Chapter Text
“Wow, you’re drunk. Haha! I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in ages. I never thought I’d ever see your drunken antics.” How amusing, seeing the noble first prince with his clothes askew, his body paint smudged, drunk and inviting me to jump into his arms. As if he hadn’t spent our entire childhood staring at me with a cold, disapproving gaze. He looks so different, with his hair straight and his face so earnestly gazing three stories up at me from the busy street below.
Drunk. A prince of Yeol is drunk, on the streets of this pleasure district where every crumb of food and every drop of alcohol is infused with the endless night flower…
He didn’t drink a drop or touch a bite at the table earlier. Too busy glaring at me, as usual. It hasn’t been that long since he left that upper room – how is he drunk already? Was pretending with me such an affront to his sensibilities that he had to drown his offense in alcohol? I might drink like a fish myself and could certainly drink any of my brothers under the table, but surely no ordinary spirits could have gone to Doha’s head like this so quickly.
Concern curls uncomfortably in my throat, or maybe that’s just the remnants of that vile smoke from the pipe dangling from my fingers. It’s ridiculous. The first prince is in no danger here, especially not with his attendant to watch his back. I’ll need to go down and relieve Biseol of distracting Baekrang soon.
Hopefully my request reaches the manager before they stuff the most potent endless night flower down Hwari’s throat or cut off her legs. The girl’s in trouble, and I hope she can tell me more than the flower farmer could. If I’m not too late. Again.
“Jeokyeon? Will you come down?” Doha’s still standing there, while these thoughts flit quickly through my head.
I grasp the lingering amusement firmly to my face and call back, “So silly. Come up here instead, Doha. After all, isn’t shouting across the street unsuited to your dignity?” This is insane. I’m in the middle of an investigation that he almost botched completely - while sober! Why am I doing this?
Those golden eyes widen. From here, I can’t tell much more of his expression. Not that emotional interpretation is my strong suit, especially with Doha Ryu, the always-impassive first prince. Who’s been remarkably expressive of late, in front of me. Maybe the scent of that damned flower is getting to us both.
“I’ll be right up,” he replies, whirling and striding back to the doors in a flurry of richly embroidered fabric, a dark flower flaring open on the streets of endless night.
That’s done it, then. I’m going to have to juggle a drunken prince and a (hopefully sober) courtesan. At the same time, while trying to convince her to tell me about the people vanishing from this brothel. Well. I’m sure it will go fine. Somehow.
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A knock, an eager thumping that no courtesan would ever use on a client’s door.
“Jeokyeon?” It’s Doha, arriving first. Wow, he must have sprinted up the stairs to be here that fast. I didn’t hear him crash into anything in the hall, though, so maybe he’s not as drunk as I thought.
“Come in, Doha,” I call.
The way he practically falls through the door has me second-guessing how drunk he is.
And then I see the blood.
“Doha! You’re bleeding! What in the world?” I grab his bloody hand, prying fingers open, looking for the wound. There’s a gash curving across his palm, but it doesn’t look bad enough to have bled so much. It’s already scabbing over.
“It’s - nothing, nothing, I – I just broke a cup,” he stammers out. “It’s just a scratch.”
I huff at him. “Just a scratch, I’m sure, noble first prince,” and is that a wince? “Were you really going to waltz down the street dripping blood everywhere rather than bandaging it? How inconsiderate of you towards the staff and the other guests.” Oh, that’s definitely a wince. It must hurt worse than it looks. There should be a pitcher of water on a washstand somewhere in here to clean the blood off, at least.
“Sir, it’s me, Hwari.” A woman’s voice calls at the door.
Doha jolts, snatching his hand back from my grasp. “So you called a courtesan to your room after all,” he says, low voice rough, a frown furrowing his eyebrows. There’s familiar disapproval in those yellow eyes.
Ignoring his expression, I step back and call to the door, “Come in.”
She steps smoothly through the doorway, but then stops, glancing uncertainly between Doha, standing with his stiffened back to the door, and myself.
“Please forgive the surprise, Hwari,” I say, gesturing for her to come in. “My drinking companion has clumsily cut himself and I was tending to his hand. Are there supplies here, to tend a small scratch?” Of course there will be plenty of first aid supplies in a place like this, but whether this room is stocked with such things, I don’t know. It provides a suitable distraction from what she must have been expecting to happen when she walked through the door, at least.
Hwari pauses a moment more before moving to a cabinet on the adjoining wall. “Of course, sir. Allow me to assist you.” Plucking a basket from the shelf, she turns toward Doha. “If you’ll just show me your hand, I can-”
“No.” Doha’s voice is curt, verging on outright rudeness. “I don’t need your help.” His sharp eyes slash towards me, a scowl as fierce as the one when Baekrang pulled back my collar twisting his features. “I’ll leave you to your night’s entertainment, then, Jeokyeon. My apologies for inconveniencing you.”
Hwari looks surprised at this development. It would be easier to speak to her alone, I’m sure, without Doha to interfere, but some part of me hates the idea of his leaving like this. Of his thinking that I invited him up to my room to join in a threesome with a courtesan tonight. ‘Promiscuous and unfaithful,’ I remember his comment from our surprise reunion on the streets. How ironic – I, untouched, never to be touched by a lover I cannot ever risk taking, and left unable to feel anything but a pale shadow of love by my own consuming fire - considered so by my brother. It’s sour, somehow, though it’s the result of my own actions. How better to hide my secrets than to act as if I have no shame and nothing to hide at all?
I grasp his sleeve as he turns to leave. “Wait,” I say, surprising myself once again tonight. “You don’t need help, but Hwari might need our help.” Turning, I see a shocked look flit across her face before she stills her expression again. “I heard them searching for you earlier, Hwari, that’s why I asked for you specifically. It sounded like you were in some kind of trouble-” Doha’s gone still, the silky fabric of his sleeve smooth and cool against my fingertips, and Hwari laughs, such a bitter, bitter sound.
“Trouble? How kind of you, sir, to trouble yourself over the affairs of a lowly courtesan.” The basket slips from her fingers, rattling on the floor as bits and bobs scatter at her feet, and her hand tucks into her skirts -
“I’m so touched that a rich gentleman like you would care for such a worthless existence as myself,” she speaks such cutting words and that’s a knife in her hand -
Doha’s whirling before I can react, grabbing her wrist in his powerful grip. The knife falls at my feet. It had been but a mere fingers’ width away from plunging into my abdomen. Oh. How embarrassing. Aren’t I the sober prince in this room? Now I owe him.
“Let go!” Hwari shrieks, twisting against Doha’s grasp, face gone pale, a smear of makeup across one cheek standing out. Doha looks so furious that I’m momentarily glad not to be on the receiving end of such a glare. Did I think him intimidating as a child? I’m impressed the girl hasn’t fainted at the terrifying sight of a fully grown and furious first prince.
“Doha, don’t hurt her-” I start, and that furious gaze snaps around to land on me.
“You- She almost- Jeokyeon!” he spits out, appalled and apparently lost for words.
“She’s just a woman!” Gods, did those words really just come out of my mouth? I feel sick. “You don’t need to break her arm! I’m fine!” It’s not like a knife wielded by an ordinary person can really hurt a prince, and surely he knows that. There’s no way the noble first prince doesn’t know that we’re forbidden from harming commoners, either.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Fire!” A chorus of screams echoes from downstairs and through the window. There’s a crackling sound, and in my senses suddenly the glow of thousands of lit candles in this town is swamped by raging fire- how-
Hwari is laughing again. “It doesn’t matter! None of it matters! No one’s getting out of this hell, not Kang, not me, and not either of you-” Doha abruptly lets go of her arm, and she collapses, holding her wrist, as I quickly scoop the knife off the floor so it won’t be in her reach. There’s an odd gleam on the blade, I barely notice, more focused on trying to figure out what’s going on, there’s so much fire and there are so many people here to burn, I can’t let it-
“What have you done?” Doha growls at the girl, who gazes up at him from the floor with tears streaming down her face and around a bitter smile.
“I set this fire. I did! It was so easy. No one here pays attention to anything but the endless night flower. I poured oil and set candles all over this building. The wicks have burned down and set the floors on fire. It doesn’t matter that you have the knife, I’m going to burn this entire place down!”
Flames are wrapping the walls in heat and light, but I have a hold of it, now. People should be leaving as fast as possible, I just have to hold the heat and smoke back from them and the flames from consuming the structure of the buildings until everyone can get out. Why are houses so flammable? Rock wouldn’t burn like this. People should build houses from rocks.
“Until that happens, do me the favor of listening to this humble courtesan’s complaints. Then we’ll all die in this den of sin, surrounded by bright flames.”
Doha looks appalled, like he doesn’t know what to do. Centuries old and is this his first suicidal commoner? I have to hand it to Hwari, I’m impressed. Not many who lose all hope think to take out the hell that consumed their futures when they plan to give up their own lives to escape. I kneel on the floor, holding the flames with my power, my awareness stretching as the flames jump from building to building, making sure the subtle sparks of human life are each guarded from flame, heat, and smoke. This whole town really will burn, at this rate. Keeping people alive in an inferno is tricky, and everything here is fuel for the flames. And as Hwari tells us her tale of being drugged and sold into the brothel as a child, a thirteen year old girl and her friends, those monsters – oh. Oh, I don’t want to keep this place from burning.
Let this hell and its rotten flowers burn.
The flames jump higher, but I just pour out more power, guiding fire away from us, from anyone left inside. The problem with walled villages is that everyone has to leave by the same gate. It slows down evacuation. Half the people here are either drunk or drugged and that slows them, too. I can hold back these flames long enough, though. I must. I kneel in front of Hwari, my veins feeling like they’re catching on fire too...
“People kept disappearing from the brothel.”
My eyes widen. So, there is something strange going on here, even worse than the mundane, vile evils that sprout from desire unfettered by honor.
“I was so afraid. Not a single person cared, even though the people around them had vanished without a trace! Nobody even realized! Nobody!
“When I realized Yeoran was gone, and demanded answers from the manager, he realized Kang and I weren’t addicted… Kang told me to run… That’s how he lost his leg. He can’t run away with me even if he wants to now. Tell me. What’s the point of living?”
“Is that why you wanted to die?” I demand. “Did you want to die that badly? Enough to set the brothel on fire, because you were afraid you’d fail to kill yourself?” This girl, hurting so badly…
“That’s right! I wanted to die! I wanted to eat the flower petals every night so I could be delirious like the rest of them. But I couldn’t do that, because I’m human! I didn’t want to live like an animal! If I couldn’t do that, then I wanted to choose death of my own free will!”
The fire has wrapped the whole room in bright flames. I can’t spare a thought for Doha, standing there frozen with shock – at least he’s not getting in the way. Reaching out, I grasp Hwari’s bare upper arms, her smooth skin cool under my rough fingers despite the heat radiating from flames I’m holding away from us. “NO. You should have chosen life. You should have chosen to live, to cherish yourself more!”
“Cherish myself?” Hwari shouts, tears still pouring down her face. “What difference would that make?! Nobody in this world thinks I’m important! Not one person tried to find Yeoran after she disappeared! Our tragedy…” her voice breaks, and in a whisper she finishes, “goes unnoticed.”
I can hear her, though, because I’ve pulled this weeping woman into my arms, wrapping her in my embrace. How familiar that feeling, though it was centuries ago that I was a child, when even the servants who were sympathetic to mother and I could do nothing to help us, when the villagers pretended not to notice that not a day went by that we weren’t covered in bruises from father’s fists, she and I. Worthless. Beneath notice, unless we could be useful, and what six year old girl is useful to a father who wanted only boys?
“It hasn’t gone unnoticed by me. I’ll find Yeoran,” I’ll figure out how later, everyone’s going to be scattered to the four winds by the time this fire goes out “… and I’ll cherish you.” I firm my grasp on this fire, this fire that is my fire, and feel the certainty of my oath settle in my burning bones.
“You...”
“You said you wanted to burn everything down. Do you want me to help you?” I cup her tear-stained face in my hands, smiling though my eyes are tight from sorrow and pain, as well. “I’m good at that.” Oh, how I sympathize with her. ‘They say you have to choose to live and choose to die. I was like you once. There was a time I wanted to wither away and die. I felt like I was always walking on thin ice… and feeling as if I was constantly fighting fate broke my spirit. My path was full of nails. My destiny seemed to be pushing me to step on them and die… but if I had known that I’d meet you on this path… I’d have walked faster.’ Could I have saved them? Soye, Hwari, Yeoran? ‘I should have run over here instead of walking in tears.’
“Hwari.” Controlling the flames, stretching my senses, it burns and I’m burning with it, but I can do it. This is my power, the power of the prince of flames, and my gift is meant for burning down hells just like this one. “What’s your actual name?” The one they took from you to make you a courtesan. As I lost mine, to be made into a prince.
“It’s Inae.” It’s not quite hope in her eyes, but they aren’t filled with despair anymore either.
“Inae. It’s a nice name. It suits you much better.” I smile at her, for her. “Inae. It’s been too long since you last saw the sun. So don’t die. Live so you can see the sun rise tomorrow… and see how beautiful it is when it flares and sets. My fire will pass you by without leaving a wound…” I rise, pulling her to her feet and pushing her past Doha, still watching us, wide-eyed, to the door. “...so remove your shackles and burn. Leave this hell and fly away. Don’t be afraid. I will become emperor and cherish you.” Heat is beginning to slip through my grasp, swirling around us and fanning our hair and clothing, but I’m still holding it back from the scorching heat that cooks lungs, holding the flames from eating away at the structural timbers holding this building up. I will be the emperor, who is everywhere, in all the wind, earth, air, water, and fire in this nation. You’ll find me in the highest places of privilege and among the humblest of men.
“So get out and live. Live, and be loved by your emperor.”
She turns, and runs.