Yohan woke to softness.
His eyes snapped open, heart hammering. This wasn't the cold ground of the abandoned house. This was... warm. Comfortable.
Am I dead?
He tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. Pain shot through his ribs like fire.
"Don't move too quickly."
A woman's voice. Gentle. Yohan turned his head and saw a young maid kneeling beside what looked like the softest bed in the world. She had kind eyes and work-worn hands that held a bowl of something that smelled like medicine.
"Who..." His throat felt like sandpaper.
"I'm Seorin. Your handmaiden." She dipped a cloth in the bowl and reached toward his face. "May I? Your lip is still bleeding."
Yohan flinched away automatically. People didn't help him. People hurt him.
Seorin's hand paused. "I won't hurt you. I promise."
Something in her voice made him stop. When was the last time someone had promised him anything?
He nodded slightly.
The cloth was warm and gentle against his split lip. It didn't sting like he expected. Instead, it soothed the angry cut.
"You've been unconscious for a day," Seorin said as she worked. "His Majesty ordered the palace physician to tend to your wounds."
His Majesty. The throne room came rushing back. Those dark eyes. That impossible command.
You will bear my child.
Yohan's stomach lurched. He tried to scramble off the bed, but his legs gave out immediately. Seorin caught him before he hit the floor.
"Easy," she murmured. "You're still hurt."
"I have to go." His voice cracked like a child's. "This is all wrong. I don't belong here."
"You're safe here."
The words hit him like a physical blow. Safe. When had anyone ever told him he was safe?
Seorin helped him back onto the bed, her touch careful around his injuries. "No one will hurt you in these chambers. I won't let them."
Yohan stared at her. "Why?"
"Because everyone deserves kindness." She said it like it was obvious. Like it was simple.
Everyone deserves kindness.
He'd never heard those words before.
---
"Come," Seorin said later, helping him to his feet. "You need a proper bath. The herbs will help with the pain."
The bathwater was hot, steam rising with the scent of unfamiliar herbs. Yohan stood at the edge of the wooden tub, suddenly frozen.
What is she expecting me to do? Just... take off my clothes? In front of her?
His heart hammered against his ribs. In the streets, privacy was a luxury he'd never had, but nakedness meant vulnerability. Meant being hurt.
"I can... I can wash myself," he mumbled, not meeting her eyes.
Seorin paused, understanding dawning on her face. "When was the last time you had a proper bath?"
"I..." His cheeks began to burn. "Don't remember." Never, was the real answer. Cold river water when he could manage it. Rain when he was desperate.
"It's alright," she said gently. "I'll help you. It's my duty as your handmaiden."
Help me? She wants to... to wash me? Like I'm a child?
Yohan's face went scarlet. His hands trembled as they went to the simple clothes she'd given him earlier. No one had ever... he'd never let anyone...
She'll see everything. Every scar. Every mark where they beat me, burned me, cut me. She'll know exactly what I am. What I've been through.
"I don't..." he whispered, voice barely audible. "No one's ever..."
"Oh." Seorin's expression softened with sudden understanding. "You've never had someone tend to you like this."
He shook his head, mortified. His whole body felt hot with embarrassment.
This is stupid. I'm being stupid. She's just trying to help, and I'm acting like a frightened child.
But the panic wouldn't leave his chest. Being seen, being touched—even gently—it went against every instinct he'd learned for survival.
"Turn around," he managed to say, his voice small as a child's.
Seorin smiled—not mocking, but warm. "Of course." She turned her back to him, giving him privacy. "Take your time. The water will stay warm."
She's... she's actually listening. Not forcing me. Not laughing at me.
Yohan undressed with shaking hands, hyperaware of every scar, every mark of his hard life written across his skin. The raised welts from whips. The puckered flesh from burns. The thin white lines from blades.
She's going to see all of it. She's going to know what I am—damaged goods. Broken.
He slipped into the water quickly, sinking down until only his shoulders showed. The heat felt strange against skin that had known only cold for so long.
"You can... you can turn around now," he said quietly.
When Seorin faced him again, her eyes held no judgment, only kindness. She knelt beside the tub with a soft cloth.
She's not staring. She's not... disgusted. How is that possible?
"May I?" she asked, the same way she had with his injured lip.
Yohan nodded, though his cheeks still burned. Her touch was so careful, so gentle as she began washing the dried blood from his hair. Like he was something precious instead of something diseased.
Every instinct screamed at him to pull away, to run, to protect himself from the inevitable moment when gentleness turned to cruelty.
But it didn't come. Her hands remained soft, patient.
"You'll get used to it," Seorin said softly, noticing how he tensed at first. "Being cared for. It feels strange now, but it will become natural."
"Will it?" he whispered.
The question came out smaller than he intended, carrying years of doubt, years of expecting the worst from every human interaction.
"Everyone deserves to be treated with gentleness," she said, working the tangles from his hair with infinite patience. "You'll see."
Everyone deserves gentleness.
The words echoed in his mind alongside her earlier promise: Everyone deserves kindness.
What kind of world does she live in? Where people deserve good things just for existing?
As the warm water soothed his aches and Seorin's kind hands tended to him, Yohan felt something crack open in his chest. Something that had been frozen for so long he'd forgotten it was there.
Maybe... maybe she's right. Maybe I'm not as worthless as I thought.
"Seorin-ah," he said quietly, "what did the king mean? About... about bearing his child?"
Her hands stilled. "You don't know about the prophecy?"
"I've heard whispers. Something about an heir of heaven?"
Seorin's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "The court astrologers say the next crown prince won't be born of a woman. That the heir of heaven will come from a man cast aside by the kingdom."
Yohan's blood went cold. "And they think that's... me?"
"The king seems to believe so."
Shibal. This was insane. Him? Bearing children? The outcast traitor's son becoming mother to the future king?
"I can't," he whispered. "I don't know how to be... whatever this is."
"A consort," Seorin said gently. "You're His Majesty's consort now."
She helped him from the bath and wrapped him in the softest cloth he'd ever felt. Then she brought clothes—simple but clean, finer than anything he'd ever worn.
"The other consorts will want to meet you," Seorin warned as she helped him dress. "They... they might not be kind."
As if summoned by her words, the chamber doors opened.
Three men swept in, all beautiful in the way palace people were beautiful. Perfect hair. Perfect clothes. Perfect sneers.
"So this is the famous new consort," the tallest one said, voice dripping disdain. His name was Jihoon, if Yohan remembered correctly from neighborhood gossips.
"Aigoo," another laughed, "look at those scars. His Majesty really has peculiar tastes."
The third one circled Yohan like a predator. "You think the king will actually touch trash like you? When he has us?"
Yohan's face burned. These men were everything he wasn't—refined, educated, born for palace life. Next to them, he looked exactly like what he was: a street rat playing dress-up.
"The novelty will wear off," Jihoon said with cruel certainty. "And when it does, you'll be right back where you belong. In the gutter."
They left as suddenly as they'd arrived, their laughter echoing in the corridor.
Yohan sank onto the bed, suddenly exhausted. They're right, he thought. I don't belong here. I never will.
"Don't listen to them," Seorin said firmly. "They're just scared."
"Scared? Of me?" The idea was laughable.
"You're carrying the future of the kingdom. That makes you the most powerful person in this palace, whether you know it or not."
Powerful. Him. The boy who got beaten for sport in the marketplace.
Before he could respond, heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor. The chamber doors opened again, but this time it was a royal guard.
"His Majesty commands your presence," the guard announced. "Tonight."
Seorin went pale. "But he's not ready. He hasn't learned proper protocol, he doesn't know how to—"
"The king doesn't wait."
The guard's eyes were cold, final. He turned and left without another word.
Seorin's hands shook as she began preparing different clothes. Finer ones. Special ones.
"What does this mean?" Yohan asked, though part of him already knew.
Seorin couldn't meet his eyes. "Tonight... tonight you become his consort in truth."
The words hit him like ice water. As Seorin's gentle hands arranged his hair and smoothed his clothes, only one thought echoed in Yohan's mind:
This is my wedding night