Heart of Ice

Habits

Even though the King's ultimatum caught her off guard in that moment, it was not surprising at all. It would have happened sooner or later. The consequence of being unable to conceive had always been going to come back to bite her eventually, and it was actually surprising that it took so long for that bite-back to appear.

It was something she had always dreaded and always dismissed whenever it came in passing thoughts. What would happen if I am never able to bear a son? she would wonder every day after seeing signs of her first blood since she started spending nights with Seungcheol. The thought of the King ending her marriage with Seungcheol and kicking her out of Solen had always been there in the back of her head, but never spoken until now.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Yewon asked Seungcheol when the two were dismissed from the court and finally alone.

"What did you expect me to say?" Seunghcheol asked with sigh.

Yewon narrowed her eyes. "I expected you to say no," she answered, surprised he even asked that question.

"How?" he hissed. "You expected me to oppose His Majesty's decision by saying 'oh no, she is the love of my life; I refuse to obey you and I will stay married to her no matter what!' Your highness, that only happens in your fantasy novels. Real life is very different."

Yewon felt shut down. He was acting so cold again; it's not like she wasn't used to it, but she really wished he would be softer with her now that he found out that she was very likely going to be forced to divorce him. And he seemed to be taking so much better than she was.

"So you're okay with this?" Yewon asked, gulping in her emotions. "You're okay if I leave and we get divorced and probably never see one another again? Is that what you want?"

"It's not about what I want, your highness," he snapped, clearly riled. "That doesn't matter in the end, because right now, I'm not in the position to want anything. I'm a prince, and I have to do what's best for the country, and not for myself..."

"Do you even care about me at all?" she cut him off. He wasn't acting like someone who cared. If he cared, how can he be so okay with the King's decision?

"Your highness, why do you always mix passion with politics?" he asked her. "Get your head out of the clouds and stop thinking our relationship is some ideal fairytale. It's not..."

"I don't want to talk to you anymore," she said before he could continue. The truth was she felt like she was about to burst into tears, and she didn't want to do it in front of him.

So it was a lie? Was that what he was telling her? Was this whole illusion of loving her just a fairytale setup he made for her? Fine. If that was the case, then maybe it was better that she would leave him and his frigid heart.

-

Yewon had been tossing in her bed thinking about what Seungcheol had told her. She hated how he sent her so many mixed signals. In novels, it was always so clear when the man loved the woman; he would tell her a million times, and he would never even imply once that he didn't; he also never called their relationship a "fairytale." Seungcheol was nothing like this ideal character in her novels; unlike them, Seungcheol was unreadable and frustrating.

It was not even an hour since that encounter with him that Seungkwan was knocking on her bedroom door with a letter in his hand.

"Your highness, I have something from Prince Seungcheol," Seungkwan told her when he entered.

She accepted the letter from him and saw that familiar royal seal she used to get in the first days of her arrival at Solen. It brought back a wave of memories, the small note Seokmin wrote her, the taste of the sweet Galacian bread that always accompanied that note, Seokmin's bright smile and ceaseless optimism, even in the face of his unhappy life. So different from Seungcheol's bitter realism and aversion to smiles.