“Chaeyoung,” Eunhye said, her face splitting into an overjoyed smile as she held her arms open to embrace Chaeyoung.

But there was something off about her, and Chaeyoung didn’t move as she stared numbly at her mother’s face. Except it wasn’t her face. Hasun moved to her sister’s side, and Chaeyoung stared at the two of them, noting all of the ways they were no longer identical. Before, it had just been the white streak, but now, her mom’s hair was a warmer chocolate brown to her sister’s raven hair, her piercing blue eyes were the colour of caramel with the help of some contacts. Her cheeks weren’t as high and sharp, making her face seem rounder, and that wasn’t the nose Chaeyoung had inherited. It was all wrong. If it hadn’t been for her voice, so alike to Hasun’s, Chaeyoung wouldn’t have spared Eunhye a second glance, and definitely wouldn’t have realised it was her mother.

“My little girl. Oh, look at you! I’m so proud,” Eunhye said, taking a step towards her.

Scrambling backwards, Chaeyoung cradled her stomach with one hand, her eyes wide with shock as she watched her mother advance. The room suddenly seemed small and stuffy, her breathing ragged and shallow as she tried to make sense of things. Her skin prickled with a cold sweat, her heart hammering in her chest, as the thought of Yujin’s words being true made Chaeyoung’s legs buckle. Hands immediately reached for her and she shied away from them, collapsing onto an armchair as she stared at her mom with owlish eyes, her face ashen as the room seemed to sway slightly around her.

“Chaeyoung?”

“Don’t,” Chaeyoung firmly said, squeezing her eyes shut as she shook her head. “Don’t talk.”

She flinched at the feeling of a warm hand gently resting on her shoulder, slamming back into the cushions of the armchair as she tore herself out of her mother’s grip, a flash of anger racing through her as her eyes shot open. “Do not touch me,” she hoarsely warned her.

Eunhye’s hand hovered mid-air as she gave her daughter a pleading look, and she slowly withdrew it, wringing both of them nervously in front of her as she lowered herself down onto the edge of the sturdy coffee table, while Hasun hung back, a wary look on her face.

“I’ve waited for this moment for years,” Eunhye quietly continued, her corners of her lips tugging up into a smile as her eyes turned glassy with a film of tears, “you have no idea how much it hurt to be away from you.”

“Don’t I?” Chaeyoung stiffly asked, giving her an accusing look as she clenched her teeth, the muscles in her jaw working as she glared at the woman sitting a few feet away. “I thought you were dead. For over fifteen years I thought you were dead, and you’ve just- you’ve been here the whole time! Where’s dad?”

She angrily looked around, waiting for her patient father to appear out of thin air, his calming, solid presence so strong ingrained in Chaeyoung’s mind that she was sure he’d be along any moment to placidly explain everything to her. Perhaps she was mistaken in what had really happened. After all, Yujin was just speculating, and she hadn’t even known that Eunhye was still alive.

“Your father’s dead,” Eunhye gently told her, breaking the news to her as calmly as if she was telling her that the weather was going to be rainy today.

Wincing slightly as the hope that had flourished inside was quashed by her mother’s words, Chaeyoung swallowed the lump in and dipped her head in a quick nod of acknowledgement, telling herself that, objectively, nothing had changed.

“How? How’re you alive and he’s not? Tell me you didn’t- tell me that I’m wrong,” Chaeyoung said, her voice cracking as she looked at Eunhye with fear in her eyes.

She was unbelievably angry that her mom had been in hiding this whole time, but she was praying that it wasn’t because she’d had her husband killed and faked her own death. If it was anything else, any other reason, Chaeyoung could forgive her, because it was in her nature to do so, but that was the one thing that would leave her mom dead to her, even if she was very much alive, just out of reach as they faced each other.

“Go on. Tell her,” Hasun flatly said, a hard look on her face as she held back, watching the exchange with tense shoulders and her lips pressed into a thin line of disapproval. “There’s no point pretending now. You should’ve let me-”

Turning her head slightly, but not enough to look over her shoulder, Eunhye’s face hardened and her knuckles turned white on the edge of the coffee table as she gripped it. “It wasn’t up to you,” she stiffly told her sister, her words sharp and dismissive.

“Oh? But it was up to me to terrorise her into doing whatever you asked me to force her to do, like some sick puppet master? Controlling everyone to fulfill your twisted plans,” Hasun laughed, the sound hollow and her eyes shining with anger. Her gaze softened for a moment as she turned her attention to Chaeyoung. “I’m sorry. I know that I lied to you too, but I didn’t want to hurt you. You were just a child, and-”

Choking on a sob, Chaeyoung climbed to her feet, rounding the armchair as she tipped her head back, grasping a handful of her hair as she ran her fingers through it. “Oh God, y-you actually did- you killed dad, all of them,” she said, her voice cracking as her bottom lip trembled.

Her stomach twisted as the sickening truth hit her hard, and she scrambled for the edge of a nearby unit as her knees shook, grabbing a decorative bowl and vomiting into it as she gasped for air. Gentle fingers brushed the back of her neck, feeling cool against her flushes skin, but Chaeyoung whirled around, pressing up against the unit as her face contorted into a look of anger. Pushing Eunhye away, she took a threatening step forward, tears pricking her eyes as she grit her teeth together. was dry and she opened and closed it a few times, trying to form a sentence. When her mom took a tentative step back towards her, Chaeyoung unfroze slightly and pushed her away again.

“No. Don’t you- you don’t get to touch me,” Chaeyoung snarled, pointing a finger at her in warning.

“Chaeyoung,” Eunhye softly said.

The stinging slap caught everyone off guard, and Chaeyoung blinked as she stared down at the numbed palm of her hand, before looking up to stare into unfamiliar brown eyes. They were the same shape as hers, but they weren’t hers. Her mom’s cheek was quickly reddening as she stared at her daughter open-mouthed, one hand reaching up to touch her cheek, before she let out a quick laugh.

“You were always such a warm child, so obedient and well mannered, but it looks like you’ve grown a backbone.”

“Stop it,” Chaeyoung warned her, a lump forming in as she struggled with the conflicting emotions inside. “You don’t get to talk to me without my permission. You should be on your knees right now.”

“I’m your mother,” Eunhye replied, her voice a little stiffer as she lowered her hand and gave her daughter a stern look.

A laugh of surprise fell from Chaeyoung’s lips as she blinked. “And I’m a queen. Besides, you gave up any right to call yourself my mother when you abandoned me. Taehee’s been a better mother to me than you ever have. You’re dead to me. I buried you a long time ago. You’re just- you’re nothing. I don’t even know you.”

“Everything I’ve done has been for you.”

“I didn’t ask you to do it for me!” Chaeyoung shouted, her face crumpling slightly as a breathless sob got stuck in . “I never wanted this - this life. I’ve nearly lost everything because of it, over and over again. I didn’t want this. Whoever you did it for, it wasn’t me. You’ve only ever done things for yourself!”

“I made you the most powerful woman in the country, and one of the most powerful in the world. You have everything you could ever dream of. That’s something that most people would kill for, and you’re lucky enough to have a mother that did that for you,” Hasun sharply replied.

Chaeyoung made a choking sound, her voice strangled as she gave her mom a look of repulsed look of disbelief, finding it hard to reconcile this hard, callously cruel woman with the one who put her through ballet lessons, taught her how to sit and walk like a lady, and spoke to her in Avalonian to ensure that she was properly educated in Avalon’s native language. The woman who stood before her wasn’t that woman, not in looks or personality. She wanted to be sick again. Since taking to the crown, she had become less naive, less trusting and gullible, yet she felt foolish in that moment, finding out that her mother was never the woman she’d thought she was.

“I can’t-”

A knock on the door interrupted what Chaeyoung had been about to say, and she whirled around with a hard look of anger on her face, staring at the wood as she tried to compose herself.

“Enter,” she called out, her voice a little too hard, and she watched as Goeun poked her head inside, looking mildly ruffled as she pushed the door wide open, her eyes trained on Chaeyoung.

“Your Majesty,” Goeun said, lingering uncertainly in the doorway. “It’s the Princess. She’s gone into labour.”

Chaeyoung froze for a moment, her brow furrowing in confusion as the words settled in her mind, and then she let out a spluttering sound of surprise. “What? No. She’s not due for another eight weeks. It’s too early.”

“Sooyoung has been calling, Your Majesty. Her water broke a half hour ago.”

Fumbling for her bag, Chaeyoung fished out her phone to find a dozen missed calls off Joohyun, Yujin, Sooyoung, Yerim and Jennie, as well as thirty messages. Swearing, she pushed herself to her feet with as much urgency as she could, her heart leaping into as a leaden feeling of worry took hold in her stomach. It was too early. Even she wasn’t due for nearly eight more weeks, and it made her stomach twist sharply at the thought of something being wrong. Even more worrying was the hundreds of miles separating her from Joohyun, and Chaeyoung was overcome with panic as she moved as fast as her waddle would allow her, face pale and hands shaking.

“Get the plane ready,” she breathlessly commanded Goeun, the woman nodding and ducking back out of the room.

“Chaeyoung,” Hasun said, her voice full of concern, “let me come with you.”

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Chaeyoung cast her aunt a frosty look, trying to mask the heartbreak she felt inside at the fact that the only family she’d thought she had left had been lying to her the whole time, and she angrily buttoned up her coat over her bulging stomach, the fabric straining to stay closed. “We’re done. If you think that I can forgive you for what you’ve done, just because you were following someone else’s orders, then you’re wrong. You risked my wife and my baby’s life. You’ve lied, and manipulated me for years. I blame you for all of this. Just as much as I blame you.”

Her eyes slid to Eunhye’s, and a spasm of pain ran across her face. There was a part of her that wanted to cry in relief that her mom was alive, the part of her that was ten years old and idolised the woman she thought her mother was. The other part of her wanted to call in her guards and every cop in the area and take the stranger in front of her into custody for murder, lock her away and let her ruin the repu