They say duty tastes like bitter tea—warm at first, then it burns all the way down.

I sat at the edge of the royal veranda, eyes trailing the hem of the distant mountains where Korea’s late-summer mists met the fading gold of the horizon. The court was quiet tonight, except for the rustle of silk robes and murmurs of advisors still clinging to the scent of politics like it was incense.

My fingers brushed the lacquered table, where a scroll lay untouched. The marriage contract. Sealed with the crests of two empires. My father’s imperial dragon beside the Japanese phoenix of Emperor Yoshitoki.

"Kaori Washuu," I murmured aloud, letting the name roll off my tongue for the hundredth time.

I’d only seen her once—formally, stiffly. A carefully orchestrated moment during her father’s visit to Gyeongbok Palace. She had bowed perfectly, as expected, but her gaze had flicked upward for the briefest moment. And in that sliver of rebellion, or curiosity, or both… I saw her. Not the princess. Not the pawn.

Her.

And now, they say she will be my wife.

It was not supposed to be me. I’m the youngest—too far from the throne, too often ignored in the council rooms, too interested in literature and astronomy instead of conquest and power. My eldest brother was the one groomed for this. But war dances in the air like smoke, and the empires cannot afford chaos. They say I am more… agreeable. More "pliable."

I call it obedience.

I am obedient.

Until I’m not.

I rose to my feet and looked toward the eastern pavilion where she would soon arrive—her procession already within the gates, I’d been told. How strange that my future walks toward me while I stand still. There is a gravity to this marriage that no royal decree can soften. Her life, carved by imperial hands, is being bound to mine—and she has no more say in it than I do.

But I wonder…

Will she speak her mind once the ceremonies end? Will she look me in the eyes when the crowns are gone and we are just Kaori and Taeha?

I have never wanted power. But I want something real. A name spoken without pretense. A touch without politics bleeding beneath the skin.

And if she is like I think she might be—sharp-eyed, steel-spined beneath her silks—then maybe, just maybe, we will not break under the weight of what our fathers have made us carry.

The guards call out the arrival.

She is here.

I adjust my collar. Not for the court.

For her.

Let the empire watch.

Let our fathers watch.

Kaori Washuu, come closer.

Let us decide, quietly and dangerously, what kind of marriage this will be.