I Can Wake Her
“Ah… y-yes! That is so, indeed!”
One court lady, quicker on the uptake than the rest of the frozen cluster, hurriedly bobbed her head in a nod.
“As you can see, with my maid's help, I'm all ready. We can leave right away.”
“H-His Highness…?”
“The Crown Prince is still asleep, so don't wake him. He must be tired. Besides, paying my respects is something I can do alone, isn't it?”
“U-understood.”
The quick-witted lady flicked a glance at the maid behind her, and the girl, snapping back to her senses, darted off—presumably to deliver an urgent report.
She's probably running to inform the King.
It seemed better to give him time to prepare than to barge straight in on him unannounced. The morning meal laid out alongside the royal greetings would hardly be set yet, after all. He'd need time to arrange it.
The morning meal… I wonder what dishes they'll bring out?
Remembering last night's revelation, her anticipation welled up naturally all on its own. Even cold leftovers had been that delicious—so how good would freshly made, steaming hot food be this time?
I should stall for just a little while.
She swallowed the drool pooling in her mouth and tilted her head with deliberate nonchalance.
“So where's my palanquin?”
“P-palanquin?”
“Why are you so startled? You can't possibly be telling me to walk.”
“……”
“Bring the palanquin at once.”
“Y-yes! J-just one moment, if you please, my lady.”
This time the court lady signaled to a eunuch, who scampered off in a direction different from the maid's—off to fetch the palanquin, no doubt.
She frowned at the lady who had addressed her.
“I'm not a young miss, am I.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Does Un Palace go around calling a Crown Princess who has already wed an ‘agassi'?”
“Ah.”
The lady's eyes went wide as saucers, and she hastily bent at the waist.
“Bin-gung Manora.”
“Good.”
When she smiled warmly, the lady's expression turned strange for a moment before slowly settling into composure.
“…I should have arrived early to help you prepare, Manora. Forgive me for being late.”
Unlike her initial fluster, her manner now was deferential and composed. She had evidently made up her mind, on the strength of that one correction, about how she ought to treat her from here on.
She's been impressively sharp so far. I like that.
“You—what's your name?”
“Kim Suk-hyang, Manora.”
“Your rank?”
“I serve as a court lady of the wash chamber.”
The wash chamber—that was the place that handled bathing, was it? At any rate, since she'd been sent to clean up a corpse, she was clearly no high-ranking lady. But being entrusted with work like that meant she was likely good at keeping her mouth shut.
“Hmm. Is there… perhaps no chief lady assigned to oversee the Crown Princess's quarters?”
There probably isn't, right? They might have at least cleared the rooms out.
“You mean a Jimil Court Lady? As the Crown Princess's preparations have not yet been completed… I understand no one has yet been appointed.”
Just as she'd expected. Still, having no one appointed meant she could staff the household exactly as she wished from the very start—hardly bad news at all.
“I see. Well, I'd like Lady Kim to be my Jimil Court Lady. Would you inquire with Her Majesty the Queen about it?”
At the casual way she put it, something shifted in Kim Suk-hyang's eyes.
“…I hardly know where to put myself, Manora, for your kindness. If the Crown Princess so desires, the Chief Court Lady will act on it at once.”
Sharp as ever, this one.
The details differed from country to country, but the structure of a palace was built on roughly the same framework everywhere. If the Queen lay in a coma, the one managing the inner court would be the head of the palace women—the chief lady-in-waiting of Sangra Palace, or the head of palace affairs at Jami Palace, that sort of position.
So here they call her the Chief Court Lady.
But once a Crown Princess existed, it naturally fell to the Crown Princess—as the Chief Court Lady's superior—to administer the inner court herself.
My words just now must have let Lady Kim gauge something in an instant: whether I could truly fill the role of a proper Crown Princess.
And then she'd decided to latch onto my sleeve. The prospect of a promotion straight into a management post had probably weighed heavily in that decision.
“So—shall I speak of it myself, or will you carry my wishes to the Chief Court Lady, Lady Kim?”
“I shall deliver your command, Manora. It will be seen to at once, so have no concern.”
Going to the Chief Court Lady personally to make requests would undermine her authority as the superior. For now she was not yet a proper Crown Princess, so if it came to it, she would have to go herself and restore discipline. But—
You can handle it on your own, can't you.
Whether she could be trusted was another matter entirely, but at this level, she was worth keeping around.
Then she pointed to the maid who had been standing off to one side since yesterday.
“I'd like that girl to serve in my palace as well. Is that possible?”
“What Manora cannot choose a single maid of her own household? It shall be done.”
“Thank you. Talking with you really is easy, Lady Kim.”
At her words, Kim Suk-hyang looked at her strangely for a moment.
“…Tell me, Crown Princess—did you sleep well last night?”
“Yes, very soundly indeed.”
Now that she thought of it, she truly had slept sweetly and woken feeling refreshed. The painkiller hadn't worn off and jolted her awake mid-sleep; she hadn't woken up floating down the River of Three Crossings; she wasn't dragging through the morning tired and dizzy as though she'd never slept at all.
No headache, no nosebleed, breathing is easy, no bitter medicine to swallow.
She'd never known being healthy could feel this good. No—of course she'd known it would feel good. But knowing and experiencing it firsthand were worlds apart… and every little thing startled and delighted her anew. Her body felt light enough to fly, and her mood soared along with it.
She keeps almost laughing out loud.
No. Composure. Act like a grown woman.
As she barely held down the giggles threatening to escape, Kim Suk-hyang's lips quivered. She was plainly dying to know how on earth her charge had survived unscathed, yet couldn't bring herself to ask outright. Hesitating, she spoke carefully at last.
“You… seem to be a very special person, Crown Princess.”
“Mm. I am a little special.”
She smoothed her expression quickly, delivered the line with airy dignity—and then, rising onto her toes, beckoned with her hand. Kim Suk-hyang inclined her head toward her, puzzled, and she whispered softly by the lady's ear.
“That's why you hitched your wagon to the right horse, Lady Kim. I'll take good care of you from now on, so you'd better take good care of me too.”
“…Yes, Crown Princess.”
As the lady straightened up, the corners of her mouth twitched.
The fairies of Sangra Palace used to do that sometimes—mostly when she was being so unbearably cute that they had to hide it and hold it in. But she hadn't done anything cute just now. She'd been throwing her weight around, the way Mother or Father did when they were working.
I'm supposed to be making them tense up, not going “aww” at me. Is Seruhwa's face just too soft, lacking in majesty?
She was still debating whether she needed to practice looking authoritative when the palanquin arrived. Kim Suk-hyang moved to help her aboard, but Ansi rushed over and cut in.
“Your Highn—Crown Princess! I, Ansi, shall assist you!”
Shoved aside in the commotion, Kim Suk-hyang studied Ansi for a moment, then asked, “Is that girl a bonbang maid you brought with you, Manora?”
“If you're asking whether she's a maid I brought from the Empire—yes.”
“Then I shall have her name entered in the Crown Princess's household register as well.”
Already handling things on her own. Efficient.
She nodded with a satisfied smile, and Ansi poked her beak forward and whined in her ear.
[Your Highness, does this Ansi not serve you better than that human? Please say Ansi is the best of all.]
[Ansi, you're a phoenix. What are you doing comparing yourself to a human?]
[Hiiiing…]
[…Of course you're the best. That's why I told you not to compare.]
[Hehe. Hihihit.]
Our Ansi was sweet and adorable, truly—but there was no telling when she'd finally grow up.
The King received her morning greeting not in the inner hall, but in Junggungjeon, the Queen's Palace.
He loved the Queen dearly… and they say he's been driven mad since the Black Curse.
Seok-ran's information had been accurate. The King, seated before the bed where the Queen lay, looked half out of his mind.
Bloodshot eyes fixed on the Queen beyond the bed's foot, unblinking.
Back when he was well, he must have had the air of an immortal. No wonder the Crown Prince's face came from somewhere.
Now, though, he was a raving madman and nothing more. The King barely registered her greeting, then groped blindly at the air with one hand.
“Withdraw. I am busy.”
He wasn't even looking at her face.
Well—when something like the Eodukseoni took hold of you, even immortals went mad. For a fragile human to be left with only this much damage was remarkable in itself.
He must have been a man of fairly iron will, once.
But she had to see the Queen's face if she was going to find her in the underworld and bring her back, and the King showed no sign of permitting it. He seemed to have no interest whatsoever in the fact that a Crown Princess who should have been dead was standing there alive.
The morning meal, needless to say, had sailed off down the river. She felt a little deflated. Hungry…
Does that King even know I'm his daughter-in-law?
Honestly, she didn't think he did. More precisely, whoever came before him and whatever they said, none of it seemed to register at all.
She deliberated a moment, then asked with feigned innocence, as if she knew nothing.
“Is Her Majesty the Queen still asleep, then?”
“…I said withdraw.”
“But I haven't yet paid my respects to Her Majesty.”
“I told you to withdraw!”
The King raised his voice and swung around to face her. Wild, bloodshot eyes gleamed with killing intent.
“C-Crown Princess, you had best rise and leave.”
The Jimil Court Lady of the Queen's Palace, wringing her hands in alarm, came forward to raise her from her seat.
This won't do, then.
Out of options, she simply dropped the bomb straight away.
“Is Her Majesty still sleeping because of the Crown Prince's darkness?”
“…!”
Every eunuch and court lady in the room froze solid. The King's face flushed scarlet with fury.
“Who—dared—to put—that matter—into words?”
Grinding the words out one by one, the King rose to his feet, rage surging up along with him as though it were tethered to his body.
“Who dared speak of it! I forbade that it ever be mentioned!”
Before he could explode, she hurried to the heart of the matter.
“If Her Majesty has slept all this while because of that, then I can wake her!”
“Nonsense!”
The killing intent thickened behind the King's hollow laugh. Whoever stood before him, he looked ready to snap their neck on the spot.
“By what means do you think you'll wake the Queen? The Queen whom no one has managed to wake to this day—hm?”
As the King stalked toward her, eunuchs and court ladies trembled and threw themselves in his path.
“Y-Your Majesty! This is the Crown Princess from the Pyeong Empire!”
“She is young and knows no better! Forgive her words, for she speaks out of ignorance—”
Whatever their treatment of her, if she—the imperial princess of Pyeong—died, the Empire could not simply look away, if only for the sake of its face. If she died at the Crown Prince's hand, he'd be executed and that would be the end of it. But if she died at the King's hand, it became a grave crisis. No matter how mad he was, they could not punish a king—not until someone raised a coup or a rebellion and swept him away entirely.
…Wait. Then could the reason Seruhwa was assassinated before the wedding have been that someone was after the King?
While her mind snagged on that sudden flash of thought, the powerfully built King swept aside those blocking his path like clearing away stalks of straw.
“Move!”
A court lady tumbled to the floor; a eunuch crumpled. The King came on before her like a tiger in its fury.
Still—all of it was nothing more than the presence of an ordinary human. The aura of the fairy who had once swatted down a vermin that had crawled into Sangra Palace had been fiercer than this.
She spoke on, perfectly composed.
“With the power of Seoljok, I can wake Her Majesty the Queen.”
“…What did you say?”