Woo-hee first saw the man when she accompanied her father, Yang Chigang, to the Imperial Palace.

Her father, Yang Chigang, was Hobuk’s general and guarded the border fortress.

Hobuk was located at the northernmost edge of Yeon, bordering the kingdom of Wol.

Due to its long, bitter winters, barren soil and mountainous terrain, it was a place that court officials were reluctant to visit. Since ancient times, it had been a place for those who had been demoted or exiled.

Woo-hee was born in that fortress.

Two years before Woo-hee was born, Yang Chigang was appointed lord of Hobuk Fortress. While he was there, he married the daughter of a powerful local family, with whom he had a daughter, Woo-hee.

Woo-hee’s mother died while giving birth to her, leaving her to be raised by a wet nurse.

Her father was not affectionate, and everyone around him was a warrior. It would be no exaggeration to say that Woo-hee’s childhood consisted almost entirely of the time she spent with her wet nurse and the woman’s daughter.

The only comfort she had was that her maternal grandfather and her uncles, who were members of one of Hobuk’s most powerful families, also lived there.

He cherished his late daughter’s granddaughter, and her three uncles doted on Woo-hee as though she were their own child.

As she had no siblings, Woo-hee was close to her cousins. However, her father disapproved of her visiting her maternal relatives, so as she grew up, she rarely had the chance to see them.

Woo-hee had never understood why her father wouldn’t let her leave the house.

She could not fathom why he confined her to its walls and forced her to study the tedious and complicated rules of etiquette.

However, when she turned sixteen, she finally discovered the reason for her father’s restrictions and disapproval of her visits to her mother’s family.

Her father, Yang Chigang, was a deeply ambitious man.

Born into humble circumstances as the illegitimate son of an obscure branch of the Yang family, he was highly talented. Yet he was always forced to play second fiddle to a legitimate son who was his inferior.

Even when he distinguished himself in battle, his younger half-brother took all the credit. He remained an illegitimate son, forever living in his brother’s shadow.

His opportunity finally came when his half-brother, the family’s only legitimate heir, was killed in battle.

With the legitimate heir dead, Yang Chigang inherited the family business.

However, even after becoming its head, he found no opportunity to fulfil his ambitions, as his family was of little consequence.

Although his military achievements far surpassed those of his peers, his political rivals blocked his rise and eventually pushed him out to the remote frontier of Hobuk.

Everyone thought that this would mark the end of Yang Chigang’s career.

While he was there, he married the daughter of a powerful local family.

Though her family was not especially prominent, Yang Chigang had no ties to Hobuk, making the marriage a calculated political move. It proved a wise choice. With his father-in-law’s help, he established himself in a region where outsiders often struggled to survive.

However, Yang Chigang had no intention of staying in Hobuk forever.

He harbored ambitions of one day returning to the imperial capital to claim wealth and honor. His only hope of doing so lay with his late wife’s daughter.

His daughter had been exceptionally beautiful from an early age, and he intended to exploit her beauty to the fullest.

He disapproved of her visits to her maternal relatives and forbade her from leaving the fortress without permission. Marriages between relatives were common in Hobuk, and he knew her maternal uncles were hoping to marry her off to one of their sons — her cousins.

While such a marriage would have strengthened his position in Hobuk, it would also have tied him more firmly to the frontier, rendering his dream of returning to the imperial capital even less likely.

To fulfil this ambition, he planned to marry his daughter to a nobleman in the capital and use her husband’s connections to secure his return.

He spared no expense in pursuing this goal.

He commissioned a portrait of Woo-hee to capture her beauty, and sent it to influential families in the imperial capital. He then waited for one of them to select her as a potential bride.

It was a humiliating way to seek an alliance, but Yang Chigang would do anything to fulfil his ambitions.

After a long wait, the reply he had hoped for finally arrived.

The man who wished to marry Woo-hee was no ordinary nobleman. He was a member of the imperial family.

He was Prince Seo, the emperor’s younger brother.

As the emperor’s only full brother, Prince Seo enjoyed his complete trust and held the second most powerful position in the empire.

With such a man as his son-in-law, Yang Chigang’s future was all but assured.

Although Prince Seo was older than Yang Chigang and already had more than twenty wives, neither of these facts put Yang Chigang off.

The marriage negotiations moved swiftly. Soon afterwards, Woo-hee left Hobuk, the only home she had ever known, to travel to the imperial capital, where she would become the prince’s twenty-first wife.

There, she entered the imperial palace for the first time.

“You still have much to learn about imperial etiquette. You must stay with the noble ladies of the palace and learn how to conduct yourself.”

Yang Chigang walked ahead of her, his voice stern.

“I will tolerate no mistakes, nor anything that displeases His Highness, Prince Seo. This is a tiger’s den. Keep your wits about you and win his favor. Do you understand?”

Woo-hee was only sixteen.

She was too frightened to appreciate the splendor of the imperial palace.

The prospect of becoming a stranger’s wife at such a young age filled her with dread, preventing her from enjoying her magnificent surroundings.

Her only consolation was that the law prohibited marriage before the age of eighteen. She still had two years before she would formally become Prince Seo’s concubine.

Then Yang Chigang returned to Hobuk, leaving his daughter alone in the palace.

Woo-hee was sent to the Inner Palace, where the Emperor’s consorts lived. There, she became a maid of honor to the Imperial Noble Consort Suk, who was one of the Emperor’s favorite consorts.

Maids of honor were unmarried noblewomen who attended to and kept company with the women of the imperial family. Daughters of noble families in the capital usually entered the palace at around sixteen, where they learnt imperial etiquette and formed valuable connections while serving the consorts.

The fortunate few who caught the Emperor’s eye became consorts themselves. Others went on to become principal wives or concubines of imperial princes.

Even securing such a position required the support of an influential family. Woo-hee, a girl from the distant land of Hobuk, owed her place at Consort Suk’s side entirely to Prince Seo’s influence.

“What do we do?”

“I don’t know either. What are we supposed to do now?”

The maiden attendants shuffled around anxiously, looking at each other helplessly.

A gust of wind had snapped the kite’s string, sending it flying over the wall.

Among them was Woo-hee, who had turned seventeen that year.

The kite belonged to the Imperial Noble Consort Suk.

“If we don’t find it and bring it back at once, she’ll scold us…”

“His Majesty gave her that kite…”

The maid of honor’s eyes reddened and she felt tears threatening to spill over.

They were only sixteen or seventeen years old.

They served Imperial Noble Consort Suk, a woman so powerful that they scarcely dared to meet her gaze. They had quickly learned how volatile she could be.

If she lost a kite that had been given to her by the Emperor himself, who would suffer her wrath?

The wind had snapped the string, but the maids would be punished if they failed to retrieve the kite.

Consort Suk had borne the Emperor two sons and a daughter.

As the Empress had not borne any sons, rumors circulated that the Emperor’s eldest son, Consort Suk’s firstborn, would one day be named Crown Prince.