A Den of Jackals
Four days had already passed since the Crown Prince's accident. Despite the sheer scale of it, his exact condition remained an open secret; whatever needed settling had to be settled before word spread across the airwaves that he was not expected to last the day.
While those outside the palace moved quickly to brace for the fallout, within its walls the Imperial Clan Council had been convened. The council, founded for the advancement and eternal continuance of the imperial house, was, for all its auspicious name, nothing short of a shambles.
People began streaming into Gyeongchun Hall of Changdeok Palace, chosen as the meeting chamber. It was a hall that had seen little use since members of the imperial family scattered to every corner of the eight provinces under an imperial decree binding them to contribute to regional development. Into a place where only desolation should have lingered, the scent of people began to drift for the first time in an age. A foul, sickening smell.
To Seon, who had been up all night, everything about it began to grate.
"Bastards, every one of them."
The sliding partitions between the main hall and the inner room stood flung wide, and broad tables had been fetched and arranged—a sight at strange odds with the traditional setting. Seon sat at the tail end of the long row formed by tables built to seat six apiece, pushed together into one unbroken line.
Even before unmistakable misfortune, impure eyes were busy hunting for the next power rather than mourning or grieving; figures jostled to shore up their own footing, each fawning on whoever might raise them higher. It was, plainly and simply, a pack of jackals.
Since when had the family been this harmonious? Even relatives she seldom saw had turned up with bright, cheerful faces.
Seon watched them for a moment before shifting her gaze in irritation. No one paid the slightest attention to her, sitting quietly in a corner—sixth in the line of succession, and nothing more.
Her large eyes rolled slowly in their sockets. This room conjured a different picture from the suffocating reality that closed in the moment one glanced away.
The scent of aged wood. The fragrance of wind held in the paper pasted across every window. Compared with a reality where the smell of blood was forever circling, it was a space of boundless comfort and warmth.
The smell of blood.
That was it. All of this traced back, in the end, to the sea of blood that had swept over the imperial house once more. The accident that had struck her uncle—gentler and more benevolent than any of them—had opened their eyes all over again to their own filthy nature.
"Hah..."
Seon let out a long breath and pressed a hand to her temple. Her head throbbed, perhaps because she had not slept a wink since returning from yesterday's session. The attitudes she had endured there, the whole wretched state of things, kept winding tight around her breath. A dull dread gripped her—that at this rate she might never untangle her grandfather's hopes or her uncle's grievance.
"A bolt from the blue if ever there was one, wouldn't you say?"
"It is that. To think such a thing could happen in this day and age!"
"It's already the fourth day, isn't it? What are we to do if His Highness never wakes?"
"Still... at least the heir is certain. We shall be spared any great upheaval."
The talk drifting over from a distance had teeth in it. The heir is certain. That was the very seed of the greatest problem. The corner of Seon's mouth twisted.
Royals of the twenty-first century. Some called them scarecrows—relics of a bygone age that did nothing but squander the public's taxes.
Yet the people of this country respected their Emperor and honored the imperial family all the same.
It was partly a debt owed to an Emperor who, while still a boy barely grown, had fought in the war of independence and paid for it with the use of one leg for life—and partly recognition of the previous generation of royals, who poured every ounce of their vitality into welfare for the neglected and the nation's growth.
But was now anything like then?
The brothers who had run across battlefields at the Emperor's side, holding the country together, were long dead and gone to earth, and their descendants—raised on nothing but steaming rice in warm rooms, perhaps—knew nothing of a frightening world. Unlike their elders, who had lived their duties as royals and seized their rights by their own hands, these did nothing but sit still and claw at their dignity stipends, and had begun to rot and fester in their hunger for the smallest personal gain.
In times like these, the Crown Prince had been a new hope. He took after his father: incorruptible and honest. Expectations ran high that once he succeeded the aging Emperor, the imperial house would right itself at last. Now it was all wasted breath.
To think they wag and preen just to get into Grand Prince Uigu's good graces.
Seon had come of age, been elected to the Clan Council, and even won re-election under the Emperor's patronage; from the seat she had held for seven years now, legs crossed, she watched the spectacle unfold. Grand Prince Uigu had not even entered the hall, and already they were groveling—treacherous scoundrels if ever there were any. Selfish spawn who melted away whenever the imperial family needed them and lifted their heads only when they themselves stood to gain.
It was hardly a new sight, but no less revolting for that. This was a national mourning. Fine, they were excited—but surely they could keep it off their faces?
Seon's eyes went cold and still.
If Second Uncle truly had a hand in what happened to Uncle, I will drag it into the light. Whatever it takes.
The imperial house was now split three ways: the faction loyal to the Emperor, the faction quietly watching from the sidelines, and the faction following Grand Prince Uigu, the second son.
If it ends with Grand Prince Uigu as Crown Prince, I will hand back the jade tablet I received at my investiture and leave this country for good.
Seon thought it through gritted teeth. As far as she could see, the imperial family had scarcely a single royal left who deserved the name. Which was exactly why someone had to decide. If that man became Crown Prince and clawed his way to the throne, this country's imperial house was finished.
The imperial family existed, in the end, on the people's recognition.
The people of this country, the Korean nation, had always been thus. If the house fell far enough that they could no longer stomach it, they would rise with fists raised and drive them out of this old palace for good.
Even with the Emperor's rock-solid popularity and Seon's tireless public work, the family's approval rating slid year after year. When it dipped below fifty percent, hadn't they even convened an emergency countermeasures meeting?
Seon had sat in on that meeting and argued through the heated debate herself, but she believed that if that man took the throne, better the house fall outright. Yes. A royal family that earned neither the people's respect nor their recognition had no business existing at all.
Swish—
While Seon sat lost in thought, she caught the sound of fabric brushing past. She lifted her head to a sour face.
"You must be taking it hard. Your expression is terrible."
The moment she placed who was speaking to her, the light went out of Seon's eyes, as if every ember of passion in her body had been snuffed at once. She had no desire to prolong the exchange. The man who had approached her was another loach—a nonmember who had invited himself into a council session.
"Girls are emotional creatures by nature. Your eyes are bloodshot from holding back tears—it hurts my heart to look at you."
As if. The burst vessels in Seon's eyes were there because she had not slept in days.
It was also proof of the overwork she had piled up running in circles alone—because Prince Sunheung, who spoke up so brazenly, and the royals who did nothing but parrot whatever flattered Grand Prince Uigu kept wrecking official business at every turn, leaving her to cover for them until the exhaustion had curdled into insomnia.
"Then are you saying you feel no grief at all, Uncle?"
Seon swallowed her anger down beneath her breastbone and asked evenly.
They always overlooked it. They dismissed her as a little girl, got burned for it, and then, stupidly, never learned. In a war of words, not one person in this room could beat her.
"With the Crown Prince lying after such a terrible accident, you truly feel nothing, Uncle?"
"Well—of course I do. Why would I not grieve? His Highness the Crown Prince is a truly fine man."
Absurd, given what he had said only moments before; the man feigned sorrow and even dabbed at his bone-dry eyes for good measure. Seon took in every second of the performance, then answered in a voice stripped of all feeling.
"How sentimental of you. Has menopause come early?"
"What did you say?"
Even as Prince Sunheung flushed with rage, Seon spared him not another glance. Trading his verbal jabs back was the least of the courtesy she owed him.
"There's nothing you won't dare say to your elders!"
"Elders?"
Seon let the word trail off and smiled, brief and thin.
Prince Sunheung's voice carried so far that heads were already turning their way. She had never once welcomed her relatives' attention, but the man needed a dose of self-awareness at least this once. Seon went on deliberately, enunciating each word as if inviting the whole room to listen.
"This is the imperial family. And strictly speaking, the imperial house is a hierarchy."
"S-so what?"
"As the son of a Prince, you hold Junior First Rank, Uncle. As the daughter of a Grand Prince, so do I. Our court ranks are equal, but... oh, one moment. I stopped calculating the succession order after the tenth position. Which number are you again, exactly?"
Seon had struck Prince Sunheung's sorest spot with unerring precision. His face went past red and began to shade purple, for she had driven her point straight into his weakness and trigger: his place, nineteenth in the line of succession.
"If you're quite finished, will you be returning to the gallery? These seats are for council members."
Seon raised her head with perfect courtesy and looked at him. He was breathing hard through his teeth, face twisted with fury.
That was why this breed was so easy. People who bared their desires exactly as they were, nothing like true royals, were the kind who would vanish the moment Seon cared to turn her palm over.
The conversation from that elevator drifted through her mind.
It might prove the last way left to stop Grand Prince Uigu—if only Kwon Tae-oh, that man, would cooperate. What moved after that depended on Seon's courage.
That was it. In the end, all of it came down to how firmly Seon made up her mind.