What the King Did Not Know

"……"

"The memories come back to me only in fragments…… but you are not the woman from my dream. Someone else entirely. I was not in my right mind."

The King gave a hollow laugh and set down his empty teacup. Unlike before, his gaze was deep and keen as it settled on me.

"I am told it was you who made this tea."

"Yes."

"Remarkable talent, for one so young. Are you a physician's apprentice? Or a Daoist? That woman who was with you just now—was she your teacher?"

"……"

Was this father-in-law of mine serious right now?

Dumbfounded, I lost my words for a moment before I finally managed to speak.

"The lady who was with me is my mother."

"So you were receiving instruction from your mother, then. Is she a physician, this mother of yours? The Queen will grant you and your mother a generous reward."

The King looked at me with fond admiration. I barely swallowed the sigh that threatened to escape.

"I have learned from her, but my mother is neither a physician nor a Daoist. She is a Noble Consort of the Pyeong imperial family."

"A Noble Consort of Pyeong?"

The King's face went blank with bewilderment—the look of a man trying to work out why the concubine of a neighboring empire's Emperor was standing in Unryong Palace.

"Your Majesty, do you have no idea at all who I am?"

"……I confess I do not."

"I am the Eleventh Princess of Pyeong, and my name is Seruhwa. About a month ago I was wed, and I am now the Crown Princess of Un."

"What? The Crown Princess?"

"And my mother is of the Seol clan, which makes me half Seol. Your Majesty trusted in the Seol clan's gifts and granted my mother and me our chance. Do you truly remember none of it?"

"Wait—hold on…… surely not……."

The King clutched his forehead as though his head ached. After a long while in that pose, something seemed to surface in his memory, and his face turned flustered.

"That petition…… yes, the Queen accepted it, and told them to do as they pleased……"

He trailed off, groping for the memory, then abruptly started and looked me up and down.

"Are you unharmed?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You have not—— you did not spend a night at the Crown Prince's side? You seem to be unharmed, fortunately, but in any case, the Crown Prince at present is……"

The King rubbed his face wearily, at a loss.

"The Queen was truly out of her mind. How could she permit such a dangerous thing? That was less a royal marriage than……"

Seeing that reaction, I understood at once, even without needing my divine sight.

The King had not approved my marriage to the Crown Prince with the intent of having his son killed.

It was, in truth, a mercy for the Crown Prince.

I had suspected as much.

Seok-ran had told me how the King had continually ignored the flood of petitions demanding the Crown Prince's deposition.

Even without meaning to, the King had not wished to cast his son aside.

As for the wedding itself—so long as one knew nothing of the conspiracy behind it, it did his son no harm, and so he had let it pass.

Relieved inwardly, I spoke up.

"Your Majesty, do you love the Crown Prince?"

"What sort of question is that, all of a sudden?"

"So much has happened. And yet—do you still love him?"

"Of course I do. A father is the one who can cradle his child's faults in his arms for a lifetime. And none of those things were sins the Crown Prince committed of his own will. The Crown Prince……"

The King wiped his face once more, then forced the words out with difficulty.

"My son was merely a victim of a curse—yet he was made a criminal, and has lived in horror all this time……"

"……Your Majesty. It is true that the Crown Prince did not bring these things upon himself deliberately. But what happened to him was not a curse."

"What did you say?"

I sent a thought racing out at once.

Good. Now I can speak freely.

"In the history of the Seol clan, there are records of cases like His Highness's. What he has become is an Eodukseoni."

"An Eodukseoni?"

In order to restore the Crown Prince's standing, I had drawn up several plans. Before putting any of them into motion, the first thing I investigated was how much humans actually knew about Eodukseoni.

After all, I needed his power to be accepted as something natural.

I combed through the volumes Court Lady Kim had brought from the royal library, questioned Seok-ran and Seol Deunghwa on everything, and reached a conclusion: humans knew almost nothing about Eodukseoni.

At most, they knew this much—that there was a creature called an Eodukseoni which appeared only at night, that it was dangerous to approach, that it vanished on its own if left alone, and that steering clear of it was the wisest course.

In a situation like this, there was no need at all to announce that the Crown Prince had become an Eodukseoni.

Strictly speaking, Eodukseoni was not even a true yokai—and there was no reason to brand the Crown Prince as one by invoking the name for nothing.

So instead, I explained the Crown Prince's power to the maids of Unyeondang as a form of Daoist sorcery, making full use of the all-purpose excuse that was the Seol clan. I even invented a name for it, mind you—the Dark Spirit Arts.

And this explanation took root far better than I had anticipated.

People began to understand the Crown Prince not as some unidentified man-eating monster, but as one of the Gwoeryeoknansin—a being of uncanny strength who had awoken to a sorcery he never sought and could not yet control.

It helped that, since I was inventing it anyway, I had tacked on a setting that worked rather more in the Crown Prince's favor: the Dark Spirit Arts, I said, was a magnificent power bestowed by the gods of heaven and earth—so magnificent, in fact, that a mortal could only receive it by enduring a trial.

Much like the sickness a shaman suffers before the spirit descends into her, you see.

They did say unfamiliar things went down easier when cloaked in familiar comparisons—and once I explained that the Crown Prince had been suffering something like spirit-sickness for the past two years, everyone accepted it more readily than I'd expected.

It seems I have a talent for lying. I never knew, because I'd hardly ever done it before.

So that was one more truth I would never have learned had I stayed in the heavens.

I'm glad I came down to the human world, truly.

In any case, having confirmed that the Dark Spirit Arts explanation held firm, I settled on two courses of response for the Crown Prince's parents—the King and Queen.

If the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠two of them showed aversion to their son, or treated him as a matter of duty alone, I would explain the black curse as the work of the Dark Spirit Arts.

But if they still loved their son as true parents should, I would tell them everything about Eodukseoni.

Parents deserve to know exactly what state their child is in.

My father once said something in passing, long ago. When I was very small, gravely ill, he had suffered terribly because he could not fathom what caused my suffering. That period, he said, had been the hardest of his life.

And so I wanted to tell the Crown Prince's mother and father the truth as fully as I could.

"An Eodukseoni is……"

By the time my explanation ended, the King's face had grown grave.

"To think such a thing existed……"

"But everyone else has been told it is the Dark Spirit Arts."

"The Dark Spirit Arts? And what might that be?"

"A Daoist art my mother and I made up together."

I explained why concealing the truth of Eodukseoni and classifying the Crown Prince's power as a variety of Gwoeryeoknansin worked in his favor—and just how readily the Dark Spirit Arts setting had been embraced.

"……His Highness can now command darkness almost perfectly during the day. That is the result of barely one month of practice, so before long he will be able to wield it freely at night as well."

"……"

"And then he will be able to live as a Daoist of the Dark Spirit Arts without ever being cast out."

My throat had gone dry from all the talking.

I paused to rest my mouth for a moment and studied the King's complexion. Gazing back at me with an expression I could not read, he asked quietly:

"You have been helping the Crown Prince with his practice, then?"

"Yes."

"You explained his power to the maids under the name of the Dark Spirit Arts?"

"Yes."

"You awakened the Queen, who lay comatose for two years—and you cured Her Majesty's madness as well."

"That was accomplished together with my mother."

"……The sages of old said that life is full of reversals—that fortune hides within misfortune, so despair not, and turn calamity into blessing. So that is what they meant."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The Crown Prince becoming an Eodukseoni was a calamity—yet that very calamity became the fortune of gaining a Crown Princess like you."

The King murmured the words half to himself, and a faint smile touched his lips.

"Crown Princess."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"I am truly grateful. That you came to us……"

His voice trembled slightly at the end, thick with emotion. The King composed himself, pressing the corner of his mouth, then tilted his lips into a slanted smile.

"It seems I owe the Pyeong Empire my thanks as well. To send us such a princess without realizing how precious she was."

From the way he said it, he seemed to have grasped what my marriage to the Crown Prince had truly meant for the Empire.

"You and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Noble Consort Seol are the saviors of the Un royal house. The Queen will grant you formal, generous rewards. And beyond that—if there is anything you desire, speak it, and it shall be yours."

The King spoke with dignity.

But for all the formality of his words, the look he gave me had gone utterly, familiarly soft.

The look of a man so charmed he could die of it. The look of a grandfather marveling, where did something this darling and clever come from?

I had seen that expression many times, and so I recognized it at once.

He's become just like Dad……

At any rate, everything was unfolding according to plan. I pressed on quickly.

"Um—then, I do have one request."

"The Queen and I will grant you anything. Speak it now."

"Please, look at this first."

I took out the letters I had prepared in advance and laid them on the King's desk.

The King picked them up and broke open the envelope. Inside were three sheets of paper filled with names.

The first page ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was packed dense with writing; the second held less than a quarter of that; and the third held far less still than the second.

The King asked, puzzled.

"What is this?"

"The names of everyone who has, so far as anyone knows, been harmed by the Crown Prince—from the moment of the black curse to this very day."

The King's brow shifted.