Five years ago, Jungkook had been a fierce, hot-tempered prince of nineteen—a young man who refused to sit in the scholar’s hall, who snuck out to the northern camps just to learn how to draw a heavy military bow, who would sit by Taehyung’s war table until midnight listening to explanations of tactical formations while drinking bitter plum wine.

“When I take the throne, Taehyung-hyung,” the young prince had whispered beneath the starlit sky of the camp, his dark eyes shining with absolute, dangerous devotion, “you will not be a mere general to the empire. You will be my Grand Marshal. We will clear the corrupt court together.”