In the throne room of the Ahn palace there are stained glass windows of incredible beauty, and many kings, queens and all kinds of nobility from all over the world came to their palace only to admire them.

Painted windows describe every heroic deed committed by Hyejin's predecessors. Beautiful, hand-painted pieces of glass, connected by barely visible lead bridges that form intricate ornate patterns, which then fold into crooked but mesmerizingly beautiful pictures, each three meters high and one-and-a-half meters wide.

Her family was incredibly proud of them. The very fact that they hang them in the throne room, where any guest can see them, was the proof of that.

Red, yellow, green drawings full of blood and murder and dead dragons. 

On sunny days, they filled the throne room with myriads of sunbeams, and little Hyejin, while trying to catch a ray of sunshine in her little palms, even managed to forget what horrors are painted on these stained glass windows. But the older Hyejin became, the more often the stories on the windows poisoned her sleep, making her wake up in the middle of the night in a mess of ragged breaths and sweaty chest.

Once, when Hyejin was nine, she got completely absorbed in a game invented by her rich imagination, plucked out one mosaic from a stained glass window that depicted her great-great-grandmother burning down a barbarian settlement. Her father, upon hearing about this, got her whipped so intensely that she couldn't sit without wincing for several days.

These stained glass windows were the treasure of the kings and queens of the Ahn clan, and no one, not even princes and princesses, would be forgiven for such an act.

So the first thing Hyejin did after putting on her father's heavy crown, reeking of wet iron and dragon's blood, was to order the servants to get them out of sight.

"I don't care what you do with them," she declared when the stunned quartermaster asked what she wanted them to do. "You can smash them to pieces if they're so difficult to remove without damaging them. I couldn't care less. But sell the mosaics. Merchants from the west will pay well for the outlandish glass."

"And what to do with the money that we raise for the sale of your family history?" The quartermaster tried to sound witty.

"Give it to people that were left homeless because of the stupid wars of my father and brothers." Hyejin gave him an extremely unimpressed look, and in an instant the quartermaster ran out of all the witty phrases.

He carried out her order admirably.

But then he decided to pocket some (most) of the profit, and now his head adorns one of the peaks on the castle wall.

"You know, he used to serve your grandfather," Wheein observes, watching with a grimace as the raven pecks out the quartermaster's eye and croaks contentedly.

"Then he should've known better than to steal from Ahn," Hyejin sighs and wonders if she went overboard with the peak.

 "And yet, you went overboard with the peak," Wheein reads her thoughts.

"Yeah, I thought so. I will ask the guards to remove the poor fellow from there. He spoils the appetite of everyone whose windows overlook this wall."

"Well, at least now I've finally got a promotion," Wheein shrugs, straightening the quartermaster's black belt over her scarlet tunic trimmed with gold silk. "I just hope I won't finish like the previous one, spoiling the appetite of the ladies of the court."

"Of course you won't," Hyejin assures, glancing at her friend with a grin. "I'm sure your head will look very pretty on the peak."

They laugh at her grim joke with such ease that Hyejin's insides chill a little. They both spent almost half of their adult lives in wartime, and now they joke even about death. Wheein does it much better. Hyejin doesn't have that sophisticated sense of humor.

They stand in the courtyard of the royal castle, watching the loading of carts. Sacks of flour, rice, boxes of wine and corned beef, loaded in creaky old carts, are already leaving the gate, making their way to the outskirts of the kingdom, where the war has almost completely destroyed crops and livestock. The carts, loaded with tools and workers, are preparing to travel to the regions, in which, by some miracle, the war did not manage to approach in seven years, in order to help with the autumn harvest.

"By the way, there is still one stained glass in the dungeons," says Wheein.

"What?" Hyejin can't hear about these ill-fated windows without irritation flaring up in her stomach. "I ordered to get rid of them. No exceptions."

"This is the only one that has been removed from the frame intact," Wheein says, Hyejin's displeasure doesn't touch her equanimity in the least. "It's your mother's. Your advisers objected to its sale, and I ordered it to be placed in the treasury until your further instructions."

A cruel, cruel woman, her mother. Slayer of the last dragon in the world. Even Hyejin's father and her strong and dimwitted brothers used to be terribly afraid of her.

Sometimes Hyejin looks in the mirror and sees only her in the reflection.

"Awful woman," Wheein mutters.

Wheein, being a no-name orphan raised along with Hyejin in the castle, knows firsthand how awfully cruel and terrifying that woman was.

"What other news should I know about? "Hyejin is tired. More than anything right now she wants to hide in her room. And maybe drink a glass of wine (or two). But in such a shaky time, things don't wait until tomorrow.

"We've cut the number of people in your personal guard, as you requested," Wheein grimaces. She disagreed the loudest about the idea, her sweet, caring friend. "The new guard has begun work, and all your old guards have gone with ambassadors on diplomatic missions."

"The lives of these ambassadors are far more important than mine now," says Hyejin. "They carry news of the peace, and their protection must be provided by the best."

"What's the point in concluding peace if you die because of the incompetence of unexperienced recruits that your personal guard is filled now?" Wheein frowns. "You are now our queen. How can you entrust your life to these children, who hardly know how to hold the sword by the right end? Who will sit on the throne if you are killed? And they will try to kill you, you can be sure of that, not everyone is happy about the death of your father. Who will take your place if you are strangled in your sleep tomorrow? Your 3-year-old niece who barely knows how to speak?"

At the thought of her niece's small arms and chubby cheeks, Hyejin's chest stings painfully. They have not seen each other for so long that the girl probably no longer remembers her.

"If necessary, yes," says Hyejin. "And you will help her in that."

"Yeah, no way I'm doing that," Wheein grumbles, but Hyejin just smiles.

No one is more loyal than Wheein. No matter how hard she tries to act all tough and grumpy, she would never let Hyejin down.

"I took the liberty of assigning one person to you on a permanent basis," Wheein says.

"Huh?" Hyejin winces. "Wheein-ah, I'm not ten years old!"

"You made me your right hand, so you have to listen to me now," Wheein declares. "I have no desire to rule this country instead of your little niece for the next 15 years."

"I already regret that I gave you this belt…"

"Don't be dramatic," Wheein snorts. "Plus, it was originally Byulyi's idea. She personally recommended this… Kim Yongsun person, and you know how Byulyi is. She was ready to literally split in two, just to fulfill your order to accompany the diplomats and at the same time to continue guarding you. If she approves of her, then she is a reliable person."

Hyejin sighs, remembering Byulyi's shattered expression when she said she was sending her to the southern borders along with a group of negotiators.

"I myself will assign people to your guard," Byulyi declares peremptorily, rolling up the scroll and tucking it into the bosom of her shining armor. "And Wheein will make sure everything goes smoothly. Let me at least have this."

"Don't be angry." Hyejin wants to come over and maybe hug her, but there is steel in Byulyi's eyes and her lips are pressed into a thin line. It's been three days since the morning she received the news of her new assignment, and it's time for her to leave, and Hyejin is terribly reluctant to part like this, in angry silence, but Byulyi is still mad, and not just mad, she is furious. "I'll be fine."

"You will be," Byulyi nods, still not looking at her. Instead, she tightens the straps on her saddle, and her mare snorts in displeasure and digs the soft ground after the rain with its hoof. "I will make sure of it."

This morning a messenger came with a letter from her. The first two sheets of parchment were filled with apologies about how they parted, and then for the next five she described how beautiful the sea in the south is, and how the mountains are so high that she cannot see the end behind the clouds, and what strange animals she saw, and with what unusual and delightful people she managed to get acquainted and make friends during this two months that she lived there. At the end of the letter, she assured Hyejin that she had hired the most trusted people to guard her, and that she would definitely fulfill her own mission and return to her as quickly as possible.

Hyejin desperately wants to believe it.

"Yongsun is waiting for you in the throne room," Wheein says. "You should go and meet her."

Hyejin nods distractedly, and obediently walks inside the castle, leaving the final preparations on the shoulders of her newly minted quartermaster, and thinks that 'Yongsun' is a rather strange name for a girl.

***

The smells inside a stone castle are so very different, and Yongsun catches herself thinking that she doesn't really like it. The palace is clean and tidy, richly furnished and smelling of floral water and wealth, especially the throne room, but she can still catches with her nose the damp and mildew from the walls.

She feels hot in her leather armor, and she doesn't understand how is she supposed protect anyone in such restrictive clothing, but she stubbornly stands and acts as if she knows what she's doing. Everything should go flawlessly, and even the armor that stifles and sticks to her body will not prevent her from succeeding.

The armor is a little shabby and worn out, but it still looks pretty nice to Yongsun's taste. Especially compared to the rags that Yongsun herself has worn these past years. The plate sits on her like a glove (she was given the smallest one that was found in the barracks), made of black tanned leather, beautifully decorated with the family crest of the Ahn clan – a yellow flower on a black field – on the left side of the sternum. The bracers are frayed and clearly worn by a few people before Yongsun, but the boots are brand new, and the impeccable, dense sole squeaks pleasantly as she strides.

Well, at least it's better than a metal cuirass.

"I'm a free swordsman, I never had money for an armor, let alone a cuirass," she said as Captain Park handed her this morning a heavy metal plate with rust at the edges. "I don't know how to wear that."

How am I supposed to fly in them, she almost said, but bit her tongue in time.

"Then put on the leather one," Captain shrugged. "You are now Her Highness's personal guard. You'd be a useless protector without proper equipment."

Personal guard of Her Highness.

Yongsun has come a long way in these ten years, and when she thinks about her ultimate goal, her stomach does this nauseatingly sharp somersault.

Somewhere on the periphery of her mind, she thinks of Byulyi, and she has to stifle her awakening conscience. It won't matter as soon as Yongsun gets it done.

She realizes that she's nervous, standing in front of an empty throne in an empty throne room with empty windows without glass. Yongsun has no idea what happened to the windows, but she is kind of grateful for the lack of them, because this is how some fresh air enters.

"One, two, three," she mutters under her breath, trying to calm her pounding heart, but the children's counting-rhyme that her sister constantly sang has long since faded from Yongsun's memory, and she can only count infinitely to the rhythm. And with the counting room, Yonghee's voice, her smile, and the color of her eyes faded as well.

The mouth fills with bitter bile and burning fire. That's why she's here.

The massive black oak doors swing open with such a loud bang that Yongsun grabs the hilt of her sword. And goes frozen.

A girl enters the throne room. She is not much younger than Yongsun herself, dark-haired and beautiful as a rarest flower. Her black robes are adorned with golden silk. Behind her, with every confident step, the hem of a dark cloak flutters, and the clatter of her heels echoes through the hall in a booming, oppressive echo. She has a massive, roughly forged golden crown on her head, and it's somehow surprising how her delicate thin neck does not snap from its weight.

Yongsun involuntarily takes a step back, because the girl smells of something very sweet and attractive.

This is how poisonous flowers smell. Impossibly beautiful and deadly.

The girl walks closer, stops at a respectful distance from Yongsun, and gives her a sharp look of charcoal eyes.

Yongsun's eyes are watery from the stench of burnt flesh, and she does not dare to shapeshift, fearing that she'd be completely taken down by the disgusting smell. Instead, she runs desperately on her flimsy human legs down the stream, rocks cutting the pink skin on her feet, but Yongsun can hardly feel it. Not now, when her whole life is being destroyed right in front of her eyes.

"Unnie!!!" She squeaks with her childish human voice.

But Yonghee doesn't answer.

And Yongsun keeps running, smashing her legs into bloody mess and swallowing bitter tears that pour from her eyes, either because of the smell, or because of the silence that surrounds her.

She smells them before she sees them. People who stink of death and iron. With silver swords and arrows. She stops and ducks down, hiding behind a boulder on the bank of the stream, and only then she notices them through the smoke and fog.

Yongsun's blood goes cold from what she sees, and her knees give way.

Above Yonghee's lifeless body stands a woman as beautiful as she is terrifying, reminding Yongsun of a moonless night full of stars and nightmares. One leg props up Yonghee's side, and emerald scales crackle melodically under her heel, spilling more blood that turns the stream crimson, poisoning the water with death and dragon pain.

"Un-nie…" Yongsun chokes out, and that's the only thing she's able to do.

She cannot move, even fingers on her puny human arms don't obey the orders from her brain, and her whole being now wants only one thing – in no case should this woman or her servants notice her.

The woman raises her sword above Yonghee's head and swings. Silver steel cuts with ease through protective scales and flesh and bone, and Yongsun forgets how to breathe as she watches her sister's head gently roll away from her body.

"Come out, child," the woman suddenly says, and her voice sends a heap of frightened goosebumps down Yongsun's spine. "I know you're hiding behind that rock."

Yongsun doesn't move, just watches as the woman slowly removes her leg from the bloody body, straightens her belt and throws the sword into the hands of one of the guards.

"I said come out ."

There is so much power and danger in her voice that Yongsun doesn't dare to disobey. On trembling legs, she leaves her shelter and tries not to forget how to breathe.

The woman walks up to her, pebbles crunch under her boots, she stinks of blood so terribly, and Yongsun is horrified. She had never in her life feared anything and no one as much as she's afraid of this woman standing in front of her.

"Where did you come from, child?" She rustles, holding out her bloody gloved hand, and ruffles Yongsun's blonde hair, staining it with Yonghee's blood.

"I– I'm from a village in the east," Yongsun manages to say, tears beginning to run down her face at the realization that her sister is really dead and she's likely to join her soon. "I got lost."

"You poor thing" drawls out the woman. "Don't worry, my guards will you to the village." One of the soldiers nods resignedly, but the woman hardly pays attention to that. "Hmm. Look at me."

Yongsun lifts her tear-stained face and meets her cold charcoal gaze, harsh and black as winter night.

"What beautiful eyes you have, child," she says, lifting Yongsun's chin with her finger. "Like liquid gold."

"Why–" Yongsun squeezes out. "Why did you kill Yo– this dragon?"

"What interesting questions you ask, child," the woman grins. "You remind me of my daughter." Yongsun is silent, amazed that she even dared to open . Her heart is bleeding, and she is scared, oh skies, she is so scared! "I will answer you the same way I answer her every time she asks me this question. Listen carefully, child."

She drops on one knee and looks straight at Yongsun.

"It dared to be born into this world, and it is my duty, as a member of the Ahn clan, to punish it for such a crime, so that the human race would be saved from dragon fire."

"Are you okay? The girl asks, and genuine concern sweeps across her soft features.

Yongsun emerges from her memories and shakes off the tension, glueing a polite smile on her face and bowing low.

"Queen Hwasa."

"Hyejin," the girl replies, and Yongsun looks up in confusion. Was she wrong, and this is not the queen? But as soon as her ears start to flush with embarrassment for bowing her head in front of the wrong person, the girl sighs exasperatedly. "I was crowned under the name of Hwasa, but my real name is Hyejin. You can call me Hyejin."

"I– I don't think it's–" Yongsun tries to say something and tries her best not to show how confused she is by this meeting, but fails enormously.

The young queen is… different than Yongsun imagined in her head while lying under the open sky, unable to shake off her dark thoughts.

"I don't like to talk too formally with my close guards and servants when the situation does not require it," says the queen. Hyejin. Pretty name , Yongsun thinks, even prettier than Hwasa . "Since you are now accompanying me for a whole day, it would be much more convenient for me to call you by your name, and in return you can do the same."

"You barely know me," Yongsun mumbles.

"Byulyi spoke very warmly of you in her last letter." Her gaze clouds a little, and a soft smile touches her lips, softening her features even more. Yongsun has to look away forcibly. "We may not know each other now, but we will have to spend a lot of time together, whether I like it or not. So it's best if we try to get along."

"Of course," Yongsun nods and puts on a smile. "Hyejin-nim. My name is Kim Yongsun."

"Nice to meet you, Yongsun-ssi."

***

Over the course of three weeks, Yongsun's small but surprisingly imposing figure on the periphery of her vision becomes a familiar sight for Hyejin. The constant presence of the silent guard annoys Hyejin much less than she expected, and more and more often she catches herself thinking that she is glad to see Yongsun in the morning at the door of her quarters, a little bleary-eyed and with dark hair uncombed from sleep and hastily gathered in an untidy bun on the back of her head.

She is strange.

The way she holds herself, how she sometimes confuses words when she speaks, how she handles the sword so very skilfully and dexterously and at the same time walks and stumbles, as if she had just learned to walk.

She has the face of a person who clearly loves to chat and fool around, but restrains herself from doing it. Hyejin sometimes notices on her stern face the desire to laugh heartily at the joke that Wheein gives out during meetings with advisers to defuse the situation, or how funny she paces with a brisk pace when she thinks that Hyejin is not looking, or how she makes those strange squeaks and wrinkles her face unprettily when she does not like some dish they've been served at lunch or dinner. Yongsun seems like a funny person.

Hyejin is sure she has a very pretty smile, even though she has never seen her smile sincerely. Her strained, terribly fake grin during their first meeting, to be honest, slightly hurt Hyejin's vanity, who, despite her reluctance to walk around with a glorified babysitter, still made an effort not to spoil relations with the aforementioned babysitter and try to get along, and received in response only a polite grimace with very poorly disguised disdain.

They rarely talk. Moreover, in private. Their communication is limited to polite good morning and good night and occasional careful and thank you, and Hyejin is frustrated by this.

"Why does it bother you so much?" Wheein asks on one of the rare evenings when they are left alone without the watchful eye of Yongsun, who's having an unscheduled day off. "You don't have to be friends for her to protect you."

Hyejin thinks about the way Yongsun looks at her at times. Her eyes are gold and flame and something very painful and broken in the depths of her bright irises. And Hyejin, due to her natural gentleness, which even her late mother could not drain away, wants to help Yongsun more than anything else. She does not know anything about her, but she has seen similar looks many times on the faces of people who have returned half-dead from the war, on the faces of Wheein, Byulyi, and in the mirror in front of herself. And she knows better than anyone that the only salvation from the despair, which causes such a look, is the support of someone nearby.

"I don't know," Hyejin says instead, when Wheein is losing hope of hearing an answer. "Just because."

"Just don't fall in love," Wheein snorts. Hyejin knows she's joking, but she can still feel her ears redden at her friend's comment.

"Shut up," she puffs, and hastily tries to find another topic of conversation.

"If you want to get close to her that much, just start a conversation," Wheein says a very wise thing, and Hyejin feels a little silly.

So the next morning, when they meet as usual at the door to the royal chambers, Hyejin calms the nervous twisting in her stomach and asks:

"How was your day off, Yongsun-ssi?"

Yongsun freezes, like an animal seen by a hunter in the thick grass, and for long, terribly long three seconds does not answer, only looks at Hyejin with nothing but surprise in her big golden eyes.

"Um… It was fine, Hyejin-nim," she mutters, and the uncovered part of her neck is blooming with adorable red patches of embarrassment. "I visited the town and… uh… walked around the market."

They begin to walk slowly towards the southern dining room, where breakfast is usually served. Yongsun is, as always, to her right, two steps behind, but Hyejin decides to not care about rules and levels up her steps to Yongsun's, accidentally catching the scent of fruit soap from her loose dark hair. The latter does not even try to hide her surprise at the sudden change.

"Has anything caught your interest?" Hyejin asks. "Our markets were pretty scarce during the war years, but the last six months of my attempts to make peace are already beginning to bear fruit, as far as I've heard."

"Oh, absolutely,'' Yongsun nods and bites her lip, clearly wanting to add something, and Hyejin's gotta admit, it's somehow cute how much she tries to restrain herself from bursting with the details of her walk through the actively developing market in the capital town. "I came across this unusual food from the east…"

"What is it called?"

"I don't remember, but it's soft, and spicy and sweet at the same time," Yongsun says, her cheeks and neck red, and she chews on her lips, clearly remembering the taste of the curiosity she ate. "I have never tasted anything more delicious. The dough itself does not have any strong taste, the whole thing is in sauce, it's bright orange, full of some very strong spices…"

She suddenly falls silent, and Hyejin can't help laughing softly.

"Um…" Yongsun wheezes. "I'm sorry, I…"

"It's tteokbokki," Hyejin says. "Before the war, there was a lot of eastern food in the city market, but only a few took roots here, including tteokbokki. Mainly thanks to my mother, she is from the east, and she loved her hometown cuisine very much."

Yongsun's face hardens into a gray mask at her last phrase, but she quickly smiles with one of her fake smiles. "She had great taste."

Hyejin is shrewd, and immediately notices the change in her guard's mood. The late queen made a lot of enemies in her time. It's not surprising that so many people, even years after her death, carry bad thoughts about Hyejin's mother.

"She was a cruel person," she says, looking at the floor. "But, like any person, she had her weaknesses and pleasures."

"She killed the last dragon, didn't she?" Yongsun asks quietly.

"Yes."

"Are you proud of her?"

Hyejin stops. Something unpleasant sways in her chest at Yongsun's insinuating question. Her eyes are darker than usual, and at that moment, Hyejin feels more than ever how full of pain and hate Yongsun is.

"No," she replies, hoping with all her heart that her voice is firm and unquestioning.

Yongsun nods, hiding her amber gaze, and gestures for Hyejin to come forward.

The conversation was over.

***

It's like a poisonous flower, Yongsun convinces herself for the thousandth time, looking with a defocused gaze at a map spread out on a table with depictions of jagged lines of trade routes and small foci of battles between guerrillas and deserters that have not yet faded away.

As soon as I step closer and take a breath, it'll kill me, she tells herself firmly, casting a quick glance to the left, where Hyejin is listening intently to a report from one of the supply officers.

She is dressed almost as simply as the officer standing in front of her – in a comfortable men's tunic and soft boots. She has hardly any makeup on, her hair tied up in a messy bun, and little locks of hair are glued to her sweating neck because of the stuffy air in the war room. Yongsun struggles to ignore the sweet aroma of her perfume and the natural, slightly salty scent of her skin. Usually it's not difficult for her to dull her senses in the human form, but for some reason it doesn't work with Hyejin, and at the end of the day the young queen and her sweet and tart smell streams through Yongsun's veins instead of blood, painfully knocks on her temples and seeps into her dreams, dispelling the blissful darkness.

She will poison me, Yongsun wearily repeats in her head, but then Hyejin suddenly gets distracted from the report and looks at her for a short two seconds. Such warm, warm eyes, a fleeting smile in the corners of beautiful lips and a playfully raised eyebrow.

Two seconds are infinitely long for Yongsun, but at the same time they fly by so quickly that a strange disappointment swirls in her chest because the moment has already passed, and Hyejin is already looking at the officer again and attentively listening to his boring report.

Yongsun reminds herself of her mission again.

No one form this cruel clan sh