“Soo-yah, you’re still precious to me,” he steps forward and puts his hands on her shoulders.
She steps back, pushing his hands away. “I’m to be your sister-in-law in two weeks. We’re to be family, and I don’t want to go back to how it was before.”
“Soo-yah—”
“I will care for you as a brother, but I’m to be married now, I won’t…” she sighs, “Goodbye, Your Highness.”
“No,” he says emphatically, “I won’t say goodbye to you. You’re all I have left of Lady Hae.”
“We shall be family, we’re not truly saying goodbye, just. Goodbye to what we’d done in the past. It’d been wrong. And I’m repenting for it. So I won’t go back to that.”
He stares at her and he stares and he stares, his brown eyes searching her face for something, before he looks away and his shoulders slump. “I understand,” he says as he leaves, “Goodnight.”
She sinks onto the bed in her room, letting out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
Mornings at the Damiwon start hours earlier than what she’s used to. She’s woken with gentle hands on her shoulders and pleading entreaties. “Lady, it’s time to wake up,” murmur the Court Ladies, “We must get you ready.”
Her hanbok for the day is lighter than the ceremonial one she’d had to wear the day before, but it’s still more extravagant than anything she’d worn in the days when she’d been in Unni’s care. The jeogori is heavy, the skirt heavier still. She trips over her own feet a half dozen times until Oh Sang Goong has had enough, and draws her to the side, making her practice walking the length of a corridor until she learns the folds of the heavy underskirts.
“There is comportment you must learn before your wedding,” Oh Sang Goong tells her, “As a member of the royal family, there are certain standards you must uphold.”
By lunchtime, she’s exhausted.
She begs off her lessons after the midday meal, but is handed a pile of books to study anyway. The Court Ladies carry them into her room, depositing them neatly on the table, before walking backwards out of her room and pulling the door shut. And Soo is alone, with nothing but a pile of meaningless squiggles to keep her company.
She tries. She opens the books, squints at the characters, tries to remember what they stand for. But she’s never been much of a reader, never had a brain meant for studying. An hour later, her hair is falling out if its braids, her fingernails are in danger of being completely bitten off, and she’s had enough.
She hikes her skirts up to her knees and climbs out the window.
“This is insane,” she yells, once she’s in the privacy of the garden, “They wake me up at the crack of dawn, then they stuff me into this straitjacket, and make me exercise. And now they want me to spend the rest of my afternoon, reading. Reading!”
“Get used to it,” rumbles a voice, in the grass, and she falls backwards with a startled scream, pain shooting up her tailbone as she lands on the ground.
Fourth Prince sits up, rubbing his eyes. “You’re very clumsy, aren’t you?”
“I’m not clumsy,” she sputters, “Anyone would be startled if you snuck up on them, like that!”
“I did no sneaking,” he crosses his arms, “I was here first. You’re the one that came and interrupted my nap.”
She hauls herself up, dusting off her backside. “Is that what you were doing in the grass? Napping?”
“Yeah,” he nods, “I always take naps here.”
Soo frowns and walks over to him, sinking onto the grass beside him. “Why here, when you have a perfectly nice bed, indoors?”
“I like it here. The grass is soft and there’s a breeze. My quarters are suffocating.”
“Must be nice, being a prince,” she sighs, lying back, with her head in the shade, “You get to wear comfortable clothes, you can take naps whenever you want to, there’s no one to boss you around…”
“Of course it is,” he says imperiously, “It’s why I was born a prince.”
“Hah,” she scoffs, “You didn’t choose to be born a prince. You were just lucky enough to be born as one.”
“Lucky,” he laughs breathily, “I guess you could call it that.”
They fall into a silence, but it’s neither uncomfortable, nor stifling. He lays back with a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. The coils of hair piled on her head make lying on her back nearly impossible. Still, the sky is clear and blue and she’s. At peace. For maybe the first time since Unni passed away, she’s not poisoned by guilt, she isn’t stifled by the knowledge that perhaps Unni had left early because of her and the feelings she’d had for Eighth Prince.
She’s half-royal and nearly married, and she’s finally at peace.
“Do you still have nightmares, these days?” she asks, letting her eyes fall shut.
“Who do you build your prayer mantle for?”
It’s a game they’d started playing, back when he’d been staying at Eighth Prince’s home. She’d ask him questions and he’d turn them on her. They’d trade them like jabs until one of them found one they were willing to answer. It’s about as much fun as running through a minefield. But they’d fallen into this habit, and. She doesn’t really mind it, when he asks. She doesn’t know why, or how they’d even gotten to this point. Just—she doesn’t mind.
Her turn. “Are you really okay with this whole marriage business? Or do you want to run away?”
“I wouldn’t run away, even if I could,” he says, his voice low and soft, “My loyalty is to my brother, the Crown Prince. He is my priority. And he’ll need the Hae clan’s support when he takes the throne, but your clan is far too important for their daughter to be made a prince’s concubine, so. Here I am.”
“I see,” she says softly.
“Does that disappoint you?”
She shakes her head. “I expected it.”
“I am sorry that you got caught up in all of this.”
“Who knows,” she sighs, closing her eyes once more, letting the fatigue of the last few days overwhelm her, “Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. I don’t think I was meant to stay long at Eighth Prince’s home, anyway.”
(He is gone when she wakes.)
There is a line that he doesn’t cross. Fourth Prince paces outside her room at the Damiwon, but he refuses to go inside. He refuses to even knock. She honestly wishes he would. She doesn’t know how long he spends waiting for her to finish being tortured, but she’s always, always ready for a reprieve, and he only ever appears when Oh Sang Goong tells her she’s allowed a break.
The Court Ladies bring her tea and pastries, and it’s when they open the door to enter that she sees him.
“I thought…” he rubs the back of his neck, “Maybe you needed a break from your lessons?”
“Sorry, I’ll take my tea later,” she tells the ladies before they can protest. Once she’s out of their earshot, she grabs his arm and glares at him. “You couldn’t have knocked a little earlier? Maybe an hour ago?”
“Oh Sang Goong will be angry if I interrupt before she’s ready to let you go,” he tells her, leading her to the main entrance.
“Please,” she drawls, as she kicks her skirt away and steps over the threshold, “As if you’re scared of anyone.”
“Well,” he says indignantly, “The lessons are for your own good, anyway.”
She scowls at him. “Of course you would say that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what you think it means,” she huffs, stumbling when the tip of her shoe catches the gap between two stones paving the path. He catches her before she falls flat on her face, and her face burns.
“Don’t say it,” she warns, “You’d be clumsy too, if your clothes were this big.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he shrugs.
He chokes on his laughter, his shoulders trembling as he bites it back. But—she finds she can’t begrudge him his humour even if it’s at her expense. She’s known him for three seasons. She knows he prefers to glare and growl and intimidate over smiling and sharing laughter. That he shares it with her is, well. It feels like a compliment.
She’ll take it.
Fourth Prince shows her corners of the palace she’s certain no one knows about. They’re always empty, the buildings abandoned, sometimes falling apart. But always breathtakingly beautiful. She doesn’t know when or how he’s found these places, but when he shows them to her, she’s almost certain. Living here with him, with the princes who are her friends won’t be bad at all.
And perhaps she won’t get her epic love story. These days she’s not sure she needs one.
“What is this place?” she asks, stopping by the railing on the bridge, watching the cherry blossom petals rain down from the trees and blanket the water.
Surrounded by shades of blue skies and green leaves and pink and white flowers, the foliage rich and healthy and untamed, Soo is relaxed, unburdened, uncaring of the past behind her, and the future ahead. If there are places, sanctuaries like this, she can get through it. No matter what comes her way.
“It’s a Lake called Dongji,” Fourth Prince tells her, “It’s the first place where the sun rises at the palace.”
“How do you know this?”
“I’ve seen a lot of dawns.”
“What kind of a place is the palace?” she asks him, on one of their walks.
Three nights remain until their wedding. Soo is getting used to Oh Sang Goong’s lessons. All the same, she finds herself waiting for Fourth Prince to finish his own and come and find her. They take their walks, and he shows her something new, everyday.
“It’s a place that’s hard to enter and even harder to leave,” he tells her, his voice low, “You end up dying if you trust anyone. You’ll live if you remain alert and wary of those closest to you. It’s that kind of place.”
Soo smiles softly. “Well…then it seems like you don’t know everything, either.”
“Everyone here is alone. That is one thing I know for certain.”
She curls her hand around arm as they walk because—it just feels right. “I’m not alone, so I’m alright.”
“You’re not alone?” he asks with a puzzled frown.
“You’re here, Your Highness. So how am I alone?”
“You’ll be in trouble if you remain so reckless,” he chides.
“Everyone who lives here is a person, too,” she tells him, “So I can handle it.”
He is silent for a while, as he looks at her. She wonders if he understands just how much of an uphill battle this whole royalty thing feels like. She wonders if he would believe her if she said she had been raised in a working-class family and not a noble one. That she’s afraid she’ll make a misstep and fall flat on her face in one of her fancy new hanboks.
“I suppose you can,” he smiles softly, “I guess life around the palace won’t be boring anymore, now that you’re here.”
Her wedding dawns with the sun bleeding into the sky. There is no rain, no clouds to promise it, either. Clouds on her wedding day would be a blessing. Rain would be a miracle. But the skies remain clear and the noise of the preparations for the first true wedding since Ninth Prince married his first wife rises to a crescendo. The Damiwon buzzes with activity, the court ladies rushing to complete the final touches.
Soo soaks in the bathing pool until her fingers and toes resemble raisins, playing with the jasmine flower petals floating in the water. Oh Sang Goong supervises her preparation herself, instructing her subordinates to bring out the oils and the body soaps, watching over them as they massage her shoulders, her scalp. The knots in her muscles loosen and then loosen some more. She’s quite boneless and relaxed by the time they’re finished.
She supposes this too, is a sign that she’s at least close to having assimilated herself into Goryeo’s high society. That she can let these strangers touch her and wash her, without feeling violated.
But she insists on doing her makeup herself, picking through the horsehair brushes and the rouge and powders, lining her eyes with kohl and spiking her lashes. She dilutes the rouge into the lovely pale pink she favours and dabs it lightly onto the apples of her cheeks.
“Well?” she asks Oh Sang Goong, once she’s finished, “What do you think?”
“You’re beautiful, Lady. His Highness, the Fourth Prince will be very pleased.”
Soo cheeks flame—in indignation. Of course. “Oh, this isn’t for him. It’s for me. I’m only getting married once—it’ll hurt my pride as a makeup artist if I don’t look perfect.”
“Of course, Lady,” Oh Sang Goong demurs, “It is as you say.”
She might as well have said I don’t believe you for how sincere it sounds.
They comb out her hair, teasing it and pinning it and braiding it and coiling it into one massive, intricate bun. Ornamental pins made of brilliant gold are threaded through her hair; extensions and real strands alike. It’s unbearably heavy, and she could cry for the rest of the day that looms ahead. Unni had worn her hair in a similar hairstyle every day. Soo cannot, will not do the same.
Expectations be damned.
The court ladies swathe her in layers of cobalt and crimson over layers of white silk underthings, the golden embroidery of the jeogori weighing her arms, her shoulders. The sleeves are long and flared, draping elegantly over her knuckles. They wrap her in the fabric, tying the pieces together, fitting the sash last over her midsection.
Soo isn’t ugly. She knows this—it hadn’t mattered that her cheating scumbag of an ex-boyfriend hadn’t thought her pretty enough. She knows her face is pleasant to look at. She knows she looks good in the clothes she wears. But in the blue and red and gold of her wedding finery, she is. Royal.
They carry her to the prayer tower in the ornamental palanquin, cousins she cannot recognize helping her out with gentle hands clutching at her elbows and shoulders. She does not trip. She doesn’t faint dead away from the weight of her jewellery. At the end of the procession, she sees Fourth Prince standing in stark contrast to his brothers in their brightly coloured robes, and with every step she takes, she grows more confident. In his elegant black and gold and red, mask obscuring a third of his face, he is familiar and trustworthy. He is someone she knows. Knows well, she might even dare to say.
Marriage to a man who is her friend. It’s more than she could’ve asked for.
He smiles uncertainly when she draws closer, looking at her, then looking away. Then looking back at her once more.
Soo smiles back. She’d been right. She isn’t alone.
Let me in the walls
You've built around
We can light a match
And burn them down