The first ray of the sun stabbed Hak's eyes like a knife and he groaned. Hak rolled over and put a pillow over his head. He was protesting. Nope. Morning was canceled for the foreseeable future.

He was exhausted. Since their arrival a week ago, Lili's father was a pain in the ass to deal with. They had to do it again today. He was slippery as a eel, which made him perfect for the head of the water tribe. He never wanted to tell the two of them anything straight out. Yona and Hak had to jump so stupid hoops to get at the merchants selling the drug.

(Not to mention the uneasy feeling of being alone in water tribe lands. It was part of Kouka, true, but under King Il's hands, the tribes were nations under their own rule. They've had to be.

Hak should've said no. It was horribly dangerous to have Yona out here like that.

He looked at Soo-won, trying to talk her out of it, and wondered.

Is this place any safer?)

Another all-nighter passed like a hazy dream. He recalled speaking with - arguing, really, though Lili's father tired to pretend he was too refined for that - the water tribe general. He was frustratingly indirect, a living stereotype of people who lived within the water tribe.

How on earth did someone like him raise someone as blunt as Lili? Maybe it was a defense mechanism against her father's passive aggressive bullshit.

The sound of footsteps down the hall has Hak on his feet in seconds. Lili stepped through the door with something that smelled awful and snorted at him. Lili thrust a cup of kaf at him.

Speak of the devil.

"Here. Drink it."

"Didn't anyone teach you to knock?" Hak took the cup anyway. The stuff tasted foul, but it kept him running on no sleep. It was hot but not enough to scald. The bitter taste coated his tongue but he drank to the end. It always made him feel like there were bees buzzing around in his chest after it hit.

Lili sniffed. "This is my house. Why should I?"

Hak heard rumors about the refinement and gentleness of the water tribe's only daughter. He wanted to find out what those people were smoking. It'd probaly help out with the drug investigation.

The door opposite the bed creaked open, attracting both their attention. Hak knew Lili wasn't here to see him. Yona stepped out, still rubbing her the sleep out of her eyes. "Morning Hak, Lili."

"Good morning Yona!" Hak pretended to gag at the sparkle in Lili's voice. She glared at him, than smiled at Yona and offered her and identical cup of dark brown liquid. "I brought you a little pick me up. I'm sorry about my father, but he can be stubborn. He wanted me to take you out around the city today."

Hak snorted. He'd call Lili two-faced, but she really did like Yona. Even Hak could admit that. "You have stubbornness in common."

Lili sniffed. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

Neither of them mentioned how closely they both watched Yona. The other reason Hak was so exhated.

"I can tell him to back off." Lili said. "Give you some time to rest."

At least Lili was almost as worried about Yona as Hak was. Yona bushed herself like something was chasing her. He knew what it was.

The first time Yona took a life.

When she woke up, she cried like her heart was breaking. Then nothing. She returned to her normal self, if a little more subdued.

Hak was unsurprised when Yona shook her head. "That's alright. I want to get this done and return to the capital. I'd feel bad if Soo-won has to do all of the work himself for too long." She said, took the drink and drained it in one shot. Yona made a face when she finished the drink. Not as interesting as the first time. Gagging and coughing the whole time - her face was the funniest thing Hak'd seen in years.

The moment is broken by one of Lili's servants bursting through the door, normally kind eyes wild. "Lady Yona - we received a message from Lord Soo-won! The fire tribe army marches on the capitol!"

The words hang heavy in the air, like a valuable vase dropped. A feeling of horrible realization and then -

- crash.

Hak shook his head, trying to clear his ears. The words made sense seperatly, but the whole of them did not. The fire tribe was marching on the palace? They were only gone for a few weeks. What did Soo-won do?

Yona stood with a screech of wood on wood, the cup falling to the floor. "What?"

The situation hit Hak fully. Fuck. Soo-won was in the palace. Alone.

He jerked to his feet. "What's the situation?" Hak demanded. "Are they there yet? How did Soo-won know?"

"The fire tribe isn't exactly hiding it! We're getting survivors from the villages in their path, even this far away, and it's looking like they'll have no problem just rolling over the civilians from their own country." The servant spat of the floor, and Lili didn't reprimand her.

Hak felt still. His eyes never left Yona.

"Hak." Yona's voice was tight. "We're going home."

"That might not be the best idea." Hak said.

Yona jerked around to look at him. "Soo-won -"

"I know. He's in danger, but you are the queen, your majesty." Hak ran a hand through his hair. "I can't - Even for him, I can't let you go into danger."

Yona glares at him. "So we just let him die? I can't believe this - He doesn't have Jeong anymore, Hak!"

(A calm look that blossoms into a smile, a scar and hands that were always gentle.

Jeong, slipping out of reach.)

"And just why is that?" Hak yelled back, temper getting the better of him.

All the blood drains from Yona's face. "What?"

The words settled into the room. Hak holds himself up under them, but it's a close thing and he still can't stop thinking about that night by the waterfall.

Why would Jeong hurt the king?

Hak can't think of a single reason. It made no sense.

Except, if it wasn't Jeong, why not say so? Come back to the castle and explain what happened? What could make Jeong take the blame without protest?

Hak glanced at Lili. She gave him an unreadable look but took the hint for once and stood up. "We'll leave you alone." Lili said, and slips back out the door. walked through the door, her dark hair behind her like a banner. "We have arrangements to make and refugees to settle." Her face was disgusted. She took her duty to the people seriously.

Yona didn't look after her. Her face was still bloodless. "Hak. Explain yourself."

Anything was better than the stomach clenching fear of being right.

He thought of Soo-won, Seven years old and bubbly, the first time he and Hak took Yona out of the castle. He thinks of turning around, finding her gone, and the terrible fear he felt. How it swallowed him whole. Soo-won didn't panic. Soo-won took the two of them to a dangerous den and pushed his way into it.

Hak knows that nothing scares Soo-won. He's so much prouder than anyone thinks. Hak'd secretly sneered at the men and women who saw his pretty hair and his pointless smile, and dismissed him for it. Soo-won was a blade, Soo-won was a dagger - Soo-won was dangerous.

It was something to be proud of, before.

Now it inspired a cold wind blowing up Hak's spine. He looked at Yona, sitting silhouetted in the weak morning light and licked his lips. His hands don't shake. Mundock trained that out of him early. Yona told him about the state of the country and while he knows she's not lying - he never really believed it either. The image of King Il in his heart is a man who would bleed himself on a blade before letting anyone touch his family.

Jeong's village was run down. Not starving, but not well off. Hak was raised in the wind tribe; there was always food to be had.

If the village was like that, surely the situation wasn't as bad as Yona thought?

Hak paid attention while traveling. It was worse. The roads were barely more than paths. The people were poor, the merchants were few. People were barely scraping by or inhumanly corrupt.

Soo-won often went out of the castle. He was smart, smarter than pretty much everyone Hak knew. Could he see this coming?

Of course.

It's little things like that - they pile up like sand in the dessert, bits of evidence until Hak poured over his memories of King Il and Soo-won.

The two of them always seemed fine. Now, Hak sees the sour note lingering beneath the surface. The times where Soo-won hesitated a hair too long, where King Il spoke a little too soft. There was love, but there was also something both Hak and Yona missed. Something darker and quiet stood between the two of them, a long shadow cast by something Hak didn't know.

The truth pressed down on his shoulders like a heavy hand, all the little things he missed came back to sting his skin like wasps. How did he not notice before? he could have done something. He could have changed it somehow.

Magma bubbles beneath Hak's ribs, a seething ball of rage and pain. He looked down at the cup of kaf by his elbow and desperately wished for something stronger - but no. He was alone with Yona in strange territory. He couldn't.

Hak hesitated and Yona noticed, her eyes going narrow. "Hak."

The word felt like thin ice. He can't keep this from her, and Lady Bin-na's voice filled his ears. The more he thought about it, the more his heart sunk.

Hak's tongue is heavy, but he forced the words out. "I... I don't think Jeong killed his majesty."

Yona stared at him. "Hak - Hak, you were there. You saw them - they had blood on their hands, on their feet."

Hak grimaced. Yona's empty voice echoed back at him, six months ago.

She walked through my father's blood.

Still. He couldn't stop now. The words came pouring out of him. "Think about it, Yona! Why would she kill him?" He took a step forward, hands out, palms up.

Yona threw her hands up in the air. "I don't know, Hak! It was pointless and senseless, and I have no idea why! I can't - I can't think about it right now. It hurts." She turned away, put one hand on the table, one hand on her face, covering her eyes. "Hak. Please, don't make me think about it."

Yona... already knows.

Hak's heart goes numb. "How long?"

She's silent.

"Yona! How long have you been suspicious?"

Yona doesn't uncover her eyes. "Since the funeral. I could tell something was wrong. I tired to push it away. I tired to block it out, because if it wasn't Jeong then who? Who stood the most to gain from this? Who had th opertunity, the motive? Who lied?" She laughed, once. "There was no one else in that room."

Hak's heart was breaking. "Princess..."

Yona flinched back. "Please Hak. Please, Hak. Don't make me say it." Her eyes glitter with tears, and Hak almost - almost backs down. He can't take it when she looks at him like that. His own traitorus heart breaks, pushed his words down his throat, took his breath.

He does it anyway. "Soo-won was there."

HIs name, out in the open like that, breaks both of their hearts.

Yona's eyes filled with tears. The sound she lets out was like a child being hurt, like someone learning that world wasn't okay, and never would be again. The day her father died, Hak's swore to keep her safe.

How could he protect her from her own breaking heart? He would give all of his blood to know. He would cradle the shards in his hands, keep it together with his pieces of his own in places of missing bits.

Hak pulled her into a hug, rested his head on her red hair.

She gasped like a dying thing, cried like she couldn't get enough air. It was messy, ugly, real. Hak doesn't look at her at all. If he has to see her heart breaking all over again, nothing would stay his hand. Not even Soo-won.

He closed his eyes and waited her out.

By the time she's done crying, Yona feels emptied out. Her eyes ached but her mind was clear. For the first time since her father's death, she thought the words.

Soo-won killed my father.

It hurt.

Hak would never, ever lie to her. Not about something like that. It was like hearing a song clearly after forgetting the lyrics. She wanted to block her ears, too un-think it somehow. A great wind pushed her mind onward, ripping up the foundation of her naivety. Could Soo-won, the boy she loved, do something like this?

She didn't know.

Would Jeong turn on someone like her father?

...No.

The truth so rarely made anyone happy.

She thought about the funeral, about long hours learning Soo-won while working together.

Her father was a good man, but a terrible king. Soo-won wanted what was best for Kouka. He lived and breathed the people, loved the city. That was never in doubt. He loved Kouka - enough to shed own blood.

Or the blood of a uncle. The blood of a king.

She can't... she can't even say he was wrong.

And that hurt the most.

King Il was driving the country to ruin. No place was left untouched by his hand.

(If he was left alive, a civil war would've been inevitable. There were too many factions. The traditionalists would've never gone for Soo-won, and neither would the fat leeches who fed of her father's kindness. The people who cared about the citizens would've followed Soo-won.

It would have torn the entire country in two.)

Yona feels like the night sky, feels like something high up and empty but for the bits of other people left in her like stars. Jeong's hand in her hair, after a nightmare woke her. Hak grinning at her after being particularly irritating. Her father reading to her when she was very young. A mother she can't clearly remember, singing something high and sweet.

Soo-won, sitting by her bedside when she was sad and sick. Worried but there in a way no one else ever was, or would be again.

She pressed a fist into Hak's chest. His heart was strong, calm.

If she wasn't a queen, she could ignore this. Let the thought of kind Soo-won, who held her after her mother died, hurting anyone slip out of her mind. If only she was still that selfish princess. If only Soo-won could stay that shining, fuzzy warmth in the back of her heart.

If only.

But she wasn't, and Soo-won was only a person, and people - people were capable of terrible things.

Either Soo-won or Jeong killed her father.

Jeong attacked her. Soo-won held her hand.

Soo-won had motive. Jeong… did not.

A fresh wave of tears burn out of her eyes, but she doesn't stop to think about it. She looked up at the ceiling, let them fall. Inside of Hak's embrace, Yona was the safest she would ever be. He would die before she got hurt - and she couldn't bear the thought. If his heart stopped, Yona would -

Keep going.

Yona was a queen. The death of one man couldn't hold her back. Bodyguad, bandit, or father.

...The life of one bad king could save her country from self-destructing, and Soo-won made his choice. Forgiveness was water in an inferno. Yona didn't have it yet - might not ever have it. Perhaps the most she could hope for was understanding.

She used her sleeves to dry off her eyes.

The sun rose outside and she knew she couldn't stay here forever.

Hak started when she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him back.

"We have to go back." She said quietly, taking in the familiar smell of oil and metal. Safety. "We have to - Soo-won is alone in the castle."

No matter what she felt, she couldn't let him die. Not before she got the truth from his own mouth. She was tired of lies.

Hak's head rested on her shoulder for long moment, and Yona's heart broke again. He loved Soo-won just as much as she did.

"Alright." He said.

"Alright." She agreed.

To the castle.

Soo-won stood upon the battlements and looked down on the city, hands clasped behind his back. It was a familiar, beloved sight. Tiled roofs did not matter so much as the people inside them, but Soo-won loved the trappings of it all the same.

A scuff of feet on stone behind him and he tipped his head slightly.

"General." He said. "Is everything prepared?"

The scarred man steped up beside him and gave a deadpan look. "Of course." He saluted, hand over heart. "The troops are ready, as are the… others. The firework-makers worked overtime to comply with your highness's request. No matter how strange it seemed."

Soo-won smiled. Joo-doh was funny when he wanted to be; Soo-won was growing fond of the man.

Soo-won turned back to the city, at the ribbons of water that tied all of it together. The reason King Hiryuu picked this place for the capitol was the natural defenses. Mountains to the back, rivers to the left and right, and heavy forest to the front. The only road big enough to let an army through was the main one, through the high walls, through the heavy white gates.

"Are you sure about this, your highness? The damage to the city alone, for something as risky as this..." Joo-doh asked. Joo-doh was a military man. He never questioned his superiors so to even ask showed how serious he was.

Soo-won gave him a smile he didn't feel. "Of course." He lied.

Perhaps he should feel guilty. It didn't matter - Soo-won was so used to lying at this point, there were few people who could tell the difference. Maybe even Jeong would be fooled; he wasn't a grieving thirteen year old anymore.

The thought held his heart in vise and squeezed. He touched his chest. It was a pity one needed a heart to rule. It's nothing but a living consequence, and there were moments when he wondered if having it was really worth it.

"I will of course, welcome other options, if you have them General." He said.

The man was quiet, as Soo-won knew he would be.

There were no other options.

Without Yona and Hak here to ground him, it was getting harder and harder to stay. The people needed him, and he was good at the work, but it wasn't enough. He felt like a music box reaching the last few notes, tired and slow. Something inside him was winding down.

Loneliness was a hungry thing, gnawing at his ribs. Soo-won did this to himself, and he... he can't regret it. He can't. If he regrets it means all he did was for nothing. His revenge, his father, his people, nothing.

Soo-won's father was tall and strong and his voice was deep. He tired to think about his father's face, the ever present grief that his absence brought out in Soo-won, but it was like holding a candle next to a bonfire. All he can picture is Jeong's betrayed face. His father's face faded to a fuzzy impression.

The thought stung.

Resentment boiled inside him, and hatred at his own weakness. His uncle was never a coward, but he was an idealist - and it was worse. If King Il was any good at his job, Soo-won - Soo-won would've forgiven him. Would've let him live at least.

He wasn't, so Soo-won didn't.

"Sir." The tension in Joo-doh's voice is like a hammer against the metal of Soo-won's skull. He looked up, outwards, towards the gates.

Ah.

Right on time.

The army was coming right up to the gates, like a crashing wave in slow motion. Soo-won watched the sun rise up. From his vantage point, he could see it glinting on thousands of spears, like light on the water. The ranks of the proud fire tribe soldiers walking up the road in military lines. There, at the head, with a clearing around him, were two men on horseback. It was too far to see their faces.

"It's Li Hazara, just like you predicted sir. And Kan Soo-jin." Joo-doh spat. "Traitor."

"Always a man to believe in his own myth." Soo-won looked at the soldiers, turning against their own people for the sake of one man's greed.

Joo-doh looked at him. "Sir?"

Men of faith were easy to deal with.

"It's time." Soo-won turned back into the castle. Yona and Hak should've gotten the message by now. All he had to do was hold out. "Open up the gates."

Lady bin-na look critically at the bonsai in front of her. Better than her last attempt - this one actually had a bit of a shape to it, even if it was a bit lopsided. It was a recent hobby she picked up on a trip to Xing. One could only go over the family accounts for so long before one felt like burning the lot (and the family along with it).

The empty compound mocked her. All the servants were sent away earlier. Bin-ba wasn't so callous that she would keep them when battle threatened. Good help was hard to find, and they'd be no use to her dead. She placed the shears down, and threw herself down onto the couch, regardless of the careful makeup and hair-styling. It wasn't like her husband was home to impress.

"Hyun-ki, get me a book." She said, arm over her eyes.

Nothing.

She propped herself up on her arms, and found her dear guard staring at her with disapproving eyes. She rolled her own. "Stop looking at me like that. If I disappear before the army comes I'll be the first target when the dust settles."

Lord Soo-won was entirely too sharp. He'd ask questions: where had all her servants gone? How strange that Bin-na was packed to leave already. How very lucky that she, who rarely left the capital outside of business, recently purchased a lovely estate by the sea in Xing. Did she know that the queen of Xing had some sort of grudge against Lord Soo-won's favorite body guard? It's certainly possible.

Bin-na was a businesswoman. Information has a price, just like everything else. If she sold it at a discount, well. Queen Myeongseong was very pursuasive.

Bin-na smiled, but it more a baring of teeth.

That brat of a lord thought to threaten the one thing, the only loyal person she possessed?

Queen Myeongseong wasn't the only one who could hold a grudge.

A shadow fell over her and she sighed. "Very well. I suppose it's late enough. Lord Soo-won will have other things than one such as I to worry about."

Hyun-ki didn't wait for her to stand up; he scooped her up directly off the couch, exasperation radiating off him even though his face remained blank.

She didn't fight him.

Let's see how well Lord Soo-won dealt with a threat to his bodyguard.

"I love it when a plan comes together." She said. "Ah. Did you send the letter? I quite forgot."

He grunts. "With the fastest courier."

Excellent. It wasn't as if Jeong was the one she despised, after all. They'd been nothing but polite.

She was willing to leave them a way out.

:)

(okay so im down a computer for like two weeks - had to send it in for repairs, kept shutting down, ect - so if you guys notice a drop in quality, that's probably it. also i got hit with a car like two weeks ago on wednessday and i went to a convention last friday and just got back.

ive been... busy. plus i have to work tomorow

tell me what you liked the most)