— chapter one; emergence. 

It was ten o’clock in the morning on a cold day in February of 1997 when Silla’s First Lady Jeongsuk went into labor. It was another grueling thirteen hours before her child, a son, was pronounced stillborn by the royal physician. It was only thirty minutes afterwards when a handmaiden Prince Siwoo had previously bedded nine months prior reported feeling her first contractions. It was early dawn, some time between five and six in the morning, when her daughter was born and handed to her father while the sun had started rising. Chaeyoung was the result of an affair between Prince Siwoo and one of his servants, but she was beautiful. Oh, so beautiful. One look into her doe eyes, and Prince Siwoo forgot all about the son he had lost hours prior. It was in that moment, with his newborn daughter cradled in his arms, that he made his decision.

It was exactly 24 hours after the First Lady first entered the birthing chambers when Prince Siwoo of Silla announced that his wife had successfully given birth to a healthy daughter.

Unable to say anything to protect Silla’s reputation, First Lady Jeongsuk misdirected her anger towards her husband to the child who had never asked to be born. From birth, Chaeyoung had grown up feeling ostracized and alienated from her “mother.” Despite this, the Prince’s perilous resolution proved fruitful as Chaeyoung grew older and demonstrated nothing short of perfection.

Far more intellectually advanced than children her age, she was always ahead in her studies and at the top of her class. There was nothing she didn’t excel in; literature, sciences, mathematics, combat, household duties — all you had to do was name it, and there was an alarmingly high probability that she had mastered that too. And to top it all off, her bright smile and kind personality always warmed the hearts of the citizens whenever she tagged along with her father for his royal duties. In fact, she was only six years old when they started calling her “the people’s princess.” Even when she got older and had her own responsibilities, she always made sure to greet her people with a smile and treated them with nothing less than respect. To put it simply, Chaeyoung was the epitome of everything the future Queen should be.

As a result of this, the late King and her father agreed to an engagement between her and Crown Prince Jaehyun when they were both at the tender age of sixteen. It was a power play to strengthen the alliance between Goguryeo and Silla. He was the heir to the entire kingdom, and she was the princess who had the hearts of the people lying in her hands. In terms of royal dynamics, they were the perfect pair. On the night of her sixteenth birthday, it was announced to the public that Princess Chaeyoung of Silla would marry Crown Prince Jaehyun of Goguryeo when he took the throne. Overnight, her responsibilities and the amount of attention of her doubled. She was now the Crown Princess, affectionately called “the Queen of Hearts.” And for that, she was adored by the entire nation.

Well, except for a few.

The main exception being her own mother. (Or, at least, that’s what she grew up thinking.) First Lady Jeongsuk, who had never gotten over the loss of her own son, absolutely despised how easily their child was forgotten and replaced by her husband. Chaeyoung was his favorite child. The apple of his eye. A diamond in his litter of rocks. He had spoiled her with the finest education and the most expensive possessions. In the midst of all of it, it seemed that he erased the memories of his late son completely. Lady Jeongsuk was angered even further when Prince Siwoo had announced that Chaeyoung would be his heir(ess), completely livid that a bastard child would be taking reign over such a prestigious clan and marrying the heir to the nation. Despite how harshly the First Lady had treated her, Chaeyoung still only had love and respect for the woman who had raised her. This was actually this reason that pushed her to strive for nothing but greatness; perhaps one day... she’d finally be enough for her mother.

But until then, there would be nothing that could stop her from pursuing the title of Queen. Not until she heard the words “I’m proud of you” leave her mother’s lips.

— chapter two; rebirth. 

Chaeyoung knew that everyone had different love languages. She did, and she understood. But the maternal love she had felt for her children had been too different from the “love”—or lack thereof—that she had received from her own Mother, and she knew there was no way she could deny it for any longer.

The head rebel had been right. Princess Chaeyoung of Silla was a bastard child born to her father and one of his handmaidens. The thought hadn’t sunk in when he had first said it (and, in her defense, she was fading in and out of consciousness when he did). But she had remembered it once she had regained consciousness again, and it had lingered on her mind. She had done some research of her own, meddling with hospital records and conducting an anonymous DNA test. Of course, she hadn’t spoken of the matter to anyone. Perhaps she feared that speaking it out loud would have made it all too real. But she had thought about it, time and time again, and eventually the pieces had fallen into place.

She thinks there was a little part of her that had always felt it.

The way she had been alienated from the rest of her siblings, the punishments she’d faced out of nowhere, the hardened glare she had received whenever she was alone with the First Lady. No matter how hard she had strived to become the leading royal Silla needed her to be, Jeongsuk was always there to taunt her failures in her face. A part of Chaeyoung had always known, and as much as the woman had been horrid to her, it still hurt like a to acknowledge it.

But she knew it was better now than never. Holding onto empty hope that, perhaps one day, Jeongsuk would embrace her with open arms was getting more and more detrimental to her mental health. Living life just to please a mother that wasn’t even hers was suffocating.

(And, honestly? Jeongsuk. The old hag isn’t even worth it. She never was.)

It’s then when she hears some shuffling from the cribs, and it’s what pulls her out of her trance as she immediately heads over to check on her children. Byeol is shuffling around in his sleep, squirming his way out of the plush blanket lain over him. Chaeyoung reaches her hand out to pull it back over his frame, but his tiny hand latches onto her fingertip instead. Her heart swells with love, and she pauses in place before straightening up so she can stare down at the twins in adoration.

She had loved these children from the moment she had first stepped into the orphanage with Jeonghan and the twins had smiled up at her as she passed by their crib. She had stopped in front of it for a moment, a gentle smile etching onto her face as she offered them her finger (which they gladly took). The love she felt for them in that moment had fully blossomed in such an overwhelming amount, so much so that it started pouring out from within her and seeping into the universe like petals flowing in the spring breeze. In that moment, she knew she would do anything to protect her little loves. For them, she would move the heavens and the earth if need be.

She’s scared for their future, and for her own, but there’s so much she can’t wait to teach them. Like how to be brave enough to fall over and over again, because she would always be there to pull them back up so that the pitter patter of their footsteps and the melody of their giggles resonate through the family’s home. Like how to be loving and caring, to stumble on rocks and bleed but to never stop craving the smell of morning dew and the feeling of rain puddles under their feet. Like how important it is to follow their own passions, because she’d never want them to grow old and realize they forgot how to be happy in the pursuit for stability. Like how to be kind, to learn to love the fuzzy feeling of warmth that spreads across their chests every time a wide smile stretches itself across someone’s face when they spend their allowance on a friend’s meal rather than frivolously spend it on toys they’ll eventually discard. (She’d teach them that the world runs on these random acts of kindness, but everyone is so deeply immersed in their own troubles that they forget how important it is to smile.) But most of all, she cannot wait to teach them how to love. She’d teach them how to say “I love you,” and never not mean it.

Byeol and Bitna don’t know it yet, but their mother would do anything for them. They don’t know it yet, but their mother is giving up a life she relentlessly pursued because she loves them more. They don’t know it yet, but their mother knows motherhood will be the most difficult yet most rewarding experience she’ll ever have.

Chaeyoung didn’t know it yet, but, perhaps, she had needed Byeol and Bitna to change her.

Because she was truly a mother now—their mother—by every definition, and she always would be.

For them, she would become the mother she herself had always needed.