Blog

The man striding free through the palace courtyard spoke to the guard at his side.  “I have found a way to weaken King Yoongi without harming him.  When my plan is complete, he will be the laughingstock of the land.  No one will take him – or his rule – seriously.”

—

Yoongi stepped into the garden.  He glanced up.  The moon was full again.  Just like the night he’d first met Moonflower.  He couldn’t believe a whole month had passed since then.  

They had continued their nightly talks.  And stealing kisses from each other in the moonlight.  His heart bent even more in her direction the more he spoke with her.  She was his match in every way.  

But for her blindness.  That one tiny flaw that made her believe she wasn’t good enough for him.  He was so frustrated.  She would accept his kisses.  His touches.  His words.  But not his hand.  

On more than one occasion, he had tried to talk her into marrying him.  But she had steadfastly refused him.  She had insisted that she would make him look like a fool.  No one would take his reign seriously.  

He told her that wasn’t true, but she was certain that at the very least they would ridicule him behind his back.  And Yoongi deserved better than that.  He should go down in the history books as the greatest king their land had ever known.  He had finally given up trying to convince her to be his wife.  

Instead, he listened.  To all her thoughts on how he should make his kingdom friendlier to women.  She said it was time for justice to arise for the girls in his land.  They had so few opportunities outside of marriage.  And often, the men they were married to treated them as little more than slaves.  

He was appalled, but he couldn’t argue.  He was forcibly reminded of his brother.  Who thought all women had been born to service him.  Yoongi shook his head.  How could they have shared the same appa?  

Perhaps that was the problem.  Yoongi was born of the king’s second wife, his brother of the first wife.  So Yoongi understood what it was like to not be the favored son.  He’d watched his mother passed over for years.  

And a fire had burned a hole through his gut.  She had deserved better than the king’s treatment of her.  Yoongi had watched his eomma die from a broken heart.  Though, for his part, he could never understand how she could love such a heartless man as his father had been.

His eomma had been the saving grace in Yoongi’s life.  It had worked to his advantage that she was not the favored one.  For neither was he.  And he hadn’t had to spend much time with his appa or his brother.  Thank God.  

His gentle eomma had raised him to think like she did.  To see the world through a woman’s eyes.  To perceive a woman’s heart.  This understanding was the main reason he could never forsake his precious Moonflower.  And the reason he would only ever have one woman.  One wife.  One lover.  

He wasn’t making any babies with someone else.  No boys to grow up far from their father.  Or ridiculed by his first family.  No, all of Yoongi’s children would be born of the same woman.  And all would be beloved of their appa.

Or they wouldn’t exist at all.  

The world already had enough pain.  He refused to add to it.  And since Moonflower remained intractable, he bent his ear to hear her heart.  He took mental notes on how to change his kingdom to reflect justice for all.  And to protect the defenseless.  

Moonflower had been such a one.  A defenseless orphan.  Apparently, hidden by the master gardener where she would never be found.  Deep within the walls of the palace.  Only to emerge at night, long after the world had slipped into sleep.  The night guards would have paid no heed to a tiny girl sneaking into the garden to dance under the moonlight.  She was not a threat to anyone. 

At least…not until a king met her one moonlit night in a garden where the moonflowers grew.