“Leave!”she ordered to the royal court that was following her everywhere. “What do you think?”

I took my time. There was a difference between the room we were in there and then and the room we shared for a year. Not only that it seemed such a distant memory, but the feeling was different by heart. I was to help her gain  total control over the court and she was going to help me get revenge on her brother without even knowing. The guts he had!

“I need to rest,”I answered, limping towards the double bed under the canopy.

I lay down on my left side, letting her face my back. I was trying to get the words in my head in a proper order. We needed a plan if we really wanted to succeed.

“What are you doing?!”

“Just stay put!”she pushed me on the mattress, making my words get lost in the pillow as I felt her fingers hanging on my clothes, lifting them.

“No, really now! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I lifted my face from the pillow as I felt her fingers going over my wounded back skin.

“Stop being a cry-baby already and don’t move!”she laughed as her finger felt strangely cold on my skin and over my wounds. “This is a treatment my personal physician prescribed to you. He said that it will calm down the pain and it will help you to recover faster,”she continued as her fingers touched my wounds gently, pouring the strange, cold treatment over them.

At some point, I think I fell asleep, ‘coz I didn’t feel her fingers moving on my back anymore. But then, something soft and warm touched my shoulder…

“I’m sorry, Jong Woon, for all the scars I gave you till now… I’m sorry.”

♃~✵~♃

“I heard that General Yesung is back.”

“You heard that right.”

“You’ve fallen that hard, sister?”

“I beg your pardon?!”

“You’ve gone so far to cover all of this and begged him to help you? That’s really low, you know that Ae Ri?”

“And what you’re doing is not, huh?”

How could she maintain her calm posture? ‘Coz I one could feel my blood boiling in my veins just by hearing that guy’s voice! And yet, her voice was so calm and indifferent to his words!

“What should I say? Guilty! But let’s get serious here, Ae Ri,” I could practically hear him chuckling as he was standing in front of her, looking al defiant, “haven’t you head the people’s voice? They don’t wish to be led by a woman! They need a man to represent them, to give them laws, to punish them, to comfort them! Not a woman! And now that the king is ill, there’s nothing you can do to keep that away from the people. And what do you their reaction will be when they’ll find out that their queen has been lying to them all this time?”

“You haven’t changed one bit, Jun Hyung,”I finally pushed the door open and entered the room. “But seeing you acting like this towards the queen of our nation that happens to be your sister as well, pains me,”I moved my hand over the place where my hea