"What do you think I should do? I would not hesitate to lead our armies to battle, but what if I lose? We can't afford to lose."

Yuehwa sat by her brother's bedside, gently helping to cleanse his arms with a wet towel. The king had been unconscious for almost a week now, and the imperial physicians had no answer to when he might wake, if he ever woke at all.

After receiving the letter from Feng, Yuehwa had been mulling the matter rather solemnly. There was no question about how the Phoenix would react to that offer of marriage, but she wasn't just the Phoenix anymore—she was also princess and regent of Hwa, and there were many more considerations that she had to think through before she did something as rash as tie a naked man to a tree.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice that the queen had entered the room, not until Yi'en placed her hand on her right shoulder.

Queen Yi'en was only in her early thirties, but already her hairs were starting to grey with worry for her family and the burden of having to wear the crown. Still, dressed in her regal amethyst silk robes, she was the picture of elegance and composure, even while her husband's life lay on the line.

"Are you alright?" the queen asked kindly, taking a seat on the chair that one of the palace maids had brought out for her. "Steward Wen said that you've been here all morning."

Yuehwa shook her head. "I'm fine." She turned back to look at her brother. "I was just talking to Sang. The physicians said that he can probably still hear us, so I thought that if I kept talking to him then he'd find me annoying and wake up to give me a scolding. You know how he likes the peace and quiet," she said with a weak smile.

"You're looking a lot more tired than when I last saw you," the queen said with a soft sigh. "Your brother used to work through the night in order to get through all the petitions put up by the ministers and officials. There was once he told me that his greatest regret was not being able to spend more time with Yang-yang, because there were just too many other matters in the kingdom that needed his attention. I know that he's asked a lot from you by pushing you into this position, but there was really no one else that we could turn to. If I had a choice, I wouldn't have wanted Sang to be king, neither would I want my son to bear the same burden in the future, but at the same time I understand that this is their birthright and these are the responsibilities that come with being born into this family..."

"Yi'en, you don't have to worry about me," Yuehwa replied, immediately comprehending what her sister-in-law was trying to get at. "When I agreed to take the royal seal from Sang, I already knew what that meant. I'm not going to lie and say that I want to be here or that I enjoy it in the slightest, but I promised my brother that I would stay here as long as it took to protect you and Yang-yang, until Yang-yang is capable of safeguarding this kingdom on his own. If that means that I need to make certain choices or decisions that run contrary to my own wishes, then so be it. Like you said, these are the responsibilities that come with being born into this family."

"About the letter from Feng requesting for your hand in marriage," Yi'en began, looking at Yuehwa worriedly. She reached over and took hold of Yuehwa's hands, patting them comfortingly. "Don't put too much pressure on yourself because of it. Marriage is for a lifetime—your brother and I would never agree to using your marriage as a bargaining tool. I asked around, but no one has anything good to say about that crown prince."

If only the crown prince of Feng were a different person.

The image of Shoya floated into Yuehwa's mind. She wondered where he was and what he was doing now, and whether he had made any progress in his own quest to reclaim his birthright.

"Yi'en, can I ask you something? Did you ever regret loving my brother?"

When she was younger, she had always thought that Sang and Yi'en were the most perfect couple that she would ever know. She would peek in from the window of her brother's study from time to time, seeing Yi'en grind the ink while Sang wrote his poetry, or the two of them engaged in a battle of wit over the chess board. It was these little things that they did together which made her so envious of the relationship they shared. What she didn't realise back then was that this wasn't just a simple story about a man and woman who loved each other, but one that was made complicated by the fact that they would become king and queen. But they were lucky. Crown and kingdom had never come in between their love for each other.

Yi'en laughed. "Never," she said. She reached out her hand and lovingly ran her fingers through her husband's hair. "I don't think I've ever told you this before, but back then my father had been strongly opposed to me marrying the crown prince." Yi'en's father was formerly the Minister of Law, a position he held until he passed on about five years back. "Right up till the morning that I was to be married, he asked me whether or not I could change my mind, because I was making a foolish decision. I still remember him telling me that for a king, the kingdom would always have to come first. To him, the palace was like a cage in which happiness could not exist."

"He was right. Sort of," Yuehwa said wryly.

Shaking her head, Yi'en said, "No, he was wrong. From the first time I met your brother, I had already fallen in love with him and I knew that there was no one else who could make me happy. I knew that he would eventually become king, and when he did he wouldn't be able to spend much time with me anymore, but I was happy enough just to be able to stay by his side to help him prepare his ink while he worked through all those petitions. And he gave me Yang-yang, who kept me company in his stead and brought me so much joy and laughter over these few years. Even though we might not be able to grow old together, at least we had ten perfect years..."

As she spoke, the tears began to glisten in her eyes. Although no one ever said it out loud, everyone knew that the king didn't have very much longer to go and they were already living on borrowed time.

"What if you found out that you weren't as important to him as you thought you were? What if he put the kingdom before you? Would you regret loving him then?"

"I didn't love him because I expected him to love me back in the first place," Yi'en said with a smile. "I would be sad, perhaps a little angry, but that wouldn't stop me from loving him. I don't think I could, even if I wanted to." She placed her hand across her heart. "Love is an irrational thing. The more you try to reason with it, the more you'll realise that you can never win. Yuehwa, although I don't know what's bothering you, but if you ever need someone to talk to about it, you know you can always look for me. For now, I think you should go and get some rest, I'll take over from here."

Yuehwa nodded, handing the towel over to Yi'en. Just before she exited the room, she turned round to see Yi'en pick up a book from the side table, reading to the king in her calm, gentle voice.

Perhaps Yi'en was right, love was an irrational thing. But with the weight of the kingdom on her shoulders, could she afford to be irrational?

#

The king of Feng sent along trunks of jewels and gold, which arrived before the crown prince did, as proof of the sincerity that Feng had in wanting to make the princess of Hwa its crown princess and future queen. Unfortunately, the lids of those trunks were never opened before they were all shunted into a storeroom under the regent's orders, where they would continue to sit until it was once again appropriate to be discussing a topic like marriage.

Because exactly fifteen days after King Lee Sang of Hwa lost consciousness, his slumber became eternal.

All around the palace of Hwa hung a heavy, suffocating atmosphere of grief and loss as the servants went about removing decorations and replacing any red lanterns or candles with white ones. From the moment the king's demise was announced, the entire kingdom went into mourning and everyone in the palace traded in their usual garments for shades of black and white. People walked around with heavy hearts as they reminisced about their benevolent king who had been taken away far too young.

As per Hwa's tradition, the king's casket was to be kept in the grand hall for seven days, after which it would be cremated in a fiery send-off that was befitting the ruler of this kingdom. The symbol of Hwa had always been the phoenix, and the people believed that from the ashes the phoenix would rise again.

Yuehwa was standing in the grand hall wearing flowing mourning robes of white, looking down at the peaceful countenance of her only brother.

When news of his passing reached her ears in the middle of the night, she had immediately rushed over to the king's chambers only to find the queen sitting by his bedside, still reading softly to him like she always did. "He's alright, isn't he?" she asked hesitantly when she walked over towards them. "It was just a false alarm?" If the king had truly passed on, it couldn't be so peaceful here in the king's chambers. It had to be a mistake, she told herself.

Yi'en had smiled, never once taking her eyes off her husband's face. "Yuehwa, don't you think he looks so peaceful?" she said. "He's always liked it when I read to him—he said that it helped to calm his mind. I used to read to him all the time, and he would fall asleep with the sound of my voice." She closed the book, leaning over to give him a kiss on the forehead. "This was his favourite book. I thought he would have liked it if I read it to him one last time."

Yuehwa remembered herself trembling as she reached down to take hold of her brother's hand. When she was little, Sang would always hold tightly onto her hand whenever they went out onto the streets incognito, because he knew just how playful she was and how she would vanish in the blink of an eye the moment he let go. His hand had been much bigger than hers then, and it was always warm and gentle. But now, his hand felt icy cold to the touch, as if someone had gone and stolen all the warmth away from him.

Since that night, she hadn't shed a single tear.

"You must think your little sister is completely heartless," she joked, running her fingers along the ornate carvings of flames along the sides of the wooden casket. "But there are too many pairs of eyes watching. This morning the prime minister came to pay his final respects, but did you see how his eyes kept flickering my way? They're all waiting for me to make a mistake, to show some sign of weakness so that they can use it against me. This is the sort of mess that you've gone and left me with, while you're off gallivanting and enjoying life somewhere else. Maybe you're glad to be rid of this troublesome little sister of yours, but what about Yi'en and Yang-yang? How could you bear to leave them behind?"

Her heart ached whenever she looked at Yi'en, because the latter still tried to keep a smile on her face for the sake of her four-year-old son, yet whenever there was no one looking, there would only be tears streaming down her cheeks. The queen had collapsed from exhaustion earlier in the day and had to be sent back to her chambers to rest.

"You're the heartless one," she chided her brother softly. "You were supposed to get better so that I could hand this burden back to you. Do you expect me to be shackled to this throne in your stead now that you're gone?" She closed her eyes, trying to ignore that tingling sensation in her nose. Raising her cup in the air, she said, "This is for you, Sang, and this damn throne that you left behind."

It was past midnight and she was the only one left in the grand hall, with two empty jars of wine lying abandoned on the floor. They said that wine could help numb the pain, but she figured whoever said that was a liar.

The sound of footsteps interrupted her one-sided chat with her brother, and she turned her head to find a figure in white standing in the middle of the hall, wearing a mask that she hadn't seen in quite some time.

"This wine is better than I anticipated. I'm even starting to see things now," she scoffed. Opening a third jar, she threw the tiny cup away and raised the entire clay vessel to her lips.

The hallucination walked towards her and grabbed hold of her by the wrist with one hand, forcibly removing the jar of wine with the other.

"Hey! Give that back!"

"Stop it, Yuehwa. You've had enough wine for tonight," Shoya said, placing the jar back down on the floor.

Yuehwa stubbornly tried to get hold of her jar once more, but in her current state she was no match for Shoya, who managed to fend off her every move and shift the jar further and further away from her the harder she tried. He took hold of her hand and pulled her into his arms.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he whispered.

It wasn't a hallucination. He was really here. The warmth and gentle heaving of his chest against her cheek told her that much.

Locked in his embrace, Yuehwa's hands fell weakly to her side and she finally did what she had been unable to do for the past few days—cry.

She had been keeping everything bottled up within for so long that when the dam finally broke, the tears burst forth like a torrential flood, releasing all the pent-up emotions that had been building up all this while. She didn't know just how long she cried for, but when she was done she could feel the dampness of her tears soaking through the material of Shoya's clothes. Through it all, Shoya didn't say a single word; he stood there quietly with his arms wrapped around her, gently patting her back as she poured out all the pain that she had kept inside.

When she had finally calmed down, Shoya sat her down by the side of the hall and walked over to the front of the casket. He got down on his knees and gave three respectful bows to the late king.

"How did you find me here? How long have you known?" Yuehwa asked, realising the implication of Shoya's appearance. She had never told him who she really was, but he had still found his way here.

Her words came out clipped and terse, still bearing the pain from losing her only brother—and now weighed down by the additional prospect of betrayal and lies from someone she had come to trust.

"Since the night we fought the bronze guardsmen at Dahai. I recognised the pendant hanging from your sword," he answered.

"And you said nothing."

"Because it didn't matter, did it? You are entitled to your secrets. And despite that, you're still you. The Phoenix."

Yuehwa searched for the truth behind Shoya's words, but she could read nothing in his eyes. As always. She wished she could believe him, she truly did, but there was a tiny voice at the back of her head reminding her that she was perhaps merely one chess piece in this game he was playing right from the beginning.

She watched as Shoya walked to the side of her brother's casket and pushed open the lid.

"What do you think you're doing!" she exclaimed, leaping up and rushing over to stop him. It was blasphemy to disturb the rest of the deceased, and this was her brother lying there.

She was one step too slow. Shoya reached out and tapped three of her acupoints, freezing her in mid-action. "Trust me," he said.

Oh the irony of those words.

"Let me go, Shoya. Don't touch him."

With the casket opened, she could see her brother's serene expression, his eyelids lightly shut as though in a peaceful slumber. He was wearing his favourite silk robes in the deep brown of burnished wood, and his hair neatly done up in a top knot, each strand lovingly combed by his wife for his final journey.

The tears stung her eyes once more.

"Please," she begged.

Shoya looked at her sadly. "I'm only trying to help," he said.

Yuehwa watched as he withdrew his sword from its scabbard and rested its crystal hilt upon her brother's chest. Within seconds, an ugly red smear began spreading across the white stone, until the entire hilt had turned a dark, murky shade. As if it was filled with blood.

"What is that?" she whispered.

A frown appeared across Shoya's forehead. He picked up the amulet and studied it for a moment.

"I was hoping that this wouldn't be the case," he murmured. He undid her acupoints and placed the sword in her hand. "The crystal that this hilt is made of can detect the presence of dark magic. I believe the royal physicians would have diagnosed that the king died of illness, not poison. They were not wrong, because this—this is beyond their capabilities."

Yuehwa stared at the blackish-red swirls slithering within the crystal, like a dozen vicious centipedes that had claimed her brother's life. Her throat constricted.

"Dark magic?" she choked.

She had suspected foul play—murder—but there was no evidence for it. Until now. Yet the suggestion that it was the dark arts that was responsible for this still came as a shock to her. Dark magic was supposed to have been eradicated across the kingdoms dozens of years ago when the kings banded together to wage war against its malevolence, but she knew that there were still practitioners out there, no matter how discreet they were. After all, she had witnessed it for herself in the form of Dahai's bronze guardsmen. However, she never imagined that those insidious claws would stretch themselves into this palace, and to her family.

"How can you be so sure?" she asked. "How do you know what this crystal does?"

"Sheng Yun told me. She thought this information would come in useful."

"The chief astrologer?" Yuehwa arched her brows. "That's where you went? You went back to look for her. I thought you didn't believe her reincarnation bullshit." The realisation left a sour taste in her mouth. There was something about Sheng Yun that Yuehwa didn't like. The woman was hiding too many secrets.

"My mother saved her life once, which is why she helped to smuggle me to Dahai, and why she's choosing to help me now."

"And you believe that?"

"I believe that she will be useful to me. To us." Shoya turned back towards the casket. "You must be careful, Yuehwa. If someone has wielded dark magic to harm your brother, it is likely that his goal is to destabilise this kingdom. That means that you could be next," he said.

"Did the chief astrologer tell you that too?" she scoffed. "And can she read the stars to figure out who's behind all this?" Anger roiled inside her like flames. Anger towards her brother's murderer, anger towards Sheng Yun and her useless predictions, and anger towards Shoya for unveiling the horrible truth.

But mostly, she was angry at herself for not knowing any of this until it was too late.

"Leave, Shoya. This is my home, and I will protect it my own way," she commanded. She pushed the sword's hilt back into his hand, leaving the room with a defiant sweep of her sleeve.