A Rope from Heaven
“Kyihih… … something smells delicious… … .”
The white fox crept close, snuffling at the air with her little nose, then broke into a blissful expression and burrowed right into the blanket. I laughed.
“That doesn't mean you can eat it.”
“Are you crazy, nya?! I wasn't gonna eat it! I want to live a long life, nya!”
The fox leapt back in horror. I blinked against my heavy, drooping eyelids and asked, “Can I sleep hugging your tail?”
“…Was that your plan all along, nya?”
“Yep.”
“Nyeng, kehyeng, well, my tail is rather pretty, nya! Do as you like.”
I promptly grabbed the fox tail swishing right beside me and hugged it tight.
“Kyihihik, Her Highness is like a baby, nya. Just like a fox kit, kehyeng-kyik-kyik!”
Laughing that strange laugh of hers, the fox curled into a ball on top of the blanket and wrapped herself around me.
So warm… … .
I was about to close my eyes right then, but instead I beckoned to Ansi, who sat sulking off to the side. “You sleep with us too.”
“Th-that would be most improper, Your Highness!”
“We used to sleep together every night when you were little.”
“That was when I was little, Your Highness!”
“So you don't want to?”
“….”
“Come here.”
Ansi, still sitting there with a face gone scarlet, soon transformed into a small bird and fluttered over in a flurry of feathers.
A tiny phoenix just a little bigger than my two fists put together, with iridescent crest and tail feathers flashing every color of the rainbow.
“You can sleep in my hair like you used to. Mm, I wonder if it feels different, since this body isn't the one you remember?”
“…Cheep.”
Letting out a soft chirp, Ansi burrowed into my loosened hair and settled in like she was building a nest. The little bird's warmth pressed against the spot between my head and shoulder.
Wrapped in that soft, downy heat, my heart finally grew calm. The tangled thoughts that had kept circling inside me — the seal, the worries, the choices — at last settled into stillness.
And so, on the very first night of the ten years I had left, I drifted off with no thoughts at all, warm and impossibly soft.
“You lost her?”
Beneath layer upon layer of gossamer butterfly-wing curtains, a man buried in his bed lazily lifted his head.
“We beg forgiveness, my lord… that is…”
The masked figure prostrate beside the bed stammered through the rest of his report.
At that, the man reached one hand out past the edge of the bed and beckoned. The masked man reflexively raised his head and met his gaze.
Between the fluttering silks, their eyes locked — dark crimson eyes, coagulated like pooled and clotted blood. And then those eyes flashed scarlet.
“Geog—!”
In an instant, the masked man's head was crushed and burst apart by some unseen force, leaving behind only a grotesque groan that never even became a scream. Blood and flesh spattered across every corner of the ornate chamber.
The other masked man beside him trembled like an aspen leaf next to the corpse of his companion, whose head had just been popped like a ripe fruit.
“Then you keep talking.”
The man withdrew his hand and drawled on, unhurried. The surviving masked man slammed his forehead against the floor and spoke in a rush.
“We mobilized every yokai at our disposal to hunt her down — but suddenly a rope descended from the sky, carried that fox yokai up, and vanished!”
“A rope?”
“Yes, my lord! It was unmistakably a rope!”
The man rubbed his chin and murmured, “The power of the Sun-Moon God, is it. …Why, though?”
“I don't know! I shall investigate at on—”
“I didn't ask you.”
The man fixed the masked figure with an irritated glare — and the creature's head was instantly crushed flat.
“So noisy.”
Rising slowly from his bed, the man swept back the long hair that had tumbled down on its own.
White hair, gone snow-pale as an old man's. And yet his face was that of a young man — beautiful, ageless, radiant.
“Would a god of Heaven have… some reason to aid a fox yokai?”
Murmuring to himself, the man stepped between the two headless corpses.
The hem of his robes, spun from the rarest silk, soaked scarlet in the blood pooling out of the bodies — and he didn't spare it a single glance.
“That yokai… she was the one the dead Seol clan concubine brought back from Unguk, yes.”
He grumbled, as though the whole business were a nuisance.
“Unguk. Unguk again? That doomed land of the Gimsatgats… This won't do.”
Trailing his loose robes behind him — robes that hung open to bare his whole chest — the man dragged himself toward the door.
He opened it and poked just his head out.
“Yeongno.”
The hulking man standing guard outside the door turned to him in silence. He wore a blood-red mask crowned with shaggy yellow fur like a lion's mane.
“Who's idle right now?”
“The leech who brought us the sacred blood two days ago is doing nothing.”
“The leech? What yokai was he again?”
“A Geuseundae.”
“Strong?”
“Trivial next to you, my lord Dueoksini — but among yokai, he is quite formidable.”
“Hm. And compared to you, Yeongno?”
“I would need to remove my mask to fight him.”
“Good. Then send him.”
So saying, the man called Dueoksini moved to close the door — and Yeongno caught it under his fingers.
“Send him where, my lord, and to do what?”
“Ah. Forgot that part.”
Dueoksini clicked his tongue — tch — and went on.
“Send him to the land of the Gimsatgats. Have him find out how that Seol clan concubine who killed herself came to meet that fox yokai and be carried off by her. And have him learn what that fox yokai is and what she does.”
“Alone, my lord?”
“A few of our own are already lodged in the Chief State Councilor's household, no? Have them investigate together.”
“Understood.”
Yeongno bowed his head. As Dueoksini turned to leave, he paused, brow furrowing.
“About that Seol clan concubine — she was beside the Emperor when he died of heart failure, and then killed herself. That much is certain? Her death is beyond doubt?”
“The royal physician confirmed it. It appears she took poison of her own will, fearing she would be blamed for the Emperor's death.”
“And the body?”
“It was cast out into the wilds for the beasts to devour, as punishment for failing to attend the Emperor properly.”
“Go to that body and verify it.”
“My lord?”
“Something about it smells… off.”
“…You complained that the sacred blood of the Seol clan gave you nothing no matter how much you drank — and now, at last, the Seol gift of intuition manifests in you?”
“Who knows. Either way, it reeks, so check it. Whether that corpse is being nicely gobbled up.”
“Understood.”
As Yeongno bowed low, Dueoksini shut the door without a moment's regret.
On the closed door, a diamond-shaped crest — the symbol of the Pyeong Empire — gleamed in gold leaf.
I'd been sleeping sweet as could be when something soft and moist poked me square in the cheek.
“Wake up, Princess, nyaa.”
“Mmh… … .”
“Seok-juk messaged, nya.”
“Already?”
My eyes flew open in surprise — and a black fox nose was hovering right in front of my face.
Oh. So that was what poked my cheek.
I was still blearily processing this when the fox gave my cheek a great slurping lick.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“Nyeng, I never understood why unnie wanted babies to raise, but I think I get it a liiittle bit now, nya.”
“You have a sibling?”
“We're four of us, actually, kyihi. All sharing the character Seok — plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo, nya.”
“That's the Four Gentlemen… Those are awfully scholarly names for fox yokai.”
“Mother's taste, kehih-nyeng.”
Laughing her strange laugh, the fox yokai set about licking my sleep-tousled hair into an even worse state.
I feel like this is making it messier, not better… … .
It was a little gross, but consider it fair payment for getting to hug the tail all night. I let her be and looked around the room.
It was still the dim hush of early dawn. Ansi, who'd fallen asleep buried in my hair, had apparently rolled off at some point and was now nestled against my side.
Come to think of it, where did Gwangcheol-i go?
With everything that happened, I'd completely forgotten. I'll ask when Ansi wakes up.
I gently lifted the utterly unconscious Ansi in both hands, laid her down on the blanket, and then patted the front paws of the fox still busily licking my head.
“Didn't you say Seok-juk had news?”
“Oh. Right.”
Seok-ran blinked as though surfacing from a trance. As I sat up, she rose with me and spat out her fox bead.
The moment she set her paws on the blue orb, smoke began to rise, just as it had yesterday. Before long, Seok-juk appeared on the screen.
Not in human form — a great fox this time, and the scene around him looked like the inside of a dark cave.
“Rode the rope down to where Madam was staying yesterday, khup — carried her on my back and ran the whole night through, khup. Madam is worn clean out and sleeping now.”
Seok-juk stirred the fox bead, and Seol Deunghwa's image appeared on the screen.
She was slumped diagonally against his flank, asleep beneath a covering of his fox tail used in place of a blanket.
Apparently they were bedding down for the night in some cave up in the hills, and she was sleeping like that to share body heat — which, I couldn't help noticing, looked remarkably like me hugging Seok-ran's tail to fall asleep last night.
“Mother and daughter, same taste, kehih-kyik.”
Seok-ran must have been thinking the same thing, because she laughed out loud beside me. I almost pointed out that Seol Deunghwa and I weren't actually mother and daughter — then swallowed it.
In body, though, we are. And she looks so exactly like me that there's no arguing the point anyway.
That reminded me — was Sohwa doing well? I should have gone to see her in Heaven while I was there.
Everything with the Straw God Candidates scrambled me. I missed a lot.
Once Seol Deunghwa's settled somewhere safe, I'll arrange for the two of them to talk.
Adding that to my growing list of things to do, I asked Seok-juk,
“Her revenge on the Emperor — did it succeed?”
“The assassination succeeded, khup! As for whether she felt properly avenged — I think it would be better to ask Madam herself, later.”
“I see… … . Oh, right — what was the deal with that swarm of yokai yesterday? Tell me everything, in detail.”
“I shall explain it all from the beginning, khup.”
Seok-juk cleared his throat with an odd little cough, and began to tell me everything that had happened.