Author's Notes:

As you may have noticed, I have reconstructed the chapters so that they have better openings and cut off points, and I have changed some chapter titles to make a more accurate indication of the chapter content. I have basically combined the first few chapters based on the timeline so that it can give you a better picture of the development. For chapter one, "The Slave" starts with Eunbi meeting Sakura in the morning until she discovered Sakura's secret in the evening. Chapter two starts with the second day of Sakura's life in the Palace, how she was presented as a gift and being "adopted" as Eunbi's little sister. The third day was a very long day, starting from Sakura finding the origin of her name to when she finally told Eunbi about her mother's death, with the plot of the King arranging Eunbi to marry his best friend's son in-between. I have to break it into two chapters as I don't think a chapter with 7000 words is appropriate. Basically, I have changed any content except re-writing the scene of the music lesson and make it the opening of this chapter. It is an important scene as meeting Yuri will change the course of Sakura's later development. Hope it is clear enough and now please sit back and enjoy the new chapter.

Besides the Princess's birthday, the last Saturday of September is another important day of the month. Sakura received a request from Eunbi to attend some Palace event. Since her bespoke uniform is not yet ready, Nako, the Princess's personal maid, instructed her to wear her flag costume with the rabbit mascot hat. When they arrived at the Red Hall, Sakura is surprised that the room is packed with women and girls, and Lee Jaeyeon, the faithful male knight has to wait at the door.

"This is an all-girl function." Eunbi looks at Sakura with a complacent smile and walks away to greet her teacher.

Sakura turns to Nako curiously. The petite girl who barely has the same height as Sakura giggles and says, "the Princess is having her music lesson every Saturday morning, but the last Saturday of a month will be a special occasion when all women and girls in the palace will gather together to sing and play music. Yes, all means all. No matter you are the cleaning lady or the Queen, whoever got a good voice or can play a musical instrument well will be accepted. Everyone will be addressed by her name, only basic courtesy will be observed."

Sakura is startled, "you mean I should not address the Princess and the Queen as 'Your Highness'?"

Nako examines Sakura, "I bet you are the youngest in this room. I will suggest you call everyone noona and the older women eomeonim. For the Queen, I bet you won't dare to call her name, right? She is Joohyun eomeonim here, but you can call her grand eomeonim. Then, for that lady, you should address her as seonsaengnim."

Sakura looks in the direction where Eunbi is talking to a grey-haired but young-looking lady. She is wearing a special costume that looks familiar in Sakura's eyes. Her mother used to wear something like that when they were in Arukas.

"She is our Princess's music teacher. She is one of the best exiled Arukasin musicians in Tokkiz. Her name is Jo Yuri."

Jo Yuri and Eunbi suddenly turn to look in Sakura's direction. Nako quickly pushes Sakura's head down to bow to the teacher. The teacher smiles kindly and raises her voice elegantly, "dear ladies!"

Meanwhile, the room is quite noisy, but when the Mezzo-Soprano speaks, every single person shuts up and looks in their teacher's direction. Sakura is startled at such a penetrating voice. She is used to shepherds and horse keepers' piercing high-pitch voice – but the teacher's voice is husky and soft.

"Dear ladies, we are having a new member today. But we need to discuss whether or not we should let him join the lesson."

Nearly everyone has heard about Saku in the palace, they are indeed overjoyed to see the handsome little boy in person and decided he is too cute to be rejected. Hearing no objection, Jo Yuri did a brief audition for Saku and delighted to find his key range suits the group perfectly.

Sakura was arranged to sit in the Alto section. When the chamber orchestra and choir start to practice with Yuri as the director, Sakura feels chills shoot up her spine, and her whole body has goosebump – if one can hear the voice of an angel...this is by no doubt the sound of heaven.

Suddenly, Yuri stops the practice and turns to Sakura.

"Saku-chan, is there anything wrong?"

Sakura is dumbfounded, "eh?"

"Why are you crying like a river, my boy?"

Sakura opens and hears herself saying, "heaven."

The room falls silent for one second and then everyone burst into laughter. The noonas around Saku instantly pop up and help wipe his face, some soothe his back and arms, and some even pat his head.

Sakura looks at Eunbi helplessly.

The Queen laughs, "he is such a sugarboy!"

Eunbi rolls her eyes. It is so unpleasant to see her Sakura being "harassed" by a bunch of ajummas.

But she also knows, it is important for Sakura to be liked by these people to have an easier life in the palace.

After the lesson, Eunbi asks Yuri to stay behind when everyone leaves for lunch.

"Eunbi, be quick, don't hold up seonsaengnim for too long. She must be hungry." The Queen says and leaves with Chaewon.

"What is it, Eunbi-chan?"

"Seonsaengnim, I need you to help Saku. He may be Arukasian."

Yuri smiles and looks deeply into Sakura's eyes. She then asks her in Arukasian, "Do you know how to speak the Arukasian language?"

Sakura just blinks.

"She was raised by Tokkizan parents," Eunbi tries to explain.

Yuri nods, "so, Eunbi, what do you want me to do?"

"To help him reconnect with his root."

Yuri thinks for a while and nods. She then sits down at the piano and starts to play and sing:

Why is my land bleeding?
Why are my people weeping?
Tigers from the north with sharp claws,
Tear us apart with their jaws.

With our history and culture
Love and trust in our nature
Our bodies can be destroyed
Our spirit will never be defeated

Courage in the deepest night
Fire of wisdom be our light
Stand with virtuous minds and unbending spines
Martyrs fight on the ancestor's lines

To fight and emerged victorious
Bring light to end the darkness
May Freedom reigns forever
Glory be to Arukas! *

Sakura feels all her hair raised, not because of the content of the song – it's in Arukasian and she cannot really connect, but Yuri's voice paints an audio picture of time and space in her mind, which reminds her of the spectacular scenes of the prairie's dusk and dawn. The moments between sunset and the first star appears, and the total darkness after the stars diminish and before the sun rises. She turns to Eunbi and found the teenager Princess, who knows the language, weeping silently.

Yuri smiles and wipes Eunbi's tear gently. Then she turns to Saku, "do you like the song? It's called Glory be to Arukas."

Sakura nods vigorously.

"Seonsaengnim wrote the song," Eunbi adds.

Sakura blinks. Her long lashes flutter like a butterfly and that makes Yuri laughs, "why do you always blink? You can speak too! Such a shy boy."

She then turns to Eunbi, "Eunbi-chan, please bring along Saku-chan to the lesson next week. If you don't mind, I can teach him everything about Arukas personally."

Eunbi blooms a big smile and says thanks to the teacher.

***

Time flies and two weeks passed.

Jaeyeon received an assignment from Eunbi to look for a woman called Yena (who is not the horse), and he decided to send Kwangbae for the search.

"Sir, I think we need to obtain more information before starting the search. 'Yena' is not that uncommon in Tokkiz. There may be 100 women named Yena living just in the Capital City – can I talk to the boy?" Kwangbae's brows tie into a knot.

Jaeyeon shakes his head, "the Princess doesn't want Saku to know that we are investigating his case yet."

Kwangbae nods, "after all, he has killed someone – so did he provide any information about the lady's background? Like age, characteristics, etc.?"

"According to the Princess, Yena is Saku's mother's younger sister but Saku has no idea how old was his mother – he thinks it may be somewhere between Chaewon noona and the Queen – shall we assume women living in the prairie looks older than their age? He doesn't know his mother's full name either – he told the Princess that once has a chance to peek into his mother's letter addressing 'Yena' and signed 'Yerin', and that's all. He never met Yena. To him, Yena is only a name."

Kwangbae chuckles, "and a horse's name."

Jaeyeon smacks his junior's arm – although Kwangbae is in fact 3 years older than him.

"Don't remind me of that horse!"

Kwangbae laughs. "Fine. Yerin and Yena. A very useful clue – and sir, please let me remind you again, many crimes of our Kingdom can be solved easily if we have built a better census system."

"Which remind me of something." Jaeyeon takes out his notebook and writes down a name, "the Princess has mentioned that Saku has officially registered, I will give you his official name, and you can try to look it up in the General Registry."

"Sa Kura?" Kwangbae raises a brow when he read the name. "Isn't it a girl's name? Sounds sissy."

Jaeyeon stays silent for a while before answering, "your mission is to dig out the truth. But whatever you discovered, I must be the first person to report to. Don't spill the bean if you want to see your dream girl ever again. Now dismiss."

Kwangbae bows and leaves. Jaeyeon looks at the magic clock in the hallway and leaves for Eunbi. After he escorted the Princess back from the morning classes, she went straight back into her lab. She was going to meet Chaewon and it has been almost an hour.

To his surprised, instead of seeing Eunbi, he found Saku loitering near the entrance of the lab.

"Saku, what are you doing here? The meeting hasn't finished yet?"

Saku bows to Jaeyeon. "My Lord, Lady Chaewon told me to wait here. They are still talking."

Jaeyeon nods. He feels quite amazed that the filthy raggedy little slave who was covered with wounds, has transformed into a brilliant Palace staff in just a few weeks. Saku is now appointed as a junior horse attendant, but his job should only focus on taking care of First Snow and Yena, the Princess's two horses. He must end his morning session before 9 am because the Princess has arranged various lessons for him. The boy – Jaeyeon is still confused by Saku's gender – looks extremely adorable in his shining new uniform and long riding boots. No wonder the chef always reserve a large plate of food and announce that it is for "the toy soldier who is entering puberty".

But the "toy soldier" cannot really eat that much, so he will secretly share his food with those who want more. It seems to be his way of building up relationships with other staff.

"They must be discussing the annual expedition plan," Jaeyeon says. "Every autumn after her birthday, the Princess will pay a visit to Great Yoonjung who stays in the Southorn Castle with Lady Chaewon. They will have very intensive training and other learnings during the stay, which can last from 2 weeks to a month. After they come back, the King and the Queen will take their turn to spend the winter there.”

"How many times did you go?"

"Just once." Jaeyeon practices his punch and kicks pattern for a few minutes before he answers. "My service started from last year's expedition. It was fun. The Princess always loves to ride on horseback, but Chaewon noona prefers to travel in a carriage, so we stocked up a lot of food and put them in another wagon, making the journey like a moving picnic. The ladies were protected by an elite task force which was extremely versatile, they could do everything from fixing the wheels to fighting against wild animals, or killing assassinator if needed – we will pass through a forest, it can be dangerous. And it was when I started to be the Princess's personal guard."

Saku blinks his large twinkling eyes in great curiosity.

"Do you want to join the expedition too?" Jaeyeon laughs and ruffles the boy's new grown short hair. It is so soft. He thinks.

Saku gives Jaeyeon an unexpected answer in his soft and innocent voice, "I heard in stories that mages can fly. Why do they have to travel on foot and wheels?"

Jaeyoen is totally caught by surprise. He has never thought about this aspect – this child...

"Well, Saku, I am not a mage..." Jaeyeon rubs his neck in embarrassment, "maybe you should ask the mages themselves."

Saku grins innocently and nods, "so my Lord, can you teach me martial arts?"

"Oh! For this..."Jaeyeon hesitates for a few seconds – are you lying? How can it possible that you don't know martial arts?

Saku gets it quickly and lowers his head, "I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing, kid?"

"I have asked something that I should not. Please forgive me, my Lord." Saku bows.

"Wh..." Jaeyeon instantly feels sorry, "no, it's not like that. I'm just...I just thought you know it already. The way you jumped onto the horseback...it was by no doubt gitteoldo"

"Gitteoldo?"

Jaeyeon stops for a second and nods, "gitteoldo, the way of the feather – do means principle, we call it the way. Practitioners of gitteoldo can cancel their own weight and leap or jump as if gravity doesn't exist, some masters can even run on water for a short while."

Saku blinks, "but many children from the Prairie know the skill. They usually started riding a horse by 5 years old and they became experts when they are 10."

"That's the point," Jaeyeon folds his arms on his chest, "children are lightweight, if they have enough strength, they can perform gitteoldo naturally. But this is the paradox: children are lightweight partly because they don't have muscles. You need tremendous power to cancel one's own weight and float like a feather. How can you do that when you don't have muscles? But when you got muscles you cannot maintain lightweight."

Saku blinks again in amazement.

Jaeyeon continues, "that's the marvelous part of gitteoldo. You don't have to be petite like Nako, you can be muscular like me. You can be in any shape or size and still float like a feather."

Saku looks at Jaeyeon in awe. "My Lord, you know gitteoldo?"

Jaeyeon smiles and doesn't answer. He continues his practice and suddenly jumps up and caught a passing-by butterfly on the ceiling which is nearly 3 times his height.

Saku's jaw drops when Jaeyeon puts the butterfly in his hands.

But the boy is too slow. The butterfly flees before he can get hold of it. He quickly imitates Jaeyeon and jumps but he can only get halfway where Jaeyeon got and lost the butterfly.

But that means he can jump nearly double his height!

Jaeyeon's eyes squint in suspicion. Without warning, he starts to attack Saku. He punches and kicks the boy from all directions, and stops precisely when his hands and feet are 1 inch away from his body. Confused and angry, Saku tries any way he can to avoid Jaeyeon's attacks and even tries to fight back. And obviously, he is slow and clumsy.

Eventually, he kicks on his own foot and falls onto the ground.

"Jaeyeon, how dare you bully Saku!"

Just as Jaeyeon stretches his hand to pick up Saku, Eunbi squeals at his back.

Saku immediately grabs Jaeyeon's big hand with his small hands and jumps up.

"I am teaching him martial arts." Jaeyeon quickly lowers his head and defends himself.

Chaewon chuckles and takes Eunbi's arm, "Eun-chan, don't bother with the boys. Let's go for lunch."

Eunbi darts Jaeyeon an angry stare before she turns away.

Jaeyeon rolls his eyes at Saku and sticks out his tongue like a child. Saku doesn't expect this side of Jaeyeon and all his anger instantly gone.

"Are you alright, kid? I'm truly sorry." Jaeyeon apologizes.

Saku looks up to Jaeyeon and nods.

Jaeyeon puts his arm around Saku's skinny shoulders and pushes him the way to the dining hall. "I was not lying to the Princess. I was testing you and now I know you really don't know martial arts, let me teach you when there is time, okay?"

Saku smiles and nods vigorously.

***

The expedition is scheduled to depart in one week. Nako and Sakura received their duties accordingly. Nako is in charge of allocating materials and stocking up food and water for 17 people, 17 horses, and 4 dogs for at least 3 days. Sakura is to prepare the horses. The elite task force has increased to 12 members, among them two will disguise as drivers. They have their own stables, so Sakura just needs to prepare First Snow and Cherry, Eunbi and Jaeyeon's horses, 4 huge horses for pulling the wagon and carriage, and choose a horse for herself. Nako will stay in the wagon with the dogs.

To Sakura, crossing forest and prairie is nothing new. It has been part of her job since a very young age, but traveling with the Crown Princess of the Tokkiz Kingdom is another thing. Lots of security measures have to be taken. Sakura soon learned that sniper and protection squads from different district barracks will be secretly escorting the main team, coded as "Moving Picnic" within a radius of one mile.

Sakura chose a middle-aged bay horse with comparative small hooves and well-muscled haunches. Her name is Ugly. Sakura doesn't understand why she has such a name because she looks pretty in her eyes. Sakura also found that Ugly has a very stable temperament after riding her a few times.

Yena is not happy that she will be "left alone" again.

"Kura, I want to go!" She screams to Sakura when Sakura is about to take First Snow out of the stable.

"Shut up, little girl, you are just a baby!" First Snow snorts at Yena.

"You exercise so less that you will be tired to death on the way, ajeossi!" Yena retorts.

Sakura rolls her eyes, "shut up, both of you!"

Being more well trained, First Snow obeys Sakura and stops the bickering immediately.

But Yena still tries to argue.

"Yena, listen." Sakura sounds very serious, "first, you are too young to be ridden, even you are now haltered and saddled, you are still not fully grown. Secondly, running 50 miles a day is not fun for your age even without loading. Now, you are trained under one of the best horse trainers in Tokkiz and I demand you to learn your lessons well, especially on how to behave. You are now the Princess's second horse and I will not allow any mistake that will make her get hurt, not even making her uncomfortable."

Sakura glares First Snow when she says the last lines. First Snow just lowers his head and looks away.

Yena nods and becomes silent.

The night before departure, Sakura looks out to the sky through her window (now) in the staff quarter. What she has gone through in the past few weeks feels so unreal, so, she thinks, going back to a prairie (although it is going to be the Southern Prairie, the scenery should be very different from the Northwest Prairie) may help her regain some sense of existence.

The team leaves before dawn to avoid any attention from nosy Tokkizans. Everybody except Chaewon is dressed in camouflage military uniform while First Snow is painted in olive-brown. Sakura has prep him nicely so he doesn't complain at all and even promised to give the Princess the most comfortable ride she will ever experience. As the "Moving Picnic" proceeds, Eunbi is surrounded by the task force at the outer circle and Jaeyeon and Sakura on each of her side. The formation is designed to look like all the boys are protecting the carriage that follows (Eunbi hides her hair in the helmet and disguised as a boy).

After two hours of riding, Sakura is somehow disappointed in the realization that mages really cannot fly outside stories, but riding with the royals on a well-crafted saddle with well-protected leather boots also gives her a totally new sensation and feeling. She started to believe that a new life of hers has really begun.

* Glory be to Arukas is inspired by a now forbidden song. click here to listen