A Long Dream
Unknown
The Crown Princess had suddenly collapsed and would not wake.
Unryong Palace was thrown into utter chaos.
The King and Queen came rushing at once, every physician of the Royal Infirmary took turns checking her pulse, and the monks of the State Protectorate—including Princess Onseol—and the royal shamans of Seongsucheong each examined the Crown Princess before withdrawing in grim silence.
Because there had already been an assassination attempt in the past, the Royal Investigations Office scrambled into action as well, launching an inquiry into whether remnants of Prince Waneon's faction might be responsible, while the Ministry of Rites, fearing interference from the Empire, busied itself anxiously reading the mood of the negotiations.
Sa Young-joon burst into tears, convinced that some careless remark of his had caused the Crown Princess to collapse. Gi Ho-cheol, worried she might have suffered an internal injury during their breathing exercises, examined her with his qi.
And nothing came of any of it.
The Crown Princess had not been poisoned. She had not been struck by a blade. She had not fallen ill, suffered no internal injury, and bore no wound anywhere on her body.
She had clearly vomited blood and collapsed, yet her body showed nothing wrong. And still, she would not wake.
For mortals who knew nothing of the affairs of Heaven, there was simply no explanation to be found.
The Crown Princess had sunk into a sleep from which she would not rise, clinging to life by the barest thread. Her cooling body was as cold as a corpse, so cold that people kept checking again and again to make sure she was not already dead.
The physicians took shifts, guarding the Crown Princess's body with their medicine. A bitter joke began to circulate—that the techniques once used to sustain the Queen through her own long coma were already being dusted off and put to use again.
Unyeondang sank into a gloom as heavy as the days of the black porridge, as if it had reverted to some earlier, darker time.
The Crown Prince, Cheon Gyeol-woo, shut himself at the Crown Princess's side and refused all food and drink.
It was a body that had no need of eating or drinking anyway. He touched nothing to his lips and stayed locked in her chamber, and to the worried people around him, he simply lied—that he had picked at whatever food someone else had brought by.
Today made ten days.
The boy sat with a hollowed-out face, looking down at the girl lying on the golden bed.
She looked peaceful, as if only sleeping.
He touched the tips of her fingers with his own. startle at how cold she was—a corpse's cold—and, unable to bear the fear, he pressed a finger beneath her nose to check for breath.
A breath finer than a spider's thread, still faintly continuing.
He relaxed just a little, and then looked again at the girl's distant, snow-white face.
"...Surely this much should count as a test."
Cheon Gyeol-woo offered his small protest to the sleeping Seruhwa.
"The promise that I would never again make you feel hurt. The promise that when you were in pain, I would stay by your side without fail. I've kept them well, haven't I?"
With a hand trembling violently, the boy reached out and carefully shook the girl's shoulder.
"You told me not to slip away while you were sleeping, but to wake you instead. So why won't you wake up?"
Seruhwa's eyelids did not so much as flutter. Cheon Gyeol-woo pulled his hand away from her shoulder and roughly scrubbed at his own face.
"...This time I didn't stray a single step. I stayed by your side the whole while. Are you still hurt by me? Is that why you won't open your eyes?"
The boy buried his face in his hands and clenched his jaw.
It was the feeling of living in paradise without knowing it was paradise, only realizing what it had been after being suddenly cast into the abyss.
It felt like a distant memory from a past life—that he had once been jealous because Seruhwa had smiled at Sa Young-joon just once.
The darkness at his feet kept stirring. The darkness he believed he had reined in perfectly seemed poised to devour his fear and rear up like a beast once more.
So this is how vast... her presence was.
There was an old saying: you never notice a seat when it is filled, but you always notice when it is empty.
Then what of the absence of someone whose arrival had burned that brightly into the world?
The Crown Prince buried his face in both hands and murmured in a voice choked with weeping.
"O Lotus of the Ages, O Jade Emperor, O King Yama. Anyone—I don't care who. Please, give my wife back to me. I will offer anything at all..."
"Your Highness."
A small, buried voice suddenly called out to him. The Crown Prince pulled his hands away, half wondering if he had hallucinated, and looked toward the bed.
Seruhwa's eyes were open. She smiled faintly, weakly, and spoke.
"You shouldn't pray like that—as if signing a blank contract. It's dangerous."
"...My wife?"
"Yes, it's me. Did I sleep rather long?"
Cheon Gyeol-woo collapsed over the golden bed and wept.
The very first thought that came to me upon returning to Seruhwa's body was, 'Wow, I feel so light and fresh!'
'Right. So this is what being healthy means.'
Having opened my eyes in that delighted, overjoyed mood, my second thought was:
'Why on earth does the little prince look like that?'
Half his face had melted away in ten days. No—even if I were an Eodukseoni who skipped meals entirely, it wouldn't get that bad. What did he do to himself to make such a handsome face look like that?
'Well, he's still handsome even like that.'
I asked the Crown Prince, who looked ready to cry from worry over me.
"What on earth did you do to wear your face out like this?"
"My face... is worn out?"
The Crown Prince smiled through his tear-streaked face and answered.
"I suppose I'll have to work hard at maintaining it again. It is the face my wife likes, after all."
"Wh-when did I ever say I liked your face, Your Highness?"
"Did you not say you liked my face? You told me to make good use of a handsome face and live well."
"That's... well, that's true, but..."
When I trailed off in embarrassment, the Crown Prince broke into a wide grin again.
Watching him smile like that while tears dropped one by one like beads, he looked lovely, but I was gravely worried whether he was actually all right.
'I suppose he worried himself sick while I wouldn't wake up.'
Well, fair enough—coughing up blood and then lying in a coma for ten days would worry anyone. Feeling guilty in every possible way, I drooped my eyebrows.
"Did you worry about me that much?"
"...Yes."
That one yes seemed to compress an enormous amount of words. I let out a long breath.
"I'm sorry. I should have warned you ahead of time."
"I beg your pardon?"
"It's, um, a sort of... growth pang of the Snow Tribe."
It was an excuse I'd prepared in advance, up in Heaven. I know I lean on the Snow Tribe excuse far too conveniently, but what can I do? It's the safest option I have.
It's not like I can tell him that I'm Princess Cheonmyeong, that I was terminally ill, and that I died once trying to cure it.
'And... I don't want to live here as a terminally ill patient, either.'
If possible, I wanted no one to know until this time ran out. I didn't want anyone to grieve over me the way Mom and Dad did.
So I calmly spun out my lie.
"You've heard that some among the Snow Tribe are born with special gifts?"
"Yes, I have heard of it."
"The Snow Tribe falls suddenly asleep in childhood and dreams a long dream. They say that if you dream the dream well and wake from it, your gift manifests. And if you fail at something within the dream, no gift appears."
"A gift, you say...?"
"The ability to tell in advance which things are auspicious and which are ill-fated."
The Crown Prince blinked at me, dazed.
"Th-that is... isn't that a kind of prophecy? What a remarkable ability."
"I've heard it rarely grows strong enough to be called prophecy. Most people just end up with slightly good instincts, nothing more."
"Did you... succeed at this dream of yours, my lady?"
"This is my first time, so I honestly don't know. I can't even remember what it was about... But even if I did succeed, I don't think I succeeded in any big way. I don't feel like anything particularly changed. Hmm. I feel exactly the same as before."
When I smiled awkwardly, the Crown Prince, who had been staring at me blankly, smiled back.
"Then... you aren't hurt anywhere, and nothing is wrong?"
"No. I'm sorry for frightening you. I didn't know I'd fall asleep so suddenly, either."
"It's quite all right. The mere fact that it is nothing serious—that you are not ill—is more than enough to be thankful for."
Only then did the Crown Prince's expression brighten with relief.
What a relief, truly. I couldn't bear it if even that little boy looked at me with sorrow in his eyes.
I wanted that child to know nothing—nothing at all—until the day I disappeared.
It might hurt a little, but I wanted him to be able to brush it off—the dead can't be helped—and stand back up.
'Whether I choose to be sealed, or simply choose to live, the result is the same: I leave this lower world either way.'
If I'm sealed, of course I leave. And even if I choose to keep living... I would have to sleep in Heaven to recover.
The aftermath of my divine power being sealed was so severe that, normally, I ought to be asleep even now—it's only thanks to the medicine, made from the lifespans Mom and Dad gave me, that I'm holding out without sleeping.
'With ten more years... I'll be able to finish the rite I'd face at eighteen with plenty of time to spare.'
I could leave without breaking our height-growth bet, too. What a relief.
After paying my respects to the King and Queen and sharing a tearful reunion with the people of Unyeondang, who had dissolved into a sea of tears, it was past midnight.
The Snow Tribe excuse worked beautifully this time as well, and everyone let it pass without much fuss, relieved.
It probably helped that I looked remarkably hale and hearty for someone who'd just spent ten days abed.
And now I sat face to face with the very being who had kept this body of mine so hale and hearty—and with whom not a scrap of the Snow Tribe excuse would work.
"Ansi. Your eyes..."
"They are swollen, Your Highness. Swollen utterly from weeping for you, so that they will not open. The tears of this Ansi alone could have filled a lake, I declare!"
"...I'm sorry..."
"Now hold on, that's hardly anything for our princess to apologize for, nya? Keheng."
Besides the sniffling Ansi, a white fox hugging the peach she'd received that day clucked away in perfect contentment.
"It's hardly the first time our princess's life has hung by a thread, and yet this phoenix cried all day long about it—kyak!"
"Mind your mouth, Maegu."
Struck by whatever it was Ansi's hand had swung at lightning speed—fist or palm—the fox went flying into the corner of the room and wailed mournfully, kyaeng-kyaeng. If you didn't know she was a thousand-year-old yokai, you'd call it animal abuse.
"Ansi, why did you hit her?"
"She spoke carelessly with her mouth about Your Highness's person, that is why!"
"Kyaeng. Our princess has King Yama looking out for her anyway, so what's with all the fuss, nya..."
Oh. Seok-ran doesn't know the details of my situation. Well, of course she doesn't.
"How dare that ignorant yokai—!"
As Ansi shot up in fury, I pulled her back down and sat her beside me.
"It's something she neither can know nor needs to know. Calm down, Ansi."
"But still—!"
"Kyeng?"
The fox yokai, who had been rubbing at her eyes mournfully with her forepaws, suddenly pricked her ears straight up.
"What is it?"