Chapter Two: Shattered Bonds
A dark-haired woman stood out in the still night, her quandao, a long-handled sword, leaning against her shoulder. She glanced about, on edge. 'It's awfully quiet.'
"General Hae!" a voice called cheerfully. It was Min-soo, the empress' attendant, flask in hand. "Keep up the good work patrolling!" She extended the flask forward. "Here, I brought you something to drink!"
Hae smiled, "Oh!" She turned to the other young woman. "Thoughtful as always, aren't you, Min-soo?" The weight of the flask felt promising in her hand.
"Say, shouldn't you be with Prince Yonin?" She asked softly.
"Hmm…" Hae hummed with playful contemplation, "That would be rather tactless of me." She pulled the cork from the flask, lifted the rim to her lips, and sat on the edge of the deck. "Lady Wan-soo is with him."
"Oh! Does she finally know how he feels about her?"
Hae stared up at the night sky from behind her sable bangs. "Hard to say. But it's probably just a matter of time."
"You know both of them awfully well, don't you, General?"
Blue eyes hazed, unfocused, distant. "Well, I've been watching them for a long time. Those two…" Behind her eyes lingered the image of a rosy-cheeked, red-haired little boy and a smiling, sweet-faced blonde. It made her lips curl fondly. "How should I put it?" She looked back to Min-soo, who saw how warmly the general's gaze gleamed. "I want them to be happy together."
Dark blood dripped from the sword and onto the floor. Yonin watched dazedly, his mother's still-warm body limp in his arms, as Wan-soo's cold eyes glared from a bloody face. "W…" the sound left him on a shaky breath, a drop of sweat sliding down his jaw. "Wan-soo…" No, no, no. It couldn't be what it looked like, even as she loomed above him like a bird of prey. "My mother, she's… Hurry…" One of his pale hands pressed to the floor, right in a pool of blood. "Get a doctor…" he whimpered.
"Empress Ila isn't going to open her eyes ever again," Wan-soo replied, tone a winter gale.
Yonin gasped and looked up at her, his violet eyes bewildered and disbelieving.
That green gaze narrowed. A hawk with bloodied talons. "I killed her."
Yonin's heart plummeted to his feet, and he collapsed forward onto his trembling hands, his hair tumbling into his face. "Wh-what are you saying?" His whole body quivered, on the verge of sickness or total structural failure. "Y-You're not someone who would do that…" he croaked. She was gentle, and kind, and so sweet - those things he cherished about her - no gentle, kind, sweet person could do this.
"You have no idea," Wan-soo said, factually. "I've been dreaming of this day."
When Yonin turned his face back up, Wan-soo was still forbidding, foreign, with that heartless stare and blood-stained face. Ila's blood. "You… You… why? My mother, she cares about you so much, ever since - " his voice broke "- since you were little."
"That's true. And I loved Empress Ila very much. People called her a coward and said she feared battle because she was kind. However… That wasn't the truth." A shadow fell over her expression, green eyes darkening like the night. "Not a shred of it was true. Do you remember my mother, Yuon?"
'My aunt?'
"Even as a child, she was bold and clever. And once she was a woman, the armies she led were undefeated. Everyone wanted her to become the next ruler of this country. Everyone expected it. And yet…" She trailed off, calculating her next statement. "Ten years ago, the old empress chose Aunt Ila over my mother. No one understood why. The eldest daughter was supposed to be the heir to the throne. So why was the timid younger sister chosen?" Wan-soo's eyes looked into the shadows, to some faraway place and time. "But my mother only smiled. 'The throne isn't what matters to me; I'll continue fighting on the front lines to defend my sister and our people,' she had said to me. I was so proud of mother. I… respected her so much for all the dignity and grace she displayed. I'd grow up to stand beside her on the battlefield, and I'd give my life for her some day. That's what I believed." Her chin lowered, lips in a thin line but eyes narrowed into a sneer, "but soon after Empress Ila took the throne, she murdered her sister."
That hissed statement finally drew Yonin from his paralysis, and he cried, "That's impossible! There was an accident!" His mother, no, she would never… not ever...
Wan-soo shook her head slowly, her dangerous eyes still locked on Yonin's. "That's the 'official' story. My mother died when yours ran her through!" She snarled, firelight sparking off her eyes and shimmering in the crimson splotches on her face. "Do you understand?" Her face fell back into a fatalistically blank expression. "Empress Ila supposedly hated weapons and avoided battle…" She lifted her dripping sword as if in testament. "... But my mother died on her blade." She paused, only for a moment. "Prince Yonin, that's why I've been living for this day for the past ten years."
It was all crashing around him. He clutched brokenly at his dead mother, his tainted hands smearing even more blood on her face. Wan-soo's words echoed, as if through water, "I have avenged my mother, and now I will follow in her footsteps."
That sweet face, the face of a cold murderer. "I will become the ruler of Kouka."
'This is…' Everything in Yonin trembled, a breath away from crumbling. '... A nightmare. The worst possible nightmare.'
"This can't be happening," he choked to himself. Hours earlier, she had been smiling. She had given him the bun clip he still wore in his hair. "I think your hair is wonder," she had said.
'You gave me… this hair pin…' He touched his tear-stained cheeks with trembling fingers and left red prints behind.
Had she been planning this all along? Had murder lurked behind her every word, every smile, every gesture? When she gave him this gift he cherished so, was she thinking about how she would kill Yonin's mother?
Wan-soo had moved closer, until she was at Ila's unmoving feet. "I didn't expect you to be up in the middle of the night, and I'd heard that you don't often visit the empress' quarters." Yonin couldn't meet her eyes anymore, and instead stared, terrified, at that horrible, fatal blade, the one that had torn a hole in Ila's chest and drained her life onto the floor. "Why did you come here, Prince Yonin?"
His voice quivered, a leaf battered in a stormy wind, "I w-wanted to tell her th-that-" thick, traumatized tears rolled from his gazeless eyes, "- that I'd never be able to give up on you." Yonin didn't see Wan-soo's eyes widen into big green disks, her face slack. "I wanted to tell… m-my mother-"
BAM!
Yonin whirled instinctively when the door slammed open, his hands clutching his mother's body tighter to him.
"Lady Wan-soo!"
In poured soldiers, guards, the very men who were supposed to ensure Ila's safety, some familiar, some strange. "Preparations are complete, ma'am!"
From their ranks slunk a woman with long black hair. Austere, she regarded the scene before her with narrowed eyes. "The empress… so you've achieved your dream at long last." Yonin's veins froze as her calculating stare set upon him. "Hmm? My lady, Prince Yonin…" she turned her gaze upon the other woman. "... Did he… see what you did?"
Wan-soo didn't respond. The crimson blood and salty tears smeared on the prince's face were answers enough.
"There's only one thing to be done," the woman continued coolly, "He has to die, Lady Wan-soo. Silence him. Even if you spared his life, he would only suffer."
Yonin stared up at Wan-soo's face and searched desperately for mercy. "W-Wan-soo.." She wouldn't, not his Wan-soo. She wouldn't kill him.
But those eyes hardened, that blade rose.
Yonin inhaled sharply, and with his pulse roaring in his ears, scrambled up and shoved his way through the soldiers at the door with surprising strength.
"Oh!" One exclaimed, shoved against the door, as the distraught young man clawed past in a blur of red.
Wan-soo wiped her sword clean. "Go bring him back, please."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Yonin's lungs burned, his muscles screamed, but his thoughts still raced along with his pace.
'Who? Who is that person?'
His feet thumped loudly over the walkway. He choked on every one of his sobs.
'She killed my mother, and now she's trying to kill me! That woman…'
- The woman with a gelid face and no regard for the crimson dripping down her cheeks -
'That woman isn't Wan-soo!'
The thundering footsteps of the soldiers that chased him pushed him faster. Hunted like an animal in his own home.
'That's not the Wan-soo I love.'
A whip sliced through the air before wrapping around Yonin's ankle. Combined with his forward motion, the sharp yank applied sent Yonin crashing to the ground. "Aaah!" He slammed hard into the slate walkway, but hurriedly scrambled, stained, wet hands scraping against the stone.
"Say your prayers, your highness," the guard proclaimed, and Yonin's heart stuttered ever faster at the sound of a sword unsheathing behind him. "This is for the good of the country!" His mother's men were going to kill him.
'Did she hate me?'
Split-second flashes of memory behind his eyes. Little Wan-soo smiling. Wan-soo with a flower crown. Wan-soo handing him her pear. In all those moments, did Wan-soo hate him? Loathe him? Dream of his death like she did his mother's?
'For so long, ever since I was little, Wan-soo has been all that mattered to me.'
He cried out as a hand twisted into his hair and wrenched his head back. No mercy.
'I've never asked for very much.'
Kneeling there in the courtyard, he latched onto the arm of the man restraining him. Yonin's delirious eyes met Wan-soo's as she walked gracefully into the clearing. She didn't stop them. He could only sob as another soldier raised his sword high for the execution.
'Just seeing her smile would have made me happy.'
Like a crack of thunder, a gift from the gods, Hae appeared. With one powerful, sweeping slash, she knocked back the attackers. Cries of pain and surprise resonated through the courtyard. Many of the men clutched gaping wounds, another even stumbling back onto his comrade's spear. The one who had Yonin in his grasp reeled back with an unnaturally bent arm.
Hae's overcoat settled, and she stood resolutely in front of the prince. Her bangs obscured her eyes, and she propped the staff of her quandao on her shoulders and faced Wan-soo with a body poised for action.
"With Lady Wan-soo here tonight, I'd thought I should stay out of the way." Wisps of her short sable hair danced in the chilly wind. "But all the guards who are supposed to be on watch are here, and I see some unfamiliar faces," she continued quietly. "What the hell is going on here? Explain this, Lady Wan-soo!"
"H-Hae," Yonin breathed, the word, her name, trembling in his throat.
Slowly, she turned and knelt to look the prince in his bedraggled face, her deep blue eyes so hard yet so sad. "I'm so sorry to have left your side, Prince Yonin."
"Hae," he choked, gaze beseeching, wavering hand curling into her sleeve. "Hae, are you on my side?" The question, his voice, quivered with distraught frailty. Will she try to kill him, too?
The shock softened on her features, and Hae hissed in a breath before she turned back around and faced their enemies, her quandao readied. "Her majesty told me to protect you. No matter what happens, you have my devotion and obedience."
"Halt, wretch," a sharp feminine voice declared from Wan-soo's side. It was the woman with the long black hair. "You are standing before Empress Wan-soo, the new mistress of Hiryuu Palace."
Hae's blue eyes snapped open wide before narrowing into a snarl. "Who's the new mistress of what now?" Her head lowered, shoulders hunching like a tiger's. "I'm getting a terrible feeling here, Lady Wan-soo. Where… is Empress Ila?"
A cold breeze sibilated through the leaves.
Wan-soo's countenance was that of the stone beneath their feet. "Just a few minutes ago, I sent her straight to hell."
A loud crack! reverberated through the air. The pressure of the pommel of Hae's blade had shattered the slate of the walkway. "Did you have too much to drink?" Hae growled, "That's a sick excuse for a joke."
That piercing gaze was so disturbingly detached, as if she looked upon some loathsome stranger. "The prince will confirm it for you. He witnessed the empress' death with his own eyes."
Hae froze, heard Yonin whimper behind her. Muscles tensed, coiled, then Hae struck, her blade crashing down upon Wan-soo, who barely had enough time to parry what would have been a mortal blow.
"Tell me the truth!" Hae roared as she rained frenziedly down upon Wan-soo like no storm ever seen. Each strike was executed with what could have been nothing less than killing intent.
"I am," Wan-soo replied calmly, even in the face of such an assault, even as she admitted to murder, even as she admitted to the deepest betrayal.
"Wan-soo!" She bellowed, "Are you saying you murdered her majesty?! You killed that kind woman!?"
Wan-soo nimbly vaulted herself back as Hae gathered herself for another onslaught. A soldier set his hand upon the murderer's shoulder. "I'll handle this, Lady Wan-soo."
"Stay back," she ordered sternly, "If you get too close, she'll end you. The woman before you is an integral part of Hiryuu palace." Grim, Wan-soo assessed the adversary, her best friend, before her. "You're looking at Son Hae, one of the Five Generals."
A tumultuous murmur rose above the gathered troops.
"Son Hae…"
"So she's the 'Thunder Beast' of Kouka?"
"I… I can't believe this..."
Hae ignored the mumbles. "Why?" She hissed, blade readied. "Did you want power that badly?" Her fierce blue eyes narrowed. "No…" Briefly, so, so very briefly, thoughts of their childhood, their rose-tinted youth, surfaced. "No, it isn't power that interests you." Her features contorted with rage. "You turned your blade on a timid empress who loathed weapons! Have you no shame?!"
"This country…" Wan-soo raised her sword, the metal glinting hungrily in the moonlight. "... has no need for a timid empress."
Hae lunged, and steel gnashed together with a horrible clang and screech. Wan-soo was fast, but Hae faster, and the latter jabbed through the former's defenses. Wan-soo jolted back, teeth gritted and face pale, and one hand clutched the torn, bloodied fabric on her shoulder.
With fearful, disbelieving eyes, Yonin watched this battle to the death between his love and his childhood friend. It just couldn't be real.
Wan-soo recovered swiftly, and her composure lithified. Yonin weakly exclaimed as he was once again seized up by the hair and a blade pressed to his throat.
"Hold it!" His captor shouted to Hae.
Hae whirled upon hearing Yonin's distress, her defenses gaping open. The forces surrounding her took the opportunity to pin her in place, their speartips all pointed to her throat.
"Stop right there!"
Hae sneered and lowered her weapon, but kept her eyes glued to the prince. As long as that blade hovered so close to his pale, delicate neck, she wouldn't move a muscle.
"Are you alright, Lady Wan-soo?" A guard asked, concerned over the woman's wounded shoulder.
Hae's chin fell, her bangs falling back over her eyes. "Wan-soo… Was the woman I knew just a facade?" She asked quietly. "I thought that if there were one person with whom I could entrust his highness, it would be you."
Yonin stared dolorously at the woman he loved, the woman who killed his mother right before his eyes, the woman whose men now held him by his "wonderful" hair and pressed a blade to his throat. But she turned away from his gaze.
"The woman you knew never existed."
'I don't want to hear this,' Yonin lamented internally, as only whimpers drew from his lips. It had all been lies.
"If anyone dares to get in my way, I will destroy them."
'I don't want to hear this anymore.'
"No matter who it is."
Her family, her friends, the one who loved her more than anyone else...
An arrow rammed itself into the ground just at a guard's feet. They jolted back from both of their captives, exclaiming, "An arrow! Who fired it?!"
Hae swooped down upon the distraction. She snatched up the prince, hefted him under her arm with surprising strength for such a short stature, and dashed off. She had to get him out of there.
"No!" the dark-haired woman shrieked. "Don't let them get away!"
Wan-soo staggered back, and another arrow struck just where she had been standing. The movement sent a shock of pain through her, and she hissed, clutching her shoulder.
"Lady Wan-soo, are you all right?"
She stared at the ground, crying amethyst eyes lingering in her mind.
Hae couldn't carry the prince for long. She set him to the ground and latched onto his wrist before she kept running.
"General Hae! General Hae!" A voice called, a young woman gesturing wildly with her arms. "This way, General Hae!"
"Did you fire that lousy shot, Min-soo?" Hae said, tugging Yonin along a path that hugged the inside of the stone wall surrounding the palace. "Her majesty is-"
"I know," Min-soo murmured, following close behind. "I overheard."
They crouched amongst a copse of trees, and Yonin sank to his knees.
"Your highness…" Min-soo began, "is her majesty truly dead?"
Brokenly, tears streaming down his face, the boy nodded.
Min-soo bowed her head. "I… I see. Forgive me for asking." Her lips pressed into a thin line, eyes shining wetly. "I just can't believe it. Only a few hours ago, she was so happy that it was your birthday…" The young attendant trailed off as the sound of guards hurrying just a few yards from them echoed through the night.
"Did you find them?"
"No, sir."
"Which way did they go?"
The voices faded with the stomping of feet.
Hae peeked between the branches of a bush. Thankfully, they were obscured by the shadows of these trees, but… "It's only a matter of time before they find us."
Min-soo stared fixedly at the general, and her face hardened. "I'll secure an escape route. You two need to get out of this place."
Hae exhaled roughly. "It looks like the soldiers Wan-soo commands are gathering here at Hiryuu Palace. If they capture us, we're as good as dead."
"Where…" Yonin whimpered, and the two woman turned to him in surprise. "Where will we go?" He was leaning, slack, against the damp trunk of a tree, crying eyes staring despondently into the darkness. "I… During the party… My mother was crying tears of joy. But I n-never got to thank her for it. For anything." He looked down to his pale hands, where blood was still pressed into the ridges of his palms. "This is my mother's palace. If we leave her here, where will we go?" His words were thickened by the lump in his throat. "Where can we go?"
Hae lurched forward, tugging the prince to her, embracing him, her chin digging hard into his shoulder. "We'll go anywhere we have to if it means keeping you alive." Her steely gaze pierced into the shadows. She'd die before she'd let Ila down again. "That's how we can honor her majesty's memory." She pulled back and nudged him closer to the bushes.
Min-soo pointed out to the courtyard ahead of them. "There. That back gate will lead you to the mountains."
"Right."
They ducked down lower as more soldiers dashed by. "Did you find them?" One barked.
"Oh!" Min-soo gasped. "Prince Yonin, let me borrow your overcoat."
Yonin mindlessly took it off and handed it over, but he quickly grabbed the young woman's wrist as she stood up. "Min-soo!"
She smiled down at him. "Please stay safe, your highness."
Then, she broke from the prince's hold and dashed off, the prince's overcoat held over her head.
"There he is!" The guards at the gate chased after their target, and Hae yanked Yonin up to dash through the threshold.
The gate began to swing shut behind them, but Yonin still looked back as he staggered after his bodyguard. The waning gap let him watch as an arrow pierced into Min-soo's retreating back right before she fell to the ground. Yonin gasped, but Hae never looked back as she led the prince into the unforgiving night.
CHAPTER TWO END