Gunpowder Magnolia

Please note that the chapter below is an early draft. Names and world-building details subject to change. Early chapters are available on my Patreon.

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The Kaisin Dynasty will end with Yelhwa. Whether she takes the rest of Yao and the Ten Kingdoms down with her will depend on how long she is allowed to pursue her wars and ambitions.

Pass whatever information you must to your superiors in Ro. Take whatever other steps you must against Yao. But understand that the greatest and most critical impact you will have on the era to come will be ending Yelhwa’s reign. Now. Before her plans move forward.

That was apparently what Inshu had written in his scroll to Tairo. The Yao general had whispered the contents to Lanthe when she had told him that she couldn’t read. Now Tairo’s eyes flicked over the crush of characters on the miniature scroll, and a crease formed between his perfect brows.

The princess walks unattended every morning through an interior corridor leading to the eastern wing. There are usually six guards in this hallway. I will see that two days from now, there are none.

Tairo looked up at Lanthe in silent alarm. There was no way for them to speak of the letter aloud. Even in code, it was too dangerous. Whether Yelhwa’s spies or Inshu’s were listening in, they risked making an enemy they couldn’t afford.

Lips pressed into a thin line, Tairo looked back at the letter, where Inshu went on with instructions on how to access the hallway unnoticed. Tairo had probably heard more of his father’s opinions on Inshu than Lanthe had; he knew that the tactician was duplicitous and dangerous. But that presented a harrowing question: was it more dangerous to do as he asked or to refuse him? Lanthe rubbed her shoulder where the man’s gnarled thumb had strained her stitches, feeling hideously as though his grip were still on her.

“You know…” Tairo began carefully. “I took about three days to compose those poems to Princess Yelhwa. My father says that sometimes it’s better to sleep on a thing before rushing into it. Yes?”

“Yes, my lord.”

With that, Tairo took Inshu’s scroll and put it into the lantern to burn. Lanthe was still watching the paper curl up in the flame when a footstep drew her attention to the door. Her ears were becoming more attuned to the light footsteps of the Yao courtiers.

Ingna was at the entrance to Tairo’s chambers, her cheeks pink as though she had hurried to get there.

“Captain Luyang!”

“Lady Ingna,” Lanthe greeted her with a bow. “Did the princess send you?”

“No, Captain.” The girl held a blunted spear out before her. “I found a polearm!”

“Pardon?”

“You said that if I found a polearm, you would show me how to use it.”

“Oh…”

“You did imply that, Captain,” Tairo said with a smile.

Lanthe turned a murderous expression on Tairo in lieu of telling him to “shut up” in front of the young lady.

“I’ll be in the study, then.” Tairo bowed to Lady Ingna, still smiling. “It sounds like you two have important work to do.”

Trying to teach Lady Ingna to use a spear was a truly torturous experience. Not because she was bad—which she was—but because Lanthe’s usual methods were off the table. You could punch a squishy noble’s son to get him to tighten his center. You could knock a merchant’s son to the ground until his stances improved. It wasn’t even appropriate for Lanthe to lay hands on Ingna at all. All Lanthe could do was demonstrate, then circle and try to explain what the girl was doing right and wrong.

At first, Lanthe hoped to demoralize the girl through criticism. “Toes pointed forward, My Lady. All of them. You’re not a duck.” “Back straight. You know what straight means, don’t you?” But Ingna was surprisingly eager, despite the sweat marring her makeup and her every muscle shaking with strain. Finally, Lanthe gave up on discouraging the young lady and changed tack.

“Surely you have other duties you need to tend to?”

“Outside of my duties to the princess and my studies, my time is my own,” Ingna said, “and Her Excellency has given me permission to visit you.”

“Has she?” In that case, Lanthe was glad she had been careful what she said in Ingna’s presence. If Yelhwa hoped to learn anything new from the girl, she would be disappointed—unless she liked boring spear drills. “Thrust at chest level, now. Chest level.” Lanthe took the point of the spear and put it to her chest. “Strong extended leg. Push me back.”

Ingna pushed with her shaky, mushy little arms to no effect. Lanthe took a decisive step forward, and Ingna stumbled back out of her unstable stance.

“You’ve never even held a spear before today, have you?”

“No, sir. I mean, my brother let me hold his practice sword a few times when we were children. But my parents didn’t like it.”

“And what do your parents think of your consorting with Ro?” Lanthe asked.

Ingna was young enough that it seemed reasonable to assume that both her parents were still alive.

“My mother doesn’t really know what I do with my day, only that I’m busy serving the princess.”

“And your father?”

Something in Ingna’s face changed; some of the light left her eyes. “I don’t know… I mean…” She lowered her voice. “My father didn’t approve of my serving the princess at all.”

“Didn’t?” Past tense?

“Well, he and my brother were deployed. Her Excellency didn’t tell me where… but they haven’t come back.”

And Lanthe abruptly remembered where she had heard the name Ingna before. “I don’t think you’ve told me your surname, my lady.”

“It’s Hyonang, sir.”

Of course. That was why Lanthe hadn’t recalled a Lady Ingna from her memorization sessions back at Yansey. It wasn’t a name she had ever reviewed. Instead, it had come in an urgent whisper. At their last meeting, as the guards came to take him away, Hyonang Yinzo had caught Lanthe’s arm.

“Captain, please,” he had breathed with his eyes full of pain. “Yelhwa will have a girl serving somewhere in her court. I beg you, no matter what happens in Yao, you must make sure no harm comes to her.”

Lanthe had only really caught the “na” part of the name as General Chang’s guards impatiently ushered Hyonang back to his cell. Ingna was Lord Hyonang Yinzo’s youngest daughter. Lanthe could see it in the girl’s face now. She had the same delicate cheekbones and long red godmarks as her father and brother. She and her brother shared a slightly pointed nose they must have inherited from their mother. Most strikingly, she had Lord Hyonang’s earnest eyes. And here she was in the palace, giddily serving the princess her father hated so much. Poor Lord Hyonang. It seemed that he had lost more than one child to Yelhwa’s spell.

“Is something wrong, Captain?” Lady Ingna asked. “You look upset.”

“It’s nothing,” Lanthe said. “We should end this practice before your hands blister.” Though, judging from the angry pink peeking from between the girl’s fingers, it was too late.

As Ingna gingerly gathered her spear and departed, Lanthe was glad that she hadn’t gotten around to promising Hyonang Yinzo she would keep his daughter safe. In this court of liars, she would have no idea where to start.

Yelhwa’s dress was green the following morning, matching the subtle shade of the surrounding vegetation and jade sculptures beneath a flow of cloud-white shawls. Jade and ivory ornamentation dripped from her hair, clicking with soft danger when she moved, like the plink of rain on a gun barrel. Most notably, she wore no makeup. Not a dab of paint to accentuate her eyes or enhance her godmarks. Lanthe didn’t think it was common for a female courtier to go in public without makeup, but it seemed unnervingly suitable here.

The greatest barbarian of legend, Answe the Unassailable, had gone into every duel with no weapons, no armor, and no shirt. The bareness should have made him appear vulnerable. But upon seeing his physique rippling in the sun, all the champions of the Ten Kingdoms had lost their nerve. There was something of Answe in Yelhwa’s naked face. Unassailable.

Tairo’s features were not enhanced with paint. Neither were Yelhwa’s. They met each other here on even footing. And Tairo, impossibly, came up wanting. After all, Lanthe had been able to shake from her stupor and wrestle Tairo to the ground moments after meeting him all those years ago. The moment she had seen Yelhwa’s face, she had been helpless.

Yelhwa’s ladies in waiting rose like a cluster of flowers around her, uncurling toward the sun. All had seemingly dressed to complement Yelhwa’s pale green and gold ensemble. For all their bright silks and the paint to make their lips glow the same color as their godmarks, not one outshone her.

“Princess Yelhwa,” Tairo bowed, Lanthe shadowing the movement at his side. “You’re looking radiant today.”

“I always do,” Yelhwa said, and Lanthe felt the words unbalance Tairo beside her. Usually, a woman—well-bred or not—would shyly try to deflect such a compliment. Yelhwa absorbed it, throwing Tairo out of step. Not ten words into the day and already, she had the stronger footing.

“Of course,” he said.

“Shall we walk, my lord?” Yelhwa smiled.

Lady Suzu and Lady Mina walked directly behind the pair, with the rest trailing behind. Lanthe fell into a second row beside Ingna, who had her hands noticeably covered in her long silk sleeves.

Tairo and Yelhwa spoke loud enough for Lanthe to hear several paces back, but their use of Yao was so poetic as to be unintelligible. Lanthe had always known that Tairo’s command of high dialects was immaculate. Still, she hadn’t imagined how fluently he would slide into the melodious, metaphorical half-poetry that Yelhwa and her ladies spoke with each other.

When the path brought them alongside a glimmering springfed stream that drowned out the nobles’ conversation, Lanthe was almost relieved. She got to stop straining to understand and feeling hopelessly provincial.

“It’s amazing the way they talk, isn’t it?” Ingna whispered, dewy-eyed. “Like the scholar gods themselves?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t understand a word of it,” Lanthe confessed, but that didn’t mean she had stopped watching the pair, trying to read what she could in their body language.

Yelhwa seemed to be enjoying herself, but whoever knew what Yelhwa was really thinking. Tairo, oddly, seemed to be genuinely engaged. His shoulders were relaxed.

Beyond the stream, Yelhwa and Tairo sat at a table. A pair of servants set out the most intricate tiles Lanthe had ever seen. There were over a hundred tiny polished tiles, each painted with a Yao character or pictograph. It was a poetry game, utterly incomprehensible to Lanthe. She didn’t follow anything as the tiles began flipping and shifting, but she had never seen Tairo so engrossed. His eyes were totally focused.

Apparently, Tairo and Yelhwa had made a bet on the game. If Tairo won, Yelhwa would entertain a serious conversation about marriage. If she won… Lanthe wasn’t sure. But at this moment, in the thick of the game, it seemed that they were both playing for the joy of it. Two impossibly beautiful pairs of eyes focused on the board, alight with impossibly sharp concentration. Every so often, the princess would let out a light chuckle or an appreciative, “Oh,” but that was the only sound outside the click of tiles.

I don’t dispose of people who oppose me, Yelhwa had told Lanthe. I dispose of people who bore me.

At the very least, Tairo didn’t seem to be boring her.

The game ended before midday without really ending. Lady Mina noted the positions of each tile so the table could be reset the next day.

“Who won?” Lanthe asked as she and Tairo followed Lady Suzu through the winding gardens back to their chambers.

“Tali-tali isn’t about winning, Lanthe. It’s about… creating something beautiful.”

“So, it’s a showing off game?” Lanthe said.

“It’s a little more nuanced than—”

“So, who showed off better?”

Tairo, who was usually quick to flaunt his prowess with words, didn’t respond. And that was response enough.

Lanthe waited until they had reached the illusory privacy of their chambers before asking her next question. “Did you learn anything more about your prospective bride? Anything to make you reconsider the… other proposal you received?” Her eyes flicked to the lantern where Tairo had burned Inshu’s message.

“No,” Tairo said simply, then seemed to realize that he should probably cover Lanthe’s true meaning a little better than that. “Any marriage proposals I may have received in Ro—even those that my father may have made for me—are irrelevant now that I’ve given my word to Princess Yelhwa. If you want to entertain other options for yourself… that’s your decision.”

Tairo was handing responsibility to Lanthe. She had been expecting this. It was the only reason she didn’t get angry. This was Yansey again. Tairo wasn’t trying to be a coward; he was doing what he thought was right for his country. So, she swallowed the reflexive swell of distress and nodded. This was why she was here. To take whatever parts of the mission Tairo couldn’t and handle them.

“You’ll be wiser than I am,” Tairo said with a trusting smile. “You always were a better judge of character… but I intend to continue courting the princess as I planned. I’m sorry.”

To the outside listener, it hopefully sounded like Tairo was sorry for disregarding Lanthe’s disapproval. He was really apologizing for saddling her with the burden of decision. To accept Inshu’s invitation to assassinate the princess or let it pass.

The next day, Yelhwa wore a sunset purple dress that matched the azaleas and dripping wisteria along the garden path. Pink and white accents picked up the water lotuses in the ponds, and her shawl was trimmed with chrysanthemum gold. The effect was that Lanthe couldn’t look at any flower in the garden without her eye being inexorably drawn back to Yelhwa.

After a turn around the garden, the two played Tali-tali for another hour, then sat back from the table. Lanthe had to infer the outcome through body language. Tairo had lost.

“I’ve never lost a game of Tali-tali in my life,” he said, stricken.

“I believe you,” Yelhwa smiled. “You are excellent.” Her speech had shifted from the high poetic language of courtship to the plain variety of Yao that Lanthe could understand. “So, Chang Tairo, let’s discuss your proposal.”

“I didn’t win,” Tairo said in confusion.

“I didn’t say you had to win to make your case. I said you had to impress me, and you have, in this arena. So…” She delicately gathered her tiles into a stack. “Why should I marry you?”

“I…just…”

Yelhwa’s posture had changed along with her dialect, hardening. She looked across the table at Tairo like a heron eyeing fish through water, and Lanthe was suddenly gripped with the terrible fear that Tairo couldn’t handle this direct, plain-spoken Yelhwa. Abstracted through poetry, perhaps, she wasn’t so intimidating to him. But in direct conversation, he seemed to lose all command of his words.

“I was just thinking… that… you’re rather old to be unmarried.”

Lanthe’s eyes went wide, and it took a measure of control not to kick Tairo’s chair out from under him. And judging by the looks on some of Yelhwa’s ladies, Lanthe wasn’t the only one very close to violence. Lanthe had never once seen Tairo fail to charm a woman. Now, when kingdoms hung in the balance, all his charisma seemed to have fled him.

“Am I?” Yelhwa looked amused. “Goodness, no man’s ever brought that to my attention before. Thank you, Tairo of Ro, for pointing out how old I am. Here I was wondering how you were still unwed with those cheekbones.”

“I didn’t—I-I just meant that for a princess with no brothers—”

“How old are you, Chang Tairo?” she asked before he could finish the thought.

“I’m twenty-five, Your Excellency.”

“Well, I’m twenty-one this spring, so I’ll call you Grandpa Chang, then, shall I?”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Is he always this quick on the uptake?” Yelhwa said with a look at Lanthe.

“It’s different for women,” Tairo protested before Lanthe could respond.

“Is it?”

“Of course, it is. You have your child-bearing years to think about. Don’t you want children?”

“Why would I want children?”

Tairo faltered, and Lanthe didn’t blame him. She had never heard a woman ask that—and so bluntly. As if it were not a strange thing to ask.

“Are… are… you joking?” Tairo said in honest confusion.

Yelhwa held his gaze in what looked for all the world like total sincerity. “I am not.”

“But—you have a duty,” Tairo protested. “Especially since your father has no male heir. Don’t you feel your responsibility to continue the Kaisin line?”

“Depending on how our current war unfolds, there won’t be a Kaisin line to continue. There may not be a Yao. As my father’s heir, my duty is to all of Yao, not just my own bloodline—theoretical or otherwise. And besides, if I were to have children now, without being sure I was giving them a livable kingdom… wouldn’t that make me truly cold-hearted?”

Lanthe had never seen a woman—or anyone, for that matter—take it for granted that they could shape the world that way. The arrogance. The honesty. There was a power about it that held her transfixed.

“My children, if I ever have them, will inherit a strong and flourishing Yao. I will not have otherwise. Now, if you are willing and able to create that Yao with me, I would be happy to have children with you.”

“You’re—really?” Tairo said. “You mean that?”

“I’m getting the feeling,” Yelhwa said, “that you don’t usually have this much trouble talking to women.” She glanced at Lanthe with a winking expression, as if they were sharing a joke. It made some foreign and very stupid thing in Lanthe’s chest flutter. “He doesn’t, does he?”

“You’re throwing him off, Princess,” she said. “Usually, the women aren’t prettier than he is.”

Yelhwa chuckled as Ingna and two other ladies smothered laughter in their long sleeves. But Tairo stayed on target.

“What can I do, then, Your Excellency?” he asked. “How can I show you my commitment to your vision? Your Yao?”

“It isn’t your commitment that concerns me,” Yelhwa said with confidence that irritated and intimidated Lanthe in equal measure. “If slavish devotion was what I wanted from a man, I’d have my pick of thousands. You already bring more to the table than most of them. But the next king of Yao will not face a smooth road or an easy reign. The way ahead is bloody.”

“I can fight, Your Excellency,” Tairo said.

“I don’t doubt it,” Yelhwa said, “but a king must do far more than fight in wartime. Mina, fetch my Sen set.”

“Sen?” Tairo said in surprise.

“No, you’re right,” Yelhwa said with a smile. “Standard Sen would probably bore a military man like yourself. I apologize. Mina, fetch my Triple Sen board.”

Triple Sen? Lanthe hadn’t even known that game was played in Yao; it seemed like such a profoundly Ro game.

“You don’t have a third player, Your Excellency,” Mina said.

“Sure, we do. Luyang, sit down.”

Lanthe started. “Your Excellency?”

“No excuses, Captain,” Yelhwa smiled. “You don’t need to read to play this one, and I know all Ro soldiers enjoy the occasional game of Sen.”

Occasional was an understatement. Sen sets were a staple of any military camp, with all soldiers playing in their down time. Most men played the standard one-on-one Sen, which exercised the mind while wrapping up within a manageable time. For high-ranked, well-bred, or just plain precocious, there was Triple Sen. Lanthe had only played so much of the more complex variant because she had spent so much of her career with the Chang twins, who were so good at standard Sen that they always wanted a third player.

Tenro usually won those games, but Tenro wasn’t here. Instead, here was Yelhwa, who surely couldn’t hope to outplay one Ro—let alone two—at this quintessentially Ro, quintessentially masculine game. She might as well have challenged Tairo and Lanthe to a two-on-one arm-wrestling match.

“Are you sure about this, Princess?” Tairo asked.

“Oh, yes.” Yelhwa grinned. “I don’t want it to be over too quickly.”

Lady Mina returned with a long lacquered chest in her arms and two male guards trailing behind her. Lanthe couldn’t imagine what the men were for until she saw what they were carrying between them. The hexagonal Sen board was so wide that it nearly covered the entire stone table when the guards set it before the three players. Much like the map in the Kaisia war room, the board was lovingly detailed with trees and mountains carved from precious stones. The entire piece had to weigh as much as a grown man. And here Lanthe had thought the whole point of Sen was that it could be played on lines scratched in the dirt.

As the male guards withdrew, Mina and Suzu floated around the table, setting the board with the hundred and twenty pieces from the chest. Many of Lanthe’s games had been played with different colored stones marked with ink. Even General Chang’s proper set had simple pieces, carved just enough to indicate their type. Here, each game piece was carved in minute detail. Archers, pikemen, and officers were all carved into dynamic human forms. God in Heaven, they even had little faces! Lanthe had barely stopped herself from picking up one of the cavalry pieces just to marvel at the little horse and rider.

The ladies set Yelhwa’s side of the board with green jade pieces, which matched her jewelry. Tairo had white jade. Lanthe had black.

“Are we both playing against you or all three against each other?” Tairo asked. Sen could be played two-on-one or each player for themselves. Two-on-one games were nearly farcical. The lone player never won. Well, unless it was General Chang, but that was General Chang.

“That’s up to you, Lord Tairo. You two could confer with each other… or one of you could confer with me.” She cast a sweet smile across the table.

Tairo looked to Lanthe, but she was as frozen as he was. She had no idea what to do.

“Ah, I suppose I’m being unkind,” Yelhwa said. “I shouldn’t ask you to choose between betraying your friendship and being discourteous to a lady. We’ll all play against each other.”

Tairo and Lanthe nodded their agreement.

“Are we attaching a wager to this one, Your Excellency?”

“Why not?” Yelhwa said. “Let’s say that if you win… I’ll marry you.”

What?

Tairo laughed.

“It wasn’t a joke,” Yelhwa said calmly. “If you win, as witnessed by my ladies, I’ll marry you tomorrow. Before I leave for the front.”

Tairo looked at Lanthe, transparently lost. Lanthe had nothing for him. She was woefully unaware of what it meant for a lord’s heir to marry the princess of a rival nation. In theory, it would give Tairo control of Yao. Lanthe doubted Yelhwa was actually planning to hand that power over to any man, let alone a Ro one. But she might hand over enough information to help Ro in the coming conflict. And she would inevitably have to give Tairo enough access to kill her.

“But… why?” Tairo asked.

Yelhwa smiled in amusement. “Well, as you said, I’m getting old. My womb could shrivel up any day now.”

“Why on a game of Sen?” Tairo clarified.

“You’re not the first great poet to court me,” Yelhwa said, more serious, “but you are the first Ro military man to court me. So…” she swept a hand before her to indicate the board of three armies arrayed for war. “Prove yourself distinct from the other poets. Prove yourself uniquely suited to the new age of the Ten Kingdoms.”

“And if I can’t?” Tairo asked. “If you win?”

“If I win.” Yelhwa shrugged. “You’ll have to find some other way to convince me that you know what you’re doing.”

Lanthe frowned, not liking the way Yelhwa was testing Tairo, the qualities she seemed to be looking for—the skills of a poet and the mind of a general. She seemed to be looking for a partner in a war. A war that potentially didn’t just include the conflict between Ro and Yao. And how could Tairo possibly “know what he was doing” in that context? He and Lanthe still had no notion of what was happening at the Yao-Medyan border.

“Do we have a deal?” Yelhwa asked Tairo.

“I—”

“Wait,” Lanthe cut in. “What if I win?”

It was out of line. A few of Yelhwa’s ladies gave her disapproving glares.

“How dare you!” Suzu started, but Yelhwa held up a hand.

“It’s alright,” she said. “I always like to make a game more interesting. What do you want if you win, Luyang?”

“We go to the front with you,” Lanthe said, even as Tairo looked to her in surprise. “You say you’re under attack from the west. I’ll believe it when I see it, and if Lord Tairo intends to marry you, he should know what your kingdom is facing.”

“Agreed.”

Agreed? That easily? Did Yelhwa not understand what game she was playing? Lanthe could win this one. Tairo could win.

“My Lord.” Yelhwa nodded to Tairo. “White moves first.”

Before making his opening move, Tairo gave Lanthe a last uncertain look.

So, how easy do we go? he seemed to be asking.

Even if she had been able to answer, Lanthe didn’t know. Part of her was curious to see if Princess Yelhwa was as good at the game as she seemed to think she was. How long would she last with Tairo and Lanthe playing to win?

Lanthe moved next. She opened aggressively, as she always did against a new opponent, wanting to see the reaction. If the princess caved to the assault—like most inexperienced players—Lanthe would ease off. If she didn’t, Lanthe would keep pressing forward, sacrificing her own pieces, to give Tairo the chance to see Yelhwa’s strategy. From there, he could decide if he wanted to play the princess in earnest or go easy on her.

To Lanthe’s surprise, Yelhwa handily took out the pike pieces Lanthe advanced. Granted, Lanthe had been playing more aggressively than strategically. But she hadn’t expected Yelhwa to pick out a hole like that. Like Tenro might.

“Is this what you do on the battlefield, Captain Luyang?” Yelhwa twirled one of Lanthe’s pike pieces tauntingly across slender fingers. “Fling soldiers out in the open without the proper defenses? No thought to their safety?”

The barb was brutally intentional, and it hit its mark. Dalin rushed to fill Lanthe’s mind. Pale with blood loss, lips parted slightly in death. Lanthe dug a thumb into a bruise on her thigh rather than let the pain show on her face.

Breathing deeply, she slowed down and considered her moves more carefully through the next several turns. On the tenth turn, she left another opening in her defenses. None of the four obvious ones. One Yelhwa would only find if she considered the board very—

Yelhwa took the opening within seconds of Lanthe’s turn.

Beside her, Lanthe felt Tairo start in shock. It was Yansey’s wall blowing open again, down to the same ringing in Lanthe’s ears. No one—not even General Chang—should have found that opening so quickly. Lanthe blinked up at the princess, unable to hide her shock.

“Perhaps it was unkind of me not to mention this,” Yelhwa smiled at the stunned expressions opposite her. “I’ve been an avid player of war games since I was a child. I learned this one playing against High General Inshu.”

That was when Lanthe realized that she and Tairo could not afford to play any more games with Yelhwa. Ro could not afford to play any more games with her. If Inshu had trained the princess in war games, he was likely the only one with a hope of outplaying her, and he had freely handed Lanthe the opportunity to kill Yelhwa. If the princess was the superior tactician not just at Yao games but at Ro ones too, Lanthe couldn’t count on making her own openings. Tairo couldn’t count on making his own openings. They had to take the one Inshu had given them.

Lanthe placed her own terms on the game then. If she could beat both Yelhwa and Tairo, there was a hope that she could outmaneuver Yelhwa in the long term; she would not go through with the assassination. If Yelhwa or Tairo won the game, Lanthe would kill the princess in the morning.

She was not letting this creature marry Tairo.

“I’m disappointed,” Yelhwa said into the tense silence. “I thought that a pair of high-ranking Ro would be better at this game.”

Lanthe met Yelhwa’s obsidian eyes. 

“Princess, the game has just started.”

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