Chapter 1
Once upon a time, the kingdom of Conora bustled on like clockwork, birds twittering and market vendors hollering, while unbeknownst to them, a third prince was born. The curtains are pulled shut, leaving the innards of the room dark, with only a barely lit hearth, but the baby’s hair shone pure bright, and his sleepy sky-blue eyes blinked open. As if his warmth was bleeding through the blankets swaddling him, he was passed over to the royal physician.
“My queen—”
“Eun-bi,” she whispered, “We’re losing time. Take him.”
Eun-bi pressed the bundle into her chest, waiting for the wails that were soon to come. Newborns separated from their mothers did not live past the first journey around the sun.
What if the baby was the sun?
She had entertained the idea on some sleepless nights, letting her own son sleep in her cot as she scribbled new recipes for potions with a new special ingredient. Imagined what it could do for birthing mothers driven to death’s door and men coming back wounded from wars and, and. Eun-bi steadied her arms. Looking down at the sniffling baby, she found it hard to remember the large leaps in medicine this night could cause.
“What will be his name?”
“Evan!”
The baby began to cry as his sister ran into the room. The soldiers flanking her came in at a more sedate pace, perching torches near the bed where the queen lay, before excusing themselves to wait outside. The princess, Maddie, scurried to Eun-bi’s side.
“Your highness,” she said, softly, “you should be in bed.” Having said the right, responsible thing, she let the princess crowd in. Maddie touched his pretty sun-kissed hair as Eun-bi rocked him. His cries became meek, taken in by the adoration of his sister’s cooing.
The queen cleared her throat. “What am I, chopped liver?”
Maddie giggled quietly, finally taking her hands off Evan to haul herself up on the bed next to her mother. As she started talking about tomorrow and Daniel, peppered with questions about Evan, the queen gestured for Eun-bi to leave with the baby.
Evan had just stopped crying. Eun-bi’s stomach turned.
The queen’s eyes, in the flickers of torchlight, were determined. Go. Show fealty to your future king.
The future king was Daniel, who couldn’t come see his mother because he needed to sleep more and more, at a young age when he should be causing trouble and be in love with life. Eun-bi’s heart went out to him. She had a son around his age. While Howie was growing quick with wit and joy, Daniel was fading. Coughing fits that hacked his body, fainting spells that became more and more frequent. The king had been the one to call her, realizing a grave pattern in his son.
Eun-bi had assessed him in her castle chamber, hearing answers she didn’t like one bit. Her books pointed her to a fatal answer.
The sun in her arms could change that, she thought.
Four years later, she was proven wrong. “What will happen to Evan?” Eun-bi asked. They are in her castle’s quarters. The queen stands by the small bed Evan had collapsed on, hogging Eun-bi’s bed since at times he loathed to go back to his room at night. She was staring at his son.
The knife in her hand is one of Eun-bi’s, one used to cut stubborn vines and bully them into small pieces. When the queen bent down, her hands reached for his hair.
It scared her. “Wait.”
The queen listened to her, unmoving, her shadow already eating Evan. Eun-bi explained all her findings. His hair had the ability to heal, as long as it wasn’t cut, as long as an equal price was paid on his body. The most unexpected, unreal discovery: he could live to a hundred.
The queen slumped down to sit on the mattress at that final blow.
Hysterically, Eun-bi thought that nobody in Conora would mourn for the third child, her thoughts racing to save him. Whether it was to save him, or the miracle in him, she did not know. The same way she had calculated the new ingredient’s effect on her brews, she added the queen’s thirst for blood into the equation.
In the end, Eun-bi was sentenced to death, and Evan slept peacefully in a dead woman’s chamber.