Gone was the pretense of the role model Royal Princess. Im Yoona was the Royal Crown Princess of the Buluo Empire. The eldest child of the once Regent Crown Prince Im Seulong. When her father inherited the throne, her whole world shattered as she took on the role of Crown Princess. Her care-free days were gone and the well-known connoisseur of the culinary world only a figment of her past. 

In the blink of an eye, she launched herself at her younger sister and reached for the food basket. But instead of food, she lifted the cover to three round jars of wine. Plum blossom wine to be precise. A sigh of relief escaped her lips before she quickly retreated towards the eastern royal tents. 

Nayeon followed suit. “Sister, sister, wait for me!”

Princess Nayeon was born after Im Seulong assumed the position of Emperor. Rarely was she able to witness a side of her elder royal sister that wasn’t a facade for their people. That’s why she was grateful whenever she saw a food basket with the carving of a black pearl be received by their servants. 

She’s heard it once before, but she will never get tired of hearing it over and over again. The story of her sister’s lost forbidden love. The first time was when she had turned twelve. It was well past midnight, but she couldn’t seem to rest her eyes well. Deciding to ask her older sister to tell her a bedtime story to fall asleep, she made her way over to the Crown Princess’ s Palace. But she couldn’t believe her eyes when she watched her sister, of poised grace, cross dress and scaled their palace walls with two jars of wine in hand. 

Silently, she herself tailed the Crown Princess, except through one of the doggy holes she created for such situations of sneaking out of the palace. 

When Princess Yoona caught on to her younger sister, they were already quite a distance from the Royal Palace Tents. She sighed as she carried the twelve year old sibling in her hand and ascended into one of the many trees that decorated their empire entrance. 

It was that night, on that tree branch, that Princess Nayeon was able to witness the beauty of their Empire as well as learn of her sister’s past lover. 

Back when their eldest uncle was the Emperor of Buluo, the empire was experiencing the devastations of war. A long war. But it was during this tragedy that Princess Yoona was able to meet the love of her life when she volunteered to assist the military infirmary. It was a lieutenant on the brink of death that had stolen her heart. But