“We are finished."

Those words never really left me. I shoved the stack of manuscripts I had been scratching away at for the past hour off the table, whereupon they fluttered in a heap on the group soundlessly, awaiting the actions of my wrath. I usually scrunched my lyrical musings up and aimed them at the wastepaper basket opposite of the room. However, my mind was too worked up to build the motivation to do that. Instead, I summoned my maid for a cup of wine, urging her to find the strongest and most bitter of the fruit wines I had readily stocked. She agreed with a little snort of - was that disdain? - and sauntered off with a hand restlessly swinging against her hip.

Funny woman. I frowned. I didn’t suppose she knew what I had been brooding over for weeks. But to tell her would be to shatter the tower of tragedy that had been building inside me frenetically ever since my lover had deserted me. 

Kwon Jiyong hadn’t exactly been my lover. He hadn’t even truly lived in my place of residence, which was where the upper echelons of society dwelt, surrounded by acres of pristine meadows and manicured lawns. He had been more like a fleeting, yet powerful force, a human soul who understood eve