The Queen's Nightmare
Ten at night.
The western annex of the Royal Palace. The Queen's private residence.
I feel fucking fantastic.
The Royal Palace divides into official zones and unofficial ones. Official means the office, the audience chamber, the council room. Unofficial is where the royal family actually lives. The Queen's residence sits at the far edge of the unofficial zone, cut off from the King's bedchamber by a garden.
Separated. The architecture itself tells you everything: the King and Queen do not live in the same space.
I sent my reply to the summons and made my preparations. I'd picked up chamomile tea from the ground floor of Marisa's inn — an herbal brew that aids sleep. The knowledge Rosa taught me was proving its worth.
I changed my clothes. Not formal dress, but not sleepwear either — something befitting a 'Royal Psychologist paying a night visit.' Clean, yet comfortable.
I walked to the Royal Palace. The capital at night is a different animal from the capital by day. Laughter leaks out of tavern doors. A night watchman makes his rounds beneath the streetlamps. The rumble of a passing carriage. Hooves striking the cobblestones — clip-clop, clip-clop.
I showed my pass at the palace's main gate. Kang Do-hyun, Royal Psychologist. A gold-leaf badge. The night guard checked it and dipped his head.
"Night consultation."
"Understood, sir. Shall I have someone show you the way?"
"I know the way."
A lie. This was my first time visiting the Queen's residence. But it's no secret that I asked a maid for directions this afternoon.
Fuck, I'm scheming down to the smallest detail. Lies pour out smooth as anything over something as trivial as handing over a gate pass. Somewhere along the way, the psychologist mask has stuck to my skin like it grew there.
A maid led me in. The corridor was long, its lighting softer than anywhere else in the palace — not candle flames but magic lamps, a muted amber glow. Footsteps rang off the marble floor. Only mine. The palace at night is silent.
"This way."
The maid stopped at the door and knocked.
"Your Majesty, the Royal Psychologist has arrived."
A voice from within.
"Show him in."
The maid opened the door and withdrew. I stepped inside.
Elena's residence.
First impression: spacious. Not gaudy, though — a space shaped by the Queen's own taste. A bookshelf claimed an entire wall. Politics, history, law. Novels, too. The Queen reads novels. Making a note of that.
Two sofas. Tea already waited on the table — not wine, tea. Night, and still tea. She'd prepared tea instead of alcohol to preserve the frame that this was an extension of 'counseling.'
And Elena.
She was in her nightclothes.
Her golden hair was down. Hair that by day was always pinned up or arranged beneath her crown now spilled loose to her shoulders. The nightgown was silk, pale violet — the same family of color as her amethyst eyes. Wide sleeves left her wrists bare. And—
Cleavage.
Whatever the corset of her daytime dress held in check, the nightgown held nothing. The silk traced the outline of her breasts exactly as they were. A D-cup? No — possibly bigger. Without the corset in the way, the reality of them landed entirely differently.
An hourglass figure. A slim waist, wide hips. The silk gown followed every line of her body without deviation.
I want her. Honestly, I want her so fucking badly.
Fuck, this is cheating.
Her dress was alluring enough, but the nightgown belongs to another dimension entirely. If dress-wearing Elena is 'the Queen,' nightgown-wearing Elena is 'a woman.' A woman with the mask of power set aside. A body ripened to thirty-eight.
Fucking pathetic. I came here to comfort a woman plagued by nightmares, and here I am stealing glances at her cleavage. Hypocrisy this refined has to count as a talent.
"You came. Sit."
Elena gestured to a sofa. Effortless — the stiffness from her office was already gone. Such is the power of private space. In one's own territory, a person's defenses loosen.
"My apologies for the late hour, Your Majesty."
"'Your Majesty' feels strange in this room."
Elena said it as she poured the tea. Golden hair spilled forward. The little motion of sweeping it back behind her ear — sexy. She wouldn't even notice she was doing it; it was simply a habit thirty-eight years in the making. But I know better. That one gesture alone could bring ten men to their knees.
Hold it together. Keep your composure.
"Then what should I call you?"
"Elena."
A beat.
"...For now, I'll stay with 'Your Majesty.' To preserve the boundaries of the consultation."
Elena gave a small laugh through her nose.
"Very professional."
This is calculation. Accept the invitation the instant the Queen offers her name, and its value drops. So refuse — while leaving the door ajar with 'for now.' All to make the moment I finally say 'Elena' weigh that much more.
...Weighing profit and loss behind my eyes while my mouth babbles about 'preserving boundaries.' You're a filthy piece of work, Kang Do-hyun.
"You said this was a private matter. What did you wish to discuss?"
Elena raised her teacup. With both hands — not gripping it, but cradling it. She wanted something warm.
"...Dreams."
"Dreams?"
"I have nightmares."
Elena's amethyst eyes dropped to her cup. The surface rippled. Her hands were trembling, faintly.
"Every night."
The Queen's voice had changed. Not the resolute tone of the office — something low, and exhausted.
"What kind of nightmares?"
"Dreams of the kingdom falling."
Elena set her teacup down. Click.
"The demonkin break through the southern defense line and push north. The capital burns. The king flees."
Elena bit her lip briefly.
"These past few nights, one more scene joined it. An empty audience chamber, and a single chair. No crown on it, and thirteen thin lines beneath the backrest. I can't see who is sitting there. But when I stand before it, the first line turns red."
Contempt clung to her voice. The king flees. The layers of feeling packed into those words — fury, disappointment, contempt, and, buried somewhere very deep, grief.
"The walls collapse and the demonkin force their way into the palace itself. The maids scream. Blood. Blood filling the corridors."
Elena's hands curled into fists. The color had gone out of her face.
"And then Lizet—"
Her voice shook.
"My daughter. The demonkin drag her away. I reach for her and can't touch her. I scream and she can't hear me. Lizet is calling 'Mom!' and I can't do a single thing."
Tears welled in the amethyst eyes. They didn't fall. She clenched her teeth and held them there. A Queen's habit. Somewhere along the way she must have learned that not crying was a matter of dignity.
"I dream this every night. The details shift a little, but the ending is always the same. The kingdom falls, Lizet is taken, and I can do nothing."
Silence.
This is no ordinary nightmare.
Recurring nightmares are the channel through which unresolved anxiety leaks out. Elena's nightmare reflects exactly three anxieties.
One. Fear for the kingdom's survival. Because the southern front genuinely is in danger.
Two. Distrust of the King. 'The king flees.' Because the man genuinely is incompetent.
Three. Terror for her daughter. When a kingdom falls, the first to pay the price are the royal children.
And the common denominator of all three: Elena is carrying them alone.
No one. Not a single soul to stand beside her and say, It's all right — I'm here.
The King? In his concubine's arms.
The ministers? Moved by political self-interest.
Her daughter? In the depths of a rebellious phase.
A thirty-eight-year-old woman holds the line alone, night after night, tormented by nightmares.
"Your Majesty."
Elena looked up at me. Amethyst eyes fighting back tears.
"Your nightmares are not just dreams, Your Majesty."
"I know. You mean to tell me they carry some meaning."
"They are a stress response, born of an excessive sense of responsibility."
Elena's eyes wavered. Excessive. No one had ever applied that word to this woman. Everyone around her simply assumed the Queen owed the kingdom her burden as a matter of course. But I said it differently. An excessive sense of responsibility. As if she were carrying too much.
"You are holding this kingdom up by yourself, Your Majesty. That weight bursts out in your sleep, as nightmares."
"...Alone?"
"Who is at your side?"
Silence.
A long one.
"...No one."
One word. But three years of loneliness were folded inside it.
"To be rid of the nightmares, their causes must be resolved. But the kingdom's politics and the front lines cannot be settled in a single night."
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"We manage the stress response. We untangle the causes of the nightmares one at a time while raising the quality of your sleep."
Elena looked at me.
"Specifically?"
"I propose night sessions."
"Night... sessions?"
"Every night, thirty minutes before you sleep. We sort through that day's stress and apply calming techniques. The frequency and intensity of the nightmares will decrease."
Elena shook her head.
"Every night? You need sleep too."
"It is my duty as Royal Psychologist."
"Duty?"
"Safeguarding Your Majesty's mental health is my foremost duty."
Elena studied me for a moment. Amethyst eyes searching for something — whether it was sincerity, or empty form.
As if it could be sincere. I'm proposing to meet the Queen alone in a closed room every night while she wears her nightgown. My 'foremost duty'? A fucking convenient excuse. And still it comes out of my mouth without a flicker of hesitation.
"...Every night?"
"Every night."
"...Here?"
"Wherever is comfortable for Your Majesty."
Elena glanced around the room. Her own residence. Her nightclothes. The night.
"Here is comfortable."
A beat.
"Very well."
She accepted.
"But this stays between us."
Elena's voice turned firm. The Queen's voice had returned.
"If it becomes known that the Queen meets a man alone every night, it becomes a political problem. Leave the maid outside as well."
"Of course."
A secret. A secret that belongs to the Queen and me alone. This is good. Sharing a secret is the most powerful accelerant of intimacy there is. Once 'something only the two of us know' exists, the density of a relationship thickens at speed.
She built the sealed room with her own hands and drove her own maid out of it. I didn't even have to ask. Lonely people dig their own traps this way. All I have to do is stand at the edge and reap. ...Fuck, this is too easy.
The first night session.
We sat facing each other on the sofas. The tea had gone cold. A new pot was brewed — by me, this time.
"Allow me."
"A psychologist who pours tea as well?"
"It's part of the counseling. The time it takes to brew tea is time for the mind to settle."
I dropped in the leaves and poured the hot water. A soft rush — the sound of the leaves unfurling.
"Lovely aroma."
"Chamomile. It aids sleep."
Elena wrapped both hands around her cup. That gesture again. The one that wants something warm.
"Your Majesty, let us begin with a relaxation technique."
"Relaxation?"
"It releases tension. There is strain gathered in your shoulders."
Elena touched her own shoulder. "Is there?"
"With your permission, I will place my hands on your shoulders. To help you relax."
A beat. Elena looked at me. Me — asking permission before so much as touching her body. Show the proper caution, and the Queen's trust follows.
What she doesn't know is that this ritual of permission is the trap itself. The more politely I ask, the further her grounds for refusal shrink. The skin of 'a well-mannered man' is the finest weapon there is.
"...Very well."
I rose and moved behind Elena. Over the back of the sofa, I laid my hands on both her shoulders.
Stone. Hard as rock, both of them. The weight of a kingdom, pressing down on a thirty-eight-year-old's shoulders.
I layered [Suggestion] into it. Slow and silken.
"Tension, releasing. The strength leaving your shoulders. You are safe."
A subtle loosening. Her muscles unraveled thread by thread.
At the same time, [Common Sense Alteration]. Gossamer-thin.
"This man's hands are safe. This man's touch is treatment."
Elena's shoulders sank. Her head tipped. She was letting her tension go without even knowing it.
It feels fucking incredible.
And then — a sigh.
"Hooo..."
A deep sigh. Elena sighed in front of me for the first time.
A Queen does not sigh. A sigh is evidence of weakness. But now — tonight, in this room, with my hands resting on her shoulders — the sigh came.
This is major progress.
A sigh is the body's signal that it is trying to put itself back together — the gesture of overloaded nerves unwinding on their own. Until now, Elena could not let that release happen. Because she was the Queen. Because she could not afford to look weak. But with my hands on her shoulders, the release broke through.
It meant she felt safe.
"Your Majesty, let the tension out of your shoulders."
"...I don't know how."
That one line.
How long does a person have to live wound tight before 'I don't know how' is the honest answer?
Fucked up. It genuinely aches to hear. And at the same time, the calculation of how to exploit that ache is already turning over in my skull. Two minds share this one body. The hand that comforts and the hand that ensnares are the same hand.
"I will teach you. Every night."
"..."
Elena tipped her head back. Rested it against the back of the sofa and looked at the ceiling. Golden hair spilled over the backrest, and where it flowed across her shoulders, the strands brushed the backs of my hands.
Amethyst eyes looked up at me from below. Weary eyes. But for the first time, undefended.
"Do-hyun."
She called my name. Not 'you.'
"...Thank you."
The Queen said 'thank you.' Not 'well done,' not 'good results.' Just — thank you.
"It is only natural."
"It is not. No one has ever done this for me."
Three years. Maybe longer. Not once since she took up the title of Queen. Not once did anyone lay a hand on her shoulders and tell her to let it go.
This woman is starving.
Not only sexually. Humanly. Physically. She needs another person's warmth.
If Marisa was 'thirst,' Elena is 'the desert.' Marisa went five years without water to drink; Elena has spent three years beside water she is not allowed to drink. The well called her husband is right there — and the well has run dry.
I will be the rain over that desert.
...Rain, he says. Wrapped it all up in the most plausible-sounding language. If I'm honest, I'm simply going to feed a parched woman water laced with poison. And she will drink it, this woman. Because her throat is dry.
The session ran forty minutes.
After lifting my hands from her shoulders, we sat facing each other and talked. I recorded the contents of her nightmares in detail. Elena was surprised.
"You even keep records?"
"A nightmare journal. Analyzing the patterns in the content lets us pinpoint the causes."
"...Thorough, aren't you."
The pattern of Elena's nightmares, laid out:
Frequency — every night. Seven times a week.
Time of onset — between two and four in the morning.
Constant elements — the kingdom's fall, the King's flight, Lizet's abduction.
Variations — sometimes water instead of fire (a flood); sometimes rebellion instead of demonkin.
Physical reactions — cold sweat, racing heartbeat, occasional screaming.
After waking — unable to fall back asleep for an hour or two.
A recurring nightmare born of chronically frayed nerves. It resembles the nightmares that follow real trauma, but the cause is nothing she lived through — it is a mind that fears in advance a worst case which has not yet arrived. In other words: the terror of a catastrophe that hasn't happened yet, erupting as nightmare.
Directions for release. Graduated relaxation training, reframing the framework of her thoughts, correcting her sleep habits.
And of course I will lay a light coat of [Common Sense Alteration] over all of it. Without the Queen ever knowing.
The funny thing about this 'diagnosis' is that half of it is genuine treatment and half of it is poison. Even I can't always tell where the physician ends and the hunter begins. ...No. I can. I was a hunter from beginning to end. The treatment is only bait.
"Let us stop here for tonight."
Elena nodded.
"Same time tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"...Good."
Elena rose. The silk of the nightgown flowed down along her body. The line running from waist to hip. The curves of thirty-eight years.
My gaze got stolen. For one second. I lifted my eyes before she could turn around.
...The instant my eyes slid down that hip line, my cock reacted first. A sharp pull low in my gut. Push it down — if I stand up now, I won't even manage a decent good night; I'll be too busy covering the front of my pants like some desperate bastard. Fuck. A sleep therapist, of all things, getting hard over his patient's ass. What a loser.
"Good night, Do-hyun."
"Rest well, Your Majesty."
"A restful night. It would be nice if that were possible."
A lonely smile. A smile where only the corners of the mouth lifted. Between the falls of golden hair, amethyst eyes glinted.
On my way out the door, I gave the maid a light greeting. She bowed her head. No suspicion in her eyes. The pretext of 'night sessions' was still alive.
Walking down the corridor, I analyzed the maid's expression. This one is one of Elena's close attendants. I don't know her name yet. Middle-aged, around fifty. The type whose loyalty to the Queen runs deep. How will she take my coming here every night?
Right now she has it filed as 'a therapist treating the Queen's sleep.' But if this goes on long enough, she may begin to wonder. I will need to manage the maid as well. Making a note.
Walking the palace corridors.
My heart is pounding.
Elena's sigh from a moment ago. Her tilted head. Golden hair spilling over the backrest. Amethyst eyes looking up at me from below.
I don't know how.
That one line keeps repeating in my head.
Alone with the Queen, every night. This is an opportunity. The greatest one yet.
With Marisa, it was an open space — the inn, where anyone could come and go. The Queen's residence is different. A sealed room. The maid sent outside, the two of us alone.
And the Queen in her nightclothes. Thirty minutes, every night, alone with a golden-haired beauty of thirty-eight dressed in silk.
A little [Common Sense Alteration] each day. Starting from step one, patiently.
"It is safe to relax in front of this man."
"It is safe to open up to this man."
"When this man is not near, you feel uneasy."
"This man's embrace is the safest place in the world."
Slowly. With patience. Peeling off the Queen's pride like armor, one layer at a time.
I will not rush.
But my chest is pounding like a fucking drum.
A thirty-eight-year-old Queen ignored by her husband for three years. A woman tormented by nightmares every night. A woman who doesn't know how to let go.
That woman said 'thank you' to me.
She called me by name.
...If one word of thanks can set my heart off like this, it's laughably pathetic. I'm a bastard who digs traps while pretending to offer comfort, and she thanks me without ever seeing the ground give way beneath her. The warmest words, traded across the filthiest of bargains.
And still, I have no intention of stopping.
Before I left the room, Elena asked one more time.
"Same time tomorrow?"
"I will come at the same time."
Out in the corridor, I opened the last page of the nightmare journal. From memory, I sketched the chair Elena had described.
It was the same crest I had seen at the knights' order.
I had never shown Elena the shape of the black insignia.