A Seat Among Wolves

Seon had never been the sort of onion that could only grow on a diet of love. She was one of those who had learned, down to the bone, ever since that accident in her childhood, that the ways of the world rarely ran smooth.

But this one took the cake. What on earth had she done to deserve it? Should her greeting have been more deferential?

Born and raised a royal, Seon had always thrown herself into official duties and had met more of the public than any of her kin, yet no one had ever shown her a reaction like this to her face. He was a civil servant, of all things. A civil servant was a servant of the entire people, someone sworn to loyalty to the Emperor! Surely even if he despised the imperial family, he was not supposed to let it show?

Lips pressed firmly shut, she walked in the direction Tae-oh led, her mind running circles the whole way. The displeasure a man she was meeting for the first time in her life had flaunted right in front of her kept snagging in her chest, thudding there over and over.

Steady, Yi Seon. Not every citizen can love the royal family.

The times kept changing. Support for the throne had been slipping year after year, and a survey had once concluded that when the Emperor, the war hero, passed, abolishing the monarchy outright might be the better course. So this was simply a lesson Seon had to accept.

And yet, no matter how she turned it over, doing that, straight to a person's face.

The displeasure seeping through her whole body was beyond her control, too. All Seon could do, as ever, was smile gently and meet Tae-oh with a composed air, as though she felt nothing at all. It did little to console the heart already bruised.

The party reached the investigation conference room on the third floor. Tae-oh pulled up the access badge hanging at his neck with practiced ease and pressed it to the black reader beside the door. At the click of the lock releasing, he tipped his chin at her.

"Go on in."

"Oh. Yes."

Opening the door was the Jeonwi's duty. Tae-oh had unlocked it, nothing more; holding it open for her was not part of the service. If anything, his expression had soured further still, apparently convinced that Seon had dragged Seok-cheol along for no reason at all.

Seon, deflated for no good reason, took hold of the handle. Seok-cheol, gripping the door's edge, shot Tae-oh a pointed look, but a man immune to such signals to begin with would hardly have been shamed by one.

"Hold it. Aides, secretaries, whatever you are, no entry."

"I beg your pardon?"

Seok-cheol, moving to follow on Seon's heels, froze the instant she crossed the threshold.

"The imperial personnel attached to this task force number three, as I understand it: two from the Office of the Inspector General, and Princess Cheongyang."

"I am Her Highness's aide."

"Which is precisely the point. You, Mr. Aide, haven't been cleared."

Tae-oh drawled the words as he wedged himself between Seon and Seok-cheol. Caught off guard, she glanced from one man to the other, and felt the stares pouring down from behind her. They were not alone in this room.

She drew a quiet breath and nodded to Seok-cheol. Protocol kept her at her aide's side except when circumstances made it impossible, but this was no place to dig in her heels, nor to burn time she did not have. Whether he read her intent or simply surrendered, Seok-cheol exhaled once, released his grip on the door, and bowed his head to her.

"Loyal to a fault, aren't you."

The door swung shut, and Tae-oh brushed past Seon. The murmur, pitched low enough for her ears alone, was unmistakably a jab.

Left alone in a dark, silent conference room. Stripped bare and abandoned among people glaring like wolves, hungry to watch her waver. It took Seon several seconds to choke down the disgust and paint on her usual, exquisitely lovely smile.

And here I thought I'd grown calloused to the world. So I'm an ordinary royal after all.

Self-mocking, Seon turned slowly toward the heart of the room. Six people sat inside, every one of them watching, and none of the looks were friendly. She gave them all a bright, deliberate smile, and only then did the watchers, who had been holding their breath, offer their greetings one by one.

Seon smiled as though nothing were amiss, dipping her head and waving. The only one to look away as if the sight offended him was Tae-oh, seated at the very front.

"Please, sit, Your Highness."

The man in the seat of honor rose and gestured to the chair beside his own, a face from the roster she had reviewed the night before. The Police Commissioner, then. Before taking it, Seon swept the room with her eyes. They had thoughtfully arranged her options, it seemed: the only empty chairs were the one beside the Commissioner and the front-row seats on Tae-oh's end.

In that instant, a flame caught in Seon's heart. A tiny ember, set down in that parched heart of hers that lay so still it seldom knew even a ripple, was enough to move her.

"I appreciate the courtesy, but I think the front will suit me better if I'm to concentrate."

With a bright smile, Seon walked toward the front. Tae-oh, seated at the broad table closest to the screen, knit his brows as she drew nearer and nearer, then settled herself across from him with cool impertinence.

It was no comfortable seat. The screen loomed too large at this range, the speakers sat close enough to drown out thought, and on top of it all there was Tae-oh, glaring at her hard enough to frighten. It was nothing anyone would call a seat of honor. For Seon, it was more than enough.

Beside the Commissioner, a man known to be one of Grand Prince Uigu's carefully groomed protégés, she would only find it harder to observe. Better to sit a little apart and read the room as a whole. Not that she needed to weigh the displeasure the man in the front seat would radiate, either.

"Ahem."

The Commissioner, rebuffed, cleared his throat in embarrassment. Still, one cannot spit in a smiling face; he kept stealing glances at Seon before turning to Tae-oh.

"Looks like everyone's here. We'll keep introductions brief and get the meeting underway."

Tae-oh nodded with listless indifference. Even the scrape of his chair, dragged back with body language that said he wanted no part of any of this, grated on the ears.

"Inspector Kwon Tae-oh. I head the Royal Special Investigation Task Force."

The introduction was clipped. It carried a whiff of defiance, as if to say this sort of ceremony deserved no one's time. Watching the Commissioner's face mottle red and pale, Seon felt a small, private satisfaction.

"Hong Moon-sung, auditor on dispatch from the Office of the Inspector General."

"Park Tae-hwa, likewise an auditor with the Office of the Inspector General."

"Sergeant Yoon Hee-jae, Traffic Investigation Division, National Police Agency."

"Choi Sang-eun, policy officer attached to the Office of the Prime Minister."

The two Imperial Household Agency officials dispatched from the Office of the Inspector General, one more police officer, and one more from the Prime Minister's Office followed with introductions of their own. When the Commissioner finally wound down his condescending little address, it was Seon's turn.

"I am Yi Seon, Princess Cheongyang. I, too, am here under orders, so I will ask whatever questions must be asked, holding nothing back. If any of you are curious about anything, please feel free to speak up."

"Well..."

The moment her greeting ended, Sergeant Yoon, seated beside Tae-oh, raised a hand with exaggerated care.

"Your Highness, after we wrap up, any chance I could get your autog... ack!"

Even Tae-oh's composure failed him at a request that breezy; he drove his elbow into Sergeant Yoon's ribs with real force. The sergeant groaned under the bony jab, and Seon answered with a faint smile.

"Members of the imperial family aren't permitted to sign autographs outside the palace, I'm afraid. The risk of forgery, you see."

"Ah. Right, of course."

Sergeant Yoon, still hugging his ribs, wheezed the words out. Seon studied him a moment, then let her gaze slide, unhurried, to Tae-oh beside him. He had made no effort to hide the look of pure exasperation he had worn since Yoon raised his hand.

"A photograph, however, I can do."

She said it with her eyes still on Tae-oh. The brows he had kept bent over the papers in front of him jumped sharply. Again. Something had evidently ruffled him.

"Then after the meeting, a photo, absolutely...!"

This time it was the Commissioner. The rumors of his collusion with Grand Prince Uigu were loud enough, yet word had apparently never reached him that the royal her second-eldest uncle despised above all others was Seon herself.

Seon let her gaze fall for a moment, long, lush lashes veiling her eyes completely. Beautiful by inheritance from her actress mother, she was the most striking of all the royals. But she had not fought her way to her present seat on a merely passable face, whatever the palace's internal assessments claimed. Beyond the face she had been born with, she had steel in her. However thick this room was with Grand Prince Uigu's people, she had a spine that would not bend.

"I do wish that were possible," Seon said, her voice soft.

"As you know, my circumstances are not... good."

Composed face or no, the fact remained: she was a niece on the brink of losing her eldest uncle to a catastrophic accident. Dragged out before their shallow appetites, that truth sealed the Commissioner's and Sergeant Yoon's mouths at once.

Nor was that all. Across the lips of Tae-oh, who had failed all this while to mask his irritation, a smile flickered for an instant. It was gone so quickly that anyone less attuned to the smallest shifts than Seon would have missed it entirely.