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Eun Sook blinked and rolled over.  She was not accustomed to being awoken by a maid. 

“Can I help you?”

“No, your highness, ‘tis I am here to help you.  Today is your wedding day.  We need to get you ready to meet your groom.”

“We?”

“The princess is waiting for you in your sitting room.”

Eun Sook sat up abruptly.  “The king’s sister?  Sook Myeong?”

“Aye, your highness.”

“Oh!  You can drop the ‘your highness’!  I wasn’t raised in a palace.”

“But, your highness, you’re marrying the king today.  You won’t be a simple princess anymore.  You’re about to become our queen,” the girl breathed in awe.

And Eun Sook blinked.

It was clear to her that someone had overheard her conversation with her brother.  And the news that she was a bona fide princess had spread like wildfire throughout the palace.  The question was…what did they think of her now that they knew she’d spent two weeks in the king’s rooms before moving to her own chambers?  And today she was to become his wife, feeding the flames of those raging rumors.  She was just sure of it.  Which was why she was suddenly as scarlet as an apple.  She buried her face in her hands.

“Your highness?  What’s wrong?”

“What are they saying about me?” she groaned.

“Who, your majesty?”

“The other servants.  What is the gossip in the corridor?”

The girl blinked.  She really didn’t want to answer that question.  “Um.  Everyone thinks the king must be besotted with you, your majesty.”

Eun Sook lifted her head and stared at the girl.  “Are they saying I was his…concubine?”

The girl blinked.  Looking every bit like a deer trapped in the corner of a forest as it faced a deadly arrow.

“Doesn’t matter what they think, your highness.  It’s clear to me that you’re a gently bred lady,” the girl drew herself up to her full height.  Five feet, one-half inch.  “And only an innocent would blush like you do, your worship.” 

She paused as she considered the situation.  “Even if they do think that, you’re proving them wrong today.  Today you’re becoming his wife.  Not a lowly concubine.  And he will crown you as his queen.  Leaving no one with any doubts.”

Eun Sook sighed.  Had he really made the right choice when he’d chosen her?  Wouldn’t he be ridiculed for elevating an albino to sit on his throne with him?

“You don’t…you don’t think he’ll come to regret it, do you?  Marrying me?” Eun Sook glanced at the girl.

She frowned.  “Your highness?” she asked for clarification, wondering what on earth could make this brilliant, beautiful woman so insecure.

“I mean…look at me!  I’m peculiar.  An oddity.  Won’t I be an embarrassment to him?  Surely, someday, his eyes will stray to a dignified woman.  With raven hair and great, dark eyes.  And I shall be relegated to the bottom of the heap.”

“Your majesty, no!  He is surrounded by such women.  But he chose you.  With your unique beauty.  Don’t you know that you’re stunning?” the girl asked incredulously.  “I haven’t seen him looking at any other women either, your majesty.”

“Well, I would hope not!  We’ve known each other for all of five weeks!  He hasn’t had time for his eyes to stray.” 

And now she knew that he had been recovering from his first infatuation when he’d met her in the forest.  She sighed.  Did she really live up to the ideal of his first love?  Was he going to regret asking Eun Sook to marry him so quickly?  He wasn’t going to change his mind a few months down the road, was he?

Would he turn and look at some prettier girl?  Someone who embodied the epitome of Sillan beauty at its darkest?   A woman who would make her pale looks appear grotesque alongside her own traditional, midnight beauty?

She sighed.  Her heart dipping at such a consideration.

––

Suddenly, Sook Myeong strode into her bedchamber.  “Leave us,” she barked at the girl waiting to help Eun Sook.

The girl’s face filled with dismay, and she fled from the room.

The princess turned towards Eun Sook.  “You should not discuss such things with the servants,” she rebuked the older girl.

Eun Sook’s sensitive face flooded with more distress.  “You are, of course, correct.”  She sighed heavily.  “This is a mistake.  Your brother cannot marry me.”

“What?” the princess’s countenance was filled with sudden alarm.

“I don’t even know how to behave properly.  I grew up a pauper.  Alone.  Isolated.  I didn’t even grow up in community.  Let alone in a palace.  I haven’t the foggiest idea how to act.  I’m going to be an embarrassment to him on more than one level.  First, my appearance.  And second, my lack of decorum.” 

She groaned and threw herself down on her bed, burying her face in her pillow.  “I should just become his concubine.  He deserves a better queen than I could ever make.”  Her voice was somewhat muffled, but Sook Myeong was able to make out her words, nonetheless.

“Stop that!  Get up!  Take a bath.  Make yourself as pretty as you possibly can for my brother.  He deserves a stunning bride.  Not some shamefaced girl hiding in her room!”

Eun Sook rolled over and glared at Sook Myeong.  “It is easy for you to say that.  You grew up here.  You know how to behave.”

“Well, then learn,” Sook Myeong ground out.

Eun Sook simply stared at her.  She had heard that the princess was fierce, but she had never before had to face her alone.

“I came here today to make sure that you had all the time you needed to present yourself as a fitting queen for my brother.  I thought you were made of sterner stuff than this.  Any girl who could look as you do and not let it defeat you.  But survive on your own wits for so long.  I thought, she’s a fitting bride for my brave brother.  But maybe I was wrong.  Maybe – when it comes down to it – you don’t have the mettle to be his queen.  I thought you must love him enough to toss aside all your qualms and embrace a royal life.  No easy task, I do assure you.  But today you are making me doubt you.”

Eun Sook sat up.  “I do love your brother!  With all my heart.  I,” her eyes filled with tears at the thought of him marrying another girl and giving that woman children.  A son who would one day rule from his throne.

“Jin Heung chose you, Eun Sook.  Of all the girls in the kingdom – in Silla – he chose you.  A girl from another kingdom.  He could have had the pick of our beauties.  My brother is not stuck in the old way of thinking.  He wouldn’t allow the bone-rank system to limit his choice of a bride.  He could have looked as high or as low as he wished for a woman to sit at his side. 

“Yet he bypassed every woman in Silla and turned his eyes on a pauper princess from Goguryeo.  And asked you to marry him.  Demanded it, in fact, if I know him.  Appealing to the very best of your nature to convince you to be his queen.  Don’t you think that that is proof enough of his love for you?  What more do you expect of him?  And doesn’t he deserve better from you than this little pity party that you’re throwing for yourself today?

“It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.  My brother clearly adores you.  He finds you to be a most ravishing creature.  So even if the whole remaining world thinks you’re strange, who cares?  You have the adoration of the one man who matters!  What need have you of anyone else’s good opinion?”

Eun Sook inhaled sharply.  “You don’t think that I will hurt his reign?”

“Not if you hold your head high and step out there with the attitude of a queen.  No one will question you if you believe in yourself.  And you have no reason not to.  That man worships the ground you walk on.  He did, in fact, barter me off to your brother in order to marry you.”

“What?” Eun Sook gaped at her, gasping.  “What do you mean?”

“Your brother demanded my hand in marriage.  If my brother would agree to give me to him, then Jong Su would agree to let Jin Heung have you.”

Eun Sook gasped in outrage.  She flew off the bed.  Her face crumpling.  “I am so sorry!  That is totally unfair to you!  I didn’t think that agreement was going to come to anything!  Jijin led me to believe that the prince just wanted his cooperation to spend time getting to know you!  I will call off the wedding.  You must be free to choose—”

Sook Myeong’s bitter laughter filled the air.  “You really are naïve, aren’t you?  Princesses of the realm don’t get a choice, my dear.  We are shipped around like pawns.  Traded for this peace, acquired for that peace.  My life is not my own. 

“It doesn’t really matter what Jin Heung said.  In the end, he will do what is most expedient for him.  That is the way of royalty.  If my marriage to the prince prevents a war with Goguryeo, it will happen.  For one thing, my brother knows I could never countenance being the reason a war broke out between Silla and Goguryeo.  He knows I would sacrifice myself to keep our people safe.”  She raked the other girl with a cold glance.  “You were lucky enough to fall in love and have that devotion returned by a most equity-minded king.”

“But he sold his own sister into the slavery of a foreign marriage?  That hardly sounds like a forward-thinking king.”

“It’s not as simple as that.  I do think that, when it comes down to it, my brother will give me a choice.  If he can.  But he can also see the advantages to a match between our kingdoms.  And two matches would make our alliance that much stronger.”

Eun Sook was still furrowing her brow.  “I just don’t like it.”

“I only told you because I want you to know how very much he adores you.  He would give much to acquire you, I think.  So forget the naysayers.  Love my brother.  Embrace being his queen.  And hold your head high.”  Sook Myeong paused.  “I think…I think you could be a very good match for my brother.  If you would just believe in yourself as much as he clearly believes in you.”

Eun Sook blinked.  Unsure how to take all this news.  She didn’t think very highly of herself.  Her relationship with him had taught her that.  Unveiling all her insecurities and revealing all her fears. 

She sighed.  “What am I to do?” she queried mournfully.

“Take a long, hot bath for starters.  It will clear your head.  Then decide what really matters to you.  And fight for it.  With everything you have.”