#125. I Misspoke, Didn’t I?
His Majesty had deliberately dismissed the attendants, so out on the field, only our horses and the two of us remained.
Slowing his mount almost to a halt, His Majesty turned to look at me.
“Baekryeon.”
Each time that old name struck out of nowhere, my heart lurched heavily.
Those blue eyes—deeper than in childhood—pierced straight through me.
It was a face I had seen twice a year, for an entire month at a time, yet why did it feel so unfamiliar now?
Perhaps it had been unwise to use the Academy as an excuse to widen the gaps between our meetings. The thought came to me anew as I opened my mouth.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Look, there are flowers.”
Only then did I break my gaze from his and lower my eyes to the ground.
As he said, among the grass, there were indeed flowers blooming.
I had thought it was all grass, good for grazing, but even there, blossoms had taken root.
“……You spotted them well.”
“What surprises me is that you did not.”
With the reins looped around his wrist, His Majesty bent his upper body with a casual ease.
As I watched him twist halfway in the saddle to pluck the flower, I muttered anxiously:
“It would be better if Your Majesty dismounted. You might injure yourself.”
“What kind of man asks the lady herself to pick the flower meant as her gift?”
Without a scratch, he plucked the blossom and handed it to me.
Unlike at his proposal, there was no ribbon tied, no petals falling—just a flower, freshly picked.
I accepted it quietly, burying my nose in the petals. The scent was grassy. Then I untied the ribbon from my sleeve and bound the stem.
“Thank you.”
He watched me for a moment, then suddenly asked:
“Are you happy?”
“Pardon?”
“You’re smiling.”
Was I? I raised my free hand to touch my lips. Perhaps they were a little curved.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile like that, even when I gave you gold and jewels.”
My smile must have faded then. I knew it without needing to touch.
“It was because Your Majesty always went too far……”
Had it been only a jewel or two, or a box of gold, I would have been glad. But Your Majesty was always excessive.
“Your Majesty’s gifts were always too much.”
And when they weren’t excessive in amount, they were excessive in another sense.
I never imagined I would see, with my own eyes, a jeweled hairpin carved into the shape of a flower.
Where did he even find such a craftsman? I still wondered.
“And now I can say it—wasn’t it far too much to gift me a robe embroidered with phoenixes, when I wasn’t even Empress?”
At least it had been before his proposal. Otherwise, I would have fled to the northern estates that very day and never stepped foot in the palace again.
“No, what was too much was you. Honestly, even as I prepared it, I thought it might be excessive. What shocked me was not hearing even a whisper of rumor after I gifted it.”
“That was thanks to my blood-spitting efforts.”
I had worked endlessly to manipulate perception, so that the phoenix would not be seen as the Empress’s symbol, but rather as the emblem of the Emperor’s right hand.
The memory gave me a headache. Pressing my hand to my brow, I sighed.
“I was desperate in my own way.”
His Majesty urged his horse forward again. I hesitated, but since the pace was slow, I decided I could hold the reins in one hand, keeping the flower in the other.
“You always had many enemies. So in my own way, I meant to restrain them.”
I thought the conversation was over, but apparently not. For once, since he was speaking truths he had never revealed in my past life, I decided to respond as honestly as I could.
“Didn’t you think that such excessive favor would only increase the number of my enemies?”
I had thought it often—especially when it wasn’t objects but privileges he bestowed.
When he created a new title, Grand Marshal, a combination of supreme military ranks, and appointed me first.
When he altered a character in my name to mark me as quasi-royalty.
When he gave me his imperial seal so that I could dispatch letters without his review.
They were privileges unseen not only in our time but in all history.
At such times, I felt pride in his trust but also the sharp awareness of others’ eyes. Would someone, out of jealousy, try to eliminate me?
“Is that why you refused my gifts?”
He chuckled softly, as though unconvinced.
“That was the main reason, but honestly, it was also burdensome. If I accepted everything, my house would have burst at the seams.”
I spoke brightly, not to weigh him down, but to lighten the mood.
It worked—the conversation stayed light, like the weather.
“In that case, I should have given you a larger house first.”
“Please tell me that’s not serious. I just told you the burden was real.”
He only smiled, then shifted the topic back.
“Perhaps you are right. But believe me in this: if I had not so openly flaunted my favor, you would have been assassinated long ago by those who weren’t even your equals.”
Quietly, I inhaled. The flower nearly slipped from my hand.
“You are like a sword in its sheath—impossible not to notice. Whether I favor you or not doesn’t matter. One day, you were destined to shine. And for that possibility alone, people would—”
His words cut off.
Of course I knew what would have followed, but why did he stop?
Puzzled, I looked up—and saw his face twisted in discomfort.
“Ah. I see.”
His voice was heavy with unease.
“I misspoke, didn’t I?”
Instead of denying it, I wondered: what expression was I making now?
What face does a parent wear, when remembering a child who died before the age of three because of the parents they were born to?
It was unimaginable.
Melchizedek moved his horse closer and laid a hand against Blanche’s cheek.
She was not crying. Her face only looked as if she had swallowed poison.
For once, Melchizedek did not wonder what was in her mind. It was easy enough to guess.
She was remembering her first child—the one who had died so young.
Officially, the cause was sudden infant death. But in truth, the child had been assassinated in her stead, by rivals seeking to weaken her.
Yi Baekryeon had given birth to her first child at twenty-five—hardly young, by the standards of the time.
The problem was that Cheongneung had no children then, and many envied Baekryeon, who had become Supreme Commander after her sister-in-law Yeonnoksa, and bore a child first.
Someone among those jealous factions poisoned the infant.
When Baekryeon returned from the battlefield upon hearing the news, she announced it as sudden death. But by sending her spouse back to their family afterward, she only lent credence to the whispers of poison.
And Cheongneung—
Cheongneung realized then that his favor for Baekryeon needed to be made unmistakably public.
There had been earlier signs. Memorials to the throne had criticized the fact that Baekryeon, who held military command, had borne a child before the King himself did.
Many argued that she should send her child to the palace, to prove she harbored no treasonous intent.
At the time, Cheongneung ignored them.
He did not think to take her child away, nor demand such proof of loyalty. After all, the child was Baekryeon’s, but also another man’s. To him, it was not his responsibility.
The result was tragedy. The child was killed under her own roof, and Baekryeon bore it alone.
Her enemies did not touch her.
Perhaps because at that time, Jin was not yet an empire but only a kingdom, and Baekryeon spent more time on the battlefield than at home.
It was difficult to find a chance to strike her—and if she died, Jin itself might collapse.
But what after unification? What when the nation stabilized?
He had never thought that far. Baekryeon was capable and useful to Jin. He never imagined that his own people, his own officials, might one day threaten her.
That had been the naïveté of his younger self.
Only when Baekryeon’s child was assassinated did Cheongneung realize: she could be endangered not only by foreign enemies, but by those close to him.
And that to prevent it, he had to act.
Thus was born his overwhelming favoritism.
