Becoming Duke, Sowon decided, was definitely not something she was born for, or desired.

As things were, she definitely wasn’t born for it, as the younger child and female to boot, with an older brother ready to be heir to the ducal throne. However, circumstances change, and an unexpected turn of events left her as the sole survivor of her house as the attempted coup cut bloody swathes through most of the court and all of the rest of her immediate and extended family at the Midwinter Feast.

Sowon had only survived because she skipped out on the festivities to spend time with her friends, children of the staff that served her family. As the unneeded spare, Sowon’s other purpose had been to marry her off for alliance, but she still had a year or so to go before being officially presented at court to the nobility. Thus, not many had even known of or even heard of the younger scion of the Kim family.

The coup thus did not count on this unknown second “son” coming out of nowhere, having rallied the servants loyal to her upon hearing of the commotion in the great hall, and overwhelming the assassins with sheer numbers and some battlefield creativity. Cooks, as it turned out, were very handy with knives and hot oil. 

It had been a bloody and terrible victory. Too many dead, most of them family. With no other known heir left within their immediate bloodline, Sowon was faced with a choice: lose her lands and title to the king, or take up the Kim family mantle and inherit the ducal throne herself. 

It wasn’t even really a choice, was it? The assassination attempt had clearly been mediated, and Sowon wasn’t about to let those behind the plot get away with it. The only way she was going to be able to plot her revenge was to keep a grip on power, power that the enemies of her family had been so willing to murder her kin for.

So, Kim Sojung became Kim Sowon, the 23rd Duke of the Kim line, one of the three major ducal powers in a divided kingdom weakly held together by a figurehead of a king. These were hardly the best of times, but far from the worst. At least, the kingdom wasn’t at war, right?

But that didn’t mean the backstabbing ever stopped. If anything, intrigue and conspiracy ruled as everyone with any kind of power sought to expand it covertly. Which, of course, led to her current predicament, currently seated on horseback as she watched her prospective fiancee in the arms of another man.

Why fiancee though, since she was female? Well, as her advisors were so kind to point out, she was going to eventually have to get married anyway, as the most eligible “bachelor” of one of the three great dukedoms; and secondly, the treasury was mostly empty after they did an audit, thanks to years of mismanagement on the part of her dear departed father, the previous Duke.

“You need a wife with a sizable dowry,” they said, to a highly skeptical Sowon.

“Preferably one with few connections and less political power to cause trouble in case your real gender comes out -- you might need to silence her if it comes to that, and you don’t want the whole extended family declaring war on you in that case.”

It was a terrible idea. But it was also a very necessary one, if she wanted to maintain her cover and keep her position as Duke. It was difficult finding someone who fit the right description, and Sowon felt bad enough about the whole charade that she resolved to be at least nice to her prospective wife. 

Which brought her here, in search of said prospective wife, who had apparently gone ‘on a pilgrimage’ to the Temple of Artemis to pray for the soul of her father, one of the many collateral victims during the unsuccessful coup. Sowon had been all too eager to get away from court for a little while, and this posed an excellent opportunity (re: excuse) for her to dump her duties on her long-suffering chancellor and childhood friend, while she went to check out her bride to be.

Only to find out that said bride to be was in trouble, which led her to drum up the local militia and lead them into the forest with a local temple maiden as a guide, said maiden apparently having come back for reinforcements while her friends had gone on ahead to assist the damsels in distress. 

Sowon knew what her bride looked like, of course. Benefits of dukedom and access to the best of portrait painters. It didn’t take long for her to identify Eunha amidst the mess of fallen people and the few left standing in the clearing. This, unfortunately, also meant that she had a first hand view of the lady swooning (?) in the arms of a dashing young swordsman, who was still injured after apparently having rescued her from the fallen brigands all around her. 

Truth to be told, Sowon wasn’t sure whether it was annoyance or something else that pricked at her when confronted with that sight. She was apologetic over the necessary deception, but in her mind, there was no better candidate than Eunha to be her trophy wife, and this was an affront to her pride. 

Still, her station demanded that she did not resort to brawling with the upstart rogue holding onto her bride. Sowon pursed her lips, motioning to the local troops to round up the ruffians. Getting everyone separated and settled seemed to be the order of the day. 

She hadn’t revealed her identity to all and sundry yet, but she carried handwritten orders from the Duke (hardly a difficulty, considering she was the Duke) for her to act with impunity. It was necessary to maintain the charade of the Duke’s continued presence at the capital, while she roamed free outside doing as she pleased. 

Her advisors could hold the fort for a month or two. For now, she had a wife to win.