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It is the coldest winter Joohyun has ever experienced in her sixteen years of existence.

It seeps into the rooms, bringing with it chill and desolation. Frost constantly tinges the trees, and glazes structures outside. Snow, once deemed beautiful and magical, is now met with utter irritation. And the chill reaches the people too—not just physically (she’s especially careful not to go out carelessly these days, not after one of the servant girls came in with a severe case of frostbite.), but mentally too. Her people are more austere, more short-tempered than usual.

Men in her father’s court come in, day and night. Joohyun never knows what is going on. Children aren’t allowed in when there are important matters to discuss. She doesn’t mind, but she knows her brother does—the direct heir to their father’s lands and title—and so many years younger than her; too young to understand.

“Jaehyun, please.” Joohyun implores of her brother as he sulks in his quarters. She sits calmly across the low table, his tutor not far off fidgeting at the side. He had begged her to come to his quarters, as he had put it, “The little lord refuses to do his sums.”

“Why should I do it? He is a servant.  He should do my bidding.”

He crosses his arms petulantly, and Joohyun frowns, at the condescending tone used. He must have been terribly upset—and still is, as Joohyun can clearly see—at the straight out refusal to let him play as he usually does in their father’s court, making an additional hour of study. She knows it must irk sorely to be pushed away, when you are so used to getting what you want.

“I’m sorry father didn’t let you in. But you know there are important people coming in these days. He is busy.”

“I’m his heir!” He shouts, slamming his scrawny fist against the table, enough to make the ink bottle wobble, and the scrolls to quiver. Her frown deepens at the beginnings of the tantrum, and at the corner of her eye, she sees his tutor quiver. “I should know what is going on! Why doesn’t he let me?”

“You’ve barely reached eleven years.”

“I’m not!” Jaehyun screams, and then he blinks and realizes his mistake. “I mean I know. But that doesn’t—“

Joohyun sighs, cutting him off. Men with grim faces have been lurking around the castle for the past month, and she hopes that this little scene would not reach their ears (she thinks it will as thin wooden walls can only do so much), however amusing it may be. It would not do to see the son of their liege lord throw a tantrum over a missed play hour. That would be embarrassing. Even more so if their father hears about it. And Joohyun finds that winter has taken away her endless patience for these kind of things.

“Tutor Lee.” She turns to address the tutor, a kindly man (yet a bit of a push-over, and on another note, leaning more on the pudgy side. Joohyun could practically see the effects of the hard winter on his usually rambunctious bouncing belly.). He sits up in acquiesce. “See to the studies of my brother. Use the stick if you must.” He nods rapidly, murmuring yes my lady and of course my lady. Jaehyun starts shouting and threatening to knock over the table. She ignores him.

Bunching her skirt up, she carefully stands up.

Her brother’s eyes widen when the tutor nears, and with a complete change of attitude, he starts begging and bawling his eyes out. Joohyun sighs again, and she turns to leave, ignoring her brother’s pleas of I’m sorry, and the wails—only to be broken by whimpers that came after a whistle and a crack. She leaves in silence, through the door.

It is, in one of these moments, that Joohyun wishes their mother was still alive.

She’d know what to do with him—with them actually—and Joohyun curses the illness that took her far too early from their family.

She supposes the concubines are good enough. Some are kind, even motherly to them, but there are others too who she knows not to be trusted. They vye for the power they’d never have, but make do with the jewels her father gives them—satisfying them enough to only look at his true-born children with envy. Nothing more. Besides, the guards would not hesitate to snuff out their life with a single swish of their swords, should anything happen to the lord and lady of the castle.

“Why didn’t he let my brother in?” Joohyun quietly contemplates out in the halls (though half-knowing the answer herself, there must have been an important meeting involved), pausing to draw her woolen cloak closer. Hearth fires do little to warm the halls, and Joohyun longs to run to the warm confines of her own quarters. But she refrains from doing so, knowing that once she enters, her time for idle chat would be over, and she’d be made to listen to Lady Song drone on and on about etiquette for high-born ladies.

“Do you know anything?” She turns to Park Sooyoung who had been waiting dutifully outside for her. A daughter of a court adviser, and a renowned gossip-monger amongst her ladies-in-waiting, Joohyun is certain she will get something out of her.

They halt in a deserted juncture. Joohyun watches Sooyoung swivel her head around—to make certain that no one is nearby—and she leans in, overlooking all airs of grace and respect set between their social classes. Her eyes are wide, and her expression so serious, that it makes Joohyun nervous. She is used to seeing an amiable smile set on her soft face.

“Talk is, there’s been trouble brewing by the river lands. The lords there have risen against us, and there’ve been skirmishes by the boundary.” She whispers quickly and quietly. A true gossiper knows the art.  

Joohyun gasps at the news, and then gulps. “What do they hope to achieve? They’re not—You don’t think they’re trying to overthrow us, do you?” Dating back to more than a hundred years, their family has held the seat of power in the central plains. No one has ever usurped them. She tries to think of the river lords, yet her mind draws a blank. She doesn’t think that they have a direct alliance with them, as she’s never seen one lord—or even a representative of the sort— from the towns by the river in their castle, more so in court. And she can’t recall who their liege lord is.

Was it Park? Or Song? No, that can’t be right. Those are common names of families—political dynasties—who reside in the mainland.

Yet, Joohyun has heard of tales of those towns who have been pillaged and plundered. Lords put to the stake. Ladies and murdered. Children taken away to be made into slaves. Immediately, Joohyun regrets ever being horrid to her brother.

 Fear grips her heart. She her lips. “I don’t know,” Sooyoung confides. “But I’ve heard my father saying that more men are leaving to war, rather than returning. And just the other day, I passed by the lord’s court, and men were debating whether to give it or not.”

“Give—give what?” Joohyun asks nervously, and then a thought struck her so suddenly, that she could feel sweat building on her palms despite the chill. “Is it us? Are they asking for hostages of war?”

No, it can’t be. Jaehyun is too important, too precious to even be a hostage—given that he is the successor to their father’s line. And Joohyun, well. Father loves me, doesn’t he? He’d never give me away. I’m too precious. I’m his little flower .The jewel of the palace, he said so himself.

 Sooyoung shrugs helplessly, and Joohyun is struck with the temptation to shake her senseless until she gives the answers she wants to hear.

“I—“

A servant runs breathlessly to them, bowing respectfully to Joohyun. This effectively halts their conversation, and Joohyun straightens up. “My lady, I-I’ve received orders from the lord himself for you and your brother to remain in your quarters. It-it’s an urgent matter.” The boy is flushed, and Joohyun gives him a once over. Rumpled clothes (stained at that), windswept hair, and a complete disregard for proper castle etiquette. Serving boys have better manners than him. A stable boy, he must be. Or a scullery lad.

On any day, she’d sniff away in disdain, and send him off to be punished by whoever held accountable for him. But times must have grown lean enough if lowly servants are sent to deliver messages to nobles.

A thousand questions bloom within Joohyun, desperate to know why she is to be confined—imprisoned—in her quarters. A dart of fear passes through her, but she manages to nod stiffly, to convey that the message has been heard. The boy bows once again, and then he scuttles off to wing where they came from to deliver the same message to her brother.

Joohyun watches him go.

She walks the rest of the way to her quarters in silence. Sooyoung speaks no more, and the halls feel strangely desolate after the bearing of the news.

That evening, as she sups, Joohyun watches her brother eat. Vigorously, whilst chatting enthusiastically with Adviser Park, who never fails to indulge in the boy about his questions and harmless inquiries. Her eyes travel down to his blue silken sleeves, tinged with delicate golden patterns, and at the end of it where the cloth ends, she sees the marks that the stick made. Pale red slashes against skin as snowy as Joohyun’s.

Joohyun excuses herself, saying she is not feeling too well.

--

Lady Song tells her it is famine. Then she corrects herself, and says instead: a shortage of food.

 The winter sun glows through the windows, and Joohyun is grateful for the source of heat. This small improvement—after days of heavy clouds and dismal weather—allows Joohyun to gather the courage to ask about the state of the city. She expected Lady Song to tell her off, but she surprisingly didn’t.

“What do you mean? Does it have to do with the towns by the river?” Joohyun asks, but that must have been the wrong thing to say as the elder sharply looks up, a reprimand falls out of her lips (‘Ladies do not trouble themselves with the business of men!’), and no more answers are given. Joohyun doubts Lady Song knows much about it, after all, she has as much access to her father’s court as her ladies-in-waiting—which is to say, not much.

And so Joohyun tries to be patient as days pass, and longer hours are spent in the confines of her quarters. It doesn’t affect her much in anyway, although she misses going in and out of the various buildings situated in the castle as much as she please to. She makes do by spending hours sitting by the window; and amusing herself by freezing flowers from the castle’s indoor garden through the wintry air that drifts by, as she holds them up—one by one. She likes touching the hardened petals, afterwards. Though sometimes they fell off, and by then, she’d send a servant or a lady-in-waiting to fetch for another bouquet.

Her times grow idle, and Jaehyun’s temper grows shorter. Winter afternoons would not be complete if the lady could not hear the noise of quarrels and tantrums coming from the hall where her brother resides. She soon learns not to intervene after the third consecutive day of arguing between them, and from then on, Joohyun chooses to spend her time on other activities—chatting, sewing, learning her lessons—that would not take much energy off her body.

The fear that consumed her dissolves after a few days, and the complete