Gon is eight when he utters his first decree, “Unbreakable Sword.”

Yeong is four when he bends a knee and blithely accepts.

Lee Lim fancies himself a visionary last, a patient man first. He plaits clandestine plans of conquest and terror beneath the veneer of a compliant man bowing to the false king. When he strikes the first cutting blow, consecrated imperial blood splashes the winter-blanketed room in crimson red.

“You’re an orphan now, Your Highness.”

His patience has a fatal limit is a lesson Lim learns far too late—his brother raises his son to command a sword like an instinctive muscle, and to breath fight over flight, as a king must always, always be primed for acrid red streaking his flesh.

The boy yields a blade crafted solely for small but nimble hands with animalistic deft. He strikes feline-swift, baring unsharpened fangs gleaming in the dark and easily pierces razor steel into muscled abdomen.

Pain is immediate. His own blood, gushing and darkly rubicund stains his dress shirt, threatens to end his fledging masterplan.

The boy is vicious and relentless in his pursuit. He is his uncle’s nephew, rather than his father’s son. Unholy roars shredding prepubescent throat into cinders, as Lee Gon swings his blade. Again. And again.

Lim is rapidly accumulating wounds, like confetti after fireworks exploding in the cloudless skies. His strength dwindles with each parry. Summoning the waning energy he has, Lim shoves the boy far away. Scurrying for an exit.

The youngling prince charges. His sword catches the glint of glaring moonshine. Lee Gon plunges the blade into his left eye. A smirk of fangs gleaming.

Lim howls. The agony is blinding. He skitters to safety, limping and spitting garbled bellowing of vengeance sworn.

The flute he desperately sought as a voracious child in the pages of fantastical legends, is lost to the chaos.

The kingdom weeps at the sight of the orphan prince prostrating on an antique straw mat for hours’ end.

The little king does not shed a single tear in spite of frost lining each breath. He is unyielding to the elements. Warning bells toil wordlessly at dawn, at dusk and soon he will smash the bells into silence.

Lee Gon is eight and holds the power of the kingdom on his tiny, narrow shoulders. Smiles are rare these days. Laughter turns myth in a household plagued by betrayals and fleeting happiness.

Jo Yeong is four and easily captivated by all things sparkle as boys his age are wont to do. He seeks refuge from his warring parents under the colourful, crumpled sheets and a plastic shield.

They meet by accident, when one wanders in a castle seemingly built for giants with shiny crowns and blood made from sacred gold and priceless jewels.

Gon is eight when Yeong slips on a pile of mathematical textbooks in his attempt to reach a picture book. Yeong is four when a squeal of laugh liltingly echoes in the silent chambers.

Gon is eight when he utters his first decree, “Unbreakable Sword.”

Yeong is four when he bends a knee and blithely accepts.

Their fates are sealed. Two lives now intertwine like ivy-vines coiling stringently over gnarled roots.

The boy king sleeps with the royal blade in between his teeth.

Lady Noh Ok-nam stands vigilant, shrouded in the dark, waiting for berry-blood cherubic anxiety screeching at faceless villains.

The boy brought to soften his rough edges becomes coarse himself.

Admiral Jo Hoon wonders if his only son would ever live up to forty, or will the father buries his son in a casket made of broken hearts and shattered bones.