Unknown
"It was the Queen's birthday banquet, two years ago. The little princeling went to the garden and picked a bouquet with his own two hands, 'cause it was for his mama. He walked in human and walked out an Eodukseoni."
"So you never saw the moment he transformed."
"Kyah, didn't see that part, nope. Anyway, the poor thing didn't even know what he'd become. He was walking up to present the bouquet to the Queen when every single light in the banquet hall went out. And after that, it was horrible. Just horrible."
"……."
Everyone must have been scared out of their minds. Driven mad, most likely—and most of them dead on top of it.
Humans with exceptionally hardened hearts, or the gwoeryeoknansin—beings of monstrous supernatural might—might have endured to the point of mere madness, but the vast majority would never have withstood it at all.
"Do you remember who died that day, or who went mad?"
The Maegu scratched her ear with a forepaw, then went on.
"Couldn't tell ya. Eodukseoni scares me too, you know. The second those lights died, I bolted. Didn't see a thing properly."
"Hmm."
"But one thing's for certain. The Queen lost her mind and collapsed that day, and the King was never right in the head after."
"……So neither of them died, at least."
Which made sense—the Crown Prince was still Crown Prince because his father and mother were still breathing.
"Anyway, that little princeling was always a genius, the sort they expected would grow into a wise and shining king—and from that day forward, it all flipped on its head. They even changed his boyhood title."
"They changed his title?"
"He wasn't always Grand Prince Heukju, you know. He was Hyueon, the Grand Prince of Dawn—'the prince who would light up the nation,' they said. Then overnight, all of it was over. Kinda sad, honestly."
Changing a royal title was a genuinely rare thing to do, which meant the incident must have been every bit as devastating as it sounded.
The fox gave me a fuller account.
The event had come to be known as the Black Day—Heukju, the Black Daylight—and had been declared a forbidden subject within the palace walls. The Crown Prince's very title had been redrawn from that incident's name, turning him into Grand Prince Heukju. The King, once known as a benevolent ruler, had curdled into a cold-blooded tyrant after the Black Day, and had come to loathe the son he had once adored beyond all measure. Though it was certain the Eodukseoni had been the cause, no one could determine whether the boy had unleashed it deliberately or whether it was an accident born of a curse—so he had escaped execution. At first, public sentiment had leaned toward sympathy for the prince, but as the years passed, sinister rumors about him only swelled and spread. The Queen remained in a coma to this day, and the ministers were now maneuvering to depose the Crown Prince and enthrone Prince Waneon in his place.
"Who's Prince Waneon? I heard the King has no children besides the Crown Prince."
"Technically, the King's nephew. His background's a bit tangled, though."
By the time the story of Prince Waneon was finished, a sigh had escaped me of its own accord.
The Crown Prince…… Cheon Gyeol-woo, was it? His situation is every bit as tangled as Ruwa's, honestly.
Since I'd decided to live as the Crown Princess for the time being, untangling that snarled-up princely life was bound to make my own easier too.
So much to do.
Even as I thought I'd be busy, a small surge of pride rose in me all the same. Living in Sangra Palace, there had been nothing at all for me to do. With a body fated to die, treatment and rest were all I'd ever been permitted—nothing more. My frail health had made even play difficult, so reading books and watching my parents at work had been the greatest amusements of my life.
But here, I can actually do things myself.
In Heaven, I had always been the child being cared for. Here, I was the eldest of us all.
I'm two hundred and nine years old, and a goddess! Young, fragile humans like the Crown Prince—it's my job to look after them.
I resolved to step forward gladly.
"Maegu—no, wait. What's your name?"
"Keheh~! What an honor, that the Princess of Heaven should ask for the name of a lowly creature like me!"
"Spare me the honor. So, the name?"
"Seok-ran! No family name, though."
"Good. Seok-ran, I need you to look into a few things for me. You know the palace well—you can handle it, yes?"
"Of course! What do you wanna know, nya?"
"First, find out who suffered what in that 'Black Day' two years ago. And check whether there have been any other victims of the Eodukseoni since that day."
"Hmmm…… I can try."
"Also, find out who wants to keep the Crown Prince alive."
"Kyah? You mean find out who's on his side?"
"Exactly."
Among them would be the one who killed Ruwa.
The faction seeking the Crown Prince's execution had wanted him to kill Ruwa in the bridal chamber after the wedding ceremony. There was no reason, then, for anyone to draw Ruwa's blood the night before the wedding. The Pyeong Empire had merely sent an imperial princess they found inconvenient to kill off to the Un Kingdom—it made no sense for them to murder her in advance, before the marriage rites were even performed. If the Crown Prince killed Ruwa, the culprit would be obvious and the affair would end cleanly. But if she bled to death instead, everything turned murky and complicated, didn't it?
So the ones desperate enough to kill Ruwa before the wedding, no matter what it took……
Those who wanted the marriage itself annulled. Those who wanted to stop the Crown Prince's execution.
The highest possibility, of course, is the people trying to save him.
Crown Prince or not—cursed boy or not—surely there were still factions fond enough of him to take his side, even after his own father gave up on him.
One of the Crown Prince's own people is the culprit.
Before meeting him, I'd planned to simply hurl him straight into the Eighth Hell. But if his frantic attempt to keep Ruwa breathing came from someone genuinely devoted to him……
Then it gets a little complicated. Even a murderer who killed Ruwa might be the Crown Prince's sole pillar of support.
……Fine. I'll decide what to do with the culprit after I find them. I have the Heavenly Mandate Eye, after all.
For all I knew, once I searched, the culprit would turn out to belong to some entirely different faction—not the Crown Prince's people at all. Knowing the suspects was enough. The rest I could resolve by looking into them myself, with my own eyes.
Nothing can hide from the Heavenly Mandate Eye.
My mother, the Jade Emperor, who distinguishes merit from fault and metes out reward and punishment alike—her eye pierces through the every deed of the one who meets her gaze, all they have done in their life. My father, King Yama, sovereign of the underworld who governs death and the karma that carries souls into the next life—his eye pierces through the every sin they carry.
And so my eye, which inherited both my parents' powers in full, could see both at once: the life my counterpart had lived, and the karma awaiting them after death. If I fixed my gaze upon someone in concentration, it all laid itself bare—lifespan, the merits and faults they had piled up, even the karma that would shape their next world.
They say whoever receives my gaze feels as though they're being judged.
That was why the maid named Nain had burst into tears when I watched her during the wedding preparations. Stare down by the Heavenly Mandate Eye, they say it feels like standing naked from crown to toe, awaiting a verdict.
Find the culprit, examine them with the Eye, and then decide what to do.
I laid out my purpose to Seok-ran and entrusted her with the investigation.
"Keheheh, understood! I'll dig up everything, every last scrap!"
"How long will it take?"
"Give me two months, nya."
"Too long. Finish within a week."
"Kyah! That's insane! I may be a thousand-year-old fox, but how am I supposed to dig all that up alone in one week?!"
"If you can't do it alone, recruit trustworthy help. Of course, if word of me leaks out, I'll exterminate you on the spot."
Ansi, quiet until now, shook her little fist beside me.
"Should such a thing come to pass, this Ansi shall personally kill that fox—kyak—and be done with it, I so swear."
"Kyaaeng……"
Seok-ran broke into a cold sweat, rolled her eyes, and thrust a forepaw straight up in the air.
"I'll put my little sister to work! My sister's lips are sealed tight!"
"Oh? Then a week it is."
"Kyah, no matter what you say, one week is impossible! Give me a month, nya!"
"Ten days."
"……Genuinely impossible. Even without sleeping a single day, it'd take three weeks."
"Were you planning to rest, on the very knife's edge between being exterminated and spared? How do you sleep at a time like this?"
"Kyaaeng, kyaah! If I work without sleeping, I'll truly die! Have mercy, I'm begging! Two weeks! Just two weeks, nya!"
"Fine. Two weeks—and know that I'm being very generous."
"……Thank you, sniff…… whine……"
"Then get started now. There's no time to waste."
Sniffling, Seok-ran departed.
"Baby Princess, but nothin' baby about her…… scary…… so scary……"
I hid a smile, inwardly relieved by her reaction.
I was just imitating how Mother runs her court…… and it seems to work? She says I don't seem like a baby at all!
When assigning work, Mother had taught me: if a vassal proposed a deadline, demand an absurdly shorter one in return. That way, you learned the deadline that was truly possible—not the padded, leisurely one they'd offered. Smiling gently, she'd added that ministers must be squeezed to their very limits, for only then did the people grow comfortable……
When Mother smiles like that, the ministers can't even twitch. Did I manage to look even half as fearsome to that fox?
I fought down the urge to let my lips curl upward. An adult mustn't get swept up over such little things.
Anyway, that side can wait for now. Next is……
The fact that I had survived would become a major headache for whoever had tried to sweep the Crown Prince and me away together.
But neither side can come at me openly.
This marriage was, whatever else it was, outwardly an ordinary royal union. The Crown Prince and I were nothing more than children of eleven and nine.
They'll likely watch and wait until they find some other pretext. They may scheme behind the scenes, but assassination attempts are no real trouble for me.
In the meantime, I had to secure both the Crown Prince's position and my own.
I may be called Crown Princess now, but in practice I'm treated nothing like one.
A Crown Princess's standing depended, inevitably, on the Crown Prince's own position. And the fastest way to restore his standing right now was……
They said the Queen fell into a coma because of him, didn't they?
A coma meant the soul was wandering the Samdocheon, the River of Three Crossings. Coming back from there was no easy feat.
Conveniently, it happened to be something I had done a very great many times.
All right. Let's save the Crown Prince's mother first.
And Ruwa's mother too, while I was at it.
By the time I finished laying my plans, morning had fully arrived.
The Crown Prince was still asleep in the bridal chamber.
Must have been exhausted. No surprise there.
An eleven-year-old boy had stood at the crossroads between life and death.
I let him sleep soundly, and with Ansi's help bathed and dressed. By the time I finished, there was an uproar outside the door.
The gate burst open without so much as a knock.
Eunuchs filed in with woven mats slung over their shoulders, maids trailing behind in a line, clutching water jars and scrub cloths.
Well, well.
Would you look at those aprons. Dressed for all the world as if to say, we've come openly to clean up a corpse, Your Highness.
The crowd that surged in froze at the sight of me standing on the wooden floor, gaping as though they'd seen a ghost.
"Merciful heavens!"
"Good gracious!"
Among all those who cried out and collapsed where they stood, only one maid showed any trace of relief. Looking closely, her face was familiar.
She's the one from yesterday, isn't she?
Through the Heavenly Mandate Eye, I'd watched her flee in tears. Jamyeong, was her name?
I fixed my gaze on that maid and spoke.
"You've come to help me prepare for my morning greetings, haven't you?"
Paying respects to one's parents-in-law the morning after the wedding was proper etiquette. Had this been a normal marriage, that was precisely what they would have come to assist with. Pointing out that this wedding was a nest of scheming would do me no good whatsoever.
Stressing that this is a proper royal marriage suits me far better.
If they decided I was no true Crown Princess, I was the only one who stood to lose.
Even at my question, the terrified crowd gave no answer. So I asked again.
"Aren't you all here to help me prepare for my greetings?"
It's not as though you can say, 'Actually, we came to clear away your corpse—why are you still breathing?' Now, is it?
Humans were hardly so dull as to refuse an excuse when it was spoon-fed to them like this—were they?