When the news settled in Baekhyun’s mind steeled. He set his shoulders. Jongin met his eyes and an agreement was passed between them.

“I will be helping attend to my brother.” He announced without turning to face the assembly. “I leave these issues in the hands of the Crown Prince for the time being. But I will say this; I will not be separated from my mate. I love him.”

With that Baekhyun left the hall, followed by his best friend. They walked with heads held high until the door closed behind them. At that very instant they bolted to the prince’s delivery room.

He was ill prepared. Of course they had been planning to overthrow their father, but for everything to come so quickly and all at once . . . Jongin was ill prepared. His brothers had left just about everything up to him and he was not going to let them down.

In the midst of the chaos brought by Jun’s labor, the Crown Prince managed to get a message through to be delivered to Prince Sehun. A letter addressed to Chanyeol would be too suspicious. But he would have to continue as if he was alone.

And he wasn’t, really. Jongdae was an amazingly helpful in the ways he could be. Obviously he was being closely monitored, but the beta did his best to support Jongin covertly. 

They had been working to turn the council and the elders to their favor. Some of them were loyal to thing king for nefarious reasons and could be easily dealt with when they had achieved their greater goal. The vast majority had been derailed by the king’s blatant lie about Baekhyun. Most all of them believed the king would never go against his blessed son because it would be beyond difficult for him to win against the omega.

“It’s obvious that our King is looking for a reason to wage war on the Kingdom of the Mountain.” One official commented matter of fact-ly. 

“If he wanted a war, why send away his prized son?” Jongdae said nonchalantly. The council members present pondered a moment. “There’s an ironclad treaty between out two kingdoms. We’ll be inseparable socioeconomically in only a few years. Why wage war?”

He knew exactly why, he just needed them to realize it. 

“Perhaps he wants his bargaining chip back.” One of them said in a disgusted voice. “Queen Baekhyun was his mos