THE CONCUBINE || TAEKOOK ||

THIRTY EIGHT

The Coronation Day — Dawn

The palace stirred before the sun.

Throughout the corridors, servants moved like shadows, their footsteps silent, their hands sure. In the great hall, the last of the mourning banners were being lowered, their white cloth replaced by the deep crimson and gold of celebration. In the kitchens, fires roared as cooks prepared the coronation feast. In the royal chambers, the ceremonial robes were laid out, their silk catching the first pale light of morning.

Today, Jungkook would become king.

But in the Queen's chambers, Hara sat before her mirror, her hands trembling as her ladies arranged her hair. She had not slept. She had not eaten. Her eyes, fixed on her reflection, were hollow with a grief that had nothing to do with her dead husband.

He broke the engagement, she thought. My son. My only son. He threw away everything I built for him.

Behind her, her ladies whispered of the coronation, of the nobles arriving from distant provinces, of the feast that would last long into the night. They did not whisper of the Crown Prince's visit to Lady Yoon-ah's chambers the night before. They did not whisper of the ring left on the floor, of the girl who had wept until dawn.

But Hara knew.

---

Yoon-ah's Chambers — Dawn

Yoon-ah sat on the edge of her bed, her hands folded in her lap, her face pale and still. The ring lay on the table beside her—she had picked it up after he left, had held it in her palm for hours, had pressed it to her heart as though it could somehow make the pain stop.

It could not.

Her maids had come to dress her for the coronation. She had sent them away. They had come again with breakfast. She had sent them away again. Now they waited outside her door, whispering, wondering what had happened, what would happen, what the future held for their mistress now that the Crown Prince had—

She did not let herself finish the thought.

She picked up the ring. The gold was warm from her skin, the jade cool and smooth. She turned it over in her fingers, watching the light catch the tiny carvings.

I love you, she had said. Please accept me. I am begging you.

And he had walked away.

A knock at the door.

She did not move.

"Lady Yoon-ah?" Her maid's voice was hesitant, afraid. "The Queen requests your presence. Before the coronation."

Yoon-ah closed her fingers around the ring.

The Queen. The woman who had promised her a crown. The woman who had assured her that Jungkook would come around, that the servant boy was nothing, that the engagement was unbreakable.

She rose.

---

The Garden — Early Morning