Proving One's Worth (2)

Everyone was struck dumb with disbelief.

Who could have known how earnestly the half-bred princess, ignored by all, had trained herself in archery and swordsmanship?

"Your Majesty. Use me."

"Your skill is passable, but you'd have me entrust my armies to you on the strength of mere archery?"

"I will stake my life on it. Rather than be sold off in a marriage like livestock with a price tag on my head, I would sooner die on the battlefield."

More than her archery, the king liked her audacity.

He judged that her desperate plea—her loathing of an arranged marriage even over death in war—was worth something.

And so, Seoin was granted leave to go not to a bridal chamber, but to the battlefield.

Afterwards, as a general, Seoin announced Danya Kingdom's first victory.

She had devoured military treatises in the scraps of time between martial training, and she made a habit of searching the history of warfare for the reasons Danya had lost.

Having exhaustively studied the kingdom's geography and terrain, she would lure the enemy into ground of her choosing and fight them there.

Thanks to that, she won everywhere she went.

But the king, while praising her victories, drove her ever deeper into harder battlefields.

And Seoin could not simply walk away from the war like this.

The longer the war dragged on, the more she came to understand that this war was not for her alone.

"Princess, why in the world would you volunteer for this wretched hell? The princes are all too busy saving their own skins to do anything but run."

Her adjutant, the silver-tongued Ju Segwang, had once asked her that.

"The princes are truly precious. I'm only halfway precious."

That was her answer, but in truth, Seoin felt guilty toward her soldiers for being even half precious.

Even born of a lowborn mother, wasn't it the royal blood in her veins that let her stand in a general's seat at all?

Seoin carved into her heart, always, that responsibility for even that half was hers.

Which was why, now, her heart was heavier and her fury greater than ever.

"Princess! Run! Now!"

For the first time, that easygoing adjutant was shouting with genuine, urgent gravity.

Something has gone wrong.

By the time she realized it, it was already too late.

She had mapped the enemy's route of movement and lain in ambush where they would never expect it.

It was a tactic she had never once used before, and she had hoped it would catch them off guard.

Yet somehow, the enemy had known—had surrounded this place before her own forces ever arrived.

They knew our movements in advance. Information has leaked.

There was a traitor among them.

She could not even guess who it might be.

And what use was it now, discovering who it had been?

So many had died that hardly anyone was left who could even be suspected.

And now, it was her turn.

She was staring blankly at the sky, death hovering before her eyes, her mind gone numb—

—when how could the man who held a blade to her throat be so beautiful?

The young commander was flawlessly, unreasonably handsome.

His large, long-lashed eyes were at once gentle and intelligent. His high, straight nose and sharply defined jaw proclaimed the face of a strong man.

And those lips, never once losing their lazy smile, were refreshingly, effortlessly bold.

She couldn't help but laugh at herself, admiring the looks of the man about to take her life.

But in the end, it was he who took even that laughter from her.

"The sacrificial lamb bought to buy time for the king and crown prince to flee their country."

At those words, the last frayed thread of tension Seoin had been clinging to finally snapped.

"Princess! Princess! Can you hear me?"

A noisy voice echoed through the darkness.

A voice that sometimes irritated her beyond endurance—and now, it was a comfort to hear.

Am I dead?

Had she died and met that fellow on the other side?

"A trophy. A pretty trophy."

Another voice rang out.

Treating a person as an object—declaring he would carry off a princess as war spoils—yet somehow, the words did not sound contemptible.

And they meant he intended to let her live.

Realizing she was still alive, Seoin's eyes flew open.

"Princess!"

Her ears cleared the moment her eyes did.

"Princess, are you all right?"

The ringing in her head and the sounds reaching her ears finally separated into two distinct things.

Lying beneath a blackened ceiling, Seoin turned her head toward the voice.

The bars of a cell.

Beyond them, in another cell across the way, that raggedly diminished fellow was gripping the bars and shouting.

"You're awake, aren't you? A-are you hurt anywhere?"

Seoin forced her stiff body to move and sat up.

"You… you survived?"

"Of course! Would this Ju Segwang abandon his princess and go anywhere?"

That shameless bluster was proof enough the man was fine.

Seoin, who had believed everyone dead, felt a small weight lift from her heart at the survival of her closest adjutant.

"You told me to run. I thought you were volunteering to die in my place."

"What a hurtful thing to say! I meant that if you went ahead, I would naturally follow. You were captured, so I got captured too—that's all."

Being captured together while trying to escape together—what exactly was there to be proud of?

But that was precisely why Seoin leaned on Segwang so much.

Because no matter how dire things got, he could make her laugh.

Because of him, everyone had been genuinely happy, once.

"A truly loyal retainer, aren't you."

"That's right. Dead men aren't loyal. Only the ones alive at your side count as loyal."

Truly, a man who could read her very heart and offer comfort in the same breath—he did deserve the word loyal.

"But Princess. From this moment on, you need to keep your wits about you."

"Hmm?"

"Enemy commander or not, why would they put the Princess in a filthy dungeon like this? What do you suppose they intend?"

It was a wretched place, no question.

The cell was a crudely dug pit of earth without so much as a single window.

A damp chill rose straight up from the bare dirt floor, and the iron bars were stained with something—blood or rust, impossible to tell.

"What is it?"

"They mean to give you no princess's treatment. You know what becomes of enemy commanders taken prisoner, don't you?"

"A… trophy?"

"What nonsense is that? Are you still half asleep?"

"Then… what?"

"A commander—and a princess—think how much you must know. They kept you alive to pry it out of you. These people will without a doubt put you to exquisite, terrible torture. Keep your mind sharp."

"Sharp for what, exactly?"

"For what? Tell them everything. Before they start doing anything to you, the smart move is to spill it all."

"You really are…."

"Loyal, yes. Endurance is useless here. How would you even endure it? You'll break and talk in the end regardless, so spare your body the agony, put your pride aside, and just ask them for leniency first."

"Shouldn't they offer leniency first? Isn't that the proper order?"

"Judging by the fact that they've locked you in a place like this, they don't look inclined to offer anything—which is exactly why we reverse the order."

They had already declared they would carry her off as a trophy. And her country had fallen.

What could they possibly still need to learn from her?

Segwang, it seemed, did not yet know that.

"Segwang."

"Listen, Princess. Stay alive first—everything else comes after."

"What could they do to me? I am still a princess."

"So what? Does saying it bring back the necks of every enemy commander you've beheaded? Do the countless soldiers who died by your hand rise from the grave? Those people have a grudge against you."

Hearing it put that way, she couldn't call it wrong.

They had said they'd take her as a pretty trophy—but no one had promised to keep her unbroken.

Perhaps that commander intended to offer his king a princess thoroughly ruined.

It would make Danya's blood boil well enough on its own—and she was royalty of that realm besides, the princess who had handed them defeat again and again.

As a trophy to soothe the king's heart, she might be perfect.

"They never meant to offer you leniency in the first place, so you have to throw them some bait. Anything."

"Segwang. There's something you don't know."

"Yes, well, I've always known more of what I don't know than what I do. But right now, you need to hear me out."

"That's not it. They will not try to win me over."

"Which is why you dangle bait worth winning you over for! Something like a shortcut to the imperial capital, a map of the palace—that sort of thing. And if even that fails, why, try the honeypot."

Seoin had just opened her mouth to explain why that would never work—

"I'm curious about that honeypot."

"!"

Both of them turned toward the voice.

Seoin recognized the young commander at once.

A handsome face that seemed to glow even in the dark was not one you forgot after a single look.

He had shed his heavy armor and entered wearing only plain clothes, and he looked even more at ease than before.

"Our princess knows a great deal, truly. And she has no pride to speak of, so she'll answer every question you like. And as you can see, her beauty is outstanding—so even if she does attempt her honeypot, everyone will understand. Just spare our princess's life, that's all I ask."

For a moment, Seoin was embarrassed on behalf of her own subordinate.

"You have a good man serving you."

"He's no fool, he simply hasn't heard the news yet. I ask for your understanding."

"Ah. That news. I see. So he doesn't know yet."

"No. I'll be the one to tell him, so please say nothing for now."

She had no wish to have the shame of her family—of her royal blood—revealed to her subordinate, least of all through an enemy commander's mouth.

"W-what news?"

"Later."

Having silenced her curious subordinate, Seoin turned to face the commander.

"And you—did you come here because you have business with me?"

"I suppose so."

"Then, I'd rather we speak somewhere other than here."

At Seoin's suggestion, the commander's expression turned intrigued.

"Has the honeypot already begun?"

"If I say it has, could I get a cup of tea out of you? I'm rather thirsty."

Whatever the cost, Seoin wanted out of this place first.

If something terrible was going to be done to her, then at the very least, it should not happen in front of her own man.