The Cloud Dragon Festival Begins
Unknown
“My lady.”
The Crown Prince bowed his waist and extended his hand to me.
“Your Highness.”
When I took his hand with a smile, the little one's lashes trembled faintly. Our clasped hands were trembling slightly, too.
Was he nervous?
He had grown deft at controlling the power of the Eodukseoni—enough to forge a sword out of shadow—and lately he had been attending court often enough that showing his face before people should have felt routine by now.
Still, this is the first crowd since the Black Week, so I suppose it could be frightening.
I walked with his hand folded in mine and murmured softly, “Your Highness, are you frightened by all these people?”
“Pardon?”
“If you're scared, I'll keep holding your hand the whole time. On the sly.”
The Crown Prince, who had been about to reply, abruptly pressed his lips shut, then looked down at me and smiled radiantly.
“Yes. Please do.”
He looked pleased. So he really was frightened.
However grown-up he seems, a child is still a child. I'll have to soothe him well.
Perhaps it was the relief, but the Crown Prince seemed quietly buoyant as we walked hand in hand toward the seat of honor prepared atop the Heaven-Venerating Altar.
We sat directly below the King and Queen.
In the seat beside me sat a middle-aged Buddhist nun in resplendent ceremonial robes.
So this is Princess Onseol.
The King's full-blooded younger sister, a monk of the Yeonhwa Order who had entered religious life long ago.
They say she took the tonsure after falling victim to a spirit illness.
I had heard that even among the Gwoeryeoknansin of the mortal world, there existed a subtle hierarchy and discrimination.
The gwoe and the ryeok—that is, Daoists honing the mystic arts and warriors cultivating physical might—were held in high regard, while the nan and the sin: shamans and mudang, were quietly looked down upon.
Especially the mudang…… From what I've heard, it's harder for them because once the spirit descends upon you, you become a mudang with no choice in the matter.
It was said that when nobles or members of the royal family received a spirit's descent, they usually became monks or nuns instead. Apparently, living as a mudang while bearing a noble station drew disapproving eyes.
Why do humans look down on mudang? A mudang is, in the end, a being chosen by a god. Shouldn't they be treated all the more honorably and carefully?
In fact, I'd heard that long ago, long before I was ever born, humans had once revered mudang as kings.
When did it turn into this quiet disdain?
Human customs and culture seemed scarcely different from those of Heaven, yet they had these inexplicable aspects from time to time.
While the offering tables of the Unryong Festival were being arranged, I kept sneaking glances at Princess Onseol beside me.
This human is the one who actually lived it—maybe she knows why mudang are treated so poorly. And what god chose her, as a mudang?
With the Eye of Heavenly Clarity, I could tell at a glance which god someone was connected to, but trying to sense it through aura alone left me muddled.
Hmm, it feels like a Netherworld aura……
And the strangely familiar feel of it told me it was definitely a god I knew.
Who is it?
Just as I was peering about, my eyes met a pair of eyes beneath a monastic hat head-on.
“……!”
“It seems you have an interest in me, Crown Princess.”
Princess Onseol asked quietly. From the other side, I felt the Crown Prince turn toward us.
I stammered out an excuse.
“……That is, um, I thought perhaps Your Highness the Princess had been through something similar to His Highness the Crown Prince.”
“Ah.”
At my words, Princess Onseol's lips curved into something like a wry smile.
“I have heard that what His Highness endured over the past two years was something akin to a spirit illness. So I take it you wonder about the spirit illness I suffered as well?”
“……Yes. If it isn't rude of me. I thought it might be of help to His Highness.”
It was a made-up excuse—I couldn't exactly admit I'd been studying her because she felt like a god I knew—but come to think of it, it truly did seem like it could help the Crown Prince.
Princess Onseol hesitated a moment before answering.
“I, too, would like to speak with the two of you at least once. If you would extend the invitation, I shall call on you after the Unryong Festival.”
This isn't a decision I can make alone.
I glanced sideways at the Crown Prince. Meeting my gaze, he inclined his head slightly, his smile composed.
“We shall await your visit with gratitude, Aunt.”
Just then, a sudden murmur rippled up from below the altar.
“His Majesty has come!”
“The Queen as well!”
“His Majesty, after two whole years……”
“It must be true—the Queen really has awakened, just as the rumors said!”
The commoners who had witnessed the King and Queen ascending the Heaven-Venerating Altar were murmuring in astonishment.
They said this Unryong Festival would serve to proclaim that the royal house still stood firm…… And it really is lavish.
Draped with fluttering silken banners in every color, the altar looked like a great phoenix of many-hued feathers had built its nest upon the hill.
The King and Queen, clad in sumptuous ceremonial robes, climbed the stairs side by side and stood before the offering table. The officiants at either hand raised their banners high.
An indigo banner inscribed Clouds and Dragon Fill the Heavens.
A silver-gray banner inscribed The Clouds Above Embrace the Dragon.
Each was the banner that symbolized the King and Queen of Woon—and a banner that only they could bear.
The moment the royal banners rose above the altar, the stir among the people swelled.
This is where the rumors that the King had regained his senses and the Queen had awakened are proven true before everyone's eyes.
And of those rumors, a fair share surely concerned the Crown Princess who had offered the medicinal tea—me.
A story about the Queen waking after drinking tea brewed by the scion of a secret bloodline spread far faster and was far more intriguing than the Queen simply waking up on her own—or so I'd heard.
Once the King and Queen had taken their places, great banners rose one after another behind the offering table.
Heaven, Earth, Gods, and Spirits
Rites to Heaven
Farewell to the Old, Welcome the New
The Cloud Dragon Festival
The instant the final banner soared aloft, the great drums thundered—du-uung.
In time with the drumbeat, which pulsed like the beating of a heart, the musicians stationed below the altar moved their hands as one.
Oh—there's Seok-ran.
At the edge of the musicians, she stood gripping a haegeum. With her eyes lowered and her bow drawn across the strings, Seok-ran looked nothing like a snickering fox—only a musician, beautiful and graceful.
That one's gift for transformation really is something.
The grand ceremonial music began.
The start of the Unryong Festival.
One of the officiants lifted his voice and proclaimed the meaning of the Heaven-Venerating rite.
“The old year departs, and the new year draws near! We give thanks for the safety of the year past, and pray likewise for the safety of the year to come!”
Another officiant then announced the next rite.
“Cloud Incense—!”
Doom. The drums sounded.
As the King placed incense in the golden censer before the offering table, the Queen lit it. Cloud-like smoke rose into the brilliantly clear blue sky.
“First Libation—!”
Boom-boom, the drums rolled once more.
The Queen poured wine into the cup the King held up with both hands.
While the King raised the wine to the offering table, the officiant beside him cried out toward the heavens.
“O Dragon who rules the clouds, your descendants offer this rite—guard the peace of Woon!”
Next came the rite in which the King, as high priest, read the address of thanks to Heaven, Earth, the gods, and the Cloud Dragon for the year that had passed.
“Thanks Offering—!”
This time the gong rang out in a great peal.
One officiant approached the King on his knees and presented a roll of silk. The King unfurled it and began to recite the address in a weighty voice.
“On the fifteenth day of the twelfth month, in the thirteenth year of Seogwang, the descendants of the Cloud Dragon, upon this Heaven-Venerating Altar, offer thanks to the Progenitor for……”
As I watched it all in a daze, I felt a stare sharp enough to prick. Glancing over, I spotted among the ministers in the seats across the way a fellow with a shifty, weaselly face.
Prince Waneon.
What exactly had I done to earn his glaring?
The moment I stared back at him evenly, he seemed to remember wetting himself last time—his eyes went wide with fright and he jerked his gaze away.
But then he soon gritted his teeth, faced me again, and put on a strange smirk.
A face that seemed to swagger, your end is coming soon.
Telegraphing your own schemes all over your face like that—if that's a talent, it's a talent.
He was a fifteen-year-old boy, so being clumsy was only natural, but the eleven-year-old little one beside me was so much more mature that the comparison was unflattering.
My little one carries himself like a grown man already, and that one is a thunderstorm in bare feet.
I was inwardly scoffing at him when a billowing sleeve suddenly blocked my view. Looking up, I saw the little one—no, the Crown Prince—pointing at me, glaring at Prince Waneon with jet-black eyes.
“Your Highness?”
“……It seemed an unkind gaze had fallen upon you, my lady. So I intervened.”
Oh, um, that's sweet of you, little one, but if you do this here, people will notice……. You're the very pillar of the nation, and you're fine becoming an overprotective husband who hovers around his wife in front of all his subjects?
Sure enough, Princess Onseol beside us murmured, “His Highness the Crown Prince cherishes the Crown Princess dearly. To see such affection already—it is a great blessing upon the realm.”
Thankfully, she didn't click her tongue; she looked rather charmed. Still, letting this go on would be a bit much, so I tugged at the Crown Prince's sleeve.
“Eyes are watching, Your Highness. It's embarrassing.”
“What is embarrassing about a husband doing his duty?”
“No—given the occasion, you must behave like a proper Crown Prince. Upright and dignified.”
At my words, the Crown Prince lowered his arm as though he had no choice, and just as he was about to murmur something—
“Homage—!”
The officiant's cry rang out with the gong.
The rite in which the King and Queen bowed first, and then everyone followed.
Everyone, the Crown Prince and me included, rose to bow. The musicians paused their playing as well.
The moment we had arranged beforehand.
[Ansi.]
[Yes, Your Highness the Princess! Fear not—I, Ansi, shall zip right over and shlick! Take care of it and return!]
Ansi, who had been standing behind me, slipped away in the instant everyone bent at the waist. At the same moment, Seok-ran's figure among the musicians wavered briefly.
She left a clone behind, didn't she.
A Maegu was a Maegu, after all.
Her thousand years had not been lived in vain—Seok-ran swapped places with her double in the brief span while everyone bowed, and slipped away.