Royal Coup: Prologue

The most exemplary royal in the Republic of Korea, ranked first. First in attendance at official engagements. First as the royal the nation most wanted as its daughter-in-law. Fourth in public recognition.

The Emperor's granddaughter, and the only daughter of the youngest of the imperial princes — Princess Cheongyang, Yi Seon.

And every last bit of it had been carved out with sweat and blood by a woman who was, when it came down to it, a mere sixth in the line of succession.

A royal upheld by the people's support, Seon believed, bore duties she was bound to honor — duties for which she would not have begrudged setting aside pieces of her own life.

Even when those around her clicked their tongues and called her a tiresome old stick, she stood proud. She had no wish to become like the royals who trampled their duties underfoot and reached for their privileges first.

But the Crown Prince's death turned all of it on its head.

The moment the gates of Donhwamun swung open and her feet carried her out into the world, Seon let the new reality she could no longer refuse to acknowledge sink deep into her bones.

Click—

The clatter of shutters never ceased. Flashes burst from every direction until there was nowhere left for the eye to rest — enough to make anyone stumble. But Seon, forcing herself not to blink so much as once, stood tall before the cameras.

The pen set aside for the press was already packed tight, and beyond the fences the crowd seethed with citizens brandishing telephoto rigs and cellphones, shouting as they tried to capture something — anything at all.

Seon calmly took in the faces arrayed before her. The plaza in front of Donhwamun hardly rose or fell, so her view did not carry far — but the roar that left her ears humming told her the scale of the crowd.

"Your Highness! Look this way, just once, please!"

"Your Highness, Minguk Daily here! A word, please!"

Announcements from the imperial household were, as a rule, made through the Imperial Household Agency.

Occasions that called for a royal to appear in person were rare, and anything weighty enough to put a face before the public ought properly to have been handled by the Emperor, the Empress — or the Crown Prince who now lay dead.

For Seon, a royal who was merely sixth in the succession and distinguished by little beyond her popularity, the role was far above her due.

And the venue: the very front of Donhwamun. Nowhere drew a crowd like the main gate of Changdeokgung, the palace that served as the imperial palace.

Choosing an open plaza that could catch the eyes of ordinary citizens over the briefing rooms of the Imperial Household Agency or the palace interior had been her own decision — and yet, beneath the torrent of attention, unease stole over her all at once.

Listening to the overlapping shouts, Seon quietly closed her eyes. Every movement she made set the shutters clattering louder. Show the slightest wavering now, and she would be seen through in an instant.

She drew a deep breath and opened her eyes wide. Sunlight struck her round eyes and set them gleaming.

"I bring word to the citizens of this nation in His Majesty the Emperor's stead."

Amid the din of the restless square, the words were swallowed before they could carry. The reporters who had been leaning in, hammering at their laptops, faltered and glanced at one another.

"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has..."

The words that followed did not reach the crowd in one piece, either.

One by one, the mouths of the curious began to close. Little by little — very little by very little — the crowd's attention converged on Seon. They had stopped looking at the royal Yi Seon and started listening for the words about to leave her mouth.

Before the crowd, steeped now in sudden silence, Seon opened her mouth again. Her lips, parched from days without so much as a proper drink of water, cracked as though they would split.

"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

The whole square swallowed hard and bent its ear to her voice. Nothing brushed her ears but the ticking of camera shutters.

At last the words she had been holding in reserve burst from her lips — and the assembly, far from erupting, could not produce a single sound. They doubted their own ears. They doubted Seon's own mouth. Watching one another warily, not one of them dared step forward.

As though she had expected exactly that, Seon laced the hands folded over her stomach more tightly, her expression untroubled. The fine trembling that had begun in her fingertips was not something she could afford to have seen.

"The imperial household demands a rigorous investigation into this matter. Through an internal audit, we intend to expose every offense in unmistakable detail, regardless of rank or right of succession."

Watching her continue in that even, matter-of-fact tone, the reporters felt horror welling up in their faces.

No — she hasn't lost her mind grieving over her uncle's death. She means every word of it!

The instant that realization flooded in, the reporters lunged.

In truth, it was far easier to answer their questions than to recite a statement she had prepared alone. With something close to relief, Seon lent her ear to the questions pouring out in disarray.

"Are you saying, Your Highness, that the person who killed the Crown Prince is inside the imperial family itself?"

Shutters burst to life again as they waited to catch her answer. The fervor to capture the moment she dropped the bomb reached even Seon where she stood.

Uproarious questions kept coming after that. They rained down without so much as a raised hand, and the Imperial Household Agency's PR team scrambled desperately to impose order — to no avail.

Seon watched them for a moment, then lifted her right hand, light and unhurried. One slender hand raised — and in an instant, stillness circled the square.

The standing she had built as a royal had never rested on popularity alone. Sensing the majesty that radiated from the very tips of her fingers, they all traded wary glances and shut their mouths.

"It cannot be ruled out."

A deliberately vague answer — but one that left the possibility wide open. The flashbulbs raged even harder.

Then a sharp voice rang out from somewhere in the crowd.

"Then are you blameless yourself, Princess Cheongyang?"

If the Crown Prince's murderer was indeed within the imperial family, Seon could hardly escape that stain either. She turned her head slowly toward the voice and answered.

"By imperial decree, I, Princess Cheongyang, have been attached to the Royal Special Investigation Task Force to cooperate with the inquiry. Every investigation carried out in that process will be directed at the imperial family in its entirety — and my own person will be no exception."

At her declaration that she, too, would submit to a thorough investigation, the questions that had been flying like knives were drawn back. Others poured in to take their place.

"Do you have any internal suspects at this point?"

"His Royal Highness died in a traffic accident — are you suggesting someone ordered it?"

She could not stand there and address every doubt about the accident one by one. Seon stood in silence, waiting for the question that was bound to come.

"How will the succession proceed? Is it on hold until the investigation ends?"

There was a reason she had come all the way out to Donhwamun to announce, face to face, news that could simply have gone out in a press release. There was something she needed to declare with her own mouth — and when the question she had been waiting for finally arrived, her eyes flashed.

"Under the Imperial Law, succession follows the order of the right of succession — but where that proves impossible, the counsel of the imperial family's most senior elder and of the previous holder of the succession right is to be followed. With the imperial family itself under suspicion of involvement in the Crown Prince's death, succession by order of rank is impossible."

Seon went on in a level voice. The drumming of fingers on laptop keys rang out around her, loud and urgent.

"But the previous holder of the succession right was His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

"Precisely. Ideally, the succession procedures would wait until the investigation is concluded — but as you are aware, His Majesty the Emperor's failing health is not something we can disregard. The choice of a successor cannot be postponed, and so the one to inherit the Crown Prince's position will be determined by His Majesty's own resolve."

The moment her answer fell, the reporters most attuned to the inner workings of the imperial household grasped at whom this entire measure was aimed.

Suspending the order of succession — wasn't that a check against the person closest to the throne right now?

The face that had blared from every broadcast and every article in the days since the Crown Prince's death rose in their minds.

The Emperor's second son — the man who was Seon's uncle. A man who spoke openly of his ambition to become Emperor and kept himself in close company with the powerful of politics and business.

Grand Prince Uigu.

Certain that the reporters had alighted on that one man, Seon allowed the corners of her mouth to curve upward, just slightly.

"I pledge that we will break ourselves apart, bone from bone, if that is what it takes for the imperial family to stand upright before the people — a household without shame."

Seon lowered her hand and folded both hands once more over her stomach. She stared straight into the flashes raining down on her — and then, slowly, bowed at the waist.

Questions and flashes hammered on toward her bowed figure. Soon after, an Imperial Household Agency staffer shouted that the official press release would be distributed shortly — but the questions showed no sign of stopping.