If he had only been waiting for the Eternal Spring Flower with the most suitable protective star, he could simply have checked — so why had he not done so?

Hwi curled his fingertips inward, but naturally Yunseo's warmth was not felt. Only the sensation and afterimage of that moment returned faintly, squeezing his fingers with a tingling.

Because the meaning of "destined one" had changed.

Not an Eternal Spring Flower with the most suitable protective star — but that young man. Because he wanted Yun Yunseo himself, wholly and entirely.

"I am asking you now as a single person, not as the Son of Heaven."

Noble Consort Hyeon's lashes trembled as though fluttering. Unusually, she kept her silence for a long time. At the end of the long stillness, Noble Consort Hyeon answered quietly.

"If it is for someone you cherish… is it not love to open the road he wishes to walk?"

Then this is not love.

Hwi tilted his head to one side and let out a quiet laugh.

How truly fickle the human heart is. As a single person, he had wanted to let him go — and fearing the inevitable ruin and the influence it would bring, he had also believed, as the Son of Heaven, that letting him go was the right choice. But now as a single person he wanted to keep him by his side — and if he himself could endure everything through Yunseo's mere existence, then that would also be a benefit to this nation…

Is this my choice, or the Emperor's choice? Was it ever possible to separate the two in the first place?

If he were to bring Yunseo here, he would have to give him that nauseating hell, that palace full of people with honey on their lips and swords in their bellies, the endless mission and isolation.

If Yunseo's protective star turned out not to be suitable for him — he might walk the same path as the many predecessors who had gone astray when their feelings and protective stars were mismatched.

Would the purity Yunseo had never lost, even within a life knocked askew by him — would that light finally vanish?

That didn't matter.

He still wanted to keep Yunseo by his side.

If only he could hold in his hands the meaning of life. If only he could have you.

So how could he call this feeling love?

* * *

He had not been able to receive treatment for long before having to leave, so his body was in a terrible state. He chewed pills made from the Eternal Spring Flower and rode — then boarded a palanquin and smoked pipe after pipe of tobacco to kill the pain. At least in front of Yunseo, he wanted to appear whole.

When he received news that Yunseo was still staying in that village even though the promised time had passed — had he felt relieved?

This road now was a road to break Yunseo's will and hold him back. Even as he drew closer to Yunseo, the hallucination of his limbs burning blazed up gloriously, as though oil had been poured onto it.

At last he entered the village, and the moment he arrived at the place Yunseo was staying, Yunseo's figure came into view. Under a sky where the amber glow of afternoon quiet was spreading — Yunseo was there.

At last he could breathe, and the hallucination faded from memory.

Yunseo, who had been standing and hovering as though uncertain, turned — and his straight, upright back came into view. Hwi stood there and looked at his retreating figure.

At the very least, he could not give those shoulders wings — and the revulsion at his own powerlessness, which forced him instead to snap those ankles and bring him to his knees, was bone-deep.

"Yuna."

Yunseo.

He turned the name he had never once spoken aloud, his real name, over in his mouth. Even at the half-calling, Yunseo willingly stopped in his tracks.

With every step closer toward Yunseo — one step, and one more — the heat that blazed like hellfire surged up from the soles of his feet through the ground. He had walked this road and come at last to seize him.

For just a fleeting moment, Hwi desperately hoped that Yunseo's protective star would prove not even slightly suited to him. If that were so, it would prove the purity of this unjust heart.

But as long as he was a dragon-descendant and Yunseo was an Eternal Spring Flower — as long as Yunseo's life had already been bent out of shape by his failure to look away — the relationship between Yunseo and himself could only be impure and contrary to all that was right.

The moment Yunseo turned and drew Hwi into his embrace, something that even Hwi himself had not recognized as his true heart slipped out.

"Should we run away?"

Had he truly wanted to run? Together.

"Leave everything behind, forget it all… and go far away?"

Setting aside duty and obligation entirely. No matter what became of this country, of its countless people — with his back turned to it all.

But knowing to the bone that he could not — this was nothing more than pathetic whining, an impure instinct seeking to be pitied.

"Sir. Do you like me?"

"…"

"If you truly like me — I can wait. Without leaving… staying here… I'll wait until you've sorted things out."

At Yunseo's confession — that he would even defer the meaning and longing he had cherished and sought for so long — at that heart, the belief surged up that Yunseo might understand him, might in the end feel compassion for him, might be someone who would never lose his light no matter the moment.

Ah — I will live the rest of my life clinging to this belief, this tenderness, parasitic on you.

Hwi enclosed Yunseo's hand in his own. The small, warm fingertips, the breath so quietly swallowed, the delicate movements — crossing years, they came back and brought with them a fierce peace.

"…Sir. There is actually… something I need to tell you."

Yunseo's heart pounded fiercely. When he hesitated and faltered so nervously over something he wanted to say — there was only one thing it could be, and so Hwi assumed a calm expression — yet found himself seized by an unfamiliar dread.

He had only resolved to take Yunseo with him no matter what, and had never thought through how that would unfold. If here and now Yunseo revealed that he himself was an Eternal Spring Flower — would Hwi have to do the same?

He could not at all predict how Yunseo would react when told the truth. The moments when Yunseo had seemed transparent now clouded into something unknown. But the one constant premise attached to his resolve to take Yunseo with him had always been "by force."

He had deceived Yunseo. And Yunseo had spent well over a year yearning desperately for freedom. So it was natural that he would not accept it easily.

If after revealing the truth, Yunseo pleaded that he did not want to go?

He was afraid to trample that plea — and afraid, too, that he might be too weak to overcome that plea and would shamefully let go.

"There are things I still cannot tell you, sir. One thing I know for certain is that if you are with me… you may be placed in great difficulty."

The moment Yunseo concealed the most essential truth, a strange emotion rose violently, excessively, rough and brutal. Was the reason for ultimately hiding the truth that he did not trust, or that the feeling did not run deep enough? Either way, it had become certain that Yunseo would have to be taken away by force.

Yet when he saw the hair Yunseo had embroidered into a pouch stitch by stitch — an impure, covetous joy gradually seeped through him.

He wanted to have this time — their time — wholly and fully. He wanted to give Yunseo, even briefly, the ordinary life Yunseo desired in its completeness. Even if it would be shattered to pieces afterward. Even if they would roll together in the mud.

The eyes of Hwi, whose resolve had hardened, shone eerily in the moonlight.

"Yes."

Isn't having each other enough?

15. A Side Path

A sound of bustling presence drew closer from beyond the door. It was Yeondeok's footsteps. Unlike the palace servants who had been educated in the palace for so long, he carried noise with him wherever he went.

In the private residence, having lived only with Yunseo, there would have been no one to correct him — and the reason Court Lady Jo had not given him reminders was something he could easily understand. She would have wanted at least a little bustle around Yunseo.

The door opened and Yeondeok came in together with Huije. In Huije's hands was a snowman about the size of a ten-year-old child.

Yeondeok bowed to Hwi and then carefully asked.

"I wanted to show the snowman to the Empress, so I brought it. Would it be all right to leave it here?"

Yeondeok's cheeks were flushed red from having made the snowman with such effort. In this warm sleeping quarters with braziers placed here and there, the snowman would clearly not last even half a shichen before melting.

Hwi nodded and Huije set the snowman down in one place. It was placed exactly where Yunseo would see it the moment he opened his eyes.

"Does Yunseo like snow?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. Every winter he and I made snowmen together."

Court Lady Jo brought warm water and handed it to Yeondeok. While Yeondeok warmed his cold frozen hands, the royal physician came in carrying medicinal broth.

Hwi took the broth and skillfully fed it to Yunseo. Had he been awake, he would have emptied the bowl with his brow deeply furrowed and then immediately looked for sweets — but instead he swallowed the broth quietly.

"Doesn't it need decorating? Children make eyes out of pebbles."

"We did make eyes, a nose, and a mouth once — but when the eyes melted and dripped down, the young — the Empress became sad. Since then we don't decorate it."

"The Empress was kind even to snowmen."

The conversation between Yeondeok and Huije gently thawed the quiet and solemn atmosphere. Court Lady Jo smiled faintly, and even the corners of the physician's mouth softened.

As he fed Yunseo the broth step by step, the snowman had already melted and was leaving a puddle. Whether he felt sorry, Yeondeok let out a regretful sigh and pressed the snow back together with his palm.

"Bring some ice."

At Hwi's order, Court Lady Jo sent a palace servant. Putting ice against it would only delay the inevitable melting — but at times it was not so bad to do a meaningless thing.

The ice brought by the servant was piled up around the snowman. The medicine bowl showed its bottom, and Hwi set it down and wiped the corners of Yunseo's mouth with a damp cloth.

Yunseo's breath touched his thumb. He felt that warmth quietly, then withdrew his hand.

The physician came forward and took Yunseo's pulse. She examined him with care before stepping back.

"The Empress's energy has clearly improved. The ranju is also stable — but… I will do all I can for a full recovery within three months."

An ordinary infant completes ten months in the mother's body before emerging, but an egg comes out of the ranju earlier than that. However, laying the egg was also something that required Yunseo to be conscious. If the egg were to emerge while he was in a coma, it was self-evident that both would be in danger.