"Did you hear? The Crown prince is arriving today!"
"Really? I thought it was a joke? Why would he leave the palace to come rough it out here?"
"Rough it? Did you not see the silk blankets and pillows they brought in? They even moved the training captain so that the prince could have the biggest room."
"I heard that the Crown Prince is pretty scary. Do you think his arrival will make it harder for us?" Jihyun smiled to himself as he listened to the older servants babble. To be honest, he was quite excited about the arrival of the prince, it had been years since any esteemed royalty had trained at the camp Jihyun spent his life serving, and he'd heard rumors that the Crown Prince was pretty handsome, amongst other things.
"All I know is that the girls better be careful. If you think these half-assed soldiers are bad, those city men are worse. You too, Jihyun." The doe-eyed youth jerked his head up as the head maidservant addressed him. "You may want to tie up that hair of yours, Sulhee can put a few braids in it for you."
"Oh," Jihyun whispered as he swept the ponytail behind his shoulder. The hair Sulhee was apt to get her fingers into was Jihyun's nearly black, perfectly straight, and unusually glossy locks that reached their end just below Jihyun's hips. "I'm alright," Jihyun dodged Sulhee's eager fingers as he twisted his hair around his hands. He knew from stories by the older maids that his long hair is what made him most resemble his mother, who he had little memory of since she died of fever when he was young. To him, it was his connection to her, and the reason he kept it so long compared to other males.
"The Prince is here! He's here! Come greet him before you get gutted like a bunch of river fish!" an older manservant hobbled around the well where Jihyun and the others had been washing laundry. A few of the servants' faces paled with fear, but Jihyun smiled. Surely the Crown Prince was not as bad as the rumors made him out to be?
YOU ARE READING
He Walks Alone in the Moonlight
RomanceThe current king is unsatisfied with his control. He loathes the fact that the people revere the witches' powers over his own. He openly breaks the old king's decree and conspires with a witch rumored to drink human blood. Strange happenings have pe...
