Two days later, Hansol told her that Wonwoo was now resting in his mother’s cottage in the village. Apart from the wounds on his body (which were being treated), Wonwoo was alive and well. The plan had succeeded with minor difficulty, and Wonwoo was safe.

Yewon was able to confirm that Hansol was telling the truth when he revealed that Wonwoo was occupying himself by reading a book that his mother owned. Hansol hadn’t been aware of Wonwoo’s erudition, and so he could not have made that up just to trick her.

Yewon never wanted to hug a guard so badly. Finally, after days of pain and stress, she had some relief, however small that relief was in the scheme of things.

She came to the conclusion that Hansol truly was an angel when he made yet another offer: “There’s a shipment to Solen every month. My family makes metal and sends craters there to trade. I can easily smuggle Wonwoo into one of the craters, and he’ll be on the next ship to Solen,” Hansol revealed to her.

Hansol was almost too good to be true. She felt so blessed in that moment, so extremely lucky to have come across him in a time when everything seemed absolutely hopeless.

This time, she did not doubt him at all. She knew almost nothing about him, but she trusted him with all that she had. She nodded eagerly about sending Wonwoo back to Solen, and told him she would like to send letters with him as well.

“Why send letters when you can go with him, your highness?” Hansol asked her suddenly.

She eyed him curiously. She most certainly desired to go back, and now, with Wonwoo in hiding, she could do it without worrying about her brother killing him. Still, it was wrong to go back at a time like this, even if they managed to overcome all the technicalities of getting out of the palace and into the ship.

“I can’t,” she told him. “If I do, and Jun still wants to marry, he’ll marry Kyla and…”

“Then tell her not to marry him,” Hansol suggested easily. “No one can force anyone to get married if they don’t want to.”

Yewon dwelled on Hansol’s suggestion for a very long time. She had been afraid that Jun would marry one of her sisters, and so had felt the need to protect them by marrying him herself. She never really considered that they could protect themselves by themselves: they could all adamantly refuse to marry Jun, thereby not consolidating the alliance that would proliferate the war.

Jihoon did not have a hostage with which to coerce her sisters after all…

-

She spoke to her sisters the following day.

She had been afraid of talking to them, for they were not nearly as defiant as she was, but she had to have their cooperation if she was going to carry out this plan. She had to make sure they wouldn’t marry Jun; she had to make sure this alliance does not happen under any circumstance.

And so, for the first time while she was back in her country, she opened up to them.

She told them about Jun and what he did to her and what he said he would do to Kyla. She told them he was a horrible man who would make a vile husband, and she told them she was going to refuse to marry him.

“Don’t be stupid!” Kyungwon responded to her with a frown. “Bad man or not, this is for Galacia’s sake...”

And so Yewon countered that and told her what was really going to happen. This fight that Jihoon and their father were waging is for glory and not for peace, for wealth and not for stability, for destruction and not for order.

“But Solen deserves it…”

Her sisters were thinking about this conflict from an entirely different paradigm. A paradigm of enmity and opposition, a polarizing schema with two sides: ours and theirs. Solen was the “other,” the adversary, and the adversary is always quintessentially evil.

Yewon herself had been trapped within such a paradigm when she first came to Solen, but being around Solenese people, befriending them, understanding them, loving them– she was able to see things that none of her sisters could now see.

And she knew she couldn’t reverse their thinking immediately. It’s a long process to unlearn all the prejudices they had acquired over a lifetime. She couldn’t appeal to any sympathy they had for Solen, for they had none, but she could appeal to the sympathy they had for her.

She remembered a piece of advice that Soonyoung had given her during their last night together. Pretend that you love him. Everyone believes in love.

Although such advice might not work with her father, it may just work with her sisters. And so, that is what she did; she told them she was in love with Prince Seungcheol of Solen, and she could not bear the thought of destroying something which was so valuable to him: his country.

“For this past few days, I’ve considered killing myself because I wanted the marriage plan to fall apart,” she revealed honestly. She opened up about the psychological and emotional damage she was experiencing because of it, and how she can only have relief is she got their guarantee that they would not marry Jun under any circumstance.

And, to her tremendous relief, they agreed.

-

Every day Hansol would smuggle a piece of an extra guard uniform he owned into the palace, and Yewon would hide it under her bed (where all the romance novels were stored). In a few days, she had the complete uniform.

She wrote a letter to her father, which she gave to Hansol to leave at his door a day after the ship left the port.

In it, she wrote the following:

My dearest father, Your Majesty King of Galacia,

I have made the decision to oppose you. I am running away and hiding so that I can escape this marriage with Prince Jun. I’m sorry if this means I humiliate you in front of a powerful ally. I’m sorry if I made you ashamed of me.

I won’t tell you where I am for now, but please know that I am okay. I am fighting for what I believe is right, and this alliance with China is not right.

Please never doubt my love for Galacia, your Majesty. I make this decision out of love.

Sincerely,

Your daughter, Princess Yewon of Solen.

-

It was surprisingly easy being smuggled out of the palace. In a guard uniform in which her face was hidden behind a metallic helmet, she trailed behind Hansol through the gates, not being stopped by any guard or general, who simply glanced her way and let her leave.

Hansol seemed very confident that this would work, and it was only when she asked him why he didn’t look nervous that he suddenly looked nervous.

“Your Highness… I’ve done this before,” he answered her honestly, “with your sister.”

She didn’t ask anymore. Whatever it was that was going on between her sister and this guard, she didn’t want to get between it.

She kept the helmet on as she walked through the roads of the village. It was all a new experience for her, for she had rarely ever left the confines of the palace, and when she did leave, it was in royal carriages. To actually walk on the cobblestone roads and feel the snow melt beneath her shoes was new. To see the common people up close, the poor and the old, the dirty children chasing one another, the women putting up clothes to dry, the sweaty blacksmiths forging swords, the local bakers and the sweet-smelling bread.

Hansol finally stopped at one cottage. He knocked on the door once before opening it and beckoning her inside. She entered, and the first thing she saw was Wonwoo, sitting on the floor next to a fireplace with a book in his hand.

A/N: so I may not post a chapter next week… it depends on a lot of things including how much work I get done and also how emo produce101 s2 episode 2 makes me...

BUT, after I finish courses (in 2/3 weeks) I will get back to posting twice a week, so look forward to that! :)