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Chapter Text

Seonghwa was used to the cold—its bite, its silence, its solitude. Long before it ever touched his skin, it had seeped into the corridors of his life, preparing him for more than just physical winters. It taught him stillness. It taught him endurance. And perhaps most cruelly, it foreshadowed the chill of courtly isolation and the political frost that would one day try to freeze him from within. The snow was not just weather—it was prophecy.

Long before he became the Crown Prince of Haneulhae, he was just a boy of snow and laughter, growing up in the coldest kingdom of all.

Haneulhae was a land carved from winter. Nestled among the jagged ridges of the Baekdu Mountains, the kingdom was a realm where the snow never truly melted. Long, icy winters dominated the calendar, while the brief summers were cool and fleeting, marked more by mist than warmth. Even in the height of the growing season, frost clung to the stone streets of the mountain villages, and the scent of pine smoke and iron never left the air. The people of Haneulhae were resilient—quiet, practical, and bound to traditions that had withstood centuries of bitter cold and high winds.

Villages like Hyeoncheon, Baekryeong, and Saryeong nestled into valleys like pearls among white waves, each one steeped in ancestral rites and frost-bound festivals. The sacred forest wolves howled from the woodlands, believed to carry the voices of those long passed. And towering above them all was Haneulseong—the royal castle perched atop a wind-swept cliff, gazing down at the frozen ribbon of the Saryeong River.

The castle itself was a marvel: a palace of pale, frost-kissed stone and silver-tipped towers that shone like starlight. Wind-chimes crafted of crystal and bone hung from its balconies, their music soft and melancholic. Inside, the walls bore embroidered tapestries of battles and stars, firelight flickering across patterns centuries old. This was the heart of the kingdom. This was home.

To a young Seonghwa, the castle was not just stone and legend—it was a playground, a puzzle, and sometimes a world of giants. The halls that echoed with courtly footsteps seemed to stretch forever when he ran through them with Wooyoung at his heels. The scent of beeswax, cold ash, and old parchment clung to everything, and the soft crunch of his fur-lined boots on frost-dusted floors became a familiar rhythm of home.

He remembered how the light filtered through colored-glass windows in the eastern corridor, painting the walls in shifting blues and silvers that danced when he twirled beneath them. The warmth of the kitchen hearth was the heart of his afternoons, where Wooyoung would sneak him honey cakes and sometimes chase him with a ladle, both giggling until scolded.

In the colder months, which was nearly always, the castle’s vastness felt both endless and comforting. He and Yeosang would spend hours tucked behind curtains, whispering about the stories they read—Seonghwa always drawn to myths, Yeosang to history. They once spent a whole week convinced there were secret doors hidden behind the grand library shelves, and the three of them mapped out imaginary tunnels and hidden passageways in childish handwriting on scraps of old parchment.

He knew which stairs creaked, which guards would turn a blind eye if he stayed out too long after dusk, and which windows let in the scent of pine and cold best after fresh snowfall. The castle was never just a palace—it was his world, marked by adventure, comfort, and the people he loved.

And it was here that Seonghwa was born, beneath a sky split by thunder and snowfall—a rare celestial storm that palace seers interpreted as a convergence of fate and omen. The wind howled like ancestral voices, and the snowfall blanketed the castle in silence, as though the world itself had paused to witness the arrival of the moon-blessed child. Among the elders, there were hushed whispers that a child born under such a sky would walk between tradition and transformation, both beacon and burden.

The storm raging the night of Seonghwa’s birth was more than weather—it was an omen. Palace seers interpreted it as a sign that this child was destined to walk the narrow path between tradition and upheaval, a force both revered and feared. Whispers said he bore the weight of change itself, a moon-blessed child fated to shake the realm’s foundations—or be consumed by them.

An omega born during a three-day winter storm was said to be marked by the divine. The elders whispered that such a child would carry the weight of prophecy—change wrapped in silk. Whether blessing or omen, the people watched his birth with reverent awe.

From the moment he opened his eyes, Seonghwa seemed touched by something more ancient than bloodlines. The palace midwives whispered he was not just born but unveiled, a child drawn from the breath of snow and moonlight. His skin was porcelain kissed with frost, impossibly soft and pale like the underbelly of a winter cloud. Silvery strands of hair curled like woven starlight around his brow even in infancy, and his eyes—dark, wide, and endlessly deep—held a strange stillness, as if they remembered dreams from a world not yet born.

It wasn’t just his face, though he was beautiful even by courtly standards. It was the silence that followed him into rooms, the hush that fell across the great halls when he laughed or turned his head, the way candlelight danced more gently near him. The castle folk began to say he was blessed by the moon itself—that some old, slumbering deity had marked him during the storm that had raged on the night of his birth. They told stories in low tones: that the snow had fallen softer when he cried, that the frost hadn’t touched the tower walls until the morning after.

He moved through the palace like poetry incarnate, soft-footed and contemplative, already drawn to beauty and harmony. He would sit still for hours watching the snow fall outside the frosted windows, his breath fogging the glass in slow, rhythmic clouds. Even when he ran laughing through the halls with Wooyoung and Yeosang, there was always something otherworldly in the tilt of his head, in the way the light seemed to follow him.

The queen once told a visiting noble, “My son will be more than a ruler. He will be a mirror—reflecting everything around him with clarity and grace. That is the power of a child born under the moon.”

Queen Yoonseul, once Lady Park Yoonseul of the Hwangju Park clan, brought Seonghwa into the world surrounded by candles, chants, and the scent of sacred juniper. She was a queen of quiet strength and brilliance, a woman of learning and grace, whose court was a haven of poetry and purpose. Not only a ruler but a scholar, healer, and patron of the arts, she had forged a reign that balanced wisdom and empathy.

To Seonghwa, however, she was simply his mother.

Yoonseul loved deeply and with subtle elegance. She braided Seonghwa’s hair with care, told him stories of old gods and clever queens, and taught him that stillness was not passivity but power waiting. She included him in her rituals—the tea ceremonies at dawn, where the surface of the spring reflected the sky; the twilight walks through the frost gardens she had designed herself; and long evenings in the royal library, where they pored over legends and maps side by side.

Her affection extended to Seonghwa’s friends as well. Wooyoung and Yeosang were not noble-born, but Yoonseul saw the loyalty and heart in them. Wooyoung, ever bold and mischievous, often made her laugh with dramatic tales of kitchen disasters or palace gossip. Yeosang, quiet and thoughtful, reminded her of the scholars she had once studied with. She welcomed them both into the inner circle of the palace with warmth and trust, treating them not as servants' sons but as companions to her beloved son.

When the boys visited, Yoonseul would have the kitchens prepare extra sweets. She even organized small lessons for them, taught by palace tutors, saying that wisdom should not be limited by blood. The trio’s bond, born in laughter and curiosity, was forged strong under her watchful eye.

As children, Seonghwa, Wooyoung, and Yeosang were a whirlwind of movement and imagination. On festival days, they danced in the snow, their faces flushed with joy, in matching cloaks. They built snow-castles in the outer courtyards, orchestrated mock battles with wooden swords, and crept into the old tower library to search for forgotten scrolls. Wooyoung’s energy was endless, always proposing some new game or mischief; Yeosang countered him with logic and reason, often playing the voice of caution. Seonghwa was the balance between them—a dreamer with a sense of purpose.

One winter, they attempted to build a glider from old silk banners and driftwood. They launched it off the castle’s lower wall, with Wooyoung yelling, “For glory!” before tumbling harmlessly into a snowbank. Another time, they spent weeks designing a “secret code” and sending each other letters hidden beneath their bedframes. Even the guards began playing along, pretending to intercept spy messages. These moments formed a golden age of childhood—playful, unburdened, and deeply cherished.

On one memorable spring night, just after the snowmelt had carved fresh streams through the gardens, the trio snuck out to see the frostfire blooms—rare flowers that glowed under moonlight. They sat in silence, the world hushed around them, and Seonghwa whispered, "Let’s never grow apart." It was a promise sealed in that hush, one they would strive to keep even as the tides of fate rose against them.

But time has its own rhythm.

Queen Yoonseul’s illness crept in quietly. A cough here, a moment of dizziness there. At first, Seonghwa believed it was exhaustion. But the palace healers soon confirmed what none dared say aloud: her condition would only worsen.

Still, she endured. She still met Seonghwa every morning, even when she could no longer walk to the spring and had to be carried in a chair of woven cedar and silk. She held Wooyoung’s hand when he visited, joked with him gently to lift his spirits. She listened as Yeosang read to her from scrolls and discussed the old laws and rituals with a clarity no sickness could steal.

Her love endured through weakness.

And when at last she passed—pale, serene, and still beneath the moonlight—it shattered more than just the heart of her son. Wooyoung wept alone in the kitchens, ignoring the comfort of servants. Yeosang spent days locked in the archive, transcribing her favorite poems in trembling ink. The boys mourned as though they had lost a second mother, which, in truth, they had.

Her funeral was a vision of solemn grace. Snow lilies covered her bier, and blue lanterns lit the streets of every village. The Moon Garden became her resting place—chosen so she could sleep beneath the stars she once dreamed of walking among.

Seonghwa was only twelve. He spoke at her funeral with a voice steadied by love and loss, his words etched into the hearts of all who heard them.

Then the cold of politics descended.

At thirteen, Seonghwa entered the council chamber for the first time.

Though only thirteen and an omega, Seonghwa’s attendance in the council was a rare privilege granted largely due to Queen Yoonseul’s determined efforts to challenge tradition. Her fierce reputation and alliances with progressive lords had carved a fragile space for her son’s voice—small but persistent. Still, many viewed him as a symbol rather than a true player, a youthful token meant to placate reformists without upsetting the entrenched order. His earnest proposals were listened to politely but dismissed with thinly veiled disdain.

The hall was vast—cut from blackstone and frost-veined marble, lit by pale braziers that gave off more shadow than warmth. The air smelled of snow-damp wool, old ink, and polished iron. His ceremonial robes dragged against the stone, too heavy for his frame. His mother’s ring, strung on a cord around his neck, thudded softly against his chest with each step like a second heartbeat.

He arrived early, notes in hand—prepared, poised, full of conviction. Winter taxes. Grain blight. The lack of healers in the western valleys. He believed his voice, like hers, would matter.

Though the Crown Prince held the title, real power in Haneulhae rested firmly in the hands of the Royal Council—a cadre of elder alphas and betas whose dominion extended beyond the throne’s gilded halls. This council governed the realm’s military might, treasury, and succession with an iron will disguised by ceremony. Ancient laws codified the supremacy of alphas, relegating omegas—even one born to royalty—to silence in political affairs. For Seonghwa, the council chamber’s cold marble was less a seat of governance and more a frozen arena where tradition and power strangled hope. His voice, though carefully measured, was a mere murmur lost to centuries of unyielding authority.

But the moment he sat, the chill in the chamber deepened. Lord Jaeho of the Northern Assembly leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, eyes sharp beneath graying brows. Once a general, now the most powerful voice in court, Jaeho had opposed Queen Yoonseul at every turn during her reign—and never forgiven her for what she tried to change.

She had dared to challenge the Old Decree—the ancient laws that confined omegas to ceremonial roles. She had pushed for inheritance rights, education for omega-born children, access to medicine and positions beyond the bond-market. Jaeho had called it dangerous. Unnatural. Heresy wrapped in silk.

He never forgot her defiance. And now, here sat her son: a living relic of her ideals.

When Seonghwa rose to speak—voice measured, back straight, eyes calm—he could feel Jaeho’s scrutiny like a blade. He presented his proposals: redirecting surplus grain, expanding midwinter relief, enacting village surveys. Practical. Humane.

When he finished, the room remained silent. The pause was deliberate.

Then Jaeho smiled—thin, polite, poisonous.

“His Grace speaks with charm,” he said smoothly. “As expected of a moon-born omega. But charm cannot replace discipline. This council must be guided by reason, not sentiment.”

He did not look at Seonghwa as he said it. He didn’t need to.

The others followed his lead. The next item was called. The proposals vanished into snow.

Later, as the chamber emptied, Lord Jisung gave Seonghwa a patronizing pat on the shoulder. “Observation is the beginning of wisdom,” he said, echoing the old platitude.

That night, Seonghwa did not eat. He walked to the Moon Garden, where frost rimed the petals of winter roses. He stood before his mother’s stone and whispered nothing.

The boy who entered the council had hope.

The one who left understood: the war his mother began still raged, and now they were fighting it through him.

Lord Jaeho had ensured that no omega—no matter how clever, how prepared, how noble—would sit in true power again. And the court, eager to preserve its quiet dominion, let him write the rules in ice.

Though the Moonbinding Rite was primarily a cruel custom reserved for royal-born omegas—whose bloodlines were deemed too important to be left ‘unbound’—its shadow loomed over all omega-born across the realm. Among commoners, stricter social controls and limitations persisted, albeit less ritualized. The reinstatement of the Rite for the royal family sent a chilling message: no omega, no matter their status, was safe from tradition’s chains.

In Haneulhae, alphas held dominion by law. Betas administered it. Omegas adorned it. Even a crown prince, if born omega, was expected to serve the realm through alliance, not leadership. A bonded omega could advise—but only through their mate. An unbonded one was seen as unanchored, unpredictable. Too emotional. Too easily swayed.

And yet, Seonghwa did not crumble. He did not raise his voice or beg entry into a world built to keep him out.

He bowed. He smiled. He watched.

He learned.

As the years unfurled like scrolls, Seonghwa grew into the body and bearing of a prince, yet he remained, in many ways, a son adrift in a kingdom that no longer remembered softness. The palace, once filled with the scent of crushed pine and snow-mint teas, now echoed with the iron-sharp edges of formality. Advisors flanked him at every corner, their eyes heavy with scrutiny disguised as guidance. Their words were thick with subtext, every suggestion barbed in silk.

They called him “Your Grace” with bowing heads but refused him the dignity of real power. As an omega, it was declared by archaic precedent that he had no legal authority to present decrees or votes of state. His presence in council chambers were ceremonial at best—an ornament, a figurehead, a token of bloodline and tradition, but never of will.

But Seonghwa, despite the quiet elegance he carried, was not passive. He learned the maps of policy and the mechanics of diplomacy the way he once mapped the hidden passages of the castle as a boy. He mastered the rituals of patience: nodding where he must, deferring when expected—but never forgetting, never forgiving.

He still visited the Moon Garden often, especially in the dawn hours when the mist drifted like breath over the frozen ponds. He would sit by the stone that marked his mother’s resting place, fingers tracing the carved snow lilies, his voice low as he spoke of matters he could tell no one else. There, he grieved freely. There, the heir became a son again.

Wooyoung and Yeosang remained by his side through it all—though their lives had shifted too.

Wooyoung, bold and bright even as he aged into his late teens, had risen through the palace kitchens not just as the head chef’s son, but as a chef of rare talent himself. He fed the palace not just with meals, but with memories: honey cakes Seonghwa once devoured in childhood, cinnamon porridge that soothed his cold, heavy nights, and seaweed soup like the Queen used to prepare each new year.

Yet Wooyoung’s laughter, once a wildfire, had softened into embers.

He still smiled easily, still teased the palace guards and smuggled extra pastries to the older pages—but there was a weight behind his eyes now, the kind that could only be forged in silence, in rooms where he waited for news of Seonghwa’s safety after tense court meetings or long ambassadorial dinners. He rarely spoke of the threats whispered in the shadowed halls, or of the letters he sometimes intercepted—letters meant to discredit or coerce the Crown Prince. But Seonghwa knew.

There were nights, when the castle fell quiet and the wind howled like a mourning beast across the cliffs, that Wooyoung would find his way to Seonghwa’s chambers. No words would be exchanged. He would simply light the hearth, lay out a tray of simple food—dried plum tea, warm barley cakes, rice soup—and sit at the edge of the room until Seonghwa acknowledged him. It was a ritual, their own form of prayer, of promise.

“You don’t have to carry it alone,” Wooyoung had whispered once, after Seonghwa returned from a council meeting that had lasted until moonrise. His voice was barely audible over the crackle of the fire. “Even if they see you as something to bend, not someone to follow—I see you. You’re still the boy who made me promise never to leave.”

Seonghwa hadn’t answered with words then, only reached out and curled his fingers around Wooyoung’s. No formality. No titles. Just two hands clasped in quiet defiance of the cold.

Their bond, once rooted in childish games and laughter echoing through frost-lit halls, had matured into something far quieter, yet infinitely more enduring. It was not spoken of, not gilded with declarations or ceremony—but it was there, iron-strong beneath the snow. Through every disappointment, every insult dressed as policy, Seonghwa never truly stood alone.

Yeosang, who had once hidden behind curtains whispering stories of ancient kings, now stood beside Seonghwa with the precision of a scholar and the vigilance of a protector. After years of study under royal archivists and diplomats, he had risen to serve as the Crown Prince’s aide—not officially, not according to the council’s records, but in all the ways that mattered. He memorized political codes, kept records no one else bothered to maintain, and dissected legal scripts in quiet rebellion against the council’s assumptions about omega intellect and worth.

It was Yeosang who would lean close before council meetings, pointing out subtle traps in the wording of proposals. It was he who drafted counterarguments and discreetly planted allies among lesser advisors—never loud, never confrontational, but relentlessly clever.

And Wooyoung, though never granted a title or post, became Seonghwa’s shield in ways that no armor could mimic. He gathered whispers from the kitchens and servants’ halls, pieced together who met with whom and why, and filtered that information through his sharp wit to protect Seonghwa from being blindsided.

Their friendship had become something sacred. They could read one another with a glance, knew each other’s silences, and carried one another’s burdens without needing to ask.

Yet despite their unwavering loyalty, the weight upon Seonghwa’s shoulders only grew heavier with each passing season.

In their presence, Seonghwa could breathe.

They were not just friends. They were the roots beneath him, the fire beside him, the voice he could not yet raise in council halls but knew would echo through history, one way or another.

And though the kingdom’s highest rooms conspired to keep him ornamental, Seonghwa’s heart burned not with bitterness—but with resolve.

Because the boy who danced under blue glass had not forgotten his promise.

And the prince who sat in silence would one day speak.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The days following Seonghwa’s eighteenth birthday were meant to be filled with quiet celebration and measured dignity. His mother—the late Queen Yoonseul—had spent much of her reign reshaping the realm’s customs, carving out a future built on compassion, intellect, and quiet strength. Among her most defining reforms was the abolition of the Moonbinding Rite: a brutal, archaic tradition once imposed on royal-blooded omegas, designed to remind them of their “place” within courtly hierarchy. The rite bound them—literally and symbolically—to virginity until claimed by a mate, reinforcing the belief that their value lay not in their minds or voices, but in their untouched submission

She had banned it not only for its cruelty, but because she had lived through it.

The Moonbinding Rite was far more than political theater; it was a sacred covenant entwined with the kingdom’s oldest myths. Legend held that the rite bound the omega bloodline to the favor of the celestial gods, ensuring the balance between the three castes and warding off chaos. Temples dedicated to the Moon Goddess regarded the Rite as divine law, their priests warning that to defy it was to invite ruin upon the land itself. For many nobles and clergy, the Rite upheld a cosmic order—sacred and immutable. To dismantle it was heresy, a threat not only to governance but to the spiritual fabric of Haneulhae.

Before she became Queen, she had endured the Rite herself—stripped of dignity, paraded before nobles and strangers, her pain mistaken for purification. She had vowed never to let another soul, let alone her own child, suffer such ritualized degradation. Her reign was marked by laws that dismantled caste-based punishments, challenged alpha-dominated systems, and redefined leadership as something not based on dominance, but on empathy, knowledge, and will.

The Council, however, never forgot the power they lost under her rule. To them, Queen Yoonseul’s reforms had not only undermined their political authority, but also desecrated sacred customs passed down through generations. Many among them viewed the Moonbinding Rite not merely as a legal tradition but as a divine ordinance—a rite sanctioned by the gods to maintain the harmony of the three castes. Its abolition, in their eyes, had not just dismantled a political tool, but disrupted a cosmic order. Whispers in temple halls and among elder councilors framed her as an apostate queen—revered by some, reviled by others—who dared to redefine sacred roles that the heavens themselves had assigned. By reinstating the Rite, the Council saw themselves not only reclaiming political control but also restoring spiritual balance, cloaking their cruelty in the language of divine duty. Composed of men who had built their lives upon the old codes—ones that glorified bloodlines, submission, and rigid roles—the Queen’s reforms were a threat to their authority. The Moonbinding Rite, in particular, had been more than a ceremony: it was a declaration of control, a tool to remind omegas—even royal ones—that their bodies and destinies belonged to the structure, not to themselves.

So when the Queen died, they saw their chance. The Council seized the opportunity to resurrect the Rite under the guise of honoring tradition. Their true goal was crueler: to degrade the Crown Prince in full view of his subjects. To make an example of him before his reign had even begun. To break the future his mother had fought to build.

The death of Queen Yoonseul cast a long shadow, one that swallowed the fragile alliances she had forged. Though she had counted many loyal supporters among nobles and clergy, her passing was sudden and the Court plunged into uncertainty. The Council wasted no time in tightening its grip; voices of resistance faded into whispers or vanished altogether. Fear, exhaustion, and political exhaustion settled like a winter frost over the kingdom’s heart. In the vacuum left by her absence, the Council’s edict reinstating the Rite passed unopposed—an echoing silence where defiance might once have risen.

At the center of this return to cruelty was Lord Jaeho.

The edict arrived sealed in jet-black wax, the symbol of the Council pressed deep into the parchment like a curse. It was brief, almost indifferent:

“By unanimous decree of the Royal Council, the Moonbinding Rite shall be reinstated for all royal-born omegas upon their eighteenth year, as tradition demands.”

There was no room for refusal. The punishment for defiance was exile—or worse, forfeiture of title.

The preparations were made without ceremony. Seonghwa was given a week to ready himself. The palace halls grew colder with each passing day. Not just from winter’s approach, but from what loomed ahead. Even Wooyoung, who tried to hide his worry behind teasing smiles, had grown quiet, and Yeosang had stopped going to his studies entirely.

The square outside the Temple of Silver Flame had been expanded for the occasion. Thousands gathered—nobles draped in brocade, peasants crushed into rows behind iron barriers. The council stood above it all, watching from a raised dais beneath a silver banner. Lord Jaeho sat at the center, his expression unreadable, but victorious.

In the shadowed edges of the square, behind an immobile line of palace guards, Wooyoung and Yeosang stood like ghosts bound to duty. Their royal uniforms did little to shield them from the cold or the anguish they bore. They were forbidden from interfering, forbidden even from speaking. Their fists clenched at their sides, knuckles white from the effort it took not to scream. Yeosang's jaw was locked, his gaze burning holes into the back of the council’s platform. Wooyoung's eyes never left Seonghwa—wide, brimming, desperate—as if willing some invisible shield to surround him.

Wooyoung’s fists clenched, white-knuckled, as he watched the ritual unfold—helpless beneath the weight of unspoken threats. Interference was impossible; even the faintest act of defiance would spell exile, or worse. The palace was a nest of spies and informants, every whisper a potential betrayal. Yeosang’s voice was low but firm as he had confided, “To act now would bring ruin on all we hold dear. Our loyalty is our shield, however fragile.” Their silence was a chain, forged by necessity and sharpened by fear, a painful testament to the limits of their power.

But there was nothing they could do.

They could only watch as their prince, their dearest friend, was led to his undoing.

They had not brought back the Moonbinding Rite to honor Seonghwa. They had revived it to shame him.

He was marched out at dawn, bound at the wrists with white silken cords. Ritualistic, the attendants claimed. Symbolic. But to Seonghwa, it was a leash.

He was led to the raised stone dais in the middle of the square—bare, exposed, a relic of older, crueler times. The wind cut through the open space like blades, and the sky was a dull, leaden gray.

At a signal from the High Seer, his robes were removed piece by piece. First the ceremonial overcloak. Then the linen underlayers. Then the binding silk. No screen. No curtain. No veil. Only the open air and the eyes of thousands. Seonghwa stood naked beneath the sky, the cold a thousand tiny daggers against his skin. The ritual demanded exposure—not just of flesh, but of spirit. And as the crowd watched in reverent silence or morbid curiosity, Seonghwa felt as though the snow itself bore witness, recording every tremor, every breath, every unspoken plea. He became not a person, but a symbol—fragile, luminous, defiant. The pain of humiliation was sharp, yes, but it was the symbolism that endured: the disrobing of a legacy, the stripping of protection, the ancient echo of sacrifice wrapped in frost and silence.—some curious, some cruel, none kind.

Shame prickled in his gut like poison. His body, untouched and sacred, was now a spectacle for nobles and peasants alike. They saw what should’ve remained private. He clenched his jaw, his instincts screaming to cover himself, to flee—but he didn’t move. He wasn’t allowed to. Silence hung heavy over the square, broken only by the thundering of shame in his skull. A prince, stripped and judged by the world. And there was no dignity left to hold onto.

Seonghwa stood naked before his kingdom. A prince, reduced to flesh and breath and trembling skin. The air bit into him with fangs of frost, his skin flushed red with cold and shame. Snow began to fall—soft, slow flakes that landed on his bare shoulders and did not melt. Somewhere in the front rows, a child whimpered. A mother turned away.

In the silence, Seonghwa’s thoughts began to detach from his body. He remembered his mother’s voice from years ago, arguing fiercely with the council, her hand slamming the table: “No child—no heir—will ever again be shamed this way while I live.”

And she had kept that promise.

Until now.

The rite demanded purification—not symbolic, but physical. Seonghwa was forced to kneel before a basin of glacial water drawn from the sacred river beneath Mount Baekdu, rumored to be the coldest and most ancient source in the land. The water was mixed with crushed ice and salt, made intentionally harsher.

The first bucket was poured over his head without warning. He screamed—a sound that cut through the square like glass, raw and shattering. The water was not merely cold; it was a weapon. It struck him like a blade, and as it cascaded down his scalp and spine, it sliced into his skin like knives forged from the purest frost. Each droplet felt like a scalpel, carving through his flesh with merciless precision. The freezing shock tore the breath from his lungs, the air itself becoming an enemy that refused to fill him. His bones seemed to contract and splinter beneath his skin, and his muscles convulsed against the onslaught.

It felt as though he was being flayed alive by ice. The water clung to him like claws, crawling over every inch of exposed skin, each rivulet a lance of agony. His vision blurred instantly, not from tears but from the sheer violence of the cold, and his knees buckled, held up only by the attendants gripping his arms in a cruel semblance of support. He gasped, choking on the sting, body convulsing as his skin turned an angry, blotchy red, then deepened into purples and blues. The cold was not just searing—it invaded, consumed. It burned like acid, numbing and yet excruciating, a paradox of torment that crushed breath, thought, and pride alike.

The pain was no longer just physical—it reached into his soul, clawing at the dignity they sought to strip away. A punishment not just of flesh, but of memory, of bloodline, of spirit—a calculated act of ritualized degradation masquerading as sacred tradition.

Another bucket followed. Then another. Then another. The cadence became a cruel rhythm—each splash marking time in a symphony of torment. Seonghwa could feel his skin swelling with welts, his joints locking from the cold, his breath catching in shallow, broken gasps. He tried to bite down the sounds that clawed their way out of his throat, but the sobs came anyway—soft at first, then ragged, uncontrollable.

His vision swam with tears he couldn’t stop, not from emotion but from the physical brutality of it—the freezing sting to his eyes, the pounding in his skull as his body went into shock. He tasted blood again, this time from biting the inside of his cheek too hard. The attendants' hands dug into his arms, keeping him upright as his legs twitched with the beginnings of collapse. The bucket hit his shoulders like a stone. He screamed again, hoarse and hollow. His fingers curled, nails digging into his palms, desperate to anchor himself to anything other than this moment.

A fourth bucket was poured. And still, they did not stop.

Each was announced with ceremonial phrases:

“Let his impurity be frozen out.”

“Let the wildness of his blood be subdued.”

“Let his form be made fit to serve.”

His knees gave out, but attendants held him upright. His lips turned blue. His eyes glazed. He bit his tongue to keep from sobbing.

He remembered the way his mother’s arms had held him when he was small and frightened of storms. He imagined her there now, wrapping his shivering body in warmth, shielding him from the cruelty.

Then came the walk.

He was ordered to stand and walk the length of the purification path—barefoot, entirely exposed, across stone slabs intentionally laced with coarse salt and shards of obsidian, all hidden beneath deceptively pristine layers of fresh snow. Each step was agony; the salt seared into the raw, open flesh of his already bleeding feet while the obsidian sliced mercilessly into his soles. Blood burst with every faltering step, leaving dark stains in the snow that steamed faintly in the cold air. The salt did not merely sting—it embedded itself, clinging like grit in the wounds, intensifying the pain with every movement. The freezing wind howled around him, amplifying the sting, making the gashes throb with fire and frost alike. His legs trembled, his breath ragged, but still he moved, guided more by instinct than strength. Some in the crowd turned their faces away in horror; others bowed their heads, not in reverence, but in shame for witnessing such cruelty inflicted on one so young.

The High Seer followed behind, chanting verses of submission and virtue, each one digging deeper into the marrow of who Seonghwa used to be. By the final verse, he was stumbling, barely conscious, the world dimmed to soundless whiteness.

At the end of the path, a thin robe was thrown over his shoulders—it stuck to his skin, half-frozen, offering no warmth, no protection, only the mockery of modesty. Then came the collar. A band of dull black leather with metal parts holding it together, wide and unadorned, was brought forth on a black velvet cushion. With ceremonial slowness, it was fitted around his neck. The final click of the lock echoed like a bell of doom. Seonghwa flinched, instinctively tugging against it—but it would not move. It was too snug, too final.

The collar was more than a mark of status; it was a declaration. Forged in accordance with ancient law, it bore no crest, no family sigil—because an unmated omega was considered incomplete. Only once bonded would the collar be etched with the sigil of their mate, marking them as claimed property. Until then, its surface remained bare, save for the subtle etching of binding runes along the inner rim. Its purpose was clear: to show the kingdom that he was unclaimed, unbound, vulnerable. A royal omega who stood alone. It signified to all that Seonghwa's body, his will, even his future bond, were now subject to the Council's dominion. It was not protection—it was possession.

The collar’s weight was more than physical—it was a perpetual brand of submission, a reminder of the Council’s dominion etched beneath his skin. The bindings would leave scars, both visible and unseen, tender and aching beneath his flesh. Politically, the Rite’s cruel revival sent a clear message: Seonghwa’s reign would be shadowed by suspicion, restricted by tradition, and confined within a cage forged by fear. The future his mother dreamed of—a kingdom ruled by empathy and wisdom—now seemed a fragile dream cloaked in frost and oppression.

The crowd stirred, the quiet rustle of whispers passing through them like a wave. Seonghwa's chin lifted slightly, his pride fighting to the surface through the rawness of pain and exposure, but the weight of the collar pulled him back down. The metal parts were cold against his skin, and he knew they would remain so for a long time.

The High Seer raised his arms.

“He has been cleansed. He is now made ready to fulfill the path set before him.”

Lord Jaeho’s eyes glinted from the dais. He did not smile. He didn’t need to. Every moment of the ritual had been designed with precision—to reduce Seonghwa to an image of obedience and weakness.

But what none of them saw—not clearly—was the spark in Seonghwa’s eyes. Not just a flicker of resilience, but the raw heat of something dangerous, something awakened. It was the glint of a storm biding its time, the cold gleam of defiance carved by fire and frost alike. Beneath the bruises and the collar, beneath the shame and agony, something unyielding had survived—and it watched them all, remembering, calculating, enduring.

Not shame. Not surrender.

Fury.

The once quiet and calm prince, who had grown up nurtured by his mother’s loving vision of a gentler rule, was reduced to a tool by the council, a symbol twisted into their design. No longer was he seen as the rightful heir raised with wisdom and empathy, but instead as a broken icon forced to carry the weight of centuries-old subjugation. They had stripped him bare, not only of clothes but of dignity, and fashioned him into a puppet draped in frost. Every step he took afterward felt like it echoed with the council’s intentions—to mold him into something obedient, something palatable, something that could be controlled. But in their attempt to crush his spirit, they had only succeeded in hardening it. Somewhere between the third and fourth bucket, as his body trembled beyond control and the agony blurred into numbness, a single thought seared through the haze: "If I survive this, they will never touch me again." That was the moment the sorrow began to curdle into fury—a fire not extinguished by frost, but born of it. He gritted his teeth and let the pain brand itself into memory. Not as a wound, but as a weapon. Each step across the salt-lined path was a vow, each cut a ledger line in the account he would one day settle. And in that silent promise, in that vow carved into his marrow, Seonghwa ceased to be only a victim. He became a witness. A reckoner. A prince not shattered, but reforged. Seonghwa became a living monument of their cruelty, a vessel carved in sorrow, forged in humiliation, and masked by silence. The boy who once loved poetry and snowdrops now moved like a specter—watchful, calculating, his softness buried beneath layers of ice he no longer dared to thaw.

A quiet, seething promise that he would remember every face. Every word. Every hand that let this happen.

When they finally led him back inside, he did not cry. He did not collapse. He walked upright, the metal parts of his collar shining beneath the snowlight. Ice clung to his lashes, but it did not melt.

From that day forward, he became what they named him.

The Ice Prince.

Chapter Text

Seonghwa didn't leave his chamber.

The fire had gone out long ago, and now only a pile of dull gray ash remained. There was no warmth left, no smoke in the air—just silence. In its place came a cold that felt alive, like it had settled into the room itself. It clung to the floor, the walls, even to Seonghwa’s bones. Breathing felt like inhaling ice. Dust covered everything, hiding the once-sacred objects beneath a heavy, gray film. Symbols and engravings had faded with time, their meanings lost. The candles had melted into lumps, their patterns gone, the wax dried into messy pools.

His ceremonial robe still clung to him, crumpled and wrinkled. It carried the stale scent of old incense and sweat. Faint stains marked the sleeves. It felt like time had shifted, not stretched, but stalled—just enough to make everything seem heavier, duller.

He didn't eat, not really. Occasionally he forced a few stale bites down his throat, moved more by habit or survival instinct than actual hunger. His movements were rare, slow, mostly reserved for shifting when his joints screamed from disuse. The collar remained fastened around his neck. Its burden was no longer in the metal part itself but in the idea it embodied.

No one came on the first day. Nor the second. Or maybe they had, and he simply hadn’t noticed. Time became a blur, a vague smear on the edge of his perception. He stopped counting after the third day, when he realized the light filtering through the high windows no longer felt tied to anything meaningful. The sun came and went, casting silent, indifferent patterns of shadow and gold across the cracked floor.

The Rite had been public. Not just to the court, but to the common people as well—broadcast in the central plaza, under the pretense of tradition reborn. Screens glowed in marketplaces, and banners hung over streets while the nobles smiled through gritted teeth. Witnesses had been invited under the guise of a ceremonial reaffirmation, but the truth unfolded in plain view. The final moment—the collar’s clasp echoing through the plaza—sent shockwaves through the capital. Whispers spread like wildfire. In the days that followed, the palace corridors and city alleys alike bloomed with rumors—some wild, some horrifically accurate. Among the people, outrage simmered beneath enforced civility. Had the Prince truly consented? Had the Council staged this spectacle to mask a coup? No decree followed. No official word. Only silence, enforced by fear.

Some believed Seonghwa had vanished voluntarily—unable to bear the weight of his future. Others whispered darker truths: betrayal in gilded halls, the Council’s hunger for obedience, and a ritual rooted not in tradition but in control. Among the outer districts, rebellious corners of the capital began to call it what it was: a dethroning.

Wooyoung and Yeosang had stood among the crowd when the Rite took place—trapped in the sea of onlookers, helpless as the collar was clasped around Seonghwa's neck. They hadn’t been told in advance; they hadn’t been given warning. By the time they recognized the ceremony for what it was, it was too late to stop it. Some say they tried to push forward—others say they froze. Regardless, they had watched the prince fall silent, and the city cheer.

After that, their access was revoked. Not officially—no declarations, no accusations—but guards began appearing at doors that had never been guarded before. Invitations were rescinded. Letters went unanswered. It took weeks of maneuvering—political appeals, secret meetings, reminders of old loyalties—before they were allowed past the thresholds of Seonghwa's wing again. Even then, they were watched, their loyalty quietly questioned by the same Council they once served beside.

The Council’s motivations had been veiled in rhetoric: protecting the kingdom, maintaining tradition, ensuring stability. But the truth was more insidious. Seonghwa had grown too unpredictable, too bold in questioning the sacred customs they used to bind the realm. His bloodline made him dangerous—too revered to strip of title outright, yet too defiant to leave unchained. The Rite had been their compromise: leave him crowned, but break him where it wouldn’t show. The collar became the leash they couldn’t be seen holding.

It was the fifth day, or perhaps the seventh—when the lines between days and hours had truly faded—that someone finally stepped inside.

Wooyoung.

His form was framed by the doorway, a hesitant silhouette painted in pale light. He wore soft, civilian clothes, his hair hastily tied back, frizzed and unkempt. There was no scent of incense, no wind on his clothes. Just the stale, sharp tang of fear. Guilt.

"You look like hell," Wooyoung said softly as he crouched beside him, close but not touching.

Seonghwa didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. Wooyoung reached out slowly, hand hovering over the collar, his fingers trembling. He hesitated. Then let his hand drop.

"You should’ve fought back," he whispered, voice cracking with emotion. "You should’ve said no."

Seonghwa blinked slowly, as if waking from a long dream. "It wouldn’t have mattered," he said, voice flat. "I had no power left on the Council. They'd already made their decision with or without me."

Wooyoung recoiled slightly. "You think that makes it okay?"

He didn’t answer. The silence between them was heavy, dense with things neither dared to say aloud. Wooyoung stood abruptly, his breath caught in his throat, and left without another word.

Later Yeosang came. He didn’t announce himself. He simply entered with a quiet determination and began to clean. He gathered the wax remains of the candles, swept the dust into gentle piles, laid out fresh clothes folded with care, and placed a bowl of warm water near the cot. He tried not to look directly at Seonghwa, but eventually his gaze faltered.

"I didn’t think they’d actually go through with it," Yeosang murmured, barely above a whisper. "Especially not with you. Heir or not, we thought they’d still hesitate. Not after how they used to treat you. But now... Seonghwa, you have no power left on that Council. Not anymore."

Seonghwa locked eyes with him but didn't utter a word.

Yeosang looked down, not having the courage to meet his eyes. "We didn’t know what else to do."

A beat passed, the kind that weighed more than words. "Do you think I was deserving of this?" Seonghwa asked, voice low but unwavering.

Yeosang flinched again and looked at Seonghwa, disbelief flashing across his face. "No," he said, hurt clear in his voice. "Of course not. How could you even ask me that? You know me and Wooyoung—we love you. More than any of this."

The silence that followed was deeper than before. It didn’t just settle between them; it filled the entire room, thick and inescapable.

Outside the palace, nothing had changed. The wind still brushed the stone walls, the sun still rose and fell. But inside, something intangible had shifted—small and brittle, like the settling of ash after a long burn.

When night returned, Seonghwa moved. Slowly, deliberately, he stood for the first time in what felt like lifetimes. The ceremonial robe slipped from his shoulders and fell in a quiet heap on the floor. He stepped forward toward the water basin, dipped his hands in, and began to wash. The water was warm but carried no comfort.

The collar remained. He didn’t touch it. But for the first time, his hands trembled as they moved.

Many were the royal alphas that had tried—always in vain—to win Seonghwa’s affection. Even foreign betas had sent letters or smiled too carefully at court festivals. But Seonghwa had long since grown cold to all of them. The idea of intimacy—especially with alphas—twisted something sharp in his chest. They reminded him too much of power used like a weapon, of voices that drowned out his own. The same subgender that had taken his freedom now made his skin crawl.

He remembered Lord Jaeho’s face during the ritual—calm, almost reverent, like he was witnessing fate. That look had carved itself into Seonghwa’s memory, showing up even in dreams. Since then, all alphas had blurred into a single shape: tall, entitled, dangerous. Jaeho’s face had become the one they all wore. It wasn’t just symbolic; it was personal. Jaeho hadn’t simply followed tradition—he had orchestrated it. The others may have voted, but it was Jaeho’s hand on the wheel.

It wasn’t just the ritual. It was the betrayal—quiet, polished, merciless. The smile as the collar clicked shut. The kindness turned cold. Tradition used to excuse harm. Something in Seonghwa had cracked that day. Not loud—but deep. Hatred had filled the space it left behind, not hot and wild, but quiet and lasting. Alphas stopped being individuals. They became one thing: power without consent. Devotion without care.

And that hatred never left.

It was why silence felt safer.

Why he stayed hidden.

Why the sound of a man’s voice outside his door made his stomach twist.

His exile wasn’t just grief. It was protection. His chambers had become his shelter, his armor. Alone, he didn’t have to flinch. Alone, he didn’t have to question what a touch meant. Jaeho had stripped him not just of authority, but of safety. Even now, Seonghwa’s title meant nothing—his voice had been reduced to an echo, powerless against the Council Jaeho quietly ruled from behind closed doors.

He buried every trace of longing under frost and fury. Even kindness from alphas felt dangerous. What once seemed like charm now felt like control. Love had become a battlefield he never agreed to. So he chose distance. Silence. Solitude instead of surrender.

Even Yeosang and Wooyoung hadn’t escaped the quiet wall he’d built. Their notes had gone unanswered—not from anger, but because he couldn’t stand the idea of them seeing what he’d become. Even their care stung now. Because a part of him feared they, too, might one day wear Jaeho’s smile.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Years passed like falling snow—gentle, silent, and suffocating.

By the time Seonghwa turned twenty-five, his self-imposed exile had become something of a legend whispered across stone corridors and within kitchen hearths. The Ice Prince, they called him—not just for the crown of frost that seemed to follow wherever he stepped, but for the way his face had become unreadable, void of expression, as if frozen in place.

His days had become ritualistic. Melancholic. He often wandered the palace gardens—his mother’s gardens—the only place that still felt like it belonged to him. She had planned every path, every bloom with delicate care, and even in death, her touch remained. The flowers rarely bloomed now, buried beneath frost and the weight of years, their roots clinging stubbornly to the frozen soil like memories that refused to fade.

The garden had become his refuge. He would walk there for hours, unmoving even as frost gathered in his hair and lashes, his breath puffing softly in the still air. The palace itself groaned under the weight of silence and snow, but it was in the garden that the quiet settled deepest, thick and sacred. Once alive with color and the laughter of his mother, the space was now crusted with ice and heavy with winter—a graveyard of memory beneath the snow.

He could not smell the blossoms that once bloomed there, could not see their vibrant colors—only ice, only quiet. And still, he returned, trying to mirror the stillness inside him, as if standing long enough in that quiet might help him hear her voice again, or remember who he had been before all of this.

No guards followed him anymore. No advisors waited to pull him into discussions. The council chamber was locked to him—by decree and by design. With the collar around his neck and the new rules in place, he was forbidden from stepping foot inside the chamber at all.

He still wore the collar, a symbol of the betrayal, and a warning.

But he no longer wept.

Seonghwa never spoke of that day but it lived in him, threaded through his silence like frost in stone.

He no longer screamed in his sleep. He no longer flinched when touched but the silence around him was not peace. It was armor.

He had started to reconnect with Wooyoung and Yeosang, slowly, over the years. They shared quiet moments in frost-covered courtyards, strolled through the gardens beneath the stars, and occasionally sat with tea between them instead of unspoken worries. But time had changed them all. The easy warmth of their youth had cooled, replaced by something quieter—careful, but still genuine. Their friendship, once loud with dreams, had grown into something steadier, shaped by all they had endured.

He never held it against them. After the ritual, he had understood why they hadn’t intervened. They were just as overwhelmed as he had been—young and uncertain in the face of something far bigger than any of them. That understanding didn’t erase the distance that followed, but it softened it.

As Seonghwa turned inward, the space between them widened—not from blame, but from the weight of change. He didn’t push them away, and they didn’t push back.

But even distance hadn’t broken the quiet understanding that lingered between them.

One evening, long after the snow had returned and melted again, Seonghwa sat beneath a frostbitten arbor in the garden when Wooyoung and Yeosang approached. They exchanged a few words—careful, but easy.

“I never blamed you,” Seonghwa said, not looking at them.

“We know,” Wooyoung replied.

They didn’t talk about the past for long. Just enough to acknowledge what had been left unsaid. Enough to let it rest.

After a while, they simply stood there. No more apologies. No more confessions. Just the sound of snow settling and the quiet rhythm of shared breath in cold air.

And somehow, that was enough.

In the snow-covered garden, they stood quietly together. No more words were needed. The air was cold, their breath visible as it mingled in silence. For a moment, it felt like something old and familiar was still there. Not quite healed, but not broken either. Just enough.

Chapter Text

The kingdom of Haneulhae had once been a beacon—an alpine jewel carved into the mountains, its silver-topped towers and crystalline rivers a marvel to behold. For decades, it stood proud and serene, protected not only by its geography but by its wisdom: ruled through balance, by counsel and shared governance, by voices raised together in unity. Much of this unity had been carefully cultivated by the late Queen Yoonseul, an omega sovereign of rare intellect and empathy.

Queen Yoonseul had not come to power easily. Faced with a conservative council dominated by alpha dynasties resistant to change, she leveraged her brilliant strategic mind and unwavering moral compass to enact sweeping reforms. Her first step was to democratize knowledge: she opened the royal archives to public scholars and leaders across all castes, exposing centuries of hidden law and systemic oppression. With calculated defiance, she abolished hereditary titles that conferred authority without merit and outlawed forced bonding practices that disproportionately affected omegas and betas.

Through skillful negotiation and impassioned diplomacy, she forged peace between fractious alpha-led provinces and smaller, long-ignored omega enclaves. She personally visited the border towns, offering support and validating their place in the kingdom's fabric. She dismantled the long-standing notion that strength alone merited leadership, replacing it with laws that championed intellect, compassion, and equity.

Queen Yoonseul also spearheaded cultural exchanges and educational initiatives that transcended secondary gender divisions. Under her rule, alphas were trained to lead with empathy, betas to strategize with clarity, and omegas to envision and innovate. The council, once a bastion of alpha dominance, transformed into a space where decisions were earned through merit and cooperation.

Her crowning diplomatic achievement was the Treaty of Falling Rivers—a multilateral agreement that secured shared resource rights, cross-border healthcare, and thriving trade routes. It was a pact built on trust and mutual gain, ushering in a golden era for Haneulhae’s farmers, healers, and artisans.

Queen Yoonseul ruled with grace, but never weakness. She proved that sovereignty could be exercised not with domination, but with inclusivity and justice. Under her leadership, Haneulhae became a rare gem among nations—a realm where compassion and courage shaped destiny. Seonghwa had grown in the warmth of that reign, under a queen who believed every soul held weight, regardless of strength or status.

But that was before.

Before the once-vibrant council dissolved into whispers and shadows. Before Lord Jaeho—ruthless in ambition and masterful in the art of subtle domination—systematically rewrote the kingdom’s foundational laws, cloaking his manipulations beneath the language of order and tradition.

It began slowly. Long before the ritual, the collar, or Seonghwa’s exile—there were quiet signs of rot taking root. Years before the prince's 25th birthday, Lord Jaeho had already begun dismantling the principles Queen Yoonseul had built. He methodically replaced key ministers with loyalists, manipulated royal records to obscure the queen's reforms, and disbanded several cultural exchange programs, citing budgetary concerns. He redirected resources away from education and public health, funneling them instead into the royal guard and elite alpha academies.

The council, once a chorus of debate and measured compromise, became an echo chamber for a few ambitious voices. Jaeho whispered of legacy, of purity, of economic independence. He championed harsh reforms—cutting trade alliances, increasing levies on the lower classes, and restricting omega representation in governance under the claim that alphas were “nature’s natural stewards.”

The treasury, once flourishing under open trade and cross-border cooperation, began to bleed. Craftsmen, merchants, and healers found themselves cornered by impossible taxes. Trade slowed. Infrastructure decayed. Poverty bloomed like rot beneath the cobblestone streets, quietly devouring the shine of Haneulhae’s legacy.

And so, the people began to suffer—first in hushed whispers and shuttered homes, then in protests that flickered like candle flames across the markets and alleys of Haneulhae. Hunger crept into every household that once knew abundance. Families were torn from their ancestral homes due to rising taxes and corrupt land reallocations. Merchants wept over unsold goods, farmers cursed the unmaintained roads, and healers closed their doors for lack of supplies. Resentment grew—not only toward the crown, but toward the silent council that had allowed decay to spread. Fury simmered beneath each bowed head and empty bowl, until the kingdom’s pride lay threadbare, and its dignity wore the face of desperation.

In the present day, Haneulhae stood on the edge of ruin.

Commercial wars had replaced diplomacy. Desperation had become policy. And now, the kingdom owed more than gold could cover.

Most dangerous among Haneulhae's strained relationships was its enmity with the neighboring empire of Daehan, ruled by King Kim Hongjoong. Daehan was everything Haneulhae no longer was—prosperous, well-fed, and united under a powerful, cunning ruler who had built his empire on the ashes of weak alliances. He had offered aid once, years ago, when Haneulhae's decline had only just begun. The council, guided by Jaeho’s disdain, had refused. They could not be seen begging.

That mistake had cost them dearly.

Now, the debt to Daehan  was more than monetary. It was a political wound, festering with pride and unpaid promises. Hongjoong’s patience had long since worn thin, and when Haneulhae defaulted on its final repayment—meager though it was—his response was swift.

Troops. Sanctions. A formal declaration of war.

Daehan’s army was brutal, well-equipped, and far superior. Haneulhae, weakened by years of austerity and mistrust, had nothing to match it. Winter had never felt more like a harbinger.

At that critical moment—within the dim confines of a private council chamber, where once-proud golden banners now sagged beneath layers of dust and neglect—Lord Jaeho stepped forward with a proposal that would tip the scales of the kingdom's fate.

“A gesture,” he said with deliberate calm, as though the suggestion were no more consequential than sending a seasonal tribute. “A symbol of goodwill—not merely words or promises, but something that will compel King Hongjoong to sit across from us. Something meaningful enough to stay his hand.”

A pause stretched, taut and stifling, thick with the weight of something unspoken. A single, measured glance swept across the dim chamber—calculating, final. Then—

“Prince Seonghwa.”

There had been silence.

Even the lesser councilors—those who had long since bent to Jaeho’s authority—stiffened.

“You suggest we offer him… what? As a political bride?” one finally dared to ask, his voice trembling, more disbelief than defiance. The chamber held its breath, the silence fractured only by the crackle of frost tightening along the windowpanes.

Jaeho’s proposal hung in the room like a blade about to drop. No one spoke, but everyone understood—it wasn’t a suggestion, it was a sentence. A quiet surrender. Offering Prince Seonghwa wasn’t just giving away royal blood; it was giving up the last of Haneulhae’s pride. To send him was to admit they had nothing else left. It was a choice made out of ruin, hidden behind formality.

“As a mate,” Jaeho replied, his voice steady, unbothered. “Hongjoong has reached the age of twenty-five with no bonded partner. His court has grown restless. His advisors whisper of the need for a royal omega to strengthen the line. Prince Seonghwa remains unbonded, without role, without duty. He is of noble blood. Beautiful. Valuable. This is not exile—it is strategy.”

He didn’t say it aloud, but the council understood the implication: a sacrifice.

Jaeho saw no prince in Seonghwa. He saw only a pawn, a piece of flesh carved out of an inconvenient past.

To the kingdom at large, the story would be simple—a peace offering, a royal union, a symbol of reconciliation between two lands. The public, beaten down by hunger and fear, would accept any promise of peace.

And Hongjoong?

Jaeho had heard the whispers—carried on the wind between embassies and echoed in the murmur of market stalls. Since his twentieth birthday, the King of Daehan had been searching for a bondmate who could evoke more than mere obligation. Despite endless political introductions and opulent ceremonies, Hongjoong had turned them all away. Some claimed his suitors were too arrogant, others too pliant—none, it seemed, had the fire to match his.

With each refusal, the king grew more inscrutable. His standards appeared impossibly high, his demeanor distant, almost untouchable. Many believed it was pride, or coldness, or the aloofness of a ruler untouched by need. But to Jaeho, it revealed something sharper: a hidden calculus. Hongjoong wasn’t seeking affection—he was waiting for a challenge. Something rare. Dangerous. A union not just of bodies or bloodlines, but of equals in power and presence.

And now, with war looming and desperation thick in the air, Jaeho saw that hunger for what it truly was—a weakness to exploit..

And Jaeho had heard the whispers in the courts of the neighboring country of Gyerim—that the king had once dreamt of a mate who would match his fire with frost. That he had waited all this time not for a political match but for someone who could challenge him.

A silent, cold, untouchable prince.

The perfect fantasy.

To Jaeho, it was fate. An answer wrapped in cruelty and cunning.

Now, as snow fell once more on the high windows of Haneulhae’s council chamber, a decision loomed. War pressed at the gates and in the quietest corner of the palace, a prince walked through his mother’s frozen garden, unaware that his body and soul were once again being put on the bargaining table.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

It was several days after the council’s private deliberation when Seonghwa first heard the whispers.

He had already begun to notice the shifts—servants pausing mid-step in his presence, abruptly quieting when he passed. Conversations cut short with stiff smiles and downturned eyes. Even in the vast, frost-laced corridors of the palace, the air felt heavier, brimming with tension he could not yet name. Something unspoken was curling in the corners of every room. The whispers themselves came not from the mouths of nobles or the corners of court but from the drafty hallways of the servants’ quarters. Soft voices carried behind stone pillars, cautious and half-swallowed by duty—maids folding linens in trembling hands, stable boys murmuring while brushing frost from the horses’ manes. The words were faint, as if even they were afraid to be spoken

"—a treaty, they say. With Daehan."

"A marriage. Peace… in exchange for…"

Seonghwa froze where he stood, halfway down the back corridor that led from the east wing to the abandoned solarium. He wasn’t supposed to hear them—not in that part of the palace, which had remained still and silent for years, a place untouched and nearly forgotten. Much like himself. But now, the air carried voices not meant for him, whispers that wrapped around his senses like smoke, undeniable and sharp. The stillness shattered in an instant, pierced by the truth he hadn’t expected to find in a place so forgotten.

He didn’t confront them. There was no need. If it was baseless gossip, it would vanish by evening. But it didn’t. The rumors continued, faint but persistent, like cracks spreading across glass.

By the time dusk painted the mountain peaks with indigo and silver, Seonghwa found himself pacing the edges of his mother’s frozen garden once again, breath sharp with cold, thoughts sharper still. The snow crunched beneath his boots, a lonely sound in an even lonelier place. His fingers grazed the twisted branches of once-blooming shrubs, skeletal now beneath winter’s weight.

He stared at the garden for a long moment, the bite of winter air failing to numb the fire building in his chest. His mind raced through names, faces, half-heard whispers that now made dreadful sense. Something had shifted, undeniably and irreversibly. He could no longer afford stillness—not when the ground beneath him was already slipping away. He turned on his heel and went searching—for answers, for truth, for something solid to grasp.

Yeosang was in the servants’ hall, sorting medicinal bundles by the hearth where he sometimes studied. He looked up when Seonghwa entered, surprise briefly flickering across his features before bowing his head in greeting. As Seonghwa stepped fully into the light, the faint glint of his collar caught in the firelight—a cruel reminder of everything that had been taken from him.

“You’ve heard something,” Seonghwa said without preamble.

Yeosang hesitated, visibly weighing silence against honesty. Then, carefully, he stood.

“I wasn’t supposed to,” he admitted. “A minor councilor was speaking too freely. He didn’t notice I was there.”

Seonghwa's throat felt suddenly tight. “What did he say?”

“That…” he sighed with a brief pause, "That the council is negotiating a treaty with Daehan. That peace may come—but with a condition.” Yeosang’s voice dropped, eyes flicking to the nearby doorway as if afraid someone might overhear.

“A condition?” Seonghwa asked, his voice quieter now, but colder. “What condition could possibly justify all this secrecy?”

“You— Wedded and bonded to their king. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but… I heard it from two different sources now. The maids were whispering about wedding preparations being quietly organized. New silks ordered. Guest quarters are being readied. It’s happening, Seonghwa.”

The words hit harder than Seonghwa had anticipated. Not because of their truth—he had already suspected it—but because of what they confirmed.

His role. His worth. What he had become.

Not a prince.

Not a strategist.

Not the son of Queen Yoonseul.

Just… a bargaining chip.

“They didn’t even tell me,” he said quietly, more to himself than to Yeosang. “I wasn’t summoned. I wasn’t consulted. They made this decision without me.”

“I don’t think they wanted you to know yet,” Yeosang said, his voice laced with unease. “Maybe they were afraid of how you’d react.”

“Afraid,” Seonghwa repeated, letting the word sit on his tongue like a curse. “Not of my rage, not of my power—because I have none. But of my disobedience. Of me refusing to play the part.”

He turned away, the firelight glancing once again off the cold steel locked at his throat, gaze falling on the window that looked out toward the snow-covered garden. His mother’s garden.

“I’ve become something to be traded,” he said, his voice low and bitter. “A symbol of peace. A tool to ensure survival. My blood, my body, my legacy… They’ll offer it all just to keep their seats at that rotting table. And I—what am I now but the last shred of dignity this kingdom clings to? They’re not just bargaining with my future, Yeosang. They’re sacrificing the final thread of self-respect Haneulhae ever had.”

Yeosang stepped closer, hesitant. “You’re not just a tool to us.”

“To you, maybe not,” Seonghwa said, voice flat. “But to them? I’m not a prince anymore. I’m a problem they’re trying to get rid of—dressed up like a solution. They’ve stripped everything from me. My name, my place, my voice. And this collar—” he touched the metal at his neck, tugged once, then let it fall—“it’s not for show. It’s a leash. A reminder I don’t belong to myself. And now they’re using it one last time—to sell me off like a gift. Even my silence belongs to them.”

He pressed his hand to the glass, where the ice had already begun to melt from the heat of his skin.

But beneath it all, in that quiet space, a resolve began to crystallize—not of acceptance, but of awareness. If he were to be forced into this, it would not be as the fragile token they believed him to be.

He was still his mother’s son.

He was still the last bloom of Yoonseul’s legacy.

And if the council thought they could sell him like a piece of silver—forgetting the collar they’d once fastened around his neck, the silence they’d wrapped him in like a shroud—then they would soon learn the weight of what they had tried to give away. That collar was supposed to break him, to remind him of who held power. But Seonghwa had endured. And now, if they sought to barter him away as if he were nothing more than a finely groomed offering, they would discover just how much fire still remained beneath the ice.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The weight of Yeosang’s words stayed with Seonghwa like a wound that refused to close. Though the palace continued on around him—the soft clang of distant bells, the methodical footsteps of guards, the muffled rhythm of chores completed in silence—he felt as though he stood at the epicenter of a storm only he could feel. His breath had become ice. His skin, numb. The collar that never left his neck felt tighter, heavier, like a chain forged of shame and betrayal.

He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t eaten. Each hour stretched like days, and every whisper he heard behind closed doors only twisted the dagger deeper in his gut. The memory of the ritual, of the humiliation and betrayal, had never truly left him. But now it loomed again, like a shadow reawakening with new fangs.

Even in the absence of an official decree from the council, the weight of implication bore down on him like truth itself. The servants talked too quietly when he entered a room. The guards stiffened when he passed. Every glance lingered too long, every silence felt sharpened. They knew. They all knew.

In the quiet solitude of his chamber, draped in sheer silks that no longer warmed or shielded him, Seonghwa paced. Back and forth. Over and over. His thoughts were jagged glass, cutting into memories of better times. This room had once felt like a haven. Now, it felt like a velvet-lined prison.

And then came the summons.

Two guards arrived at his door, eyes downcast. They didn’t speak. They only bowed low and extended a scroll, its crimson seal unmistakable: the mark of the High Council.

He tore it open and didn’t read it.

He already knew.

The council chamber was colder than usual. Colder even than the eternal frost that clung to the stones of Haneulhae’s palace. It had once been his home in a way—his inheritance, his future. Now, he stepped through its gilded doors as if entering a stranger’s tomb. Every chair was filled. Every pair of eyes turned to him not with warmth, but with calculated interest. They were vultures pretending to be saviors.

Lord Jaeho stood at the head of the long table, robes pristine, voice already sharpening the silence.

"You’re late, Prince Seonghwa."

"Oh, forgive me," Seonghwa drawled, lips curling into something too cold to be a smile. "I didn’t realize we were taking attendance." His voice was frost—sharp, brittle, and with sarcasm meant to cut.

"And yet you arrive with drama as always."

"Let’s get to the point, shall we?" he said. "You’re trading me like cattle, aren’t you?"

A murmur swept through the chamber. Someone tried to interject, but Lord Jaeho raised his hand. His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

"You are to be wed to King Hongjoong of Daehan in exchange for peace," Lord Jaeho declared, his voice as flat and hollow as the wind echoing through the frostbitten halls. "The terms have been thoroughly discussed. The treaty is already being drafted."

His words landed like falling stones, heavy and deliberate, each one more damning than the last. There was no pause for consideration, no opening for debate—just a cold recitation of decisions made in secret chambers by men who had long since stopped seeing Seonghwa as anything more than a pawn. The council’s stony silence underscored the finality of the pronouncement, as if they had all silently agreed that Seonghwa’s fate had already been sealed long before this moment.

Jaeho’s eyes didn’t meet Seonghwa’s as he spoke, because to look into the prince’s eyes would be to acknowledge the betrayal. Instead, his gaze remained fixed on the parchment before him, as if it were more human than the trembling omega who stood before them.

Seonghwa stared at him, unmoving. "So this is it, then. The end of any illusion I had left of being seen as a human being in this godsdamned court."

"Mind your tongue," one of the elders muttered.

But Seonghwa didn’t. He stepped forward, voice rising—not loud, but lethal.

“Do you know what it is to be dressed in silk and silenced like a criminal? To be paraded as royalty and treated as livestock? You’ve stripped me of everything—my name, my purpose, my agency—and now you wrap it in the word sacrifice, as if that makes it noble.”

He let the silence settle, thick and bitter.

“You don’t want peace. You want relief—from the consequences of your own failure. And you’re too much of a coward to pay the cost yourselves.”

No one spoke. No one could. Because every word he said rang with the truth they refused to carry.

And Seonghwa, chained and furious, stood tall enough to make them look small.

He stepped forward, voice low but trembling with fury. "You don’t get to demand decorum after what you’ve done. After what you’ve made of me. Do you even realize what you’re asking? What you’ve decided for me? You’re tearing away the last piece of my pride—"

"You had no pride left," Lord Jaeho sneered, rising now, his voice sharp with venom. "You forfeited it the moment you were born an omega and dared to pretend you were more. We bound you not to punish, but to remind the world that filth can be dressed in silk and still reek of delusion." He stepped closer, eyes glinting. "That collar? It was mercy, yes—but also a leash. A sign that even broken things can be controlled. You were never meant to stand beside us. Only beneath."

"No," Seonghwa growled. "It was a shackle. And you’ve spent every fucking moment since tightening it."

His hands were shaking now, fists clenched at his sides. The room seemed smaller, suffocating. His vision swam, but he held his ground.

"You're not saving this kingdom—you're looting its corpse and calling it leadership. Hiding behind titles like cowards, sucking the marrow out of everything my mother bled to build. You pompous bastards sit in your robes pretending to rule while throwing me to a king none of you have the guts to face. You’re not preserving peace—you’re pissing on her legacy and calling it strategy. This isn't sacrifice—it's just your final pathetic attempt to mask failure with ceremony. Fuck all of you.""

There was silence.

And then, suddenly, a loud smack.

Lord Jaeho’s palm struck Seonghwa’s face.

The slap rang out, sharp and cold, breaking the silence. Seonghwa didn’t fall, but he flinched—not from pain, but from what it meant. Jaeho hadn’t just hit him; he’d marked his control with violence—like branding a claim on something he thought already broken.

Slowly, he lifted a hand to his face, fingers brushing the sting with quiet disbelief. He didn’t try to hide the motion—there was no point. The pain wasn’t the shame. The shame was in how easily it was delivered.

"You will speak when spoken to," Jaeho hissed, voice trembling with rage. "You are not a prince. You are a collared omega whose only worth now lies in securing peace. You should be grateful anyone still finds use for you. You’re nothing more than a dressed-up offering—a broken thing made barely presentable. Know your place, Seonghwa."

The guards didn’t move. No one did.

Seonghwa stood in place, trembling—but not with fear. With fury so pure it felt like clarity.

He met Jaeho’s gaze, slow and deliberate. His cheek burned from the blow. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet—each word a scalpel, honed and merciless.

"You think you've won? All you've done is light the whole godsdamned kingdom ablaze. And when the fire claws up your walls and devours your throne, don’t you fucking dare act surprised. This isn’t a triumph—it’s the beginning of your damnation."

Then, slowly, he turned his back to the council.

Letting them watch him walk away, unbroken and cold, their betrayal ricocheting through the chamber like a curse they’d hung around their own necks.

Because Seonghwa would go to Daehan.

But not as a lamb led to slaughter.

He would go as a storm dressed in silk.

And they would learn—too late—that even frost burns.

Chapter Text

The days after the council's decision left Seonghwa quieter than anyone had ever seen. He had always carried himself with grace—measured, polite—but now his composure felt cold, like ice polished smooth. He still moved with dignity, but it was the kind of stillness that warned of a storm. He rarely spoke. His eyes, once quietly observant, now revealed nothing. He looked less like a prince and more like a ghost walking familiar halls.

Inside, Seonghwa felt hollow. The news of his arranged marriage to King Hongjoong had taken what little control he still held and scattered it. Any part of him that had felt like his own had been stripped away.

He knew the spell binding him would end once he was mated. But that promise of freedom felt like a cruel illusion. What comfort was there in release that came only after surrender?

The mark around his neck, once meant as a temporary consequence, had turned into something far more permanent. It told the world he was reserved, claimed before he had the chance to choose. To the council, that made him valuable. To Seonghwa, it made him feel erased. No longer a person—just a possession dressed in formality and silence.

He didn’t know Hongjoong well. Only that he was a powerful king with a fierce reputation. Was he cruel? Distant? Would he want obedience or something more demanding? The uncertainty was heavy, but heavier still was the knowledge that none of it mattered. Seonghwa’s voice had been taken from the equation the moment the council chose to give him away.

He didn’t hate Hongjoong—not yet. But he hated everything this marriage stood for. A world where omegas were bartered, polished, and passed on until they were no longer useful. Where names and bodies were treated like currency. He saw alphas like Hongjoong as the beneficiaries of that system—crowned by birth, obeyed by tradition. Marriage, to Seonghwa, should’ve been sacred. But this union felt like a sentence. And if his defiance was all he had left, he would hold onto it with everything he had.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

One evening, cloaked by the dim light of the fading sun and the biting winds of Haneulhae’s eternal winter, Seonghwa found himself in the palace’s abandoned music chamber with Wooyoung and Yeosang. Neither of them spoke at first. They simply sat beside him, close but not crowding, letting the silence say what words could not. The room, once filled with his mother’s melodies, now echoed only grief and frost.

Eventually, it was Seonghwa who broke it.

"They’re preparing the convoy," he said, fingers absently tracing the frosted glass of the window. "The wedding, they say, will take place in Daehan just after the next moon wanes. A fortnight, maybe a few days more—but soon. Too soon."

Wooyoung shifted uncomfortably, his usually expressive face guarded. "Do you know what he’s like? This King Hongjoong?"

Seonghwa shook his head. "Only what they say. That he’s powerful. That he’s never lost a war. That he’s still unmated."

Yeosang looked up. "He asked for an omega. The council gave him ,𝘺𝘰𝘶."

"No," Seonghwa said quietly. "They gave him a pawn."

Wooyoung clenched his jaw. "You’re not just anyone, Seonghwa. They know that."

"Then why do I feel like I’m already dead?" Seonghwa’s voice cracked slightly, and he blinked fast, mastering the slip before it could bloom into anything more.

The days that followed were an unsettling blur of preparations. The palace, usually muffled by snow and ancient silence, stirred to life like a reluctant beast. Servants scurried down marble halls with bolts of ceremonial silk. Officials whispered furiously behind closed doors. The scent of incense clung to every room, masking the stench of desperation. The cold was no longer just in the air; it was in their bones, in their voices, in the strained glances shared between attendants.

But even amid the chaos, Seonghwa walked with eerie calm. He met tailors without flinching. He reviewed travel plans with a stiff nod. He agreed to diplomatic terms with the same frozen grace he had shown in the council chamber. But in his heart, he was building his last wall. And every measured step he took toward Daehan felt like a step deeper into the grave they had so graciously prepared for him.

Two days before their departure, he approached the council one final time.

"I request two companions to accompany me," he said. "Wooyoung and Yeosang. As my attendants. As my friends. As the last dignity I will ask of this chamber."

There was hesitation. A low murmur. One of the elders seemed prepared to object.

But Lord Jaeho, ever the master of hollow gestures and political theatre, raised a languid hand, his smile thin as paper. "Let them go," he drawled, the words oozing with condescension, his voice dipped in false benevolence as if he were bestowing a rare mercy. "Let the prince have his toys. Perhaps they’ll keep him from brooding too dramatically on the way there." He chuckled under his breath, clearly amused at his own cruel wit, while the other council members exchanged knowing glances, their silence complicit. To them, it was not generosity but entertainment—an act of appeasement that cost them nothing, yet deepened Seonghwa’s humiliation all the same.

Seonghwa didn’t thank him. He only turned and left, heart pounding—not with victory, but with the hollow ache of a man who had learned to expect very little. In his mind, he repeated the names of his friends like a mantra, the last threads tying him to his past. If he had to go, he would not go alone.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · · 

As the final day approached, the royal caravan stood ready beneath the grey skies of Haneulhae, the clouds hanging heavy as if mourning the silent departure of the kingdom's dignity. Horses were fitted with ceremonial armor, their breaths puffing out like mist, the sound of their hooves echoing dully against the palace's frost-laced stones. Servants moved in hushed urgency, their eyes cast downward, as if ashamed to witness the cruel masquerade.

Banners bearing the sigils of both kingdoms—Haneulhae's delicate plum blossom and Daehan's iron-winged hawk—fluttered in the wind, a symbolic union that felt more like a funeral procession than a diplomatic accord. The air buzzed with tension; the weight of finality soaked into every fold of silk and every polished buckle. This was not a departure. This was an execution dressed in velvet and silver.

And at the head of the procession stood Lord Jaeho, draped in diplomatic finery more fitting for a coronation than a surrender. His face, smug with silent victory, bore the expression of a man who had triumphed not through honor, but through manipulation. He stood proud, not as a steward of peace, but as the orchestrator of Haneulhae’s final humiliation—ready to present the kingdom’s last remaining bargaining chip like a prized artifact, a relic to be bartered for temporary salvation.

Seonghwa stood beside him, adorned in ceremonial robes that shimmered dully under the grey sky. The silk, though fine, felt like funeral shrouds draped over a crownless ghost. His figure, once the beacon of youth and promise in Haneulhae, had been reimagined by the council as a mere flourish of diplomacy. No longer a prince with a future, he was now a gesture—an elaborate spectacle to distract from the rot behind the palace walls. His presence, once a rallying point of pride and purpose, had been reduced to a decorative concession—a final, desperate bid for peace from a court that had bartered away its soul.

He didn’t look at Jaeho.

He looked forward.

And for the first time in years, he felt something dangerous stir beneath the ice: a quiet, simmering defiance.

He would go. But he would not go quietly.

The journey across the continent began beneath a steel-gray sky, with the wind at their backs and the chill of Haneulhae trailing like a phantom behind them. The royal caravan was long and gilded, but no ornamentation could disguise the bitter purpose of their mission. Seonghwa rode in the central carrier, a palanquin veiled with translucent silk, though little of the outside world was hidden from him. He saw everything, and everything reminded him that he was being taken—delivered, not received.

As they left the frozen mountains of Haneulhae behind, the land slowly began to change. The snow that once blanketed everything like silence gave way to forests dusted with frost, then to fertile valleys and, eventually, rolling hills gilded with gold and green. The air grew warmer with each passing day, no longer filled with biting cold but the scent of earth and distant rain. It was beautiful in a way that felt almost insulting—like the world dared to be lush and full of life while he was being ferried to a life he didn’t choose.

From the palanquin, Seonghwa watched as the forests of pine were replaced by sprawling orchards, and stone villages bloomed into cities built of red brick and black-tiled roofs. Each night they camped at fortified outposts or noble estates that had been secured in advance, their hosts bowing low before Lord Jaeho and barely acknowledging Seonghwa unless prompted. He kept to himself, eating only what was necessary, speaking only when spoken to.

Yeosang and Wooyoung remained close, each in their own way attempting to pierce through the ever-growing wall Seonghwa had built around himself. Sometimes they shared stories over the low flicker of firelight—though more often than not, it was Wooyoung who kept the silence at bay with antics that danced between absurdity and affection. He would spin wild tales, claiming he’d once been chased through a noble's bathhouse by three furious concubines after insulting their taste in tapestries. The memory made Yeosang snort into his tea, but it also served as a strange, welcome relief to the constant tension. Seonghwa would often look at Wooyoung with a mixture of disbelief and exhausted gratitude—because somehow, in the middle of his spiraling thoughts about Daehan and what it meant to be offered like livestock, Wooyoung's antics forced him to feel something other than dread.

When Seonghwa gave him a tired stare, Wooyoung only grinned wider, nudging Yeosang and saying things like, "He’s trying not to laugh, I can hear his soul cracking."

He'd steal bites from Seonghwa’s untouched plate when he thought no one was looking, loudly proclaiming the prince's lack of appetite a national tragedy—"The royal cook cried for hours, I swear on my reputation, which is worth at least three chickens." Once, he swapped Seonghwa’s tea with vinegar just to see if the prince was still paying attention. He was. The resulting glare nearly froze Wooyoung in place, but the laughter Yeosang barely hid made it all worth it.

Yeosang, in contrast, sat silently beside Seonghwa, offering presence without pressure—a calm constant to Wooyoung’s chaos. He rarely spoke unless prompted, but when he did, it was often with the kind of quiet clarity that struck deeper than expected. The balance between them—one loud, irreverent, and endlessly loyal; the other quiet, steady, and watchful—was perhaps the only thing that made the nights bearable. And in the quiet, beneath stars unfamiliar and skies too vast, Seonghwa sometimes felt the ache of homesickness curl in his chest like a wound too old to heal. But once or twice, when Wooyoung muttered something ridiculous under his breath or Yeosang met his gaze and simply nodded, Seonghwa almost—almost—felt a flicker of warmth.

Yet it was Daehan that awaited them—and Daehan was no Haneulhae.

The moment they crossed into its borders, the difference was visceral. The air itself felt heavier, scented with spice and iron. Towering gates carved with dragons and war insignia welcomed them, patrolled by soldiers who stood with unflinching discipline. Where Haneulhae was hushed and adorned in delicate opulence, Daehan was bold, proud, almost brutal in its grandeur. Marble was replaced with obsidian, and temples towered instead of nestled. Red and black dominated the palette, fire-lit braziers burned at every main road, and gold lined everything that could reflect sunlight.

The capital city, Jeonggwan, unfolded before them like a weapon drawn from its sheath—gleaming, poised, and deadly. Seonghwa’s breath caught in his throat at the sight. Its pointed spires and rigid order were nothing like the fluid, serene architecture of Haneulhae. The contrast sent a shiver down his spine, not from cold, but from the unshakable feeling that he was stepping into a battlefield instead of a sanctuary. His pulse quickened, anxiety fluttering beneath his ribs like caged wings. He could already feel the sting of foreign eyes, the weight of their silent assessments. Every inch of the city seemed to whisper: you are not one of us. Sharp lines, steep rooftops, and endless movement filled the streets—commerce and order woven into a thriving, restless machine. People here did not lower their eyes as the caravan passed; they looked directly at it, openly curious and murmuring amongst themselves. The presence of a royal palanquin, so heavily guarded and draped in opulent silk, had clearly stirred speculation. They hadn’t been informed of a wedding, nor of a union, yet. Only the visual spectacle now carried through the streets fed the wildfire of gossip.

Seonghwa met their stares from behind the silk, feeling not just judgment, but an eerie sense of being an object on display—an artifact from a land grown silent. Here, he wasn’t important. He wasn’t known. He was just another piece being moved across a board already filled with kings. Their gazes didn’t carry hatred or warmth—only curiosity sharpened by the unknown. And that, somehow, stung more than disdain.

Seonghwa had always known that he would feel out of place in Daehan, but he hadn’t anticipated the way the city would unnerve him. Haneulhae had been quiet, spiritual, wrapped in layers of ceremony and tradition. But Daehan was the pulse of the new world—fast, hot, alive with ambition. Where his homeland had grown more stagnant over the years, Daehan seemed to thrive off change and control. It wasn’t just different. It was the inverse of everything he had ever known. A city that did not mourn what it conquered, but built monuments from the bones of what it buried.

And now, in the heart of that city, Seonghwa would have to live.

As night fell on the last day of the journey, he sat at the edge of the open pavilion they’d been assigned before the final procession into the palace. The air smelled faintly of jasmine and smoke, and the soft ripple of the water gardens echoed beneath the floating lanterns. Each one cast amber light across the surface like drifting stars, too perfect, too detached. It was a beauty that didn’t touch him.

Wooyoung and Yeosang were asleep nearby, curled under thick blankets after a long day of travel. Even Lord Jaeho had retreated to his chambers, leaving Seonghwa alone in the hush of foreign quiet. He traced the sharp architecture with his gaze, the red stone arches and burning sconces that marked Daehan’s grandeur—and its indifference.

The day’s arrival had been met with cool precision. No celebration, no recognition beyond protocol. Just formal bows and steely stares. He hadn’t expected warmth, but the vacuum of emotion made him feel like a well-wrapped offering rather than a guest.

He folded his arms tightly around his knees, staring out across the garden where the shadows bled into darkness. The words he’d overheard from guards and servants since crossing into Daehan haunted him still—murmurs of uncertainty, guesses about his status, his purpose. No one here knew who he truly was, only what he had been packaged as.

Not a prince.
Not a man.
Just a solution.

Daehan had welcomed them with ceremony, but it would not welcome him with heart. The grand fanfare felt hollow, like a stage built to appease appearances rather than embrace truth. As Seonghwa stepped through the towering gates, a strange chill gripped his spine—not from the air, which was warm and thick with incense, but from the weight of unseen eyes and expectations that pressed down like a hand to his throat. It was as though the very stones of Daehan whispered that he did not belong.

His stomach coiled with dread, his breath shallow despite the open air. The sharp scent of spice and steel in the wind clung to him, suffocating. This was no sanctuary, no second chance. It was a gilded cage dressed in ceremonial gold. He clenched his hands tightly inside the folds of his sleeves, a futile act to ground himself against the rising storm inside.

Daehan may have flung open its gates, but its warmth was for its own. And Seonghwa, heart encased in frost and fear, felt the truth settle like ice in his chest: he was not here to be celebrated.

He was here to disappear.

And Seonghwa, seated among the unfamiliar glow of this thriving empire, felt more lost than he had ever been—like a snowflake forced to survive in fire, waiting for the moment he’d melt away without a trace.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Unlike anything Seonghwa had ever seen in Haneulhae, rows of armored guards stood at attention, their silver-and-obsidian plate glinting under the rising light. There were dozens of them—no, at least a hundred—and each stood as if carved from stone, eyes forward, formation unbroken. Their presence alone could make lesser men falter.

The lavishness of their armor did not go unnoticed by Seonghwa. Gold threading in the seams, pauldrons carved with the house sigil of Daehan's royal line, and dark leather imported from across the sea. This was not merely military might—it was a declaration. Daehan could afford to guard a ceremonial reception with its most finely adorned soldiers. A quiet reminder of their superiority.

And for all its splendor, the message it sent to Seonghwa was chillingly clear: this kingdom thrived where Haneulhae withered. While his own council had bet the future of their people on silver-tongued treaties and inflated trade routes, Daehan had invested in strength. In symbols that could not be ignored. The guards themselves were living proof of a nation that prospered, while Haneulhae drowned in debt and fading pride.

Seonghwa sat stiffly within his palanquin, the silk veil now drawn aside so he could witness their arrival. The streets just inside the gate were lined with onlookers—merchants, nobles, and commoners alike—none of whom had been told of the king's impending union. Murmurs rose like the tide as their convoy passed. They watched with unfiltered curiosity, confusion painting their faces as they whispered to one another. Who was inside? What did this procession mean? Why so many guards?

Seonghwa felt their stares prickle against his skin. He was a secret paraded in plain sight, a mystery cloaked in veils and silence. A stranger is being brought into the heart of power with no explanation. It should have been empowering—this attention, this spectacle. But instead, it felt suffocating. Like being displayed in a marketplace cage, dressed up for show but with nowhere to run.

He caught Wooyoung rolling his eyes from the adjacent carrier, his expression a mix of mockery and exaggerated awe. “Well,” Wooyoung muttered just loud enough for Yeosang to hear, “if they don’t already know you're marrying the king, they probably think we’re here to install a new religion. Or worse—tax collectors.”

Yeosang stifled a snort, shaking his head. “You’ll get us executed before the gates close.”

“If I do, at least we’ll make history,” Wooyoung quipped. “'Infamous court jester and dignified shadow dies tragically at the border due to their prince’s existential crisis.'”

Even Seonghwa, surrounded by anxiety, had to look away to hide the twitch of a smile.

But beneath the humor, the dissonance between Daehan's splendor and Haneulhae's decay gnawed at him. It wasn’t just wealth. It was will. Purpose. Presence. All the things his homeland once embodied now stood as hollow ideals, their meanings lost somewhere between dying harvests and empty treasury halls. Haneulhae had become a story they told themselves to sleep at night, while Daehan forged its narrative in stone, steel, and fire.

As they passed under the main archway, a shiver ran down Seonghwa’s spine. He wasn’t cold. He was out of place. Irrevocably, visibly, painfully out of place. And the palace that rose before him in the heart of Jeonggwan only deepened that ache.

It was enormous—a sprawl of obsidian towers and bloodstone parapets, lattice windows of crimson glass reflecting a sky that seemed too wide. Intricate carvings of phoenixes, tigers, and imperial seals adorned every surface. Waterways ran through marble courtyards like veins through a body, feeding gardens that bloomed with flowers he couldn’t name. The whole palace breathed power.

Seonghwa had never felt smaller.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Upon reaching the main stair of the palace, Seonghwa's gaze was drawn upward—beyond the grand steps carved in bloodstone and veined marble, past the towering pillars crowned in flame-colored banners, to a solitary figure flanked by two guards in resplendent black-and-crimson armor. The man stood as if carved from stone himself, his posture regal and unyielding. But his eyes—those sharp, calculating eyes—were fixed only on Seonghwa. The world around them dimmed under the intensity of that stare.

It was Hongjoong.

Seonghwa’s breath caught in his throat. The King of Daehan had come in person, not to welcome a political envoy, but to see him. It was a message without words, and yet louder than any declaration: Hongjoong had already claimed him with that one gaze. Possession before introduction. Curiosity, calculation, hunger—but there was softness in that stare.

The guards at Hongjoong’s sides didn’t move, their presence amplifying the gravity of the moment. They weren’t there to intimidate, but to witness. Seonghwa was not stepping into a palace. He was stepping into judgment.

His spine straightened instinctively, hands folding in his lap as if to brace against the storm he saw waiting atop those stairs. And yet, for all the nobility of his posture, Seonghwa felt it—not humiliation, but something more layered. A hollow churning in his chest laced with unease and wariness. He expected the cold scrutiny of power, the leering judgment of an Alpha king known more for dominance than compassion. But what met him wasn’t disdain—it was something far more disarming. Hongjoong’s eyes held not just curiosity, but a faint flicker of recognition. As though Seonghwa was already known to him, not merely as an omega, but as a person. That gaze didn’t reduce him—it acknowledged him. For a split second, Seonghwa felt something unbidden warm the edges of his ribs, something nearly forgotten: a flicker of being seen.

The feeling unsettled him. Not because it hurt, but because it didn’t. Inside, that contradiction gnawed deeper than rage ever could.

Something cracked quietly inside him, like frost breaking underfoot on a winter morning—subtle, almost imperceptible, but impossible to ignore. The weight of Hongjoong's unexpected recognition pressed inward, nudging at a space Seonghwa had long since sealed away. He didn’t flinch, didn’t allow the crack to show, but he felt it—a shift, unsettling in its gentleness. The echo of being seen stirred something fragile, something dangerously close to hope, like the ghost of a melody he once knew but hadn’t dared to hum in years.

Chapter Text

From the grand staircase of the palace, Hongjoong stood still, flanked by two of his elite guard, San and Yunho. The breeze from the eastern courtyard tugged gently at the hem of his heavy crimson robes, but he remained unmoved. His gaze was fixed, unwavering, on the palanquin making its slow, deliberate approach through the gates of Jeonggwan.

He had not expected the moment to feel like this.

For months, the union had been presented to him as a necessity—a strategic marriage to secure dominance, assert Daehan’s superiority, and finally bring Haneulhae under manageable control. He had listened with half a mind as his ministers laid out the advantages. The desperate state of Haneulhae’s economy, the weakened morale of its court, the infamous failings of its once-venerated council. All painted Seonghwa as a pretty pawn, a fragile offering from a crumbling kingdom.

But now, with the palanquin drawing near, something in Hongjoong’s chest twisted. Not a tremor of nerves—but anticipation so taut it bordered on dread.

The palanquin was ornate but not ostentatious, its silk panels billowing with each careful step of the bearers. Each inch of its approach pulled Hongjoong further from certainty. Time thickened. Sounds faded. His breath slowed.

Then—movement.

The canopy stirred. A breath of silk. A flicker of shadow. For a heartbeat, Hongjoong could not see clearly—only the shape of someone sitting tall, poised, impossibly still. He leaned forward slightly, unconsciously, as if drawn by an invisible thread.

And then Seonghwa appeared.

There was no veil. No softening fabric to blur the lines of his face. He sat upright, his posture a masterwork of discipline and silent defiance. His silvery hair shimmered like frost beneath the fading sun, catching the light with an ethereal sheen. Snow-touched skin, so pale it almost glowed, framed high cheekbones and lips tinged with wintry rose. Pale and sharp as a moonlit blade. Seonghwa’s beauty didn’t just arrest—it stunned.

It wasn’t mystery that struck Hongjoong, but recognition. A jarring, immediate certainty that he was seeing something he would never forget. As if a story long buried in his bones had suddenly spoken aloud. As if this face had haunted dreams he could never recall upon waking.

Seeing him—those eyes, that face—hit Hongjoong like an unsheathed blade. He had prepared for coldness, for a distant, unreadable beauty. But what met him instead was something overwhelming. A presence so striking it rippled through him like fate disturbing still water.

He had never believed in love at first sight. Such things were for poets, for fools too idle to distinguish lust from longing. But now, here, with only a glimpse of posture and presence, he felt it bloom inside him—terrifying, impossible, and utterly real. Not attraction. Not even desire. Something more elemental.

The way Seonghwa held himself—unbowed, composed, as if bearing invisible chains with quiet defiance—spoke louder than any beauty ever could. He wasn’t some delicate offering sent to be consumed. He was something else. A quiet force. A storm encased in silk.

And it struck Hongjoong like lightning.

His breath caught. His thoughts scattered. His world, so neatly constructed by power and discipline, trembled. He had anticipated grace, perhaps a chill of resentment. But not this. Not the ache that pierced him without warning. He felt as though he were watching a star falling directly toward him—burning, fated, inescapable.

Their eyes met.

And in that instant, Hongjoong stopped being king. He became only a man, standing at the edge of something vast and unknowable.

It was absurd. Irrational. But there it was.

Love—or the quiet, unmistakable beginning of it. Not fireworks, but a shift in the earth beneath him. A presence that seized his breath, rang through his bones, and demanded a part of him before a single word was ever spoken.

Seonghwa wasn’t a mystery to solve or a trophy to claim—he was clarity itself, striking and undeniable.

And Hongjoong knew—he would never be the same.

Beside him, his advisors whispered. Protocols, greetings, details of the private welcome. He didn’t hear a word. His entire world had narrowed to the figure in the palanquin, radiant as moonlight and just as unreachable.

He should have felt victorious. But what stirred inside him was not triumph. It was wonder. Reverence. The deep, unshakable certainty that fate had just drawn a blade across the map of his life and carved a new path.

The palanquin halted.

His guards straightened. The captain of the palace retinue stepped forward to announce the arrival, but Hongjoong lifted a hand, silencing him.

“Let them disembark in silence,” he said softly.

Let Seonghwa arrive not as a prize, but as something sacred. Let this moment be theirs alone—unspoiled, unspoken.

He would speak to him soon. Learn him.

And perhaps—if the gods were cruel or kind enough—love him.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Upon entering the palace's big doors, Seonghwa, Wooyoung, and Yeosang were greeted with the precise, cool courtesy that Daehan was famed for. It was not warmth, but it was not disdain either. Every bow from the attending servants was timed to the beat of tradition; every gesture, every phrase was steeped in Daehan’s elaborate etiquette. In this kingdom, respect was a ritual, and ritual a language of power.

Omegas from foreign courts were rare visitors here, let alone welcomed ones. Yet no offense was given. Their attendants were carefully trained, and the trio was granted a level of dignity Seonghwa had not expected—certainly not after the humiliations he’d endured at his own court.

They were escorted to a separate wing of the inner palace, which had been specifically renovated to host guests of noble status. The corridors were long and dimly lit by golden lanterns hung in staggered harmony, their soft light dancing along lacquered panels carved with Daehan’s ancestral histories. The walls whispered of victories, of order, of a kingdom rooted in discipline. Intricate murals told stories of the first alphas who had shaped the land with ambition and strength.

Their chambers were richly decorated, though not overly flashy. Seonghwa’s room had a large, soft futon on a smooth wooden floor, surrounded by silk screens painted with images of strong mountain tigers and calm ocean waves—symbols that seemed to convey the idea of strength and peace coexisting in harmony. A low table sat nearby with a tea set made of pale green porcelain that seemed to glow in the lantern light. Next to the table was a writing desk with scrolls of poetry written in the Daehanese language, carefully arranged to suggest what kind of thoughtful guest they hoped Seonghwa would be.

Yeosang and Wooyoung were given their own adjacent quarters, nearly identical in aesthetic but smaller in scale. They were checked on by palace staff with regulated politeness, offered meals of warm rice, grilled river fish, fermented roots and pickled greens—all seasoned mildly, a nod to their foreign tongues. It was not affection, but it was certainly respect, and the absence of overt hostility was in itself a relief.

Still, Daehan's customs loomed. Seonghwa observed how every servant spoke in modulated tones and never turned their backs to him. He noticed how greetings involved precise postures, how even the act of offering tea carried a hierarchy of power. Here, silence was as weighted as words.

It was all beautiful.

And suffocating.

He hadn’t spoken much since the receiving chamber. Not even to Wooyoung or Yeosang, who had quickly picked up on the charged air surrounding the encounter with the king. Yet even they seemed slightly disarmed by the careful treatment they received, unsure whether to appreciate it or be wary.

That night, as they sat together under the carved lattice of Seonghwa’s room, sipping cooling tea, Wooyoung finally broke the silence.

“Well,” he muttered, swirling his cup, “I anticipated confinement, not culture.”

Yeosang gave a dry huff of amusement. “Just because the leash is made of silk doesn’t mean we’re free.”

Seonghwa said nothing. His fingers trailed along the rim of his cup as if tracing a path he hadn’t yet taken. Outside, the sounds of the Daehan night crept through the shutters—distant drums, a breeze carrying the incense of a kingdom that did not yet belong to him. Or perhaps, never would.

Respect, he had been taught, was a form of performance. And in Daehan, every gesture seemed rehearsed to perfection.

But beneath it, the stage still belonged to someone else.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · · 

The next day,the king received the prince.

The private receiving chamber radiated a quiet, carefully curated luxury. Its pale cedar walls bore intricate inlays of mother-of-pearl, forming subtle landscapes and dynastic emblems that shimmered softly in the filtered light. Sunlight, tamed by layered silken drapes, diffused through the room in a warm, golden haze that kissed every polished surface. A brazier glowed gently in the corner, casting flickering shadows and releasing the earthy scent of sandalwood and clove—soothing, grounding, almost deceiving in its comfort.

This room had been built to disarm. Its stillness invited confession, its warmth mimicked welcome. It was, in every crafted detail, a stage designed to mask the sharp edges of power beneath the softness of elegance. Yet to Seonghwa, it felt like walking into the heart of a tie.

He entered not like a guest, but like someone stepping across a fault line. His spine straight, shoulders squared with silent discipline. His steps were soundless on the thick carpets, his expression composed to the point of austerity.

He saw the trap beneath the silk. Felt the weight of eyes that wanted to peel back the layers of civility and decorum to find the broken pieces they assumed lay beneath. But Seonghwa had survived far worse than beautiful rooms hiding cruel truths. He had learned to exist in such spaces. Learned that stillness could be armor, silence a blade.

So he moved like a shadow that refused to disappear—an ice-bound flame who would not melt, no matter how warm the room pretended to be.

He was aware of his every breath. The subtle prickle on the back of his neck at Hongjoong's proximity. The way his skin remained cold despite the warmth of the room.Hongjoong dismissed the attending guards with a measured flick of his hand. There were no guards now, only him and the King of Daehan. Yet it felt no less like a test. Seonghwa knew the dance expected of him—knew the way omegas were taught to move, speak, yield. But he walked differently.

The two men remained, suspended in the hush that followed, two forces in uneasy orbit. The air between them, thick with the scent of something just below recognition—Seonghwa’s guarded frost clashing gently with Hongjoong’s quiet warmth.

This was not just a room. This was the arena. And neither of them had come to lose.

The prince stood tall, still in his formal robes from the journey, scent tightly controlled with court-mandated suppressants, though the undercurrent of frost-touched pine still lingered faintly—pristine, untouched. His expression was unreadable. He didn’t bow. He didn’t offer the practiced greetings of courtly submission. Yet beneath the mask, a tension pulsed faintly, his body alert as if bracing for something unseen.

"Welcome to Daehan," Hongjoong said, his voice calm, rich with the slow burn of an alpha used to commanding rooms. There was something lower in it too—an intimate timbre that threaded under Seonghwa’s skin before he could steel himself against it. As he spoke, his gaze flicked—brief, subtle—to the delicate band around Seonghwa's neck. He said nothing, but in that fleeting moment, there was no judgment in his eyes. Only curiosity. Recognition, perhaps, of the symbol it was meant to be—though he kept the thought to himself.

Seonghwa’s eyes met his with that same steady defiance, but this time there was something else buried in the stillness—a sharpness, born of caution. "I suppose you’ve waited long for this day."

Hongjoong’s lips twitched in the faintest trace of amusement. "Not in the way you think."

A pause. Heavy and charged. In the quiet, their scents shifted subtly in the space between them, testing, appraising. Hongjoong's—warm cedar and smoke—reached out like fingers stretched toward a flame. Seonghwa flinched inwardly, just a slight tightening of his jaw, a flicker of discomfort he mastered quickly, but it lingered like a shadow.

"Then how?" Seonghwa asked, voice colder than the mountains that bore him.

"With interest," Hongjoong said honestly. "Curiosity. Perhaps even hope."

That earned a flicker—just a flicker—of emotion across Seonghwa’s face. Not quite belief, not quite trust. But a beat of surprise. He was used to alphas bearing intent like weapons. This one was... different. Still dangerous, still a threat—but not cruel. Not yet.

"Hope?"

Hongjoong ignored him, gesturing toward the seats arranged by the hearth. "May we speak, without pretense? "

Seonghwa hesitated. For the briefest second, he looked as if he might refuse. But then, with the practiced grace of someone used to holding his ground in enemy territory, he walked across the room and sat. The cool weight of his presence settled like mist.

So did the king.

And the war of words—the subtle, unspoken kind—began.

Hongjoong watched Seonghwa the way someone might look at a star they’ve never seen before—beautiful, distant, and confusing. Seonghwa sat across from him, so still he almost didn’t seem real. He looked perfect, like a statue, with his hands resting gently on his clothes. But even though he was calm on the outside, there was something untouchable about him—like he had built walls no one could cross.

Hongjoong had read many reports before Seonghwa arrived. They all said the same thing: Seonghwa was raised to be graceful and obedient. But he didn’t behave like most omegas. He didn’t bend easily, and he didn’t try to please. He used his grace like armor. He wasn’t soft—he was strong in a quiet, powerful way. And not everyone liked that.

To Hongjoong, beauty wasn’t something to admire blindly. It could be used to hide the truth. But Seonghwa’s beauty wasn’t soft or sweet. It made people uncomfortable. It challenged what people expected an omega to be. He was elegant, but not gentle. He didn’t invite attention—he warned against it.

Still, the king spoke clearly, each word careful. “Before anything else, we need to talk about what’s expected.”

Seonghwa didn’t react much. Just a small breath, a little movement of his hands.

“You weren’t brought here just for peace talks,” Hongjoong said. “Your council agreed to the treaty. It says you are to be my consort. That will become official in a fortnight.”

There was a flicker of emotion in Seonghwa’s face, but barely.

“The treaty includes other terms,” Hongjoong continued. “You must swear loyalty to the Crown and to me as your king. You’ll be bonded to me officially and expected to have an heir. You must respect the monarchy and everything it stands for, both in public and in private.”

He said all this plainly, without emotion, like stating facts.

“You’ll be staying in the East Pavilion until the bonding ceremony makes everything official,” he explained. “Until then, we won’t be sharing a room. You’ll remain within the palace grounds, but you won’t be locked away—you’ll have guards, attendants, and the freedom to see trusted visitors. Your time will be focused on learning the court traditions and expectations of this land.”

Seonghwa looked up slowly, eyes sharp. “So I’ll be watched. All the time.”

“You’re too important not to be,” Hongjoong answered.

“You mean dangerous.”

“I mean visible,” said Hongjoong. “If you make a mistake, it could damage what your presence is supposed to protect.”

“And what is that, exactly?” Seonghwa asked.

“Stability. The look of peace, even if it’s not real yet.”

The room went quiet. The fire made soft sounds nearby. The smell of smoke and spice hung in the air.

“I’m not here to be your decoration,” Seonghwa said. “Or your echo.”

“No,” Hongjoong replied. “You’re here to be the face of a peace neither of us chose, but both of us must support. The court doesn’t want love. It wants something that looks strong. Respectable. United.”

“And children,” Seonghwa said.

“Yes,” Hongjoong answered. "And children."

Seonghwa didn’t show much emotion, but his mouth tightened slightly. “And if I don’t agree?”

“Then we’ll remind you of the treaty your own people signed,” Hongjoong said, not cruelly, just firmly. “You don’t have to like it. You just have to do it.”

“And what do you offer in return, Your Majesty?” Seonghwa asked. His voice wasn’t angry—just thoughtful. “What do I get?”

“Stability. Safety. A place of your own in this court. And my respect—freely given, not earned,” Hongjoong said calmly.

That made Seonghwa pause. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Respect,” he repeated. “Not something omegas are used to being given without question.”

“I know,” Hongjoong said. “But I don’t treat people by their designation. That’s not how I rule.”

Seonghwa studied him for a long moment, unsure whether to believe him. Too many alphas before had said similar things, only to use their power as a leash. But Hongjoong’s gaze didn’t waver.

“You’re not here to please me,” the king continued. “You’re not a decoration. I don’t need a puppet beside me. I need someone with a mind. And a voice.”

That, more than anything, unsettled Seonghwa. He’d never been told that by someone like Hongjoong—someone with real authority.

“You want me useful,” Seonghwa said. “That part I understand.”

“I want you as my Queen, beside me—not to display, not to control—but as someone whose strength and insight I value,” Hongjoong said. “If you'll allow it, in time, I hope we can stand as equals—not because of titles, but because of trust.”

“You don’t know me,” Seonghwa said, more quietly now.

“I hope to,” Hongjoong replied. “Not because I must, but because I believe in knowing those I stand beside.”

They fell into silence again, but it was softer this time. Not full of suspicion, but filled with thought.

Seonghwa looked at him—not as a threat, not fully—but with a flicker of something else. Something almost like hope.

“I understand,” he said, steady. Not with surrender, but with possibility.

He didn’t bow. But he nodded.

And for the first time, Hongjoong didn’t see him as a consort to claim.

He saw him as a partner.

Not bonded. Not yet.

But maybe, one day, by choice—not command.

Chapter Text

The next morning, soft beams of sunlight spilled through the silk curtains, casting a gentle warmth across Seonghwa’s chamber. The air was cool and still, tinged with the faint scent of jasmine wafting in from the garden below.

Before the sun had fully risen, a gentle knock sounded at the door. Two attendants slipped in without a word, their steps soundless on the polished floors.

"Your Highness, it is time," one whispered, bowing low as they approached his bedside.

Seonghwa stirred, eyes fluttering open to the dim morning light. The servants moved with graceful efficiency: one drew back the heavy covers and unlatched the window shutters, letting golden light wash over the room. The other set down a small basin of steaming herb-scented water, cloths neatly folded beside it.

They guided him to sit at the edge of the bed, steady hands offering support. Warm water kissed his face as they wiped away the remnants of sleep. One servant laid out his clothes—a robe of deep blue silk, threaded with silver in swirling patterns—and the other dried his hands with gentle precision.

His grooming unfolded like a quiet ritual. One brushed his long hair, combing through knots with practiced care. Another shaved the stubble from his jaw, while a third tended to his nails, polishing them to a muted sheen.

It was more attention than Seonghwa was used to. In Haneulhae, his mornings had been solitary, with a single, often silent attendant. Here, a whole retinue moved around him like a well-rehearsed dance, ever-present yet barely acknowledged.

"Your breakfast awaits," murmured one of the servants as they guided him down the steps of his chamber.

The scent of incense and ripened fruit curled through the hallways. As they entered the dining room, Seonghwa was momentarily struck by the scene before him: a long, lacquered table overflowing with fruits, warm breads, steamed delicacies, and delicate sweets—all arranged with artistic flair.

He paused. The room was empty.

A maid stepped forward and poured a cup of tea, bowing deeply before placing it before him.

"Please, enjoy, Your Highness."

Seonghwa sat, hands resting tensely on his lap. The cup was warm between his fingers; the scent of jasmine and ginseng curled upward, calming, familiar. Yet the silence pressed in around him.

A silver tray was placed gently on the table: ripe persimmons, sliced pears, and a small cluster of golden grapes. His gaze lingered on them, but he didn’t reach. In Haneulhae, a prince did not eat until the major alphas had begun their meal. To serve oneself first was unthinkable.

He waited.

Minutes passed. The rustle of silk, the soft clink of porcelain—these were the only sounds.

He glanced toward the empty chairs. Still, no one came.

Eventually, a maid stepped forward, hesitant. Her eyes swept the table, then lingered on Seonghwa’s untouched plate. She paused, then added with a note of concern, "Forgive me, but... is everything to Your Highness’s liking? You haven’t touched a thing. Does the tea suit your taste? If there is anything else you desire—or if you feel unwell—we will gladly provide it."

Seonghwa frowned, his voice quiet but laced with unease. “Am I to dine alone this morning? Where are the higher lords of this palace?”

The maid met his gaze steadily. “There are no higher lords joining you today, my prince—only His Majesty.”

“And where is he?”

“His Majesty may join you shortly,” she replied gently, her tone carefully measured. “He tends to rise late, especially after long nights of study or counsel.” She exchanged a glance with her companion before continuing, “It wouldn’t be unusual for him to forgo breakfast entirely.”

Seonghwa’s eyes drifted across the table. “So all this,” he murmured, “was prepared for just the two of us?”

“Yes, my prince,” the maid said, a gentle smile on her lips. “There is no need to wait. You might fall ill from hunger.”

A soft, breathy laugh escaped the maids—quickly stifled, but not without amusement.

Seonghwa didn’t smile. The informality unsettled him. Did they not fear the king’s displeasure? In Haneulhae, laughter in the presence of royalty was a risk, not a privilege.

He looked down at his untouched tea, the warmth now fading from the porcelain.

And then, the doors creaked open.

The king entered, shoulders draped in a loose robe of dark silk, hair tousled, eyes rimmed with fatigue. He did not stride in as a monarch might—but walked like a man roused from sleep.

Still, his presence shifted the room. The maids fell quiet, bowing quickly.

Seonghwa sat straighter, his heart suddenly alert.

And then he blinked, surprised. Just the day before, the king had spoken to him with stern command—measured, sharp, and formal. Now, he looked a mess: bleary-eyed and casual, his tone soft and almost playful. The change was jarring. It felt like facing a different man altogether.

“I apologize for my lateness,” the king said, his voice hoarse but warm. “I was reading documents for far too late. May I still share the morning with you?”

Seonghwa hesitated, unsure whether to bow or remain still. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

The king’s gaze fell to the table. “You haven’t eaten. Is the food not to your liking?”

“It is,” Seonghwa replied quickly. “I was waiting for the major alphas to begin. In Haneulhae, it is custom.”

A spark of humor touched the king’s tired eyes. “Ah. Our alphas rarely appear before noon, I’m afraid. Some don’t appear at all.”

He settled into the chair opposite, brushing a velvet cushion aside.

“Please,” he said, gesturing, “don’t let tradition starve you. Eat.”

Seonghwa picked up a slice of pear, slowly raising it to his mouth. The sweetness burst across his tongue—soft, honeyed. His hunger surprised him.

Across from him, the king poured his own tea, then spoke casually, “You don’t have to sit like you’re carved from stone. This court isn’t built on fear or ceremony.”

Seonghwa blinked, caught off guard. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. In Haneulhae, discipline is a mark of respect.”

“It is,” the king said, sipping his tea. “But only if it doesn’t become a cage. Here, we value breath. Laughter. Eating when hungry. Living as humans before titles.”

Seonghwa glanced at the maids again. They were now talking quietly among themselves a few paces away, no longer tiptoeing.

“They aren’t afraid of you,” he observed.

“Why should they be?” the king asked, bemused.

“You are the king.”

“And still a man.” The king shrugged, smiling faintly. “They serve because they choose to. Not because I loom over them like a shadow. Power doesn’t need to shout. It should speak quietly—and be heard.”

Silence settled again. Seonghwa traced the rim of his cup, then spoke, his voice low. “In Haneulhae, obedience is the highest loyalty. Emotion is... a liability.”

The king studied him with a soft, unreadable expression. “And do you believe that?”

Seonghwa paused. He looked at his hands—groomed, motionless in his lap.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted.

The king’s smile returned, this time gentler. “Then you’re already freer than most.”

Seonghwa looked up, caught in the quiet sincerity of the words. No performance, no manipulation. Just a man sharing breakfast.

The king reached for a handful of almonds, popping one into his mouth. “You’ll find your place here, Seonghwa. Not by copying our customs. But by deciding how you want to wear your crown. That’s the only tradition I insist on.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

After breakfast, Seonghwa returned to his chamber, where a poised figure awaited him. A woman stood near the window, the soft light catching the subtle shimmer of her finely embroidered robes. Her dark hair was arranged in an intricate style befitting her station, and her expression was calm but observant, as if quietly assessing everything.

“Good morning, my prince,” she said, her voice smooth and steady, carrying the weight of experience. “I am Lady Mina, chief servant to this pavilion and your guide through the many complexities of court life here.”

Seonghwa inclined his head respectfully. He recognized in her an air of quiet authority, the kind that comes from years of navigating palace intrigues and delicate expectations.

“While you may be familiar with royal etiquette from Haneulhae,” she continued, “this court operates on subtleties far more refined. Every glance, every word, every slight movement holds meaning. It is not enough to simply perform respect—you must embody it, without appearing constrained.”

She stepped closer, the faint scent of sandalwood trailing behind her. “Your upbringing has given you a strong foundation, but here, you will need to learn the art of influence—the unspoken power that sways decisions and protects those who know its language.”

Seonghwa nodded, feeling a mixture of anticipation and unease. Lady Mina was not merely a teacher of manners—she was a keeper of secrets, a master of the court’s invisible currents.

“Today, we begin with presence,” Lady Mina said, her voice calm yet commanding as she motioned toward the polished mirror that dominated one wall of the training chamber. The glass reflected not only Seonghwa’s image but the subtle play of light that fell across the room, setting a quiet, focused atmosphere.

“Look closely,” she instructed, stepping aside. “See yourself as others will see you.” Her gaze was sharp, unwavering as she studied him. “Notice the tension in your shoulders, the way your spine holds itself. A prince’s presence is more than just posture—it is an unspoken language. The way you carry yourself speaks before you say a word.”

Seonghwa adjusted his stance, aligning his back straighter, though his eyes flickered momentarily to the window, where the morning light touched the palace grounds—a reminder of the path he was bound to walk. His reflection stared back, steady and composed, masking the subtle tightening in his chest.

Lady Mina moved with fluid grace, demonstrating a slow, deliberate bow—one that balanced humility and strength. Her motion was precise yet effortless, the kind of movement that commanded respect without demanding it through fear. “This,” she said softly, “is the difference between a ruler who commands through intimidation and one who inspires through loyalty and reverence.”

She stepped closer, her reflection merging with his in the glass. “Your gaze,” she said, “must be firm but not cold. It should hold weight, but not burden. People must feel your resolve, but also your capacity to understand. Presence is not just the space you fill, but the trust you evoke.”

Seonghwa met her eyes in the mirror’s reflection, the corner of his mouth tightening ever so slightly. The lesson was clear—and necessary.

Lady Mina’s lips curved into a faint, approving smile, a rare softness breaking through her usual discipline. “Then let us begin?”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

After Lady Mina’s departure, silence reclaimed the room.

Seonghwa stood alone before the mirror, his reflection gazing back with unfamiliar weight. The poised posture, the controlled breath, the distant calm—it all felt borrowed, like he was still fitting into a costume tailored for someone else.

Life in Daehan was different. Profoundly so.

In Haneulhae, structure was everything. Obedience, restraint, hierarchy—they were the bones of the world he knew. A prince walked alone in the morning. A king ruled like stone. Servants did not speak unless spoken to, and laughter in the royal presence was a transgression.

But here?

The king arrived to breakfast half-dressed and smiling. The maids giggled behind their hands. Power was soft, not sharp. It didn’t demand—it offered. And somehow, it was heard louder.

Was this freedom? Or simply a different kind of mask?

Even Lady Mina, with her sharp gaze and sculpted grace, was not what he expected. In Haneulhae, a royal attendant would never speak so plainly, nor guide with such patient firmness. Here, nothing seemed to hold the same weight, yet everything was still balanced—as if Daehan had rewritten the rules without breaking them.

As Seonghwa turned from the mirror, something caught his eye through the open doorway. In a side corridor near the chamber, three maids stood clustered around a low table. Richly colored bolts of fabric were draped over it—crimson, ivory, indigo—each trimmed with gold and pearl detailing. Wedding robes.

One maid gently lifted a translucent outer layer, its embroidery shimmering like water in moonlight. Seonghwa’s breath caught. The sight reminded him of what lay ahead—not just the ceremony, but the promise, the vow, the permanence.

He closed the door softly.

A knock followed almost immediately, and this time, the interruption was welcome.

“Seonghwa!” Wooyoung beamed as he stepped into the room, followed closely by Yeosang, who offered a gentle nod.

“We thought we’d find you buried under a mountain of ceremonial scrolls,” Yeosang teased.

“Not yet,” Seonghwa said, a faint smile touching his lips. “Though I did just finish etiquette training.”

Wooyoung flopped onto one of the floor cushions. “You have no idea the day we’ve had. I finally got to see the royal kitchens—Seonghwa, they’re enormous. Bigger than the temple courtyard back home. And the chefs!” His eyes gleamed. “They’ve already shown me how to make a Daehanese steamed rice cake with chestnut honey. I swear I made at least three new friends.”

Yeosang chuckled. “And he charmed every one of them.”

Wooyoung shrugged, grinning. “I’m irresistible when sugar’s involved.”

Seonghwa laughed softly, relaxing a little.

Yeosang took the seat beside him. “I’ve been in the royal library most of the past two days. Seonghwa, it’s unbelievable. There are entire wings dedicated to political theory, history, art, astronomy... More books than I think exist in all of Haneulhae. And no one blinked when I walked in. No questions about my status.”

Wooyoung leaned forward. “They’ve all been kind. Respectful. Even though I’m an omega and he’s a beta... It’s different here.”

Seonghwa nodded slowly. “Yes,” he murmured. “It is.”

There was a pause, then Yeosang tilted his head. “And you? How was your meeting with the king? And the breakfast?”

Seonghwa hesitated, then looked at them both. “I was... surprised,” he admitted. “He’s not what I expected. As king, he speaks with authority—but as a man, he’s warm. Casual, even. He speaks of freedom, of choosing how to wear one’s crown. It unsettled me.”

Wooyoung tilted his head, eyes glinting with curiosity. “Unsettled or intrigued?”

Seonghwa looked away, a faint heat rising to his cheeks. “Perhaps both,” he murmured. “I’ve spent so long believing that dignity was silence, that control was strength. But here... strength feels different. It’s in the laughter, in the ease. The king is nothing like the sovereigns of Haneulhae. He listens. He jokes. He looks at me like—like I’m not just a duty he’s inherited.”

Yeosang leaned back, thoughtful. “That’s a dangerous thing, Seonghwa. To be seen.”

Seonghwa’s lips curled slightly. “Yes. And somehow... it makes me feel more real.”

They spoke for a while longer, exchanging stories—Seonghwa chuckling at Wooyoung’s exaggerated impressions of a grumpy palace chef, and Yeosang recounting his latest discovery of a banned poetry volume tucked between tax ledgers. The tension in Seonghwa’s shoulders gradually melted, his smile lingering longer with each passing tale.

Until a loud, unmistakable growl interrupted them.

His stomach.

The room fell quiet for a beat before Wooyoung clapped a hand over his mouth, snorting into his palm. “Seonghwa! That was monstrous. I thought it was a wild dog outside.”

Seonghwa groaned softly. “Don’t exaggerate.”

Yeosang leaned back with a smirk. “It’s nearly midnight. You skipped dinner, didn’t you?”

“I was tired,” Seonghwa muttered, eyes drifting to the polished floor.

“Exactly!” Wooyoung sprang to his feet, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeves. “Lucky for you, I now have the sacred keys to the royal kitchens. Or, well, permission. Which is basically the same.”

“You really don’t need to—” Seonghwa began, his voice thinner than usual, fingers curling around the hem of his robe as he half rose. A flicker of apprehension crossed his face, hesitation pulling at the corners of his mouth. “It’s late. What if someone sees you? What if it’s not allowed?”

But Wooyoung was already at the door, grinning wide. “Sit. Relax. I’ve made allies in that kitchen. Let me feed you like royalty.”

Seonghwa exchanged a look with Yeosang, who simply shrugged with a fond smile. “He’s on a mission now. Let him.”

---

The palace halls were dim by the time Wooyoung reached the kitchens. He moved silently, the faint moonlight spilling through the stained glass casting colored shadows across the stone. Every step echoed faintly, and his heart beat faster with a thrill he didn’t want to name.

The kitchen doors groaned faintly as he pushed them open. Inside, all was darkness and silence, save for the soft creak of old wood and the gentle hum of the cooling hearths.

Wooyoung tiptoed inside, careful not to bump into anything. The scent of flour and spice still lingered in the air. He made it halfway across the stone floor, already picturing what leftovers he might sneak—when a hand seized his arm.

He froze, breath catching.

A tall figure stepped out from the shadows, the flickering candlelight outlining the strong lines of his frame. He moved with the stillness of a predator, each step deliberate, soundless. His face, emerging slowly from the dark, was striking—high cheekbones casting faint shadows, a long, straight nose, and skin the deep, sun-warmed hue of polished bronze. His hair was inky black, slightly tousled, with a single lock falling over his forehead like an unruly stroke of ink on parchment. The candle’s glow caught in his eyes—dark, unreadable, and gleaming with suspicion.

The man’s eyes, dark and clear as obsidian, narrowed.

“Who are you,” he demanded, voice low, smooth, and edged like a drawn blade. “And what are you doing in the royal kitchens?”

Wooyoung’s mouth opened, but his words caught in his throat. He should have said his name, should have explained—but the man’s presence stole all sense of reason. He was beautiful. Terrifying, yes—but arrestingly so. Like a painting meant to be admired from afar, not touched.

And then the stranger looked directly at him.

Something shifted.

The man’s gaze faltered—not from fear, but from something else. His grip slackened slightly, and his brows drew together in confusion. There was a flicker in his expression—uncertainty, recognition, awe.

Wooyoung’s breath came shallow as they simply stared at one another, the candlelight flickering between them like a fragile thread. The stranger’s hold on his arm gentled, thumb brushing his sleeve without thought. The sharpness in his posture softened, and for the first time, he seemed truly human.

For a heartbeat, the silence between them felt charged—not with threat, but with something tender and new. Something unspoken.

“I…” Wooyoung whispered, but the rest of his words fell away as the stranger leaned in slightly, as if trying to memorize the shape of him in the dark.

As if startled by his own reaction, the man straightened, his voice quieter this time, nearly reverent.

“His voice softened, uncertainty and something more fragile threading through his tone as he met Wooyoung’s eyes. ‘I... you shouldn’t be here. You... who are you?’”

Neither moved. Neither looked away.

And just like that, the stranger was no longer looking at an intruder.

He was looking at someone who had just unknowingly stolen his breath.

The stranger’s eyes held a flicker of something unspoken—curiosity, perhaps, or the first stirrings of something deeper. Wooyoung swallowed, still frozen where he stood, the warmth of the candlelight mixing with a sudden rush of heat in his chest.

“I’m...,” Wooyoung admitted softly, voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I just... Prince Seonghwa was hungry.”

The man’s gaze softened just a fraction, the sharp lines of his face relaxing as he studied Wooyoung with quiet intensity.

“You’re from Haneulhae, one of the prince’s friends...” he said quietly, his eyes carefully studying Wooyoung’s face.

Wooyoung held his gaze, sensing the unspoken tension lingering heavily between them.

The stranger’s expression remained unreadable, the faintest tension tightening his jaw. “Yeah, I just wanted to get some food for the prince. I should go now.”

“Yeah, yeah, go...”

But despite the words, his hand lingered on Wooyoung’s arm, reluctant to release him.

Their eyes met once more, holding a silent plea—an unspoken wish to meet again—before he finally withdrew his grip.

Wooyoung stood frozen for a moment, feeling the lingering warmth where the stranger’s hand had been. The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken questions and possibilities.

“I… thank you,” Wooyoung finally said, voice low and uncertain. “For not arresting me.”

The man’s eyes darkened slightly, a flicker of something guarded passing through them. “You’re lucky I didn’t,” he replied softly. “But be careful. Not everyone here is as forgiving.”

Wooyoung nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I will.”

With one last, lingering look, the stranger stepped back into the shadows, his form blending seamlessly with the darkness.

Wooyoung exhaled slowly and glanced toward the kitchen doors. The night was still quiet, but something had shifted—not just in the room, but inside him.

He took a cautious step forward, the taste of the encounter lingering on his skin like a secret.

And with that, he moved back to the room, the weight of a new, unexpected connection settling quietly in his chest.