The wedding celebration, a step below the usual celebration gracing the merriment of Haedong Gapjok’s successful political alliance, fitting for a disgraced nobleman's daughter. Simple and small. It doesn’t bother Da-Gyeong as much as it bothers her mother.

She is not her sister. Not the girl growing up to waiting to be married off as a man’s wife. She has been different. Wanted more than just another person’s wife. Another person’s mother.

She’d staved marriage until it couldn’t be delayed any longer. Rumours accelerating their wedding date to cover up constructed shame. Here in the courtyard, she seals her fate to Yi Bang-Won legally.

It is a good political move. And a good player always keeps few good cards hidden in her sleeve.

In this foreign room, underneath Yi Seong-Gye’s roof, she begins a new phase. A married woman.

The boy. Her groom. Her husband blows the candle out, pulling his hair piece.

She clears , calmly informs him, “I will not consummate our marriage.”

Sure, the tides favour Yi Seong-Gye and his family now. The sea is vast and fickle at times. The future of this family is obscured by mist of uncertainty. She could predict the flow, but the flow doesn’t always adhere to the rigid rules of accuracy.

“Under the direction of your family and the authority of the Dodang is decided, I have no thoughts of bearing your child. They will do their best for your family and success, but if something goes wrong for the Min family of Hwangryeo, they will abandon me.”

Her explanation stuns him briefly, then he sets his features into a mask of expressionless. Part of her wonders, if this is his real face or just another wall he erects to protect the real him.

“I know that you are surprised by my words—”

He cuts her off with ease, “Then, sleep well. I will sleep on that side.”

“Look here,” tumbles out un-gracefully from her lips. His words that catches her unprepared. Again.

What is it she wants to say? Don’t you have questions?

Or what is it she wants him to do? Asserting his authority as husband? Fight her on her conditions? Confusion swirling on the edge of her lips, clogs with scattered thoughts.

“There’s no use in saying that. I understood what you said. I will work hard so that you will not be abandoned by the Min family of Hwangryeo.”

Was that a careless promise? Is he saying that to please her ears? Tiredness. Resignation. Those two tones aren’t fitting for a boy who fought hard to gain her clan as allies.

His eyes barely spare her a thoughtful glance. Definitely not the usual stares she gets from men, of ones that shows them awestruck by her beauty (yes, she’s well aware of her other asset).  It stings her pride.

“You can sleep two feet away on that side,” he adds as an afterthought, before retiring for the night.

As she lies next to him at two feet of a distance, listening to his even breaths, her mind swirls into a land of its own. Shifting through memories, replaying the first time they met each other.

He has the potential. To reach new height if he sets his mind to it. It’s inevitable. His name will be prevalent, though the kind of history his name leaves behind – shrouded by dark fog.

For now, Da-Gyeong could neither guess nor assume. Whispers of the words ‘infamy’ and ‘magnificent’ linger in her ears, as she to drifts to slumber.