Yewon was to rest for a few days in her room until her back recovered. A nurse had come in to disinfect and treat the damage by applying some special type of ointment on her back, and so Yewon was to lay down flat on her stomach and keep her back exposed for the entire day.

The nurses, physicians and the kitchen boy who delivered her meals and the sweet bread (which she still did not know who sent) walked in and out of her room to tend to her. She found that she had long gotten over the discomfort of her body being exposed in front of others now. It was like she was losing a part of her cultural identity; in Galacia she would have never exposed herself so readily, but here, a kitchen boy could walk in and she wouldn’t move at all.

It was an uncomfortable position she was in, mostly because it was hard to read. She wanted to complete the memoir Wonwoo had recommended, but her arms could only hold up the book for so long as she laid on her stomach.

Wonwoo. Who was he? And why did Sungyeon call him “your highness”? How could he speak to Seungcheol with such conviction and power?

He wasn’t a prince of Solen; the only princes were Seungcheol and Soonyoung. She was certain of that. Perhaps he was a visiting foreign prince, like Jun was? Maybe he was a cousin of the royal family who is still given the title of “prince”?

She thought a lot about Wonwoo… about what he did, and how he confronted Seungcheol about Sungyeon.

Yewon would have liked to think of Wonwoo as doing all that he did because he was kind, and because he cared about her. That was how romance novels started, at least. But Yewon did not let that fantasy distract her from the reality of the situation: Wonwoo did not come to her defense against Sungyeon and Seungcheol for her sake, he came to her defense for Solen’s sake.

Wonwoo did not berate Seungcheol because she was hurt; he berated Seungcheol because of her father’s threat and because of fear of war with Galacia. She could not help but feel bitter about that; it was like she was reduced to nothing but some political pawn with no feelings. No one cared about her. Not Seungcheol, not Wonwoo, no one…

But, she was glad to know one thing: these Solenese people were afraid of her father. They were afraid of his threats, and so she had some power over them.

She was also so very, very glad that Sungyeon was no longer in her service.

Though, it would be a lie to say that Yewon did not feel a spangle of sympathy for this woman. Sungyeon was a victim of this war, and the pain she caused was now just a little more understandable. Sungyeon did what she did as a form of revenge for her father’s death; it was not just unreasonable spite like it had originally seemed.

-

When the ointment on Yewon’s back dried up a few hours later, a nurse had come in again to reapply it. As the nurse was placing the cold herbal liquid over her back, Yewon was tiredly trying to hold up a novel to read.

Seungcheol walked in all of the sudden, making Yewon’s spine run cold and making her drop the novel. She could not help but resent her husband after all that he put her through, and the sight of him brought back the dissatisfaction immediately.

“Leave us please,” Seungcheol told the nurse who had started to rub the liquid into Yewon’s back.

“But if I may just finish applying the medicine, your highness?" the nurse requested. "It has to be spread over her back immediately or it will dry without effect.”

“I’ll do it,” Seungcheol said. “Leave us.”

The nurse bowed to him and left, and Seungcheol took a seat at Yewon’s bedside, picking up the book that had fallen to the ground and placing in on the counter.

“What are you doing,” Yewon asked him as he reached out to spread the medicine over her . It felt so strange and uncomfortable.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Seungcheol told her as he gently started to rub the liquid over her bruised skin.

“You’re doing a servant’s work,” Yewon said. “So unlike you.”

“I want you to get used to my hands on your body,” Seungcheol stated simply, silencing her and making her avert her eyes shyly.

He didn’t say a word, but Yewon could feel how careful and gentle he was as he applied the medicine. He didn’t rub too hard into the wounds, and his fingers were delicate and even pleasant over her back.

It was strange to be touched so intimately by him. Although a male physician had already done this to her earlier, it felt different when Seungcheol did it, like it held a semblance of sensuality that she had never experienced with another man before.

“Does it hurt?” he asked her.

“No,” Yewon replied honestly. It stung a little, but it wasn’t really what she would call pain.

“Good.”

“Good? I would have thought you’d want to hurt me. I haven’t forgotten what you said.”

Seungcheol took a deep breath, and said: “I want to apologize for what I said during breakfast that morning, and for not believing you when you reported your maid the first time. I have made some mistakes with you...”

“I know you’re only saying this because you don’t want me to tell my father.”

“In all honesty, yes.”

“I won’t tell him. You don’t have to fake your care for me anymore.”

Seungcheol finished applying the ointment at this point and wiped his hand with a handkerchief that was in his pocket,

“I’ll come to your bed when you recover,” Seungcheol told her. “I want to consolidate the marriage once and for all and get it over with. Please be prepared.”

“Okay.”

“And if anyone else hurts you in this castle, report to me immediately. I’ll believe you.”

“What if you hurt me?”

“I won’t hurt you. I already told you this a thousand times…”

“But that’s hardly reassuring. If your country’s well-being wasn’t tied to mine, then you would hurt me.”

“Wrong. If my country's well-being wasn’t tied to you, I wouldn’t have even married you in the first place,” he replied, silencing Yewon for a long while.

Seungcheol stood up, getting ready to leave before Yewon remembered she had something to ask him.

“Prince Seungcheol,” she called out to him before he turned to the door.

“Yes?”

“Are you the one who sends the bread?”

"What?” Seungcheol responded, clearly unaware of what she was talking about.

“Never mind,” she said quickly. “It’s nothing.”

Seungcheol didn’t inquire further, and he left without another word.

It would be a lie to say that she was not just a little disappointed when she confirmed her initial suspicion that it was not him who sent the bread. She had never expected it to be him, but somehow, there had been hope before: hope that maybe there was more to Seungcheol than the coldness that he shows her.

But now, she realized that she was too caught up with the fantasy of a romantic partner in a husband. Seungcheol was not hiding any compassion behind that icy façade.

-

When her back recovered enough to be able to wear proper clothes again, visitors started coming in. These included the Queen, Yulhee, some royal ladies, Soonyoung and eventually, Wonwoo.

“You must have a lot of questions…” he said as he sat on the chair beside her bed.

“I do actually, your highness,” Yewon emphasized.

Wonwoo scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

“You’re a prince.”

“Kind of…”

“What do you mean kind of?”

“I’m a prince, but not a royal prince.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m half royalty, half scum.”

“What?”

Wonwoo just laughed.

“Come on! Quit speaking in riddles!” Yewon urged, curious as ever.

“I gave you so many hints already though,” he teased. “You should have guessed by now!”

“Wonwoo!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you,” he said, still laughing at her eagerness to know. “I’m the King’s son, but not the Queen’s. I’m illegitimate,” he told her. Suddenly, things became so much clearer to her. She had known that the King slept around, but never considered that there were other children besides the three legitimate ones.

“I’m sorry I hid it from you earlier, but people tend to treat me differently when they learn this about me. I don’t like it. I’d rather be anonymous than be a King’s bastard.”

Yewon nodded, “I understand, your highness.”

“Please none of that ‘your highness’ formality,” Wonwoo winced when he heard it. “Just Wonwoo.”

“Okay, as long as you stop calling me ‘your highness’ and ‘princess.’ Just Yewon.”

“Deal,” Wonwoo replied with a smile.

A silence fell between them as Yewon processed the new information . She found that she had a question to ask: “would Seungcheol take mistresses like His Majesty does?”

Wonwoo turned to her thoughtfully and answered: “Seungcheol is not the kind of person to have a mistress, but he is not committed to loyalty or anything; that’s for sure.”

Yewon nodded in understanding.

“How would you feel if he does?” Wonwoo asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly with a shrug. “I finished the memoir, by the way,” Yewon told him, quickly trying to change the subject. “I loved it.”

And hence a long conversation about the memoir proceeded. For the first time ever, Yewon felt like she could say absolutely anything to this person. The conversation was without any restriction, without any reservation. Neither withheld anything for fear of what the other would think: they spoke about it in all its rawness, from the to the philosophy, from the physical arousal it induced to the profound questions it brought to contemplate.

-

Wonwoo visited her every day since then, and they quickly grew closer in their conversations about books and the reccomendations they exchanged. Although Yewon had initially only read his reccomendations because she wanted to have something to talk about with him, she eventually developed an interest in history through what she read because of him. And he genuinely seemed to enjoy some of the romance novels she made him read as well.

And being the girl that she was, she developed this uncontrollable and hopeless crush on her husband’s half-brother.

Why couldn’t he have been the one? Yewon thought often as she hopelessly began to think about him more and more everyday.

She often thought about an alternate universe in which Wonwoo were the heir to the throne, in which he were the one she got to marry. She would have been so much less depressed than she was. She might have even been happy.

His visits were one of two things that gave her joy, along with the daily dose of Galacian bread that came in every day which gave her a small taste of home. Yewon still had no idea who sent them though, and she decided she was not going to inquire further for fear it might stop.

Whoever was sending it to her, it was clear that he (or she?) did not want to reveal themselves explicitly. Why else would it be signed with ‘S’ and not a full name?

It was not Seungcheol; that much at least was clear. Whoever it was that was sending it to her wanted to appear to be Seungcheol though, and she wondered why.

-

Yulhee’s maid had starting to take care of Yewon in place of Sungyeon.

As it turns out, Solenese people do not bathe in scorching water; the dresses are not tightened to the extent Yewon had thought; their hair is not styled in a way that pulls at their scalp; they are not scrubbed until their skin turned red. Yewon felt like a fool for believing Sungyeon when she claimed that all of this painful grooming was “cultural” to Solen; it had been Sungyeon deliberately making it painful for Yewon as a form of revenge all along.

The story about Sungyeon had spread through Solen. A lot of it was exaggerated, but the people generally knew that Yewon had a maid who was out for revenge, who hurt the princess, but was now in the dungeons and will be soon trialed.

Both Wonwoo and Seungcheol were anxious about the story spreading. Yewon could tell from the way that Seungcheol’s stress level seemed to increase in the time when the story was gaining momentum, and by how Wonwoo would ask her if she heard anything from her father.

“I’ll write him and tell him that I’m okay,” Yewon reassured Wonwoo.

“Do you think he would attack if he found out the truth?”

“My father is irritable man, but he’s not reckless. He won’t do anything if I tell him I’m fine,” she answered, which seemed to reassure him a little. “And I won’t let him do it.”

Wonwoo smiled at her lightly after she said that: “you’re on our side, then?”

“If by ‘our,’ you mean Solen’s side, then of course not. I’m on the side of peace.”

“If that’s the case, then we are on the same side,” Wonwoo told her with a smile.

A/N: im sorry if you guys feel that this story is slow I cant help it sorrRY

Anyways a lot of you guessed about Wonwoo's illegitimacy. I want you all to try to guess about the person who sends the bread. Yes it is someone who has appearred in the story; THAT'S ALL I'M SAYING :)