Proving One's Usefulness (1)
Snow proves its usefulness through its immaculate whiteness. But that usefulness never lasted long.
The moment a single speck of filth touched that pristine, colorless purity, its value was lost. Its gentle blanketing of a heartless, cruel, and unclean world was fleeting.
Before it could even melt, the snow was disgracefully sullied. Blood froze red; black ash buried it white. All in an instant. Whiteness dirtied so easily.
The corpses strewn across the battlefield — enemy and ally tangled together in chaotic disarray — formed a scene grotesque and terrible.
Seoin turned away from the blood-soaked ground and looked up at the sky with weary eyes. The snow drifted down like dust, showing no sign of ceasing. The dry flakes that settled on her cheeks melted not at all, brushing past like so much grit.
Seoin thought this fine white dust was like her. She had believed she'd finally proven her usefulness — and it seemed this was as far as she would go.
Something cold touched her neck. A chill far sharper than the drifting snow. Her head, tilted toward the heavens, came down along the line of the blade pressed to her throat. Skin parted, and a bead of red ran down the blade from her white neck.
Drip. Drip.
The drop that fell from the tip of the blade clung to the snow.
"Careful, now. I have no intention of killing you just yet."
The young general holding the blade to her throat was smiling as he spoke. A dry huff escaped Seoin — and, incredulous, she found herself laughing along with him.
"And what, might I ask, is the meaning of that laugh?"
Seoin answered without a moment's hesitation. "You're absurd."
"I suppose it is an absurdity worth laughing at — a defeat this hollow."
"No. What's absurd is that even in the middle of all this, I caught myself thinking your face is rather handsome."
Never once in her life had Seoin seen a face as handsome as this man's. She would have grieved to die by his hand on a battlefield like this one. A radiant light seemed to hover around him — even the snow swirling like dust appeared as drifting blossoms. And so she felt no wound to her pride in admiring the enemy commander's looks. Not a bad thing, catching sight of a face like this before I die.
"Ah." A languid reply came back. "My thanks for the compliment. You are beautiful yourself, Your Highness, even amid all this. So do treasure that lovely body of yours. I'd suggest you put down that sword — wouldn't you agree?"
It was a threat dressed as courtesy: surrender would be the easier road. But Seoin did not lower her sword.
"My situation may be laughable, but might I offer you a word of advice?"
"By all means. Whatever the speaker's circumstances, advice never hurt anyone."
"Give up on taking me hostage. It would be a waste of your time. I'd hate to see you embarrassed over a useless hostage — and then I'd be the one feeling mortified."
Fifth Princess of the Danya Kingdom, Jin Seoin. Yet base-born, and a princess only in half measure. Her grasping father the king would surrender nothing — not one thing — for the sake of such a daughter.
"Yes. You're quite right."
At the answer, delivered far too easily, Seoin's brow creased almost imperceptibly.
"I see my advice failed to land."
"I will not take the princess hostage, per your advice. Though in truth, I never intended to."
"Is it because I'm a half-measure princess — because you judge I'm worth nothing as a hostage?"
"No. Because you are a princess who has already been discarded."
"!"
Seoin's eyes wavered. And the general, having said such a thing, went on smiling brightly to the very end. If that smile had carried even a grain of malice, she might have suffered less. That refreshing, almost innocent smile was what broke her.
Clang. Her abandoned sword sank into the snow.
Her foot stumbled backward, but his blade did not pursue. Instead, he sheathed it — there was no need to threaten a woman already reeling from the shock.
"Don't tell me… I — no, this entire battlefield was the offering?"
Seoin was exhausted and confused. Already discarded meant that today's battlefield had been a trap. A trap set by her own country. Something had felt wrong throughout the whole fight — as though they were dancing to the enemy's spies' tune. She had never imagined she was being played by her own nation. On whose account? For what reason had they sacrificed a winnable battle to the enemy, throwing it away on purpose?
"Not an offering. We never built an altar."
The enemy commander's answer was somehow worse.
"Then what were we?"
Seoin could hear the faint tremor in her own voice, but she had abandoned her pride long ago.
"A scapegoat that never even made it onto the altar. One bought time enough for your king and crown prince to abandon their country and flee."
"!"
Thud. Seoin's knees buckled. Dazement outweighed the shock itself; there was no strength left in her legs. They had thrown their princess and their soldiers out as bait — so the king could run from his own kingdom?
Impossible. How could he—!
She and her soldiers had defended with their lives the very country they were bound to protect. If her own grievance burned this fiercely, how bitter must it taste for the dead — and how furious must those still living be? Measured against them, her indignation might be nothing more than a spoiled complaint. Her own reason for taking the field — simply because she wanted to be free — was a luxury beside the desperate struggle of soldiers clawing to survive.
And yet, for all her guilt toward them, the weight of the shock struck her no less.
Was my usefulness this worthless, in the end? Used, used again, and finally discarded.
Even a lowly princess was still your daughter, Father. You might at least have asked me to die for you. Had you thrown me even that much of a bone, it would not have felt this hollow, this unjust.
Seoin laid herself down beside her fallen sword. It's over. If anything, she felt almost at peace. Her heavy eyelids slid shut.
Through her fading consciousness, she heard the general and his subordinate speaking.
"Why take with you a princess too worthless to use as a hostage?"
"I intend to use her for something other than a hostage."
"For what, exactly?"
"A war trophy."
"I beg your pardon?"
"A pretty war trophy."
A dry huff of laughter. At the corner of Seoin's lips, as consciousness slipped away, a faint smile flickered — and was gone.
Born of a palace maid, Seoin was too base to be counted true royalty. The four other princesses — daughters of the queen and the royal consorts — had all been used as instruments, whether to broker peace with allied kingdoms or to cement power. Three had been married off in political unions to three different nations, and the eldest princess had been made the daughter-in-law of a chancellor's house.
Now it was Seoin's turn. Worth less than her sisters, the most she could hope for was to become the wife of some petty, incompetent schemer of the court.
To shatter that marriage prospect, Seoin had to prove a different kind of usefulness. And as it happened, the Museon Empire had just invaded the Danya Kingdom.
"Send me to the battlefield."
"The battlefield? Did you just say battlefield?"
"Yes. I want to go to the front."
"What does a princess imagine she'll do on a battlefield?"
The king's tone was one of scolding. But Seoin had been waiting for this day to come — waiting for the day she could prove her own usefulness.
Danya and Museon had been old enemies for generations. For the most part, it was Seoin's own Danya that had invaded and oppressed Museon. This war, too, had begun when Danya made extortionate demands for tribute and, leveraging its allies, blockaded Museon's sea and land routes. In response, Museon's young emperor, Seon Wiyeon, had staked his nation's very fate on a great war.
Little was yet known about the young emperor so newly seated on his throne. Danya sneered at him as a reckless, foolhardy boy — all pride and no sense. Museon, smaller and weaker than Danya, had started a war without fear of its own destruction.
Contrary to every expectation, Danya, cowed by their momentum, collapsed with startling speed — utterly helpless before it. As the Museon advance tightened its grip around the capital's throat, Danya fell into confusion. Generals died on the field or abandoned their soldiers and slunk home in disgrace. The princes who had commanded alongside them were hardly worth mentioning.
While those generals and princes groveled and pleaded for the king's forgiveness, Seoin walked into the great hall with her bow slung across her back and made her plea. Send her to the battlefield.
"I will be your general."
"You think the battlefield is your playground!"
The already enraged king only grew angrier at what he saw as a princess's thoughtless whim.
"Sending me to the front is more useful right now than marrying me off. If a princess takes the field herself, the morale of the soldiers your generals abandoned will rise again."
The boldness with which Seoin spoke carried as much confidence and gravity as any general's. Yet to everyone watching, the sight was nothing but uncomfortable. A princess raised like a hothouse flower, begging to march off to war — the very field her own princes had fled — all because she didn't wish to marry. The room held nothing but scorn.
"You'd flail about and drive what few soldiers remain straight into a living hell? You know nothing of what a battlefield is, and still you carry on like this in such a dire hour. Return to your quarters at once and confine yourself!"
The king still roared, but Seoin did not bend. If not now, there would be no chance at all.
"I will prove my usefulness. If I bring Your Majesty victory, grant me the right to choose my own husband."
The ministers, the princes — even the generals defeated on the front — laughed at her words. Precious troops could not be sacrificed to a princess's little war game, they reasoned.
"Judging by the fact that Her Highness has come with her bow in hand, I take it her resolve is quite firm."
"Your Highness, striking a target and striking a man are two very different matters."
That was the moment. In the blink of an eye, Seoin drew her bowstring taut and loosed an arrow at the sneering generals. No one had time to stop her.
"!"
"Gah!"
The arrow, already in flight, plunged the great hall into stunned silence. Her archery was nothing that could be mistaken for play. The shaft pierced the ceremonial caps of the two generals kneeling side by side in a single strike. The two men who had made a fool of the princess with their words were made fools of by her arrow instead.
The humiliated generals' faces burned scarlet, but they dared not pluck the arrow from their own caps. They could only bow their heads low.