On the stairs below them, Emperor Hwanin’s body is crumpled face down. His expensive hanbok is soaked through with blood, rich, thick, warm blood that permeates the stairwell with its horrible smell. There’s a keening sound, a low wailing, and Seokga does not realize it is coming from his own mouth as he rushes to his brother, flips him over…

And turns away, retching, tears sliding down his cheeks.

Hwanin’s heart has been torn out of his chest.

His brother is dead.

Chapter Eleven

Seokga

His brother, with whom he laughed and fought. His brother in blood and also once in arms, before the favoritism from their father and Seokga’s jealousy, before the coup. Hwanin, who Seokga had looked up to, who he had idolized in the very early years of his life. Seokga walked because Hwanin could, and if Hwanin could, that meant he could, too. Seokga learned his favorite curse words from his older brother, during the hours spent giggling together behind their father’s throne. It was Hwanin who taught Seokga how to pet the wild bulgae, the dogs of stardust and sunlight. You have to let them sniff you first, the older boy had whispered encouragingly. Go on, reach out your hand.

His brother, who loved him even through the years of bitter envy, who still reached out a hand to the one that bit him, over and over.

“Why?” Seokga had snapped one night when Hwanin had ventured into his room at Cheonha Palace. It was right after Seokga had shaved off Hwanin’s eyebrows, hoping that if his brother looked hilarious enough, their father’s attentions might shift to him. Yet it was still before Hwanin somehow turned shaved eyebrows into a trend around Okhwang. He knew his brother was hurt and angry, but still he stood in the doorway, hands clenched uncertainly around a tray of food from the kitchens. Fluffy white rice and sokkoritang. Seokga had missed dinner in favor of curling up on his bed, ridden with a humiliating mixture of shame, anger, self-hatred, and above all a terrible jealousy. “Why do you keep forgiving me?” His voice was hard with rage yet weak with bitter resentment that could not find a strong enough flaw in Hwanin to cling to.

The crown prince seemed to attempt a sage expression. Without eyebrows, it did not work. Actually, it looked rather disturbing and would haunt Seokga’s nightmares in the years to come. “Because you’re my brother,” he replied softly. “If we do not have each other, Seokga, who do we have?”

Seokga knows the answer now.

Nobody. They have nobody.

“I’m sorry, Hwanin,” Seokga weeps. “I’m so sorry—”

Something in the air shifts. Some hidden force that spirals and curls around the small landing, brushing against the walls and bringing with it the indescribable scent of change.

A moment later, the heavens sing and a naked baby plops into Seokga’s arms.