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scriptaed · 6 years

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A Bastard’s Etiquette (M)

[cr.]

Genre: Angst/Action/Smut; fantasy!au; bastard!namjoon; king’s advisor!namjoon; royalty!au;

Pairing: Namjoon x Reader;

Length: 33.2k;

Synopsis: In a world where dusk becomes day and the long night is everlasting, where famine runs rampant and children scatter below murky skies and the fallen sun to cry in their mother’s bosoms, no one believes in miracles, no one believes in the legend of the Northern Bastard of Nordendall―and neither do you, for when a mother and a child are burnt at the stake under the orders of Tyrant Im, Hell befalls the kingdom.

The once thriving kingdom of riches, the Kingdom of Nordendall, has long been forgotten in the depths of history, decades ago when laughter and joy could still be heard in warm sun-basked air under the reign of a king, an era distant from The Abandoned―neither forgotten nor loathed, for his name is only forbidden to be spoken of; and despite your Lord’s demands, the people loved the past king and the past king loved his people. Even the passing of a century has not kept the dwindling elders from reminiscing of the days when flowers blossomed by the paths of green and fields sprout abundant grains, enough to last for the winter, and children cried―not from starving or living, but for what babes do in the comforts of the milky hands of their mother.

But alas, with the death of the king came a lurking night dawning upon the commons. And unbeknownst to them, the following century opposes the last akin to the stark contrast between white and black. People no longer have the time nor hope to fantasize in legends of an outside heir claiming rights to oust the cruel, albeit rightful, off the throne―no, people believe in the Gods, the proclamation of the priests who chant “the Gods have forsaken us, condemned us, to a century of darkness, for it is what we deserve; believe in the Gods, remember He whom we had forgotten, and trust in the divine rights of our King, and the long night shall end.”

…and yet it never does, not when Namjoon, the Bastard of Nordendall, remains dormant in the shadows of his chamber.

The wagon rocks roughly along the rugged, unpaved dirt. Paths of bronze, parched fields surround the mount trotting on by. The air stenches of what was once freshly watered greens and now remains of months old mud where pesky flies infest year round. You can hear, even see, children―stripped of all flesh and meat until all that is left is their very bones―crying about as they scurry to the embrace of their mother. And like their little doves, skin covered in patches of wounds and mud, women whisper sweet nothings into their ears; grins turn to frowns, sniffles turn to silence, each and every commoner of a bystander heeling in a cascade to the ground as you ride on by.

Stand, the words stay trapped in the knot of your throat and pressed lips; if it were not for the man, the rightful heir to the throne, sitting in the carriage behind you, you would have been long off the wagon and requesting the people to stand instead of heel. And despite your Lord, and once friends since childhood, Jaebum, offering you a seat by his side in the spacious carriage, you prefer sitting out here with your back on the wagon and your body facing the ends of the trailer, watching the marks of your path being engraved into the parched dirt, even if it means facing the roll of his eyes and the tick of his temper.

Contrary to most high-borns, you take pleasure in seeing your people eye to eye, if they are to heel, praise, and beg for help, the least you can do is acknowledge their presence, their existence, and their requests of which you have no power in solving―and Jaebum despises that very trait of yours.

No one in the Castles of Nordendall treat the commoners in such a method like yours. Unlike those of your Lord’s immediate family, who are born and raised with such virtues since the very first time their eyes fluttered open to the sights of their mothers, squires, maids, and knights sympathize with the people and your reasonings for doing what they claim to be “careless” actions, but none are willing to take the extra step like you do.

There is no point, they state, there is nothing you can do to improve the lives of the people, for that lies in the hands of the Lord. The only benefit your actions will raise is, quite ironically, the fury of the people for your lack of dignity.

How dare you face them each and every day, nodding at their presence and their poor condition, yet fail to change a single thing when the next day, week, even year arrives? The only reason you could do it without repercussions from vexing the Lord is because he favors you.

But that simply is not the complete truth. Jaebum may have spared your head once or twice, but he knows you and your soft spots like the back of your hand. Nothing comes without consequences. No, not under his rule, especially because of your illegitimate status as a highborn.

“M’lady!” a woman cries out to snap you out of your daze, and before you know it, an elderly woman and, presumably, her little girl are chasing after your wagon. Each limp in their scampering cuts into your already scarred state, your heart aching as you pity the two. “Please―please, could you spare a change or two!”

In the midst of their cries, the woman nearly trips on the rags of her torn skirt. A gasp escapes your lips as you hastily scramble towards the edge of your wagon to grab a hold of the woman’s rough, patchy hands, “oh dear, please, please be careful!”

And yet, she refuses to let go.

Tears stream down her reddened, dirt stained cheeks, and she bawls along with her child as the two run hand in hand. You helplessly glance around at the townspeople whom stand there watching, clueless as to what to do. Seeing the chances of aid are slim to none, you attempt to unlatch her cold fingers from your own blessed warmth and plead, “please! I will gladly hand you all my change, but two coins is not worth risking your life for!”

The wagon begins to rattle, swaying side to side even more drastically as it came to a stop when the coachman up ahead catches onto the ordeal between you and the ladies. Quickly reaching into the pockets you had rebelliously sewn into your own pale and stained ivory gown, you unfold her lanky hands to offer the remaining of your five coins. Her eyes light up along with her child’s, both staring at the gold in awe as if they had never seen such delicacies and only heard of such things in tales. Grateful, or more accurately, astonished, smiles creep onto the corners of their lips, stretching from ear to ear as a few gasps and choked whimpers escape their lips before new waterworks flow from them.

“T-Thank you, m’lady,” the woman cries out, a strand of her silver hair falling before her creased forehead and glimmering dull, gray eyes. She buries the gold into her pockets and takes your hands into hers, “I have been begging, pleading, on my knees each and every day, m’lady, but no one would spare even a glimpse my way. N-No one cared for me like you did, I-I can not thank you enough, m-m’lady.”

Somehow through all her sobs, you’re able to comprehend her enough to nod with a pressed smile. The elder hastily nudges her daughter, “hurry and thank her, dear, we can finally have dinner for the first time in months because of this fine, young woman.”

“Mother, is she the Queen you told me about last night?” the golden haired child glares at you before leaning in to whisper a bit too loudly into her mother's ears. The mother cinches her brows and quickly scorns her child, for the Queen had passed away years ago. Clearing up the misconception, the child glances bashfully between you and the ground before mumbling, “thank you… m’lady.”

Your heart flutters at her sheepish smile, the child grasping and hiding in her mother's arms at the mere thought of supper. Reaching out to stroke her cheeks filled with more than plentiful red cuts for a child, you grin and shake your head, “I am not a lady, and I most certainly am not a Queen. But if the Gods ever do bless me with such an opportunity, I will do everything in me to make sure children like you retire to bed with a full stomach every night. It is the least I can do.”

The child giggles at your promise, her two front teeth just growing in and her gummy smile melting your heart. But not everything goes as smoothly as you wish, no, not in this Kingdom. A rustle comes from behind as you hear the familiar sharp edged tone of his hollering, “why are we stopping? Did I tell you to stop?”

“N-No,” the coachman stammers, “but Lady Y/L/N seemed to be having trouble—”

“ —well, did I tell you to stop?”

Your eyes shoot open and your heart nearly stops. You can not let Jaebum catch you pitying, much less helping, the commoners. Gently pushing the woman and her girl away, you whisper harshly under your breath, “hurry, leave before the Prince sees you. Hurry!”

The girl glances back over her shoulder, her doe-like eyes bringing out the soft side of you, the worstly feared part of you which has always endangered your survival. Your heart hammers against your chest, and your pulse hastens as you shoo her away with a wave of your hand. “Go on—”

“May I ask what this is, Lady Y/L/N?”

Your body turns stiff, and your blood runs cold. With one gulp, your heart nearly stops, but not before giving you a final blow against the chest to knock all air out of your lungs.

Turning around in your seat, you find Jaebum staring at you, void of expression; but you know just exactly what is going on in that twisted head of his. He never speaks to you formally. First and foremost, you are of lower status than him, the Prince. Second, he never preferred to do so, as you two had grown up as friends, along with his step brother, Namjoon, since the age of seven. And third, Jaebum does not ask—he demands. His blatant sarcasm and the bite at the end of his words are enough to tell you of the deep waters you are in.

“I was just speaking with them, my Lord,” you blurt, making sure to address him formally as a way to appease his temper.

“Mm, wasting your time with these flies like you always do,” he hums, quirking a brow and turning to face the two petrified ladies. “What really happened between you three? Or are you going to lie to your Prince's face, too?” The woman glances at you, eyes wide and begging for help when Jaebum sighs loudly and spits, “I demanded you to tell me the truth! Or do you want me to cut your tongue and have you unable to ever speak again? Because the pleasure is all mine.”

“We begged for coins!” you and the mother stare wide eyed at the girl, one out of worry and another out of scorn. But the girl continues, “forgive me… m’lord. My mother and I have been starving for weeks now! We only asked for a couple of coins!”

No, no, no, you curse internally.

The girl is foolish enough to believe in the good of the world, foolish enough to believe goodness and justice even exists in this Kingdom and in the Prince of all people. But it isn’t like you can’t sympathize, for you, too, had once believed in such helpless hopes as a young girl… that is, before you came to know of the harsh reality. Coming to realize the truth was the backbone of your very survival, and unfortunately for the girl, she was one step too late.

“You think your little coins are more important than my time? You think I care if you starve and your mother rots to death enough to stop me on my way home?” Jaebum scoffs, his snickers cracking like thunder into the thick air as the townspeople stand by in silence. “Tie them up.”

“W-what? I beg your pardon, m’lord, but what have we done wrong?!” the woman popped eyes dart to the Prince who had already turned his back on the helpless.

Your heart nearly stops when she takes a step forward only to trip and come tumbling back to the dirt, and yet she still scrambles after the Prince on all fours before hoarsely crying out, “we would never dare to stop your Grace! At least… at least spare my daughter…” she coughs and wheezes and croaks with her curled hands reaching out for the mercy of the Prince, “please, she’s got nothing to do with none of this! She’s only seven, your Grace!”

Seven—that was when the high Lords had taken you and your mother in.

“My Lord,” you quickly interject, taking large strides in desperate need to stop what you had caused. “I mean not to threaten you of your orders, but the two ladies truly have nothing to do with it. I—”

—slap.

A few gasps fill the now silenced air.

Face red and burning, hands cupping where his hands must remain imprinted in drained colors of your blood flushed cheeks, shock registering and stiffened body affixed in the midst of your step, and the next thing you know, you’re peering up and glaring at him through the curtains of your stray hair.

“You,” he articulates, lips curling and finger pointing in disdain. His narrowed eyes darken until all you can see are the piercing black orbs absent of soul. “Get the bloody hell out of my face. I hate how high and mighty you make yourself out to be, merciful of the weak and all. What? You think you're better than me? The Prince?”

Your brows cinch in the tension of his stare, “pardon me, my Lord, but that is the least of my intentions—”

—he takes a step forward to close the distance between the two of you and whispers into your ears, “I'm not just any lord, Y/N. We may be childhood friends, but I'm your future King. Question me again and I'll have your head decapitated and buried with your dead mother.”

His curt words strike a nerve in you, and all you can do is stand in shock and fear. Jaebum smirks, scoffing at the lack of a reaction—a confirmation of his victory—before turning his back on you and striding off to wave his hand without another glance back.

“Lock them up.”

The woman and her girl are tied up and thrown to the back of the wagon but not without screaming and pleading cries. The fallen, soft edges of the soldier's eyes tell you neither does he agree with the Prince's orders, but it is the fear for his life that drives the soul within him pouring out from those brown irises since long ago. You, on the other hand, are forced to tread closely behind.

The smack of his iron-like, merciless hands still sting your cheeks, and all you can do is hang your head low and eyes glued to the ground in shame. You know the two ladies, particularly the girl, desired to comfort you, but the words don't come, for the both of you know they're in far worse danger than you as mere commoners amongst millions.

And it isn't like you have the heart to look in the petrified looks in their eyes. You're crumbling under sheer embarrassment. The Prince had just punished you in front of thousands of people, the people whom you only wanted to see eye to eye, to honor, and to acknowledge of all their sufferings decided upon whose family they had the fortune or misfortune of extending its family tree.

And yet, with the simple raise of a hand, you had been silenced. Maybe your methods really are as useless as Namjoon had forewarned you.

The wooden, dozen meters high drawbridge lowers and descends upon you from the divine skies. The wagon continues tottering across the bridge, over the waters of the moat surrounding the castle's towering walls, and in the midst of your daze, you find yourself within the first layer of the stronghold.

“Please, Your Grace, I beg of you!” the woman bellows from the depths of her throat, each ounce of her desperation and last minute hope pouring into her cries.

Hesitantly lifting your gaze, you find the girl bawling on the floor, grasping at Jaebum’s feet before crawling back to you, “help us! I beg of you, m’lady! I'll—I’ll call you Your Grace, just please help mother and I!”

You gulp, the walls of your dry, constricted throat grazing against one another to invoke a turmoil within your stomach until you nearly throw up, because all you can do is helplessly stare down at her.

Her already sullen face falls at your still lips before stuttering, “you said you'd be the Queen, right? You promised me, didn't you? You told me children would no longer starve to death at night!”

The girl looks so desperate—a look you've seen before—that you know she sees death right at her front door.

But that doesn't faze you.

Rather, it’s the fact that you're so unfazed that shocks you enough to send chills down your spine. Since when did you become immune to the cries of children and the pleas of Mothers? Since when did the poor and the need to even see your people eye to eye become a daily occurrence, a necessity to get by? Is it your selfish need to assure yourself of your fallen morals? Did you use these two poor ladies as a method to cope with your guilt in your unwillingness to truly help those in need?

Armed Knights grab ahold of the girl's arms at both sides, roughly hauling her across the dirt and mud along with another unit holding her mother. The two painfully scream and cry at you, the Knights, and the Prince, but no one responds.

“Tsk, what a hindrance to the Prince's time. Worthless I tell you,” he scoffs, glaring at the dwindling silhouettes of the pitiful prisoners as they grew further in distance. Darting his eyes at you, your breath gets caught in the knot of your throat. “Any more protests from you, Lady Y/L/N?”

You part your lips, trying to formulate words to defend their lives, and yet nothing leaves. The subconscious mind in you knows you'd be beheaded for speaking out against the rightful heir, and that small difference is what makes you useless in the face of the fight for justice.

“Didn't think so,” the Prince scoffs, turning his back on you to strike into the towering wooden gates to his citadel. “Good, the last thing a Prince needs is another stupid, helpless girl begging for mercy.”

And without another word, he leaves you unattended as the gates shut behind him and all you can hear in the silence of the thin air is the rustling of grass and the restless winds from the storm soon to come.

“What happened?”

The beholder of the soothing, dark and velvety voice—the only voice capable of garnering your attention at thus point—place his hands to your left shoulder, a sensation of warmth radiating from his body and into your own cold one.

Looking up to your right, you find Namjoon peering down at you in concern—eyebrows furrowed, tan skin glowing, and brown orbs as welcoming and chocolate warm as they can get. A broken laugh, one of disbelief, tumbles from your crooked lips as you avert your eyes back to the ground in shame, “Jaebum’s infuriated with me. Nothing quite new… except this time, it's… it's completely my fault.”

Namjoon lets your words sit in silence as he chooses his words carefully, “...and may I ask what you did to anger him?”

Your lips quiver when you recall the roots of this chaos, timidly glancing down at the ground where his leather brown boots stands before you. Clearing your throat, you’re just barely able to squeak, “...I gave my change to a mother and girl.”

Tension fills the air until Namjoon lets out a loud sigh, “I told you not to do that in front of Jaebum.”

“I know, I know, but they were starving, Joon,” your voice cracks and Namjoon winces. Grasping onto his left arm, you pull him in and close the remaining distance. His arms remain limp in your hold as you lift your head to find his eyes searching for something within you, narrowed and firm, warm and indecipherable. “You have to do something, Joon. Please. The poor girl’s only seven.”

“And what can I do?” he mutters, eyes shifting to the small square of dirt laid beneath and between the two of you.

“...you can stop him.”

“And who am I to question the Prince? I can’t do that and not expect him to cut off my head,” he exasperates.

“But you can,” you emphasize, leaning to the left in a successful attempt to capture his lowered gaze. “You’re the King’s advisor. You’re the Prince’s brother—”

“ —I’m a bastard,” he sharply refutes.

“Yes, and you’re still his brother by blood,” you firmly state. “Unless you go off and get yourself killed before he gets to you, you’re going to be helping him rule Nordendall. You craft war tactics, you monitor the flow of currency within this damned Kingdom. You are our strategist, so you matter just as much as Jaebum. You are just as responsible as he is for the start of this forsaken century, this stupid curse, the accusations I’d like to deny that we’ve abandoned our people. Even if you’re a bastard.”

His eyes dart to yours in silence, and as hard as he attempts to suppress his emotions behind the six-years-developed mask of his, you know there’s much more to him than ignorantly turning a blind eye to matters like this; it’s in the way he sighs and looks off into the distance searching for the hundreds of lives lost in his unmoving hands, the way the spot between his brows crease in frustration as he teeters between death and stalemate, the way he grits his teeth and protrudes his jaw that you know it’s taking everything in him not to jump in and help and prevent you from doing so too.

He cares, but for the sake of survival and what he deems as inevitable, he creates this facade of the opposite.

“You know what?” you scoff. “You’re a coward. It’s as simple as that.”

That’s the difference between him and you.

“Easy for you to say,” he equivocates, taking a step away to bow and excuse himself without further explanation. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Specks of dust fly in the path of blinding sunrays peeking through the rusted cell bars as the only sign of light in the dark, constricted room. Through the thin, freezing, and musty air, every slight rustling of motion echoes through the cold, bare concrete floors, colorless and pale gray voids lining up from floor to wall to ceiling. The cell reeks of stale excretion, piss and spilt wine soaking stacks of hay where prisoners lie, and all sorts of rodents scampering across the floor and throughout the 24 hours of night.

Fortune remains on your side, for you stand on one side of the bars, and the two dregs of the Prince’s crawl on the other.

“First of all,” you quickly say, gulping when you make your presence known and step out from the shadows of the entrance. Frizz in the mother’s upright gray hairs catch your attention, all hope stripped from her sunken, rawboned face as her eyes glaze to watch her next doom; it only makes it all the more painful to notice the quick aversion of her fallen expression, the despair in her eyes replaced by a glimpse of delight… even if you’re the reason she’s fallen to the pit bottom yet again. And when the child lifts her head in the lap of her mother, tucking the stray, unkempt golden hair of hers which dull with dirt and hidden blacks of the castle, your voice cracks, “I’m… I’m so sorry. T-This is all my fault…”

Silence ensues.

You don’t want her to forgive you. No, that would be the most shameful response you could receive. Scold, scream, threaten, condemn, anything would be better than the silence she’s giving you now. But lies, lies you tell yourself year after year, they’re never enough to keep you satisfied; because when you feel your heart holding onto every second which ticks by, your ear waiting and begging to pick up on something, you know you’re just as terrible as the rest of the corrupted kingdom.

Please tell me it’s okay. Please tell me it’s not my fault.

And as if hearing the pleas through the windows of your soul, your glimmering eyes, she responds. But the second of hesitation in her proceeding words tell you it’s one of reluctance.

“It’s alright, it’s not your fault. So please don’t cry, or they’ll hear, m’dear,” she says, her words soft and flat and slurred and visibly jaded.

Or they’ll hear you, dear.

They pierce right through your chest and cut your pride—pride as a highborn, when you had never meant to be one in the first place, pride you didn’t even know existed—blown into pieces you must collect, repair, and put on a fixed facade to keep your vulnerability hidden from those who want to trample on it most in this corrupted kingdom. Nobles, elites, and men like mice who creep along every corner of the castle, looking for every nooks and crannies to prod at for self power, those are the men you have always feared of being made a victim of the most. Women, children, and lower-borns, were of your least concern; that is, until today.

Because to her, you’re just another peasant born beside her in the dirt bottom of the ladder. In her eyes, you’re already someone too insignificant to be of any help for them now.

“I… I-I promise,” you croak. Voice cracking in sync with your lowly hung head, a swift motion of the back of your hand to wipe the sparingly few fallen tears. “I promise I’ll help you get out of here. I swear it by your God and mine.”

The woman watches you in silence, losing herself in a trance—as if to admire and reminisce for the days when she was just a little, helpless girl who foolishly presumed she could take on the whole world like you—and blinking those days away with a crooked smile.

“My lovely dove,” she begins on a raspy note with pressed lips, “never in my fifty years living in this… hell, of a kingdom… never have I ever given up on the Lords. No, not the ones we’re forced to bow to and lick the bottom of their boots each time they pass by.” The elder scoffs and shakes her head before glancing up at the ceiling which drips mud to the wrinkles of her forehead, “no, I’m talking about the ones from above. I served my one and only Lord. I obeyed, prayed, and believed some day he would truly save us all.”

Then she turns to face you—everything stripped from her gray eyes.

“But no…” the woman shakes her head, “no, no, m’dear, God is nowhere near us tonight. Not in the outskirts, not in the fields, not in the town, not in the chapel, and most certainly not in this citadel.”

A chill shivers its way down your spine—petrifying you with her curt confessions; the woman sprawled before you bears little to no resemblance to the pitiful woman running after your wagon, dirt-stained and desperate to live. But now, all that fills her eyes a thirst for an end. It’s like a new entity had been betrothed in her very conscience, and as immoral as it is of you to acknowledge, this isn’t the first time you’ve witnessed such a sick phenomenon nor are you the least bit surprised…

...because after all, everyone changes in the wake of death.

“Mama…” the girl croaks, tugging at her mother’s tattered skirt.

The mother pats her little girl’s hair, weaving her bony fingers through the tangles of her golden locks for one last time before placing a gentle, chaste kiss to her temple, “shh, my love, mama will sort this out with big sister over here, alright?”

“Does she need medication…?” you hesitate to ask, but your guilt and sympathy compels you to do otherwise.

Tugging at one corner of her lips, a nearly inaudible scoff intermixes with her sigh as she ignores your question and proceeds, peering up at you from below where you can see her purple dark circles, “why do you think I so desperately ran after you, a helpless human being, when, supposedly, the Lord should have helped me see through my struggles?”

Her stare pierces through you and stuns you until all you can do is cinch your brows and gulp in response.

“It’s because I grew impatient,” she reveals and scoffs. “I never believed in Gods in the first place. I could hardly even believe in humanity, so why in bloody hell should I trust in something I’ve never seen nor could hardly entrust when His supposed creation had turned out to be like this?”

Her stroking fingers come to a stop, resting her palm to cup her daughter’s sweaty cheeks which resemble symptoms of hayfever, and she gulps when she continues. “I only became the useless mother—thing—that I am because I was desperate. Those pesky priests you see marching out and about in town, chiming those stupid old cowbells, chanting those pretentious verses as if we haven’t memorized them by now, those scums convinced me I had done wrong for being a nonbeliever. While I hoped for someone outside of this ‘royal,’” she spits at the floor, “bloodline to reverse the chaos of Nordendall, essentially, they told me to stop believing in the people.”

Her words strike you as the utter truth—first a light jab at the corruption of the line of heirs, next, a punch at the preachers sent out by the King to induce obedience in a hoax of order. Then, with one final blow, she spits remarks which ring true to your heart; never trust anyone but yourself, a lesson you’ve learnt when your mother was murdered behind these very walls.

“Can you believe it? A King who doesn’t believe in his own people? A King who instills horror and distrust amongst their people?” the woman exasperates, eyes wide and wary of each and every one of your flinches. “My illiterate mother told me Nordendall was once a Kingdom of Honor. It’s hard to believe, bloody hell, it was hard enough for me to believe when I was a gullible, sweet little girl like you, but something tells me it must be true. Maybe it’s the thirst for power, or maybe it’s the bloodline of heirs gone sour and long due for a change, but you understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

“I… I’m afraid I don’t understand you,” the words barely strangle its way out from your knotted throat.

The woman scoffs and leans forward, the creases of her forehead and the spot between her brows marking her years of wisdom when she whispers hoarsely, “you can pretend you’re one of them, m’dear, but I know one of us when I see one. Now, I see scared little girl. Shifty eyes, barely able to look me in the eyes and screaming for an answer, an answer only she can find herself, effortless apologies, rehearsed but begging for a purpose, trembling, wavering virtues against what her morals tell her to do and what the walls of this citadel compels her to do. She’s just like me when I was younger, but as an old woman well beyond the years of this worn capsule, my eyes no longer deceive me when they tell me she’s ready for a change.”

Constriction of your entire body causes you to gag when the dry walls of your throat grind against one another.

Her glare hardens as she peers straight into you, never daring to look away from even a supposedly highborn lady—but maybe that’s because she knows who you truly are.

With the exception of Namjoon, she seems to be the only one who hasn’t forgotten your abandoned identity, despite the dozen years of training you had endured to disguise yourself as one of them.

And the fact that someone sees through you with such ease, as if you’re transparent and your attempts to cover up are fruitless, it all scares you.

“I—”

—a door creaks open just as your lips part only to delay with a quivering fright. The mother and her child’s eyes dart across and straight to the heavy wooden door where a petrifyingly built, stern-faced bodyguard stands towering on the other side and a contrastingly gentle, empathetic man of soft features akin to princes of fairytales enters the room.

“Namjoon?” you ask, whirling around to face him as he strides past you. Turning around, you frown in concern over the haste of his movements, something you’ve come to notice as a sign for things gone wrong. “What’re you doing here?”

“To do exactly what you asked for,” he simply quips.

“...you talked to Jaebum?”

Namjoon reaches into the depths of his pockets, clutching to something tiny enough to fit within his knuckles and squatting down to meet the mother eye-to-eye, sighing, “I did.”

“...and?”

Besides the trembling shivers and heavy breathing being exchanged between the mother and Namjoon, respectively, the silence is as thin and deafening as ever; anticipation sifts through the cold air, and impatience grows for each one of your breaths presenting itself in puffs of fog before you. Namjoon’s short, curt answers had always ticked you the wrong way. He’s never been one to answer you fully, not because it’s burdening for him to go out of his way in doing so, but because he knows it’s merely a leading question, for you’ve always been the most quick-witted person around in these castles, or at least second to him. Your instincts tell you, however, that in reality, he’s just too scared to face his shortcomings aloud. Unlike you, the thing he fears most is confronting reality.

“What do you think? This is Jaebum we’re talking about,” Namjoon finally answers, huffing and leaning over to squeeze his hand between the steel bars holding the woman hostage.

Ears picking up the sound of glass softly toppling into her rough hands, you frown before pacing over to find the mother wide-eyed and staring down at two small, one-inch sized tubes lying in between the blisters of her palm. Jet black liquid fills the glasses, and when you gulp, you can nearly feel the acid burning your throat into fiery heat and eating you from inside-out; there’s no denying what forbidden substance had just been handed to her.

The unknowing mother glances up from her lap where the child stirs in her sleep, irises shaking and lips barely quivering when she speaks, “what is this…?”

Unwillingly, a loud sigh escapes your lips as you grab onto Namjoon’s arm and force him to face you, “Namjoon, this isn’t the right way to—”

“—then what do you suggest?” his voice thunders across the echoing room, and you jump in shock over the rage evident in the downturn of his lips. Yanking away from you, he turns back to the woman and lowers his voice with a recomposed, illegible expression. With lidded eyes and rough whispers, he warns, “it’s poison, nightshade to be precise.”

The woman winces at the newfound fact, “pardon me, m’lord, but are you telling me to poison myself to death?”

“I’m telling you to only use it as your last resort,” he refutes, pointing a finger back at you, “in case this one messes up and we can’t help you any further.”

The mother frowns and glances at her child, stroking her hair one more time through the crease between her brows and her forehead before cracking out in broken words, “I see.”

“I apologize for the hell hole that is this citadel. I swear it on my life’s behalf that Y/N and I will do our very best to get you out of here as safe as possible. In fact, it pains me to present you such reckless tactics, but,” he lowers his voice, “this is the best way to go under my brother’s watch. I made sure it won’t hurt the least bit, I promise—”

“—Joon, I need to talk to you,” you stiffly say through gritted teeth, clearing your throat when he simply stares at you in silence and waits for your response. “Alone.”

Turning towards the mother and her daugher, you duck your head low and apologize profusely once more, “I promise I’ll put this all to an end. I swear it on all the Gods here and above.”

Eyes lock for a mere second, her stare piercing straight into you, as if she could read your very thoughts and fears, before you hastily break away to storm out of the room where Namjoon utters a low, formal, “pardon me,” and obediently follows close behind.

Her words echo in your head, almost as if it had somehow molded into your own half-conscience demanding what you’ve wanted but told yourself otherwise all along.

“She’s ready for change.”

Once the heavy door slams closed behind you, a boom echoing through the freezing halls and snapping you out of your reverie, you tackle him with all your might.

“What in bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m taking the best course of action,” he replies, dark eyes firmly following you as you pace in place.

“Telling someone to kill themselves is not the best course of action,” you retort.

“Yeah? Is getting someone captured under the hands of Jaebum a better option? Is it not so wise of me to have a backup plan in case things go awry just like last time?” Namjoon refutes with a scoff. “Do you remember what happened last time, Y/N? Remember when Jaebum caught you going behind his back to feed the poor, and even as the two of you begged on your knees for mercy, he still burnt the poor man to death? Do his screams no longer haunt you at night? Do you sleep well in your chambers now that you’ve forgotten and go on your self-proposed acts of kindness? Or are you too blinded by this pride of supposedly facing reality to remember?”

You bite your tongue so hard, attempting to suppress yourself from erupting in anger, that you can taste the metallic odor of blood filling the roof of your mouth.

“No, I haven’t forgotten. I never will. Don’t you dare suggest otherwise,” you carefully say through gritted teeth. “I’m just saying that perhaps this isn’t the best way to go about it. Handing them nightshade is essentially telling them we’re throwing in the towel without even trying in the first place, but maybe you’re too busy running away from the real shithole of a castle your family made to change things for once—”

“—they’re not my family,” he cuts in.

“They are,” you declare under your breath, taking one step forward until your chest brushes against his and your eyes peers straight up from under his, “and for as long as you refuse to oppose your family’s ways, you’ll still be just another illegitimate bastard hiding under his father’s name.”

All hell breaks loose in the lenses of his eyes, flames scorching and churning in turmoil as his jaws jut out and his teeth clench in a barely successful attempt at taming the fire. Contrary to back then when you two were just kids and only naturally an argument would always end up in a fist fight, now you can truly observe how he’s blossomed into a grown man. As the King and heir’s advisor, Namjoon could suppress himself of such emotions—emotions you wish he had kept, akin to how you had kept origins of your own identity as your lowborn mother’s daughter, for they were what made you love him over his brother.

“Then what are you?” he lowly states, edges of his words tipping on the brink of threatening fury. “Are you a commoner or are you a highborn? Ever since the noblemen scavenged through this entire kingdom to find your mother, taking her and her child into the other side of the castle walls in repayment for treating the prince’s pox, have you forgotten your roots? Have you lied to yourself and somehow tricked yourself into believing you’re one of them—”

“—I’m not one of them,” you raise your voice. “I’m not a highborn and I’m not a princess and I never will be. I’ve seen the terrors this damned castle has casted upon my true home. You can please Jaebum all you want, go about it the easy way and sacrifice the lives of the poor without putting your own life on the line. I’ll fight it. I’ll fight reality like a soldier—head on.”

Namjoon darkly chuckles, voice low and raspy as he leans in to whisper into your ear, “the way I see it, Princess, you’ve gotten it all confused. Maybe you’re the dreamer dressed like a warrior, and I’m a warrior dressed like a dreamer.”

“I beg your pardon?” you scoff, pushing against his chest until he stumbles backwards to easily regain his footing. Your ears turn beat red when you recall the brush of his plump, warm lips against your earlobes. You should be angry, taken aback, offended, and you are, but he had grown to be much more charismatic through the years you have known him, and that change has somehow grasped onto your fluctuating emotions regarding someone you had once only seen as an older brother.

“Hopefully this won’t be our last argument after tonight… and I mean it in the good way,” Namjoon takes a step back, throwing a victorious smirk at you before turning around to retreat to his chambers without another look over his shoulder. “Overthink, pace around, sleep soundly, do whatever you do best. Now that we’re man and woman and can no longer share a bed, I don’t know how you best confront reality, if you have at all. Farewell for now, your Grace—”

“—Y/N,” you correct, “we may be older, but it doesn’t change who we are to each other.”

Namjoon snorts, cocking a brow along with the corner of his lush lips. “Then will you call me big brother once again?”

“W-What?” you frown, biting at the insides of your mouth to fight the blood flowing to your cheeks. It’s been years since you’ve called him brother, for the death of your mother, the one who had suggested it in the first place, gives you nil reasons to. “No.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, you can’t. I’m a bastard after all,” the man presses his lips into a thin upcurve and bows. “Then, goodnight, your Grace.”

A scoff is all that manages to leave your lips. With the empty halls and the pattering, heavy footsteps of guards decked in plate armors coming around the corner, you stand there pondering over his last remark.

Slumber is an impossibility to you as the evening burrows deep into the night; restless, you pace by the door outside the cells holding your accountabilities within, bargaining the guards with a cup of hot stew and cold bread from last night for their silence and distributing the leftovers to the withering woman and her grateful child.

She is ready for change.

Change. Change. Change.

Change the hierarchy, change the system.

Chants echo in your oversaturated mind and threaten to drift you to sleep, sure to hurl you into deep, dangerous waters with Jaebum; nonetheless, your impending doom comes sooner than calculated.

Step, his heels tap againsts the stone paving of the stairs spiraling underground.

Step, it echoes in the tunnel, step, it crescendos with each tap of his feet and with each beat of your heart, another delayed step… silence.

“What are you doing here?”

“Jae—my Lord,” your neck cranes to enable your eyes to peer upward at the silhouette hovering above you. You hasten to your feet, line of sight glued to your feet as you curtsy to greet the Prince, his chest just a few inches from yours.

“You can quit the titles here when we’re alone,” he scoffs in amusement, lips cracking into a lopsided grin. “Just call me Jaebum like you used to when we were children.”

“...I am afraid I can not—I dare not,” your head hangs low and your chin reverberates in the vibrations of your pumping heart, “...unless it is your absolute wish, my Lord.”

“Jaebum. Must I demand you to do everything now?” you can just hear him rolling his eyes by the tone of his voice. “Or do you want to call me brother? Like how you call our dear brother, Joon?”

Head still ducked low, your lips quiver in the chills of the prison, even if it feels like time has just retracted years from the present. It’s almost as if you’re standing in the fields before the boy his father and your mother had forced you to call brother.

You can smell the freshly watered soil, the pollen-filled air, the feathers of dandelions brushing across your cheeks in the endless wind.

And as always, you answer him with silence.

“Of course, you only ever listen to Joon anyways,” he spits. “Quit acting like a damn sheep and stand upright and look me in the eye.”

Slowly and hesitantly, you oblige, but only out of fear.

“Why are you here?” he asks—no, demands an answer. Jaebum’s eyes, narrow yet sharp and fierce akin to that of an eagle, like that of his father’s but much less forgiving, they nearly burn you to stake with sheer fury as his gaze locks you from above.

“I…” your mind goes blank, for you can sense the calculations through the black windows to his soul. It’s impossible for him not to see through you. “I was just checking to make sure the mother and her child are alright.”

“I believe the words you mean ‘are still alive,’” he nods his head, lowering his eyes and quirking a brow. “You think I would have them killed behind your back like last time? And that’s all you did. Check for their livelihoods?”

“...yes.”

“Hm,” Jaebum scoffs and retracts himself from you; his warmth abandoning you in the cold night air, and yet his departure leaving you all the much warmer. He begins pacing with hands locked behind his back, “about today… I don’t appreciate what you did, and by that, I mean you’re really testing me my patience these days.”

“My sincere apology,” you meekly answer, eyes casting to the cracks between the stone pavings of the ground, “I swear to all Gods here and above I will never act against your orders again.”

“...and,” the Prince halts in the midst of his tracks, the golden eyelet clicking with the matching metallic trims of the laces on his boots along with the sway of black cloak in the wind, but it would only take a child to detect the shift in atmosphere, even with his back turned on you, “...you can start now, by telling me the truth regarding your whereabouts here.”

Every breath becomes a struggle, for each intake of spine-chilling air drags you through the rutted dirt and closer to teetering over the edge of a cliff. Scared to breathe, jarred to live, Jaebum has always been embroidered by such qualities some deem fit for a ruler, others proclaim fit for a tyrant.

“Jaebum, I swear—”

—the meek voice fails to escape through the labyrinth of your throat.

Should you lie and be caught by the Prince himself, the light of day would soon become a ephemeral memory of the past.

Sifting through the pockets of his silky black trousers hidden by the lavish black and golden trouser above, the whip of a pocket knife slicing through the air echoes and it only takes you a split second to register Jaebum pivot to storm three large strides towards you until, finally, he’s breathing your air and you’re breathing his. Sharp and rapid, his breaths hiss, seething of broken impatience, but his eyes burn with fire, and when they meet your quivering gaze just an inch away, it’s as if he’s peering deep into the depths of your soul—too deep to retract from the grips of his hands digging into your shoulders and pulling you in.

Your heart beats—pounds—against your chest and you’re overflowing with adrenaline-filled blood from chest and outwards, yet the terror stricken and bestowed upon you by the mere glimpse of his glare freezes you from running; needless to say, you can hardly breathe.

“...don’t you dare answer me,” he articulates each word through his breath, teeth gritted and jaws clenched.

The blade in his aloft hand rests in the corner of your lips, grazing just enough as your merciful gaze alternates between the wicked grin of power on his face and the warm trickle of blood flowing down your cheeks and along your jawline. Flames set ablaze on the torches hung along each cell of the prison hall illuminate one side of the Prince’s facial features as the other descends into the shadow, highlighting the glimmering fury thriving in his glowing eyes egged by your winces.

“I can practically smell the past wherever I go, Y/N. The air practically reeks of Namjoon,” he scowls, the scrunch of his nose short-lived before he cuts deeper into your stinging skin. “You’re not very smart, are you, Y/N? What happened to my Father’s best apprentice? I listened to Father. So heed my words when I say I have men scattered throughout this entire castle and lurking in every corner of each chamber—including yours—don’t take my warning for granted,” he utters, the iniquitous smirk of his eliciting a cautious gulp from you as he leans in to whisper, “consider this a favor—” his hands apply pressure against the blade and into the very last tissue between your outer and inner cheeks, “—for if you ever utter or even whisper another lie to me, the Prince, again, I’ll have your tongue cut and fed to the poor you so adore. You hear me?”

The satisfaction of your soft yelps play like a harp’s melody to his ears, and it isn’t difficult to observe that your pain—along with that of thousands of his own people—are what feeds his ego, coursing corrosive power through his veins and bloodshot eyes, but heroic actions are much easier said than done.

Hot streams of tears are rolling down your cheeks and intermixing with your viscous blood, the pain is all too scarring to bear alone, but the dreary look in the woman and her child’s eyes far exceed this temporary moment of weakness; you tell yourself you’ll endure it for the sake of your people, the people of Nordendall of which your mother had practically spilled her entire life and her life itself to protecting, but the nails digging deep into the numb palms of your pale fists plea for you to bend the knee—even if it’s momentary.

The Prince chuckles darkly at the bob of your head which can hardly classify as a nod, “good girl,” his blade drops to the floor, clinking and echoing in the hall, but the now emptied hand and enigma of mischief smeared across his smug grin tell you it isn’t over quiet yet. Taking a few steps back, Jaebum scoffs at what he must have seen as the pathetic look on your face as your hands immediately grasp at the sleeves of your dirtied dress to cover the gape on your cheeks. “I’ve never seen you look so weak, Y/N,” he chuckles, turning his back on you to head towards the flight of stairs. “You were always father’s favorite. Joon was his second, of course. I just couldn’t catch up on studies and I disappointed when it came to archery, but look who’s out on top now?”

“Your father loved you…” you mumble, eyes flickering to glare at Jaebum’s narrowed ones which beckon for you—dare for you—to speak again. “He wouldn’t want you doing this. He loved his people, he loved Nordendall, you should be out there, not here. Please let the woman and her child go, I beg you—”

“—quit your blubbering!” his bellows crescendo from the depth of his throat to the stone walls of the hall and castle beyond. “And perhaps, you should quit chatting with that doofus Joon, too. My advisor just doesn’t know when to shut his trap and it seems like the useless dreams of his has infected you, too.”

Your mouth is snapped shut, but your gaze hardens amidst the stare exchanged between you and him.

Finally, he scoffs, whirling around, cloak floating two feet aloft in his sway, and strolling out of the hall of cells. “If I knew you were like this before, maybe I wouldn’t have been so infatuated. Nordendall doesn’t want nor need a Queen like you.”

Clomps and clinks of his boots echoes and vibrates against the stone flooring, until gradually descending into the void and all that you hear is the deafening silence filled with your thoughts.

The floor remains cold when your body immediately collapses at the split second when the coast was clear. Pitiful whimpers cascade from your pressed lips attempting to suppress the cries of pain and fear, completely futile. Every muscle scrunches tight, eyes squeezed shut and arms wrapped protectively around yourself.

It’s shameful, really, because none of this—none of the wounds nor threats—are equivalent to anything you have faced before. Jaebum has done worse and you have bled worse. It’s the timing and guilt which really plagues your conscience. While the flutters of Namjoon’s simple proximity has long dissipated from within, the thoughts of him, his whereabouts, and his identity still remain.

Perhaps, Namjoon is right in his own way; because everything you do never entails for the fairytale ending you so desire.

Is he the warrior, and you, the dreamer? Are you just pretending to be what you want to be and accusing Namjoon of being what you fear to be? No, you know what you are. You refuse to be regarded as one of the countless nobles, blinded by riches and tempted by greed. You’ve seen, experienced, and helped the less fortunate. Reality is what you live, breathe, and battle every day and night since you’ve entered this castle.

But you have to admit, the bastard truly does have a way with words; and while you refuse to accept any speck of truth in his proclamation, you do commend his insight, for it keeps you up late at night and etches into your mind for decades to come.

...and your cries for aid, assurance, wit, and courage befall ears of no one but yours tonight in the prosperous young night.

“Guards! Bring them in!”

At the break of dawn you stand in what Jaebum had turned from his father's adored reception hall for his weekly fests and dances into a courtroom for the injustice, to be more precise, a slaughterhouse to lock away his own secrets already running rampant in the form of rumors throughout the kingdom. Dry eyes burning from lack of sleep, you climb the steps to join the Prince's advisor, Namjoon, beside the throne. Scanning from one end of the vastly empty room to the other, guards of dozens line each wall where stained glass transmits sunlight upon the stone paving, as if to cast God’s judgement upon the sinners.

But as you and the people of Nordendall have begun to wonder, are the Gods really watching?

“Good Heaven,” Namjoon gasps, leaning into your side to hiss under his breath beside your ear, “what happened to your cheek?”

“Nothing important,” you utter without budging an inch, staring straight forward as two men decked in iron armor roughly toss the woman and the young girl across the floor countless meters before the throne.

Perhaps it is your imagination, but the silver locks of what send to be both the mother and her child glisten in the sunlight. The cuts streaked across every bit of bare skin and dirt which cover their skirts along with their wounds entail for a horrific infection, as your mother would've told you. Oddly yet, the stray, fizzed locks threading their gazes cast upon the ground before the Prince's feet shine of not hope, but vengeance.

It’s as if they arm a trump card; and standing next to the very man whose decision has repulsed you incessantly allows you to craft a wild guess.

“It quite evidently isn't nothing,” the boy beside you frowns with concern, eyes glued to the bandages across half of your head, sure to leave scars.

“Jaebum found me last night in the cells—”

“—in the cells, Y/N?” Namjoon does a double take. “Why in bloody hell were you still there? Actually, no, you don’t need to answer that. I already know and—”

“—hearing me say it will just anger you all the more?” you finish his sentence and scoff. “Then I'll say it again because you need to hear it. I stayed vigilant to provide our people with the food and water they need.”

The silence which follows as the boy stares at you in frustration evokes thoughts from the both of you, wondering just how you have managed in this world for as long as you have.

“...I… I swear I'll break his hand the next time he lays a finger on you.”

Your line of sight trails from the woman and the daughter, both of which are begging and crying in their knees, to find its victim on the boy beside you.

“Silence!” the Prince's demand bellows throughout the chamber and shocks even the guards themselves, but the air dead of even a whisper or whimper serves proof of the royalty's authority.

Frowning, Namjoon cranes his neck to glimpse at you as you stare straight through him and mutter through barely parted lips.

“No,” you confess, “you won't.”

“Begging for food, begging for water, begging for wealth, delaying the Prince's journey home, infesting the Prince and Lady Y/L/N with your filthy hands,” the spokesman of the trial takes a deep breath before lowering the lengthy scroll, “do you plead guilty to these crimes?”

The mother’s gaze darts to you as she inaudibly mouths, “...no, I do not.”

The boy beside you flinches, and so do you, for you nearly jump forward to cover for the mother if it weren't for the man as he clears his throat to reaffirm his shaken composure.

“I repeat, do you plead guilty to these crimes in exchange for punishment of a more forgiving sin.”

Being a maverick yourself amongst the Royal, you could already predict the answer she would utter next; and yet, you find yourself muttering otherwise.

“Yes, yes, say yes,” your chants trail when you find Namjoon uttering, “I swear on my life I will talk Jaebum out of it.”

The woman lowers her head before ushering for her daughter to do the same, hair falling along with gravity and their will. Meekly, a pair of voices crack, “...yes, we plead guilty.”

…and your heart drops.

Huh? What is this? Ideally, you should be beyond relieved, for their lives have been spared, yet in reality, the maverick in you cries of isolation; but who are you to proclaim whose lives are to plea for and how dare you to even subconsciously do so?

How could you fight for Kingdom Nordendall like this?

The man almost seems relieved, gripping the scroll and clearing his throat once again. “Thenceforth, we call upon all the Gods here and above to bestow mercy upon these sinners with a forgiving sentence of—”

“—of rotting the rest of their lives in prison!”

Silence. Shock. Disgust.

They all run through the eyes of the witnesses which wander to the Prince slouching in his throne. The accused wearily lift their gaze, ready to plead guilty a second time.

“It was a joke,” Jaebum darkly chuckles and you can hear the room release a collective sigh. “...instead, as per my beloved Lady Y/L/N’s request, I will acknowledge your pleads.”

The concern striking the frown on your lips and Namjoon’s foretells the capability of the ruler more than anything, but the ecstatic bliss exuding from the eyes of the accused are ephemeral.

“...with the choice of being flayed alive, skin by skin, muscle by muscle, or being burnt at the stake alive.”

“My Lord,” Namjoon quickly interjects, stepping toward the throne until the Prince raises a hand for him to halt; and he does. “My Lord, as your advisor, I strongly advise you not to be so rash. What if word escapes the castle and spreads across the kingdom?”

“If they do, then it'll be your fault or Lady Y/L/N’s. At least they'll fear me, and fear brings more power,” Jaebum rebukes without a glance at the desperate advisor before crossing his legs and casting his cruelty upon his people, “so? What will your choice be, my young doves?”

Mind scrambling for a solution, your eyes panic between the spoilt ruler and the woman and her child who glare at the man with mouths agape in disgust.

For people so frail and threatened, they really don't seem all that afraid; instead, they're simply beautiful and you admire them… but that only scares you all the more, particularly when you catch the woman and her child reaching their hands into the waist of their skirt.

The nightshade.

“No!” you quickly exclaim and lunge forward when you notice Jaebum narrowing his eyes and leaning forward, confused with his preys.

“Y/N! Step back!” you hear Namjoon call from behind until his hand grabs into your right arm to yank you back.

Helpless, you cry out to the ladies, but instead of watching them swallow the nightshade whole, the women begin mumbles which crescendo into roaring chants with fists to their side. Endless zephyrs somehow find its way into the castle, sweeping the people's hair, attire, and awareness into the air until everything shatters. Wind resembling that of typhoon demolish the stained glass on all walls, scattering them across the floor and welcoming the brewing thunder and lightning outside where gray cloud lurk above the castle.

With emerald rays of light materializing beneath the two and shining through the cracks of the floor, locks of hair aloft and eyes shut in deep concentration, you and everyone in the room come to an epiphany just as Namjoon mutters under his breath.

“...witches.”

“Hear us, Gods of the Underground and Above,” the witches chant and the ground quakes as everyone yelps and you grab ahold of Namjoon’s arm to sturdy your feet, “we, of Guild Crescentia, lay curse upon those who have done us wrong in exchange for our livelihoods. Let Hell be set loose on the lands of Nordendall, and let its ruler, Prince Jaebum, suffer a grotesque, painful death by the hands of whom he admires most and by the guidance of whom he fears most—”

“—what are you doing?!” Jaebum explodes, jumping up and kicking his throne. “Kill the wretched witches!”

“Wait, wait…” your voice trails off into trembles as you step forward and nearly collapse to the ground in the split second Namjoon, too, loses grip of both his hold on you and sanity.

Nordendall hasn't witnessed the world of witchcraft in nearly a century since a King had persecuted all forms of magic out of the kingdom, if you recall correctly from the books you read as a child; so to say witchery is largely forbidden and severely hazardous and feared upon is an understatement.

This entire moment is a nightmare come true for everyone in the room, but how could you think of the helpless women you had helped just last night like so?

Grabbing ahold of the witches by hesitant soldiers of a dozen, hairs tugged and arms yanked until bare shoulders are revealed underneath the ripped seams of their dress, the mother stares straight into your eyes, as do you to her, along with Namjoon’s.

It irks you that this fond yet reprimanding look in her eyes remind you of your mother; in fact, it's as if your own mother is truly there in flesh and blood to speak to you.

“I'm afraid it has come to this. I thank you, Bastard of Nordendall and Lady of Nordendall for your hospitality and efforts,” the woman proclaims loud and clear.

“Kill them!” Jaebum hollers. “Or I will have you all killed!”

The guards hesitate, egging one another on in vain and merely tugging at the witches’ locks of hair, clearly too terrified to inch closer to the wicked.

“...but the efforts are not enough,” the little girl manages to declare through whimpers. “Only you two can save Nordendall now.”

“What do you mean…” you step forward and abandon Namjoon’s side, cinching your brows and mumbling. “How can we—”

“—our time is up, my Lady. I apologize but we won't be needing this,” the mother continues with a weak lift of a grin before the mother and her daughter holler one last time. One pair of eyes shooting death glares at the Prince, the other motherly pair peers into the deepest of your soul. “Farewell and we wish you fortune on your endeavors.”

The moment of serenity falls short when her eyes dilate, pupils expanding until all is white and pitch black liquid like that of ink stains the white. It's a horrifying sight for a horrifying scene, and the sudden collapse of their bodies onto the now still floor and thin, silent air doesn't help your shortness of breath nor your near heart attack.

And just like that, the people fall and the tyrant rises once again to the negligence of the nightshade rolling on the ground from the loosened grips of the woman and her daughter—something only you and Namjoon notice.

“All of you!” the Prince screeches, face turning red from the sheer anger boiling within his royal blood. “Pick those traitor of witches off my ground and burn them at the stake where everyone in the kingdom can see and get out of my sight before I behead you all!”

Namjoon exchanges looks of distress with you as everyone shuffles to abide by the Prince's orders with their head down. You know exactly what runs through his mind, aside from the countless historical figures, dates, and facts he had so voluntarily absorbed as a young child attempting to gain footing in a place he didn't belong.

Was it all true? The curse? The witches? Is witchcraft indeed materialized by real incidents and fantasized by fairytales? And what did she mean only you and Namjoon could help after the disaster you had bestowed upon then with your help?

So engrossed in thoughts, neither you nor Namjoon notice Jaebum marching toward you with the most wretched of scowls plastered across his face.

“You two, stop standing there, pick up your jaws off the floor, and attend the execution tonight by the stake,” his hands dig into both Namjoon and your shoulders as he leans in to mutter, “and if you don't think I haven't figured it was you two sneaking behind my back to hand nightshade to the two beasts, then it’s your turn to plea guilty next, and as far as I know, neither of you are capable of magic.”

Gulp—the both of you freeze in place until the trudging footsteps of Jaebum’s fade into the silence of the completely evacuated room where scarlet blood and black liquid intermix in the center of what you can now see as an alchemy symbol circling the room with a star within.

“Why in bloody hell did you try and step in their alchemy circle?” Namjoon blurts and narrows his eyes at you.

“I didn't know what that was, in fact, I couldn't even see it until now. I apologize for neglecting my studies, Lord Kim,” you rebuke, rolling your eyes before forcefully pushing him back with a hand. “And why didn't you step in to help them?”

“I—I couldn't help them!” he scoffs in disbelief. “They're witches, Y/N, they don't need help, the only one who would need help would be me if I were to be plagued by their curse!”

“Well, maybe if you talked Jaebum out of it instead of just handing someone poison and calling it a day, perhaps if you showed sympathy or effort for once, none of this would've happened!”

“Yeah?” he cocks a brow. “And tell me what kind of help you so elegantly provided, because according to Jaebum, it was your request that led him to his stupid bargain.”

“Well—” struggling to find a rebuttal, you scoff and cross your arms “—this isn't just a curse on Jaebum. It's a curse on all of Nordendall, including us.”

Brows furrowed and lips downturned, Namjoon utters, “and like they prophesied, I will save the people—inside out.”

A scoff finds its way through your lungs and you shake your head with lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line before stating the last declaration you come to speak to Namjoon in the next months.

“Fine by me,” you confess, “because I will save my people outside in.”

Incessant tragedy bedevils Nordendall for the next three months; crops fall prey to pests unprecedented and undocumented in the kingdom’s history, diseases pervade the lands completely grazed and burnt by farmer’s desperate measures to restock food supplies, the scorching sun burns with fury and surpasses degrees Nordendall has never seen before, and as a kingdom bolstering primarily on agriculture booms, this curse spells for an impending worldwide crisis.

Nordendall has been your home since the earliest days you can recall, but from the accounts of your late mother, the kingdom has always struggled in the medical field, despite unknowingly sowing countless flora renowned for its healing properties; it wasn’t until your mother, whose home resides in a church specializing in the research of medicine, far beyond the boundaries of Nordendall and unclaimed by the Lords in surrounding areas, that the illness plaguing the Prince was cured. Now, with crops burnt by wildfire and medical chiefs throughout the entire kingdom has been hoarded to treat Jaebum and the return of his pox, the cries of the people echo throughout the long night by your bedside.

“The Prince has arrived! Lower the gates!”

The holler pierce the castle walls and you can hear the drawbridge lowering with the creaking of wood and squeaking of wheels being spun by huffing guardsmen tugging on ropes. You can just imagine dozens of horsemen trotting in place outside the gates, one being the Prince himself with that triumphant smirk of his after another successful hunt. Jaebum’s time outside the castle walls have grown exponentially in the last month, bringing back game meat from the wild—still halfway between life and death as it flinches every few seconds to splatter blood across the floor.

Reasonings behind his ventures unknown, you haven’t been sitting deep in your chambers akin to the likes of Namjoon; instead, a bow, arrow, and dagger have become your closest companion.

Imagine Jaebum, you shut your eyes and repeat the words, Jaebum is standing right there with his heart aligning with the bullseye—you just need to pin him down.

Eyelids fluttering open, the silhouette of your greatest nemesis stands clearly before the wooden target, just forty meters ahead of you.

Shoot.

The arrow whizzes past your bow, string rebounding by the profound force, and slices the air into two thin halves so precisely that you can practically hear the cuts, until, finally, it smacks dead straight into your target… bullseye.

“What has gotten into you, smiling alone here like that?”

Your moment of sheer satisfaction is as fleeting as always when the sight of Jaebum trotting into the field atop his favored mount of a white horse is spotted.

“Hm? My Lady?” he swiftly unmounts to the ground and strides over to the target to stare at your arrow—just a foot from the gritting of his jaws. Whirling around, he cocks his head and sneers, “it’s just a lucky shot. What’s there to be so excited about?”

As if you could shoot as well as I do—but you keep that to yourself, for the scar left beside your lips from that fateful night serve as a dire reminder of your maverick tendencies.

“What…?” he cinches his brows with a sneer, taking slow, steady strides from the target and toward you, eyes shifting between you and the dirt. “You think your archery exceeds mine? Just like back in the day when father trained us?” His steps finally reach you, his eyes peering down at you just a foot away. “...you think you can take me down with your own hands?”

“...I was just practicing to prepare if any crisis was to occur.”

“You know what?” Jaebum takes a step back, tilting your chin with his thumb and forefinger until your hardened gaze meets his own amused one. “I am rather impressed by your diligence, your skills. It really is the least you could do as my future Queen.”

“Royalty does not run in my blood,” you say through gritted teeth, “so I am afraid I can not wed to you, my Lord.”

The Prince’s chuckles intermix with his scoffs, eyes averting to the side before returning to you, “you know I love it when you defy me like that.”

Gulp, your heart races to such a profound pace that you can barely keep up with your heaving breaths, especially when he leans in dangerously close—lips just grazing yours…

...and before you could stop yourself, you find yourself hastily taking several steps back and a rush of panic overtakes your state of mind.

“You…” Jaebum scoffs in disbelief, mouth gaping into a grin etched by a newfound challenge. He strides forward to replace the steps taken back, but you find yourself scrambling toward the castle wall behind you. “You really took me seriously, didn’t you?”

“I-I’m sorry,” your breaths come out in loud huffs—one, interrupted by Jaebum’s aloft hand and a hard smack to your cheeks which sting amidst the warm evening air. Yelping, you nibble on your bottom lip to prevent yourself from whimpering in terror, “I am sorry, Jae—”

“—and now you call me by my name,” Jaebum’s snickers are cut short and replaced by a low mutter when his eyes lower to find you subconsciously gripping onto your bow and quiver. “You dare raise your weapon before a Prince?”

The fury sparks into wildfire and you can see it in his hardened, empty gaze just how serious things have taken for a turn. It’s either fight back and die an inevitable death by thousands of guards or endure just one more hardship before begging for your life.

Neither the warrior nor dreamer within you holds an adequate, prompt answer, for the shuffling of hasty footsteps across the castle halls and into the dirt of the field distract you from doing so.

“Jaebum.”

Namjoon’s voice resonates beside you for the first time since what has now been written down in history as The Cursed Trial; oddly enough, it’s also one of the rare moments you’ve witnessed him openly interrupting the Prince whom he so fears.

“What. do. you. want?” Jaebum groans, threatening eyes flinching when they avert to find the taller, broader stature of a man looming before him—a moment of cowardice you’ve come to notice from the first day Jaebum realized his illegitimate brother was more equipped for battle than him. Nevertheless, he masks it with a spit to the ground. “And it’s ‘my Lord.’ Fix it before you lose a tongue.”

“I have urgent information to deliver, my Lord,” Namjoon calmly corrects himself. “It’s confidential, my Lord, so may we further discuss this inside?”

“You better swear it’s dire or I will have your tongue cut off,” his eyes shut for a hot second before fluttering open with smothered flames. Throwing death glares between you and Namjoon, Jaebum finally sighs and retracts himself from you and the wall. “Today marks an important day in history for Nordendall, I mustn't dirty myself with such trifling matters.”

“What exactly do you mean…” you frown, quickly adding, “my Lord?”

“Gather in the courtroom at the strike of dusk,” the Prince’s cloak suspends in the air as he turns his back on you and heads into the castle, hunting boots clicking along the stone floor. With his last stern words, he disappears. “Don’t be late.”

Thereby, leaving you and Namjoon alone in the fields where you had once trained together in the nostalgic memories of the past float about.

The stagnant silence evokes a couple of shuffles in place from you.

“...do you really have something important to deliver?” you hesitantly ask, eyes trailing along the dirt, his leather brown boots, and up his black trousers and tunic to find Namjoon’s gaze which meets yours.

“...no, I do not. It was an excuse,” he lowly utters—an excuse for what, he leaves out in consideration for your mental state.

“Thank you,” you mumble under your breath, “for saving me.”

Your childhood friend chuckles, “I only helped you, not saved. You’re strong enough to save yourself and both you and I know that.” Lifting his gaze, he peers straight into you with benevolence pooled in his warm eyes beneath stray strands of chocolate locks. “Your safety is my utmost priority.”

Gulp—why do you feel the flutters in your stomach that you do?

“W-What are you going to do, then…?” you find yourself glancing warily over your shoulder at the dungeon of pitch black where the Prince had left. “Jaebum might be in a better mood than usual today, but I don’t think he’s willing to give second chances just yet.”

“I’ll figure it out,” he finally coos after kicking a few rocks buried in the dirt in silence with his eyes glued to the floor.

A chortle leaves your lips at his actions resembling the kid you’ve always known.

“Don’t you always?”

A dreadful, lengthy silence ensues, because to your surprise, the frown deeply etched into his forehead and lips tell you whatever Jaebum has in store for the evening has even Namjoon distressed.

“Well, the Prince has to heed his own advisor’s advice, correct?”

Namjoon’s theory, however, concludes for the worst.

“But, my Lord,” Namjoon beckons desperately, taking a step forward toward the throne up the steps but never more, “it would be to irrational for us to invade outside kingdoms—reckless, really, the kingdoms are much more prepared and supplied—”

“—you dare question my abilities, Lord Kim?”

“No—I-I am simply stating Kingdom Nordendall is facing a crisis at this very moment. We lack supplies, medical chiefs, weapons, food, water, the list goes on, my Lord, I would strongly advise against waging wars with our neighbors.”

The room falls silent enough for one another to overhear the other’s breaths from across the room. It’s as if everyone is waiting, begging for the Prince to withdraw his avaricious ventures.

“You have to consider your people, my Lord,” the words slip before you could stop yourself and Namjoon shoots a scornful glare at you, but, like you always do, you proceed, “your people are dying like fleas out there because they lack the medical help they need. The aqueducts are infested with pests Nordendall has never learned to deal with before. Water and food, both necessities for each and every one of our lives, are spoilt beyond recognition. Take a look at your own people before you conquer others—”

“—silence!” the Prince’s voice booms across the vacant chamber. “Do you not remember the last time you intervened with my plans, Lady Y/L/N? And where did that get us? This curse is your fault and your fault alone!”

“My Lord,” Namjoon steps in cautiously, darting a death glare at you, “I assure you Lady Y/L/N meant nothing more than good—”

“—I will not hear another word from the both of you,” Jaebum spits, finger pointing accusingly at you two in opposing sides of the room. Jaw gritting and fists clenching, you can tell it takes every ounce of willpower in him not to budge an inch from his throne—and for whatever reason, you’re unsure of. “I am tired of seeing you sick fools backing each other up only for us to fall into the doom the kingdom now faces. I’ve given countless pardons, but heed my words when I warn you: if you speak out against me one more time,” he casts threatening stares between you two and you notice Namjoon’s fallen gaze, “I will have you nailed to and burnt at the stake alive to join the wretched witches’ ashes. You hear me?”

“Yes,” Namjoon lowers his head and takes a step back, “my Lord.”

Jaebum’s attention diverges toward your direction, “and you?”

Nails digging into the palm of your fist, you bite your tongue from spilling further trouble and force yourself to bow in surrender.

The cries of the mother and her child still reverberate in your ears to the point of deaf, but perhaps deaf would be a merciful end to the sleepless nights you now suffer in a castle above thousands of corpses.

“Yes,” you mutter, “my Lord.”

The entire room watches the ordeal, evidently too petrified to speak on your behalf. Truthfully, it isn’t a scene unfamiliar to you nor the advisor.

“Good,” the Prince crosses his legs and reclines into his golden throne, “then we will set sail for the Black Sea in a week’s time. Court is dismissed.”

And it’s as if time is spun into a spur, for the silhouettes of sheepish men and meek women with their heads low and lips sewed shut all become a blur as they cross paths with you to retire to their chambers, but all the while, when your eyes meet his and your concerns intermingle with the man across the room, the both of you know the upcoming days will be a time dragged of dread, repent, and opportunities for a coup d’etat.

Long were the nights when liquor sank in your buds so sweet yet so bitter like the river of the late dusk flooding through open windows in his chamber—struck, by moonlust.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” the man befriended since childhood asks, frowning with a suppressed, bashful grin from across the small wooden desk.

A chuckle descends from your lips like the puff of breath making its mark in the cold night air, “like what?”

“Like… like I’m the most interesting to look at; the moon is over there, you know,” his hands lift to cover the cracked smile of his paired with the pair of circular indentations on his cheeks. Eyes dropping from your intent, rather amused gaze, Namjoon casts a newfound attention to said celestial figure on your right, out the window propped to the side where the incoming spring breeze brushes through his brown locks and yours. Finally, he mumbles sheepishly, “so… stop staring at me like that.”

But even so, the warning entails for little caution as your eyes proceed with the investigation, knowing fully well just how burnt his cheeks must be; because, quite frankly, you just can’t help it.

The boy you had first met and laid eyes upon after walking through the intimidating gates of the castle, hidden behind the protective skirts of your mother only to peek at the welcoming albeit curious mien of an equally outland boy several feet behind the King and Prince, the boy has matured leaps and bounds from such times. Now, he holds his head just an inch higher than the disdained child you had once known; his shoulders are broader, his arms are firmer, and his intellect has expanded far wider than any noble in the kingdom. His skin, both and tan and silky akin to that of honey, glows flawlessly under the illumination of the moonlight, picking up every glimmer of his skin rich in stardust.

Wiser than ever, his weaknesses still remain the same. Cowardly, surely reasoned with occasional rationality, but as Jaebum’s father liked to say, you fit Namjoon just perfectly. Irrational yet brave, cowardly yet wise, he had always been the water to tame your fire. Tonight, however, with the cries of his people in the distance, the curse of the witches whispering in his ears, and the doomed future of his kingdom soon to come by the hands of his own, flames within his eyes roar throughout the silence of the night.

The man, no longer a boy, has yet again inevitably and irrevocably enraptured you through and through.

The tingles of your hair grazing across your collarbones paired with the odd flutters that come with the melodies of your friend’s raspy yet childlike low giggles allows an epiphany to dawn upon you: with danger comes the realization of inner wants, and in your case, comes the bloom of a long awaited romance.

“What?” you repeat, cackling. “I’m just… in shock over how much has changed. It’s hard not to reminisce over the days when we were still prancing around in the fields, when I beat you every day in training…”

“Alright,” Namjoon chuckles before shooting a knowing look at you, “but how about all those history exams you failed and I passed?”

“I came in second though,” you coo, head held high.

“Right,” he shakes his head, gaze shifting to the wooden top of his chamber’s desk as he downs another shot of golden liquor, “Jaebum never really cared for the history of this kingdom, but look at him now… changing history with a single wag of his finger. Ridiculous, really.”

Silence befalls your lips when you notice the distress in his frown.

Sighing, you lean in to grab another drink of your own to further bury the panging guilt of impending disaster. “It’s been nearly a year since I last visited your chamber for a late night drink like this. I’ve missed it,” you confess, taking a sip as your eyes flicker to find his own gaze glued to the forest beyond his window, “but as much as I would love to cherish moments like these, you and I both know what I’m here for and what you’ve invited me in for. The people of Nordendall and I, the whole castle, are waiting for your solution as the King’s advisor—”

“I’ve failed, Y/N. I’ve failed already,” Namjoon shakes his head, gaze hardening, “I don’t deserve that title anymore. You have to create a solution now.”

“No, Joon,” you furrow your brows in disbelief, “you have the experience, the intellect, the brain to save us and get us out of this mess. I can’t do it. No one would listen to an outsider like me, especially without my mother.”

“...and no one would listen to a bastard like me.”

“You are the King’s son, Joon. His blood flows in you,” you nibble on your bottom lip to prevent your frustration from lashing out, especially as he refuses to look you in the eye, “you know what? Condemn me to Hell if the Gods so wish, but if having a monster like Jaebum rule our people is what’s divine, what’s right, then I would do everything in my power to change that. Who cares if you’re the rightful heir to the throne? Only the person nominated by the people deserve a spot on the throne, and you have my vote.”

“You’re a sweetheart, Y/N, truly, from childhood to now, you’ve been my closest friend and companion in this damned home of mine,” Namjoon heaves a sigh as his gaze wanders to his surroundings, glazing across the stone pavings of his chamber hidden deep within the castle. “But it absolutely breaks me to say there isn’t a bone in me with a clue on what to do next. Jaebum won’t listen, regardless of how many times I advise him against his reckless actions… it’s as if he’s treating the curse as a challenge against his authority. The people are too weak and terrified to oppose the Prince.”

“The possibility of an overthrow isn’t completely out the window,” you frown and Namjoon immediately hushes you before you lower your voice to a near whisper, “if I’m not wrong, Nordendall has undergone a coup d’etat centuries ago, even in times of distress like ours.”

“But they had a unified cause, a leader to guide them, Y/N,” his hands tangle to meet his upper lip as he leans into the table, “and they don’t have a leader.”

“Did you ignore everything I just said? You can be a leader, Joon.”

“In that case, then, you, too, can be a leader; but do you consider yourself a leader?”

You? A leader? It isn’t something you directly opposed of before, you’ve even accepted it as your fate in times when your irrationality peaked, but leading a coup d’etat meant more responsibility than ever. Overthrowing the Prince, the rightful King, would be treason, and sentencing thousands of lives under your possibly incompetent guidance is more than anyone can bear upon their shoulders.

“Even if a miracle happens and I, a bastard, somehow becomes that leader,” Namjoon breaks the silence, speaking under his breath to avoid possible spies of Jaebum’s lurking throughout the castle, “there still lacks a cause and I can’t figure a similar motive to rile the people without further endangering their lives unnecessarily.”

Voice meek and spirits in shatters, you can tell the burden of guilt will be the cause of his death, if it not be Jaebum; and as pressing as the state of matters is, the discussion has come to a dead end. Left with little to work on and a pair of hopeless souls belonging to two outsiders of Nordendall, your heart begins searching for aids to repair the man beholding your greatest hopes.

“Well, no more of this matter,” you carefully scoot your chair back with a sigh, “I’ll figure something out tomorrow night, and if not, then the next.”

“And if not, then?” Namjoon arches a brow as you stand.

“Then the next,” you press a soft smile, “I’ll keep trudging along until the very last second. Isn’t that how I always survived the King’s exams as a little girl alongside two boys?”

“You're right,” he chuckles at the nostalgic recollection, gaze flickering for a second to the table before peering up at you with softened eyes and lips stripped of bliss. “Leaving so soon?”

“Well,” the dewy look of those unchanged wide, circular eyes of his elicit a hushed laugh from you as your trek drags the hems of your lengthy gown across the cold floor to meet the winds of the world, your world, floors beneath you, “I suppose I can spare some time for a pup like you.”

Even from the windowside where moonlight floods through to cast shadows upon the floor beside his bed, the muffled chortles of what you can clearly imagine to come from the suppressed grin of his hiding behind those broad rough hands of his garners a smile of your own. His weary gaze holds your own for a hot minute, the silence in the air running stagnant as you find the toxins in your blood pulling you in and out of conscience and the haze in your eyes worsening by the second.

Finally, shuffling to his feet, you begin to admire those elegant, long strides of his, enabled by incessant growth spurts throughout the years, gliding across the floor with ease; enraptured by his every movement, your mind fails to register his presence before you. Chest just an inch from yours, Namjoon bends the knee to wrap his firm arms beneath your knees and back, swiftly lifting you off the floor along with a gasp of your lungs and the sway of the wind before gently returning you to the force of gravity, resting upon the sill of the castle walls popped of stones to craft a tunnel for cool breeze or an alternate view of the world beyond the chambers.

A classic architectural design requested by a man like Namjoon.

One foot hanging on each side of the sill, one outside the castle walls looming above the seemingly miniscule fields below and the other inside the castle walls just a foot above the floor of Namjoon’s room, the chilly winds on your right half of the body sooth the growing heat of the liquor coursing through your veins.

“It doesn’t matter how many times I remind you to be careful around Jaebum, huh?” Namjoon presses a reluctant curve of the lips before uncapping a palm-sized wooden capsule and swiping a familiar mint gel from within and onto his ring finger to gently dab onto your cheeks. If it weren’t for the stings of heat upon the surface of your skin with each touch of his warm fingertips against your chilled cheeks, you would have long forgotten the slam of Jaebum’s hand across your face just earlier this evening in the training fields. Wide, circular eyes focused on the imprints of Jaebum’s hand on your cheeks, Namjoon fails to notice your watchful gaze. “What are we supposed to do with that temper of yours, hm?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” you defend yourself with a frown, gaze wavering when Namjoon’s flickers to meet yours momentarily. “I-I was just practicing. He approached me—”

“—approached?” the boy inquires, freezing in place but eyes too riddled with guilt to meet yours; and for a split second, the fury buried deep in his orbs take you by surprise. Gulping, you nod, and a few seconds of silence passes until he mutters underneath his breath, “...do you want me to warn him from doing so again?”

“Warn him?” you scoff, but the gravity of his earnest stare casting upon yours hushes you to a nervous chuckle. “You can’t warn the Prince anything; even as his advisor, he still won’t listen.”

“I’m serious, Y/N.”

Turning your head from the forest beyond the castle, you find his gaze settled on you—unwavering.

“I mean it when I say I don’t ever want another man nor woman to lay a single finger on you again.”

His coos echo along the waves of breeze, sending tingles down your spine as stray locks of hair graze across your cheeks which now frosts from the effects of the ointment. The intent gaze of his strips you bare of the walls you had so deliberately constructed for survival, as if peering into the windows of your soul and there isn’t a thing you can do to look away.

“...it’s fine. I need you alive if I were to ever need need a drinking partner again,” you mumble, quickly switching topics. “How did you know to use this…? The ointment, I mean, and how did you get it?”

“As the King’s advisor, my knowledge spans across all sorts of fields that might aid the King in his irrational conquests,” he sets aside the medicine between you and him on the sill and finally lifts his line of sight to meet yours with a grin. “Plus, your mother taught me a thing or two back in the day and that includes acquiring the materials I needed to form—not get—my own medicine. She wanted me to help you in case you ever forgot her life lessons, not that you needed my help nor—God forbid—Jaebum’s, of course.”

“Oh,” a bittersweet wave of nostalgia courses through you at the thought of your mother, and you can’t help but smile, “I can’t believe she thought I would forget her lessons.”

A silence of understated acknowledgement fills the thin air, the both of you exchanging snuck glances struck by failure when the other mirrored the gesture followed by a fit of bashful laughter.

There must be something about the moon, the dusk air, or perhaps the alcohol in your system, for the spark when you lock eyes with your childhood friend is the closest you would ever come to magic… and it’s all too enchanting.

“I apologize if I’m oversharing, but, you know,” Namjoon muses, gaze never leaving yours, “you, sitting there under the moonlight and looking at me as if no one understood us like we understood each other, the memories I had tried to bury of my first love all come flooding to me.”

“Oh?” your brow arches inquisitively. “When did this happen and how was I not aware?”

Your friend chuckles at the sudden piqued interest, head lowering along with his cheeky smile paired by the circular indents of his cheeks. “You weren’t aware because it happened when the entire kingdom—no, when you, her only beloved child—were mourning for your mother’s death. I was in shock, really. Your mother treated me like her own son, and I never knew how that felt because not even my father looked at me like he looked at Jaebum. Your mother was the closest thing I felt to being me, to being someone else other than the Bastard of Nordendall.”

“I’m…” the words fail to come to you, instead, you reach for the warmth of his hands by the sill. “I’m sorry. I should have paid closer attention.”

“No, it wasn’t your fault. You lost your mother, Y/N,” he softly laughs at the absurdity of your worries. “It’s funny, really, because the only person who noticed happened to be Jaebum.”

“Jaebum? He noticed and understood how you were feeling? I’m sorry but I’m finding that hard to believe.”

“Precisely what I thought,” Namjoon chortles, pausing as he nibbles on his bottom lip to muster the courage to proceed. “But… he introduced me to a girl one night, someone seas away from Nordendall, claiming I needed… ‘services’... to distract me from all the pain.”

The change in atmosphere makes you shuffle in your seat in discomfort; because when he mentions ‘services,’ you have a feeling you know exactly where Jaebum had found the girl in the first place: a brothel.

Is this a side of Namjoon you really want to know? Could he not stay the innocent boy you knew and loved? The answer is clear to you, for neither of you had retained the purity of childhood. Long shed and left behind, innocence comes to you with difficulty.

“...and it did help, immensely. And I’m so ridden with guilt for forgetting your mother so quickly, but Jaebum was right. It did help, even if it worsened my condition shortly after,” his voice cracks and he shakes his head in denial. “After that magical night, I invited her to my chambers and we made love—no, it wasn’t even love—I was head over heels in lust.” Namjoon’s breath quivers and you can see the wavers in the puffs of gray which cascade from his lips. “I thought it was love, I thought it was real, I thought she loved me… but she didn’t.”

His rush of words come to an abrupt halt; brows cinching as you frown, your hand squeezes his in reminder that his story would be heard whenever he wanted it to be heard.

“Turns out,” he takes a deep breath and nods in acknowledgement and gratitude of your gesture before returning his own squeeze of the hand, “Jaebum had instructed her to accept my advances all along. Actually…”

Gradually, his head turns to peer down at the ground far beneath from the window.

“...he ordered her to murder me with her own two hands, and she did, she tried,” he gulps, “by this window right here.”

Eyes widening from his newfound history, your eyes hesitantly follow his own line of sight, trailing down his gray tunic, across the window sill, and miles along the castle walls until, finally, plopping onto the ground where blood must have splattered from whomever drops from such heights.

“It was another night I thought would be just as memorable as the previous, and it was… just not in the way I had hoped. I was in the midst of discarding my clothing when she—” he intakes a sharp breath of air “—tried to push me out this window. I tried to stop her, to reason with her and ask her why she was doing this, but she kept thrashing around.”

“That’s…” you struggle, shaking your head, “unbelievable. What happened to her, then?”

It takes him a second to answer.

“She slipped and plummeted to the earth herself,” Namjoon utters, teeth gritting and jaws clenching in the painful remembrance. “I didn’t kill her, but Jaebum mocked me so for years after, and to be honest, it sure feels like I did.”

You can hear her screams in the depth of his eyes.

You can practically see her; arms flailing, mouth gaping and screaming, throat gasping, locks of long black hair succumbing to the force of the free-fall, and body collapsing against the cold field below where crimson blood stains the golden wheat in pools of tragedy—eyes dilated with white and incomprehensible mutters escaping her twitching body.

The alcohol in your system blurs your vision all the more.

“I hated her for a few months, a part of me still does,” his words drag along like travelers lost on a year-long trek, “but I think the fact that I still thought of her every night for a year only added to the fuel.”

“Is… that why you were so afraid to disobey Jaebum?”

No answer; but the avoidance of his eyes from your intent gaze is enough of one.

“That’s absolutely horrendous, Joon. I’m so sorry,” you scoot forward to wrap your arms securely around him and pull him into a warm embrace, “I should’ve paid more attention. I’m sorry.”

Namjoon shakes his head in the crook of your shoulder and mumbles, despite being muffled by the surface of your skin, “I should be the one who’s sorry. I won’t ever stop being sorry. I forgot your mother because of some silly fling. She won’t ever forgive me—”

“—shh, Joon,” you hush, stroking through his dry, rough locks and placing a chaste kiss to his temple to soften his cries, “she would forgive you. I know my mother better than anyone and I know she would.”

Face hidden in your shoulder, you can’t exactly see the smile but you most certainly can feel the laughs of disbelief rumbling from his chest to yours.

And after a long minute of silence, he finally breaks—

“I don’t ever want to lose you like I lost her.”

—and something in your stomach is left in flutters.

“Are you saying I’m your first love?” you feign a scoff, despite the cheeky grin spreading across your lips. “Or do you dare to imply I’m just her replacement?”

“No, how could you ever think that?” Namjoon places his hands on both your shoulders to push away, frowning, “I mean, how could you ever think you're just a replacement, not the former question. You're not her. You didn't use me. And you certainly didn't try to kill me.”

“...yet.”

“Yes, yet,” he chortles at your remark until silence befalls him and the waver in his gaze settles into resilience. He speaks with newfound confidence. “I grew up with you, Y/N. Nordendall became our home, it is our home. I don't ever want to lose anyone by the hands of Jaebum again. I love Nordendall and I will save my kingdom somehow.”

Namjoon pauses, hands slipping to clutch yours, engulfing you in warmth.

“I love you, Y/N.”

Ah, is this the resolution you've been waiting for all this time?

“Okay,” you say, lips pressing into a lopsided grin in an attempt to suppress the euphoria bubbling within you as you lay your head onto his chest and his heart begins to beat with yours. “And I love you, too, Joon. Let's save Nordendall together.”

If it weren't for Namjoon’s arms protectively wrapping you closer into his chest, your body would have long plunged out the window under the sway of your intoxicated state, but Namjoon wasn't an erred man prone to repeat mistakes.

“How are you not even a bit dazed?”

“Unlike someone, I only drank a shot. I'm a part of the King's Council and a pivotal meeting will be held tomorrow, so I have to drink responsibly,” his low chuckle resonates across your temples. “It's alright. You can lay against me for as long as you need. Now sleep, my love.”

“Have you ever drank with another woman besides me?” you lift your head to meet his gaze which peers down at you.

“Me?” he quirks a brow. “Did you doze off during my story or…? Although I can't say I've met any woman who drinks as much as you. I think father wouldn't call you very ladylike. I don't think you sitting here with your legs spread on the sill before a man is very ladylike either.”

“To hell with a lady's etiquette,” you roll your eyes and return to laying your head against his chest, comfortable and snug.

Namjoon smile softly at the sight of his lady in his warm embrace, stroking your hair in long, rhythmic pats.

“Agreed,” his chuckles travel the dusk’s horizon, “and to hell with a bastard's etiquette.”

Sunrise comes earlier than anticipated; birds chirp on what you predict to be the window sill to your left, your arms and legs stretching out the stress and fatigue embedded within your muscles when, suddenly, a loud yell screeches across the room and the birds scramble into the wind.

“Wake up, Y/N! Wake up!”

The familiar timbre of the voice mumbling sweet nothings into your ear from dusk to dawn jolts you awake.

Body springing upright from the mattress, your heart convulses in sheer terror at the hefty, well statured man charging his way up with an axe raised aloft between his hands. With a heavy huff, the man thrusts his all into the force of the axe as it cuts through the heavy air; to his dismay and your relief, however, the years of training in the fields prove to be a lifesaver when your body instinctively rolls to the side, eye wide and mouth gaping with a yelp just as the axe strikes the mattress, tearing the sheets in half with one swift motion.

“Y/N! Move!” Namjoon instructs before tackling the man from behind. “Grab his axe!”

Chest heaving and oxygen knocked out of your lungs, your legs lurch forward and off the bed as both your arms grab for the wooden handle the perpetrator struggles to hold onto with the weight of a fully grown and much better fed man pulling him back by an elbow hooked to his neck.

What comes next is a power struggle.

Toppled by the momentum of his weight and superior strength, you find yourself swinging him along in a circle, tugging and huffing in the utmost effort to keep yourself from being swept with your feet planted on the ground and your heels pushing forward; judging from his lack of a counteract and his sunken cheeks aside from his brawn lower body, you can tell the man resides from the countryside where children were taught the ways of agriculture rather than war. So in quick thinking, your eyes hastily observe his steps in the game of tug of war.

One step forward, and once you push forward with all your might, he takes two steps back before lunging from the back of his heels to propel his axe forward—repeat.

Once the sequence is etched into your head, it’s almost as if you can predict his next move; for the second his heels reach the ground in preparation to rebound, you swiftly retract your hands from the axe’s handle and dive to the side. Your body tumbles forward from the force, rolling over your right shoulder as you’ve always practiced in drills, but not without interjections from the vibrations of his axe smashing straight into the stone flooring.

With the weapon stuck into the thin cracks of the ground—the man giving it a couple fruitless vigorous tugs—Namjoon springs into action, swinging in a semicircle to add momentum to his proceeding booting to the man’s stomach. The unnamed man crashes to the floor, a wheeze of air intermixing with his grunts.

The entirety of your being freezes on the ground, head looking back over your shoulder at the man, as if to decipher where he had come from and what he had come for, when Namjoon grabs ahold of your hand to yank you onto your feet and scramble toward the door; but before your feet stumbles across the room for Namjoon to slam the wooden plank closed and hastily lock the man inside his own chambers behind you two, his hollars resonates for each and every resident of Nordendall in the castle

“Even if I don’t catch you wicked, entitled royalties, they will. Nordendall will never forget!”

Instinctively, your arms wrap around Namjoon’s. You can hear and feel the racing pulse of your heartbeats, struggling to catch your breath by the sudden intrusion. Eyes wide open, ears intent, and mentally wide awake, you lean in to whisper in hushed tones, “what on bloody hell is happening? Who was he?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I woke when I heard people bellowing downstairs just minutes before that man broke into our room,” Namjoon lays a hand upon yours which clutch at his left arm as he guides the both of you, cautiously and quietly, down the halls absent of windows and, thereby, sunlight.

Heart convulsing with each step of yours, the chatters and muffled albeit heavy footsteps crescendo into a blurred chaos as you make your way through the hall akin to slowly uncapping a bottle full of mayhem yet to be heard by the universe. Light begins to shed what little of your sights, finally illuminating the flight of spiral stairs below you from every corner of the castle stained glass…

...and the sight below elicits an audible gasp of horror from you both.

Reasoned by the incessant crowds of those resembling the man from before flooding every inch of the expansive stairs and floors beneath you, wielded with poorly crafted wooden shields and blacksmith hammers to fend off the castle guards, the men and women bellow cries of war, woes of pain, and whimpers of death from those struck by steel lances precisely every two seconds—their cries and the clash of their weapons are all that rings in your ears.

You can hear the opening gape of their wounds as the imported weapons from the best blacksmiths outside the kingdom tears the thin cloths of the people and pierces straight through the delicate pores of their skin, a loud squelch and groan following shortly after. You can see dozens and dozens, soon to be hundreds, dying right before your eyes like fleas by the hands of the royalties you serve.

Chaos has infiltrated every nook and cranny of the castle; and alas, the cursed fate of Nordendall has inevitably arrived.

“It's an ambush,” Namjoon meekly utters under his breath, but neither of you dare to remove your sights from the Hell on Earth below. “Word of Jaebum’s plans must have gotten out.”

Speaking of the devil, the tyrant himself stands all too boldly in all black and gold. Perhaps it's his open stature which attracts perpetrators toward him like magnets, or perhaps it's the lavish attire of his which spells their target of a royalty, yet neither are enough to spare the lives of those within his vicinity. Like the tragedy of uncontrolled plagues, the people collapse to the floor in cries of agony with slashes across their chest and blood streaming down the stairs along with the drips of their flesh along the blades of the Prince's sword. Marching up the flight of steps toward you and Namjoon, lips cracked into a crooked smile and eyes glimmered with amusement of a game brought indoors, it's as if flames circled the monster and those within his radius succumbed to mother nature's fight for the fittest.

“Jaebum—”

“—a minute, my dove,” the tyrant muses, turning to swiftly swipe his blades across the neck of an elderly attacking from behind before whirling around to return his attention to you. “Now, what is it you wanted to tell me—”

“—what in bloody hell are you doing? And who are they? Why don't you capture them or hold them hostage until we find a better way to sort this out?!” you scream with every ounce in you, throat sore and lungs collapsed, yet you're nearly drowned by the chaos ensuing in the background.

“Oh, my sweet dove,” Jaebum laughs a mocking one, “you don't know your own people? What kind of Queen would you be if you can't even recognize the people of Nordendall.”

“P–People of Nordendall?”

When you look over your shoulder to find Namjoon's hardened gaze too scared to look you in the eye, your heart drops.

“Why are they here…?” you clear your throat as the rush of fury crashes through your scrambled mind. “Why are you killing our own people as if they're flies?! Stop this stupidity right now!”

“It's either kill or be killed, my Lady,” the Prince shrugs with a smirk. “You cowards pick one before they chop your heads off and hang it out for the whole kingdom to see.”

“I…” proper words fail you at this very moment.

“Did you not close the gates? Surround them? Strip them of weapons?” you can feel the heat exuding from Namjoon’s remarks made through gritted teeth. “There are plenty of tactics you could have used to avoid hundred of deaths!”

“Oops, as you can tell my dear advisor, it's too late to try and reason things out now. Makes for a fun day out in the field, does it not?” the tyrant bursts into a fit of laughter, but never failing to notice the widening of your eyes when another man sneaks his way up the stairs before charging at Jaebum only to run into the unsheathed blades placed strategically backwards. Grasping the golden handle and pulling out the familiar favorite hunting equipment of his, Jaebum sheaths his bloodied sword without a single glance back at his victim who collapses onto the floor, cold. “That makes my count seventy,” the wild man cackles, eyes flickering toward you, “so, what will it be?”

“I am not killing my own people,” Namjoon firmly proclaims, grabbing your quivering hands in his own warm trembling ones and whirling around to turn your back on the bloodfest and storm your way up the spiral of stairs and deeper into the castle.

The last thing you see in the midst of a distressed glance over your shoulder send at your people is the grotesque smirk of the Prince’s face half casted by the divine sun and half casted by its shadows, crooked and amused, as if mocking you for the answer you chose yet he already knew.

“Joon, we have to save them,” you beg but the advisor shakes he head firmly.

“No, Jaebum’s right. We can't do anything to reason with them now. Too many lives have been lost. Their drive is stronger than ever, and us jumping in would only add fuel to the fire,” Namjoon squeezes your hand, eyes and head forward to check the coast as you alternate between peering up at his broad shoulders and peering down at the vastly vacant, endless flight of stairs behind you descending into the light of hell. “We’ll be the ones crying for help if we joined, especially if we don't want to harm…”

“Joon…?” arching a brow at the trailing of his voice, you turn your line of sight around until your eyes meet the very reasons behind his unsettling silence straight ahead.

“...anyone.”

Steps above, a rather lanky man unbefitting of battle looms before you with shaking hands wielding a bronze shield and iron dagger along with buckling knees.

“Careful, boy,” Namjoon warns, cautiously stepping forward with an arm to hold you back and another to distant his heart from the only blade in sight. “We don't want to fight. We just want to help, I swear. Put down your weapon—”

“T-This is for my mama and papa,” the boy stammers, waving the dagger loosely before him as if to prove his threat. “Today, I die for Nordendall!”

And before you could interject vocally, the boy charges toward you two down the stairs at full speed.

Unarmed, Namjoon stands there bewildered but before you protectively, nonetheless; but unlike him, you've spent your entire life out in the training fields as he was forced to bury his nose in books. Instinctively, your hand yanks him backwards, never-minding his loud yelp of a “whoa” followed by clumsy footsteps tumbling down the steps behind you, and your body immediately ducks to your left to avoid the short range of the right-handed boy striking to your right. Next comes his left arm, your eyes darting to your next target that is his left elbow, for before he can even lift his dagger with his right, your leg swings to elicit a painful snap and crack of his outer socket now possibly bent 190 degrees.

Shrieking in pain, his grip loosens and you swiftly grab the shield from him to defend yourself from the blade he strikes from his right next. Like every young adult facing their first battle, the boy descends into panic mode. He thrashes incessantly and hopelessly at you until, alas, you lower the shield for a split second, its bottom grazing the ground, before propelling its upper edge against the tip of his dagger just as he strikes down, sending the weapon flying in the air and out of his inferior grip.

The dagger’s twirls in the suspended air high above the both of you rings in your ear only to land comfortably in the rightful beholder’s hands.

“I promise I won't hurt you,” the words come with wariness as every glimpse of hope dissipates from the boy's very being. He nearly collapses to the floor when you take a cautious step forward. “There are hundreds of soldiers much less merciful than I. This is no place for anyone, much less a boy. I strongly advise you to flee before anyone finds you here.”

The boy gulps, eyes widened and petrified, and nods in choppy motions.

“Okay,” you manage to say under your heaving breaths, glancing around for your next move, completely at loss.

Namjoon steps in with a squeeze of your left shoulder to convey a job well done. “How did you enter here, boy? Show me the way.”

Shuffling to his feet, the boy hastily ushers you down the hall and to the side on the left where a rope dangled from a hook on the window frame and out until the opposing end touched the floor.

“Tsk, either Jaebum set this up himself or he ordered someone else to do the work for him. This is all a game between the privileged and the handicapped for him,” Namjoon scoffs in disbelief before digging his hands into his pockets. Dropping tinkling coins into the boy’s pocket, he gently pushes the boy forward. “Run, boy, and make haste. Find a doctor and use the spare change to get your elbow fixed.”

A pang of guilt stings your chest.

“I'm sorry,” you blurt as the boy struggles to climb down with only one completely working arm. “Please take care of yourself and your mother and father. I swear on the God's here and above that I will do everything in my power to save Nordendall.”

Heart spilled, his blunt response paired with an equivocal blank look of his baffles you for nights to come.

“But mama said there are no Gods.”

“What…?” your brows cinch in remembrance of the mother and daughter sworn to witchery. “Do our people truly believe that—”

“ —Y/N, we have to go,” Namjoon presses, gripping onto your hand and whirling you around to hastily trek through the halls and up the stairs once again. In one last attempt to bid the boy luck, you whip your head around only to find an empty window where the fast approaching dusk blows through in scorching breezes.

“Joon, that's Jaebum’s room,” you frown as his hands fumble with the doorknob until it plops open under his surprising skills in picklock. “We can't enter. If he finds out, we're dead—”

“—we have no choice,” Namjoon deadpans, eyes hardening at you as the both of you nod in acknowledgment and swiftly hustle through the small slit of the doorway before slamming it closed behind you two and letting out a loud sigh. Namjoon immediately begins pacing as he heads for the window beside the Prince’s lavish golden bed frame and sheets. “This is the safest and hardest chamber to find. We won't have to fight anyone here. We'll stay here until I find some plan to get us, all of us, including Nordendall, out of this mess.”

Despite the constant reassurance Namjoon attempts to provide you both, something about the weary void in your pairs of eyes tell you the night is still young and the impending war is just the brim of the brewing waters. This is just the calm before the storm.

As for you, however, worries plague you in fields differing from the King's advisor.

Because, somehow along the way in a fracture of time you never knew could exist, you had forgotten the faces of your own people of Nordendall—and that very thought corrupts your very force of identity.

Dusk comes much later than expected. Hours and hours passed by as you curled into a ball and Namjoon sat by the window on the lookout, but nothing you two did—rocking on your heels or digging nails into your palms—were capable of drowning the incessant cries of those in warfare; and yet, neither of you dared to cover your ears or sleep the day away, because those were the cries of your people and your kingdom, not turning a blind eye to the long awaited chaos below is the least you could do in respect of lost lives.

Sun sets alas, the shrieks of the fallen dwindling along with the glory of day and you can finally hear and feel your own breath without trembling in panic. Chirps of the survivors, crickets and birds alike, now replace the silence traveling throughout the castle, as if tragedy was a term foreign to the young night.

“Joon…?” you finally utter after staring at the full moon looming out the window and over the sky, time passing by for God knows how many hours. “Did you recognize them? Our people,” your voice cracks, “I mean.”

And when he turns around, moon casting light upon the stoic look on his honey tan skin, and reluctantly nods, you find yourself crestfallen.

“So, it’s just me,” the words come out in chokes, teeth nibbling on your bottom lip as you suppress any impending tears. “I just thought… I didn’t even consider it… I didn’t ever think that our own people would attack us, I didn’t think it was possible, so I didn’t even look them properly in the eye—” you pause “—did I ever look them in the eye? I’m the biggest hypocrite there is for accusing you of neglecting your people when I’ve been neglecting them myself. You’re right, I’m not a hero, a warrior, I just dream—”

“—Y/N, stop it. You’ve always looked out for Nordendall,” Namjoon firmly assures you, eyes peering down at yours which stay glued to the ground. “It was just a spur of the moment. I was trained my whole life as the advisor to prepare for moments like these. The people were hungry, they were desperate, and the Prince refused to do anything, to even show his face in town. It wasn’t a question of if this would happen but when it would happen; for you, someone who has always risked her own life for her people, however, I can’t fathom how shocked you must be.”

“...I still should have known.”

“I was completely unprepared despite being an advisor, so I guess that makes us two; two cowards hiding high above the castle and away from our own people… what kind of royals are we?” Namjoon scoffs, shaking his head in disbelief.

You take a quick breath but fail to formulate a response when he continues to spill his concerns, his heart, his everything for the first time.

“Jaebum ordered for the castle to be entirely cleaned, for the corpses to be burnt before the people. He’s out there with his men, piling the dead across the land like some sort of exotic explosives. All evidence of today’s tragedy has been washed and will soon be wiped from our minds, like always. Zero survivors, Y/N, zero,” his fists clench until they turn white.

The boy takes a deep breath and sighs, turning his back on you to peer out the window and up at the moon. “I’m sick and tired of the useless bloodshed. I’ve realized after this entire riot, Nordendall will surely fall under my brother’s hands, and I haven’t saved a single life while staying by his side. I have to do something different no matter what.”

“Different...?” your brows cinch in confusion, stumbling from sore knees when you stand to your feet. Slowly, you approach him from across the room, but he remains distant. “What exactly do you mean…?”

“Y/N, I plan to flee this castle and rally as many people as I can to fight against Jaebum’s army,” Namjoon affirms, never flinching a single inch when you reach his side with an evident frown plastered across your features. “I have to. I have to save our kingdom.”

“Rally...? Are you serious, Joon?” you struggle to speak over the deafening pounds of your heart. “Half of Nordendall died today. I don’t know how many are capable of fighting if they’re even willing to fight. Why don’t you bring some of Jaebum’s soldiers? I’m sure some disagree with his—”

“—I can’t be so sure who to trust. The only person I fully trust in this castle is you, Y/N. This is our best bet. This is the highest Nordendall’s population will ever be if we don’t do anything to stop his reign. Right when Jaebum and his men return to the castle, that’s the safest time for me to escape. My absence will delay his plans to invade outside kingdoms, and within that time, I’ll garner as many men, women, anyone willing to fight for a common cause as I can,” the words flow in clutters as his mind scrambles for any possible piece of the puzzle, “I’ll teach them how to properly craft weapons, how to attack and when to attack in battle, I’ll teach them everything I can, as fast as I can—”

“—no, Joon,” you hush him gently, reaching for his cold hands to squeeze in the warmth of yours; inquisitively, he turns to face you with an arched brow to meet your pressed grin. “I’ll teach them all of that. You rally the people under your title as the rightful King, and I’ll help you with the aftermath.”

“What?” he furrows his brows and profusely shakes his head. “No, I can’t make you fight a near lost cause. You have to at least stay here and try to rationalize with the Prince.”

“Joon, I’m far more skilled in battle than you, remember?” you chortle and lightly tug at his hands. “And you want me to stay with Jaebum, really? I’m better off with you in any circumstance than with him. C’mon, this is our battle, this is Nordendall’s battle. Let me fight with you.”

After a stagnant silence filled with tension and contemplation, the man finally nods in defeat.

“Okay, you’re right. I can’t win a battle without you by my side,” Namjoon utters, eyes trailing up the ground and along the tatters of what used to resemble your gown, edges visibly softening when he finds your reassuring gaze as he leans in to place a prolonged kiss between your brows. Forehead leaning against yours and gaze peering into the other just inches away, the man tucks a stray lock of hair behind your right ear before exhaling a shaky breath. “Let’s move to your chambers and scale down the walls at dawn when they return, alright?”

“Alright,” you breathe and reach for his cold, trembling hands which cup your cheeks. “...are you scared, Joon?”

The King’s advisor takes a moment to consider his answer.

Does he tell you the truth? Or does he conceal the fear plastered across his every feature in an fruitless attempt to prevent his own emotions from plaguing you?

And until he speaks his mind, you wait with bated breath.

“...petrified. I’m so stricken with terror that even you can tell, huh?” Namjoon chortles under his breath. “What if they don’t see me as a leader, not to mention someone fit to rule when all I’ve been doing is hide behind my title? I’m a bastard, Y/N, but even when given the chance to rise, I tremble like a child unbefitting to lead. What kind of a man, am I?”

“Oh, Joon,” your hands gently retract his from your cheeks as you swiftly lean in to graze your lips across his own plush, quivering ones, the warmth of your touch visibly soothing the tension in his body.

The power and effect of which your every move has on the man before you sends electricity bolting throughout your system and adrenaline rushing through your veins. Suddenly, the weariness of years and years of labor and distress begins to fade when excitement replaces the constriction of something deep within your stomach; and it takes everything in you not to grin.

“They will listen to you. They have no choice. You’re their last hope. I will make them listen to my man, because my man is more of one than any other coward who turns their back on you.”

His lips part but his efforts to speak dissipate when your lips are pushed against his. Dewy, warm, and lush, everything about how you fit him like his missing puzzle piece felt just right, as if your entire childhood was waiting on this very day.

Pulling back, you can't help but giggle.

Eyelids flutter shut.

Another kiss…

Eyelids flutter open with nervous chuckles filling the room.

Again, you meet him halfway with a momentary lock of the lips...

... and another.

The sparks in your entire system proceed for minutes to come and eventually the both of you can practically feel the other smiling amidst the motion in pure bliss.

Something about the growing heat in your core pushes you onward.

“Here,” you utter in puffs of breaths when you pull back, out of breath, “I’ll even prove it to you.”

Your hands trail from his cheeks and the nape of his neck where you had subconsciously placed them down his sturdy broad shoulders, fingers tracing along the center of his chest and his abdomen, until finally hooking onto the band of his trousers where a bulge from underneath struggles to break free. Squatting, your throbbing lips are just inches away from his protrusion.

“Y–Y/N,” your name comes out in stutters as Namjoon watches you from above with eager eyes. “What are you doing?”

“You know exactly what I'm doing, King's advisor,” you smirk, gradually pulling his trousers down to enable his bright red erection to spring free and rebound from the happy trail of his stomach. “...and if you don't, then just watch and learn.”

A sigh of relief cascades from his parted lips as soon as his heated manhood is soothed by the touch of the night breeze. Bubbles of white liquid flow from its tip and trickles down the shaft, glimmering in the light of the silver moon. Mouth salivating, you gulp before placing one hand on his thighs and another on his base, his burning warmth cooled by your bare hands. A throaty groan of sheer satisfaction escapes his lips as he stumbles back to clutch at the window sill behind him, head throwing back and eyes slamming shut after seconds and seconds of torture—watching you every so slowly approach him, gaze never leaving his dark lustful ones—until your tongue finally flicks across his slit.

“Agh,” he grunts, body shaking and chest heaving.

You can't help but chuckle at his powerless state under no one else's touch but yours. “You have no idea how pleasured you look from down here. Tell me, did she ever make you feel this good?”

Namjoon struggles to answer when you run your tongue flat against his muscles and fingertips tracing along his protruding purple veins. Finally, your arms grip at his thighs to help you up onto your feet as he watches you with an intensive gaze, as if to demand an answer for your departure; leaning in, lips just grazing his and breath filled with the aroma of him—salty yet bittersweet—you crack a smile.

“Tell me, Joon,” you whisper and he trembles, “you're the experienced one here. Did she ever make you feel this good?”

Namjoon gulps, hard, “n–no, I mean she did do this, but it never felt—God, it never felt this divine.”

“And…” you drag, each and every second visibly irking him and his twitching erection. “...why's that?”

“You want praise, don't you?” Namjoon scoffs and you're just about to return to your job when his hand hooks behind your neck to roughly pull you in. His hunger for your touch exudes from the impatient tugging of his hands pushing you closer to him, his bulge probing at your thigh where your own liquids had leaked to and his lips latching onto yours as he takes a deep waft and snarls.

“She never made me feel even a bit as great as you do, and you barely even touched me. She never loved me,” he utters into your ear as his teeth nibble your neck before swirling his tongue at the bruise sure to form in an hour or two. His words edge you on until you can physically feel the throbbing in your core as juice begins to flow through your slits. “Even looking at you on your knees for me is enough to get me off, so what kind of question is that, love?”

Grinning from ear to ear, you quickly lean away only to chortle at the slight groan which leaves his lips when they lurch forward in a vain attempt to capture yours once again.

“As always, you sure have a way with words,” you coo and lower yourself to your knees, fingertips gently tapping his shaft lubricated by his own liquid and sending visible vibrations across his spine. Eyes still locked with his darkened ones, your peripherals catch the sight of foam oozing from his tip. “You've earned my respect, Lord Kim.”

Mouth finally meeting his heat, the surprising size of his manhood fills you more than you had anticipated and you quickly discover the pressure of sucking or even hollowing your cheeks elicit an erotic groan from the back of his throat; thus, you do so, sinking in and out as your head bobs and your eyes peer up to watch him struggle between lulling his head back in pleasure and glimpsing at you in both adoration and desire.

Subconsciously, you find yourself rubbing your thighs to create as much friction in your lower lips seeping of thick liquids, especially when he grabs a fistful of your hair which only edges you and the flutters in your core further as you let out a whimper—sending jitters across his system and releasing a lewd moan. Each sound you make, the sight of you holding him in, and the slips of your mouth, tongue, and fingers squelching with his own solution evidently hardens his already twitching rod on the brink of a cliff as he releases another grunt with gritted teeth and flexed abdomens.

His hands ride along with the bobs of your head, pushing and tugging at your hair when the tip begins grazing the back of your throat and you gag with short desperate breaths; your instincts tell you to retract and compose yourself once again, but the sheer pleasure gushing from his squeezed eyes and gaped mouth struggling to even utter a word until a dragged out groan fills the room urges you on. Bolstering your confidence, you're just about to proceed when his hands gently push you away and your lips release his shaft with a pop.

“Wait, Joon—”

“—no, Y/N. As crazy as it makes me, I don't want you hurting yourself for me,” he shakes his head, but before you can protest, he leans forward to wrap his hands secure onto your waist to pull you up into his lap, each leg on one side as you straddle him. “This is already a dream come true for me. This is enough.”

Gulping the last drops of his insides, you nod with a pressed, reassured grin; truly, you've never felt so loved by anyone besides your mother. With Namjoon, you know you can trust him with your all.

The lengthy skirt of your gown finally comes to use as it formulates friction between his crotch and yours. One error, however, are the extra fabrics which separate your heated nub desperate for attention from his firm erection. Wrapping your arms around his shoulders and had burying into the crook of his neck, the two of you sigh and huff in both exhilaration and labor as you continuously roll your hips against his to hit the center of your nerves before retracting and lowering yourself once again to repeat.

“God,” he curses, hands gripping at your waist, “everything you do is so enticing.”

But all you can respond with are incessant sighs and lewd moans masked in hums from the unbearable pleasure speaking like waves from between your thighs. Yet, just before you reach your high, a loud string of grunts bellow from the back of his throat, his hips halting from meeting yours halfway, and a squirt of liquid seeping through the fabrics of your skirt between your crotch—just enough to meet the wets of your own sex.

“Ugh, I can't believe how amazing that felt, how you felt,” he groans in deep sighs, hands limp and falling to his sides as his back collapses to the side of the window. Pressing a reluctant grin, you shrug your own disappointment, figuring you would get your chance with him again when things progressed to the next stage, but his hardened gaze which flicker to meet yours tell you he has other plans in mind. “...Y/N.”

You quirk a brow, “hm—”

—suddenly, his hands grip your waist and the world turns upside down momentarily. Whirling around, you somehow find your position switched with Namjoon’s, sitting comfortably in the corner of the window sill where the night air cooled the beads of sweat dripping down his forehead which leans against yours. Standing, his shaft is certainly less elated than it had been before, but judging by the rush of red following to his tan foreskin and his knees which buckle each time he flinches in the sheer ecstasy of towering over you in his hands, you know things would change soon enough.

“...it's your turn, baby girl,” he murmurs before latching his lips to your neck and you squeal.

“Wait,” you fail to pull yourself away from his hands which hikes your skirt to grip at your bare thighs as he showers your neck, shoulders, and collarbones with incessant kisses. A whimper made in an attempt to hide a moan leaves your lips and your core squelches with new pools of liquid. “I don't think I can hold it any longer. Let's just skip this and get you in me now, hm?”

Instead of replying, however, the man quickly shreds the bodice of your gown in half to reveal your bosom and bare stomach, the night air and exposure of it all somehow edging you and your flaming core onwards.

“Sure you can. If I can, then you can,” Namjoon continues down your chest to meet your bosom, tongue flicking and swirling around your hardened nub as the other is fondled by his rough hands. Chills travel down your spine, for his touch on your sensitive areas intermixes with the cool breeze following through the window propped wide open behind you. “I know you can.”

Switching to the other, his tongue and lips go to work as his thumb presses against your previous nub now dripping with his own marks of territory. The insane pleasure instinctively closes your legs along with your entrance now exposed to the air, but his knees keep you propped wide open, beckoning for your patience.

Kisses flowing down your chest and along your stomach, his eyes finally meet with the inevitable problem of your skirt. Groaning impatiently, his hands grip at the end of his tears where your skirt starts, ready to rip when you place a hand to stop him.

“Wait, we can't,” you breathe, nearly whimpering when he swipes a finger beneath your underwear to delve slightly into your folds. Quickly, you hold a hand to your mouth. “People will see us out the window. We're lucky if they haven't even heard us.”

Your remark elicits the roll of his eye's before—rip—the rest of your dress is cut in half and plops to the floor, the warmth of your body completely relying on your core and the proximity of his touch.

“You should have thought of that before you teased me,” Namjoon sinks to his knees, eyes locked to your dripping sex and tongue slipping through his lips in enticement. “No one can see us from here, the Prince's chamber was built especially with that intent.” His hands grab yours to retract yourself from your lips only to place them on the blood rushed nub of your core, sending euphoric waves down your legs. “And no one will hear us, Jaebum ordered all of his remaining men and servants to join his trek; so you can scream and whimper all you want, because that's all I plan to make you do the entire night until sunrise.”

And with that, the shove of his lengthy digits slipping into your dampened folds with ease, your head is sent back lulling, profanities escaping from your gaping lips as your entire body shudders and your hands are forced to grip onto the sill for support. The warmth of his tongue which dives into you, deeper and deeper, inch by inch, is nothing compared to the scorch of the spot between your thighs just begging for something more, something rougher than the touch of his lips; pleads answered, Namjoon’s hands stop you from working on yourself with one hand pushing your right leg apart from your left, where the thick locks of his sends tingles throughout your left thigh, and his other hand rubbing circles into your bundles of throbbing nerves.

The laps of his tongue embroidered by the rough bumps of his taste buds soon return you to your previous edge, and it doesn’t take very much more than his throaty grunt that sends you tipping over the cliff into pure ecstasy; your eyes roll back, your mouth gapes and your jaw protrudes but words fail to slip from you other than lewd whimpers, your vision fades to black and static is all you hear in your eardrums until all you can feel is the pulsating sensation of your sex which dispatch incessant waves of tingles throughout your stomach and thighs.

Slurping the last drops of your dripping folds, only to soon be replaced by further coats of your thick juice, the oversensitivity has you tightly enclosing his face between your thighs; the fading strength of your numbed muscles prove inferior to his own when his hands securely grip your legs to part them once again as he rises to return the lock of his lips to yours.

Bland, slightly salty with the aroma of dampened chlorine, yet all the more sweet when licked off the slobbered mess of his mouth and chin and sucked from the length of his two fingers, you sigh in satisfaction at the taste of your own liquids; and to be truthful, it isn’t the taste that sends tingles to your heat preparing for a second round, but rather the promiscuous act of pleasuring yourself with your childhood friend cooped away in the highest chambers and hidden from the rest of the world.

The thought of your own fantasies coming to life has your hand lurching for the nape of his neck and tangling with his locks to roughly pull him in, forehead to forehead and lips to lips, you hiss, “now let’s skip this child’s play and get you in me, hm?” The unexpected stroke of your hands to his completely erect rod takes him aback, evident by his fluttered eyelids and shaky breaths and grunts. “You’ve clearly been begging for me this whole time, after all.”

The wanton remarks have Namjoon smirking, a cracked scoff following his grunts as he stands to his feet, hands yanking you forward as well until the cold of your chest is replaced by the warmth of his own along with the heat of his throbbing problem rubbing against your stomach.

“You’re going to wish you didn’t say that,” he murmurs; but before you could speak your own rebuttals, a yelp slips from your lips and into his as his hands roughly grab below your two thighs to lift you into the air and you instinctively wrap your arms and legs around his neck and hips. Sighing, his lips continue to silence the lascivious moans intermixing with your loud inhales and exhales of breath as he takes one large stride until your back slams against the cold stone walls of the castle—that is, with the exception of the small of your back where Namjoon had so deliberately wrapped the warmth of his hands around to keep your entire from shivering in the unexpected cold.

But the rough surprise of his motions only edge you on further.

Impatiently, your hips begin rolling in desperate pleas to adequately soothe the throbs of your genital, which only results in an even more profound burn to your core which flutter with uncontrollable sparks; the spills of grunts and moans now fill the room along with the drips of your liquid smothering his length, until finally, his desires take over and neither you nor he could resist any longer.

Hands under your thighs, he lifts you aloft, your folds leaking onto his lathered rod just inches away as he slowly slips into your entrance.

“Heaven’s sake,” he groans, fingers digging into your thighs as yours dig into his shoulders; a loud yelp and grunt follows shortly after when he slams you against the wall to sink the rest of him into you. “God, you’re so tight even after all of our preparations.”

Your folds take him in quite well, despite the newfound pressure of his thickness filling the pools of your insides. Really, it isn’t the feeling of pressure or fullness that elicits a dragged sigh of pleasure from you, it’s the thought and knowledge of him, pulsating in you and each of his racing beats is the result of your utter control on his sanity.

Simply, you drove him crazy, as he does to you—that’s the subliminal sensation of the sensual moment.

“I don’t see how any woman could’ve turned a blind eye to a man like you, after feeling this, after feeling you,” you coo, leaning your weight onto him as your teeth nibble his right earlobe and grinning when you feel his member twitching in you—completely still. Whispering sweet nothings into his ear, he trembles, “I can’t believe some other woman made you a man before I could.”

Out of the blue, you feel yourself drifting in air for a split second before he slams himself into you once again, the pressure and motion finally creating the friction you needed all along.

“I was never a man and I won’t ever be until I save my Kingdom, but tonight,” he pauses, two fingers tracing along your legs to coat a trail of his, yours, both of your liquids onto your skin, “tonight is my closest to feeling like one.”

His lips smash yours as he begins picking up speed, hips rolling and stomach grinding along with yours to hit the nub above your folds to increase the pleasure tenfold. Your back slams against the wall relentlessly, but the force between his thrusts and the wall spills strings of curses into his mouth, tongue tangling with his, teeth clattering, and pools of liquid easing the already slippery motions from below.

And when the lewd slaps of skin to skin and squelching sexes fill your ears to lift your senses into clouds, you give into the bounce of your body against his; a drawl of whimpers cascade from your swollen lips which lace with the grunts of fervent pleasure that tumble from the back of his throat.

Nonetheless, he doesn’t stop; the oversensitivity of your heated core in response to his sloppy yet rapid rocking, hips snapping with all his might and force, pushes you into overdrive—and finally, you can see stars.

Head rolling back and eyes fluttering shut, flames trail across your core to your stomach and into the course of your veins.

It isn’t until the warmth of his seeds spilling into your overfilled insides and dripping down your bottom, your legs and his, and onto the floor that awakens you with weariness in spite of the dying hunger for more.

“This might as well be our first and only night together, alone,” he murmurs amidst sighs, carefully setting you onto the ground and holding onto your waist when your knees buckle before placing a chaste kiss to your forehead, “don’t expect to be getting any sleep.”

Slowly, you nod, following his guidance; a step back and another, crossing the stream of silver flooding through the window until the back of your knees meet a cold metallic bed frame and your body falls beneath his and into the mattress.

The bounce of the golden sheets waft your surroundings with the unpleasant reminder of him—the wicked smile of the Prince flashing before your eyes; but when you come to conscience to find the familiar silhouette of Namjoon under the sky filled with stars and moonlight, your heart settles into peace once again.

Your lover holds you right and treats you right, showering you with affectionate kisses down your neck and chest and every inch of your bare skin as your hands run beneath his shirt, his only remaining clothing, to pull it over his head; fingers trickling along his toned shoulders and back, your eyes peer up at his eyes which lock with yours before relishing the sight of his bare naked self looming above.

Both of you completely and voluntarily vulnerable to the other.

That’s the beauty of love.

Heat begins to recollect between your thighs which rub against each other, smothering yourself and the sheets with your silky liquids as Namjoon’s lips lurch forward to suck your neck once again. More than ready for a second round, you spread your legs wide to enable him to adjust and position his length until he quickly and easily slips into you once again.

Wasting no time to pace himself, his powerful thrusts set a momentum as your bodies bounce in the flow of the springs beneath you and with each deep breath of yours comes the foreign ecstasy of carrying out the most intimate acts of lust in a place completely forbidden. The smell of the Prince and the thought of escaping from his discovery of your little antics augments to your fantasy, even if the repercussions of it becoming reality would be dire—but the haze of lust is enough for you to forget.

“You’re thinking of him, aren’t you?”

The sudden remark strikes a pound akin to that of a hammer against your chest.

Namjoon pauses all movements, leaning back and scowling with furrowed brows. “As much as it gets me going, I don’t want you thinking of any other man but me.” Hastily, his arms wrap around your body to bring you up into his chest as he scoots off the bed and shuffles to grab your clothes and his, never bothering to pull out of you; wrapping the torn fabric around his back and yours, you can’t help but giggle at him as he burrows his head into your neck and inhales deeply, “absolutely alluring. I prefer the scent of my lady much more. Let’s head back to your chamber.”

And so he does with the slightest bob of your head, lips smashing into yours and groans persisting throughout the empty castle. You continue to roll your hips, hitting him at every angle yet to be soon discovered and clearly too impatient to wait for when he’s less distracted with climbing down the flight of stairs. His whimpers and frustrated grunts echo through the halls, knees buckling each time you grind only to clutch onto him with his locks in your hair as you sigh in sheer bliss.

Twirling and shuffling, sometimes making a detour to slam you against the castle walls and desperately put in a few rough thrusts and cursing you for teasing him before lifting you only to continue his way back to your chambers, until, at long last, the door to your room is kicked wide open and he throws you onto your bed.

Shutting the door behind him and striding his way toward you, darkened eyes full of lust, desire, and anticipation for punishment, he straddles your body between his legs and leans forward, arms supporting his weight by each side of your head and lips just inches above yours as his stray strands of hair descend to graze across your forehead.

“How daring of you to tease me like that.”

“...so what?” you snicker at the arch of his brow. “Men like you would never dare to punish—”

“—your punishment,” he murmurs, interrupting you with his teeth nibbling your bottom lip, “as incurred: making love under the moon for the rest of the night.”

The gaze in his star-cluttered eyes of galaxies hold you to his promise when he glitters in the moonlight and you know, to him, you do, too.

Dawn of a new day looms across the grey murky skies filled with puffs threatening rain; and while the rest of the kingdom prepares for the long days of spring placed in slumber and replaced by winter, you and your mate remain restless.

“Do you have everything you need?” Namjoon utters under his breath, careful not to attract the attention of Jaebum or any of his returning guards as you nod. “Okay, then let’s start preparing the rope—”

—his words come to an abrupt hiss of the breath when something slams against the doors of your chamber.

Heart painfully pumping waves of adrenaline from the aggressive kicks threatening to burst in at any moment, your eyes meet Namjoon’s own alarmed ones before he grabs your bag with his and tosses it under your bed, hidden from plain sight; and just as your lover stands upright once again, breath huffing and puffing, your door collapses to the floor along with its hinges.

There, stands Jaebum and his men.

“Good morning, dove—ah, Namjoon,” the Prince chirps in the feign of a pleasant surprise. He cocks his head, hands wrapped behind his back and long, slow strides invading your chamber. A crack of his smug grin sends shivers down your spine, “so, what is he doing so early here in your room?”

“Just checking in on her,” Namjoon firmly interjects before you could say anything. “I heard her yells last night; she was having nightmares from yesterday’s event.”

“Hm, and were you two also in my chambers last night?” the tyrant smirks, beckoning for one of his three guards to step forward with familiar gold sheets in his hands.

Flashbacks of the intimacy you had shared with Namjoon last night burn in the back of your mind at the sight of the sheets you had just laid upon and clutched so tightly in the haze of moonlight and lust. Blood immediately rushes to your heated cheeks.

The Prince takes another large stride toward your lover. “Because my sheets reek of you two. Is there something going on between you two that I, as the Prince, should know? Have you forgotten the woman I had introduced to you before? And after murdering her with your bare hands, now you’re targeting an orphan?”

Your eyes dart to Namjoon in concern when he fails to suppress the evident wrath tangling his facial features, lips twitching into a scowl and stare burning with rage.

“Do not call Y/N that—”

“—oh, you’re right. She’s mine. How dare you lay with a lady belonging to the Prince,” he snarls with a half-grin, taking one final step to mutter into Namjoon’s ear. “You’re a scum, you always have been, you know that? Disgusting.”

“Jaebum,” Namjoon’s voice booms as he explodes, your arm clutching his but failing to pull him back. “You killed thousands of our own people. Father would never approve—”

“—oh, but… Father’s dead, is he not?” Jaebum tilts his head with a wicked cackle, looking straight into the flames of his brother’s death glare before turning his back on you two and gesturing for his men to take care of the rest. “Guards, lock my beloved brother up and prepare him for public execution in three days. We’ll use him as the scapegoat for yesterday’s slaughters.”

“What—Joon!” your arm latches onto Namjoon, tugging and wailing against the rough yanks of the men until eventually succumbing to the force of their pull and collapsing to the ground.

“Oh, and as for you, my dove,” Jaebum chimes through Namjoon’s grunts, whirling around to relish the sight of his brother struggling and thrashing about, “while your little lover boy here awaits his death, plans are in my progress to arrange your marriage with Lords outside this kingdom more tolerant of your behavior, have to sell you when you're worth the most, of course. Until then—” his iniquitous smirk bewitches you in utter terror “—sleep well.”

Torn from your hands and dragged across the ground in ruffled hair and clothes, Namjoon’s silent gaze meets yours in the void of hope—neither of you needing words to hear the other, as if his exact messages are conveyed to you through a meer look alone; as Namjoon has taught you several times over, where hope is lost, it can still be gained.

As soon as the pattering footsteps and heavy tugging of a man’s limp body across the floor fade into the distance down the hall, your body springs into action; because while Namjoon’s role in the plan has been forcibly stripped from your grasps, you become the sole hope to rally people of all kind in every corner of Nordendall.

Rope tied and tossed out the window, your hands and feet swiftly descend from your chambers, stories above ground and hours until your body is capable of absorbing the impact of hopping into the rugged dirt of the fields. The day was still young, even under the murky skies above, so you find yourself scurrying away deep into town with haste, mumbling curses in hopes of casting ill upon Jaebum before it comes to beheading him yourself in an all out bloodbath.

Accompanying Jaebum on his wagon for purposes of leisure and hunts prove their worth after all when the landscape of the kingdom comes to you like second nature. Travel by foot may be laborious, but you knew the land like the back of your hand, the ins and outs, every alleyway, every town and it’s most populated center of attraction; thereby, it doesn’t take many hours until midday arrives and your trek reaches an end.

“I promise I will return these as soon as I’m done with this announcement,” you blurt to an elderly woman running her own store along with rows and rows of others out in the open market before grabbing her pots and pans and dashing to the center intersection where all roads constructed of hay meet as one. Wasting no time, you begin banging the pots on the other in a rowdy albeit fruitful attempt to garner the attention of passersby. “Hear ye, hear ye! I plea for you all take a mere minute of your time to listen! This is for the future of Nordendall!”

“Is that not Lady Y/L/N?”

“What is she doing here?”

“A royalty? Here? After yesterday’s bloodshed?”

“How dare she show her face in town after killing our people?”

The whispers of the town sting you and your confidence to stand on the raised stage, but the dire consequences remain and so does your persistence.

“To address the latest tragedies of our Kingdom, I give my sincere condolences,” you hesitate, gulping when you catch the sight of a fatherless girl muffling her cries into her mother's skirt, “... none of you deserve this, and I never would have dreamt for a world where your children would starve and live their days without their parents—but now is the time to change that.”

The people simply stare at you with disdain nearly slipping from the tip of their tongues.

“The Prince has plans to embark in a week to conquer kingdoms beyond The Black Sea, and after refusing to settle an armistice with the people of Nordendall, there isn't a single doubt our kingdom would fall to such selfish ambitions—” the silence amongst the disturbed looks on their faces is unsettling “—and Lord Kim has strongly advised against his plans only to have him thrown in the cells and executed in day's time. Lord Kim has done his part, now we do ours!”

“And why should we help traitors?” a father of two steps forward, the untamed locks and messy stubble of his portraying days of sleep deprivation. He clears his throat to holler the words of his kingdom, “why should we help the privileged who slaughtered their own people without even batting an eye at our struggles? And what about Abigail and her daughter your Prince had burnt at the stake just months ago?!”

“We tried to help them, we tried to help them all. Lord Kim and I wanted to help, but by the time we were aware of the commotion, everything was already too late to turn back. I swear to you,” the desperation seeps into your voice. “Lord Kim and I never killed or spilled the blood of anyone in Nordendall! We even helped a little boy flee, for he was completely traumatized by battle. I swear to the old Gods—”

“—the Gods won’t help you here, m’Lady, they haven’t helped a single one of us thus far,” the man speaks for his people who nod in approval at his words. “And how can we trust you in that you’re telling the truth? I don’t doubt your claim, there wasn’t a thing you could do to tarnish the Nordendall’s spirit once we start a fight. But how do we know if you truly helped our people and disengaged from the battlefield?”

“I—” you frown “—there’s no way I can prove it to you other than by promise; Lord Kim was with me and he could attest to it, but the Prince has him apprehended!”

“Then there ain’t no one to attest to your claims, is there?” the man shakes his head, dismissing you with a wave and turning his back on you; your heart completely shatters, crestfallen at the last string of hope stripped right from your palms. “You’re wasting your time here, m’Lady. Return to your castle or flee to another kingdom if you want to survive—”

“—actually,” all eyes flicker to a familiar boy in the crowd as he steps forward and gulps nervously; golden haired and embroidered by freckles, the quivering of his lips recollect the memories you had of the very boy you had escorted in the midst of fleeing to Jaebum’s chamber. “I can attest to her claims.”

A lift in the pit of your stomach revives your spirit at the sight of the boy.

“Daniel! What are you doing?” a woman, presumably his mother, fruitlessly reprimands and yanks at his arm.

“It’s true, mama,” he whirls around to face the crowd before raising his voice, “this lady and her man helped me escape the castle even when I tried to kill them!”

The mother frowns, eyes flickering to yours which don’t dare to budge an inch, “is that true, m’lady? You and Lord Kim helped save my son after running off to battle against my words?”

Gulping, you hesitantly nod.

“And so what?” the man scorns, clearing his throat. “What do you propose we should do?”

“We fight,” you assert, “with better arms and proper training, we still have a glimpse of hope.”

The man scoffs, chuckling in disbelief as the rest of the crowd remain silent, “m’lady, yesterday’s battle proved to us that we have zero chances against the Prince and his army.”

“That’s only because you lacked unification,” you emphasize and the crowd alternates wary glances between you and him. “I saw your lines and I don’t think I’m wrong when I say you never appointed a leader, am I?”

“Well, no—but who can be our leader now? Some of our best fighters died in the battle, we don’t have anyone to appoint now.”

Taking a deep breath, you boldly proclaim, “...there’s Lord Kim.”

“Lord Kim?”

“The bastard?”

“I thought he couldn’t fight.”

“Has he ever trained with the Prince or the King?”

The bursts of whispers in the crowd had erred when you find your nails digging deep into your palm with fury. “Yes, Lord Kim may be a bastard, but the King’s blood still runs through him. He has always been taught to fight alongside the Prince and I and he is more knowledgeable than any man, woman, or child standing here! He may not be the divine ruler we traditionally look for, but he is our rightful leader!”

The people exchange wary glances, hesitant to speak as if fully knowing the validity in your argument.

“Fair enough,” the man crosses his arms and paces across the field, “but with all this talk, where exactly is Lord Kim? Because as you’ve said, he’s locked away and incapable to guide us.”

“We’ll have to get him out first before we fight the Prince’s army.”

“And… who’s going to help us until then?”

The answer comes to you like second nature. You were born for this very moment; in fact, you’ve been waiting for this for countless years beyond the castle walls.

“I’ll be your leader.”

A loud gasp follows, even as you hold your head high and stare straight into the man’s unamused glare. “You’re saying you can fight? Even better than I? I apologize for my lack of courtesy, m’Lady, but I find it hard to believe—”

“—I can fight,” you bite your tongue from spewing curses, “I may be a lady, but I’m just as capable as any men or women here. I’ll even accept challenges if you so wish, but I highly discourage you from inflicting further injuries.”

The audacity in your self assertive proclamation ticks the man and his ego, evident when he unsheathes his sword halfway only to halt when the boy interjects once again.

“M’lady can fight,” he blurts, eyes widening and flickering across the inquisitive crowd. “I’ve seen her with my own two eyes. She disarmed me without a single weapon of her own. She’s far quicker, lighter, and skilled than any swordsman in town!”

“Daniel,” his mother hisses, “get back here.”

“I trust her with my life!” he boldly proclaims and a chill travels down your spine, tears welling up in your eyes. “I don’t have a life if no one steps up soon anyways, none of us will. M’Lady is our best bet, I swear it on my life!”

The crowd that has now expanded across all paths, left, right, across, and before your stage, nearly all the representatives of every household in Nordendall has arrived like the town hall meetings you’ve witnessed several times over while gathering supplies with your mother. Silence hushes the people, hesitance and fear from the loss of their loved ones preventing them from speaking their truths.

“...for those who are with me, who will fight for the survival of our kingdom,” your voice trails as you cautiously raise your fist in the air and hollar, “for Nordendall!”

The first to follow is the boy.

“For Nordendall!”

Another pump in the air and his friends join in.

“For Nordendall!”

All the children and young adults amass to the front of the stage to bellow with you.

“For Nordendall!”

And when waterworks stream from your eyes and flutters of hope fill your convulsing chest, you can’t believe your ears or eyes; for every man, woman, and child has gathered around from every corner of the kingdom to chant the declarations generations and centuries would finally come to hear.

“For Nordendall.”

Dusks becomes dawn and dawn flows into dusk; the cycle persists with the force of gravity, for time was unforgiving and dwindling with each hour of your hustle. It doesn’t occur to you just how quickly the days have flown within the blink of an eye, because to be frank, you simply didn’t have the time to even stop and think.

After a restless night of tossing and turning, all hopes for sleep are lost as you venture outside your tent to refine your shots in archery; and now, you finally find yourself standing before the execution stand, hidden behind a hood in a crowd of cloaks. Murky grey clouds loom in the skies, threatening rain and persistent wind; but as you’ve come to realize after years of reading and listening to tales of the legendary, rarely does the battlefield come with anything but gloom.

You thought you had prepared yourself to withhold your emotions of dread, you thought you were ready, but when the guards drags Namjoon, tattered, bruised, dirtied, and cut along his bare face, arms, and legs under his tee and shorts, you nearly choke on your own muffled sobs. Hair tousled and lidded eyes void of hope, searching the crowd for his lover, he finds his head dangling low before the wooden execution block.

“...disobeying the Prince’s orders, scheming against the welfare of Nordendall, murdering the people of Nordendall, Lord Kim is guilty as charged,” the noble reads aloud from a scroll, wearily looking back over his shoulder and at Jaebum, seated on the throne so carefully moved from the courtroom; the Prince only sneers at him to continue, and so he does, hesitantly, even under the burn of every man, woman, and warrior’s eyes in the field. “Under the mercy of Prince Im, Lord Kim has been subjected to a more honorable method to depart his duties as the King’s advisor by beheading.”

Head lifting one last time, Namjoon desperately searches the crowd; eyes scanning through each and every witness before him, his gaze finally locks with the flames burning in your stare. His lips part, but words fail him in an occasion as rare as a blue moon; so he watches, proud yet petrified for the stomps of your footsteps marching toward the front of the crowd and right up against the execution stage.

“...without further prolonging,” the nobleman takes a deep breath and sighs, “the execution shall pro—”

“—Im Jaebum!”

Your voice echoes in the wind.

“Oh? If it isn’t my little dove who scurried from the castles in fright,” the Prince muses, leaning forward in his throne to catch a closer look at you and your lowered hood to fully reveal your identity. “What is it? Are you back here to beg me to spare your lover boy’s life? Or are you here to beg me to take you in again?”

“Neither,” you speak through gritted teeth, death glares piercing his frown and the wary looks of his guards. Staring straight into every man’s eyes, you utter each word with profound resilience, articulation, and courage surely not to be misinterpreted for centuries to come. “Lord Kim and I will not die by your hands tonight, and neither will the people of Nordendall. Tonight,” you unsheathe your sword, allowing it to ring into the thin air of the wind and pointing it straight at the Prince, “we declare you the illegitimate heir to the throne—” your sword averts to each of the guards who stumble backwards along with your piercing gaze “—and for those who are willing to fight against years of injustice, murder, and turning a blind eye to the well-being of his people for his own selfish demands, we welcome you; but for those who scramble yet again, heed my words when I say this will never be an ‘again.’”

The soldiers gulp a visible heap of fear, reluctant to disobey the Prince by switching to a side seemingly already ready to lose.

“None of you?” you scoff. “So be it, cowards.”

“And what are you going to do, Y/N? Fight us all on your own?” Jaebum cackles, crossing his legs. “You’re a great fighter, I’ll admit that, but this is plain idiocy—”

“—all those who fight for justice, fight with Nordendall,” you raise your sword into the sky as every witness behind you begins discarding their cloaks to reveal their weapons and armory, the fierce cries in their eyes and hardened gaze where cuts and blood stain their skin elicits an audible gasp from the guards. Furrowing his brows, Jaebum finally realizes the danger of his situation when he stands to his feet, ready to yell—but you yell first, sheathing your sword and reaching for your bow and arrow slung over your back. One eye shut and the other aiming, you proclaim, “this is for the future of Nordendall.”

“Kill him! Kill the damn boy!” Jaebum bellows.

The guards immediately spring into action, one guard raising his steel shield to protect the Prince as the other holds the axe in preparation to behead Namjoon whose eyes are only on you. Swiftly, your aim switches from the Prince’s head to the neck of the executor, bow gliding in a straight line and arrow releasing to hit the bullseye—blood seeping through the slit where armor failed to cover the space between his head and shoulders. The axe drops to the ground along with the man, the silence overbearing.

“Charge!”

Namjoon’s orders are heard throughout the kingdom, echoing into the roars which ensue as everyone lunges forward with swords, axes, daggers, and bows brought out in all its worth. A war to be remembered by generations to come begins when everyone starts the fight for glory, the unsheathing of swords ringing in the air, the clean cut of weapons across flesh following after, the whirls of air spiraling under the force of arrows, painful cries of woes drop along with dozens of fallen warriors every few seconds—everything is absolute mayhem and Hell had been set loose.

Springing into action, your feet scurry through the untamed wheats and weeds of the grass to throw your left arm and leg over the stage’s ledge in order to pull the rest of your body over. Hastily gathering to your feet, your hands grab for the axe the guard had dropped earlier, completely under the watch of Namjoon, and demolish the chains between the shackles of his hands on ankles on the board and ground.

“Behind you,” Namjoon warns sternly, nodding his head at shuffling footsteps coming from behind; but just as you’re about to whirl around, evidently slowed by the weight of the axe, Namjoon yanks the axe from your hands and smacks the helmet of the man into unconsciousness. Squatting to quickly discard the man of his armor, he looks over his shoulder to gaze at you in complete wonder, “how did you recruit so many of them…?”

“I’ll tell you the story later,” you mutter, slinging your bow over your shoulder and gripping onto your sword. “For now, suit up and fight. I’ll cover you.”

Namjoon nods, obliging to your orders as he pulls the hefty steel plates over his own shabby clothing. Armored men charge at you from all directions, and while you’re capable of fending off half of those who step into your circle’s vicinity with your trusted daggers which you had switched to for increased stealth, the rest of the men were taken care of by your own people charging in with warcries.

“Not the helmet,” you manage to huff when catching sight of the soldier’s removed helmet in your peripherals, “none of us have helms, they’ll mistaken you for Jaebum’s men.”

“You should head to the outer fields,” Namjoon stands to his feet, advising you as he grips the wooden handle of his axe tightly. “Archery is your strongest suit and a bow and arrow are meant to be far-ranged.”

“Right, then take this,” you toss your sword at him, forcing his axe to drop to the side. He arches a brow at you. “Swordsmanship is the only craft you exceed more than Jaebum in—”

—roughly pushed aside, you look over your shoulder to find Namjoon striking the guard before him with a swift lunge, jabbing the point of his blade into his belly. A whimper dragged into a groan collapses to the ground along with the man before Namjoon twirls the sword in his fingers by its bronze handle.

“I trust you’ll take better care of yourself, then, my Lady,” his smirk is quickly replaced by a soft, pressed and lopsided grin. “I’ll see you on the other side, Y/N.”

And with that, a simple nod and fist to his chest, you whirl around, the neat braids of your stray hair tucked away and whipping across to your other shoulder before your small paces turn to strides and into sprints across the sparse battlefield for a safer position.

People on opposing sides, helmed and unhelmed, drop to the floor like flies, groans and screams drowning in the air flooded by clashing weaponry and war cries; and as much as it tugs at your heartstrings to witness the death of so many right before your eyes, the endless stream of soldiers who challenge you to a fight between his sword and your daggers occupy you from doing so. Nonetheless, nothing can drown their cries into the background like white static—you want to hear them and acknowledge their honorable efforts, because soon, even you might succumb to the tidal waves of war.

Finally scouting an area where blobs of crowds dwindle and all you can spot are at most battles of three scattered across the fields splotted by the golden, green fields and oak trees swaying in the wind. Jaebum was nowhere to be found, which was unsurprising for he was the key to this battle, but with several men tracking your trails, your instincts tell you him and his orders are not too far away.

Another armed man starts trotting toward you on a horse evidently stolen from the castle, for most of the horses have already fallen by superior arrows and swords on foot, and while you raise your bow and arrow with one eye shut and the other open to aim, the man hastily unmounts the saddle with both arms raised.

“I fight for you, my Lady!” he bellows and you cautiously lower your bow—but not before taking note of the soldier in the reflection of his widened eyes, whirling around to shoot the man behind you. “I-I swear he was not my ally. I didn’t mean to ambush you—”

“—remove your helmet,” you nod at him, “and you’re in.”

Several of the Prince’s men come to you throughout the fight, pleading for your forgiveness and begging for your help; a part of you wonders whether they were truly repenting for their decisions or if somehow the battle tides had turned in favor of Nordendall, but soldiers were what you needed and you were willing to put anything on the line to win.

Having endured several cuts of arrows whizzing by and blades just barely grazing your cheeks or carving your palms before succumbing to the edges of your own weapons, the lethargy of war begins to take a toll on you. The strength you need to persist, despite the cries of your own dying people, the endurance you need to both defend and attack, the alertness to stay on your toes for hours and hours that fly past you yet never seem to end; and despite the heroic cries of Namjoon’s which echo throughout the fields at just the right time, never ceasing to replenish the spirit of his people, eventually, there isn’t any way to adequately express your exhaustion after days and nights of labor.

It’s as if everything you’re doing has gone to autopilot, and soon, you find your caution fading when the lack of speed in your wavering aim and the soon-to-be emptied quiver puts you in the center of a circle of soldiers closing you in from every side of your surrounding.

The men continue to enclose you, step by step, some lacking shields and others raising the steel or even wooden planks before them protectively; for those you could shoot, you did, but nothing stopped the endless stream of soldiers who stepped in to fill the emptied spot. Working at your most, your fastest, a semicircle is the most you could do to put a dent to their formation which spells for your death.

Alas, your quiver remains empty of bolts.

Slinging your bow over your shoulder and swinging the two daggers into your hands, you take a deep breath and exhale in preparation for the pain that would soon follow. Even while death is not an option, as you have promised to meet Namjoon at the end of the day, the thought of dropping cold and dead becomes all the more daunting with each of their steps.

Shutting your eyes for a brief second, you exhale—”

“—for Nordendall!”

A pair of hollars echo in the distance, and when your eyes flutter open, you find two familiar men each charging in and around the circle with the mount of horses. One being a recruit from the Prince’s army and the other being the man who had argued with you in the rally, the circle of soldiers fall like dominoes under the unexpected ambush and lack of preparation for an attack from their backs.

“Are you alright, my Lady?” the soldier asks.

“...yes,” you answer after seconds of confusion over the spur of events, “my greatest gratitude.”

“Judging by a rough count of unhelmed versus helmed from the hill above,” the man gruffs, horse trotting in place, “it looks like we have the upper hand now. The battle is soon to end if we play our cards right.”

This is the key turning point of the battle.

“Where’s Lord Kim?” you inquire, eyes darting around the battlefield splattered in blood and spotted by fallen soldiers; swords, arrows, and shields lay stuck in the dirt. Across the entire field of hills, you spot the tall stature of your man’s silhouette painted in black by the sunset far off in the distance. Eyes squinting, blinded by the sun’s rays, your hand raises to provide shade to your dirt and blood smeared face. Next to Namjoon, to your utter astonishment, is another familiar silhouette belonging to that of Jaebum’s. Your heart strikes against your chest with a dire need to stand there by their sides for whatever reason. Mumbling in a daze, eyes glued to the men who fought on opposite sides of the hill, you pat the saddle of the soldier’s horse, “...I apologize, but let me borrow him for now. It’s an urgent matter.”

Quickly obliging to your orders, the man unmounts; while you haven’t ridden a horse in years since Nordendall fell low in supplies and horses became animals to be dealt with care, the skills return to you without a second of hesitation. Foot on a stirrup, you lift yourself off the ground as your right swings over the mount with ease—not even a second in and you’re traveling at speeds tenfold of your previous treks.

The people of Nordendall cover you from any soldiers who encroach or archers who plan ambush, enabling you to ride swiftly across the fields and into the sunset without further nuisances. Body aloft and leaning over as it bobs along to the trots of the horse, the musty warm air of the impending dusk weaves through the lethargy you hadn’t even noticed until now that adorned your face. Dry eyes stinging from sleep deprivation, still, the flood of the sunlight you could visibly see in your peripherals in the form of rays can’t deter you from spotting Namjoon storming across the field with rage toward the mocking smirks of his brother.

Beautifully crisp and refined is how you would describe Namjoon’s swordsmanship at this moment. Handle twirling and tossing in the air only to be latched firmly in his opposing hand, the sword follows his every command; his eyes never budged from Jaebum’s, his footsteps never strayed from his path straight ahead, but the slashes and swipes of his sword as they cut through the air and his incoming opponents are exquisitely precise.

Breath taken, you find yourself at loss for words.

Namjoon has never been so skilled in battle, but no one would have believed you or your memories of his father scolding him for lacking in the battlefield department at this moment. To you and anyone watching him now, Namjoon could be the greatest general in Nordendall—both an experienced advisor and skilled swordsman.

It only took him the tide of tragedy to rise up to his potential.

Moment short-lived, the last batch of a dozen soldiers charge their way to Namjoon, forcing him to rip his piercing gaze from Jaebum’s and confronting the challenges head on; and while the men prove of no competition to his present swordsmanship, the time delay knocks him off his usual caution when Jaebum grips his sword and begins marching his way down the hill with eyes determined to slay his kinship once and for all.

Panicking, you hop off your horse, collapsing to the ground but scrambling to your feet to pluck one of the many arrows stuck to the dirt, and when you rush to stand upright, blood rushes from your head down and sends you into a haze. Raising your bow and aiming, hands and arms trembling as they pull the string and hold the bow aloft under the tremors of your exhausted muscles, you pay no mind to the fuzz of your vision.

You’ve practiced this several times before, you can do it even with your eyes closed.

To your panic, Namjoon strikes his last blow on the remaining soldier before him without a hint of acknowledgement of the man right behind him; but before the Prince could lower his sword to slice straight through the neck of his brother, your arrow whizzes straight through the air and across the field to jab into his hand and pin him to the tree beside him.

Both their glances dart at you in bewilderment as you storm forward, bending over as you grab another arrows before raising, aiming, and shooting another straight into the Prince’s remaining free hand prior to his removal of your first shot.

“Jaebum, just surrender now,” Namjoon demands once you reach his side. “We’ve clearly won, even your own men whose lives you so carelessly tossed aside has remained loyal to Nordendall. Father has always taught us to surrender for the sake of our people with our head high, so do it now.”

“Father this, Father that,” the Prince rolls his eyes, head lulling as his winces of pain gradually become wicked snickers and escalates into thunderous cackles echoing across the fields akin to a man absent of sanity. “If you love Father so much,” his eyes dart to Namjoon’s with distaste, “why don’t you join him in Hell?!”

His fingers curl into a fist to clutch the bolts, a loud hollar bellowing from the back of his throat as he releases the pin of his hands with sheer force—the arrows plucked from the tree but pierced entirely through his flesh. With a loud gruff, the Prince yanks the arrows out of his palms, blood splattering everywhere as he grabs his sword and charges at Namjoon.

Grip weak, however, it doesn’t take Namjoon much effort to dodge to the side and knock the sword out of his hands with a simple tip of his own blade. Weapon stripped, Jaebum huffs, wiping the dirt from his chin, “why don’t we settle this the old way, huh? Joon? Before Father died and left us to fend for ourselves alone!”

His brother obliges, tossing the sword aside and charging in like the old days where the two brothers had fought after a long day of scowls and snide remarks in training field just as the King turned a blind eye on their antics. They tumble and tumble, staining their bare skin with dirt and blood of the other; punches are thrown every second, grunts and painful pipes of wind being knocked out of their lungs as they tossed the other only to straddle them once again and release the anger of many years into the face of his brother.

If Namjoon hadn’t listened to his brother’s pleas, the battle between brothers would have been long over—but that isn’t the type of man Namjoon has grown to become. Honorable in every aspect, he fights under the same conditions and under the same stakes as the boy he had always disdained with his every being, and yet, he can’t seem to finish his murderous brother.

“Why don’t you kill me, Joon?!” Jaebum finally releases his remaining strength into his screams. “Just kill me like you’ve always wanted to! I see it in your eyes, I see it in all of your eyes! Just end this bloody nightmare and get it over with—”

‘—Jae,” his brother interjects, grabbing at his shoulders and shaking him on the ground as he straddled and pinned him down. Dirt and mud drip from both of their hair and face, blood seeping through their chapped lips and bruises blackening their eye sockets, but that doesn’t mask the sincerity Namjoon shares for his last remaining kinship. “Father never taught you to be so pitiful like this. He taught you to love, to honor, to respect—” his voice cracks into a cry and Jaebum winces at the drop of his brother’s tears splashing into his bloodied, swollen cheeks “—so why are we here? Why are you like this?!”

“You talk too much, like always,” Jaebum grumbles, head turning to the side and eyeing you wearily—all you can do is gulp. “Father died because he was assassinated.”

The word comes to all of your surprises.

Namjoon cinches his brows in utter confusion, “...assassinated…? I thought he—”

“—no, he was assassinated. I never told you because I knew you would be too traumatized and I didn’t want to hear you and your stupid sense of justice,” Jaebum swallows painfully, the tears welling in his eyes. “Father died because he was weak, because he was too merciful of his people and nobody feared him. You can’t please everyone, someone is bound to be left in the dust and those people disdained him enough to risk their own lives for their people—” he chuckles “—to save their own people, the thought amuses me every time.”

“...you should’ve told me,” Namjoon frowns at the revelation, “still, that doesn’t excuse anything you’ve done.”

“No, but fear helped me a great deal, did it not? If it weren’t for those wretched witches and you two,” he glares at you and turns his head to shoot one at Namjoon, “I wouldn’t be in this pitiful situation, so quit looking at me like that and just kill me.”

“I can’t kill you,” the Prince’s brother shakes his head, “you’re my brother. Father would be—”

“—Father already is disappointed in me. I hear him every night,” his voice cracks as his lips press into a thin line in a vain attempt to suppress his cries, “I’ve done wrong, I did my best to protect myself, and I still struggle to fathom a different path if I could redo it all again. Fear was what I did best and I thrived.” His head turns to snap his weary gaze at his brother. “Now send me off so I can hear the rest of his scolding.”

“Namjoon,” you grumble after contemplation, fury boiling in your blood as you storm forward to knock Namjoon off of your target. Gripping his collar, you pull his limp body aloft, “Jaebum, you’ve killed so many for absolutely zero reasons and that’s all you have to say—” you grab the pocket knife you had kept in your pockets for the past months, pressing the blade into the corner of his lips “—do you not remember cutting this into my lips as I whimpered in pain? Do you not remember this scar you gave me? You don’t have anything to say to me or the thousands of families you’ve killed?!”

Jaebum struggles to lift his head against the pull of gravity, a smirk spreading across his lips, “you sure are making Hell wait awfully long for me.”

“Fuck off,” you toss the blade to the side as Namjoon catches it midair and watches you roll off to the side, completely exhausted. “Just die and atone for your sins in Hell.”

“Jaebum…” Namjoon grips the dagger until his palms go white, getting to his knees and holding the blade aloft, “do you have anything left to say?”

After prolonged silence, the Prince finally utters.

“Take care of Nordendall. Rule like Father told us to,” he turns his head until his eyes face the gray skies, “we’ll see how long you last. Until then, farewell brother.”

With a deep breath, Namjoon sighs.

The cut is clean and painless.

“Farewell, brother.”

You don’t notice it until now, but the field had long fallen into silence. The chirps of birds and crickets are completely absent, even in the last minutes of sunset; but the footsteps shuffling from your left and right, from all corners of the battlefield, from those completely tattered, exhausted, bloodied, and injured, now fill the stagnant air.

And when Namjoon rises to the ground slowly and laboriously, offering you a hand which you take, the rest of the men and women, warriors and dreamers alike, bend their knee to the ground.

Cheers erupt throughout the fields, whistles, hollars, yells, and bawls roar and echo into the distant hills, fracturing time and marking its place in history with the chants striking pride into your chest.

“Long live Nordendall!”

The following months become taxing days and nights of rehabilitation over the historical events; but after long visits in the medical ward, where you occasionally monitor, despite being a patient yourself, the gaping wounds across his and your bare skin begin to heal—but admittedly, the scars of the past prove to be a boundary far beyond any medicine or operation.

With time, however, something tells you that things will get better.

Because with time, Nordendall has overseen countless changes to the ladders of the previous social hierarchy; the execution stand has been cleaned and renovated into a stage for all those to utilize and enjoy on nights of festivals or celebrations for no particular reason except for survival.

Instead of the execution board, where the soon-to-be crowned King had once stood, a silver throne crafted by the melted silver and steel of all the blades used in what is now known as the Battle of Brothers, stands towering before the people—a message to remind those who enter the kingdom that those who rule their people are not the royalties but the brave and just.

And as the people have all unanimously voted last week, the Bastard of Nordendall is befitting of such a role.

Sitting in his throne, Namjoon shifts uncomfortably, sipping at his glass of red wine and glancing at you nervously. You smile, knowing Nordendall is now in good hands, but what you don’t expect is the mischievous smile plastering across his own lips.

“Bring in the throne and crown, please,” Namjoon calls to his men who happily oblige, carrying another throne identical to his and another golden crown that fit snugly on his head. Gradually, the man makes his way down the stage and toward you, hand grabbing yours and dragging you up to the throne before raising both his and your hands high into the air. “Everyone, here is your Grace, the Queen of Nordendall!”

Eyes widening and heart panicking, your eyes dart between the cheering crowd and the King who just smiles at you expectantly. It isn’t what you ever wanted, certainly, but if the people wanted you on that throne to guide them into a far brighter future, then it is only your duty to follow up.

So when people beckon their mothers for nighttime stories of heroic men and women, this is the tale that will be told for centuries to come where two outsiders became the very center of the thriving kingdom in which the Lady of Nordendall had broken the Bastard of Nordendall and his etiquette.

This is the Tale of Nordendall.

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Best New Fantasy Books in September 2019

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Here are the best new fantasy books in September 2019.

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There's so much to look forward to in our speculative fiction future. Here are some of the fantasy books we're most excited about and/or are currently consuming...

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Best New Fantasy Books in July 2019

Dragonslayer by Duncan M. Hamilton

Type: First book in trilogy Publisher: Tor Books Release date: 7/2/19

In his magnificent, heroic, adventure fantasy, Dragonslayer, Duncan M. Hamilton debuts the first book in a fast-moving trilogy: a dangerous tale of lost magics, unlikely heroes, and reawakened dragons.

Once a member of the King's personal guard, Guillot dal Villevauvais spends most days drinking and mourning his wife and child. He’s astonished—and wary—when the Prince Bishop orders him to find and destroy a dragon. He and the Prince Bishop have never exactly been friends and Gill left the capital in disgrace five years ago. So why him? And, more importantly, how is there a dragon to fight when the beasts were hunted to extinction centuries ago by the ancient Chevaliers of the Silver Circle?

On the way to the capitol city, Gill rescues Solène, a young barmaid, who is about to be burned as a witch. He believes her innocent…but she soon proves that she has plenty of raw, untrained power, a problem in this land, where magic is forbidden. Yet the Prince Bishop believes magic will be the key to both destroying the dragon and replacingthe young, untried King he pretends to serve with a more pliable figurehead. Between Gill’s rusty swordsmanship and Solene’s unstable magic, what could go wrong?

Read our interview with Dragonslayer author Duncan M. Hamilton.

An Evolution of Dragon Stories: Checking in With Dragonslayer.

Dragonslayer is now available to purchase.

Best New Fantasy Books in June 2019

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

Type: Novel Publisher: Tor Books Release date: 6/4/19

Ivy Gamble was born without magic and never wanted it.

Ivy Gamble is perfectly happy with her life – or at least, she’s perfectly fine.

She doesn't in any way wish she was like Tabitha, her estranged, gifted twin sister.

Ivy Gamble is a liar.

When a gruesome murder is discovered at The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged twin sister teaches Theoretical Magic, reluctant detective Ivy Gamble is pulled into the world of untold power and dangerous secrets. She will have to find a murderer and reclaim her sister―without losing herself.

Read Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey