Waiting for Her Moment
The end of the Imperial Clan Council meeting did not scatter the royals to the winds. Why they had gone to the trouble of dressing up and entering the palace at all was obvious. Their interest lay not in the Crown Prince's recovery, but in finding the next heir to the throne as quickly as possible and swearing fresh allegiance to him.
When would the next Crown Prince be named? Their dark faces brimmed with sly, fawning smiles. Not one of them doubted that Grand Prince Uigu would be the successor.
"The Eastern Palace has no heir, so things are bound to be noisy for a while."
"Grand Prince Uigu may be the rightful successor, but public opinion will raise a ruckus all the same. What a headache. If the Eastern Palace was never going to produce an heir anyway, His Highness should have named Grand Prince Uigu his successor long ago."
"If the Crown Prince cannot recover regardless, wouldn't it be better to depose him and hand the title straight to Grand Prince Uigu?"
One after another, the royals crowded in around Grand Prince Uigu as though scrambling to fill an empty place in the line of succession. He laughed aloud, his kindly face flushing with smugness. No wonder he's in such high spirits. Seon rose from her seat with a scoff.
Outside Gyeongchun Hall, the rare few royals who had chosen to stay out of the fray stood gathered in twos and threes, trading quiet words. From the top of the steps, Seon studied them.
Imperial Prince Gong and the other grey-haired royals, along with their children. Even in a rotting royal house, there were always a few who held fast to what mattered: loyalty to the Emperor.
She looked down at their grave faces. The worry etched there did not look so different from her own. Grand Prince Uigu, the next successor. She had always known this future would come around eventually, but with it now staring her in the face, it felt far more dreadful than any forewarning had prepared her for.
"Heading back to the detached palace?"
"Yes."
Dong, who had followed her out at some point, gave her shoulder a couple of light taps. Seon, who had been sweeping one last glance over the inside and out of Gyeongchun Hall, nodded. Seeing the dozens of royals clinging to Grand Prince Uigu's side seemed to drain what little energy she had left.
"Doesn't it feel like even more of them have latched onto his side than before?"
The sight of Grand Prince Uigu laughing so merrily was enough to sour her stomach outright. Seon withdrew her gaze altogether and scoffed.
"Even the people who used to queue up for His Highness the Crown Prince's favor while he was still among us are all wedged into Grand Prince Uigu's camp now."
"Tell me about it. When did Prince Yeongcheon fall in with that crowd? Last I saw, he seemed to be walking a different road from my father."
"Because His Highness is no longer with us." Seon's voice turned cold. "His scheme to push his own son in as an adopted heir failed, so it seems he's playing a different hand now."
To ordinary people, the word royal probably sounded grand indeed. In truth, the status came with an expiration date. However exalted the bloodline, every privilege was cut off the instant a descendant reached the fourth generation—which is to say, anyone who had to call a former Emperor great-great-grandfather was no longer royal at all.
There hadn't been many such cases yet, but as the years passed, more and more children were being born to royal parents and growing up as commoners. That was especially true of the offspring of collateral royals like Dong—holders of minor courtesy titles such as Dojeong or Bujeong—who had married and raised families of their own.
So it was hard to blame some people for burning with anxiety over it. Grieving that their own children, their own grandchildren, could not make it inside the safe fence of royalty was nothing more than fundamental human greed.
"Still, look at them—chattering away like that in a situation like this."
"You think the Crown Prince's accident is what matters to them right now?" Dong answered with a sigh. "They're just waiting on whatever crumbs fall into their laps."
"From what I hear, though, Grand Prince Uigu's offers are getting sweeter by the day."
"Have you heard something?"
"They say he means to push through an amendment to the Imperial Law. Keep the Emperor's great-grandchildren royal, as it stands now, and create a separate class of nobility for everyone beyond that."
"What? How would he pull that off?" Seon asked with a hollow laugh.
"The connections he cultivates most diligently are the members of the National Assembly. He's gotten chummy with the ruling party and the opposition alike. And bringing up Imperial Law reform—the single most tempting carrot he could dangle before my cousins—I'd say there's a fair chance something is already in motion."
"Ah. A wave of existential dread just hit me."
"What's even the point of me covering all these royal duties alone, honestly?" Twirling a strand of hair around her finger, Seon muttered on. "Grand Prince Uigu spends his days outside drumming up every favor imaginable, trotting after people and stroking their egos—and then he has the nerve to stand up and call me rigid and inflexible."
This time, even Dong had no comfort to offer. Every word was true. And with the throne now sitting right under Grand Prince Uigu's nose, nothing was about to get better.
"If that man becomes Crown Prince, maybe I'll just go study abroad."
"What would studying abroad change? Unless you landed a full scholarship like I did, you'd still end up spending the royal family's money."
"Ah. Good point." Seon laughed, hollow and deflated.
The imperial family counted dozens of members with foreign degrees, Dong standing before her among them. Of course, only a rare few—capable and sharp, like Dong—had gone abroad young to actually study; most, like Prince Gyeongan, had gone simply to enjoy the world.
"Then how about defection instead? Or I could meet a foreign man, marry him, and take his citizenship."
"I understand wanting to get away, but first things first—we have to see through the work in front of us, don't we?"
Dong said it with a pat on her shoulder. His voice, steeped in fatigue, sounded a great deal like her own.
Unlike Seon, who held no official title yet was dispatched to one royal duty after another, Dong was chairman of the Imperial Cultural Heritage Foundation. Measured by workload alone, he was no better off than she was—though that, too, was thanks to the irresponsible royals who kept shirking their duties onto him, or piling more on.
"You need to see the task in front of you through first."
"You mean the investigation."
The mood of that day came rushing back, and Seon's head began to ache. She bit her lip.
"At the very least, His Highness shouldn't have to leave this world with an injustice hanging over him."
"If you need my help, say so whenever you need it. I feel responsible, too."
Guilt flickered across Dong's face. The Crown Prince had been scheduled to visit Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon that day, and the fortress's upkeep was the Foundation's responsibility—so it seemed he felt a duty of his own.
Tsk. Seon clicked her tongue, small and sharp.
"Your Highness!"
Before melancholy could close over them, a voice had called out. It was Seokcheol, running toward them from the direction of the waiting room kept for the aides.
Seon shot Dong a glance, then started down the steps to meet Seokcheol. For a man who was unfailingly composed, the sight of him running was not a good sign.
"What is it?"
Seokcheol, still catching his breath, glanced around before lowering his voice. Seon bent in closer to listen.
"His Majesty is asking for you."
"Now?"
At his words, Seon slowly turned to look back toward the interior of Gyeongchun Hall. From down at the foot of the steps, she could make out little of what lay inside.
News that would make Grand Prince Uigu convulse with rage, if he ever learned of it.
When she pulled her eyes from the hall, Seokcheol pressed the point once more.
"A chamberlain from the Great Hall came to deliver the message in person. You had best go now."
"Go on, Seon. Better hurry."
Dong had come down the steps after her without her noticing. There had even been a mention at the meeting urging royals to limit their visits to Daejojeon—for the Emperor to summon Seon was something out of the ordinary.
Seon nodded, then swept her gaze around her once more, pure instinct.
That was when it happened. Her eyes locked with Grand Prince Uigu's just as he stepped out of Gyeongchun Hall.
She tried to glance away as though nothing had happened, but she had already registered in his sight.
"Princess Cheongyang. You haven't left the palace yet?"
A question bristling with thorns. Seon brought her hands together just below her waist, curved her lips into a smile, and bowed her head.
"I was just on my way out."
"Best to come early and leave early. Poking your nose into every corner serves no purpose."
Grand Prince Uigu's gaze swept over Seon, then Dong, then Seokcheol in turn, and he gave a soft, contemptuous laugh. There was no mistaking the gesture for anything but a tally against the crowd of royals clustered at his own side.
Still, Seon held her smile. She was a woman who had spent her entire life waiting for her moment.
Since she was seven—since the very instant those black shoes had walked away from her. For someone like her, these few seconds were nothing.
"I was just saying to myself how worried I've been about you. Father told you to join the Royal Special Investigation Task Force, didn't he? Honestly, Father. Handing such brutal work to a girl."
Grand Prince Uigu gave his head a slow, knowing shake. It wore the mask of concern, but every word was meant to grind her into the dirt. Despicable, truly.
"I am merely doing what His Majesty has entrusted to me."
"Even so. Since when has such work ever been easy? Not one thing will go the way you want it to."
Ah—the fury she had been swallowing all this time caught at the base of her throat. Grand Prince Uigu stood there brimming with confidence, as though he knew every detail of what had happened in the conference room of the National Police Agency.
As if everything lay in the palm of his hand. As if there were nothing at all she could do about it.
"How about it, then? Shall this second uncle of yours lend you a hand?"
"Help with what, exactly?"
At Seon's rather stiff question, Grand Prince Uigu smiled brightly.
"Those teammates of yours, the ones fouling up your investigation. I'll have them replaced. Shall I swap out the appointee recommended by the Office of the Inspector General? Or the one from the police?"
Ha. She kept the smile in place by a thread, pressing her lips harder together to keep the corners from trembling.
Such arrogance—claiming he could reach into the Royal Special Investigation Task Force and swap out its members. Where would that confidence come from? Most likely from the fact that he really could.
Before Grand Prince Uigu, Seon was powerless. She had neither the means to replace the task force's members nor the authority to wrest control of the investigation.
But she had at least one thing: sheer stubbornness. The stubbornness and tenacity to cling to his trouser cuff, if that was what it took, so that nothing would ever go the way he willed.
"I'm quite all right. It is enough for me to do the work entrusted to me."
With that, she looked him dead in the eye. His eyes—half the size of her own, slitted sideways—stared back like a serpent's, as if to swallow her whole. Seon met them wide open, refusing to be the one to blink.
"Since His Majesty is asking for me, I'll take my leave now."
For an instant, a crack ran across Grand Prince Uigu's face. When things were quiet, she would rather not be found out—but when a fact could be wielded as a weapon, there was no reason to withhold it.
"Father is calling for you? Why?"
"How would I know His Majesty's mind?"
Seon smiled, unhurried, and bowed her head once more. Grand Prince Uigu clenched his fist and unclenched it, over and over, but in the end he never managed to pin her down.