A move toward war.

After all of that pain and suffering, after everything that she had been though in Solen… was it really going to end up like this?

All she could do was sigh and lament the way that everything was turning out. She felt numb and useless; there was nothing she could do about any of this.

“Please stop telling me these things,” she requested softly.

Soonyoung narrowed his eyes and glared at her. She could tell by how he clenched his fists that he was unsettled by her lack of interest. He looked like he had a lot of to say to her but was holding his tongue.

“What?” she asked.

“So you don’t want to do anything about it?” he muttered under his breath.

“What can I do, Soonyoung? You’re the crown prince. You go back and stop it. I can’t do anything. I’m not even a princess anymore for crying out loud!” Yewon exclaimed.

“But I don’t want you to be a princess!” Soonyoung snapped. “I want you to be a queen. I want you to marry me!”

Yewon froze.

“Marry me,” he repeated more softly, this time gazing at her with gentle focus. “Please.”

“That’s… that’s crazy,” she stammered.

“Is it though? You asked me earlier why I’m here. Well, this is why, Yewon. I came to fulfill my brother’s will and make you Queen of Solen.”

“I… I can’t, Soonyoung,” she managed. “I wish I could, but I can’t.” She really meant it. Just considering it for a split second made her feel sick to the stomach– remarrying, going back to Solen, living in the country where her husband had died, getting involved in politics again, dealing with the people who killed her husband, carrying the responsibility of an entire country on her shoulders. She couldn’t do it, and she didn’t want to do it.

Soonyoung was clearly very upset by her refusal. “Just think about it,” he pressed. “Please, Yewon. I can’t just go back to Solen and claim the throne like this. The royals kill me without a second thought! I need you by my side to give me the power to overtake them.”

“How will marrying me do anything for you? I’m not even a princess anymore. Marry one of my sisters­. They’re prettier anyways, and they have better reputations too, and–”

“You really don’t know, do you?” he cut her off, narrowing his eyes at her.

Yewon looked at him quizzically. “What?”

“Just go to Solen, and you’ll see it immediately,” Soonyoung stated.

“See what?”

“Your reputation,” Soonyoung answered. “Yewon, no one has a better reputation than you in Solen. The people idolize you. Maybe in Galacia, people think you’re a defector and a or whatever, but in Solen, you’re like a… a legend.”

Yewon really did not know that.

He further explained: “It took a while, but your stories have spread among the people, and everyone knows you. Now, there are thousands of anecdotes about you; many of them are exaggerated or untrue, but the point is that people in Solen love you very much.”

Soonyoung explained that he had spent some time among the villagers after his life in the cave, and so he had heard the stories and saw how much people exalted her. He told her that everyone knew how she pardoned the maid who hurt her and showed mercy, and how she saved Solen from ruin by standing up to the King of Galacia and refusing to marry the prince of China, and how she stowed away in a ship and saved Wonwoo’s life, and how she sacrificed her hair, and how she worked in a hospital and took care of sick patients. Those patients apparently also shared stories about their experiences with her, and all of those stories also circulated.

“Oh, and the hostages too!” Soonyoung recalled. “You remember the hostages, right? The ones that your father set free because of you? They were all knighted, and that gave them a lot of power and influence among the public; they all feel like they owe their life to you. You see, Yewon, the people of Solen will rally behind you, and if you and I are together, they will rally behind us. That’s why I need you.”

Yewon was blank by the end of this. It was overwhelming information by which she was both burdened and extremely flattered.

The fact that so many people loved her in country that had once hated her… it was unreal. At the same time, she felt the heaviness of the responsibility that this love and trust of the people had now bestowed upon her.

“You’ve built something quite amazing, Yewon,” Soonyoung continued, noticing how her lower lips were beginning to tremble and how she was starting to give in. “You now have a country that not only respects and obeys you, but a country that loves and idolizes you. That in itself gives you more power than any King ever had. Even the royals will not be able to do anything if you have the support of the masses. And this is why I need you. If I go alone, without you, what’s going to stop them from killing me like they did to Seungcheol?”

He left her with that thought for a while, and in that silence, it all came together. There was nothing to even think about; it was clear that this was something she had to do, whether she liked it or not.

“I’ll ask you again,” Soonyoung said under his breath, facing her nervously. “Would you marry me?”

Yewon could only nod her head brusquely unable to talk from all the welling emotions building inside her. She was well aware that this nod implicated her in something from which she had dearly hoped to stay as far away as possible. Hard as she tried to lay low of politics, she was now back in the crossfire with no hope of turning back.

She had to go through with it– for the sake of Yulhee, who could otherwise be forced against her will to marry a monster; for the sake of Soonyoung, who needed her espousal to go back and reclaim the throne; for the sake of Solen, that was now reigned by a power-hungry dictator; for the sake of all the potential victims in the conquests that said dictator was planning to launch…

For the sake of Seungcheol, who had always, always wanted her to be the Queen of his country.

-

Letter #9

Dearest Yewon,

I’m a cynical man who rarely ever believes in others. I think that there are very few truly good people in this world. You are one of them, of course, but this letter will be about someone else. He’s deeply flawed but still a very good person despite those flaws. Maybe you’ll be surprised, but I believe that our Soonyoung is one of the best people.

Soonyoung hasn’t let politics get to his head. He doesn’t want power or honor, and he doesn’t care about asserting himself over others. You can see that in the way he treats servants– like they’re his equals. It’s why the servants adore him; they don’t feel like servants around him.

And unlike most men, he doesn’t want to dominate a woman, and you probably can attest to that. I think that’s why it’s so easy for him to get them to agree to sleep with him. That’s why he gets so much love from them. He doesn’t let his elevated position or his masculinity get to his head, and he treats others with dignity.

I aspire to be like him in that regard, completely unmoved by my status as a wealthy, privileged, powerful, male prince. I want to be able to treat a servant like he or she is no different from me. I want the servants to be able to call me a friend. But it’s hard to do that sometimes, to be honest.

When I ordered Soonyoung’s exile, that was my passion interfering with my politics again. I was angry at the thought of you with him, angry at how he probably made you feel, angry that I might not ever make you feel the same way because I’m crippled. I didn’t want him around you anymore, and so I exiled him. I tried to justify it back then, telling myself that I’m doing to it to help him, but now that I think back on it, I did it because I felt threatened by him. Add exiling him to the long list of things I regret in my life.

I have a lot of jealousy in my heart for you, your highness. Soonyoung, Wonwoo, Minghao, and even Seungkwan – I feel threatened by all of them, because all of them are better than me in a lot of ways. I suppose I should learn to control these emotions, because they can be dangerous. I exiled Soonyoung, fired Wonwoo, threatened Minghao, and almost fired Seokmin because of them. Now that I think about it, I really am a jerk, aren’t I? I hope you know that I am trying very hard to change that, because I want to be worthy of you.

With love,

Seungcheol

A/N: next chapter coming very soon! (and sorry I was late with this chapter– life got in the way, as it always does!)