The sky over Baekseong was the color of rusted iron, smeared with ash and sorrow. Flames still licked the edges of the royal palace, and the air reeked of burning silk, blood, and crushed jasmine a flower once worn by the queen's handmaidens, now scattered across the cold stone floor like offerings to a god that never answered.
King Hwan Seong stood amidst the wreckage, his sword lowered but not sheathed. His armor bore the stains of battle, the dents of resistance, but his eyes remained untouched sharp, calm, and unreadable.
He did not revel in this.
He never had.
Victory, perhaps. But triumph? No. Not when it came with the cries of children and the silence of the innocent.
"The tyrant king is dead, Your Majesty," a general announced, bowing low. "The palace is cleared. Only the women remain. The royal bloodline is finished."
The king nodded once. "Ensure the women are treated with dignity. No harm shall come to them."
"And…" The general hesitated. "There is one more. A boy. He was found in the main hall. Refuses to speak."
Hwan Seong turned slowly.
"A servant?"
"No," the man said grimly. "His son. The young prince."
There was a pause long enough for even the fire to flicker more quietly. And then the king walked, without a word, through the halls of a dying empire.
Each step echoed against marble, broken now by collapsed beams and shattered chandeliers. Murals of dragons and cranes stared down at him from cracked walls, once proud and gleaming, now faded by smoke.
And then he saw him.
A lone figure knelt beside the body of the fallen king, no more than twenty. He was small, thin from youth or grief, the king couldn't tell. His robes were torn at the sleeves, his long black hair disheveled and streaked with ash. He clutched the corpse like a lifeline, forehead pressed to the blood-soaked chest of the man who had started a war.
He was crying without sound.
Tears dripped from his chin to the floor, and yet his lips never moved. His shoulders shook, but not from fear. It was something else. Something quieter. Deeper. Like sorrow had rooted itself so violently within him that it couldn't escape as screams.
The boy did not look up.
Hwan Seong stood there, watching him. Studying him.
Not with hatred. Not even with pity.
But with something far more dangerous.
Curiosity.
He should feel nothing. He had killed the boy's father with his own hands. He had brought down the kingdom that raised this child. Every breath in the palace was owed to mercy or death.
And yet he found himself rooted in place.
"Your Majesty," a soldier behind him urged, uncertain. "He is the tyrant's son. Should we...?"
The king raised a hand.
Silence fell again.
He stepped forward slowly. Not enough to startle, but enough to make the boy finally sense him.
Seo Yul raised his head.
Their eyes met.
And for a heartbeat, the world stood still.
The boy's gaze was not pleading. It was not thankful. It was not afraid.
It was furious.
But beneath that fury was loss. A grief so consuming, it clung to him like smoke.
The king did not blink.
"Take him," a guard whispered at his side. "This is dangerous. He could grow to be like his father."
Hwan Seong turned his head slightly, eyes never leaving the boy.
"He won't."
"How can you be sure?"
"I just am."
The king ordered the guards "He will come with me."
Murmurs rippled among the guards. No one dared to question their king openly, but their unease hung thick in the air.
And still, Seo Yul said nothing. He didn't beg, didn't plead for life. He only stared up at the man who destroyed his world, his face pale and tearstained, his hands clenched into trembling fists on his father's cold chest.
No one knew why the king spared him.
Not even the king himself.
But something had begun in that ruined palace. Something that neither crown nor blood could stop.