"Umuni, I have come to see you." Seulgi bowed to her mother who was breathing weakly on her sick bed. The Empress opened her eyes when her wife tapped on her shoulder lightly, Seulgi lowered her head when the Empress looked at her. 

"What brings you here?" The Empress asked weakly and sat up with the help of the queen. Seulgi remained kneeling on the ground and the Empress asked her to get up but Seulgi bowed forward instead. 

"Umuni, please let me marry Joohyun." Seulgi said, her breath hitting the cold ground and she could feel her mother staring at her.

The Empress looked at her wife and the queen nodded. "Seulgi, get up first." The queen said gently and Seulgi looked up slowly, heart pounding nervously against her ribs when her mothers looked at her without agreeing. 

"Seulgi, do you know who is she?" The Empress questioned, clinging onto her wife's arm for support. 

Seulgi nodded firmly once. "Please let me marry her, umuni." 

"She is a servant, Seulgi." The Empress said through her gritted teeth. Seulgi knew that her mother would lose her cool soon if she insisted but she had no choice. 

"Umuni, I am happy with her. Do you not want to see me being happy?" Seulgi asked boldly, looking down on the ground instead of meeting her mother's sharp eyes despite her illness. 

The Empress closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. She was to blame that Seulgi was a stubborn one because Seulgi was her daughter. Seulgi had always gotten what she wanted when she was young because the Empress spoilt her too much and it was only the Empress to be blamed. 

"Seulgi-ah, don't talk to your mother like that." The queen scolded lightly and Seulgi clutched onto her robe at her side, anxious of what her mother would say next. 

"Do you really like her that much?" The Empress asked, opening her eyes to look at Seulgi with a softer gaze now. She shook her head when Seulgi nodded quickly. "You won't leave today if you don't get my blessing, will you?" 

Seulgi nodded slowly in fear because her mother's face was straight and she bit her lip when the Empress stood up to walk in front of her. Her mother had never hit her, was she going to hit her now? 

"Alright." 

It surprised Seulgi. 

She looked up with wide eyes at her mother who was looking down at her amiably and holding out her hand for Seulgi. Seulgi gave a huge smile to her mother and took her mother's hand as she stood up. "Thank you, umuni." Seulgi hugged her mother carefully. 

"But on one condition." The Empress said after Seulgi pushed herself away. "You cannot let her hold too much power in the house. Soojung is your first wife." 

Seulgi nodded. Joohyun would not want to hold that much power anyway, she was not hungry for power, she just wanted to be with Seulgi. "I promise." 

The Empress looked at her daughter and started coughing violently after awhile, which scared Seulgi because her mother was coughing out blood clot. "Umuni..." Seulgi frowned and helped her mother to lie on her bed. 

"The physician asked me to prepare myself mentally for the worst." The queen choked on her words as she patted her wife's chest gently to help her stop the coughing. The Empress panted heavily after a cough attack and Seulgi had just realised that her mother was dying. She dropped to her knees beside the Empress' bed and held onto her mother's hand. 

"Umuni..." Seulgi brought her mother's hand to her cheek and she rubbed her cheek against it as she looked sadly at her mother who was still heaving. "Stay strong." Seulgi whispered and felt a tear rolling down her cheek which the queen helped her to wipe it away. "I will stay here tonight to take care of you." Seulgi said and the queen could only smile in sorrow when her wife was suffering alone.

The next morning, the Empress called her two other daughters into her room to have a family talk where everyone was around. The queen shook her head at her two biological daughters who were good-for-nothing basically and she helped the Empress up.

"Unnie." Seulgi greeted her two sisters who did not have the mood to show her attitude as their mother was terribly sick. They just nodded at Seulgi and went to greet the Empress.

"Miyoung-ah... Hyoyeon-ah..." the Empress coughed a little after calling them. Seulgi knelt down beside her sisters too as the Empress talked to them. "Seulgi is your sister no matter what. The two of you must always bear that in mind. If she needs your help in the future-" the Empress started coughing again and Seulgi clenched her fists because she felt painful to see her mother suffering. "You must not hesitate to help her. Stand with her. Don't make her stand alone." The Empress quickly said and drank the tea when the queen served her. 

Despite the fact that the two sisters disliked every bit of Seulgi, she was indeed their youngest sister who had done nothing wrong other than being smarter than the two of them. They nodded obediently to their mother and the Empress reached out to them to take their hand. "I am counting on you." The Empress smiled and hugged her daughters. Seulgi watched quietly and she stood up when her mother smiled at her as well. "You may leave now. I have something to talk about with Seulgi." 

The two sisters bowed to their mothers and left quietly without gossiping this time, because they were aware that their mother was not being too well now. 

Seulgi walked forward to her mother's bed and the Empress asked her to sit on her bed which Seulgi did. "You are aware of what Minister Yoon is doing which is good. I have always wanted to warn you but I thought it would be good to only tell you when you're older. But I guess..." the Empress smiled sadly. 

"You'll live long, umuni." Seulgi frowned. 

"I wish." The Empress laughed weakly. "The government... the ministers... they are divided into two. But thankfully, majority still stay loyal to us." 

"I have a list of the people who are under Minister Yoon." Seulgi told her mother. 

The Empress smiled proudly at her daughter even though she left with not much strength. "You did it without my help. Good." 

"But umuni-" 

"Minister Yoon's family is very powerful and also very corrupted." The Empress said. "Her mother, the late Minister Yoon once added hemlock (poisonous herb) into your grandmother's food to kill her." 

"Then why let her stay in the government?" Seulgi asked, slightly angry at the cunning act against her grandmother. 

"We did not have a solid proof that her mother was the one behind it. A scapegoat took the blame and we could only have her executed." The Empress sighed. 

"Wh-what do I do? What if Minister Yoon poisons me too?" Seulgi gulped, her palms getting damp at the thought of being killed in the ugliest way. 

The Empress shook her head. "You can only prevent it from happening, my sweetheart. You have to secure the throne, the kingdom belongs to the Kang." 

What Seulgi needed the most was a hug and the sentence 'everything's going to be alright' but she knew that things would not go smoothly. She did not want to be a crown princess at all, she was born into this. But she had been taught since she was young that she needed to hold the responsibility even if it meant she would ascend the throne at eight or nine. 

"Y-Yes, umuni." 

Seulgi walked back to her house with a tired body after taking care of her mother last night and Soojung stood up quickly when she saw Seulgi stumbling into the m