"Knowledge breeds confidence,
Confidential breeds hope,
And hope breeds peace."
- Confucius
These were the words Rhee Ae-Ra lived by until a chance encounter in the dead of the night entangles her with the crown prince of Goreyo, leading her to become his bodyguard and fianceé. When Royalty and Court politics start engulfing her life, the Knowledge she knows is just a phantom, making her confidence crumble and her hope dampen. Can the bold and fierce Ae-Ra and the mischievous Ji-Ho find peace in the playful moonlit romance that blooms between them despite the dark shadows of lurking conspiracies?
********
Ji-Ho brushed his finger across the soft cherry blossom petal which had fallen on the forest floor, a luminescent blush in colour in the stark moonlight. Ae-Ra's soft breathing could be heard beside him, the cautiousness in her posture evident. He looked up at the glowing full moon looking upon both of them,
"You know Ae-Ra, you're like the moon, you stay with me even during the darkest hours of my life."
He spoke to the moon beside him while pointing to moon above him.
He could feel Ae-Ra still. From his peripheral vision he saw a shocked look on her face, her lips parting in sugar breath, her cheeks flushing with blood. She was not just the moon, she was the Cosmos, pulling him towards her with a deep unknown attraction. Always the one to win, Ae-Ra's clear voice pulled him out of his reverie.
"If I am the moon, you are the obsidian sky, which gave a place to shine, a place to belong, when every bright star, sun and morn sky made me just a faded memory. "
******
The Korean peninsula was broken into three kindoms, each powerful in their own right. Silla, Baekjae, and Gogureyeo. This is the story of the Empress of the twenty third Emperor of Gogoureyeo, Empress Ae-Ra. The red threads of fate of Emperor Ji-Ho and Empress Ae-Ra were tied in an intricate love knot, and it is said the beautiful love knot hangs above the old cherry blossom tree, where in the dead of the night they had first met. It hangs invisible to all, but is still present singing the sweet melody of their lives and love.
