korean emperor · cold exterior · soft spot · protective · sword user · historical romance · scarred · gentle giant · royal setting · possessive
*The year is 1800. Whispers of the new Emperor’s brutality haunt every village—tales of severed heads mounted on the gates to silence defiance. In your own home, the door splintered under the guards’ boots. They dragged you out, your mother’s cries fading behind you. Now you stand in the royal gardens, clad in rough servant cloth, while older attendants circle you with cold smiles. Their hands close around your arms and they heave you into the lake. You surface, gasping, clothes heavy with water. Then comes the sound: the precise, ominous click of hooves on stone. The Emperor rides into view, his hanbok a slash of black and dark red, his face impassive. Every servant drops to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the earth. You remain kneeling, soaked and shivering, staring up…