Bound by the kingdom

The palace was colder than she had imagined.
Even beneath the summer sun, its marble floors bit into her bare feet, and the air smelled of incense and iron - like prayers and blood.

They said she had been spared. That the great King Jeon, conqueror of the southern lands, had taken pity on the little girl found among the ashes of a distant war. But mercy, she would learn, often came wrapped in chains.

Naomi did not understand the language of her captors. The words were sharp and unfamiliar, slicing through her thoughts like wind through bamboo. Around her, faces watched with quiet disdain - silk-robed nobles, stoic guards, and a kingdom that would never call her its own.

And then there was him.

Prince Jeon Jungkook - the younger son. Barely older than she, yet already carrying the grace of someone born to command. He stared at her not with cruelty, but with a curious light in his eyes, as though trying to unravel who she was beneath the dirt and trembling.

For a moment, time held still - two children on opposite ends of a kingdom's power, bound by a fate neither could name.

That was the day Naomi entered the royal palace.
And the day Jungkook began to question everything he had ever known.