Chapter Text
“Do you have a plan?” Doyoung asked, rubbing a restless hand over his rounded belly as he warily watched his brother ready his steed in the stables.
“Yes,” Jungwoo replied without looking up as he checked one last time whether the stirrup was fastened securely enough. Technically, Jungwoo wasn’t lying, because he did have a plan, for bringing Mark’s attention to his shocking discoveries, even if that plan wasn’t entirely thought through…or even somewhat thought through. All Jungwoo knew was that he had to get to Silla as soon as possible and inform Mark that his father was being slowly poisoned. Jungwoo didn’t know if the Sillan monarch was not going to be in graver danger soon, and while it still didn’t all make sense to him yet, he did know that time was of the essence as anything could happen.
“Three days, Jungwoo,” Doyoung warningly reminded the princess again, after letting out a resigned sigh (probably because he had figured out that his brother, in fact, did not have a plan).
“Yes, I promise I’ll be back in three days,” Jungwoo quickly said, before turning to an attendant to issue final instructions for his departure.
When Jungwoo had completed all preparations and guided his steed out of the stables towards the sandy exit out of the Palace with Doyoung accompanying him, the king worriedly asked once more once they came to a stop and turned to each other for final goodbyes, “Are you sure you need to do this in person? Should you not just send someone on your behalf?”
Jungwoo shook his head, resolute, “No, hyung, Mark and his father are surrounded by enemies. I worry my letters won’t reach him, and I can’t trust anyone else with this.”
When Doyoung pursed his lips tightly, his eyes narrowing in serious concern, Jungwoo held his brother’s shoulders and gently promised, “I’ll be fine, hyung, I’ll keep myself safe.”
“Do you really need to do this?” Doyoung asked, then.
Withdrawing his hands, Jungwoo exhaled, “Yes, I do.”
Doyoung looked at him with a tender sadness, before softly posing, “Even after he did what he did, to you?”
Jungwoo sighed once more, that note holding a melancholy of its own. But then, with gentle determination, Jungwoo affirmed, “What is being done to him and his father is wrong. And I can’t just stand by while a wrong of such magnitude is being committed.”
It took Doyoung a second to nod, but he looked resigned, and not determined, like Jungwoo felt.
“Alright. Gods be with you,” Doyoung bid farewell with a small, supportive smile. But Jungwoo returned the greetings with a wide, confident grin, and purpose filling his veins, set off with a lone attendant.
Once the princess and his attendant were out of the Palace City, they rode hard. The princess had chosen not to stop for breaks until they had entered Silla, and once they had done so (Jungwoo validating his entry into the foreign kingdom with a common token, given that he could not have written ahead and requested diplomatic entry), it took them only a few more hours, and a small break, until they reached the Sillan Palace City, just as the sun was beginning to set. They slowed down here, and pulled up their cloaks even lower down their face to hide their identities, because the member of a foreign crown could not just roam about the Palace City of a kingdom without having gained diplomatic permission and entry.
Plus, Jungwoo worried that, if he were to be somehow recognized and wind of his sudden presence reached Mark’s enemies, these traitors might become bent on taking drastic action. So Jungwoo with his attendant quietly reached the public grounds near the Royal Palace, the farthest they could go without being questioned by the guards stationed there. Jungwoo could not take this risk, as he did not know for certain how far the rot of treachery went and who could be trusted. But perhaps Jungwoo should not take this risk either, which he was taking now,— making his way stealthily, alone, into the Sillan Palace, in the dead of the night, after he’d spent hours strategizing and conducting reconnaissance around the Palace grounds .
He’d only spent a week here, but his mind was one that was always quick to grasp and retain spatial knowledge. Still, even Jungwoo himself was surprised by how well he still remembered the Sillan Palace grounds, and even the routes of the guards stationed across the eastern gardens, which led to the royal residence. Of course some of the routes had been changed since then, as they often were in any Royal Palace, but Jungwoo’s nearly lifelong, informal training in sneaking into Royal residences (as he often had done at the Goguryeon Palace whenever he’d gone out on a secret escapade) came into handy here. He was thus able to make his way right to the edges of the gardens, the royal residences spread out in front of him, but just as he was thinking about how easy this had been (a little too easy, his mind belatedly whispered), crouched behind a shrub and covertly surveying the buildings for a possible entrance, he felt something flat but heavy placed on his shoulder.
Jungwoo could tell in the periphery of his vision that it was the tip of a sword, so he curbed his instant urge to move, and instead slowly put his hands up.
“State your name, trespasser,” a guard—probably, hopefully—demanded, making Jungwoo curse himself inwardly.
“Second Princess Kim Jungwoo, of Goguryeo,” Jungwoo stated, and when the guard demanded for him to turn around, he did, slowly standing up. Fortunately, the guard sheathed his sword, but still instructed, “Your Excellency will have to come with me.”
Jungwoo cursed in his head some more, before following the guard because he had no choice. All he had on his person was a small dagger, and he knew he was no match for a trained guard with a sword at his hip. As the guard led him down a narrow pathway and into a small, nondescript building, Jungwoo began thinking furiously about what plausible excuse he could give for trespassing into a Palace that would not alert treacherous ears. But his worries were for naught, because he was eventually ushered into a bare-looking office, in the middle of which sat the Sillan prince himself on a lone chair.
“Mark?” Jungwoo asked, surprised, just as the prince stood to first dismiss the guard behind Jungwoo, and then nod in greeting.
“Jungwoo, what are you doing here at…this hour of night?” Mark inquired, curious concern lining his face.
Thankful that he’d somehow managed to come right to Mark himself, Jungwoo closed and bolted the small door behind him, before turning back around to answer, “I…I needed to come to talk to you. But the matter I come to speak of is…sensitive, confidential, so…I apologize for trespassing like this, I did not want to alert your guards.”
Mark nodded, “Yes, I gathered that,” before breaking into a small chuckle, “If you were sneaking into the Palace at this hour, you must have some…sensitive matter to attend to. My guards spotted you, actually, when you broke the Palace perimeter.”
Jungwoo puffed out in surprise, “They did? But I was able to sneak all the way into the gardens.”
Mark replied with another smile, “Well, as I said, I’d already gathered you wanted to stay hidden, so I told them to leave you alone. I asked them to keep only an eye on you and stop you if you reached the residences, just in case they were mistaken and we indeed had some dangerous intruder on the prowl.”
All of Jungwoo’s previous confidence in his own snooping abilities evaporated, at the same time as his heart infused with a low warmth, because Mark had trusted Jungwoo enough to let him trespass into the Palace, but that was not the point, and indeed, Jungwoo stepped forward to get to the main and serious point he’d come here to address, “I have a very urgent matter to discuss with you. But we need to be extremely careful it does not reach anyone else.”
Curious concern etched into his forehead once more, Mark nodded, “I’ll make sure of that. We could talk in my chambers. Those are off-access to everyone but me and my personal attendants.”
Jungwoo shook his head, “Actually…can you take me to your father?”
Mark frowned for a beat, but to Jungwoo’s surprise, nodded in the next, “Alright.”
A little taken aback by how deeply Mark seemed to trust him, the member of a foreign crown, and with his ailing father no less without Jungwoo even explaining the reason for his ask, Jungwoo took a second to gather his thoughts before saying, “Are there just as many guards stationed at this time?”
“For Father’s protection? Yes,” Mark answered.
Jungwoo hummed, before asking a tad bit defeatedly, “Is there no way to get to your father without having to go through his security detail, then?”
“There is,” Mark replied, to Jungwoo’s relief, “A back passage. I’ll need to get the keys, and open the vaulted doors, but we can use it.”
It was then decided that Jungwoo would wait right there while Mark obtained the keys. Once Mark had done so, the prince and princess walked quietly under the starry Sillan sky, their footsteps even quieter than the rustle of the winter-spring breeze. Once they arrived at the backside of the tower the Sillan king was housed in and slipped inside with the keys Mark had obtained, it took some time for Mark to wrench open the vaulted doors. The coupled then climbed up the several flights of narrow, spiraling stairs, and Mark slid aside a wide ceilingboard to climb up. He pulled Jungwoo up after him, and in they finally were, at the far corner of the Sillan king’s room. Jungwoo first searched the room to make sure there was no one present, and once he had, he looked towards Mark and sought permission, “I need to inspect your father’s person.”
The prince simply gave him a curious look back before nodding, prompting Jungwoo to approach the unconscious king. After his discussion with Jaehyun, and some more rigorous study, Jungwoo had discovered that the effects of the poison in question were visible on the body, and combined with other symptoms, they could be used to confirm whether an individual was in fact being poisoned. It took Jungwoo only a short while to finish his inspection, but once he had, all his doubts were cleared.
The Sillan king was being poisoned.
With a heavy, shuddering sigh, Jungwoo drew back, and unable to look at the dastardly signs of that poison afflicting the king’s frail person, turned around swiftly. His eyes watered, because what cruelty to slowly, for two years, and in the most painful of manners, hasten a man towards death, and not by any other means, but by using his own, unwitting son to feed him poison.
“What’s wrong, Jungwoo?” Mark asked then, his eyes lined with worry. He’d taken a few steps towards Jungwoo at this point, and Jungwoo had seen Mark’s hand come up before dropping back down. His heart thumping with pity, grief, and righteous anger, Jungwoo blinked the tears out of his eyes and taking in another shallow breath, softly said, “Your father is being poisoned, Mark.”
Mark’s eyes saucered.
“Pardon?” he loudly asked, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. But utter distress had already begun to creep into Mark’s features, and when Jungwoo repeated his words softly, the Sillan prince pitifully floundered, “Jungwoo, what-what do you mean he’s being—the Royal Physician said he was…how can you tell, what…?”
“The potion,” Jungwoo pointed at the empty bowl that he’d vexedly noticed by the king’s bedside.
“He’s not being fed mandrake root and pawlounia leaves, Mark,” Jungwoo explained, adding on the details he’d learned from Jaehyun and his own studies, before concluding sadly, “Your father’s person exhibits the tell-tale signs. He’s being poisoned.”
His eyes having already turned wild and enraged by the time Jungwoo had finished with his explanation, Mark pushed his hand into his hair, pulling wildly at the roots, and seethed, “The Royal Physician, I’ll have his head for this.”
“I don’t think it’s just him, Mark,” Jungwoo quickly said then, “Advisor Min…who is he? You’ve mentioned him to me before.”
Mark froze, and then shook his head vigorously, “No-no, Jungwoo, he’s…he’s like a father to me. He practically raised me, he cannot…he cannot be involved in this.”
Jungwoo watched worriedly as the Sillan prince began pacing around the room, stuttering with increasingly wild distress, “No, Uncle-uncle Min has always supported me, supported us. Father trusted him, too—,”
Just as Jungwoo was thinking about stopping a hyperventilating Mark and asking him to breathe, the Sillan prince stilled abruptly in his tracks, and staring horrified at a random spot in the distance, muttered, “Father trusted the Royal Physician, too, because…because Advisor Min had been the one to recommend his services.”
“Advisor Min was also the one who’d first brought the Baekjean Queen’s proposal to me, right after Father had first fallen ill,” Mark mumbled again, dazedly falling to a squat.
“Mark…,” Jungwoo breathed, his heart breaking, especially when in the next second, Mark visibly broke. Shattering grief overtook the warrior prince, and perhaps Jungwoo would have not approached Mark like he did, crouched down next to him, wrapped his arms around him with tears welling in his own eyes, if Mark had heaved wild sobs into the stale air of the room. No, Mark had clamped a hand to his mouth and shutting his eyes tightly closed, had muffled his heartwrenching sorrow. Jungwoo’s eyes shuttered, too, as he lay his head on Mark’s shaking shoulders, and wondered, how many times the prince had had to swallow his own grief inside of him so no one heard him. But Jungwoo could hear him well enough this close, hear the terrible wheeze of his muffled sobs, the painful quality of his hiccuping breaths, the quiet rasp of his garbled cries, “—poison my father, I let them—my father, I let them poison my father.”
“All this time, all this time, all this time,” Mark whimpered and began to rock back and forth as he silently wept into his hand, but it was too cruel, too inhumane, that Mark had to suffocate his own sorrow like this, Jungwoo thought once he’d opened his mahoganied eyes, so he gently pulled Mark’s hand away from his mouth. But Jungwoo’s eyes closed once more, his sorrow falling from them, when Mark instead smothered his pain against the crook of Jungwoo’s neck.
“I watched as they poisoned my father, Jungwoo,” Mark sobbed, and then let out an abrupt, strangled cry, “I fed him that poison, oh gods.”
“Mark, no—,” Jungwoo tried to reason, but Mark cut him off with another heart-rending, muffled sob, “Day in and day out, I fed my father poison.”
“Mark, you didn’t know, you didn’t know,” Jungwoo consoled the prince, rocking with him now, his own tears pouring faster, but abruptly, with a sharp inhale, Mark went quiet. He slowly extricated himself from Jungwoo’s embrace and stood up. Jungwoo looked up at the other man, confused, worried, and still tearing. He turned around to keep his gaze on Mark’s back as Mark walked over to his father, and then exhaled wetly, when the prince sat by his father’s bedside and took his limp hand.
“Is there…any way to help him recover, now? Or…is it too late, even if we stop the intake of poison?” Mark asked, keeping his dripping eyes on his father.
Jungwoo stood up and answered downcast, wishing he could do more, “I don’t have the answers to those questions.”
“But…a trained physician would certainly know more,” Jungwoo added, trying to impart any sort of optimism he could to a terribly defeated looking Mark, “If you’re unsure of whom to ask here, in Silla, I could point you to a number of well-qualified physicians from all over the Peninsula. The Royal Physician of Goguryeo is, of course, par excellence, too.”
Mark stayed rooted in his spot for a few more beats, the only motion in his still frame being the flicker of his reddened eyes over his father’s slack face. And then, as Jungwoo watched, worried, grieving, Mark gave his father’s hand a light peck and stood up.
“I’m here to lend my help, whatever kind you need,” Jungwoo sincerely offered when Mark walked back over to him, and then guiltily remembered, “But…I do need to leave tomorrow. I promised Doyoung hyung I would be back in Goguryeo by then.”
“It’s alright,” Mark said, his voice coming out only as a hoarse whisper, “You can leave whenever you like. Although…it might be better for you, the earlier you leave.”
When Jungwoo frowned, Mark explained, his voice like corroded steel—dull, but still deadly, “I don’t want you to be caught in the crossfire.”
Jungwoo stepped forward, worried then, “Be careful, Mark. You have many enemies surrounding you.”
“I know,” Mark replied with a heavy sigh, “I realize that now.”
That did not assuage Jungwoo’s worries, of course, and neither did the soot of bleak sorrow and anger that darkened Mark’s hollow stare.
“Will you be alright?” Jungwoo so asked, wondering how Mark would ever cope with all of this, alone. The warrior prince truly was alone, Jungwoo realized, with foes lurking even behind friendly faces.
“I could ask Doyoung hyung for help,” Jungwoo added, when Mark only remained silent in response, and then had to apologetically qualify, “He…won’t be able to come here in person, but…he could still arrange for the sending of guards, for your protection—,”
But the princess trailed off, when Mark brought a cold hand up to gently cradle one side of Jungwoo’s face.
“It’s alright, sweet,” Mark said, a melancholic but fond smile blooming at the corner of his chapped lips, as he caressed Jungwoo’s cheek with a rough thumb and murmured, “You don’t have to worry for me.”
Mark withdrew his hand, then, and his eyes carried the affection of his smile now, his mouth curling sadly instead, “I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure you don’t need my help? I could return, explain to Doyoung hyung, and then come back,” Jungwoo quickly added, unable to just leave Mark to fend for himself and his dying father against a pack of scavenging traitors.
But Mark shook his head, “That you came here, to tell me all of this, is already—more , than enough. I don’t want to be a burden.”
At those words, Jungwoo felt his heart squeeze painfully in his chest, and his eyes prickle with tears. He suddenly remembered how he’d huffed out to Mark in his frustration and heartbreak the last time he’d seen the man, over a month ago now, not to burden Jungwoo with his heart. Guilt and sorrow suffocated his heart now, and then melting sympathy, for himself, when he wondered if this is what it felt like, to hear a loved one call themselves a burden. Jungwoo thought back to all the times he’d talked of himself in this way, to his brother…and to Mark, too. It was the most terrible of griefs, to hear this, from someone who was the farthest from it, farthest from being a burden, an unwanted load, a tiresome duty one couldn’t wait to discharge. It was terrible, to hear someone say it, and it was terrible, to feel it, and feeling for Mark as much pity and sad affection as he suddenly felt for himself, Jungwoo choked out, “You’re not a burden, Mark.”
But no change came over Mark, and he still looked as if utterly and dejectedly convinced of the burdensome nature of his own self, even though those mere words Jungwoo had just uttered had been in fact the truest of truths. Jungwoo thought again of himself, thought again if this is how he had looked all those years—so foolishly and horribly convinced that he was only a nuisance and his conviction so heart-wrenching. Jungwoo wondered if Doyoung or Mark hadn’t wanted to shake him and tell him how utterly wrong he was, because at the moment, Jungwoo wanted to do the same with Mark, shake him by his drooped shoulders, take his tear-streaked face in his hands, try to knock some sense into him, and if he still did not let go of his foolish beliefs, kiss the truth into his trembling mouth and fuse their bodies so close together until Mark could feel the truth hotly throbbing inside of Jungwoo.
But Jungwoo could not do any of this, because utter grief and pain, he realized, could leave a person paralyzed, and at any rate, Mark was smiling once more—hollowly—, as he seemed to ignore the travesty that was his own foolish belief of being a burden, especially to Jungwoo, and said, “You’ve already been great, great help. I really can’t impose on you further.”
While Jungwoo felt like he wanted to rip his hair out because in the matter of enemies poisoning his father, why would Mark asking for help be a bother, Mark said, “You should leave come early morn. Can you get back safely? I would have offered to send you back with some guards, but…I really should employ the same caution that you urged.”
“That’s alright, Mark, I can get home safe, but how are you going to deal with all of this by yourself? Didn’t you say Advisor Min brought the Baekjean proposal to you? What if Baekje is also an enemy?”
Mark hummed gravely, “That wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. All of these vultures hatching this plot together…I will deal with them. All of them. And I won’t spare a single traitor.”
“Alone?” Jungwoo asked, despairing.
“I’ll be fine,” Mark pursed his lips into a grim smile.
Jungwoo could only stare helplessly at Mark, because it wasn’t as easy as Mark was making it sound, to root out enemies when his own Palace was infested by them. If an official as trusted as Advisor Min was in fact treacherous, then the rot of treachery could run down far, far below, to even the most junior of guards and attendants, who might have been bought out by Advisor Min and whomever else was involved in this. And this, was in effect treason of the highest order—to take down the monarch in what could only be a scheme to usurp the throne. What was more, if Baekje was involved in this, then Mark would not just be facing a rebellion at home but also a war at his borders if the enemies felt threatened by Mark’s efforts to root them out. Jungwoo suddenly grew very afraid, when it struck him that if Advisor Min and his allies had created enough of a stronghold in Silla, and were confident that they would receive Baekjean support, then there was nothing stopping them from directly assassinating Mark and his father to take over should Mark voice any opposition.
Just as Jungwoo opened his mouth to implore Mark to reconsider his offer for help, a pained groan sounded from the bed. Jungwoo looked over to see the Sillan king fidgeting and grunting in pain, before the princess refocused his attention urgently at Mark.
But Mark spoke first, looking out of the small window in the room, “It’s nearing dawn.”
“You should leave now,” Mark swiftly looked back at Jungwoo, “The Royal Physician’s aides will be coming up soon to administer Father’s morning…dosage. I don’t want them spotting you.”
“I’ll help you get out of the Palace,” Mark urgently added, before walking over to the sliding floorboard and preparing to jump down. Fretting because they were now out of time, Jungwoo quickly jumped down after Mark, who slid the board back into place and then led the way down and out of the tower through the backside. They both pulled their hoods over their heads and traversed the gardens, the last of the night covering them as they took quick, stealthy steps through a series of hidden tunnels and off beaten paths, until they came to an outer wall and Mark crouched down.
“You’ll have to crawl some distance, but it’s the safest way out and leads directly to the market alleyways,” Mark said, prodding around on the ground to reveal a well-camouflaged dug-out.
Mark stood up then, handing Jungwoo the small lantern he had kept by his side, and instructed, “Leave for Goguryeo as soon as you’re out, and stop only once you’ve crossed the borders. Do not linger for even a minute longer in Silla.”
Jungwoo could only watch mutely Mark explain all of this, being that his throat was clogged with his entire heart. The dim glow of the lantern bounced off the sharp angles of Mark’s face, sharper than Jungwoo had ever remembered them, but could barely illuminate the dark of Mark’s bloodshot eyes.
“Do you understand?” Mark asked then, looking urgently into his eyes, “It is imperative that you leave Silla right away. I cannot guarantee what will happen after today. I’ll ask the aides to stop administering that potion tomorrow, and that might alert Advisor Min and his cronies. Who knows what havoc they might wreck around Silla at that point.”
Jungwoo finally found his voice, and asked in a daze, “Tomorrow?”
“Yes, so you’ll have the rest of today to get back. Is that enough time for you to cross the borders at least?”
Jungwoo tilted his head, still confused, “But that means your father will be administered three more doses still, by the end of tonight.”
The tears in Mark’s eyes glowed with the lantern light. “It’s alright,” the warrior prince whispered, his voice wet gravel, “As long as you can safely get back.”
Jungwoo’s insides lit up once more, with a bout of emotions so painful he could barely tell what they were.
“I’ll pray you stay safe, Jungwoo,” Mark said then, before biting his lower lip, “Don’t write to me. I’ll learn if you were able to get back safely or not some other way.”
Mark stepped back then, away from the wall, away from Jungwoo, who had finally been able to name the loudest of that long list of emotions his heart had squeezed with. He wanted to say it, but Mark took another step back, before saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
Mark’s reassurance did nothing to allay Jungwoo’s fear and anxiety—those other emotions he’d also felt stabbing his heart.
“And you don’t need to worry Doyoung hyung with this either. I can handle it on my own,” Mark said louder now, having gone quite a few steps back, no longer in the circle of the lantern’s light. Jungwoo held the lantern higher then, and a tear slipped down his cheek when he saw Mark’s face had already wettened again.
“I’ll find someone to look after Father, as well, so please, don’t try to contact me, either in person or in writing. You’ll only be putting yourself in danger. If I can contact you, I’ll do it myself, first,” Mark called out, still stepping further away, while Jungwoo stayed rooted in his place because grief and pain this acute paralyzed a person.
Mark turned around, only a shadowy figure now, who the light from Jungwoo’s lantern could not reach no matter how high Jungwoo tried to lift the damn thing up. Jungwoo took a stumbling step forward then, that emotion that was loudest drowning out his grief and pain, but Mark stopped and looked back at Jungwoo.
“Please,” Mark entreated, more sincerely than anything else he’d said up until now, “Be happy.”
Mark walked off then. Jungwoo watched the warrior prince’s cloak-covered back get smaller and smaller, but he could not move. When he finally did move, it was to enter the dug-out and begin making his way to the other side.
It was only when he was already in Goguryeo, by late evening, when Mark’s father would have already been fed twice by his son the poison that was slowly killing him, but knowingly this time, all so that Jungwoo could safely get out of Silla, that the terrifying and indelible thought that had made him unable to move as he’d watched Mark walk away—the thought that this was the last time he would ever see Mark—, dimmed to a low buzz in the back of his head, until once again, the loudest emotion that remained inside of him, was love.
***
The Third Princess of Goguryeo, Kim Hwayoung, was born when spring was in full bloom. There were many to dote on her, spoil her endlessly, and coo indulgently at every little smile or laugh she bestowed upon all those besotted with her, but Hwayoung proved to be quite the humble and mild-mannered little princess despite all the pampering. At six months old, she was already the gentlest and sweetest of babes, and could somehow, always sense when those that loved her—and that she loved back, being that they were her entire world at her age—needed some comforting of their own.
Jungwoo smiled, infinitely fond, of course, as Hwayoung, bouncing lightly in his lap while he sat in the king’s private study, suddenly stilled and turned around to face him, before tapping a tiny, pudgy hand on his cheek and babbling unintelligible sounds at him. But she had sounded questioning, and her large, sparkling eyes had turned serious, so Jungwoo imagined that the little one must be asking after him in concern, which made sense, given that he was at this moment having a difficult time holding back tears. For his darling niece, however, Jungwoo blinked the tears out of his eyes and asked mock serious, “Ah, oui, mademoiselle, vous avez une question [Ah, yes, Miss, you have a question]?”
Hwayoung for some unknown reason found Jungwoo speaking in languages foreign to her (at least more foreign than what her parents and brother spoke) to be a hilarious thing, and she loudly laughed now, too, throwing her head back and dimpling exactly like her father did. But the rest of her was more like her mother, and thus, her uncle, from the doe eyes to the pout of her mouth, and the round softness of her other features, too. Jungwoo looked back at her mother then, while keeping a gentle hand patting her back to reassure her that she needn’t worry about her uncle, and tried not to let the despair and dread he actually felt from seeping into his voice when he asked, once more, “But is there truly nothing else we can do?”
Doyoung, sitting across from Jungwoo, looked down at his clasped hands resting on the desk, before sighing lowly, “My hands are tied, Jungwoo. There isn’t anything I can do. Not unless he writes to us, first.”
Jungwoo swallowed down his distress for the sake of his niece, who still sat in his lap playing with a dry quill, entirely unaware of the storm that had swept through their neighboring kingdoms. Goguryeo of course sat untouched, but Baekje and Silla were at war. And as far as Jungwoo, and anyone else who had access to high-level intelligence while sitting in Goguryeo, knew, Silla was losing.
Badly.
“Buyeo will not come to their aid?” Jungwoo asked the same question he’d asked a dozen times in the past few months, since the start of the Silla-Baekje war, desperately hoping each time that the answer would be different. But it was always the same.
“No. Buyeo has still made no moves. And until they move to align with Silla, we can’t step in either.”
Jungwoo swiftly looked away, when he felt his eyes prickle with tears once more, because this was a moot point, he knew, Jungwoo knew Buyeo would never align itself with its previous foe. But Jungwoo was desperate, and turning more irrational by the minute, asked once again the same question that he hoped his brother would miraculously give a different answer to than the one he’d just given, “But…do we really have to await Buyeo’s decision? Can’t we…can’t we just do something on our own, to help Mark?”
Doyoung exhaled, his eyes colored with sad sympathy, “I told you, Jungwoo, we cannot do anything until he specifically requests us to. I cannot directly interfere in Sillan affairs without such a request—that would be a gross violation of diplomatic protocol. He hasn’t written to me, at all, asking for Goguryeo’s assistance. If he did, I may be able to lend a hand without needing to defer to Buyeo, but…he hasn’t.”
“He won’t,” Jungwoo finally said, after months of denying this same truth to himself, “He won’t ask for help, hyung.”
When he said his next words, Jungwoo couldn’t help the tears that escaped his eyes and dripped onto Hwayoung’s head of wispy hair, “He’ll die, but he won’t ask for help.”
***
The traitors had revealed themselves one by one. The Royal Phyiscian, his aides, Mark’s own personal attendants… Advisor Min. Advisor Min had over the decades managed to turn every, last member of the Royal advisory board against Lee rule. Those that had remained steadfastly loyal, Mark found out, had died under mysterious circ*mstances. Mark had first been entirely unable to believe that Advisor Min could have sowed seeds of treachery right under his parents’ noses, but he soon realized that perhaps his parents had been just as trusting of the deceitful traitor as he had. Indeed, it was his utter trust in Advisor Min that had Mark listening to the traitor’s every word, unquestioning.
His trust in Advisor Min had been so great, that he had let even those he did not possess an ounce of affection for, like the Crown Princess of Baekje, glean his weaknesses in an attempt to bring about the fall of Silla. His trust in Advisor Min had been so great, that he had unknowingly fed his own father poison, thinking that it was medicine. His trust in Advisor Min had been so great, that he had given up his beloved, thinking that he could either save his kingdom, or be with Jungwoo.
But of course, that had been a gross lie on Advisor Min’s part. The warrior prince understood now, that these were the actual choices he had always had—
He could either save his kingdom, or die trying.
***
Jungwoo could still recall—if a little vaguely—the unease and worry of that year he’d spent without Mark, when they had still been betrothed. He at least had Mark’s letters then, and when those had stopped coming, he still had learned, four months later, that, while his betrothed had forsaken him to be with someone else, he was safe. But seven months had gone by since the start of the Silla-Baekje war, and Jungwoo had no idea how Mark was faring. Life went on for him in Goguryeo, but his heart was filled with growing anxiety and fear. And most of all, he missed Mark and wished for this to all be over, so he could go back and tell the Sillan prince what he hadn’t been able to that night, when he’d gone to Silla to alert Mark about his father.
When Jungwoo closed his eyes, he would sometimes bring to the forefront of his mind the face of the warrior prince as he’d last seen it—sunken and tear-splotched, but still glowing soft with the lantern light, and with unmistakable love. Jungwoo wished he would’ve told Mark, right after he’d asked Jungwoo to be happy, that he loved him, too. Jungwoo wished he’d said those words, then, instead of keeping them inside of himself, because now, the man he’d wanted to say them to, was gone.
In the beginning of winter, news reached Goguryeo that the Crown Prince of Silla had been killed in an ambush. The Sillan king was rumored to have died in Baekjean captivity, and there was only one remaining member of the Royal family, the late king’s stepsister, who waged a losing battle against Baekje.
The words remained, but Mark was gone.
