00:00Hi drama lovers, what if the most perfect marriage in the empire was secretly held together by one
00:05promise, and a starving stranger just broke it? This is the Hawk and the Empress, episode 1,
00:11The Promise. Let's unpack it fast. Meet Empress Sioran. Brilliant, elegant,
00:17totally untouchable. She settles grain fraud before breakfast and checkmates warlords for fun.
00:22She married Emperor Johan not for love, but like family, childhood friends with the same dream,
00:28build the greatest empire ever. East wall, west wall, meet in the middle, and one vow held the
00:33palace together. No concubines, ever. Then, a servant girl named Hela staggers into a royal hunt,
00:40a runaway slave fleeing a cruel master, being dragged back like lost property. And the Emperor
00:46of the Sun Throne does something unthinkable. He dismounts, kneels in the gravel, and wraps her
00:51in his own golden cloak. From the ridge, Empress Sioran watches, and asks the question that will
00:57break the palace. Who is he saving her from? Publicly, Sioran quashes the return petition.
01:03Maximum poise. She even sends Hela sweets from the Empress's own household. But Johan installs Hela
01:09in the Sun Pavilion, the wing reserved for Imperial favorites. The promise isn't broken in words,
01:15it's broken in silence, candle by candle. Meanwhile, across the mountains, a granite hall above a gray sea.
01:22The Western Kingdom. Air apparent Prince Eldrick is hiding a secret older than his throne.
01:27His bloodline, the Ashen line, can become birds. His grandmother, the matriarch, sends him east as a
01:34spy. His father's only hope? That he doesn't come home in love. Eldrick crosses the border as a gray hawk,
01:41and ends up hiding in the palace's moon pond willows. He watches Sioran quietly take on a servant girl's
01:46punishment herself. And when a falconer raises a bow at the gray shadow, the Empress says,
01:52let her fly. Some birds are the last honest things in a palace. He's done for. A spy with one
01:58terminal
01:58diagnosis, falling for her. Back home, Hela is raised to the high tables. Johan carves her duck like
02:05it's holy, and Saron toasts them both with ice in her veins, to old promises. That night, she tells her
02:12made the devastating truth. He's about to keep the building, and give away the blueprints.
02:17Then, the lacquered box arrives. A divorce rescript sealed with the sun's nine rays.
02:23She reads it in the rain, sets her wedding ring on the seal like a full stop, and does not
02:28cry.
02:28At dawn, a gray hawk visits the moon gate, and the Empress sits down to write one terrifying question.
02:34Not acceptance, not revenge, just this, to Mary. Episode 2 is called The West Answers,
02:41Literally. East Wall meets West Wall. Subscribe, drama lovers.
