Twenty Years of Silence

Seon returned to her room with her father's words still ringing in her ears, where Aide Jo was already waiting for her.

He was pacing with his ever-present brown briefcase in one hand and a tablet in the other, exactly as he always did. The sheer normalcy of it loosened something in her chest, and she let out a short breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

She crossed the room toward the sofa. "What did you find?"

"It wasn't easy."

"That's exactly why I asked you."

With a low groan, she sank into the cushions. The plush embrace worked into her rigid muscles, and she felt the tension begin to drain away. She gestured, and Seok-cheol pushed up his glasses once before settling into the seat across from her.

Seon had always tried to project composure, to present herself as unshakeable. But there were a rare few around whom she could simply breathe. Seok-cheol, who had served her for seven years since she turned twenty, was one of them.

True to form, he had no intention of disappointing her expectations. He lifted the tablet from his lap and handed it across. She took it naturally and woke the screen.

Several official documents filled the display — from the Imperial Household Agency, the National Police Agency, and more. He had already secured files from departments even he lacked clearance to access.

"I couldn't obtain photographs from the scene of the accident. I managed to pull documents classified up to Level 3, but anything beyond that will take more time."

The Crown Prince's accident was a matter with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire nation. He wasn't just any member of the imperial family — he was the Crown Prince. Even Seok-cheol, with his remarkably wide network and his talent for opening doors that should have stayed shut, couldn't extract materials above a certain clearance level.

Seon swiped through the tablet with her fingertip, her eyes racing across the shifting text as her mind organized the information with equal speed.

Her busy gaze suddenly locked onto a single line. She traced the words with her finger, reading them aloud slowly.

"Both drivers were killed on impact?"

That was exactly what the police accident report stated. The driver of the Crown Prince's vehicle and the driver of the other car — both pronounced dead at the scene. Seon clenched her fist and stared at Seok-cheol.

"Yes. Just as you see there."

Seok-cheol adjusted his glasses again before continuing. "An autopsy is scheduled for the other driver. Based on what we know so far, his blood alcohol level is estimated to have been well above the threshold for license revocation."

"Does that make any sense to you?"

Seon let out a bitter laugh, her eyes narrowing. "I understand that His Highness championed accessibility and didn't want full road closures. But that doesn't mean the route was completely open, does it?"

This was a royal procession — the Crown Prince, the highest-ranking member of the imperial family. He hadn't been traveling on personal business; he was en route to preparations for a state event. He might not have wanted the entire road shut down, but surely there would have been security details stationed along the route, at minimum partial traffic control.

How could a drunk driver have penetrated that perimeter?

"He wasn't stopped at a single checkpoint along the entire route. Explain how that's possible."

"The investigation is still ongoing. We'll have to wait and see."

At Seok-cheol's measured reply, Seon clicked her tongue. "No matter how I look at it, something doesn't add up."

Now she had a faint sense of why the Emperor had mentioned suspicious circumstances, why he had urged her to join the investigation. There were far too many strange details surrounding this accident.

A drunk vehicle had appeared out of nowhere, and the Crown Prince's car had been swept into the collision. The dashcam had been severely damaged — evidence of just how violent the impact had been. And there were no witnesses.

Was this really something that could happen to a man like the Crown Prince?

Death was, by nature, indiscriminate. It came for everyone equally, regardless of rank or station. But for a death like this to occur within the imperial family — did that make any kind of sense?

Fate could be cruel; she was willing to grant that much. But surely, surely, this could not be allowed to happen twice within the imperial household.

Seon's thoughts sank to their deepest, most wounded place. No matter how hard she tried to keep the connections at bay, they kept surfacing.

Perhaps the Emperor had summoned her alone for this task because he'd arrived at the same thought.

"The Prince Uiyeong accident."

Seon spoke quietly. Seok-cheol's questioning gaze settled on her.

"Isn't it similar to this one?"

"I understand what you're suggesting, Your Highness, but... that case was already closed as an accident, was it not?"

At Seok-cheol's question, Seon pressed her lips together.

An accident. An accident, was it?

That was certainly how it had ended. But even then, it had been suspicious. That suspicion had lived inside her ever since, shaping the entire course of her life.

If she couldn't unravel the questions surrounding this incident either, it would be buried as another accident. As long as inconsistencies remained, she could not afford to back down. Not this time.

"Is this why Grandmother entrusted this to me?"

Seon murmured the words almost to herself.

"I'm sorry?"

"The Prince Uiyeong accident. You know I was the sole survivor, don't you?"

"...I do."

Seon remembered that day with terrible clarity.

Her cousin had shielded her with her own body, and that alone had spared her the worst of it. She'd been drenched in blood — she couldn't tell whether it was hers or her cousin's — and her consciousness was slipping away when someone approached. A pair of eyes, methodical and cold, checking whether she was still alive. A kick against the overturned car's window, testing whether anything inside still moved. And then that same person walking away, knowing full well how dire the situation was, without calling for help.

"It was so similar to what happened now. The driver, Prince Uiyeong, my cousin Princess Cheongsong — none of them came back."

Twenty years had passed since then.

The child who had once wept silently in her dying cousin's arms, unable to do anything at all, had grown into one of the most closely watched members of the imperial family. The praise that followed her everywhere — *she survived such a terrible accident and still grew up so well* — had become a label she could never shed.

Seon could never forget that day. She would never be able to.

Relatives who had been laughing and talking with her inside the car just moments before were all dead. Her mother, shattered by the news, lost the baby she'd been carrying.

How could anyone forget a day like that? How could she not connect this new accident to the old one, when the memories were still this vivid?

"If that civilian driver behind us hadn't called it in, I would have died too. My cousin — the one who was shielding me — bled out inside the ambulance. If that man who checked whether we were alive had just changed his mind and made the call a moment sooner..."

"What are you saying, Your Highness? Are you telling me there was a witness?"

Seok-cheol's voice thinned, trembling almost imperceptibly. This was a secret that only a handful of people within the imperial family knew.

"Then why on earth wouldn't he have reported it? This isn't in any of the case records. I have to admit I'm... shaken."

It was natural for Seok-cheol to be disturbed. No ordinary person would witness an accident of that magnitude and simply walk past the injured. Human decency demanded otherwise.

But it was precisely because that witness had walked away that Seon could be certain. That accident, all those years ago, had been no accident at all.

"I was too young. My injuries and the shock were so severe that I was unconscious for a long time. There weren't many dashcams back then, and no other witnesses came forward."

The location had been perfect — almost suspiciously so. A quiet road with no CCTV coverage and little passing traffic. And of all places, that was where they'd been hit.

"By the time I'd recovered enough to give testimony, the case had already been closed. That's why it never made it into the official record."

She hadn't even been old enough for elementary school. There was very little a seven-year-old could do.

"Did you report this to His Majesty? I understand Prince Uiyeong was his most beloved son."

Seon's thoughts drifted to Prince Uiyeong.

The Emperor's most brilliant and gifted son. As the third son, he'd had no realistic path to the throne, yet he'd received more of his parents' love than any of his siblings. And he'd poured that love freely onto everyone around him. Even Gyeongan, the lawless prince whom no one could control, would rein himself in at a word from Prince Uiyeong.

He'd been that kind of person — warm to his core. That was why, when his young niece needed to be driven somewhere, he hadn't simply handed her off to a palace driver. He'd gotten into the car himself and personally seen her off. She would carry the weight of that kindness for the rest of her life.

"I told him as soon as I came to."

Seon kept her voice as steady as she could manage.

"His Majesty conducted his own careful investigation, but the case had already been closed. There wasn't enough evidence, and in the end it remained classified as accidental death."

The futility of that moment was beyond words. She had *seen* it. If only she'd woken a little sooner. If only the truth had come to light a little faster.

"I still don't believe that accident was just an accident. And I have a feeling this one isn't either."

"Do you have anyone specific in mind?"

At Seok-cheol's question, Seon fell into deep thought.

It was faster to eliminate those she *didn't* suspect. A member of the imperial family might smile at you today and drive a blade into you tomorrow. There were precious few people in this palace whom Seon trusted without reservation.

"With Prince Uiyeong, it was hard to point to a single target. It wasn't easy to accept that someone would deliberately go after the Emperor's third son."

That was why, even though her grandfather had believed her and conducted a separate investigation, the case had ultimately been buried as an accident. No one could conceive of a motive sufficient to justify the deliberate murder of a man who was, after all, only the Emperor's third son.

"But the Crown Prince is different."

"Are you referring to the abolitionists?"

At Seok-cheol's careful question, Seon shook her head with a faint, bitter smile. A single man's face had surfaced in her mind.