He stared straight at her, his strong arms circling around her waist in reassurance. She tried to break eye contact, but his eyes were like stones pulling her down into the deep dark abyss of sin and sensuality. He kissed her neck and inhaled the sweet scent of her perfume, triggering a warm reaction in the pit of her stomach. As his teeth grazed her neck, her eyes shut and her body relaxed in his arms. His hands brushed over her back, hands struggling to unfasten her dress…

The door to her room suddenly opened, and Yewon swiftly shut her novel and hid it beneath the covers before anyone could catch her. If her father found out she was reading that, she didn’t know what he would do to her.

“Hail,” messenger Don greeted her, putting his left hand on his heart.

“Hail,” she replied, putting her left hand on her own as was the custom in her country.

“Princess Yewon,” messenger Don said to her, “you father wants to speak to you about an urgent matter, and he requests your immediate company.”

“Oh no,” Yewon pouted. Any time her father “requests her immediate company,” something bad would happen to her. Did he find out about the novels she had been smuggling into the castle? Or maybe he found out that she had been going down into the kitchens to eat outside of their scheduled meals? Or maybe he was assigning another boring etiquette teacher to try and transform her into a “true Princess” like her other three sisters.

Whichever it was, Yewon was not looking forward to it.

After hiding her novel well under her sheets, she made her way to the throne room where her father would be. Don scurried behind her, giving her the guidelines she had heard a thousand times before about how to approach her father, the King of Galacia.

“Walk in slowly and immediately greet him with ‘Hail,’ putting your left hand on your heart. Keep your neck down and your eyes on the floor. Don’t speak unless spoken to, and don’t complain or question any of his demands. Don’t raise your voice in his presence. Don’t laugh unless he laughs…” blobloblo.

Yewon blocked the Don’s voice as she continued walking through the chilled castle halls.

Winter had not been kind to Galacia this year. Not even the castle’s thick stone walls could block the blizzard and keep them warm. Everyone inside the castle wore thick clothes, or else their bodies would freeze. Yewon had heard that their villagers were dying because they didn’t have enough clothes to survive the deathly winter.

She rarely went outside of the castle, and so she wouldn’t know about life outside of it. Her older brother Jihoon got to go outside though, and he told her that life there was tough. It was too cold, and their crops were dying as a result, leading too food shortages. Their people were starving and freezing to death.

The thought of her people suffering sent a chill up her spine, and she felt the heat escape her body. She suddenly felt colder than usual, and decided she needed to go back and get her overcoat.

As she turned to go back to her room, messenger Don stopped her: “where are you going, your highness? You father is waiting!”

“Don’t worry Don; I’ll be right back!” she told him, “I just need to get something.”

“But you’re keeping his Majesty waiting!”

“I’ll be quick,” she reassured him as she dashed back to her chambers. Messenger Don yelled for her to come back, but she ignored him.

She held her dress in her arms and ran back to her room. After retrieving the overcoat from her closet, she put it on and started making her way back to where Don was probably anxiously waiting for her.

As she was rushing back, she ran into Auntie Tati. Tati worked as a nurse in the castle, and was like a second mother to Yewon. Raised under Tati’s motherly wings, Yewon loved the older woman with everything she had.

And so, seeing Tati eyes filled with tears made Yewon forget about the fact the King was waiting for her, and she was consumed with concern for her nurse.

“Tati, what’s wrong?” Yewon asked.

“Hail, your highness,” Tati replied with a sniffle as she put her left hand on her heart.

“What’s wrong?” Yewon asked again, ignoring the greeting.

“When someone hails you, you have to hail back, Yewon,” Tati responded as she wiped her eyes.

Yewon groaned. It seemed like no matter what was happening, Tati would hammer her about returning the stupid customary greeting. Knowing that Tati would not talk to her unless Yewon returned the greeting, she put her left hand on her heart and muttered an irritated “Hail.”

“Now tell me why you’re crying,” Yewon pressed.

A limitless stream of tears kept falling from Tati’s eyes: “I think Jisoo’s dead.”

Yewon froze as she processed Tati’s words. “W… what?”

“He hasn’t written in two months,” Tati revealed, “and I just got word that the knights from his unit were exterminated by Solenese soldiers...” Tati couldn’t carry on. Her words were cut short by her sobs.

Yewon put hand over , not knowing what to say to comfort her nurse.

Jisoo was Tati’s son, a young knight that Yewon had heard so much about, but had only seen once during a knighting ceremony. He was handsome and bright and sweet, and Yewon had immediately fallen for him. She always had fantasies of a forbidden romance with him: the classic tale of a princess falling in love with someone who was not royalty. He had occupied all her wildest imaginations, and had been the face of the male protagonists of the romance novels she loved so much. (She, of course, was the female protagonist.)

Yewon had always asked Tati about Jisoo: what he was like, what his favorite food was, what he liked in a girl, if he had a lover. Tati had always told Yewon everything, for Jisoo was her everything and talking about him had given her so much joy.

“I wish I could marry him,” Yewon had told her nurse.

“You’ve only seen him once though,” Tati had replied, laughing.

“I think he’s perfect.”

“You’re a princess. You’ll marry a royal prince, not some lowly knight,” Tati had responded with a kind smile.

Yewon hated to think that her romance would be some typical union between a princess and some (probably ugly) prince. She didn’t want that kind of romance. She wanted a romance that is daring, unexpected and passionate, not some dull political arrangement. She wanted a romance worthy of being written into novels.

But all of those romantic fantasies were instantly crushed when she came back down to the real world and realized that things were not as colorful as they were in the novels. Jisoo could be dead right now. Dead. Her knight with the beautiful, sweet face could be dead…

Her lower lip quivered, but before long her sadness was overcome and replaced with a tantalizing sort of hatred.

Her country was at war, and Galacian young men were being killed on a daily basis.

The war had been going on for years, but it was only recently that it turned into a blood bath. Only recently did the war turn so bad, that young men of only 16 years were being conscripted to fight. Only recently that Yewon began to hear news of death on a daily basis.

Her brother Jihoon had told her of the horrors of war. He never fought, but he was training to fight and would soon battle alongside Galacian soldiers. He did, therefore, get to witness a battle from afar. The blood-curdling screams of pain, the cries for help, the sobbing, the fearful look on the soldier’s faces as they approached their end, the futile prayers…

“Yewon, I hate them so much,” Jihoon had told her when he came back traumatized from the battlefield.

“I hate them so much,” Tati now enunciated through her muffled cries.

I hate them.

Yewon hated them too.

She hated the country that was killing her people and colonizing her lands. She hated the country that was the reason for her people’s misery. She hated the country that probably killed Tati’s son. She hated the country that was making her brother fight and risk his life. She hated the country that was causing her family so much distress.

She hated Solen with all of her heart.

Yewon attempted to console her sobbing nurse as best she could: “You don’t know for sure that he’s dead,” Yewon tried, “please don’t cry Tati. We’ll find Jisoo. I’ll tell my father to send a search party. We’ll find him, okay?”

In the midst of Yewon’s attempts to calm her nurse, a breathless, running messenger Don called out to her: “your highness! The King is waiting!”

“You were called to your father? Why are you here talking to me then? Go!” Tati urged, seeming quite angry with her.

Yewon nodded, feeling like a traitor as she left Tati in that state. Yewon knew that if she arrived before her father much later, both she and Don would be reproached by the King. She was used to it, but she did not want to put poor Don through it.

She hurried through the halls, trying to forget about the possibility that Jisoo was dead.

He’s alive, she tried to reassure herself. Jisoo is alive.

When she entered, she was surprised to see that her mother, Jihoon and all three of her sisters were already gathered in the throne room before her father. She was taken aback. Such family unions rarely took place.

In her bewilderment, she entered and completely forgot to hail her father and her family. It was only when Don entered and hailed that Yewon remembered and quickly put her left hand on her heart and greeted her father.

“You’re late, Yewon,” he said with a frown.

“Sorry,” she said to her father as she sat down on the chair prepared for her.

She noted the solemn atmosphere in the room. Her mother was not looking up from the floor. She seemed sad, and Yewon was suddenly frightened.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Yewon asked her dejected mother. “Did something happen? Why are we all meeting here? Wait… did someone die? Did Solen do something to Galacia again? It’s uncle, isn’t it? Did he die? Please tell me he didn’t…”

“Yewon,” her father interrupted with a frown. “Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.”

Yewon nodded and closed , waiting anxiously for whatever it is that her father would announce.

Something seemed to be troubling her father as well, and that unsettled Yewon more than anything else ever did. Her father never appeared as perturbed as he did now. He was always resolute and firm, no matter the circumstances. Even when he declared war against Solen, he seemed as confident as ever. But now, his eyes did not hold the same gravity, and his posture suggested a leniency that was so uncharacteristic of him.

With a deep breath, her father raised his head and made his announcement.

“Royal family of Galacia: our country is in shambles. We’ve suffered a fatal winter, food shortage, and a war that has taken thousands of lives. We can no longer carry on with this war or our people will die. And so, we will stand down. We will announce the end of the war, and make peace with Solen.”

Already Jihoon’s eyes lit up; he was not satisfied.

“No! We can’t just give up,” he spoke up. He was clearly incensed, for he would have never spoken up against his father otherwise.

“We have to, Jihoon. If we want to preserve the lives of the few citizens we have left, we have to desist.”

“That’s ridiculous. After everything they’ve done to us? All the lives that were lost? In vain? Do you think our martyrs would be happy to know that they died so that we’d give up?” Jihoon spoke up in a rage.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” the King replied. “This is a matter of pride to you, Jihoon, I understand. But note that the lives of our people are more important than your pride.”

“It’s not a matter of pride!” Jihoon retorted.

“Enough!” his father cut him off, finally angered by Jihoon’s outburst. “The decision is made. We’ve sent letters to the King of Solen, and he has agreed to make peace on one condition.”

“And what right does he have to set conditions?” Jihoon replied bitterly, “you can’t agree to it!”

“But I already have,” the King said. Suddenly her father turned his head to look at Yewon: “Yewon, you are set to marry Prince Seungcheol of Solen. This marriage will be the symbol of peace between our two nations…”

Yewon froze.

Jihoon could not control himself: “no! You are not giving away your own daughter to those monsters! I won’t let you! You are not going to let her marry one of them! You are not going to throw her away only because you are too weak-hearted to resist them and continue the war. I will not let you! Yewon will not marry anyone from the dreadful country…”

“Silence!” the King shouted angrily, making everyone jump. “The decision is made, Jihoon.”

“But…”

“Silence!” the King repeated, eying Jihoon with exasperation.

Yewon still had not processed what was happening. She was still frozen as her father’s words rang in her ears so loudly, she felt couldn’t really hear them. You are set to marry Prince Seungcheol of Solen.

But she hated Solen.

She locked eyes with her father, shocked and frightened by his words. She could sense that he was apologetic, and that Jihoon’s words had shaken him, though he would never admit it.

“Yewon, please prepare to depart within two weeks to your new home.”

“N…new home?” Yewon managed in a stutter.

“Yes. You will live in Solen with your husband for the rest of your life.”

A/N: So… I’m sorry it took so long to start this fic, but life has been busy for me the past few months! Anyways now I’m more free and I will now commit to posting chapters at least once a week, maybe twice! :)

And I just wanna let you know that this fic actually took a whole lot of planning so I know what's gonna happen. There will be mystery and romance and angst (ahem/character death) and a whole lot of plot twists. I hope you’ll enjoy it! Thank you all for starting this journey with me!

And also, I imagine this OC Yewon as Pledis Girlz Yewon because I just find her so cute and suited to the character I wanna portray ~