Perhaps the only link between her and her husband is their sheer pride that drives them to take action. Goryeo has long crumbled underneath the vines of corruption. The power her female kin once held faded into the distance of cherished memories. Yet she persists on living to spite the man she called her husband.

She’s no longer the young girl, fresh-eyed and all eager to jump into the pool of politics. She’s not the girl who joins hands with the boy with the will to move the land of Goryeo.

Sometimes, when Da-Gyeong closes her eyes, with only the sound of her own breath to accompany at night, she dreams of a different future. One that she’s a simpleton, daughter that sticks to the convention her mother spent years inducting but failed. One where her husband is a man of a simple desire to live peacefully. Not the boy that haunted her slumbering nights.

There are times, she dreams of a time where Boon-Yi accepts her offer, becomes Bang-Won’s concubine. In that dream, Yi Bang-Won never takes anymore concubine. That her bed still retains his warmth, despite he frequents Boon-Yi’s bed. He still returns to her. And Da-Gyeong thinks she would have liked that.

And perhaps, just perhaps, Da-Gyeong wishes she would wake up to a sun that warms her old bones, to a moon that lights the skies as she sits quietly next to a husband that sees her like she’s the brightest star he’d seen. Another foolish dream.

No. As the sun hovers over the Joseon skies, she’s pulled back to an empty bed. She gets herself up, readying her mind and steels her resolve for another political battle that will only ends with her unshed tears.

He’s the king, holstering a sword ever ready to cut down his enemies. He sits on a throne paved by bloody hands. Even with the crown adorning Yi Do’s head, Taejong still keeps his iron claws around his son. Moves Do likes he’s merely a puppet. It tears her heart apart, but at least Do’s safe with his father’s protection.

She bears the weight of a crown that tied her to a life rife with tragedies and never ending heart aches.

She already seen a son deposed.

That child she nursed, now lives with his reputation disgraced. Set to wander across Joseon’s land as a commoner. His nobility all striped, until he carries a name that disappears from the lips of Joseon’s subjects. Irony is that Yi Je had chosen to follow his late uncle’s footstep into infamy. Bang-Woo would have rolled in his grave in laughter, Wongyeong likes to think so.

Another son’s life hangs in balance.

Ministers called for a nation that breathes and lives with Confucius as their spiritual leader. Buddha is just another reminder of a dynasty that reeked of shame and a lifestyle doomed for failure. Now, her son – his flesh and blood – stands to lose his crown. Yi Bo has Bang-Gwa’s heart. A softness to let his brother shine, despite him being second-in-line. Does her husband detests that gentleness their son carries in his heart?

If Taejeong is not stepping up to protect the only son she has left from his vulture of ministers, she’ll do it herself. She’ll be Hyoryeong’s shield. Even if, it might cost her head. Her brothers are not here to protect him anymore.

Wongyeong spends her days shouldering the weight of giving her all to Hyoryeong’s efforts. Her muscles ache. Her knees wobbled at times. But that dark fog clouding her heart, leaves her with each day she lights an incense at Buddha’s altar.

She should have known better that her status as queen will not be enough to secure her health. Her body burns high. Her first fever in the many years she took the crown in her hands.

Her subjects need her. Yi Bo needs her. She will rise from the bed. Headaches and fatigue be damned.

“Queen Mother,” Soheon voices, her brows frown, “the Royal Physician recommends two days of rest. Your body is too weak,” she pours herbal tea into a cup.

A word of protest dies on Wongyeong’s dry throat, as Soheon cuts with a demure command, “Buddha will not be disappointed for the services you cannot give in your current state,” and softly adds, “Worry not, I will make sure brother-in-law will still receive my visit.”

Wongyeong’s lips curl into a small smile. Soheon may not be the woman Da-Gyeong was, but she is her own person, coming nicely to fill the shoes of a strong queen.

She relents. Drowning the cup empty. Drowsiness sweeping over Wongyeong’s weary body. Soheon wins this argument today. Her daughter-in-law promises for another visit.

“You have done enough, child. Let the Royal Physician worry about me. You have other affairs to settle.”

Soheon does not leave her side, until Wongyeong’s fast asleep. Sleep comes to her in lightest of sleep. Movements through her chambers she could still hear, awakens her. Through her hazy vision, she sees outlines of her sons, Sejong and Hyoryeong in the dark chambers of hers.

Two warring brothers setting aside their difference. Sejong wipes the sweat off from her forehead. Hyoryeong drains the handkerchief and passes it back to his younger brother. Working in tandem like they were not older than ten years of age. A time where neither son felt the burdens of being princes. Not when Yangyeong’s there to protect them both. Or Seongnyeong to make them laugh at his childish antics.

She keeps tightly sealed. Her words are not need now. Seeing her sons, harmonious silence suits them well. So she drifts back to sleep, only catching their synchronised respects, “Rest well, mother. We will visit you again tomorrow.”

“Has father visited her yet?” Hyoryeong questions. The door slides open. Their footsteps frozen to the floor.

Sejong sighs. “Father? It’s been years since they even stayed in the same room, without another screaming match broken.”

“He will not visit her then.”

“Perhaps, that’s for the best.”

“For both mother’s and father’s sake, I hope this will be the case.”

“I agree, brother.”

It’s back to hearing her own wheezy breath. The rain pelting heavily against the palace roof. She’s close to slipping into another dream, as the door slides open.

Heavy steps thud into the chambers. Not pairs of various legs. But footsteps of a singular visitor. That familiar deep sigh. Not Sejong’s. Not Hyoryeong’s. Yangyeong has long left the palace.

She risks a peek. That silhouette she’d not seen within her confines of her chambers since Seongnyeong’s untimely death. His robes drenched, water seeping to the floor. He be redolent of faint incense aroma, dark circles hanging beneath his eyes. His white socks soiled with wet mud.

“Have you come at the dead of night, seeking my forgiveness to absolve your sins,” she hisses, through gritted teeth and cracked lips, “or wishing to send me into an early grave?”

He stays silent. Or did he flinch at the words she hisses back at him? It’s hard to tell from the darkness of her chambers.

Nonetheless, she memorises his face. Especially his eyes. His eyes, dark and empty, gazes at her. It takes all her will not to squirm underneath those predator eyes.

“Have old age reduces you to a fool? Disobeying the king’s orders. Your body is not yours, but the nation’s,” he barks, not the usual high octave he reserved for her.

Question thrown, answers provided. None of which conveying the real words swirling in their minds. That much Wongyeong knows. His presence alone is a surprise in many ways she cannot explain.

She hacks a dry cough. He jerks a hand, then lets his hand falls back unceremoniously to his sides. Wongyeong pretends that her eyes failed to capture that fleeting movement.

“I am not your father’s wife,” is all she says. What she wants to say, I will not die easily. Repeat it long enough, eventually Da-Gyeong believes it anyway.

He pours tea for her. “Drink this.”

She regards the tea and her husband with cautious glance. The reversal of his usual tyrant self takes her by surprise again. He does not slam the tea cup at her refusal to accept it. He holds in between his callous hands.

“You are not. You are my wife. Reckless behaviour is unbecoming of you,” he directs, impassiveness intermingled with that rare gentleness of a man once a boy of Yi Seong Gye.

“Why do you care? If I die tonight or tomorrow, another political rival for you gone. Your Joseon’s safe from my meddling hands.”

He keeps his eyes set on the tea cup, a thumb brushing against the ceramic cup, “You are the queen.”

The finality of his sentence, as if it’s the only truth he knows and will accept, springs a thousand questions to her mind. It must be the fever. Her Taejeong only sees her as the mother of his children. Long gone the days he’d seen her as an equal. She has never been his Joseon’s queen. Not the one that matters to him dearly anyway.

“I am not,” and yet there’s this pettiness in her, that she couldn’t resist jabbing his mind with her mockery, to contradict every word, every sentence that he utters. “Soheon is. Just like her husband is the king.”

He bites his lower lip, to stop his words from leaving his mouth. The tea cup, he shifts to his other hand, and massages his forehead.

They don’t talk like they used to.

A conversation between civilised couple is not the conversation they both fall back when there are no foreign ears listening. It’s barbed tongues spitting out insults words wrapped with false congeniality.

Even as she lies on her bed, burning with fever, throat dry like a desiccated river stream, eyes too weak to stay open – Da-Gyeong’s mouth treats him with disdain. And so does he. Or is it all just her imagination? One can never be too sure of herself when she’s saddled with an illness.

“Our daughter-in-law is still green. She has none of your acumen to rule the inner court,” he simply retorts, the hard edge of bitterness coating his words is missing.

“She still in need of the guidance of a brilliant queen,” he adds, now sounding older, wearier than he actually is.

“Why do you even care?” Da-Gyeong repeats the question at this direction, not with spite or anger from their broken relationship. It’s a low whisper of genuine curiosity for a woman who has never seen the caring man her husband once was in over a decade. Knowing she could always blame her illness for the slip of tongue.

“You are my wife,” is the answer he murmurs, gruff and … affectionate, is she dreaming? Yes, Da-Gyeong is sicker than she makes herself out to be. Maybe years of her own sins slowly catching up.

“You need to drink this, wife.” It’s not a command. It’s a plea. It must be. His eyes are not that of a soulless man. It’s the only answer, she thinks. She’s tired, her brain races a million thoughts, none of which are making sense to her.

She takes the cup from his hand, gently wets and settles back into bed. Da-Gyeong half expects him to disappear into the night, leaving her alone again. As he had always done before.

“It’s best for you to return to your chambers, my husband. Your eunuchs surely advise against staying here too long.”

“Joseon will not crumble in a day. Sejong is king now. He can take care of the state matters.”

Instead he takes an extra mattress. Lays it by her side onto the floor. They do not talk. Not anymore. Not like old times. They turn to their sides, back facing each other. They stay in their respective mattresses. 

But Da-Gyeong sleeps easily, somewhat. And maybe, Bang-Won too.