Dara woke up crying. Jaejoong was holding her in his arms, his face full of concern.

"Dara, are you alright? I have been trying to wake you up since the moment I heard you shouting in your sleep."

She looked up at Jaejoong's face. She saw there what she wanted to see. But was it real? Even if what Jaejoong felt for her now was real, that didn't make the last words of the Oracle a lie.

"Did the Oracle enter your dreams again? What did she say this time to upset you this much?" he demanded an answer.

She didn't need to read his mind or see the future to know what Jaejoong would say to her if she told him about the Oracle's taunts.

But his words would not mean a thing. He could not change their society. His words would not change who he is and what she is. Maybe someday, a commoner like her could marry a prince but not during her lifetime. Such traditions had been so ingrained in their society, it wouldn't change overnight. And love would never be enough reason for that to change.

"Talk to me, Dara!" he insisted. There was now anger and frustration in his voice.

She slowly shook her head. "You can't do anything about this, Jaejoong. Only I could solve this problem."

"You just don't cry for no reason. Your tears only come when something terrible happened to you or will happen in the future."

She controlled her emotions.

"It's still in the future, Jaejoong. It could still be changed."

"Tell me."

"The Oracle said..." she took a deep breath to control her feelings, "you are going to die."

"She's been saying that since I was eighteen." A smile appeared on his face. "In fact, when you were still the Wisdom incarnation of the Oracle, you also kept telling me I am going to die, that I should die and if my memory serves me right, you also ordered that I be burned alive on a funeral pyre." He gently wiped the tears on her cheeks with the back of his hand. "I defied the odds and continued living. So, if she's spouting the same nonsense about me dying, then I am going to prove her wrong again."

The other part of the Oracles' prediction remained clea