Your Highness

T H I R T Y S I X

C H A P T E R   T H I R T Y S I X

The sky settles black and soon dimming pearl glittered above the palace. With court of servant right behind Hayoon was strolling through the corridors that she long had not set a foot on. It was after a long time that she was able to feel the breeze kissing her skin and a view that wasn't of tall walls.

Within a short amount of time the view of the pampered garden came to her sight of view. Amidst the garden was a pond with lanterns formed as orchids and lotus flowers holding a little candlelight within, competing with the reflection of stars mirrored in the pond. It was a beautiful sight that Hayoon was lost agape. The flowers was in different shade of pink and purple colouring the pond with life and soul.

Above the bridge stood Hyun in his royal attires, the red robes that was a shade darker than the colour of the wooden bridge. His hair was in a ponytail, a band was tightened around his forehead, hidden behind the curtains of his bang that reached the arched eyebrows.

As the court of people approached the prince lifted his gaze from the calm pond. As soon as his eyes met Hayoon's a little grin sneaked its way at the corner of his lips, pulling it up in the usual smirk he often wore. Though she could tell he was positively surprised by her appearance, it was not the only reason behind the smile. Hyun was in good mood, she could tell that. Whether this was a good sign or not was a thing time would determine.

Hayoon crossed the bridge, while her attendants remained at the foot of the bridge. Only her sole steps were heard as she decreased the distance to Hyun, who stood as waiting for her.

"So, you finally came out of the little shield of yours?" Hyun said, his smile still playing on his lips. After all this time she finally came to meet him, on her own will. All his effort to reach out to her, all the preparation made to impress her in this decorated garden. Maybe it was finally paying off.

She was stunned by the garden, he could tell the surprise in her eyes. The many times he felt wronged for going back empty handed, to fight back the temper to barge in and take her with him. Could it be that she had finally accepted his good intention?

"Thank your highness for saving me the other night," Hayoon curtsied as greeting. Her tone of gratitude was a sudden lash crashing the hopes he was building with no mercy. The emotionless tone was as a mocking insult, wrapped in a shield of manner. The girl wasn't thanking him for saving her. She came for something else. Was it her real genuine intention she would had thanked him the day he saved her, she wouldn't reject his many attempts to please her, she wouldn't turn him down as he wasn't worth dust in her eyes.

"I guess you didn't came here simply for thanking me,"

His tone darker and so was the gaze in his eyes. The warm air was soon turning dark and cold. Hayoon remembered this stare of his. The eyes filled with emptiness, the unreadable expression he wore when he wasn't in a good mood. It was the expression she had in her memory, the expression that could make one shiver to core of the bone.

No, Hayoon wasn't wrong about Hyun, the image of him was intact and clear. He was an unpredictable flame that would treat one differently depending on his emotion. A thing that was rather uncontrolled in his case. A fire that could blow up anytime and die without warning.

"Since I'm all better I want your highness to let me return to my chamber," Her words inflicted some emotions in him in form of a sharpened glare making her feel as if the temperature had dropped to the ground.

The warmth of the floating candle was too far to chase away the coldness that soon engulfed the air around Hayoon. There it was the venomous returned and haunted her view with the malice of a smile cracking its way to his sculptured face. The chilling laughter that penetrated the air and send shiver down the spine of people within its sphere. Hyun was letting out a silent laugh, a laugh that appeared genuine but with no real amuse.

"I'm afraid that it isn't possible," Hyun said with the hysterical smile plastered on his facial expression.

"What do your highness mean by that?" Hayoon mustered the word without showing the tremble in the shaky eyes of hers.

"What I'm saying is, after the incident of the fire, the place of Han is still under investigation,"

What did Hyun refer to? What fire incident and what investigation? As if reading the question in her eyes Hyun replied.

"The fire that was supposed to catch her highness that night if I hadn't brought her to my chamber."

"What?" Her brows gathered in confuse as she let out the word. Her words was of disbelief, and by a sudden fear.

"Han's place is a dangerous place. Do you now realise that her highness? Danger awaits every corner there. He left you to that danger," his words sharper than blades and hurts just as much as he intended it. Hayoon didn't want to hear more. She knew the next words that would come out of Hyun's mouth and she feared that.

Her heels turned yet, without her control her steps halted the moment Hyun opened his mouth.

"He left you to die."

No. His lying. It's not true. Out of all people Han was the one that wouldn't intend her death. They never shared a mutual good relationship but Hayoon was sure Han wasn't that calculating. He left for a reason a reason which laid at the border. He didn't left her to die. No not Han. He was one of the few person that more than anyone had reason to let her die, but didn't.

"If he really cared he wouldn't return to the borders, leaving her highness alone in the cursed place."

Hyun's words was an evil whisper breaking through her barricade as fluid as water. It planted sickening thoughts in the corner of her conscious, as an illness spreading its web and trapped her within it. The more she heard it the more swayed she became. Maybe Han wasn't that different from everyone else who saw her better of as a corpse.

Why wouldn't he see you dead? You nearly caused his. The wicked voice at the corner of her mind spoke. It was right. Why would he not? Why would he be different from any other?