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The night before the last trial. A promise to come back safely –
No one escaped that trial untouched.
So many princes in the infirmary, their broken bodies mending slowly, so slowly.
Jeok-yeon rules as newly crowned emperor – but every evening she comes here, to their bedsides, exchanging smiles with Hae-eon, quips with Choran. Ayeon doesn’t speak but when she lays a hand on his shoulder, he leans into it and a tear slips down his cheek. Purple light gleams under her hands with every touch, divine power meant to speed their recovery. That they survived at all is a miracle.
Emperor and attendant reach the end of the bland hospital hallway. Baek-rang haunts the next room. Where he lies.
Doha didn’t come back safely. Baek-rang found him bloody and unconscious on the battlefield, broken and barely breathing –
“Good evening, your majesty,” Baek-rang says with a tired smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “No change today.”
“Go rest, Baek-rang,” she says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Biseol pulls Baek-rang along by the elbow. There’s a meal waiting for him in the palace, exquisite dishes prepared for the emperor’s attendant that would otherwise go to waste. The door closes softly behind them.
Doha lies on the infirmary bed, his chest rising and falling. No tension creases brows that so often furrowed. His hair spills over the pillow in limp waves, untangled, somehow dull.
Jeok-yeon strokes the curving line of his brow, runs a thumb along the angles of his jaw. Light trails behind her touch.
His lips are cold, so cold against hers, soft and relaxed and utterly unresponsive. Divine fire falls into a void, black and chill as the deepest depths. He does not stir in his deathly sleep.
Her tears on his face make him look like he’s crying, too.
A messenger, dressed in the infirmary’s uniform, bows before the court.
Doha stirred. He woke. In Jeok-yeon’s chest, her still heart leaps into painful throbbing motion –
Only the briefest of blinks, golden eyes focusing on Baek-rang’s face before he fell asleep once more.
Desire sweeps through her soul, strong as an undertow. Jeok-yeon wants so badly to run to his side –
Until evening shadows swallow the light, duty chains the emperor to the throne.
Biseol drags Baek-rang out. “You must eat,” he commands, catching the other man and hauling him bodily over one shoulder despite his flailing.
“I have to be here when he wakes up again!” Baek-rang pleads.
Jeok-yeon flinches. “Biseol, wait a moment.” Light glimmers on her fingers. She presses her hands to Doha’s chest.
His heart beats a slow tempo. He breathes, easy and steady as the tides.
Nothing happens.
“Your majesty, there’s a better way–” Baek-rang says.
“I know.”
Warmer. His lips under hers are warmer than before – flames fall into a cold ocean instead of an endless void –
He shudders under burning hands, gasps into Jeok-yeon’s mouth. She pulls back –
A familiar frown creases shapely brows. Golden eyes peer into her face.
Doha coughs. Flinches. Blinks slowly, still staring.
“Who are you?”
“DOHA!” Baek-rang shouts.
No flicker of recognition sparks in Doha’s eyes. Glacial ice could not be more cold than the emperor of flame.
Charging to the bedside, Baek-rang flings himself upon his master. “You’re awake!”
“Who are you?” Doha repeats, a trembling arm half-lifting at his side. “Is – is ‘Doha’ my name?”
Bustling doctors pour through the door. Biseol’s hand on her back guides Jeok-yeon away from the surge.
In a blink they’re in the hallway outside. Dazed, Jeok-yeon meekly follows Biseol’s firm hand through a floating world, his touch the only point of stable reality.
Snow crunches under their feet. Biseol pulls open the palace door. Within its maw there is nothing but darkness. Jeok-yeon stops.
“Master?”
“He forgot,” she whispers.
Above them, the lowering sky releases all the tears her frozen heart cannot shed.
Baek-rang sends word later. The doctors have sent Doha home to his palace.
He didn’t recognize it.
They think his memory may return once his body heals.
Days later, Jeok-yeon’s evening stroll takes her to his palace gate. Doha and Baek-rang spar shirtless. Raw pink scars trace Doha’s torso. Blue water and white moonlight dance on clashing blades. When Baek-rang’s sword flips his own into the air to clatter against the courtyard, Doha yields with a laugh.
He sounds… happy.
Midnight moonlight floods marble courtyard. Sleepless, Jeok-yeon invites Biseol out to spar. The song of steel gives wings to her feet, if not her leaden heart.
As they sheathe their blades, Baek-rang claps. “Not bad, your majesty.”
Red eyes flick over the shadows, looking for one who is not here.
“I left him sleeping in his palace,” Baek-rang says. “Why don’t you visit? He misses you.”
A merry smile belies his shrewd eyes.
“He doesn’t remember me.”
“His mind doesn’t. His heart does.” Insouciant as ever, Baek-rang grasps the emperor’s wrist. “He woke for you. He might remember for you, too.”
After Baek-rang’s visit, a spark of hope smolders in the hem of despair’s numbing shroud. A frozen heart prickles and creaks.
Another sleepless night. Jeok-yeon walks into the forest to the abandoned pond. Bushes rustle.
He walks into the moonlight. Sees her, sitting quietly, dipping her feet in cool water.
He runs forward.
“Look out–!”
Wreathed in glowing blue, he strides over the depths. He splashes to a halt, feet sinking into the shallows in front of Jeok-yeon.
“It’s you,” Doha says. Strong arms wrap around her in a fierce embrace. “It’s you– it’s really you–”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I’m here.”
Doha buries his face in the crook of her neck and gasps as if taking his first breath.
“No one would tell me anything,” he says. “I started to think you were a phantom, a fever-dream– or- or a ghost–”
“I’m real,” she says.
“I’m so sorry,” Doha says. “To ask you, who are you?, the moment I woke – I’m so sorry. Please forgive me, my love–”
In the vise of his arms, Jeok-yeon gasps for air. “You – remember?”
“I dream,” Doha whispers earnestly, kneeling at her feet in the water. “I dream of you every night, your eyes red as blood, your hair dark as night, the way you smell of ash and the heat of your body in my arms and the taste of your mouth on mine – and every morning I wake alone, and Baek-rang will tell me nothing!”
He grips her hands in his. Presses a kiss to each palm. “I don’t need to remember to know that I love you. My heart hasn’t forgotten for whom it beats.”
“Is it courage or recklessness, that you hang your heart on dreams?” Jeok-yeon tugs him out of the water. “You don’t even know my name.”
“Won’t you tell me?” he asks, twining his fingers with hers. “I asked everyone who you were, and they all acted so strangely–”
With a flick of her fingers she sets the half-charred logs of a previous fire alight. Flickering flames shine in Doha’s astonished eyes.
“Oh,” he says.
A moment’s pause, as he glances from the fire to Jeok-yeon. He blushes and ducks his head. “Your majesty. I thought you were a woman.”
“Of all the things to remember, when you’ve forgotten everything else–” she laughs at the sheer absurdity. “No wonder you couldn’t find me. No one else outside Pilju knows.”
Doha stares, his eyes tracing her every feature. “How can they not see? What man was ever as beautiful as you?”
Jeok-yeon stares back at him. “You, quite a few of our brothers, and no small number of our attendants including your own,” she replies. “I’m hardly exceptionally good looking. No one ever penned an ode to a tall, scarred, muscular woman.”
Firmly, he says, “Then I’ll be the first.”
“Your poetry will have to wait,” she says, settling before the flickering fire. “Unless you run to your palace sopping wet for paper and ink.”
Aglow in the firelight, Doha watches her watching him. Awed wonder, transparent as flame, gleams in his questioning eyes.
“Have I run? Before?” he asks. He sheds his damp shirt. “Is that why I feel sad at the sight of you beside this fire?”
“I’m the wrong per– what are you doing?”
Puzzled, Doha pauses, his hands at his hips, his trouser ties loose and dangling. “My pants are wet, so I’m taking them off.”
Jeok-yeon blinks. Doha meets her gaze, guileless, as if stripping in front of the emperor is of no consequence –
Lightning-strike scars crisscross his torso. One jagged mark crosses his stomach, trailing downwards towards his hip.
“I suppose all this is new to you,” he says. He rubs his thumb across a silvery scar as if her regard tickles.
“I’m no stranger to scars.” Silk whispers off her shoulders as Jeok-yeon stands. For centuries she guarded her secret, terrified that he would see right through it – finally, here between fire and moonlight, she pulls the long binding loose.
“See for yourself.”
The long ribbon swirls to the ground, bares the disgusting violent marks Jeok-yeon left on herself, puckered and dark across her chest –
His face crumples. With a wail of grief, he pulls her close, pressing their scarred chests together. He weeps – a torrent of tears that falls like rain.
The tide of his emotion washes long moments away. Swept in its current Jeok-yeon feels unmoored, cast adrift. The pain is long past – why–?
An eternity later, his waterfall of tears slows to a drip. “My fault,” he whispers damply against her shoulder. “It was my fault, wasn’t it–”
She remembers. Black night and crimson agony – her breath hitches, hot scars pressing against him. Those last trembling slashes of the knife, when the world was going dark and all she could feel was pain –
His cold yellow eyes, always staring –
Hate and fear had given a young woman the strength to complete the task with shaking, bloody hands.
Like an ebbing tide, Doha tries to pull away –
“No,” she says, clinging tightly. “No, stay–”
Warm golden eyes glimmer with pain. “I hurt you–”
“Let’s not make this mistake again,” she says.
His lips taste like salty sea.
Confusion has evaporated his earlier boldness. He turns his face and buries it in the curve of her neck.
“What am I to you?” he asks. “I thought we were lovers, but–”
“I won’t hold you to a promise you don’t remember,” she says, combing her fingers through his long hair. “What do you want us to be?”
He pillows his head on her shoulder while his arms rest loosely around her waist. “Do I need to have an answer now?”
“No, I’ll wait,” she chuckles. “Someday when you remember, this conversation will be very amusing to us both.”
Jeok-yeon:
Watching him walk away feels like – my heart has fingernails, and they’re being ripped off one by one with each step he takes.
He glances back and his stride falters, before he vanishes into the gloom.
Only then do I let my tears slide down my cheeks, unseen.
Doha:
Every step further from her catches at my toes like a mistake. I glance backward. She stands watching with a soft smile, knife-sharp and sliding between my ribs to pierce my heart. And I don’t know why or what I should do with this maelstrom of devotion and lust and soul-crushing guilt.
Baek-rang leans against the palace gate, hair dripping.
Despite the steady rain, Doha stops in front of him. Baek-rang stares.
“I told you not to do this anymore,” he says, scratching the back of his head with a sigh.
“Why didn’t you tell me I sought the emperor?” Doha asks. “You let me make a fool of myself–” his fists clench.
“Where is his majesty?” Baek-rang asks, crossing his arms.
Doha looks away like a scolded, sulking puppy.
“Never mind. Let’s go.” Baek-rang grabs Doha by the arm and marches forward.
“Where-?”
Baek-rang snorts. “The emperor’s palace, of course.”
Four drenched figures meet before the door in the gloom of rainy night. Biseol glares –
– but Jeok-yeon laughs.
“We all look like drowned rats,” she says, shaking her head. Raindrops crystallize into fluttering snow. “Let’s go in.”
A fire leaps in the hearth, warming fluffy towels – Baek-rang borrows one of Biseol’s robes.
Jeok-yeon vanishes into her room, returning with a robe for Doha. Uneven stitches mend long gashes.
“This is – one of mine?” Doha says, running his fingers over tattered teal and purple silk. It smells like ash.
“You gave it to me,” Jeok-yeon says. “Borrow it back for tonight.”
Wheels turn in Baek-rang’s eyes. “So that’s what happened,” he says. “I thought Doha had gotten into a fight, the way he came back covered in blood.”
Two pairs of questioning eyes land on Baek-rang. He smirks. “It’s a secret.”
Jeok-yeon runs her fingers over the zig-zagging thread until her fingers rest lightly as a butterfly’s wing against Doha’s.
“Doha,” she says, “Don’t blame yourself for my scars. You suffered because of me, too.”
Baek-rang claps Biseol on the shoulder. Biseol redirects his glare. With a squeak, Baek-rang drops his hand.
Jeok-yeon glances at them. Biseol gazes into her eyes, a wordless question Jeok-yeon answers with the barest brush of lowered lashes. She tips her head a fraction of a degree –
“There’s plenty of snacks and drinks in the storehouse,” Biseol says.
“Ooooh, the emperor’s snacks? Show me!” Baek-rang bounces lightly.
The pair of white-robed attendants leave, Baek-rang with a wink and Biseol with a last lingering look at Jeok-yeon.
Doha watches them go, wondering at the relief he feels at their departure. The hearth’s warmth at his back matches Jeok-yeon’s heat before him, banishing the cold.
It feels familiar and insufficient. Jeok-yeon looks at him with the same desperate red eyes that haunt his dreams.
“I wish I could remember,” Doha whispers. “Maybe then all these feelings would make sense.”
“Maybe,” Jeok-yeon says. Her fingers tighten on his arm. “Are you sure you want to remember all that pain?”
“Yes,” Doha whispers.
“Then come with me.” Jeok-yeon leads him by the hand through the bedroom door.
The mended robe she places on the rumpled bed. Her warm hands on Doha’s jaw drive back the cold air of the bedroom. Doha wonders why she doesn’t light a fire in this room too… until she claims his lips with her own, and the wave of her blazing power sets his body alight.
He gasps against her mouth and she presses the advantage, claiming his tongue with her own – Doha grips her hips and pulls her closer, lost in the rush of fiery heat. When she relents at last, they’re both panting. Sweat prickles on Doha’s skin.
She traces the edge of his collar with a finger. “Do we need these clothes?” The half-smile on her lips makes Doha think she might be teasing him, a joke he can’t remember –
“Your majesty–”
Jeok-yeon presses a finger against his lips. “In my bedroom, use my name,” she says.
“Jeok-yeon,” Doha says. “Is this– are you–” the heat of her body pressed so firmly against him dissolves his thoughts and makes his tongue trip over the words. Her inferno has lit an answering fire in him, a raging desire to feel her bare skin against his –
“Yes,” she says. A firm tug pulls her damp clothing loose, the edges of her scars peeking out from her sagging collar. “This is. I am.” She smirks at his flustered blush. “Our clothes are wet. So we should… take them off.”
This sounds entirely reasonable to Doha, especially when Jeok-yeon’s hot palms stroke his bare chest as she pushes him into her bed.
The scent of ash fills his body with every breath and Doha shudders, consumed by blazing touches and fiery kisses, a pleasure more intense than he dreamed searing through his nerves as a flame in human form presses against him, straddles his hips–
Water surges into fire, and in the maelstrom of sensation Doha hears Jeok-yeon crying his name before darkness swallows him.
Doha wakes slowly, his consciousness flickering like an ember in hot ash. Vaguely he notices the bed beneath his side, a warm body wrapped around him, a gentle hand stroking in long sweeps down his back. A deeper breath fills his throat with the scents of ash and sweat and sex.
Fine hair tickles his face when he tilts his head in the darkness. A gentle curve lies warm under his hand, firm and smooth. He rolls them over, pinning her warm body beneath him. Jeok-yeon’s crackling chuckle fills his ears. Her lips touch his throat, his jaw, the corner of his mouth –
He slides his tongue around hers as her legs slip open underneath him, cradling his hips with her thighs. She flexes under him in a slow rhythm like a calm tropical sea against the shore. Soft moans caress their ears, Jeok-yeon gasping and gripping Doha’s shoulders tight when he slides into her heat with a groan. Her breathy moans speed his thrusts like waves picked up by rising wind, until the shuddering clench of her body around him tips him over the edge and the warm darkness welcomes his capsized consciousness once again.
Doha dreams of flames that roll like liquid, warm and bright, driving away dark cold lonely pain with comfort and pleasure and ecstasy –
Morning light dawns. Doha blinks open his eyes and wonders at the beams falling on shining black hair. For a moment he frowns, perplexed – he’d been fighting for his life, fighting to come back safely to Jeok-yeon –
Jeok-yeon, who sleeps sprawled out in the bed next to him, blanket barely tucked over one hip. Sunlight pours over her as if the light too wishes to caress every curve –
Memories crash over him like a tidal wave. He hadn’t quite managed safely – but it seems his generous emperor, glorious lover, beautiful god has accepted alive.