Seonghwa looks at the bruises on his legs, his face expressionless as the palace doctor tends to them, giving him the proper medication after assessing how badly he's hurt. He only sustained minor injuries, most of them bruises from using his body as a shield most of the time, while his fingers were injured as he used his bow as a weapon. It was his first time using the bow Hongjoong had made specially for him in a fight, and he's liking how the weapon is perfect for him, as he knows the blacksmith must have put everything in consideration when making it.

What he wishes is that there won't come another time where he has to use it in a fight.

"Luckily, you sustained minor injuries, and your vital organs are fine," the doctor, Dr. Kee announces. "You had no open wounds except for your cut lip. Still, you should have let me attend to you faster. It's my duty as the doctor, Your Majesty."

Seonghwa looks out the window as the doctor patches him up as he sighs. "I wasn't a patient as urgent as my wife. I could've treated them myself."

The doctor rolls away his chair, standing up as he stores away all his equipment and medication. "Your Majesty, you're a patient too."

Seonghwa releases a heavy breath, checking out the bandages he has around his body. "I've always been too late to stop her from getting hurt. How much more does she need to go through?" He stands up, "Thank you for checking up on me, and you may retire for the day. Thank you, you've worked nonstop when attending to my wife. You may also take a few days off, I've noticed that you didn't sleep a wink." He smiles, "I'm sure you need all the rest you can get too." He bows. "Thank you again."

"I'm sorry it wasn't enough," Dr. Kee says, his eyes under his glasses trained on the floor. "I feel like I'm not a competent doctor because I wasn't able to treat her that well and only watch as time goes by."

Seonghwa smiles again, but his eyes turn blue as he shakes his head. "Please don't blame yourself, I assure you that you've done the best that you can." He bows again before the doctor does the same, and he leaves the room.

As he's about to walk away from the sick bay, he runs into Jongho who has piles of documents under his arms. He doesn't feel the energy to ask what he's bringing, so he merely nods before passing by him. However, Jongho stops him in his tracks as soon as his back is towards him.

"Are you alright?" Jongho asks softly, turning around.

With his back towards Jongho, he grits his teeth before trying to stop himself from releasing the dam of tears he has been holding back. He turns around, smiles before saying, "Of course I am. I only sustained minor injuries."

Jongho stares at his eyes deeply, before switching the piles of documents from his left to his right arm. "I've known you for years and you can't lie." The left corner of his lips lift up. "Your eyes are betraying your words too. Also... I'm not asking whether you're fine physically. I'm asking if you are alright."

"No," he answers. "This just feels like a cruel recount of that day when she was stabbed during the event we had to unveil the Shadow King."

Jongho keeps quiet; he wasn't there when it all went down, so he didn't witness how heartbroken - according to the others - Seonghwa was when Akira was injured and couldn't wake up for a few days.

"I've failed again and again," he utters. "I can't even protect her."

"She chose to fight on her own," Yunho comes into the picture, bringing in the same amount of files like Jongho. Unlike Jongho who's holding them with one hand, Yunho has his in front of him, both hands holding them in place. "Because she has always been that kind of person. When things were looking dangerous and undesirable for our army, she'd ask us to save ourselves, but she stayed back to fight instead. She has no fear, that girl. I can never be a leader like her."

Seonghwa releases a heavy breath. "Fearless, huh? Thinking that no one cares for her whether she lives or not."

"Hmm," Yunho hums. "That's why I'm grateful for you; at least that idiot opened her eyes and realized that she does have people care for her."

Seonghwa nods before gesturing to the direction of his bedroom. "I need to-"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Yunho promptly replies, lifting up the files. "And no worries, just focus on what you have to do. We'll deal with this."

Seonghwa eyes the files. "Digging up past relations?"

Jongho nods. "We're trying to map out and unearth everyone involved in that pact. We're suspecting that those involved in the attack yesterday aren't just them. So since some of them are not talking," he shakes the files in his hand, "we're going through the tough way in detailing their connections."

"Scaring them works too," Yunho winks. "Some of them might pee in their pants and start blurting out names if we just scare them a little."

Seonghwa nods. "I'll join you soon enough."

Jongho puts a hand on Seonghwa's shoulder as the former shakes his head. "Take your time, we can handle this on our own. I haven't read anything in a long time and I feel like we'll spend all night tracing these profiles. Don't force yourself."

Yunho and Jongho bid goodbye to the king, holding the thick files before stepping into one of the empty meeting rooms, probably looking to spend all the time they have scouring through the details.

Seonghwa smiles weakly, his destination next his and Akira's bedroom. As he opens the door, he frowns when he sees someone on the bedside before his mouth twists in mild anger and weak red decorates his irises. He sees Jihyun sitting next to the bed, in her hand a syringe with clear fluid. Without even thinking, he snatches the advisor's hand behind, startling her as she drops the syringe to the ground. Thankfully, it seems that she still hasn't had the chance to do the deed.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Seonghwa shouts, gripping Jihyun's hand with a force to make sure her hand is not moving. His eyes travel to the small bottle on the bedside table which holds clear liquid. His heart tightens when he sees that it's a fluid that could cause heart attacks when injected at a certain dose. "Seo Jihyun. Explain. Now."

"Your- Your Majesty," Jihyun breathes, her hand held back by him shaking. "I was- I was only doing what I was told to!"

"Who?" he asks, the red in his eyes intensifying. "What do you think you're doing to my wife?!"

"Someone asked- me- to-" Jihyun sobs. "It wasn't me, I swear. I was only doing what I was told to."

Seonghwa's eyes fill with tears as he says through gritted teeth. "Are you trying to kill my wife while she's unconscious? To make it look like an accident?" He releases the grip on her wrist but kicks the syringe under the bed, so she won't be able to retrieve it. "Do you hate her that much? What did my wife ever do to all of you?!" he shouts as Jihyun flinches.

Jihyun immediately kneels in front of the king, rubbing her hands together as she pleads for her life to be spared. "Your Majesty-"

"You don't have the rights to call me that," he says in a dark tone. "Are you even human?"

"I was threatened that I would get killed if I didn't carry out the orders," she sobs harder, rubbing her palms together furiously. "I was only worried for my life."

"So in exchange for your life, you'd put out my wife's life instead," he says weakly, heart burdened by too much happening in a short amount of time.

"Your Majesty, is everything all right?" Yunho bursts into the room, as he looks like he's ready to fight. "Some of the maids said they heard you shouting and informed me."

He doesn't answer first as he walks to the bedside table, picks the bottle up before walking back to Jihyun who's kneeling on the floor. He drops the bottle on Jihyun's lap. "Akira's advisor tried to kill her with this."

Yunho's eyes go wide at the sight of poison. "Seo Jihyun," he says in disbelief. "The queen treated you kindly yet this is how you repay her."

Jihyun is unable to reply as she sobs harder.

Seonghwa looks at the advisor before uttering, "Lock her up." He refuses to look at her anymore. "I don't want anyone like her near Akira."

"Understood, Your Majesty," Yunho immediately says as he walks over to Jihyun, grabbing her arm to ask her to stand up. "Follow me, and you'll have your rights to defend yourself when we get through it. But for now," he pauses, "you'll get locked up."

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty! Please forgive me, it wasn't-"

"So you do admit that you tried to kill Her Majesty while she's unconscious," Seonghwa replies as he shoves his hands in his pockets, the red in his eyes still apparent. "I stand by that and I don't want to hear anything else from you. When you tried to kill my wife, no matter your position, I've heard and seen enough. Take her away," he instructs Yunho.

Yunho nods before helping a hysterical Jihyun up, but Seonghwa is already deaf to her cries. The general brings her away, and despite her begging for mercy, she barely resists from being taken away. He brings her out of the bedroom, closing the door carefully as Seonghwa is left in the unsettling quiet of the area.

Seonghwa walks over to the bed, collapses onto the chair beside the bed as he places his elbows just beside Akira's unconscious body. He bites his lip real hard until it bleeds, his heart hurting as he sees her condition; bandaged, bruised and unresponsive.

After she fell into a deep slumber trying to fight the pain, she hasn't woken up since then. He's only left to feel relieved when the doctor said that the attack didn't manage to hit any of her vital organs, even though she did lose quite a lot of blood. They managed to patch her up and close her wounds before she lost more that could be life threatening, but he still hasn't seen her eyelids flutter ever since yesterday. She slept until now, and while worried, he keeps checking to see whether her chest is still rising up and down to signify that she's still breathing.

When Yunho and his army chased after the remaining attackers, they barely put up a fight and Yunho's army won easily. As a result, the person who was badly hurt from the overall ambush turned out to be Akira. They had dragged the culprits to prison, the sin of planning an attack towards the king and queen too big to even be forgiven. Some of them did open their mouths to save themselves from getting the worst kind of punishment, while some refused to.

Whatever it is, Seonghwa knows that he doesn't want to see them again; he doesn't know what he'll do to them- maybe his red eyes would be the last thing they'd see.

He turns to the bedside table, pulling the basin full of water to him. Suspicious since Jihyun had broken into their room, he decides to change the water inside the basin before using a clean towel, soaking it into the water. He wrings the towel and brings it to her arms, slowly wiping them while patting it slowly over her bruises and avoiding the bandages. He repeats it a few times, changing the towel when he's wiping her face.

"You can call me clingy," he utters to an unresponsive Akira, "but it feels weird not hearing your voice overnight."

The clock ticks a second.

"But I wish that you get the rest you deserve because you've worked so hard."

The second hand of the clock moves.

"I love you."

He sighs as he finishes wiping her face, before he grabs her hand, holding it before he leans forward, resting his head on the bed. Now that it's only him and silence because his wife could not speak, he can hear the clock ticking, as if it's right beside his ear. He rubs his thumb on the back of her palm, humming a song that his mom used to sing to him whenever he cries to calm him down.

It must have been stuck in his memory because it's been repeated a lot of times; he has been a huge crybaby ever since he was small. He remembers his mother saying that most of his pictures are pictures of him crying; it seems that most of the time they had the opportunity to capture him he was busy bawling his eyes out.

He chuckles to himself; maybe despite thinking that his bad memory of losing his parents had changed him into a different person, he never really did. He's still the same crybaby yet now he has found a person he'd always drop his tears for. He straightens his body but he doesn't let go of her hand, before he looks at her face, as if prompting her to open her eyes.

But of course, her eyelids remain shut and even though he expected it, he still feels slightly disappointed.

With his free hand he rests his chin on top of his palm as he utters, "You do know that you're the first person I've ever fallen in love real hard with, don't you?" He pretends to look bashful, "I can't believe you managed to steal the heart of this eligible bachelor who's desired all over Nyla." He balls his fist before he puts it against his mouth. "You got lucky." He closes his eyes before opening one, peeking at her, before his shoulders sag. "I really thought that you'd wake up and punch me after hearing those cringy words. You're always so quick to react."

When Akira doesn't reply or show any reaction, he sighs again.

"I've always thought I'm some kind of independent person," he chuckles painfully, "but I didn't realize how much I needed someone else just to get me through. I feel like..." he trails off. He clamps his lips shut as he looks down. "Right, this is stupid. You can't hear me, or give any reaction so what's the point of me talking like a madman?" He rubs the back of her palm one last time before standing up, fixing the blanket so that it covers her body properly since it's getting colder nowadays.

He looks out the window and wonders when the first snow will fall. Then he looks at Akira, hoping that they'll be able to experience this year's first snow together. He bends down, plants a kiss on her forehead, immediately greeted by the guards stationed in front of their bedroom right after the fiasco with Jihyun happened. They spring into salute as soon as Seonghwa steps out, and he nods with a weak smile before making his way to the meeting room.

Looks like they cannot feel safe even in the palace.

When he does open the door, Yunho and Jongho look fairly surprised that he's quick to join them, when they thought he'd want more time with Akira. The two look at each other as Seonghwa wordlessly takes a place among the stacks of files, randomly taking one before opening it.

"Status?" he asks simply.

"Negative," Jongho replies. "We still haven't managed to trace their connections."

"What about Jihyun? Did she open her mouth to say anything useful?"

Yunho shakes his head. "She was hysterical, but even through that she said she didn't know who was threatening her to carry it out. She said it was only an anonymous letter threatening her life unless she'd make it look like the queen died of a heart attack after the ambush. That was as far as she knew, if we take her word."

"Is this an organization..." The king mulls, spinning the pen around his fingers. "A pact... A rebellion against the rulers?" He's reminded of something before he looks at Yunho. "The past king and queen were killed in an act of revenge, weren't they?" When Yunho nods, he continues, "Any details from that?"

"Ah," Yunho utters as he pulls one particular file out of the stack, tapping his finger on the cover. "This file contained all of the information of those involved with the attack several years ago. But," he shakes his head, "from what we know, Emira had them all punished. With their lives. So none of them are alive anymore."

"So it couldn't be them," Seonghwa decides.

"Unless they pass on this hatred to their... group?" Jongho offers.

"There's a possibility." He asks the general again, "What was the cause of the revenge attack? Any particular trigger?"

"Hard to say," Yunho utters as he cringes. "I would say that the past king and queen weren't really that favoured either. There could be a lot of causes, not just one particular event."

Seonghwa takes a moment to think. Is this attack because of them or is it because of their position as rulers of Lucida? But the culprits did spit out about how they hated to see non white-blooded people to be taking the throne... so the events might be unrelated.

"I know that you're probably thinking that the act of revenge on the past king and queen could be related to this, but I humbly think not," Jongho speaks up. "This feels like a separate event."

Seonghwa nods. "You're right. So it's just that this group of people hated seeing Akira and I taking the throne when we're only supposed to live a quiet life in Nyla."

Jongho looks guilty at this, because he was the one who brought in the request to have them as the new rulers for Lucida. "Your Majesty," he suddenly addresses the king appropriately, "even though there are a group of people looking to defy you, you do have a larger group of people who support you. They see you for your heart and not your blood."

The king takes a deep breath as he leans against the chair. He intertwines his fingers before putting it behind his head, thinking deeply about any possibility.

Even as they scour through the files, only one reason for the attack is apparent, and it does seem like Seonghwa and Akira's blood are what they are after. This is a group of people refusing to accept the fact that the king and queen bear no white blood like their past rulers.

An idea comes to Seonghwa as he searches through the files hastily, Yunho and Jongho looking at each other then to the king quizzically. As soon as his find his desired file, they look over to the label and get surprised when they see "Palace staff" with a certain period of time written on the front cover.

"You're suspecting it's an inside job," Yunho offers.

"Considering how Jihyun kept insisting that she was only a scapegoat, it's not impossible." He hums, "Unless she is the mastermind."

Looking at the years the staff have been working at the palace, he now has two different files in front of him side by side. He flips through the pages on the file on the right first, looking through the staff that was working during Queen Emira's reign. He ignores those who are still working but look for those who are no longer serving, but when he arrives at the last page he frowns when he still hasn't found what he's looking for.

"Jihyun said her father was Queen Emira's advisor, but why are there no records of him? Was she lying?"

"Ah..." Jongho looks over to the pages. "Mr. Seo? We checked and confirmed that her father was Queen Emira's advisor, but apparently he was a family friend, or someone they've known for long, so his details were never recorded. That's how they trust him, and it seems that Emira trusted him a lot too. He just got naturally hired, and it did sound like he did a great job. No one was complaining."

"Really?" Seonghwa's eyes dart to the left, before he opens up the files containing the details of the latest staff palace. He goes past Yunho and Jongho's profile, but again, he's faced with the same disappointment he had with Jihyun's father. Her profile is nowhere to be found.

Yunho notices this and says, "Same case with her father. Before we even came here, there was somewhat an agreement to hire her as the advisor, considering her father's excellent service. Well, it's because her father was highly respected and trustable, so they had no qualms in taking her in."

"No details at all..." the king utters. "No way of finding out who they really are."

Seonghwa stays quiet, trying to piece everything together. He stands up, before announcing to the others that he's going to stay back at the library to go through some official records.

"More?" Jongho asks.

Seonghwa nods. "I feel like the act of revenge on the past king and queen is related to this case."

"But Emira has punished everyone involved in the pact," Yunho interjects.

"Exactly; that's why I have some things to check. I might as well try to become useful now that I'm king."

"What are your suspicions?"

"Maybe they're right; there is someone else more deserving of the throne in Lucida."