Two.

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“Oh, is this what you folks do for fun?” Jonghyun shouts from where he is perched on his stallion, grinning down Minseok and his friends, all of whom are bare-chested and wet from their earlier swimming contest at the lake. “Swim and roll around on the ground all day?”

“How did you think I got this fit?” Minseok shoots back, and Jonghyun laughs, jumping down with practiced ease. Behind him, Captain Shin Donghee and Cho Kyuhyun are doing the same, though they opt to immediately head towards the smaller children gathered around the small bonfire Minseok and Taehyung lit earlier. “How’s the Palace looking?”

“Shiny,” Jonghyun sniffs, planting his behind on the thick grass next to Minseok’s exposed torso. He looks up to squint at the sun, enjoying the warmth of its rays hitting his face. “As always. Though I think something exciting might be happening soon.”

“Oh?” Minseok lifts his head, interested. Jonghyun shrugs a shoulder instead of providing more information, so Minseok prods. “What’s going on?”

Shaking his head, Jonghyun tears his hurting eyes away from the sky. “No idea, all I heard was that it has got something to do with the late King Yunho.” Minseok raises an eyebrow at him in a silent question, but Jonghyun really has nothing else to say on the matter, so he ignores it. His eyes rake down the length of Minseok’s body appreciatively. Kid really is fit, Jonghyun thinks, amused. His eyes move back up and catch on the glint of metal around Minseok’s neck. “What is that?”

“What?” Minseok lazily grapples and his neck and torso in question, lifting his head to look at himself. Jonghyun reaches out and touches the necklace, to which Minseok huffs and plants his head back down on the ground. “Oh, that. My mother’s. She said it was a gift from my father. Told me to keep it safe so I can give it to my firstborn someday.”

Jonghyun makes a noncommittal hum at the back of his throat, fingers tracing the thin, white gold chain of Minseok’s necklace until he catches a sight of the ring hanging from it. “This is her ring?” he asks, looking up at Minseok. Minseok nods, eyes closed as he continues to bask in the sunlight.

A frown makes its way up Jonghyun’s face when he sees it; the carving on the ring. The ring itself, at first glance, seems like a simple enough band. Upon closer inspection, however, Jonghyun notices the familiar crest being etched to it, complete with minuscule sapphires on the center of each one. The Crown Jewel.

“Huh,” he says, mind reeling with possibilities. Minseok, however, does not seem to notice anything out of sort, so Jonghyun continues, faux-casual. “Minseok, what was your father’s name?” Jonghyun asks, keeping his tone light. Minseok tenses under his touch, enough that Jonghyun considers taking his question back.

Just as he is about to open his mouth, however, Minseok beats him to it. “I don’t know,” he answers snippily. There is a note of fragility in his voice that Jonghyun does not address. “Why d’you ask?”

There is a tense second during which Jonghyun’s calculating eyes meet Minseok’s wary ones, and Jonghyun is overcome with worry that Minseok could somehow read his train of thoughts. “Nothing, just… this crest here looks familiar.” Minseok takes hold of the ring, squints, and raises an eyebrow at Jonghyun, his eyes betraying nothing.

For a moment, Jonghyun is relieved, though for what reason, he is not quite sure. Minseok does not know the significance of the Crown Jewel crest, so how did this ring end up in his ownership? Did his father steal it? From a royal? Jonghyun frowns at that thought. That did not seem right.

“You’ve probably seen a million rings like this around the market in the city,” Minseok says flippantly, sounding genuinely uninterested about the origin or his mother’s heirloom. Jonghyun wonders if he truly has no interest, or if it simply is a defense mechanism against an inevitable grief. “It’s probably a cheap ring he got from somewhere in there.”

“Yes,” Jonghyun nods absently, tearing his eyes off the ring, and eventually off Minseok’s form entirely. He tries not to think of how he can tell, at first glance, what excellent quality gold looks like. That ring… is it. “Perhaps.”

Silence settles between them, and Jonghyun tries his best to convince himself it is a comfortable one. Today is only his fifth visit to the orphanage, and each visit leaves him wanting to come back immediately. Minseok’s presence is a big factor in that, Jonghyun thinks, as he finds himself growing fond and somewhat protective of the man. He hopes his questions had not discouraged Minseok from getting close to him.

“Come on,” Minseok says suddenly, springing up to his feet in record speed. Jonghyun looks up so fast his neck cricks painfully, startled by the sudden movement. Minseok’s jaw is set in a determined, serious clench, but his eyes are bright with the familiar eagerness as he offers a hand to Jonghyun. “You promised me you’ll teach that neat one hand trick you used last time.”

“You learned everything so fast. By the time the next king rolls around, you would have been selected Crown Shield and I would be kicked out the force,” Jonghyun whines playfully, huffing an amused breath as Minseok grins at him cockily. Despite the light nature of his words, Jonghyun knows, deep down, that Minseok would be able to breeze through and fulfill his dream of becoming Crown Shield if he keeps this ambition up.

He has a great future ahead of him, Jonghyun is certain.

Royal Decree No. 9120

by Her Royal Majesty the Queen

Long live the Queen

Jonghyun looks up as he hears the familiar voices of his mates approaching, each bearing opinions they flaunt about loudly. He tunes them out for a moment, reading and rereading the letter he had just received that morning. A search party, it says, to look for the heir to the throne of Goguryeo. King Yunho’s child, then. The gears in Jonghyun’s brain whir loudly, overworked and overwhelmed.

“I have always thought that Prince Kibum would eventually seize the throne,” one of his mates, Hwang Chansung, exclaims, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. His eyes are glued to the letter, much like Jonghyun’s had been moments ago, and there is a definite frown on his forehead.

“A lost heir,” Lee Junho wonders aloud, his chin absently. Jonghyun looks at the signet ring on his pinky, recognizing the dragon of the Crown Jewel on top of Junho’s own family crest. The son of a duke, then, Jonghyun concludes. Junho looks back at him in question, and Jonghyun meets his eyes. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” Jonghyun lies, acutely aware of the million thoughts racing through his mind. “Your family crest, it has the Crown Jewel on it.” As soon as Jonghyun says it, a realization comes to him; the Crown Jewel crest is not to be used by the people. It can only be used by the most esteemed members of the royal court. Was Minseok’s father one of them? Was his mother someone’s… secret? A duke’s mistress?

“Lee clan,” Junho answers, looking like he wants to ask Jonghyun about it further. Before he can open his mouth, however, the Crown Shield, Colonel Shim Changmin, walks into the room.

Colonel Shim immediately begins to build their case up, and Jonghyun lets himself drown in the anticipation of the good, hard work ahead.

*

There is something unexplainably appealing about the Circle of Eden, the resting place of all late Kings and Queens of Goguryeo. Each towering marble headstone is embossed with gold carving, detailing the names of its owner and the accomplishments each achieved throughout their reigns. Boa stands in front of the newest headstone, its subtle pattern glimmering under the afternoon sun.

“I am beginning to think that you might be right when you told me how naïve I was,” Boa tells the stone in front of her, a sad smile playing on her lips. She reaches forward to trace Yunho’s name with the tips of her fingers, basking in the coolness of the marble under the continuous caress of autumn wind. “When I found the Red Dragon, I thought it would be the biggest surprise I would come across that day.”

The wind seems to be blowing exceptionally strong today, but the sun shines bright. It is as if the world is running amok, yet the universe is working to balance it out. Boa wonders if it is Gods’ way of mocking her; with an analogy depicting the chaos in her mind and her kingdom. “It truly is foolish of me to think that way. I stumbled into the secret room of secrets and somehow thought I would not find anything… groundbreaking.”

She had been taught, since she was old enough to put on a façade, that every good strategy involves secrets and lies. She is used to them; having them, keeping them, storing them, using them. She is familiar with secrets and deception, and yet.

Yet this one caught her off guard.

“Do you see him, Yunho? Your son?” she asks, gazing up at her late husband’s name. It brings her as much warmth as it does relentless ache, and she closes her eyes. “Will you protect him for us? Until we can find him and bring him home?”

The wind blows harder. Boa stands her ground, unmoving, despite the heavy material of her Hanfu and the weight of her headpiece doubling in response of the gentle, yet persistent blow. She does not even seem to notice.

Long moments later, she opens her eyes. There, clear as day, is her memory of Yunho’s hawk eyes staring back at her. She holds his gaze with a smile as brittle as glass.

“Will you lead us to him?”

*

Dawn has just broken when they arrived at Incheon. The sun, peeking shyly between the thick curls of cloud is not yet strong enough to warm the lands, especially with the layer of fog still hanging just above the ground, making the air cold and damp. Jonghyun tightens his mantle around himself, glancing around the eerily quiet village. It is a big village, covering more lands than any of the previous villages they passed on their journey, yet it seems unnaturally silent, tense. Unkempt.

“Do you think anyone actually lives here, Chief?” Lee Donghae walks up behind him, holding the reins of his horse in one hand while the other is balled up into a fist that he blows warm breath into. “This looks…” he trails off, uncertain.

“I know,” Jonghyun agrees, looking around the still-quiet market. There are several old buildings that look every inch their age—chipped paint, molding wood, singed walls. The village looks as if it had seen glory and tragedy in extreme ends. “Something happened here.”

“There was a rebellion group born from this village,” Captain Kim Junmyeon sidles up next to Jonghyun, the Crown Shield’s notes in his hand. “The Black Tiger. They might be the ones responsible for this.”

“How long ago was their last recorded raid?” Jonghyun asks, observing the members of his squad, scattered all around the main road of the village. Junmyeon’s eyes skim through the parchment once more, and he frowns.

“A decade. They were active only for about a year,” he answers, a tilt to the end of his word turning it into a question. Jonghyun turns to look at him.

“It must have been bad, if this is what they are left with, even after 10 years.” Jonghyun was no more than a boy around that time, but even he was not oblivious to the whispered complaints and angry hisses of his father’s friends. He understood a little bit about how the late King Yunho had focused so much on building the walls—on preventing outside forces from attacking them—that he neglected the threats inside. He understood a little bit, then.

But he understands quite a lot now.

“They never recovered,” Junmyeon concludes, swallowing thickly.

“No,” Jonghyun shakes his head. “They did not.”

After shaking off the initial disbelief over the state of the village, he and the rest of the squad begin to comb through the place, asking around for a shred of information. Jonghyun meets an elderly lady who agrees to take him to the mass grave where the victims of the rebels were laid to rest.

“Is there any information about them left? Names, perhaps?” Jonghyun asks, gentle as he possibly can. The lady shakes her head, eyes hollow and haunted.

“Only ones with leftover family members, perhaps. But most… most families are left with none but charred flesh,” she hisses out, hatred fresh in her voice, as if the tragedy happened yesterday instead of ten years ago. “Who are you looking for?”

Jonghyun thinks about the very limited information they have on their target, and wonders over which of those information he can share. “A young man, around 20 years old. He used to live here with his mother and grandparents. No father,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. His father certainly did not live here, he thinks bitterly. “Does that ring any bells?”

She shakes her head. “Plenty of young widows around here back then. Not to mention the young maidens who fell for the foreign soldiers’ sweet nothings. Fatherless children are not unusual after a war.” Of course, Jonghyun thinks, remembering the soldiers deployed to fight wars who are not theirs. King Yunho had sacrificed a lot of fathers’ lives as a price to pay for the expansion of their lands. He had left many children fatherless; including his own.

“There used to be knight, here,” Jonghyun tries again. She shakes her head once more.

“Plenty of brave men coming home from war with missing limbs. There were many local heroes who received knighthood.” The lady pauses to look at him for a long moment. Her eyes seem to be filled to the brim with question, yet she voices none of it. Jonghyun holds her gaze unwaveringly, until she drops her eyes with a sigh. “Whoever it is you’re looking for, if they’re younger than 50, then they’re either dead or have long since fled the village.”

“I see,” Jonghyun mutters, observing his surroundings once more, taking in the sight of the elderlies going about their business around the main road. There are no children or teenager in sight and Jonghyun wonders whether the people left in this village realize it has its expiry date set.. “We shall look somewhere else, then.”

*

Their group circled around three more villages in their two days of searching, before coming to rest on Gwangju, a small village about six hours away from Incheon. It is filled with many young couples, which lifted their spirits quite a bit. After asking around for information, they found one young man around the age of 21 who was born in Incheon.

After confirming that he is indeed fatherless and born to a knight’s daughter, Jonghyun is left with the task of asking for the man’s address and writes him down as a possibility. Once everything is wrapped, the six of them decide to stop by a quaint noodle shop at the end of the village’s main road. Junmyeon is spreading the notes they received from the Crown Shield and skimming over the information they have.

“What really bothers me is the fact that they did not give us his name,” Junho sighs, breaking his chopsticks and digging into the steaming bowl in front of him almost absently. Next to him, Donghae shrugs.

“It seems a necessary precaution. If the people knew we were looking for an heir to the throne, and the information about his identity got spread around… I imagine quite a number of people would show up pretending to be him.” He, too, begins to dig into his bowl, and for a long, tense moment, Jonghyun does nothing but watch them eat.

“The old lady said that whoever it is we are trying to find, they are most likely either dead or ‘have long since fled the village’,” Jonghyun mumbles, doing his best to fight the feeling of being disconnected. He feels like he is missing something. He feels as if the answer is close, and yet he could not see it, no matter how hard he tries to understand, he cannot comprehend it. “The only ones left in that village are the elderlies; that means the younger ones are most likely spread throughout the nearby villages.”

“’Nearby’ is not a word I would use,” Changsung complains, to which Jonghyun points an eager finger at.

“Good point. Perhaps they moved somewhere far. Maybe in groups. Possibly in groups, especially if they fled the village after such violent attack,” Jonghyun snatches an empty parchment out of Kyuhyun’s grasp before taking a small brush out of his inner pocket and dips it into the ink pot Junmyeon has on the table. “Assuming that our target fled Incheon a decade ago, he would be ten years old by then, correct?”

They make vague sounds of agreement, all waiting for Jonghyun to elaborate.

“Do you think he still had his mother with him when he abandoned the village?” Jonghyun asks, the possibilities running wild in his mind, connecting with other jumbled scenarios and creating a million conclusions he has a hard time peering through.

Silence falls upon them, and for a long time, no one seems eager to end it. It is not until Junmyeon finishes his letter that he finally stands. “I am going to send a raven to the Crown Shield. Perhaps he will grant us more information in exchange for our findings.”

“Let us assume he did have his mother with him. It only means that they can be anywhere,” Junho snaps, frustration sharpening his tone. He lifts the bowl and proceeds to slurp down the soup with a manner unbefitting of a nobleman’s son. Jonghyun eyes him neutrally.

“So we assume he did not. Where would an orphaned 10 year old go after his village was destroyed?” Jonghyun asks, more to himself than anything else. As soon as the answer dawns on him, the table rattles with the force of a harsh slap.

“An orphanage,” Kyuhyun says, half-standing with a hand still plastered onto the table. His eyes are wide as they meet Jonghyun’s. “He would have tried to look for a home.”

“What are the chances of him stumbling across an orphanage nearby? We have swept past five villages and none of them has one,” Junmyeon shakes his head, staring at Jonghyun and Kyuhyun with unmasked confusion.

Jonghyun feels as if his breath had been knocked out of him. “We have one more village to check.”

*

“Hey!” Minseok yells over the noise of the wind that seems to gain a volume with each step he takes. Some of the children look over to him, and Minseok waves his hand inward, telling them to come over. “Sun’s going down! Come on in or I’ll eat all of your dinners!” he threatens, grinning when the kids immediately scramble up to run over to him, the dolls they handmade from dry hays forgotten in their haste.

They keep running even as they reach Minseok’s outstretched arms; some of them yelling incoherent exclamations to him as they run past him. In the end, only one of the children—one of the younger ones—end up in Minseok’s arms, and Minseok huffs at him as the boy pinches his nose. “Les’ go!” he shouts in Minseok’s face, wiggling around and jerking his body up and down to make Minseok move faster. Minseok tightens his hold on him.

The door to the main house is only an arms’ length away when Minseok hears it, the familiar sound of horse shoes hitting the stone pavement at the orphanage’s front gate. Turning around with curious eyes, Minseok squints at the newcomers, eyebrows raised in surprise when he realizes that there are more than the usual 3 to 4 soldiers coming over. Unease creeps up his stomach, and he glances at the boy in his arms.

“Yoo-ah, go ahead and eat, okay?” he urges the boy as soon as he puts him down. Yoo looks uncertain, eyes flicking back and forth between Minseok and the soldiers coming to a stop just inside the gate. “It’s okay, they probably just wanna talk. Go go, before your sisters finish all the eggs.” That gets Yoo moving fast enough, and Minseok chuckles as he makes his way over to the soldiers.

“Minseok,” Kyuhyun runs over first, sounding out of breath. “How old are you?” he snaps as soon as Minseok is within speaking range. Minseok flinches slightly, but he stands his ground.

“21 this year. Why?” he looks at them warily, eyes raking over the curious gazes trained onto his form. Minseok resists the irrational urge to cover himself up.

“Where are you from, originally?” This time, it’s Jonghyun who comes forward. Minseok eyes him warily. Jonghyun’s eyes flick down to where Minseok’s necklace is visible over his tunic. Minseok closes a hand over it.

“Incheon,” he answers, frowning when they all seem to do a double-take. Minseok opens his mouth again to demand an explanation of their sudden, invasive questions, but a raven swoops in and lands on one of the soldiers’ shoulder.

“The Crown Shield,” the soldier says. Minseok doesn’t recognize him at all. It makes him very uncomfortable. “He—oh.” There is some scuffling over the parchment the soldier has in his hand, and Minseok watches as Kyuhyun and Jonghyun’s faces fall upon laying their eyes on it.

“Not him,” Jonghyun exhales shakily, sounding disappointed. Next to him, Donghae is frowning deeply. “I was so certain—the Crown Jewel—”

“Minseok,” Donghae calls, cutting off Jonghyun’s half-coherent mumbling. They all turn to look at him, while Minho takes a step back at the intense look in his eyes. “Does the name Choi Minho mean anything to you?”

*

It is almost as if he was watching a play unfolding at a very slow pace—plenty of time to notice every little detail paraded on stage. Jonghyun stares unblinkingly at the dread that slowly fills Minseok’s face, before it gets shadowed with grief, and then nothing. Minseok blinks at them.

“No,” he answers, a few beats too late. Jonghyun takes a step forward.

“It is your name, is it not?” he asks, careful to keep his tone calm and kind. Behind him, Junho makes an impatient noise. Jonghyun could not care less of what they think of his methods at that moment. He focuses solely on the man in front of him; the one looking like a cornered animal. “You are Choi Minho.”

“My name is Jung Minseok,” Minseok—Minho, Jonghyun is absolutely certain—insists. He takes several steps back, but Jonghyun follows.

“Is it?” Jonghyun presses, still gentle as ever. Minseok’s breath quickens as he straightens, pulling himself into a full height in his desperation to get away from Jonghyun’s relentless scrutiny. “So if I go and talk to your adopted parents, they will confirm that?”

Something akin to panic flashes Minho’s eyes, and Jonghyun has half a mind to go through with his threat. He knows. He just knows, with unnerving certainty, that Minho—Minseok—must have told his adopted parents of his real identity.

“You changed your name. Why?” Junho asks, plain, pure curiosity in his voice. Minho refuses to answer. He continues to look at Jonghyun, eyes pleading and worried.

“I didn’t do anything,” Minho says suddenly, sounding like a child. “Whatever it is you think I did, I didn’t.”

It dawns on Jonghyun then, that Minho is afraid they have come here to find him and arrest him. He shakes the thought off and takes a deep breath, forcing his face to relax. Jonghyun smiles at him. “I know. It is not why we are here.”

Minho freezes, eyes fleeting from one soldier to the other, until he meets Jonghyun’s stare once more. “Then why have you come?”

Jonghyun’s smile turns into a melancholic one, and he takes a step back, dropping his tense stance.

“Let us speak to your father.”

**

A/N: Phew. Minho has finally entered the game. Guess who's next? lmao. Anyways, as per yoozh, drop your comments down here to motivate me let me know what you think. We've got a long way to go, so please stick around! xx