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The light behind him shines harshly into her eyes, stark against the placid darkness around them. He stands a few meters away, bow raised and aimed at her; it takes all her self-control not to flinch. She could have told him her decision in any other setting, the supposed urgency be damned, but despite all her shortcomings, she considers herself a person of responsibility. If he chooses to release the arrow, she will understand.
“I have always been clear about what I wanted,” she adds, fully aware of the cruelty in her words.
It is the truth. She said she wanted to be queen, but she said that while holding I-An’s hand, while speaking to him, while looking at him with eyes that left room for more. She said it while entertaining the idea of a different path, even said it as she allowed him and, by extension, herself to dream. She never stopped saying it - she just did everything wrong in between.
He should let the arrow fly.
“You would make a great queen,” he says through gritted teeth. “One could not wish for a better sister-in-law.”
She steps forward, her gaze unflinching. Daring him to act. Such theatrics are not suitable for a prince, she says.
He looks at her for a long moment, then with a flicker of dismay, lowers the bow. When he dismisses her asking to be left alone, he invokes the authority he still holds over her.
“I wonder how long you can preserve that confidence,” he tells her last.
In her dream, she lies in a pit. Flat on her back, she drags handful after handful of sand over herself with steady, deliberate motions. It rasps across her skin, packs into her mouth, settles in her nostrils. She does not turn her head. Grit lodges beneath her nails. Her fingers slow, then continue.
Her school uniform darkens with damp and soil, its fabric stiffening, its colors reduced to a dull, lifeless smear. Sand gathers in the hollows of her eyes, at the edges first, then across the whites she keeps open. The weight becomes complete: on her ribs, over her lungs, across her lips.
As the earth swallows her, she wonders whether a tree will grow on her grave.
Then the next day comes, and she smiles at the country that will be hers.
***
Preparations for the royal wedding begin a year in advance.
Multiple formal stages and rituals, numerous hanboks, training in etiquette, the preparation of gifts, documents, costumes, and ceremonial spaces - everything moves simultaneously past and through her. Surrounded by elders, she extends practiced smiles, speaks in measured tones, and never once lets her age show. Minutes tick into months, and Yi-Rang watches herself age.
She used to watch boy bands dancing on her screen beneath the covers; A distant past that happened not long ago. The queen, she is told, is chosen through moral and cosmic legitimacy. The queen is the mother of the nation. The queen is more than Yoon Yi-Rang. The queen is the entity that swallows her whole. Her family applauds in excitement as she wears the ceremonial robe that seems to burn her skin, and Yi-Rang feels she has never been so loved before. But shouldn’t the hanbok be darker, her father asks. She should look like a queen, her mother adds. The officials will oversee correctness and protocol, her father insists.
And for once, Yi-Rang raises her voice and asks whether she can invite her classmates. She regrets it immediately. She knows, has always known, that the attendees are guests, selected by hierarchy. Were it not for her parents’ alarmed expressions, she might not have minded; Yoon Yi-Rang never had friends to begin with. But the fact that she forgot embarrasses her. She should have known, she chides herself. The wedding has never been hers.
The wedding day arrives, and amid journalists and officials, it feels as though the world watches the future queen with held breath. She balances the hwangwan on her head as she passes I-An, who, in her peripheral vision, stares at her in disdain.
She holds herself still, but her husband steps away and, in a manner neither ceremonial nor proper, embraces his brother.
He comes to stand beside her a minute later, and it occurs to Yi-Rang that he would not make a good king.
How contemptible.
***
Yi-Rang thinks of herself from the sidelines, in the third person, as the court ladies and officials address her. “The queen…” they say, and it echoes in Yi-Rang’s mind. Did she once exist? she begins to wonder, as she embroiders flowers she never liked. Confucian texts curve her soul, and at one point she starts missing the ugliness of her personality that she once tried to stomp out. Her free time evaporates between calligraphy and painting, and she feels eyes on her in every room she enters. Exhaustion settles over her body like a permanent skin. In small moments of walking through the palace, the queen looks for court maids and jealous lovers waiting to poison her. They should work harder, she thinks.
During a ceremonial rite, a new maid with trembling hands ends up pouring hot tea over the queen’s robes, and the queen exclaims in a human-like voice she had forgotten she still possessed. Instinctively, she looks where her husband should be, forgetting that in recent months he has left his chambers only on rare occasions, sending someone else in his place. That someone -
“Don’t you know how to pour tea?” she hears the voice, loud and sharp. It takes her a second to understand that he addresses the court maid, who is already on the verge of tears.
“I am alright,” the queen clarifies, watching as I-An orders the maid to bring her an ointment. He looks at the queen then, and it feels as though it is the first time since her coronation that he has looked at her. She realizes she has missed his voice.
“I enjoyed the gift,” she blurts out, hoping he will speak more.
“It is no big deal, Yi-Rang,” he replies in that boyish manner she knows too well. She refers to the wedding gift—not the expected, high-quality porcelain, but a necklace; a jade Silla smile.
The maid comes back with the ointment; I-An takes it from her in a swift, almost violent motion, reaching for Yi-Rang’s hand-only for something to slice through the moment, forcing him back with a sigh, a sardonic smile marring his gentle features. “I seem to have forgotten,” he murmurs.
He sets the ointment on the table instead, and a dark fog settles over the queen.
Her name slips away from her once again.
***
Her son is perfect.
Her son will be a king written into history books.
Her son will be immortal.
The cries of the week-old baby pierce the castle hall, and the queen, still exhausted and barely standing, stumbles toward the nursery. The maid insists everything will be alright, that she needs rest, but the queen presses on. Crossing the threshold, she sees the elder ladies and nurses gathered around her child, and I-An standing over the cradle.
He does not notice her, his attention fixed entirely on the small being, who attempts to reach out to everyone and no one at once. Then something shifts. Gently, he lifts her son, holding him up and looking at him from below. His face softens; the feeling far more tender replaces the emptiness she has grown used to. I-An looks at the child like family.
The sight, the utter wrongness of it, snaps something deep within the queen. A sharp ringing fills her ears as she surges forward, snatching the child away, her eyes blazing with a hatred she did not know she possessed.
The child is hers.
And he is the child’s uncle.
Merely the uncle.
Her body cannot withstand the strain. With the baby clutched to her chest, she collapses into darkness.
***
His body is stretched along one side, the torso slightly twisted. One arm is bent, the hand supporting the head, while the other rests loosely at his side. His legs extend with a gentle bend, softening the posture. Suspended somewhere between sleep and quiet contemplation, I-An seems to assert her presence even through closed eyes.
The queen looks behind her, yet walking away appears beneath her dignity, and the problem feels hers to resolve.
“Was it necessary to throw such a tantrum?” she asks, glancing at the wine bottles scattered beneath his bed.
He exhales sharply-a sound that might almost pass for laughter-though he does not grant her the courtesy of a glance.
I-An looks older, she thinks, far removed from the boy who once offered her nothing but warmth. She steps forward. Though only three years have passed since their schooling, it feels as though that time has been stripped away entirely. In her mind, he still points an arrow to her face.
“It was only a matter of time before talk of your marriage began,” she says, an unpleasant scratching rising in her chest. “You must comport yourself in accordance with your title and duty. Marriage is seldom a matter of affection.”
He does not respond immediately; the pause feels long and cruel. When he speaks, it is with a voice both distant and serene. “Is it your wish that I should wed?”
“Yes,” she replies, meeting his eyes without faltering.
He rises, the scarlet robe loose and open, contrasting with the black of the chamber walls. As he steps towards her, the sharp scent of wine reaches her, and she summons all her composure not to retreat. He stops a breath away, and a faint ringing fills her ears. He lifts her jade necklace (she does not remember when she put it on), and turns it toward himself; the motion tugs at her skin just enough to hurt. A faint, unkind smile touches his lips as he looks at her once more. Only then does she notice the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.
Despite his rough grip, the kiss he presses to her lips is gentle, brief. When he pulls away, she finds herself wishing, against reason, that it had lingered. But as he leans forward again, she masters her composure; she steps back at once. "I will act as if nothing has happened." She forces her shoulders to stiffen. For once, she does not look at him; if she does, she fears what she might do.
She turns her back to him.
“As you wish, Your Majesty.”
The sharp, violent crack of a wine bottle against the stone wall rings through the corridor.
Only within the solitude of her chambers does her composure fracture; Sliding down the door, her hands trembling as she touches her own mouth, she lets herself cry.
It is that very evening that a fire ignites in the castle.
***
Under the naked sun, her eyes gather all the green around them. He might have enjoyed watching her, but she narrows her eyes and speaks in trailing sentences that never quite amount to anything. “Look, why should we have lunch on the rooftop?” She also kicks her feet against the ground. “Have you not seen dramas?” She has seen too many of them. “Only losers chill here.” The silk napkin on his face covers the sun as much as it muffles sound. His attempts to take a nap never felt so silly. “I am having a horrible day as it is.” He doesn't need to see Yi-rang to picture her expression: the tilted corner of her lips and the round eyes surprised by the perceived horrendousness of the day.
A stray feather from under the old mattress lightly pricks his neck.
“No one likes us,” he says, prepared for another wave of protests. “Have you seen anyone eat comfortably around me?” she huffs. “Students get an hour for lunch; they should be allowed to swallow in peace, no?” He can feel her eyes on him.
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
“If they dislike you because you are a prince, why does no one like me?”
He tilts his head, and the napkin falls. There stands that small woman with brave eyes demanding he speak—the vulnerability she hides with every breath visible only at their edges.
“Because they associate us together,” he says, never quite able to hurt her.
Her shoulders relax and she shakes her head, muttering something about suffering for him.
He makes for a horrible royal, she tells him. Were it her, she would rule the school. He smiles, making space for her to sit next to him. As she settles, he takes her hand, the gesture coming easy to him. If it were her, he says, the whole school would be having lunch on the rooftop. That earns him a laugh.
“And anyway,” he asks, “why was your day so horrible?”
She tells him about the jade Silla necklace she had dropped down the school drain—the one that had been attached to her body the day she was born, the one she was so fond of. He nods, and in his mind, he draws that necklace in the smallest details. One day, he would have it recreated. He would give it to her in a beautiful green box; she would hug him, cry, and exclaim that he has remembered.
And when she puts it on,
When it rests against her skin,
He would know.