Arrows, Swords and a Little Bit of Magic ( Rated M )

Death in place of Marriage

The narrow corridor was - as it always is – dark, damp and dusty. A few of the cobwebs were back in place again too, despite being brushed away only the previous afternoon.

Seokjin make his way down the shadowy path, a feather duster in one hand, a small burning torch in the other and a leather satchel slung over his shoulder, containing a few books and herbs.

It was five years ago - a few weeks after Jungkook's presentation ball - that the older prince discovered the existence of this secret passage. The Lupa Kim Clan's castle had an abundance of mysterious tunnels, as Seokjin had come to know since then.

That day, Seokjin had finally managed to slip by all the guards, successfully remaining unseen until he had reached the castle's library which was usually reserved for the King, the castle's scholars, alphas and the librarian, of course. Neither Prince Seokjin nor any of his attendants, including Hyejin, had access to the vast collection of tomes and documents and Seokjin did not like that in the least.

Hyejin had begun teaching him to read and write almost immediately after the ball, smuggling story books written by the common folk into the prince's bedchambers, careful not to be caught by any alphas. But though the books had come from the village closest to the castle, and the dialect in which they had been written was by far the closest to the one they used in the palace, the language and vocabulary was still too simple and instead of the books that Hyejin brought Seokjin wanted to read the books that the palace alphas did, so he could be at least a little bit on par with them.

He had stumbled upon the scrolls by pure luck while trying to avoid the librarian who had smelled his omega scent, and in his haste to escape Seokjin had accidentally discovered a hidden compartment containing the palace's secret scrolls; the scrolls that were supposed to be only for the eyes of the one who donned the crown.

Since then Seokjin had free reign over the castle's grounds.

Presently, the Prince made a turn to the right and a few steps further in the passageway opened up into a small, circular room. The room had no windows and was lit up in a soft light only by the two burning oil lamps attached to the walls. The ceiling was low - barely a heads distance between it and the top of Seokjin's head. The room smelled of floral incense and grassy herbs, permeated through by sweetened moldy undertones of a place that has not been aired out in quite a while.

There may have been hundreds of small secret corridors throughout the castle, but this was the only actual room and even though it was rather small, Seokjin had managed to make the most out of the space. He had a desk here, tomes stacked neatly one over the other on one side and papers spread over the rest of the wooden top, still smelling faintly of drying ink. There were three shelves too - two of which had been built by Hyejin and Seokjin himself – lined with books, herbs, quills and bottles of ink.

Seokjin placed the torch into one of the empty iron sconces right above the small herb table and removed his satchel, taking out the herbs and starting to grind them. The herbs were dried and thus turned into fine powder instead of a thick, wet paste; the greenish-blue granite pestle a welcome weight in the prince's hand. He poured the powder into a small leather pouch and hid it away inside his satchel.

The powder would go into his herbal teas, its purpose lying in the task of suppressing his omega scent. Though the prince now had access to many hidden paths, the secret corridors often had thin walls separating them from the palace halls and it was easy to be heard from the other side if he made a loud noise, was also quite possible for alphas with a strong nose to smell his scent through the small cracks in the walls' stone. The herbs didn't really make his scent go away completely, just mellowing it down to be nearly undetectable unless in close proximity to his scent glands, but it was still better than nothing.