The Emperor grabbed the gold-decorated bedroom door handle and took a deep breath.

Don’t come, Patrick. I’ll keep the Imperial Princess by my side, for life.

The Emperor gave the key to the butler.

“Move the Imperial Princess to the guest room, no.”

He roughly brushed back the black hair that had fallen onto his forehead.

“Leave her be. Just untie her hands and replace the leg bindings with leather straps. Treat her with respect but keep a close watch. Don’t let her escape. She’ll be looking for a chance to run away.”

After the Emperor finished his meal, the butler brought Earl Grey tea and a sugar bowl.

“Give three gold nuggets to the lutist.”

“Your Majesty, the blind old woman left through the castle gates last night.”

“She couldn’t have gone far. Find her. Have her stay at the castle.”

“Understood.”

The Emperor usually put one sugar cube in his tea before it cooled. This time he put the sugar cube directly in his mouth instead of the teacup. The grainy texture felt sweet as soon as it touched his tongue.

It was sweet, very. And slippery like water, those lips.

Ah, I’ve gone mad.

As he was leaving the dining room, he saw two maids holding men’s pants and shirts, smiling. They were the maids who had attended to the Imperial Princess yesterday.

“What’s that?”

The maids greeted awkwardly as they had yesterday and answered that it was clothes for Imperial Princess Tane.

Trying to escape in men’s clothes?

“Burn them.”

The Emperor then instructed the butler to contact the capital and prepare ladies’ dresses and supplies.

“The capital? That will take a long time…”

“Make sure to prepare an ample amount.”

“Understood.”

The Emperor was planning to keep the Imperial Princess captive on false pretenses.

The war-crazed Emperor Kazan had conquered the kingdoms of the Arkan continent one by one, taking queens and princesses he fancied as bedroom slaves.

When Emperor Kazan led his soldiers across Tane’s borders, King Valenti of the Torun Kingdom greeted him along with Princess Aldisha, rumored to be the greatest beauty on the Arkan continent.

They made a marriage alliance at the border lord’s castle. That’s how King Valenti protected his kingdom through a royal marriage.

It was an epic war story of the Arkan continent. It was famous.

I thought it was a thing of the distant past, but it’s right before my eyes. Those twins born from that beautiful princess.

Patricia.

The Emperor pressed his index finger to his lips as he said the name out loud.

Calip was waiting with the warhorse Khan prepared.

“Any movement from the other side overnight?”

“It’s been quiet. From what we can tell, it seems 3 companies have moved.”

“They came to attack with barely a thousand soldiers?”

“We haven’t been able to approach the Red Forest south of Lake Pana, which was the initial battle site. We’ve investigated the second and third battle areas – north of Lake Pana and the entrance to Mount Victoire.”

Calip handed over a report detailing the number of Tane’s dead soldiers and Karsik’s troop losses and wounded.

“Over fifty dead soldiers just from Tane.”

“There will be more casualties in the Red Forest area.”

“What about the prisoners released yesterday?”

“They stopped by the Red Forest and crossed the border around 10 PM.”

“So they’ve sent the hidden Imperial Princess ahead to the enemy country? Even though the Crown Prince and Second Prince are there? It won’t be a negotiation proposal, but a second wave coming. Be prepared. Capture Emperor Kazan, the Crown Prince, or the Second Prince alive, whoever comes.”

“I’ll stand by.”

“Have you interrogated the royal guards captured in Tamil Valley yesterday?”

“Yes, they believed their commander was Crown Prince Patrick.”

“Have you located the Tane deputy commander?”

“We confirmed he’s staying at the Red Forest camp.”

“Alright. Let’s go.”

The Emperor was about to spur his warhorse at the castle gates when he stopped and looked back. The window of the Emperor’s bedroom was directly visible. The curtains were still closed.

How carefree you are, Imperial Princess. And such a heavy sleeper.

“Open the gates, His Majesty the Emperor and warhorse Khan are departing.”

“Harchen, Harchen, Harchen, Harchen!”

The soldiers guarding the gates lowered the black chains to open them, chanting Harchen.

The Emperor spurred his black warhorse Khan. Khan reared up on his front legs before galloping off, his glossy black mane flying.

*

Harchen, Harchen, Harchen!

Harchen? Patricia mistook it for a familiar song in her sleep and started humming along before her eyes snapped open.

“…Harchen!”

As she sat up, there was a clanking sound from the chains on her wrists.

‘Ah, this is…!’

She had been captured… in the enemy Emperor’s bedroom.

Patricia berated herself for falling into a deep sleep on the soft bed after snatching bits of sleep in army tents for ten days.

‘How could this be, facing death… Patrick!’

“Greetings, Imperial Princess of Tane. Have you awakened?”

The two maids standing at the foot of Patricia’s bed approached her headboard.

One maid helped Patricia sit up and placed a large cushion behind her back. Her entire arm was stiff from having her wrist tied to the bedpost.

The other maid pulled a bell cord and the butler entered. He used a key to unlock the handcuffs.

Patricia thought he would untie her ankles too, but seeing him replace them with leather straps, she sat up straight.

“What are you doing?”

“His Majesty ordered to replace them with leather.”

“Please request an audience with His Majesty for me.”

“His Majesty left early for the battlefield.”

This was unfortunate. It was fortunate the Emperor was gone, but the prospect of being confined with bound feet was daunting.

“I’ll bring your meal.”

After the butler withdrew, Patricia got up from the bed. Fortunately, the leather straps binding her ankles were quite long. She moved about the space, gauging the length of the straps.

She could pass through the dressing room to enter and exit the bathroom, and return to the bedroom to reach the window in the reception room.

The only exits to the outside were the bathroom, bedroom and reception room windows.

Patricia went to the window and opened it.

From what she observed yesterday, this room was on the 3rd floor facing southeast, with a direct view of the castle gates from the window. From outside the castle, it would be at the 8 o’clock position.

She leaned close to the window and examined the castle walls.

There were two soldiers at each tower, and the moat appeared to be just over ten meters wide.

Since they said there were poisonous snakes in the underground dungeon, they must have released venomous snakes in the moat as well. The height of the walls seemed to be two meters taller than the width of the moat.

The walls built with square stones of uniform size, with gaps filled with hard, shiny quartz, glittered in the sunlight. Black iron bars were embedded in the top of the castle walls.

Yew trees, ornamental conifers, stood like green pointed hats at intervals from the castle walls.

Patricia carefully observed the castle walls, built with the solid and splendid fortification techniques befitting Karsik, the country of gold, and glared at them with sharp eyes.

‘Perfectly trapped.’

There were four soldiers in front of the castle gates, but there were easily fifty or more soldiers practicing with wooden swords in the open space right next to it.

‘Patrick said the Karsik Emperor, Harchen, had no will to fight at all. What, do they have soldiers to spare? Ah… Patrick.’

Thinking of Patrick made her anxious. But there was nothing she could do right away.

Patricia slowly savored and ate the meal brought by the maid. She ate her fill, recalling how she had eaten low-calorie, low-volume meals selected by Eva following her mother at the West Tower of the detached palace.

After eating the sliced fruit and apple pie, Patricia asked the maid if they were going to make comfortable clothes for her. The maid hesitated before answering.

“His Majesty said to just throw them away. He ordered to have you wear His Majesty’s shirt.”

“When did you say your Emperor would return?”

“He didn’t say.”

After finishing her meal, Patricia examined the book spines on the Emperor’s bookshelf in one corner of the reception room. She took out books, flipped through them briefly, and put them back in place.

She sat at the mahogany desk, picked up various quill pens, dipped them in the bronze inkwell, and wrote on parchment.

She drew on the parchment. She meticulously drew the castle walls, ramparts, gates, moat, trees, etc. She drew a small arrow pointing to a yew tree at the 4 o’clock position inside the castle.

The maids placed chairs at the entrance of the reception room and sat side by side, silently staring at Patricia.

It was only natural to monitor every move of the captured enemy leader.

One of the maids, who had been anxiously watching the Imperial Princess casually sitting at the Emperor’s desk rummaging through things and using pens to doodle, quietly stood up.

The maid walked towards the Imperial Princess, peeked at the doodle, went outside the reception room and reported to the butler.

“She’s taking books out from the shelf, looking at them, and drawing pictures with pens on paper at the desk.”

“Well, she must be bored. There are no important documents there. Even if there were, they’d be locked in the desk drawers.”

“She didn’t open the desk drawers.”

“Keep a close eye on her.”

“Yes.”

Patricia sat hanging from the windowsill, looking up at the sky, dozing on and off. Then she turned her head towards the reception room.

“Are you of the Heun clan?”

At their affirmative response, Patricia told the maids not to just sit there bored, but to bring some work to do.

The maids exchanged glances and whispered to each other. One went out while the other approached Patricia sitting on the windowsill.

Patricia leaned away from the windowsill she had been resting on and leaned further out the window.

‘…Bree! Eden sent you. Yes… it’s possible!’

Patricia’s pulse raced when she saw Bree, the white eagle she had trained.

“Imperial Princess. It’s dangerous. Please step back.”

“Come here. Look, do you see that bird?”

The maid came closer to the window.

“Yes, it’s a very large bird.”

“It’s a white eagle. I wonder why eagle beaks are yellow?”

“I didn’t even know it was an eagle, let alone that its beak was yellow.”

“Do you think you could get some chicken or turkey from the kitchen?”

“To feed that eagle?”

“Yeah, shall we try?”

“Will the eagle come down?”

“Let’s try to lure it, why not? I’m bored.”

“Imperial Princess. When Jane comes back, I’ll go down to the kitchen.”

Not long after, the maid called Jane came in carrying a basket with cloth, thread, and sewing supplies. Lian told Jane she was going to the kitchen and left with a meaningful look.

Patricia kept her gaze on the eagle circling lazily in the sky as she quickly jotted down a note on the back of the paper with the castle drawing. She folded the paper lengthwise several times and then rolled it up.

She placed the piece of smoked chicken Lian had brought on the windowsill. The eagle spread its huge wings and glided leisurely, but it didn’t come down, perhaps unable to smell the meat.

“Don’t the Heun people handle birds?”

“Mostly the men do. I think they made a sound like this.”

Jane grabbed her lower lip with her thumb and index finger and whistled.

Whee-eek.

The sound came out, but it was weak. Lian and Patricia imitated Jane a few times, but again, only wind sounds came out instead of whistles.

Whee-eek, whee-eek.