It was a story of two people… the son of a merchant and the daughter of a farmer.

They grew up together, played over fields and plains their families owned, swam in the stream that flowed outside the valley of their village, slept side by side under the shade of a large oak tree.

"I hope we can be like this forever, Sooyeon-ah,"  he whispered, watching the clouds drift overhead, the hawk silhouetted against the bright blue sky. "I can live like this forever."

I hope so, too, she thought, watching him drift off to sleep with a sigh, her first love under the shade of their oak tree. I want to live like this forever.

They stayed together until the day his family had to leave. He promised to return; she believed he would. In different cities, they grew up, apart. It would be years before they would meet again - a soldier and the daughter of a farmer.

It was on a field of daisies, on a sunny mid-summer afternoon.

"Many years have passed… " he told her, "but I never forgot you."

"Neither did I."

They spent their days together, like the years in between had never happened, like they were children again on that field of daisies, swimming in that clear, running stream, sleeping under that old oak tree. He picked flowers for her everyday - yellow as the sun, white as the clouds drifting in the noon sky. She took care of him, gave him food and drink after a long day of work.

They spoke of life, of love, of family. They promised themselves the future.

She held onto that promise, even after he went to war, even after he became a renowned general. He still sent her letters and flowers. Occasionally. He remembered.

And so began her wait, believing time would come when they would finally be together again, even after he rose to a position too high up for her to reach.

He invited her into the palace, her new home, sent her a letter explaining his position, along with a single flower to remind her of his promise.

And she waited some more. She washed and dressed women who were to be his brides, daughters of rich families, powerful and young, everything she was not. She helped birth children who were not hers. She watched them grow - fine, healthy, strong.

And then, one day, he came to her. His second son would soon succumb to illness, said the doctors; the first of his children to pass onto the next life. Only she could help, her king said, only she could make him remember… his promise. His duty.

She comforted him. When it was just the two of them, she could pretend they were young again, just two lovers stretched out on a field of daisies on a sunny, mid-summer afternoon. She would make him his favorite tea, serve him his favorite food, give him her body to hold on nights when he felt lonely, against the world.

But that happiness came with a price - his first wife's ire. "You are the father of my children,"  she cried, vexed and tortured by grief, "does your heart not bleed with mine over the loss of our son?"

"The kingdom's safety comes first,"  was his reply, "I am a king. I do what I must."

Unable to punish his new bride, his first wife turned to her… a mere court lady too lowly for anyone to notice, to remember. Anyone but the king. He left his quarters every night to be with her, and everyone knew. It was inevitable.

"Once he is born, we shall wed, " was his promise to his happy lady. "The threats are neutralized, the riots subdued. Silla is ours at last. Rest, my dear. There shall be nothing in this world that shall be denied to you."

Her wait was over. A promise long made, finally fulfilled. Or so she thought.

She bore her daughter weeks later, with perfectly formed fingers and toes, a small nose and a small mouth, and little ears on either side of a head no bigger than her mother's thumb. She had a heart that had stopped beating, lungs that never drew air, and eyes that would never open again.

Tea to help for the morning sickness , she was told. She did not know any better.

"Why?"  The queen's mockery only served to accentuate her pain, "I am his wife, a queen. I have borne him three of his finest sons. You are nothing but a court lady. Your dreams do not serve you."

And so she stopped dreaming. She stopped waiting. He advanced her from Senior Court Lady to Head Court Lady, a position she did not want.

"I will not let you go. We promised each other our lives."

She could not go against a direct order from her king.

The palace is hard to enter but even harder to leave. She finally understood it. She understood that she lived in a place that protected everything and everyone but the people within it. The palace, her prison.

Power is everything.

She began to live for herself, walked on thin ice, stayed away from the politics, buried her nose in volumes of ancient and modern texts. She could not help herself, but she could help others. People grew to respect her, her skill, her knowledge. She was not happy, not free, but she lived.

"His Majesty requests your presence ," the Head Eunuch announced, quietly, on an equally quiet morning.

He was weak, she knew, dying.

"I know you hate me."

She made no reply.

"It wasn't that I forgot you. It was that I couldn't have you. The kingdom needed a leader. I was the best choice."

She nodded, once, politely. "I understand."  She would not look at him; had not looked at him directly for years.

But he held her face in his palm, and her eyes naturally moved to his. She saw in them the same adoration from their youth, that same warmth that had made her believe in a promise long broken.

"I have grown old, weak, but you… you haven't changed at all,"  he whispered hoarsely, "you're still as beautiful as that field of daisies… Sooyeon-ah."

She pulled away, got up and kept her distance. "If His Majesty is thirsty, I will make more tea."

Her stomach churned at the memory of that bitter tea, taken every morning upon waking, every night before rest. She had never been the same afterwards.

"I tried to build a world where you and I could live together in harmony, where a king could freely marry the daughter of a farmer. I thought that with enough power, I would be able to do it and no one would oppose me. I thought Silla would be enough, and when it wasn't, I set my eyes on Later Baekje… but by then you had already moved on from me."

She returned with his tea, angry and hurt as she hadn't been in years. She thought she had moved on, but how could she? She could pretend but she could never forget. "Nothing you did could ever replace the life I had lost."

He sighed, held his cup, but did not drink. "She was not yours alone, Sooyeon-ah."

"But I was the only one who fought for her,"  her voice, low and dangerous, full of betrayal, "you knew it was your first wife, yet you did nothing. You let her go free."

"There was no proof that Queen Yoo had-"

Sooyeon turned away. She had heard this excuse before. She would not hear it again.

"Innocent,"  she spoke it softly, to the ghost of a pair of small ears that had stopped hearing a long time ago, "She was innocent… perfect. She did not deserve to die."

"I regret it more than anything."

She looked back at him. "Do you really?"

"I regret not doing enough to protect you. I thought the queen would be satisfied with hurting So, but her anger could not be quenched."

Do you regret what happened to him, too? she wondered silently, but her thoughts reached him.

"I regret it."  His son, their daughter. To have and keep the throne, he's had to throw away many things… his family most of all. "But I do not regret anything else."

He did not regret not punishing his first wife.

Sooyeon steeled her heart and her face, looked down and clenched her teeth together. She would never understand.

"To protect the kingdom is to protect my family. That is the most I can do. It may not seem like it… but everything I have done, I have done for you and Mu."  He closed his eyes to rest. He was tired… always so tired. The cup in his hand started to slip. She took it before it could clatter onto the floor.

She did not want to, but eventually she did see… she did understand.

"Oh sanggung."  King Hyejong, resplendent in his new royal robes, came to her one day, sad and weary, but smiling. "My father wanted you to have this."

It was a finely made hairpin of the highest quality jade and metals. Pure white lotus flowers adorned it's head. Rebirth. Reincarnation. A pure life.

"Someday, I hope you can forgive me, so that we may meet me again in the next life… Sooyeon-ah."

Why did you ask to be buried there, miles away from the family you spent your whole life to protect?  she had often wondered. Looking at the hairpin, she thought she knew.

He died without her beside him. "Your name was the last thing he said,"  King Hyejong told her softly. He died thinking of only her. "You have always been like a mother to me, sanggung, even before father became king. I know how much you have wanted to leave. I know… you are not well."

She looked at him, not quite believing her ears. Was he setting her free at long last?

He smiled and nodded. "My brothers and I will surely miss your skills, but I will not force you to do anything against your will. Should you wish to stay, you are more than welcome to. You will receive the best care, be given the best doctors and medicines. However, should you wish to leave, know that I will do what I can to aid you."

She had no friends, no family outside the palace, but she did not wish to stay. She wanted to go home… to where he was. She had no one else. King Hyejong informed his teachers and she was welcomed into Taehung.

She went everyday to the field of daisies that no longer bloomed, and sat for hours beneath the old oak tree that now overlooked his grave. At first she said nothing, thought of nothing and allowed the silence between them to stretch for miles. But as the years passed, she began to tell him all that had happened since his passing.

"News arrived this morning… your first boy has just died. Your third now sits on his throne."  She was certain he would be displeased by the news as much as she was. Mu had been gentle, kind, peaceful. Yo was ruthless, cunning, murderous. "He and his mother have cleared out the palace. Only their people remain. He has ordered the execution of your closest advisers and rumor has it he is searching for an excuse to kill Wang Gyu. I fear your tenth boy will not be spared from their madness. I do not think any of your other boys will be spared."

Is this what you meant by protecting your family, your kingdom? she thought coldly. Your queen's wrongdoings went unchecked for decades. Now she is Queen Mother and rules beside your son. There is no end to their tyranny.

She clutched her stomach, at the place where a child once grew, where only pain remained… pain so intense, she lost her breath and fell, gasping, to the ground.

It was the last time she would see him in a long time.

"It's been a while. Your sons So, Eun, Baek Ah and Jung are here… they are alive and fighting alongside General Park Sookyung."  She looked back at the Fourth Prince and the young girl, Hae Soo. "The son you could not protect is trying his best to protect your legacy. He is a good, honorable man."  She looked back at the epitaph before her. "Do you still regret what happened to him? The third son of your first wife, he had as much potential to be just as ruthless, just as heartless as his brother. But even years of abuse was not enough to crush his gentle soul. People continue to misunderstand him, yet he continues to fight. I suppose… he inherited your kind heart, strength, and your good sense of judgment. It is a pity that the son your family drove away turned out to be the one son your kingdom needed… but do not regret it for you saved everyone by keeping him away from your wife."

The thunder clouds rolled in but the air around them was completely still. In the silence, she wondered if he could hear her. A sudden brush of warm air on her cheek made her close her eyes. "I never shared your dreams. I would have been happy with a simple life… with you, a son or a daughter, this field of daisies, that old oak tree, the long, winding stream. I didn't need a king for a husband, nor a prince or a princess for a child. I just wanted to live and be free.

"You knew, didn't you? You always knew."  She brushed away her tears lest they fell into the pot of tea she had offered him. "You gave that world to others, but you could not give it to me. Neither could I ask it of you until it was too late. Thinking of it now, we were both at fault. We were both foolish to want everything, knowing the kind of sacrifice the throne warranted."

She took out the hairpin he had given her, never worn, as beautiful and new as the day she had received it, knowing it did not really belong to her.

"Sanggung, will you really not come?" Soo asked softly, watching her teacher drink her tea on the morning of their departure. She had to ask again. She tried not to think of this as the last time she would ever see her do so.

Lady Oh had her eyes closed, savoring the taste. "The tea is good today. Just the right temperature. You have done well."

"Sanggung, I'll take care of you, I'll-"

"My time is up, Soo-yah," she gently told her distressed student. "I have lived my life, now you must live yours. Do not dwell on death." You have an entire future ahead of you.

"But… who will take care of you?" Soo asked, eyes filling with tears.

"Do you remember my story?"

Soo did. It was the story of a king and the lady he could never have. It was not a happy story.

"If my baby had lived… she would have been your age." Sooyeon smiled and reached out to touch the young girl's face, to brush the tears that rolled down her pale cheeks. "I see a lot of myself in you, Soo-yah. You are a good girl, but you trust too easily. Remember all that I've taught you. Remember that men of the royal family become cowards for only one reason… the throne changes people. Even the best of us can be lost to its power. And the palace is a dangerous place, hard to enter but even harder to leave.

"If one day you are given the choice… the opportunity to leave the fighting in favor of a more peaceful existence, I implore you to take it. Do not involve yourself in the struggles of the royal family. They are not worth your freedom or your life."

Soo held tightly onto the thick volumes sanggung had given her, tucked safely within the bag Myunghee had taught her to make. She tried and failed to hold back her tears as she looked back and waved at her teacher one last time.

"My short time with you has made me happier than I have been in years. Do not cry for me. I am going to a better place, one where I can live my life again, with my child and my love."

"The throne changes people," Soo murmured under her breath, keeping her eyes trained on the fortress gates until she saw them no longer. Until she saw her no longer. Your Highness… she thought, glancing up at the man holding onto the reins behind her, is that what will happen to you?

Will the throne corrupt you, too?

Late into the night, they made camp. So held out his hands to lift Soo onto the ground, then he gave her his cloak. She had been crying and shivering the entire journey.

She sniffled, looking curiously up at him, “Why-?” But he turned away to tether his horse to the nearest tree.

"Soo-yah, come warm yourself," Myunghee said gently, leading her to the fire pit the men had made. Soo thanked So quietly and dried her eyes.

So watched them all - his brothers, the ladies, the men. And his thoughts wandered.

"What's this?" he asked, staring blankly at the hairpin sanggung had placed on his palm. It was expensive, that he could tell, made of the finest quality jade and metals. And on its head were lotus flowers, white and pure.

"Your father gave it to me when he died. I pass it on to you."

He glanced at her, not sure what to make of such a gift.

"The lotus flower is a symbol of rebirth... renewal. You have been dealt a hard hand by fate, but you are more than your past. You are the son of the first King of Goryeo, a powerful and wise man. You are a warrior, the prince of a nation, the hope for the future. There is much you still need to do, that you have to live for." She covered his hand with her own, enclosing the trinket within his fist. "Protect them, and know that your father watches over you. He always has and he always will."

He had prayed to his father for guidance. Was this his answer?

Three of his brothers and his birth mother were now their enemies. He had a lot to protect, a lot left to do. To live for. “When the time comes, father, give me the strength to do what I must.”