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redemption | jww

it's a beautiful thing, to be a protector.

on the day of her fifteenth birthday, a neglected princess disappears without a word, and when she returns to the court of her family and friends after almost a decade, they find that she has been sharpened into a lethal blade in desperate need of saving.

please refer to this lore drop for descriptions of the noble families and their roles within the royal court!

pairing: jeon wonwoo x f!reader genres/themes: angst, fluff, romance tags: older brother!seokmin, sworn siblings!hoshixreader, princess!reader, generally set in a joseon-esque kingdom but medical technology is somewhat advanced (bc i'm too lazy to come up with period-specific alternatives aha), nothing suggestive beyond kissing tw: neglectful parents, reader has some (many) issues, violence, mentions of killing and death, injuries and blood a/n: this took so long to complete sorry,, redemption is the longest completed thing that i've ever written aaaaaa it's quite rough around the edges, but it is my brainchild so i hope you will enjoy! wc: 13.8k

From your earliest memories, you’ve known that your parents haven’t loved you. It was no secret that while your mother had been ever-present during your older brother’s infancy, attentive to a fault, you had been reared by a nanny, an older great-aunt in a lesser branch of the clan whom you loved very much, but at the hands of another nonetheless. Despite your father’s assurance and your brother’s affection, there had always been a simmering hatred in your mother’s eyes whenever she’d looked at you, and you had known it, even as a child.

At first, you wondered if it was because you were born a girl, but she had had Seokmin as a perfectly happy, doting son by the time of your birth. You wondered if it was because you had been too late to receive a spot on the throne, but your cousin, Chan, had already been born a year prior, receiving the birthright of Voice and completing the Triumvirate, so your mother had had no logical reason to despise you for merely that.

You wondered if it was because you looked nothing like Seokmin, and consequently, nothing like her. Instead, everyone always insisted that you were the spitting image of your father’s youth. Adults of the royal Inner Circle and members of the court had insisted that siblings didn’t always have to look similar. After all, take a look at the Head, Heart, and Voice of the current generation; don’t each of them vary in height, looks, and demeanor?

Seokmin remains the joyful, caring child that he was, while you, tainted by your father’s disinterest and your mother’s loathing, grow withdrawn and cynical.

It’s no wonder that the court murmurs with rumors of your illegitimacy.

To Seokmin’s credit, he has never once forsaken you. He shields you from your mother’s wrath, shares your father’s brief moments of attention, pulls you into the Inner Circle as if your place within is your birthright. Despite only being a few years older, he becomes your protector.

But a brother’s love can nurture a young girl’s soul only so much. When you’re deemed too old to simper out from under your old nanny’s skirts, they send her away from the estate, back to her humble shack of a home. You remember howling and begging to be sent from the palace grounds with her, sniveling for days on end until finally, your own mother silently shot you the iciest of glares and put an end to your tantrum for good.

Neglect turns a child resentful, and in you, the hatred grows inward. There’s a tempest that brews deep inside your stomach, churning like the eye of a storm. A fear that you’ll be forgotten by all, an anger that you’ve been overlooked by the ones who should love you most in this world, a longing for a larger role than the unwanted second daughter of a second son.

On the eve of your fifteenth birthday, you slip from your room, with nothing but a single cloak in your possession, and disappear from the only world you’ve ever known.

–

“Ready for your big, dramatic entrance?”

You barely stir from your meditative state, legs folded tightly beneath you as you sit atop a neatly made bed. The inn had been clean enough, but the sounds of the other patrons had kept you awake all night. Not that your writhing nerves would have let you sleep at all, even if it had been quiet as a church.

Gathering a shallow breath, you open your eyes against the early morning darkness, spying Kwon Soonyoung in the corner through the first beams of dawn trickling through the slits of the window. The First Blade of the kingdom, of your family’s dynasty, looks like a mere boy, facial features smudged and softened by the shadows. The only thing about him that gleams through the dim are his eyes, burning intensely, the gaze of a tiger.

Your sworn brother gives you what you’re sure he considers an easy smile, but it looks like the taunting grin of a hunter watching its prey fall into a trap. It’s been eight years since you’ve run from home and arrived at the Kwons’ doorstep, begging for shelter and a chance to become a Blade. It’s been eight years that you’ve spent beside Soonyoung, training and bickering and bleeding with him. He’s the one who picked you up whenever you stumbled during the rigorous training regimen, the one who mended your bumps and scrapes and cuts and bruises. Sometimes, you still feel shivers at the realization of what a lethal weapon he is, despite it all.

“Dramatic,” you echo through a scoff, finally detangling yourself from your pose and rolling the stiff muscles of your neck. “We’re going for my father’s funeral, not to cause a scene. Besides, I doubt there’ll be much fanfare for the likes of me.”

Soonyoung shrugs, hands shoved deep into his pockets as he ambles up to the side of your bed. When he drops to a crouch to peer up into your face, you catch the barely-there concern, tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Despite everything, it makes you smile. “Why? Are you worried for me?”

It’s the man’s turn to scoff as he shoots up to his feet, turning his back on you to stare out the window towards the ever-brightening sky. “The First Blade doesn’t worry about anything except the choice of his weapon when he kills.” There’s a slight jut to his lips as he speaks, and not for the first time, you wonder how he has ever become the bloodiest killer in the kingdom.

“Well, good.” You rise and stalk over to the wooden wardrobe, where a single cloak, a relic of your past life, has been hung up. “Because I’m about two seconds away from hurling everything in my stomach up.”

–

It’s strange, you think to yourself, how you’ve forgotten the way from the city to the palace grounds to the inner quadrants that belong to your family, but the moment you step foot past the threshold of your ancestors’ estate, your body seems to remember every footpath, every tree and its roots, every door and where it leads.

Soonyoung slows his pace when he notices that you’ve fallen behind, eyes darting from the golden gingko trees lining the paths, to the intricately carved dragon gargoyles on every point of the ancient rooves, to the ripples that have been raked into the gravel meticulously by the servants. Everything is so familiar yet foreign, as if you have stepped into a world that once belonged to you but you no longer belong to.

“Come on, Tigress.” Soonyoung prompts, voice not urging but firm. “The Circle awaits, and Jihoon hates to be kept waiting.”

You nod absentmindedly and quicken your pace to catch up, nerves all but anxiously frayed now.

Soonyoung leads you to a grand pagoda beside the glassy pond in the gardens. Your mother had loved it there, so as a child, you had avoided it at any means possible. As you approach closer, voices of varying pitch and volume and enthusiasm peal from the structure, and you try not to look at the various figures of the people within it.

The First Blade stalks forward, calling out to his gathered friends. Thankfully, you’re still obscured behind him so it gives you a moment to catch a few breaths and still the hummingbird that seems to have gotten trapped inside your chest.

A tiny voice in your head reminds you of the person you are now, the one that you have trained to become in the past eight years. You’ve completed the training that it takes to become a Blade, worked your way up from the bottom, in rudimentary lessons beside five-year-old Kwon boys and girls. You are no longer the spineless, vapid girl made small by every hateful glare from your mother.

You force your head up, rolling your shoulders back and swallowing away the fear that threatens to make your knees buckle.

Killing is like dancing, Soonyoung had once told you the words of his family. The battlefield is your stage.

You were never a dancer. As much as you could keep up with Soonyoung’s intricate maneuvers in disarming, paralyzing, maiming, you could never follow through with a simple box step, feet tangling up with one another until you tripped and crumpled to the ground, glaring as he cackled. You were never a dancer but you are a performer, and you think that you finally understand the Kwon words when you walk up the steps to the pagoda and it feels like entering the fray of war.

Instantly, twelve pairs of eyes clap onto you, like lightning striking a tree. You look straight ahead, cooly meeting the stare of Lee Jihoon, the Ruby Dragon, future Head of the Triumvirate. Your cousin’s face betrays no emotions, and if he’s surprised, he doesn’t show an ounce of it. Merely, his eyes narrow so imperceptibly that only the trained vision of a Kwon Blade would catch.

Soonyoung squares his own shoulders, clasping his hands behind his back like a soldier. In the firmest First Blade’s voice you’ve ever heard from him, he announces, “Might I introduce to the Ruby Dragon, Head of the Triumvirate, and the Blessed Inner Circle, her Royal Highness, the Dragon Diamond.”

You slowly pull yourself into the same stance as your sworn brother, back and head straight, hands twined together behind your waist to keep them from trembling. A quick inhale and then the words that you’ve practiced over and over in your head since the day that you left home tumble from your lips.

“I am the second child and only daughter of the late Heart. Upon completing the training as a Blade from the Kwon Clan, I have come to offer myself to the services of the Triumvirate as they see fit, if the Ruby Dragon and His Blessed Inner Circle will have me.”

You’ve had the hood of your cloak pulled tightly over your head, but you tug it down, revealing yourself. You keep your attention on Jihoon, afraid that if it wanders through the crowd, you’ll seek out Seokmin and his face will be the undoing of your bravado.

Only a few feet before you, Jihoon, the Head of the Triumvirate, sovereign prince of the kingdom and all its lands and people, holds his head up high, slender neck straight. His carriage has remained as impeccable as you remember from your childhood, having been groomed into every bit the regal figure he is supposed to be. He’s swathed in layers of red, his color. You expect him to open his mouth, voice powerful and commanding, as he demands you to grovel at his feet for entrance into the court, but the silence stretches for a moment too long and you lift your gaze from his chin to his face proper. To your surprise, Jihoon merely grins impishly, as if he’s just caught you within an inside joke.

“I was wondering when you’d make your appearance.” The Ruby Dragon’s voice lilts delicately, as if speaking in melody.

You clamp your jaws shut tightly to prevent any hasty words from slipping through. Instead, you turn your head to Soonyoung, where the First Blade still stands at attention, expression impassive aside from a tiny twitch of his lips. You should have known. Soonyoung and Jihoon have been thick as thieves since birth.

“You knew.” It’s a confirmation, rather than a question.

Jihoon shrugs a single shoulder. “I’m the Head of this kingdom. I tend to know most things.”

More and more memories come back to you as you sweep your gaze across the Inner Circle and recall the families, their callings. Of course. The Yoon Clan and their Whisperers would have caught news of your disappearance even before you landed at the Kwons’ doormat. The Boo Singers would have coaxed the secrets out of even the wind with their song.

The realization that you might have not completely disappeared from your past life then begs the question. Did your brother–

Finally, finally, your defenses crumble and you’re seeking out the face of someone who existed as a god, radiant and warm, in the memories of your childhood. He’s there, much taller than when you last saw him, slender yet strong, like a taut bowstring. He’s older, and so are you, but he looks the same as he did when you left his side without so much as a goodbye.

Seokmin stares right back at you, gaze hardened and unyielding. The shadows underneath his eyes clue you in to how sleepless the recent nights must have been for him, mourning the death of your father, handling the responsibilities that come with being the first son, the Heart of the Triumvirate, the only child left. No, not only the recent nights, every night past for the eight years of your absence.

Suddenly, you feel your heart thudding, heavy in the pit of your stomach. Guilt trickles into your veins and poisons the bloodstream. You have no choice but to tip your head to your brother, in reverence, in apology, in condolence.

Because the irrefutable truth in the tears clinging to his lashes is that until mere moments ago, Seokmin had believed that you had been all but dead.

–

You wince at the deep pulsing ache in your head, pressing firmly and incessantly against your forehead. The lack of rest you’ve gotten the night prior finally catches up to you, but it’s too early to let go of your resolve. Once the Inner Circle had been dismissed by the Head and before he took off with Soonyoung, Seokmin had requested your presence at his wing of the estate, where you now stood, hovering before the doors to his living quarters, catching the trail ends of a conversation coming from within.

“You kept my sister away from me for eight years.” Your brother’s voice comes clipped short, a bridled emotion simmering beneath the smooth placidity of his unwavering tone. If there’s one thing that you know well, it is anger, and the myriad of ways it appears in people.

Soonyoung knows it well, too. He is the one who taught you to read it in others, after all. The First Blade waits a breath before he responds as gently as he can muster.

“I did as the princess bade me. It was her wish for nobody to know. The others who acquired this knowledge did so of their own means; I did not tell a soul.”

“You watched her grow into a young woman while I was left to think that she died a child.”

Seokmin isn’t listening. He’s losing the grip he holds over himself, throat warbling with more and more ire. Even as a child, he had been emotional, which, as the future Heart, their mother had celebrated. To be aware and cognizant of one’s feelings, understand their origins, and be able to apply them to rulings, was the mark of a wise and judicious Heart. Their father, however, had worried that Seokmin would be poignant to a fault.

You understand his concerns now. Rage at the hands of someone who knows it well could be shackled like a wolf, kept at bay until the apt time came to loosen and utilize it. Rage at the hands of a stranger is nothing but a lit candle in the middle of a forest, wick nearing the end of its life, flame lapping at the kindling at its feet.

A wildfire waiting to happen.

You rap your knuckles against the heavy wooden door that divides you from the murmured argument. Both men on the other side fall silent until you clear your throat.

“Brother, you called?”

You hear the hiccup of a heavy sigh. “Come in.”

As you swing open the entrance and press yourself inside cautiously, Soonyoung passes, stalking his exit briskly. You briefly catch a glimpse of his jaw ticking, but the First Blade merely nods at you before disappearing without a sound.

Inside, Seokmin stands before his desk, back turned towards you and head bowed. The line of his shoulders quivers as he gathers his breaths, and you wait patiently, taking in the presence of your brother for the first time in a long time and marveling at how instantly you feel at home.

When he finally shifts, looking at you over his shoulder, his eyes are guarded, careful. As if he doesn’t trust that you really are his sister. You cannot blame him.

“You’ll have to excuse the state that I am in,” Seokmin sighs again, lifting a palm to drag across his face. “It has been a whirlwind of a few days.”

You dip your head. “And I’m sure I haven’t made things any easier,” you try to break the ice delicately, but your voice sounds too thin against the gravity of the atmosphere. Instead, you offer, “My sincerest condolences for your loss of the former Heart. I cannot begin to imagine the grief you must feel.”

Your brother’s face twists into a mask of confusion to hide the contortion of pain in it. “He was your father, too,” he reminds quietly, as if allowing you the grace to mourn.

When word of your father’s death had echoed through the palace, arriving in the Kwons’ courtyards on the wings of a Songbird, you had felt no grief. Merely, your heart ached for your brother, who you knew had loved your father, from leagues away, wondering if he could hear your words of comfort for him on the breeze.

Gently, you say, “He loved you more than he ever loved me.”

No matter how kind of a lie it would be, Seokmin never holds an untruth on his tongue, so he elects to remain quiet instead. He takes another stretch of silence as a pause, and you watch as your brother gathers himself, slowly but steadily, into the prince that is required of him. For the first time since morning, his eyes are wiped dry, spine pulled into a straight, solid column, as he struggles to press his lips into a smile.

“I am glad that you are not dead, my sister.”

You bow your head again. “I’m sorry for leaving.”

“I’m sure you had your reasons.” Seokmin’s words come kindly, but his gaze searches yours, imploring for answers. Out of a primal, animal instinct, you throw your walls back up, the tiny hairs on your nape bristling. Perceptive as ever, your brother gives the smallest of nods and backs off.

“I’m sorry for deceiving you for so long,” you continue your litany of regrets, nerves grating raw until you get every single one on your list off your chest.

Your brother’s expression flickers with hurt, and he holds a hand up, halting you in the midst of your next sentence. “We–” He winces, “We’ll have to continue talking about that another time.” Seokmin exhales heavily, and you wonder if his lungs will fare alright with all this sighing. “I called you here because I thought we might discuss some family matters.”

You blink in surprise, first at the sudden formality of his tone, then at the inclusion of you within the topic. Sure, technicalities make you part of the family on paper, but you had lived the past eight years, denying your membership in the Lee dynasty, taking on Soonyoung’s dumb nickname for you in a defiant act of renouncing your given name. Just a few hours ago, your brother had thought you good and dead. You cannot help but feel unworthy of his ready acceptance of your return.

You shift nervously from foot to foot, watching impatiently as Seokmin circles the corner of his desk and sinks into his seat on the opposite side of the wooden counter from you. He tilts his head curiously, nodding at the chair before you to sit.

“I–” You start, but your voice gets caught somewhere in your throat as you realize that you’re not sure what exactly to say. Obediently, you awkwardly settle onto the cushioned armchair, grasping for some semblance of intellect. The Kwons had been a clan of few words, choosing to speak with their fists or weapons whenever they could. You’d grown out of practice in the solemn palatial manner of speaking.

Seokmin waits until he seems sure that you have nothing left to say. “The late Heart’s funeral is set to take place in two days, and almost all of the preparations have been completed. His body will be held by the Redeemers until the pyre is lit. Would you like to view him in private before the ceremony?”

Your eyes flutter shut. In the swirling depths of your childhood recollections, you catch fleeting glimpses of your father, who everyone claimed you looked like. Whenever you stared in the mirror at yourself, you pored over every feature, wondering if your father scowled the way you did, frowned the way you did, glowered the way you did. From the few snatches of memories, you had decided that he did, in fact, carry the same mask of gloom as you. You never remember your father’s smile in your own.

“No.” The word escapes before you can even think to hold it in, for the sake of sparing your brother’s feelings, at least. “No need to go through all that trouble for a wayward daughter,” you quickly amend.

To your brother’s credit, he simply moves on. “We, obviously, did not expect your presence in the processions,” Seokmin says with an apologetic grimace, as if he is the one at fault for being unprepared. “But the Kims have a daughter, Mingyu’s sister, who I believe is roughly the same build as you, and she has offered to lend you some of her clothing for the ceremony.” You nod along to his words gratefully, until he quietly murmurs, “I don’t think Mother’s old clothes would work.” Your breath hitches. Blurred edges narrow the scope of your vision, clouding your brother’s face, and suddenly, you’re back in the body of the apprehensive, frightened little girl, who trembled like a leaf at every little thing that reminded her of her mother. For all of the agonizing that you had done over reuniting with your brother, attending your father’s funeral, you had, somehow, neglected to consider the presence of your mother in all of this. Perhaps you hadn’t wanted to.

Seokmin calling your name wrenches you back into your current body, the sound of your given name and on the lips of your brother, no less, startling you into the present. He examines you wordlessly, prompting a response.

“Mother.” The name lodges in your throat until you clear it and spit it out into existence. “Is she well?” It pains you to ask.

Your brother frowns, forehead creasing and fingers coming up to knead at his temples. “Not entirely,” he hesitates. “She lives, but I’m afraid that Father’s passing has caused her a lot of mental distress. She requested for a royal pardon from the Head to be absent from the funeral processions and has left for her family’s estate.”

You suppose that you should be relieved, having been spared a reunion with your mother, the phantom that has haunted your every nightmare since childhood. Instead, a wash of disappointment bitters your tongue.

“A pity,” you say, hollowly.

There’s a knowing shadow that flickers across Seokmin’s expression that you just barely notice before it’s gone. Neither of you acknowledge the moment before your brother proceeds with his agenda.

–

“Your Highness,” the boy indulges you with a quick dip of his chin before brazenly hurrying away, as if he could not stand another moment accompanying you. The servants of the palace, overwhelmed with the preparations for your father’s funeral, had already been buzzing here and there, and your appearance, you’re sure, had not been a welcome one at all. Just within a night’s stay, you could almost taste their wariness in the few interactions you had had with them.

Fortunately, you’d been able to grab hold of a passing stableboy for the brief walk it took for him to escort you westward to the physician’s pavilion, where Seokmin had insisted you at least receive a glance over from the First Redeemer. “To ease my mind in the matters of your wellbeing, at least,” he had said with wide, pleading eyes.

You couldn’t have refused him that.

As you climb the steps to the pavilion, you reach into your oldest memories, recalling everything that you know about the clan of Redeemers. Your father’s physician had been the figurehead of the Jeon family, a man just a few years older than him, with a thin, friendly visage and the heavy twang of a dialect from the outer provinces. Satisfied with the expectation of the faint image conjured up in your mind, you turn the corner into a hallway and announce your arrival with a knock into the first door on your left, as instructed by the rude attendant.

“Come in.” The voice that answers rumbles low and deep, with barely a lilt of the accent that you thought you remembered.

When you slip past the sliding doors to the vast room that awaits on the other side, your attention lands onto the silhouette of a man in the far corner, as he attends to a large shelf almost as tall as him. From your vantage, all you can catch is his side profile, a delicate pair of eyeglasses perched atop the bridge of his nose. Black hair cropped short, face like a dagger, all of his features angled and sharp. He’s young, much younger than the blurred memories of your past, and you blink in surprise when he shifts to look up at you.

“Ah.”

“I’m looking for the First Redeemer. The Heart scheduled a meeting for me.”

The man slides a book onto the shelf from the crook of his arm, nodding a few times before fully turning towards you. “That would be me,” he finally speaks more than a few words at a time, lips quirking into a smile that looks a little innocent compared to the previously aloof expression he had been wearing. “Jeon Wonwoo.” He crosses over the distance between in a few strides, holding a hand out in greeting.

You clasp his palm with yours, admiring the slide of his smooth skin against your own, uncouth with callouses. Back in the early days of your residence at the Kwon estate, you had practically lived with a blade in your hands, determined to shed off your clumsiness and catch up to the children who were eternally more graceful than you. When your blisters popped and your raw palms tore and you cried for the first time since you ran, Soonyoung had wrapped them up in strips of cloth, muttering, “Stop crying. Soft hands make for soft people. This is you getting stronger.”

Despite his smooth, soft palms, your first impression of Wonwoo is not that he would be weak. Your face warms a little at the thought, and you lower your gaze to stare at his nose, murmuring, “I remember my father’s Redeemer being much older.”

Wonwoo laughs, a quick bark of mirth, as if he hadn’t expected to be humored, and you can’t help but grin too. “That would be my father,” he responds, pulling his arm back to his side, much to your disappointment. “I took over his position just a year ago, when he stepped down to handle the enterprises.” He gestures for you to take a seat in an armchair placed beside a massive work desk, made of glass and metal.

You obey and sit, skin prickling with anticipation. The Redeemer shuffles around his desk, pulling drawers open and picking out various items, not many of which you’re familiar with. Watching the wide expanse of his back, flush against his silken robes of violet as he moves, you swallow the tight knot in your throat, mouth dry. You drop your gaze shamefully, before the cinch of the sash accentuating his narrow waist greedily takes over your attention again.

It’s not like you haven’t been in the presence of a grown man before. Though the Kwons had provided you a private room of your own, you had preferred the barracks of your fellow Blades in training, hopelessly lonely in a silent room, leagues away from home. Once Soonyoung had offered you his blood and his life and you had promised yours to him, he had cleared away a corner of his own quarters, shoving a cot into it for you to sleep in instead. You’d seen the First Blade through most things, as he sweat through his shirts during training, as he opted to sleep bare chested during the humid summer nights, as he sagged against you, bleeding from a nasty slash that split his skin in half and left a canyon of a scar across his back.

You shut your eyes against that image, suppressing a shudder and trying to shake away the memory of panic and despair that had consumed you, imagining the possibility of losing another brother.

“Nervous?”

You jerk your head up, unexpectedly meeting his gaze, and all thoughts scatter beneath the scrutiny of his sharp eyes. Wonwoo has shut all of the drawers of his desk and carefully arranged the array of tools that picked out onto a neatly folded towel. There’s a slight furrow to his brow, which you puzzle over until you realize that your breath has caught shallowly in your chest, turning your inhales and exhales into quick, accented huffs.

Embarrassed, and a little shy, at having lost the hold you try to keep over your emotions, you give a sheepish shake of your head. “No, I just got lost in my thoughts for a moment.”

“Does that happen often?”

The man’s demeanor shifts ever so slightly, but it’s enough for you to realize that he has reoriented himself into the First Redeemer. Belatedly, you pull yourself into a proper sitting form, putting on airs to at least look the part of the royalty you’re supposed to be.

“Sometimes,” you shrug. “It’s something Soonyoung says I have to work on. Keeping my emotions under control.”

Wonwoo snorts, before muttering, “Rich, coming from him.”

You’d agree with him, but the curiosity sparked by his familiarity of scoffing at the First Blade grows stronger than the desire to tease Soonyoung out of earshot. “Are you two close? He…never really mentioned the palace to me while I lived with the Kwons.”

Wonwoo reaches for his desk, picking up a stethoscope as he hums. “Sure, we grew up together,” he smiles as he plugs his ears and holds the bell firmly against your chest. “Blades are always getting hurt, and they’re always in need of Redeemers. Breathe in.” The instruction he ends with dips low in pitch and sends a shiver up your spine, and an inhale snags within your throat in a hasty attempt to comply.

In, out, in, out, he directs, and you follow as steadily as you can manage, trying desperately not to look up at his face, down at his hands, ahead at his chest so close to your own. It feels like an eternity later when he leans back, pulling the stethoscope off. When you can finally manage to sneak a glance, Wonwoo’s nose is scrunched in concentration as he counts numbers in his head.

“Heartbeat’s a little faster than what’s considered average,” he thinks out loud, and you’re mortified, cheeks immediately flushing hot. You shift in the armchair, wondering if you should say something, pull some excuse out of your ass to explain for it, something, anything.

“There you are!”

The doors slide open, and you heave a sigh of relief when the sudden crashing of noises shatters the stifling silence that has settled over the room. You whip around to find Kim Mingyu at the entrance to the room, his giant hulking frame crumpled as he catches his breath.

An exasperated sigh eludes Wonwoo, “What is it, Mingyu?”

The Sentinel lifts from where he’s bent over, hands against his knees. “Well, I was supposed to escort the princess here, but when I got to the estate, the servants told me that you harassed a stableboy to take you instead.” You roll your eyes at your brother’s best friend, amused at the wrinkles in his clothes in his rush to find you, at the hiss of a lisp that he doesn’t seem to have corrected since childhood. “I waited fifteen minutes for you. I wasn’t going to be late on account of you.”

Mingyu pulls over a wooden chair from a corner of the room with much familiarity, clicking his tongue. “Five more minutes, and I would’ve been there.”

Wonwoo muses, “You probably overslept.” He dips his head towards you like he’s sharing a secret, and you marvel when his cheek dimples slightly. “It’s his fatal flaw.” When Mingyu huffs, “It’s my only flaw,” you barely pay him any mind, the image of Wonwoo’s smile etched into the back of your eyelids.

–

“Heard you and the First Redeemer are friends,” you ponder mildly, sidestepping a well-placed sweep that Soonyoung crouches to throw out.

The First Blade makes a satisfied hum before he straightens. “Wonwoo?” The name that he calls out curiously makes your stomach warm.

“Mmhm.”

“Yeah, why?”

“Just wondering.” “I’m telling Seokmin.” “Telling him what?”

“That it has been two days since you’ve reentered the palace and that you’re already eyeing pretty boys.”

You bite, like a fool. “You think Wonwoo’s pretty?”

Thwack.

Soonyoung cuts you a glare, but his mouth curls into a satisfied grin. He clears his throat, pulling his arm back from the smack he’s landed on your shoulder.

“We are mere hours from burning your father’s body,” your sworn brother deadpans, clicking his tongue in mock disappointment. “Have some decorum.” He pulls away, wiping the sweat off of his forehead with the hem of his shirt.

You wrinkle your nose in offense, spitting, “Fuck off. Low blow.”

The First Blade snickers, which makes you snort, and for once, you’re glad for the daily schedule that he keeps that requires you to spar with him at dawn. If others had overheard the crass conversation ringing through the courtyard, they surely would have condemned the lack of grief you displayed for your recently deceased father.

After the training session, you barely have enough time to scrub and wash the sweat from your skin, before attendants are swarming over you, brushing your hair, smearing powder against your sun-burnished face, pressing you into a wardrobe of lended clothes. Mingyu’s little sister must have grown a yard in your absence because her clothes drape onto the floor, and the servants flutter about, fastening metal pins here and there to match the length to your height.

The skirt and overcoat are cobalt blue, your brother’s color, and you run your fingertips against the imperceptible pinpricks, where you’re certain that the red wolf of the Kims have been ripped from the cloth. A skilled embroiderer has hastily replaced the image with the stitching of a dragon in a white thread that shimmers silver when you pull it up to glance at the details in the lighting. As a child, you had always hated being born under a Diamond moon, feeling left out even in the assignment of a personal color. Now, as you admire the handiwork, you warm a little at the artisan’s attempt to represent your color in a manner that goes beyond just the color white.

Once the pampering has been completed, the attendants place you before a mirror before leaving your room in a flitter. The woman that reflects back at you looks misplaced in such an ornate robe, meant for noble ladies. You trace your gaze from head to toe, contemplating the face that everyone claims you inherited from your father, attention catching at the top of your cheekbone, where they caked a bunch of powder to obscure a tiny scar that Soonyoung gave you as bickering teenagers. Your hair, brushed to a shine for the first time since you’ve left home, holds only a single white pin, meant for the chief mourners to wear. You feel absurd, having dressed up for an affair that doesn’t involve you, wearing a dutiful daughter’s symbol of grief when your bleak heart doesn’t even stir for your deceased father.

You stand in front of the mirror for a long time, unmoving, until a quiet cough from outside announces Mingyu’s presence to escort you to the pyre. Mumbling out a response, you take one last breath, grasping at all the ugly thoughts that threaten to spill out from you and swallowing them back in, hoping that they’ll stay contained in the depths of your stomach at least until the day is over.

When you emerge, Mingyu beams at you so brightly that you wonder if he knows that he’s bringing you to a funeral. “My sister’s dress seems like it worked out,” he inspects, nodding thoughtfully. “She’s tall,” you comment, lifting at the hem of the skirt to reveal where it's been pinned back. “The attendants were all but convinced I was doomed and the gods would condemn me for wearing a dress too long for my legs.”

Mingyu chortles, “Well, I suppose it runs in the family.” He preens, puffing out his own chest to stretch his own height out taller before tripping over a tiny pebble, and he’s so ridiculous that it makes you laugh.

The Sentinel merely flashes you a grin, as if relieved.

As is tradition, the funeral takes place in the innermost courtyard within the palace grounds, strictly out of public view in the rear gardens that are considered sacred and visited by the gods. The pyre has been constructed extravagantly, out of large slabs of red pine, fit for a member of the Triumvirate. Onto the uppermost slab, your father’s body, wrapped tightly in white strips of cloth, has been laid. From the ground, he looks tiny, insignificant in the vastness of the world. You avert your eyes quickly, discomfort pricking at your nape.

The attendance is kept small, meant only for members of the royal family and their Inner Circle, but that means that the Kwons have trekked their way up to the city for the ceremony. Mingyu leads you beside them, making sure that you’ve been delivered safely to the clan of Blades before he slips away to his own family with a wink.

Lady Kwon breathes a quiet gasp when you tug at her sleeve with a smile before she pulls you into an embrace. In the years of your residence at the Kwon estate, she had never once complained of your imposition, taking you in effortlessly as if simply gaining another child. She now fusses over you, despite only having been apart for a few days, brow furrowed, the spitting image of her son.

“I’m alright,” you assure with a quiet chuff, leaning around her to greet Lord Kwon with a quick dip of your head.

“Mom, you coddle her too much,” Soonyoung grumbles as he also steps in line beside you. He, for once, has cleaned himself up, dapper in the gold and black of his clan. Though he tugs at the tight collar of his overcoat uncomfortably, he looks more at ease in the formal wear than you, the proper image of a First Blade. He completes his own inspection of you, lips curling in amusement, “Guess you are a princess after all, huh?”

The window of opportunity for you to retort back closes with Jihoon’s appearance and the subsequent sweeping of everyone dipping towards the Head in reverence. When you straighten from your bow, your gaze jumps across the gathering, as if lured by a silent call, to where Wonwoo stands beside his father, both wearing violet. When Wonwoo lifts his head up, he notices you too and offers a polite nod, which you return with a flutter in your stomach.

Jihoon calls the ceremony to a start, and the first order of business brings in a shaman to lead a series of rituals to exorcise evil spirits that may attach themselves in the presence of death and to help guide the spirit of the deceased to a peaceful afterlife. Once the rites have been completed, the gathering parts for one of Jihoon’s higher court historians, who has been granted the role of recording down the details of the ceremony. The attendant stands before the crowd, holding a scroll out and reading from it. “We mark today as a most sorrowful day as we part with the former Heart of our exalted Triumvirate. The late Heart is survived by the subsequent Heart, the Sapphire Dragon, his first son.” A hush settles over the gathering as the historian hesitates and hastily adds, “And, er, her Royal Highness, the Diamond Dragon, his daughter.”

You prickle at the unwanted designation, keeping your gaze cast low towards the ground. From your left, Soonyoung offers you his hand, palm faced up. You reach for it, fingers twining tightly around his.

Once the formal announcements have been made, Jihoon wordlessly hands over his post to Seokmin, and you watch as your brother takes his place at the center of the gathering, right in front of the pyre. He looks nervous, you think, and your heart aches for him, for the tint of red in his watery eyes. Before he starts, Seokmin looks towards you, and you try to press your lips into a reassuring smile.

Your brother, who loved your father despite all of his shortcomings, lets a single tear fall. “I speak before you all today so that I may impart my father’s legacy within you as witnesses. My father, the former Heart of the Triumvirate, was not a perfect man, but I knew that he loved me and that I loved him.”

You listen to Seokmin’s stories of your father throughout his childhood. Of when he broke your mother’s favorite vase and your father helped him sweep the shards away and took the blame for it. Of when Seokmin fell asleep at the desk during his Heart lessons and your father let him sleep for the rest of the session. Despite it all, you find yourself smiling at his memories of the loving father that you never got to experience.

Your brother had asked, if you had also wanted a chance to speak at the ceremony. At that time, you had instantly refused without much thought. Now, as you hear Seokmin’s speech, you realize that you wouldn’t have a single fond memory of your father to share.

The proceeding comes to an end with Seokmin, calling for whoever wants to say a personal farewell to come up to the pyre. The Kwons make their way up, leaving you and Soonyoung behind.

You watch the queue of the former Inner Circle members go up one by one to dip their head to your father’s body, murmuring quiet words to send him off to the afterlife. Curiously, you note that all of these people seem to have a myriad of things to say, while you, his child, cannot come up with a single kind word for him.

“Oh, man,” Soonyoung groans softly, “Mom’s crying.”

You follow the crook of his finger, where Lady Kwon, sure enough, dabs at her eyes as she waits for her turn, whereas you, his daughter, cannot even squeeze out a single tear for him.

The First Blade squirms at your silence, squeezing at your fingers still clutched in his. “Tigress, you alright?”

You’re mute as everyone says their goodbyes, as Seokmin receives the lit torch and presses it against the pyre, as the flames leap from slab to slab until it consumes your father’s body and swallows it whole.

Your father who leaves you, in a giant plume of smoke and ashes, with nothing but his face to remember him by.

–

You’re in a dream. You know that you’re in a dream because although it hasn’t happened in years, you’ve been here before, in this dark, directionless world with swarming shadows that bind over your body and cut you with their sharp edges. There was a time when you’d grown quite adept at identifying the illusion and had been able to force yourself awake and into reality within a mere handful of minutes.

You suck in a deep breath, hold it in your chest, and shudder as it releases, but there’s no signs of waking up. In fact, the shadows grow clearer, sharper, and bite into your arms and legs and torso with more conviction. You hold back a yelp, trying to gather your concentration into escaping. It gets harder and harder to focus when the pain shifts from stinging to burning and more and more blood sluices from the wounds.

Weak.

The first of the voices hisses, and you realize that you’ve lost the opening to escape. When the whispers start, you sink one level deeper into the darkness, rendering you paralyzed with fear and leaving you to endure through the dream until your body wakes on its own.

Useless. Worthless.

Your own parents abandoned you. What makes you think that the Kwons won’t too?

The poor Heart only has you left as his remaining family.

The First Blade is a fool for swearing his life to yours. You’ll get him killed one of these days.

Because you’re weak.

You wince feebly, straining against the tethers that the shadows have formed into, unable to do much but lie there, suspended in a web of the truths you’ve been desperately trying to outrun.

It could have been hours or days later when you open your eyes again, this time to a darkness that glows blue, not black. Moments pass as you blink at the sky above, and another handful of seconds later, you recognize the pattern of wood as the ceiling of your room. You’ve woken up from the nightmare in the midnight calm of your childhood bedroom, and suddenly, you relive the early morning of your fifteenth birthday, when you had woken up from a similar dream and decided that you had to run.

You wrench yourself out of bed, detangling your limbs from where the sweat-soaked blankets have wound themselves around you.

Soonyoung is your first coherent thought. The few times that he had witnessed your nightmares, he had sat awake with you for the rest of the night. A silent but steady presence. But he left after the funeral earlier to accompany his parents back home. He won’t be back for a few days.

You think about Seokmin, but he had all but disappeared into his quarters upon lighting the pyre, looking withdrawn and exhausted. Your brother deserves his rest and his peace.

There’s nobody to seek out, nowhere to go. You can’t stay here in the confines of your mind. You slip out into the frigid night, breath crystallizing in a white cloud that reminds you of the smoke from earlier that day. Your vision flashes with the red and orange and gold of the flames on the pyre.

Washed white under the moonlight, the courtyard flickers hazily, as if you’re still stuck within a world of dreams. The thought unsettles you. You take off, feet frantic as it leads you somewhere, anywhere. The recognition of the paths within your family’s estate when you first returned quickly dissipates as you round corner after corner. In your desperation and the confusion that the cloak of night brings, you find yourself losing your way, deeper and deeper in the bowels of the palace grounds. The palace is silent and still, punctuated only by the rough drag of your lungs as you take painful gulps of the freezing air.

Where am I? What am I doing here? Why am I back at Court? Did I really think that they’d welcome me that easily?

You slow your pace, shaking your head in hopes of defying the voices that have followed you out from the dreams. The shadows are here too. You can feel their edges tightening and nipping into your skin. It’s no longer an illusion but real life.

“Princess?”

A voice, a real human voice, shatters the ever-darkening night, and you latch onto it greedily, desperately. When you lift your head, panting all the while, he’s there, like a savior gleaming in the moonlight. The sight of him shocks you awake because there’s no way that something so gentle, so alluring would exist in your nightmares. You return to yourself haltingly, unable to look away as your heartbeat settles and then steadies.

Wonwoo has discovered you, wandering before the physician’s pavilion in the dead of night, feet and shoulders bare, having neglected a cloak to drape over your nightwear. You barely notice that you’re trembling until the Redeemer crosses over the courtyard to where you stand, pulling at his own coat to place around you, wrapping you in a swell of warmth and the scent of lilac that instantly begin to seep into your bones.

The man doesn’t say anything as he winds an arm around your shoulders and begins guiding you forward. You keep your head dipped low, eyes glued to the ground, as you follow in shame. The brief journey ends with Wonwoo tucking you into a hallway and closing a door behind the both of you. For a moment, there’s nothing but darkness and you feel the stab of panic again until you hear the strike of a match, see a tiny flame tossed into a furnace. The room that appeared as a yawning void opens up with light, and you peer around, gathering details and piecing together an impression.

Along the leftmost wall, you catch the counter of a tavern, fashioned from a long, polished slice of wood. Beneath the surface lines an array of barstools, each standing at varying heights. On the opposite end of the room, a cluster of armchairs and lounge chairs have been gathered, a hodge-podge collection of furniture. The fabrics and leathers of the seats are worn and sunken in with use, which is a comforting thought, as if people have lovingly used them as intended, unlike the pristine condition of everything else in the palatial rooms.

“Where are we?” You croak, wincing at the sound of your own voice, cold and ragged, in the warmth of the mysterious room.

Wonwoo remains quiet, pattering around the room to throw more kindling into the fire, to strike another match and start up the stove, to shake some leaves into a pot for tea. When he finally stops bustling, he returns to your side, an arm a steadying brace again at the small of your back, as he guides you to sit in one of the couches.

You sink into the plush seat, staring up at him patiently, while he busies himself to fasten the cloak still over your shoulders tighter, tugging over a blanket from another chair to pull over your lap. You want to tell him to stop, stop moving, stop fussing, but there’s such a determination set to the clench of his jaw and the crease in his brow that trying to stop him feels like a transgression.

Instead, you decide to steal this opportunity for yourself, slowly observing the man that you’ve already become so inclined towards. Without his overcoat in the way, the strong line of his shoulders outlines his figure, giving way to lean arms, narrow waist, an expanse of legs. The short clipped style that he wears his hair in, his angled face, his slender yet strong build, everything about him leans towards the image of a soldier, much like the ones who you trained as Blades beside. And yet, you recall the dimpled smile as he quietly teased Mingyu, the soft skin and slender wrists of a hand that has never felt the heft of a weapon, the lingering touches that have been nothing but gentle. The juxtaposition bewitches you, and you fall headfirst into the charm.

Beautiful, the thought forms effortlessly.

The Redeemer comes over, finally, dipping to a knee in front of you to close your fingers around a clay vessel, hot and fragrant with tea. He insists with a nod until you take a sip, hold the mouthful to savor its warmth, before swallowing it. Ever so slightly, the tension in the grit of his teeth eases, and he takes a drink from his own cup, motionless in his kneel at your feet. Several heartbeats of silence follow until he breaks it with a murmur. “This is the safe haven I’ve created, away from the court, away from the nobility.” Wonwoo wears a modestly proud smile. “It’s meant for all of us. The Circle and the Triumvirate, I mean. Though Soonyoung likes to take advantage of it as his own personal clinic.” He adds the last bit with a fond scowl.

You contemplate his words, taking another analysis of the space. Tucked away into a corner, there is a trunk, not unlike the one in his office at the pavilion. You guess that it would similarly contain a supply of medical equipment.

With every subsequent sip, the tea that Wonwoo brewed brings you an inch closer to reality. Once you near the bottom of the cup, the Redeemer finally ventures to ask. “What happened?”

You think that you would be able to answer him, if he wasn’t so earnestly peering up at you from the floor. With a sobering surge of courage, you tell him so, motioning for him to come up beside you on the cushions. Wonwoo sits so close that your shoulder brushes his and you smell the lilac that seems to cling to him like a second skin.

It’s not hard to find the words to say. After all, you’ve had this conversation once already. A few years ago, when Soonyoung had caught you readying yourself to run again, on a night so dark that the shadows swirled and suspended in the air, like ink in water. He had held you at arm’s length by the shoulders, demanded what was required of him to stop you from disappearing from your family and life for the second time.

“I have these dreams. These nightmares. Shadows cut into my skin and make me bleed, but they’re not as bad as the voices. They tell me the things that I want to avoid accepting.”

Wonwoo takes it all in stride, politely keeping his eyes off of you as he stares down into his mug and inquires, “What kinds of things?”

“That I’m not enough. That I’m going to let everyone down.”

He considers this in silence, leaving the space for you to continue talking, as if now that you’ve started, you can’t seem to stop.

“They tell me that Soonyoung is a fool for swearing an oath with me because I’m weak. Inevitably, he’s going to die because I’m going to fail to protect him. They tell me my parents didn’t love me because I’m no use to them.”

Wonwoo bristles against you, his entire body growing taut and still. “Do you really believe that?”

You close your eyes.

“It doesn’t matter if I believe it or not. It’s the truth.”

Whether intentional or not, the conversation lulls to an end, and the warmth of the room drains the adrenaline from your restless night, easing you into the blurred boundary of being conscious and asleep.

When you wake, you find yourself in an unfamiliar room, cheek pressed against a warm, worn leather. Haltingly, you come to each of your senses. The soft cotton of a blanket that has covered you overnight. The musty scent of a secret room and the drying peels of oranges laid out to combat it. Water babbling as it boils in a kettle. Pale sunlight filtering through the window slits.

You press yourself up to sit, seeking out the one presence in the room that you couldn’t stop thinking about even as you dozed restlessly. Wonwoo, despite having spent the night in this stale room, looks as undisturbed as always. He doesn’t look up from his hunch over the tea that he’s meticulously tending to when he calls, “I’m to report to the Head’s living quarters later this morning for a routine check-up. Would you like to accompany me?”

You blink, stunned at the request from the Redeemer, who has actual responsibilities within the court, unlike you. You should politely deny the offer. You should pretend to be preoccupied with other prior commitments, play the false part of a princess who is beloved and desired and important. Instead, your heart betrays your head, and you nod wordlessly.

Later, when Wonwoo has completed his business, the two of you amble through Jihoon’s courtyard, enjoying the rare sunlit morning.

“Plum blossoms,” Wonwoo says thoughtfully, tall enough that when he reaches up, his fingertips brush against the buds that are beginning to sprout their white and pink petals. “They flower in the late winter. You’re supposed to prune them right after they flower, to help them grow better.” You hum curiously, craning your neck to admire the massive tree stretching wide above. “The symbol of the Lee Clan,” you muse, “And yet only Jihoon’s yard gets to have them planted in it.”

“He probably doesn’t even realize that they’re here,” Wonwoo’s laughter makes his voice trill, and you beam at the branches, fighting to hide it away from him.

“When I was a kid, I used to beg my nanny to sneak me away from home and come over to see the flowers here,” you reminisce, the taste of the memory bittersweet on your tongue. “Our yard only has gingkos, so everything was bare during the wintertime.”

A smile plays at the man’s lips. “A nanny? That’s very princess-y of you.”

You snort in response before you can even think to hold it in, “Only because my mother didn’t want to have anything to do with me.” Wonwoo’s face falls, and you snicker at his dismay. “Don’t worry, everyone’s known this for decades at this point.”

The Redeemer’s mouth twists in deliberation as he tips his head to the side, wondering if it’s the truth or if you’re just trying to make him feel better. He flusters on, choosing to change the subject.

“My parents refused to let anybody intervene with their parenting,” he shrugs. “They didn’t let anybody coddle or reprimand us. They decided that the best and the worst should always come from the parents.” Wonwoo laughs, but there’s a misty rasp to it, as if nostalgia threatens to steal him away. Shaking his head, he reaches overhead and pinches to pluck a tiny blossom off, delicate in his lithe fingers.

You feel like Wonwoo hesitantly opens up about his own childhood as a response; you shouldn’t pry further.

“How do you know so much about flowers?” You inquire instead, absentmindedly holding a palm out when Wonwoo gestures to you and drops the blossom into your hand.

Almost instantly, the defenses come up in his expression, and you understand, feeling the walls as fervently as if they were your own. The straight line of Wonwoo’s shoulders grows taut, a shadow flickers across his gaze, and he responds through his teeth, “My mother loved flowers.”

You nod once, guilty for asking, and that’s that.

–

“There’s a whisper in the wind.” You stare back at the Yoon man, who Jihoon has appointed as his chief Whisperer. You hadn’t met him in your childhood before you left, but you’ve gathered that your brother and cousins trust Jeonghan with their lives. Nevertheless, you’re a little wary of the man whose innocent visage, you know, obscures a mischievous streak within. Even the way he got ahold of you, slipping in step right beside you as you took your late afternoon stroll amongst the barren trees unsettles you.

Whisperers, in general, have always discomforted you. Your uncle’s chief Whisperer had been a snake of a man, with an easygoing smile and eyes that flashed like lightning. Even as a child, you had squirmed even being in the same room with the man. The moment you had landed eyes on Jeonghan upon your return, you had known that he was the spawn of the serpent in your memories.

“What do the whispers say?” Your curiosity triumphs over your unease.

For once, Jeonghan’s lips aren’t upturned into a smile. Instead, there’s a slight crease to his forehead, and he looks the proper part of a man burdened with the secrets of the entire kingdom. “Lord Jeon has broken a longstanding deal with the Park clan, regarding the private ownership of their clinics, and the Parks aren’t happy.” Your head twinges, unused to the politics of business-dealing. “Why did he do it?”

Jeonghan shrugs a shoulder, dipping his head closer to you. “The Parks have always coveted the Jeons’ proximity to the Triumvirate. They think that once Lord Jeon passes, they can topple his empire.”

You frown but still don’t understand where this leads. The Whisperer’s gaze softens at your confusion before he delivers the objective.

“The whispers tell me that they want to exterminate his sons, so that there will be no heirs to inherit the empire.”

There’s a high-pitched ringing in your ears that deafens you from your own voice asking, “How do they know?”

You return to your senses just as you catch the tail end of Jeonghan’s response. “They recently hired a band of bloodswords. The whispers say that they’ve been bustling all night and morning, and they suspect that they’ll make their move soon.”

You should’ve listened to Jeonghan.

The sky had been red as blood when you woke that morning. Usually, it reads as an omen of a storm, but it had felt like something worse. Your mind had gone to Jeonghan’s words instantly, but Wonwoo is securely tucked into the palace grounds. Surely not even bloodswords are capable of slipping past the Sentinels.

You should’ve listened to Jeonghan.

When the incessant alarm in your head doesn’t let up, you decide to check in on the physician pavilion with Mingyu, who isn’t hard to wrangle up at all. Soonyoung, on the other hand, tosses sleepily in his bedsheets, grumbling something about having taken an overnight shift for Seungcheol. You frown, unimpressed, but leave him in his room with a mutter that if you, and Jeonghan, turn out to be right and Wonwoo really is in danger, he’ll be sorry for it.

Wonwoo’s not in his office. The chairs have been thrown, overturned here and there. The glass top of his desk shattered to oblivion.

Immediately, your concern rots away into dread, and it rises in the back of your throat as bile. Mingyu’s quick on his feet, already lisping through his next thoughts out loud, but you can barely hear what he says, your own mind reeling in panic and fear and despair.

“Tigress,” Mingyu barks, fingers bruising as he grips your shoulder, “pull yourself together. We need to find Wonwoo.”

You nod, mumble out your agreement. The Sentinel takes off, and you follow closely, barely aware of where he leads. Mingyu makes quick work of his hunt, like a hound closing in on a scent, and it feels like only a few heartbeats when he skids to a pause in the gateway to a secluded courtyard, one hidden away from most of the palatial grounds, most frequented by servants. The night swarms in, dark and smothering, and there’s barely a sliver of the moon in the sky to provide light but you see him.

You see Wonwoo, crumpled on the floor and trying to shove himself deeper into the corner that he’s been backed into. There’s a man merely a few feet in front of him, much farther away from you, who inches closer and closer to Wonwoo, a sickly sardonic laugh rattling out of his chest. Like a hunter, triumphant as his prize awaits.

There’s a horrid cut splitting the pale flesh of Wonwoo’s cheek, weeping blood. Staring at the man before him, he holds out the dagger that Soonyoung gave for protection in their childhood, but it’s too loose in his trembling grip. You see the Redeemer as he once was: a gentle boy, raised by a healer and a nurturer, who grew up wanting nothing but to care for others, the way he was cared for by his parents. Wonwoo couldn’t kill anyone, let alone harm them, even if he wanted to, and the thought makes your insides burn like wildfire.

“Wonwoo.” Your voice barely comes out, but he hears you, jerking his chin up. His eyes, stretched wide with terror, land on you, and the world around you tips on its axis. They hurt him, put a mark on a man who would never wish harm on another. “No,” you whisper, fingers curling tighter against your weapon, clinging to something desperately so that you don’t lose yourself in the storm. “No. You don’t get to lay a hand on him. You shouldn’t have done that.” The words escape as a sigh from miles away.

The bloodsword swivels his head over his shoulder before barking out another scoff. “Get lost, little girl. The grown-ups are dealing with business.”

The man’s words fall innocuously on deaf ears. There’s half a thought forming in your head that maybe you should just disarm him, incapacitate him just enough to have him out of the way so that you can check on Wonwoo. You look back at the Redeemer, see the cut on his face, and a roaring starts up in your ears, as the thought sputters and fizzles out.

Without a word to Mingyu, you surge forward, but you know that he’s there, hot at your heels. The man puts up no real fight; after all, bloodswords are amateur assassins. The man swivels on his feet, just in time to meet you as you reach him. You barely duck under the swing of his knife, but his movements are clumsy and unpracticed. He tries to lash out several more times, but you weave through each of his attempts.

You should kill him quickly–there’s Wonwoo to get to–but the grating noise of his awful laugh echoes in your head. How dare he laugh at the thought of hurting Wonwoo, of killing him? Your head gets loud again, you shift to the right a little too slowly, and the man’s swipe catches you across the chin, jerking your head to the side. It doesn’t hurt, you only feel the force of it and nothing else, but it’s enough. You drop into a crouch and slash at his calves with your blade, smiling when his muscles tear and his knees buckle beneath his weight.

A pitiful yelp of a cry spills from the man, but it’s too late for you to care. You wrench his shoulder, flip him around so that he’s crumpling onto his back, as you loom over him. He has no choice but to look at you now, standing before him with the blade steadying your hands. There’s a slow satisfaction that bubbles in the pit of your stomach, before spreading, warm in your veins, as you see the man’s face contort from anger to despair to finally fear. It delights you, knowing that he has realized his mistake.

The man dies screaming, and you revel in the way his voice gurgles as he chokes on his own blood before it cuts out entirely.

Other bodies thud to the floor around you as Mingyu takes care of the hoards that continue appearing, and the reprieve allows you to crouch beside Wonwoo, pressing a quivering palm to his unmarred cheek.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” You demand firmly, searching his eyes and any visible part of his body for signs of injury. “You’re okay now,” you whisper fiercely, feeling your heart tear at the sight of blood slipping from his face, over his jaw, and down his pale throat, of the panic in his usually unruffled expression. “We’re here now.”

The Redeemer shakes his head, and the dagger clatters out of his fingers as he tugs at you and you crash into his chest. “You’re safe,” he mutters, but you can barely hear his voice over the hammering of his heartbeat against your ear, the blood rushing furiously through your head.

You want nothing more than to stay in the warmth of his embrace, but you force yourself to push away and up. “You’ll be safe with Mingyu,” you promise, for the sake of yourself, if not for Wonwoo’s. You hear him call your name, a frantic howl of a noise, but rage pulses through your veins and it calls you back, back into the throng of the violence.

You advance, cutting through the outbreak of invaders like stalks of grass with a scythe. The anger, the fear that Wonwoo could’ve been hurt even worse blinds and deafens you. You move ceaselessly, bending and crouching and lunging and slashing. You dip to slice at the heels of one man, shoot yourself up and twist to tear the throat of another. A constant rhythm that never lets up, just like the Kwons taught you to, because a motionless warrior is a corpse. This is what dancing must feel like.

Just a bit up ahead, there’s another figure whirling and carving down the rest of the men with his twin blades. You take the moment to catch your breath, reel in the emotions that have gotten too unruly, fraying the edges of your minds and taking control of your body. In the middle of counting to a hundred, eyes squeezed shut, a gentle weight lands atop your head, grounding you. You don’t need to see to know that it’s Soonyoung, heat and the stench of iron nearly vibrating off of his body.

“Wonwoo?” The First Blade prompts quietly, and you can still hear malice in his voice because no matter how much more control he has over himself, you and Soonyoung are cut from the same bloody cloth. While your rage consumes your entire body in a deafening inferno, his fury makes his world go silent, like he’s swimming in frigid, subzero waters.

“We got to him just in time. I left him with Mingyu.” The words coming out of your throat sound like they’re coming from another person. They’re quiet, but the rest of your body is still so loud. Buzzing with the need to kill, kill, kill.

A muted sigh escapes Soonyoung. He drops his hand from your head to your face, fingers brushing at a spot on your jaw that smarts at his touch. “Tigress. He’s safe. That’s all that matters for now,” the man mumbles gently. “Go see him. We’ll kill the rest of the Park bastards another day.”

His promise is not enough. Your body yearns for more bloodshed, here and now, but you force yourself to nod and let yourself be tugged away from this battlefield to the next.

–

The physician pavilion has been wrecked, so there’s only one place that Mingyu could have taken Wonwoo.

The speakeasy-turned-clinic welcomes you like a second home as you step into its dim warmth, followed closely by Soonyoung. Only once you pass the threshold into the main holding room and see for yourself that Mingyu and Wonwoo are truly alive and well, you let yourself go lax, shoulders sagging as the weight of the world releases you.

Wonwoo sits on a barstool as the Sentinel hovers before him, stitching up his cheek with deft fingers. You’re so relieved that your knees threaten to buckle beneath you. There’s a moment when Wonwoo realizes your arrival and glances up, expression raw and melting with relief. You struggle to say something, anything, but your head swarms with loud thoughts of mine, mine, mine. It’s a bizarre feeling, wanting him so viscerally, when all your life, you’ve denied yourself. Distantly, you feel the stick of blood on your palms at the carnage you’ve just rendered, and guilt festers, reminding you of how undeserving you are of him.

“Tigress.” The sound of Soonyoung’s nickname for you sounds foreign and clumsy on Wonwoo’s tongue, and it startles you into stumbling a few steps forward.

You shake your head, no, as your feet crash into the stool Wonwoo sits on. Somewhere in your mind, you recognize that Mingyu’s arms come up around your shoulders to right your body as it careens forward, but all you can think is my name, my name, my name until the Redeemer calls you by your name and the infernal world around you finally hushes and settles.

He got hurt because of you, because you didn’t get there on time, because you didn’t take Jeonghan’s whispers seriously at first. All because of your own shortcomings as a Blade. The thought unravels you.

“I’m sorry.” The words spill faster than the tears do. “I’m sorry.”

Wonwoo’s nose crinkles with concern. “What are you sorry for, princess? You saved my life.”

You want to reach up, you want to hold him, but there’s so much blood on your hands. You’d only be tainting him. Like how you ruin everything else.

You get knocked into the darkness, it rushes in and sucks you under like a tidal wave, and you don’t know how to swim out.

“–ey. Hey.”

Another call of your given name. Still foreign after all this time. It rattles your entire being, and the words, barely formed and uncouth, fight their way off of your tongue clumsily.

“I let you get hurt,” you despair, fingers clenching and unfurling around empty air. “I’m not enough. I’ll never be enough to protect you. I need to be perfect–”

“Stop.”

You flinch at the anger brimming in Wonwoo’s voice. It’s foreign in your ears, and you’re not sure that you like it very much. Unlike yours and Soonyoung’s, the Redeemer’s rage feels not like a weapon but more like a manacle. Your throat burns with the desire to free him from it, so you clamp your jaws shut obediently, swallowing down the rest of the venom.

Wonwoo stands, knocking the stool backwards. The noise as it topples over and clatters through the floor returns you to the present, just enough for you to glance up and around the room, discovering that both Mingyu and Soonyoung’s presence have disappeared. You’re both relieved and anxious for it, unsure of what demons the privacy might lead you to bare next. The thought barely skims through your mind, before there’s a heat pressing into you. Confused, you look back forward, and it’s all Wonwoo. Wonwoo, clasping a hand to your cheek, the other settling heavy on your hip. Wonwoo, searing an inspection along the perimeter of your face, where you’re barely aware of a cut steadily weeping blood. Wonwoo, mumbling quietly, breath soft and warm and sweet against your mouth.

“You’re hurt,” he says simply.

It’s everything and nothing all at once. It’s so trivial that you want to brush him off. It’s so profound that you want to wholly consume the moment, greedily swallowing it away for yourself. As you dither, Wonwoo makes the decision for you.

He only tips his head back, lips brushing faintly against yours like a question, like a promise.

Once offered, you have no mind to do anything but take, take, take, and you’re pressing forward desperately, wanting nothing but Wonwoo’s touch to be burnt into your skin like a brand. In response, a quiet whine escapes him, pitched high with delight. He reciprocates with a relentless fervor, mouth melded to yours, breathing fire down your throat.

You swallow it eagerly. When your chest feels close to tearing apart from lack of air, you resentfully pull back for a moment to suck in a breath. In the lapse, the Redeemer smiles down at you, a gentle thumb sweeping over your face.

“I don’t need a perfect you,” he professes, soft and earnest. “I have never expected perfection.” As you grasp for shallow breaths, you puzzle over his words, as his polite smile widens into blatant amusement. “You don’t remember, do you? I’ve seen you before, when we were children. Multiple times, in fact.”

You frown. There’s nothing of Wonwoo in your faint recollections of your childhood, aside from the blurred images of his father. Try as you might, not a single picture of what he might have even looked like in boyhood exists in your head. After all, if he had been in your life back then, maybe your childhood wouldn’t have been as miserable as it was.

As if he notices your dejection, the Redeemer soothes you with a chaste kiss against the forehead. “No matter,” he whispers delicately. “It was always from afar anyway, whenever my father had me tag along to the palace with him. I was too quiet and shy to say anything to you.”

Despite yourself, you quip, “Even quieter than now?”

Wonwoo grins, “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” He continues a bit more seriously, brows drawn together, “You were younger than me, and the princess, but you always looked so unhappy. It was strange.” Shaking his head slightly, he corrects, “It was concerning.”

“I was unhappy,” you concede, but you don’t want to think about it, at least not right now. There will come a time when you bare your whole heart to Wonwoo, you decide then and there. He will witness the deepest and ugliest parts of your soul, and you will leave it up to his judgment if he deems you worthy of saving, of his redemption. Until then, you think that you’ll have to make do with being less than perfect for him. To have him and to give yourself to him as you are.

Wonwoo meets your gaze, knowingly, as if he understands your resolution and acknowledges it for himself as well. You smile, grow lax at the weight taken off of your chest finally, and lean in to kiss him again. Straining up to reach his height isn’t enough, despite the sharp angle that he crooks his neck at, so you urge him backwards, still clutched within his embrace, until the backs of his knees meet the edge of an armchair and you’re falling forward into him, into the seat.

He huffs out a breath, as his fingers trail along your ribcage, hot, like flames licking along your skin. You hold yours, afraid that if you move or make a sound, the spell will break and the moment will shatter. It’s not enough, the slow, intentional sweep of his hands that hold you like fragile glass.

“My mother grew flowers,” he pants into your mouth, words nearly going unnoticed by the haze in your head. “Kept flowers that grew in every season, every color of the rainbow. Raised her boys as she would her flowers, she would say.” Wonwoo’s murmurs rattle you to the core, and you wish that he had told you this when you were in a state to receive it more appreciatively.

You press a palm against his chest firmly, wincing as you deny it when he dips his head back low to get closer. Working hard to reel in your ragged breaths, you hook a finger beneath his chin, lifting his face to examine it. His pupils grow wide, darkening his gaze, and you watch it happen curiously.

Wonwoo rasps out a laugh, which sends your stomach tumbling, but you’re too far gone to care. You recognize it for what it is. He continues speaking in that quiet rumble of his, and all of your senses amplify, seeking out his voice and hanging on every word.

“I was scared that I would grow weak,” he admits like he’s telling a secret, “Flowers are pretty, but delicate. I envied Soonyoung and Mingyu, who were raised as warriors.” Wonwoo smiles and brushes his knuckles against the bruise blooming across your jaw. “Of you, even. A princess who was brave enough to become a Blade.”

You smile back, remorse bitter in the back of your mouth. “It’s not a proud thing, to be a weapon.”

“It’s a beautiful thing, to be a protector.” He argues fiercely, and his gaze burns so intensely that you think you might believe him.

–

Every passing day, every passing moment that you find yourself unable to tear your gaze away from Wonwoo, you think of your mother. You don’t glance at him because he prompts you to, you don’t pore over every shift of his expressions to gauge his emotions, you simply look for looking’s sake. The mere sight of him brings a calm that you never thought you would know in life.

Your attention is wholly yours to have and to give as desired. Without even thinking to, you give your attention to Wonwoo, even when he doesn’t demand it, because your head and your heart are magnetized to him. You realize, slowly, begrudgingly at first, then rapidly all at once, that this is what love must be.

You’ve always known that your parents never loved you. As a child, you had writhed and twisted and bent over backwards to get them to glance your way even for the slightest of seconds and see that you were smiling as angelically as you could to gain favor. You understand now that there would have been nothing that you could’ve done to receive their attention because there was no love in their heart for you. You know it but don’t think that you’ll ever comprehend it. Not when your concentration slips away from you so effortlessly, like sand through a sieve, and your thoughts scatter away from your mother to the Redeemer, merely a few feet across of you atop a barstool, head crooked into his book, fingers playing at the edges of the next page.

Love. The word tingles on the tip of your tongue and your mouth waters at the taste of it.

“You’re staring.” Wonwoo doesn’t move as he speaks, and for a moment, you wonder if you’ve imagined his velvet soft voice.

Cheeks flaring hot at getting caught, you stubbornly turn your head away, looking at anything but him.

You think that Wonwoo might love you, too.

For when you can’t last longer than a few seconds staring at the wall and your gaze draws back to him inevitably, like a moth to a flame, his mirthful eyes are already on you, ready to receive your attention.

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