Chapter Text
Note: This is merely an excerpt from a later chapter
“I will let you live, if you let her go,” the king intoned. "You will also be paid handsomely."
Nothing in his voice betrayed his emotions. I did not know if he was pleading or demanding, but he held up his arms in a non-threatening gesture. I suspected he was attempting to diffuse the situation. If he were, I hoped he carried with him something valuable under the rich vermillion silk of his nobleman disguise.
"Let my wife go," he repeats.
Let my wife go? The words rankled me. He could not be bothered to say a single sincere thing in the palace, but suddenly he’s concerned with my welfare? He should probably think about himself first, especially with one thug holding a sword to his throat.
The chivalry was appreciated but I did well on my own, thus far. The question is whether I was prepared to drop the act I have been quite successful perpetuating the last few years: to anyone, I am Kim So Yong, the clever and conscientious daughter of the Great Lord Yeongeun, now the mild-mannered and ever-gracious queen. Nobody should know what is underneath all that poise and propriety.
At least not yet.
I watched once more from a few paces away. The four men stalked closer to the king like rabid dogs circling a hare. One man is taller than the others, but he is thin and awkward. The two other men are medium-built and they both had the bearing of laborers– perhaps farmers or hired hands. The last man is as tall as the king, but heavy set.
The faces of the men accosting us were hidden behind a mask; I can only see their eyes and it frustrated me greatly that I cannot glean any significant facial features, especially with the steady sprinkle.
As if on cue, the rain fell heavier, pummeling the roofs of the houses along the narrow alley. Lightning split across the sky, and for a fragment of a second, a streak of blazing white lit up the somber skies.
I forced myself back into the passel of thugs that waylaid us. I watched the way they held their swords, their stance, the way they locked their knees, the nervous way they glanced at each other. Yes, these are definitely untrained street thugs simply looking for a score.
I sigh with relief. At least, they are not trained assassins.
“Your wife is beautiful,” the heavyset man said.
I felt his lecherous eyes on me as the rain poured down in torrents, my skirts drenched and dripping rainwater. I am well aware of my wet clothes sticking to my body and I grip the bow tighter in my hand. If he even so much as breathed in my direction, I would bury an arrow in his throat.
"I have something valuable underneath my robes. Let me and wife go and you shall have it."
The heavyset man leers at me. "I would rather have what's underneath hers."
"If you so much as lay a finger on my wife, I will slit you in half," the king declares with murderous inflection.
The thugs guffawed. The man holding the king captive clamped harder around his regal throat.
"It's five to one, my lord. I like our odds." The heavyset man blustered, eyeing me lecherously from head to toe. "And there are more coming."
More? I suspected he was bluffing, but it wasn't a risk I was going to take.
I made a sweeping assessment. I suspect the king was doing the same. I see his assessing gaze as he glanced surreptitiously at the thugs.
The king looked like a completely different person. Gone is the specious comportment of a halfwit. In its place is a look of devious intelligence.
I caught him deigning me a look, as though he was trying to send a message. He canted his head subtly to his right.
I didn't get it.
So I went back to assessing the thugs. There were five of them and two of us. If I could shoot the man who's holding the king captive, it should even out the playing field, assuming, of course, that the king can handle himself in a fight.
It is a high stakes gambit. On one hand, it might prove my theory that the king was not the imbecile he had long pretended to be. On the other, it would raise a gamut of questions about my political inclinations.
But what would be the alternative? If the king gets injured, or worse, killed by these dimwits, I would lose my best chance at retribution.
The choice seemed quite simple. Having decided, I nocked an arrow and pulled back. I pointed the arrowhead at the thug holding the king hostage, the strings tense and taut, my index finger cold and calm next to my lip, the fletching soft and soaked between my fingers
The king’s eyes widened when he saw me aim at the man. I cannot blame him. From his vantage point I looked like I was pointing an arrow at him.
He had seen me with a bow and arrow countless times, but he had never seen me hit the target. I could not be relied upon to use an arrow, my aim was always off by a few centimeters. The king’s beloved consort, Jo Hwa Jin had always been the celebrated archer, whereas, I was the clumsy and uncoordinated one.
What the king, and his sanctimonious friends didn’t realize was that it takes an excellent archer like Hwa Jin to hit the bull's eye, but it takes a truly exceptional one to deliberately miss the target by a handbreadth every single time. I could out-hit his smug little consort with half an eye.
I snapped out of my snarky thoughts and forced myself back to our current predicament.
Once more, the king canted his head to the right
His right, my left.
It reminded me of that afternoon when I deliberately missed and hit a spot to the right of the target.
I see you like hitting on the right , he said disdainfully back then.
And suddenly it made sense to me.
From where I stood, I could only see half of the thug’s face. It is as though he's using the king's body as a shield, with only half of his face visible from my vantage point.
Half of a face that is to the right of the king's head.
His right. My left.
I pulled the arrow farther back; the feathers between my fingers felt as familiar as my own fingers.
I calculated. I inhaled. I loosed the arrow.
It flew across the narrow alley in a perfect spiral. It grazed the king's temple, but it buried itself right through the thug's left eye.
I never miss.
The thug howled in agony and staggered back. At this, the king pivoted and drew his own sword. He moved with the grace and gore of a seasoned fighter
All at once the four other thugs advanced at him, and I watched in morbid fascination how easily he fended off two people, ducking, parrying, and twisting so he can land fatal blows. Bodies were littered around his feet.
I was right. The king was more diabolic than he let on.
But he was right too. I was not the wide-eyed doe I pretended to be.
Where we go from here, I do not know.
The pervert advancing towards me interrupted my musings. I nocked another arrow before he could take another step and loosed it, all in one swift motion.It pierced through the thug's throat.
He dropped to the ground, crimson liquid dripping into the surrounding puddle.
"Let's go," the king said as he sprinted towards me, grabbing my wrist and pulling me along with him.
I didn't argue. I ran off with him, completely aware of two things. One-- the thug's friends could come after us. And two, the unsettling sensation of his hand curled around my wrist.
When he yanked me down an even smaller alleyway, I pulled him back. "Your Majesty, do you even know where we're going?"
"Please trust me. Just this once," he replies without breaking his stride.
And yes, for once. I did as he said, without argument. Without artifice.
He pulled me into a little nook underneath an eave, effectively shielding me from wandering eyes and torrential rain. I felt his arm snake around my waist, pressing our bodies together under the sheltered alcove.
His head is turned towards the street, but I felt his presence so acutely, just as I felt my own. His proximity was most disconcerting…. and yet delightful all the same. It was so akin to the exhilaration of leaping off a precipice without knowing what’s waiting on the ground.
And so I steered my emotions towards less thrilling subjects, like listening for a sign of the thugs and their supposed friends. But there was nothing but the sonorous thrumming of rain, and for a moment, the downpour around us was so thick, it was more wall than water. Like a cocoon that kept us from the world outside.
“You didn’t miss the target that afternoon.” The king said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. “You didn't aim for the center… you aimed somewhere on the right.”
It was neither a question, nor an accusation. It sounded like a realization, and I didn’t dare disagree, afraid I would reveal more than he already suspected.
"It wasn't a difficult target," is what I said. A non-answer. "And you're a skilled swordsman."
"It wasn't a difficult fight," he returned with an assessing gaze.
I noticed that he mirrored my non-answer. I was tempted to call him out for it, but the hand at the small of my back pulled me closer. Impossibly closer.
And my treacherous heart surged like a tempest at sea, demanding cognizance. Pressing for indulgence.
I did not dare speak. Or move. I didn't really trust myself to do anything.
"Are you alright?” he asked as though he suddenly remembered we just got rid of five thugs. His words held the gentle cadence of an afterthought.
I swallowed. "Yes, Your Majesty. I.. I'm alright."
The danger had passed and so I expected him to step back. To put some distance between the two of us, as he often did in the palace.
And yet.. and yet.
He remained still. And I did not feel the urge to push him away. It was ridiculous, and reckless, and it only presaged ruin, but I didn’t move. And it rankled how easy it was for the king to make inroads into my heart.
What did it matter that my mind was fierce if my heart was fickle?
A little red welt to the side of his face– perhaps from the arrow earlier– distracts me from my inner diatribe. Without conscious thought, I lifted my hand and stroked the area lightly with my thumb.
He leaned into my touch, and I was lost.
"Does it hurt?" I asked softly.
He did not say anything, merely shook his head ever so subtly. As though he was afraid any sudden movement would ruin such a precarious moment.
This close, I could see the little rivulets of rain on his face, the darker flecks in the brown of his eyes, the sharp line of his jaw, and the ridge of his nose that I have –in the most secret of my dreams– longed to trace.
I thought maybe he was doing something similar, because in the next breath, I feel the hand on my arm travel up my neck, a finger caressing my jaw. He inched closer, and then much closer still, until there was nothing in my line of vision but him. And while it was raining and my clothes were drenched, I was all warm and tingly all over.
I was overwhelmed once more by the strange fluttering in my belly, that sensation of wanting to feel everything and nothing all at once, the urge to be strong, and yet small in the circle of an embrace– his. And I longed to pull him in and push him away in the same breath.
I had to withdraw my hand from his face and clench it, afraid I might do exactly that– draw him in until all the space and struggle between us vanish in a puff of smoke.
But still he doesn’t move. Not even for a tiny fraction of an inch. His eyes were trained on mine, unfaltering in its intensity.
My lips suddenly felt dry so I swiped my tongue across it to give it some relief, and I felt, rather than saw, the moment his eyes dropped to my lips. His brown eyes turned dark and dazed.
I had the strangest urge to raise myself on tiptoe… to close that distance. But he leans in, his lips a handbreadth away from mine, and my heart pounded in inexplicable frenzy. I felt the rush of blood to my cheeks.
His gaze is soft and searing, and I have never seen him look at me that way before. His expression was, for the first time, devoid of condescension and calculation. It was raw, and real, and reverent.
And oh so utterly ravenous.
" My queen," he whispered, but it was more breath than sound.
He leaned in further. He was close. So close that I could almost taste his lips. I willed my eyes to close– it was all I could do not to combust.