The Most Royal of All

Age had bent his back and stooped his shoulders until his frame seemed to shrink, yet the force of the man and the majesty he carried did not fade so easily.

The Emperor greeted Seon with a weary face. Nearing seventy, he had kept a vigor that belied his years, but the furrows carved by the pain of losing two children could not be hidden.

Twenty years ago, he had already lost his third son. They had called that a traffic accident, too. Now, after a span of years that could change even mountains and rivers had passed twice over, he had sent off his eldest to the very same kind of accident. Seon could not begin to fathom such grief.

"Grandfather."

Seon managed at last to speak. Breaking through the weight of the Emperor's absorbed silence was no easy thing.

But he did not answer right away. Instead he slowly raised one hand, asking for time. The Emperor often seemed to order his thoughts through a long, deep sigh, and the sorrow threaded through that sigh shook the calm Seon had carefully gathered. After a pause spent choosing his words, he finally opened his mouth.

"Seon."

His voice carried a deep anguish. This was an Emperor who never betrayed turmoil in any situation, who had striven all his life to comport himself more royally than anyone — yet even he wavered now.

"The Crown Prince... will be transferred to Suhakwon Hospital shortly. The Crown Princess has gone straight to Suwon, so once matters are settled she will come up with him."

"I heard he hasn't passed yet."

At her question, the Emperor let out another long sigh.

"They say when the paramedics arrived, his heart had already stopped, and they barely brought him back. Then he went into cardiac arrest again during the transfer, and this time they managed only to keep breath in him."

What the Emperor described was more terrible than anything Seon had heard. The implication buried in his careful phrasing — that there might be no bringing him back at all — was vaster than she had imagined.

"Those of us who still draw breath must do our part. Is that not what it means to be royal?"

The Emperor pressed on with difficulty.

"A State Funeral Directorate will be established soon to prepare the rites. Your father will be appointed its Director-General. Know that this is how it will be."

"My father?"

Seon echoed the words, visibly uneasy. In every state funeral held since the constitutional monarchy was established, the Director-General had been the heir of highest standing after the Crown Prince.

Prince Yeonchin, the previous Emperor's eldest son of secondary birth, had presided over the funerals of the former Emperor and Empress; Grand Prince Uigu had presided over the Grand Empress Dowager's. Which meant that by custom, this funeral too should fall to Grand Prince Uigu, highest in the line of succession.

The sudden surfacing of her father's name sat uneasily with Seon. However much she despised Grand Prince Uigu and Prince Gyeongan, their standing — directly beneath the Crown Prince — was not something she could simply override.

Her father, Grand Prince Uijeong, was no different. He stood fifth in the line. Even if the order were redrawn now that the Crown Prince was gone, would that not make him fourth?

"How can you entrust so weighty a duty to my father? The precedent is already set — there will be pushback."

Grand Prince Uigu was a man crawling with greed, so relentless you would never guess whose blood he shared. What he decided he wanted, he had to have; and yet no one was more sensitive about having his own taken from him. Seon, who had long endured his contempt, knew exactly how to deal with him: ignore him as much as possible until the right approach could be found, and avoid standing against him wherever she could.

"Grand Prince Uigu will not do."

Yet to all her concern the Emperor answered flatly, leaving no room to maneuver.

Ordinarily she might have retreated at this point. Seon was a dutiful granddaughter, one who knew how to take the weight of an imperial command seriously. But she was human too. The orbit of power was shifting beneath them, and however little she welcomed the thought of him becoming Crown Prince, it was not something she could stop on her own — not right now.

Grand Prince Uigu was a cruel man, especially to those who turned their backs on him. How many royals had been cast aside after crossing him just once? If every weight on the scale had already tipped, what more could Seon do than hold her breath and stay quiet? For the powerless to lunge at an enemy was the act of a moth flinging itself into flame.

"I cannot fathom Your Majesty's heart."

Seon countered obliquely.

"Grand Prince Uigu has served as Director-General before, hasn't he?"

"Seon."

The Emperor shook his head once more and called her name. Her eyes, brimming with unease, met his — eyes that must have blazed brilliantly in his youth, now sunk dark and clouded. The deep sorrow pooled within them was more than words could explain. The anxiety and the raw instinct to survive that had seized Seon at the news of her uncle's death collapsed, there before him, into something as pitiful as begging.

"It seems even this old grandfather cannot tell you everything yet."

The Emperor's voice was exhausted. Listening closely, she could hear it fraying at the edges — as if he, too, had been weeping until she arrived.

An Emperor was still, in the end, a father. To the Crown Prince, to Grand Prince Uigu, to Grand Prince Uijeong — and to Prince Uiyeong, dead these twenty years. And a father like that must have had his reasons for deliberately singling out his youngest son, even knowing the second son's ambition.

Seon felt her hazy mind sharpen into sudden clarity. Even in this desolate moment, having just lost his eldest, he was making the best choice available to him as Emperor.

"What I can tell you is that there is something suspicious about the Crown Prince's accident."

"What do you mean?"

In that instant, a hazy image flashed through Seon's mind.

A limousine overturned completely in the collision. A small child letting out faint, ragged breaths. A girl bleeding from flying debris, that child wrapped tight in her arms. And a man with a face blurred beyond recall, tapping at the half-shattered window with his foot, checking something.

"The details will require looking into."

The Emperor murmured the words, exhaled, and beckoned to her. Seon had been standing by the door; at his summons she came forward, until they stood within arm's reach of each other. The Emperor slowly extended his hand and took hers, and strength flowed into that broad, wrinkled grip unlike anything she expected of him.

"I have much to entrust to you, my child."

"To me?"

When she hesitated, the grip tightened further — a strength hard to credit in a man of nearly seventy. Holding on as though he would never let go, he said,

"Whatever befalls you from this day on, do not fear it, Cheongyang Hyunju."

"Grandfather?"

"You are royal. More than anyone alive, you are the most royal of them all. Do you understand what I am telling you?"

The Emperor's voice grew heavy in an instant. Seon swallowed without meaning to.

She knew from experience that once her grandfather began laying on the weight and invoking their station like this, there was no wriggling free. The heavy identity and duty of royalty coiled around her in the name of responsibility.

"...Yes, Your Majesty."

"Because you are a clever child."

The Emperor murmured this unreadable remark, then fixed his gaze squarely on hers. His eyes were sharper than she had ever seen them.

"Your father will be coming up to Seoul soon, so you are to remain at the separate palace for the time being. It will be tiresome, but I must have you keep watch on the royals."

Watching the royals was a duty she had shouldered before. That Seon, unpopular as she was among the family, had been reelected to the Royal Family Council seven years running was thanks to the Emperor's pressure.

"The Council will convene within days. Most of the royals will attend if only to satisfy their curiosity. It is better to keep their feet bound in one place at a time like this — watch them closely."

"I will do as you command."

"And one thing more."

The Emperor's hand slid away, and with the pressure gone, her hand felt strangely empty. As she opened and closed her fist, he pressed hard at his eyes; fatigue seemed to have overtaken him all at once.

"As you can see, I am no longer what I once was. Just an old man now — do you think the royals still fear me? All the more reason I desperately need your help."

"Could I truly be of help to you, Grandfather?"

"Of course. A very great help."

A faint smile on his face, the Emperor — perhaps thirsty — lifted the water glass beside him and drank. Through the clear glass, the water sank lower, bit by bit, ever so slowly.

"As you know, a royal death sets a standard investigation in motion. It is not yet official that the Crown Prince has died, but given the scale of the accident, a special investigation team for the imperial family will be formed this time as well. The Office of the Inspector General is expected to take part."

Royals were extraordinary beings. Even a death by illness was investigated, by custom, against every contingency — though it seldom went so far as an autopsy or a serious inquiry; more often than not it stopped at establishing the basic facts. Yet there seemed to be a reason the Emperor had raised the matter now. She glimpsed his resolve not to let this end as a show inquiry.

"I will recommend you myself. You are to join the investigation alongside the Office of the Inspector General."

"Pardon?"

Seon echoed the words, fiddling with her ear. She was certain she had misheard.

The Office of the Inspector General was built for audit and enforcement; its people would manage their part in an investigation well enough. But she was different. Seon was the sort who handled the duties given her and lived by the obligations she owed — a petty commoner at heart. No — a petty royal. The imperial household had no shortage of eager souls who would welcome so weighty an assignment, but she was not one of them. At heart, Seon was content with her lot: a firm believer that a person should live within their proper bounds.

But the Emperor repeated it as though driving in a wedge.

"I said you are to join the investigation."

"Grandfather!"

"There will be things that you — no expert — can see plainly. Of that there is no doubt."

The Emperor spoke with a strange certainty.

"And perhaps you will find the answer to the question you have spent so long searching for."

A chill ran down her spine. Had her grandfather known about the feelings she had secretly carried alone all these years? Yet in the Emperor's eyes, which she finally managed to meet, there was no reproach.

Still tangled in confusion, she watched the day after the Crown Prince's accident dawn.