Proving Her Worth

One of the maids rolled up her sleeves and narrowed her eyes into a furious glare.

"Ha! Look at this one. Two years, was it? Decked out in that sorry getup while acting all high and mighty? Get out of here. Who do you think you're giving orders to?"

The other maids chimed in, one after another.

"One look at you and it's obvious — you rolled around some battlefield until luck landed you in His Majesty's eye. But that doesn't mean you get to act like you're somebody."

"If you're told to take your clothes off, you take them off. What's with all the talk? You reek, so strip. Now!"

"It's true that I rolled around battlefields until I caught someone's eye. But I know exactly whose eye I caught, and I can't see how treating me with such contempt squares with sense."

Seoin hadn't failed to understand the insult of "rolled around." She simply saw no reason to explain how she had rolled around on the battlefield.

"Oh, my goodness! Just look at the shameless thing! Openly bragging about rolling around on a battlefield with her own mouth!"

"Honestly. I thought she was some arrogant wench who'd been pampered in her own kingdom, and figured I'd teach her some manners — turns out she's just filthy trash that never should have set foot in the palace at all!"

Going by their words alone, the maids sounded like women trembling with righteous outrage. But they were laughing.

They had all but mocked the king to his face, and not a trace of fear showed in any of them.

Which meant they had something — someone — backing them.

"My manners seem quite corrected already. I offered to wash myself without making anyone serve me. Remarkable, isn't it, how well I know my place as a prisoner?"

"What is she even saying? Look at her run her mouth. What are you, a princess or something?"

"Clearly she still hasn't grasped her situation. Why would you correct your own manners? That's our job."

As Seoin saw it, they had made up their minds to torment her — and they were enjoying it.

They had been here before she arrived, which meant word had reached them in advance.

Aside from "captive woman of the enemy state," they'd been told nothing, and since the king had granted her a pavilion, they'd evidently concluded that some lowborn creature had received his favor.

Being forced to attend to a prisoner from a conquered kingdom — someone beneath them — was enough to twist anyone's stomach.

And yet, for palace maids to lay hands so freely on a woman the king had given a pavilion of her own meant they trusted wholeheartedly in some protection behind them.

What exactly is that protection?

Seoin had grown up as a powerless princess, eating cold glances her whole life in the palace. She knew its ecosystem better than anyone.

So there must be a consort in the inner palace the king fancies.

Even if the king was young, he was a man of mature, sultry allure.

It would be nothing strange for him to keep many women, and she could understand those women being wary of an unfamiliar woman from an enemy kingdom.

"Is that so? And how exactly do you plan to correct my manners? Now I'm curious."

Seoin simply wanted them to drop the pointless posturing and get to the point, if they were truly going to do something.

And she knew that such impatience would only enrage them further.

"Look at her talk! Fine. I tried teaching you with kind words first, but it seems you need a taste of the whip before you'll come to your senses! Girls!"

At one maid's cry, two of them lunged at Seoin.

To Seoin's eyes, their clumsy, vicious grabs looked almost pathetic.

The moment their hands reached for her hair, she stepped back a single unhurried pace.

In the same motion, she kicked one woman behind the knee and seized the other roughly by the hair.

Thud.

"Aaagh!"

"Agh!"

The kicked maid crashed to her knees with a sound that shook the floor.

The one by the hair had her spine bent double into a posture of perfect deference, screaming all the while.

"Agh! Let go! Let go of me!"

"G-get your foot off!"

Seoin ground her foot steadily into the kneeling maid's knee while continuing to drag the other woman's head downward.

"Y-you wretch! You think you'll get away with this? Won't you stop this right now?"

As the two women shrieked in pain, the maid who had given the order panicked and shouted.

"What was it you were planning to do? You promised to correct my manners, and I was so looking forward to it. Surely there's more to come?"

"Wh-what is she—!"

Unable to find a proper retort, the maid's face flushed scarlet.

All the while, the two captives writhed desperately in Seoin's grip, trying and failing to twist free.

"Ugh… my knee!"

"It hurts! Let go! Let go unless you want your hands cut off!"

Speaking in their own terms, Seoin — who had rolled around battlefields — knew exactly how to make a person suffer.

It looked as if she were merely standing on the woman, but to the one beneath her boot, it felt as though her knee were being bent backward and snapped.

As for the hair she tugged so carelessly — the twist of her wrist made it feel as if the victim's entire scalp would tear away, and she could do nothing but writhe.

Seoin was in no mood to understand their pain, let alone pity it.

In truth, she felt aggressive enough that anyone who picked a fight with her might end up dead.

The journey here had been grueling; her body was exhausted, and her heart weighed heavier still.

The man I took for a general is the king.

Less than the shock itself, it was her own blindness that irritated her — so obtuse she hadn't noticed, and it made her sick with herself.

Her pride stung, too, from having asked him of all people about the king's tastes and been laughed at for it.

It was a strange thing.

She had resolved to survive, to set pride aside entirely — so why did being toyed with by him gnaw at her like this?

If she took her frustrations out on these maids, what would he do to her?

He had sent her maids and bathwater, a fine pavilion, as if to say: here, a pretty war trophy to look at. Would displaying her devotion really be the right move?

"Oh? You'd be in trouble if your wrist were cut, wouldn't you. As long as my body stays whole, it isn't only me who stays safe — it's all of you."

Seoin suppressed the urge to hang the maids out the door by their collars, and simply let them go.

"Hah…."

"Haaah…!"

The moment their bonds released, the two fled from her as if their lives depended on it.

Seoin, who had fought men in full armor with her life on the line, was terror itself to the frail bodies of serving maids.

Realizing they were hopelessly outmatched, the women huddled together like frightened rabbit kits, clutching one another as they scurried out.

Of course, even on the way out, they couldn't resist flinging back one spiteful warning.

"You'll find out soon enough who you've crossed!"

Those shrieking words collided, in the doorway, with servants coming in under the weight of an enormous wooden tub.

The servants gaped at the ruined state of the departing maids, but with the heavy tub in their arms they could only stumble onward into the room, flustered.

"Set it down there and go."

Seoin gave the servants the same short, low command she would have given soldiers.

And yet, in her disheveled state and in that voice, cold as a blade, lay an authority that could not be defied.

The servants exchanged glances, remembering the condition of the maids who had just fled, and withdrew without a word.

Alone in the room, Seoin drew the folding screen around her and began to undress.

Once softly curved yet slender, her body had hardened into muscle over her years crossing battlefields.

Firm and springing with the resilience of a horse racing across the plains, it was nothing like the willowy, drifting delicacy of the women here.

Seoin was proud of that body, so unlike the pale, slight beauties of the court.

Even with its sword scars and faded bruises, she believed it more beautiful than any woman in the world.

And yet, the woman reflected in the water looked a little strange to her.

She had grown thin — noticeably, visibly thinner.

As she frowned at her own gauntness and moved to step into the bath, Seoin froze.

Not a wisp of steam rose from the tub. Instead, a chill drifted off the surface of the water.

It was not midwinter, but it was a raw, cold day in late autumn.

Her weakened body, half-starved for weeks, would shiver with chills from nothing more than a night wind.

It was as if the maids, eager to spite her, had drawn the bath cold on purpose.

Seoin let out a short sigh and swung a leg over the rim of the tub.

By the time one leg was in, the cold had already seeped into her bones; it felt as though her very heart were freezing over.

But she lowered herself into the frigid water without further hesitation.

Her blood turned to ice water; her lower belly and back clenched with shudders.

Yet as time passed, the biting cold seemed to wash away the memory of hot blood and sweat that clung to her.

It was nothing but cold water, scented with no oils at all, but Seoin scrubbed diligently at the stench and exhaustion caked onto her skin.

When she finished, she felt marginally fresher, her head clearer.

Best of all, the fever in her mind had cooled, and the fury of moments ago had softened around its edges.

Now she only wanted, without thinking of anything, to rest.

When the bath was done and she stepped out of the tub, Seoin stood for a moment, dazed and blinking.

Nowhere in the room was there a towel to dry herself with, nor clothes to change into.

"Haah…."

Had she sent those maids away for nothing?

The regret lasted only a moment.

On the battlefield, there had been nights she slept in soaked clothes with rain still dripping off her.

By that measure, this was luxury.

Shaking off what water she could, Seoin lay her damp body directly onto the bed.

Even beneath the covers, she felt as if her whole body were freezing solid, heavy as stone.

She let her consciousness sink down with it, down as if into deep water.

I'd rather not wake at all, if it could be like this.

The thought that this moment might be the most peaceful, the most sheltered memory left in the life she had remaining — that thought frightened her, honestly.

And with that thought, Seoin's consciousness sank entirely into the deep, dark stillness.