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Her wide, indigo eyes blinked.  Not once.  But several times.  He watched as tears filled her eyes.

“You know my name?” she breathed.

He nodded.  “It was the last thing Mother uttered before she died,” he murmured soberly.

And the beautiful girl before him burst into tears.

He stepped forward to embrace her and found a sword at his throat.  He stilled.  He had been instantly surrounded by three guards.

He watched in dismay as several of his own soldiers instantly appeared from the shadows in which they’d been hiding.  They came forward.  Swords drawn.

Alarmed, Eun Sook gasped, “Stop it!  All of you!  He is my brother!”

Shocked, the king’s men instantly dropped their swords.  And backed away.  Their eyes traveling from sister to brother and back again.

“Leave us,” commanded Jong Su.  He was looking at his own men.

They faded back into the shadows.

“Please,” she begged her own guards, “step back.  Let me have a few minutes alone with him.”

“We can’t leave you completely, princess.  But we will give you a little distance.”

She noticed that two of them placed themselves between her and the prince’s guards.  The last guard was still hovering close by.  She ignored him and stepped forward.

“Can I have that hug?” she whispered as her eyes met those of her brother.

He leaned forward and embraced her, pulling her tightly against him.  “You cannot know how I have searched for you.  How I’ve longed to hold you in my arms like this,” he breathed into her hair as he bent his head close to her ear.

She began to tremble.  “I didn’t think anyone wanted me.  I wasn’t even sure anyone in our family knew about me.  Father cast me out when I was born.”

“I know.  I was in the room.”

She gasped.  “You were?”

He nodded.  “I was hiding behind Mother’s screen.”  A sweet smile suddenly infused his face with a glow of wonder.  “I saw your perfect, tiny face.  You were so beautiful.  I had never seen another creature like you.”

She sobbed into his chest.

“I was so heartbroken when Father sent you away.  I thought I’d never see you again.  A couple of years ago, I sent out men to find you.  But they discovered you had disappeared from the village you grew up in.  It was only a couple of days ago that one of them notified me that he had tracked you to Silla.  So our brother commissioned me to accept the king’s invitation to come visit him.”

She gasped.  “You came all this way…just to find me?”

He nodded.  “Absolutely.”

She finally drew back and stared up at him in awe.  “I have a brother,” she whispered in wonder.

“Several, actually,” his lips twitched upwards in an amused grin.

“But you and I share the same mother, do we not?”

He nodded.  “We do.  That’s one of the things that makes you so special to me.  And you look just like her.”

Her face filled with tenderness.  “I do?”

“Yes.  And she was friendly like you too.”

Her smile trembled.

“I see you two have met.”

Eun Sook turned to meet Jijin’s eyes.  “He is my brother!  He knew my name!” she uttered, still in shock.

The king glanced at the prince.  And their eyes fenced.

“You recognize Eun Sook?” Jin Heung questioned him.

Which, given her appearance, was an absurd question.

The prince watched as the king glanced at his sister.  And instantly recognized the look that passed between them.  He narrowed his eyes.

“Why is my sister living in the palace?” he demanded.

“What makes you think she’s living in the palace?” the king queried quietly in an undertone.  In a futile attempt to keep the prince’s guards in the dark.

“Oh, please!  She’s clearly come into divine favor!  She’s wearing royal robes!”

“Befitting her station as a princess,” the king answered smoothly.

“But she is a princess of Goguryeo.  And those are not Goguryeo’s royal robes,” her brother reasoned.

“That is because Goguryeo rejected her,” Jin Heung retaliated. “Not recognizing gold when they found it.”  He paused a moment as the other man glared at him.  “She is my guest,” he then uttered succinctly.

“Your guest?” The older man turned toward him with a cocking of his eyebrows. “In what capacity?”

“I’m the royal storyteller,” she came to Jijin’s rescue.

The prince’s eyes traveled from one to the other.  “No.  You are more than that.”  He looked the king squarely in the eye.  “Have you taken my sister to your bed?” he asked suspiciously.

When neither answered that question as they were both trying to figure out how to answer it truthfully, Jong Su continued, “Have you taken her as your mistress?”

“No!  He has not!” she exclaimed, now quite alarmed.  The last thing she wanted was for a duel to break out between her lover and her brother.

“Let us adjourn privately to discuss this situation,” the king hissed.

And her brother nodded.  He was quick to follow his sister and Jin Heung.  After traversing several corridors, they entered someone’s private rooms and shut the door in the face of six guards.

“These are my rooms,” Eun Sook announced brightly.  “Where I sleep alone.”  This time she was careful not to look at Jijin.

“How came you to be here?” Jong Su asked abruptly.

Her face instantly flooded with color, giving her away.  “I…”

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” Jin Heung insisted.

“Of course, you’d say that,” her brother responded with contempt.  “You’re a king, and kings take what they want.”

Jong Su well knew that.  He was staring at the evidence.  His father had rejected this darling girl and cast her out, and she had fled to another kingdom to get away from the fallout of one man’s heartless decision.

Jin Heung’s eyes grew wide as he assured the man firmly, “I swear I have not taken what I want from her.”  Then he stopped as he realized how bad that sounded.

“And just exactly what is it that you want from my sister?”

Now the king did look at Eun Sook.  And an expression of utter tenderness flowed across his features.  “I want her to be my wife.”  He looked Jong Su firmly in the eye.  “My wife,” he spoke with emphasis.  “Not my concubine.”

If it were true, his sister had found a man worthy of her.  An honorable king who knew her true worth.

The prince studied the king for a moment.  “And just what are you willing to give Goguryeo for its prized princess?”

Now Jin Heung was angry.  “Prized princess?  She has been better treated in my palace than she ever was in yours.”

“That was not my doing!  I’ve been searching for her for over two years!”

“Only two years?  She’s been missing for sixteen!  Were she mine, I would have searched the world for centuries to find her!” Jin Heung announced dramatically, flinging his words into the other man’s teeth.

Her brother simply eyed him with disdain.  “Of course, you would.  You’re a king.  You have the men for that.  I am but a lowly prince who had to wait for his king’s favor.”

Jin Heung stared at him for a moment, then he cleared his throat.  “We can finish this discussion tomorrow.  I promised you a night to rest.  And I am a man of my word.  I will leave you two alone to get acquainted.”  He glanced at Eun Sook.  “I will send in a maid so that you’ll be properly chaperoned.”

“Chaperoned?” her brother snorted.  “I am her brother!”

“I know.  At least, we all believe you to be her brother.  Still, I want to satisfy convention.”

She gaped at him.  Now he was worried about satisfying convention?

But she was prudent enough to keep her mouth shut.

She didn’t relish the thought of her brother spilling Jijin’s blood all over her floor.