Unknown
“All ancient history now, hahaha. Nothing you need to worry about these days.”
Gi Ho-cheol said it with an easy, untroubled laugh, but knowing the deeper truths as I did, my mouth had gone bone dry.
“Well then, until we meet again. Your Highness the Crown Princess, I do hope you will give the matter of breathing training further thought.”
“Yes, sir!”
Whether or not I could do any more breathing exercises couldn't have mattered less in that moment.
The instant the lesson ended, I bolted for my room in Unyeondang. I shut every door and window tight, told Ansi to raise a barrier so that no sound could escape, then drew out the Eight-Bead Bell and touched the first bead.
Its counterpart was kept in Jami Palace, where Mother lived.
Before long, clouds of mist bloomed from the bell's surface, revealing the heart of Jami Palace—Mother's workroom.
“Heeyo? What brings you calling?”
Buried under a mountain of scrolls, Mother looked up at me in startlement. Beside her, Geum-ryeong, Mother's phoenix, who had been pecking at her food, widened her eyes as well.
I blurted out in a rush.
“Dueoksini has appeared in the lower realm! Did you know?”
Mother blinked her jade-green eyes, then set down the brush she had been holding and let out a long sigh.
“And how did you come to hear of that?”
“…So you did know.”
Relief and frustration in equal measure. It was a comfort that she knew—but then why on earth had no one told me about something this serious?
Before I could stop myself, my mouth pushed out into a pout.
“If you knew, why didn't you say anything to me? This is serious enough that you and Father could be in danger!”
“Hmm…”
Mother knit her brows and groaned, at a loss, before answering carefully.
“It is precisely because it is that serious that I deliberately kept it from you.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Heeyo, you are still young. Even grown up safe and sound, at two hundred and ten you'd barely count as an adult—that is how young you are. And you slept for so long, and never had the chance to grow properly, so you are younger still, are you not?”
“…I… I suppose…”
When I deflated, Mother went on with a sorrowful look.
“I do not mean that you are lacking or insufficient. I only mean that a child your age has the right to be protected from things beyond what she can bear.”
“The right to be protected?”
“The privilege of a child—to be free of adult affairs and adult responsibilities, and to focus on nothing but learning about the world and growing on your own. It is not right, as a parent, to make a child fret over things she can do nothing about.”
I had a vague sense of what she meant.
There was something I had come to understand while agonizing over whether to tell the little Crown Prince my truth, before finally deciding to keep my mouth shut.
So that's why adults always say they'll tell you when you're bigger. Just like that—there are things you can only understand and accept once you've grown a little more.
I thought I was all grown up, but in the eyes of true adults I must still be very young. And in truth, I still lacked so much. I was a little one who still had growing left to do.
“…So you hid it because knowing wouldn't help you and Father anyway… and it would only make me worry for nothing, just like now.”
“Thank you for understanding. I am sorry I kept it from you.”
Mother, exhaling in relief, added:
“We are watching Dueoksini closely, and our preparations are thorough. Nothing will come of it that you need fear—so put it out of your mind and live at ease.”
“Okaaay…”
“Surely you remember that this mother of yours destroyed Dueoksini long ago and became a Supreme Deity? Your father is the same.”
Mother smiled warmly.
“This body is the Supreme Deity of the Celestial Realm, Sovereign of the Heavens, Master of Jami Palace, Foremost of All Divinities, Judge of Merit and Demerit, Arbiter of Principle, and the one seated upon the throne of Heaven… the Jade Emperor, who stands above all things.”
Crowned in the coronet of a Supreme Deity, Mother wore a smile of such majesty that I felt her authority wash over me like a tide.
A soft glow bloomed across her whole form. This was the face of the 'Jade Emperor' she so rarely showed me.
And in that guise, Mother said gently:
“Heeyo, do I look to you like a god so weak that something like Dueoksini could give me trouble?”
I felt the anxiety that had taken root in my heart gutter and die. I shook my head.
“No. You're incredibly strong, Mom.”
“Isn't that so? Then worry no more and enjoy your mortal life in peace. Don't you have plenty of other things to fret over? More than enough, I'd say. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma'am!”
Only then was my heart finally at ease. When I answered with a bright smile, Mother looked at me as though I were the most adorable, precious thing in the world.
“Good. Whenever you need anything, call to me or pray. Your father and I, and all the other gods besides, will always be glad to hear your prayers.”
“I will. Thank you, Mom!”
Light of heart, I put away the Eight-Bead Bell.
The moment the connection to Princess Cheonmyeong's Eight-Bead Bell was severed, the Supreme Deity let out a long, deep sigh.
“How did Heeyo ever come to learn that Dueoksini has appeared?”
Geum-ryeong, standing at her side, answered in a calm, level voice.
“Did the Sun-and-Moon Spirit not boast far and wide of receiving Her Highness's offering? She must have followed that thread and learned of it somehow or other.”
“Ah… yes. So that was it—the fox yokai was driven out by the horde of yokai under Dueoksini's command, wasn't he.”
The Supreme Deity murmured, rubbing her temples as though her head ached.
“We should have finished that Dueoksini off once and for all back in the Kingdom of Un. Instead, it feasted upon the karma that had piled up at just the right moment, and survived.”
“There is, I fear, nothing to be done, Your Majesty. The karma only grows each time Her Highness is brought back to life—and after all, that is how it first came into being, through Her Highness…”
“Dueoksini's birth was not caused by our daughter.”
The Supreme Deity cut Geum-ryeong short and dragged a hand down her face.
“It was Hyun and I who, karma and all, chose to revive that child as she lay dying at her birth. All of it is our karma. Which is why Heeyo must never be told of it, and never touched by it.”
“…And yet that Dueoksini already knows of Her Highness's existence all too well. The moment a princess fated to be stillborn gained a life, it too gained a life through that very karma, did it not?”
“…”
“It is still too feeble to invade the Celestial Realm, and so it cannot yet reach for Her Highness. But if it were ever to learn that Her Highness has descended into the mortal world…”
“Then we must make absolutely certain that never happens.”
The Supreme Deity said through clenched teeth.
Geum-ryeong watched her master with quiet sorrow.
She, too, loved Princess Cheonmyeong, her mistress's only daughter, with all her heart—enough that she would gladly have given her own life in her place.
But born a phoenix bound to serve a single master for all eternity, she held her own mistress, Taesang Suryeo, dearer still.
That was why she was less than pleased to see the Supreme Deity shoulder such excessive karma for the princess's sake.
I imagine that if Dueoksini ever dared lay a hand on Her Highness, Her Majesty would intervene no matter what karma she had to bear. She might even descend into the lower realm herself to stop it.
Geum-ryeong, who had become a female-form Hwang by following the master she came to serve, thought of her mate Hong-ye, who had likewise become a male-form Bong by following his master in turn.
Her husband's master, King Yama, would surely be the same.
If only to prevent such a catastrophe, we must guard Her Highness from Dueoksini absolutely. I believe… I must gather the whole family and discuss this.
Geum-ryeong and Hong-ye had eight children together.
Phoenixes breed only once in their lives, after which they lose the ability entirely and live on solely as their master's divine beasts.
Only during that breeding season do they divide into Bong and Hwang; before and after, gender is not distinguished, and they are simply called phoenixes.
Geum-ryeong had laid eight eggs in that one single chance. All but Ansi had hatched at nearly the same time, gained their independence, and now dwelt in places far apart from one another.
Ansi alone had remained within her egg for several hundred years, and had nearly rotted away without ever waking.
That child awakened because of Her Highness, is the only one Her Highness named with her own lips, and is still far too young—she must be left out of this discussion.
She would have to deliberate with her other children and her mate, and devise a plan to hold Dueoksini in check.
They were divine beasts, free to pass between the Three Realms at will; if they put their heads together, they would surely find a way to restrain Dueoksini while keeping the karma incurred to a minimum.
Before Her Majesty bears karma too heavy to carry… one way or another.
Geum-ryeong steeled her resolve.
With the Dueoksini scare laid to rest and nothing left to fear from it, Seol Deunghwa and Seok-juk had escaped Pyeong Imperial Palace unharmed and set out on their journey to rescue the Seol tribe.
I'd expected the Pyeong Empire to keep trying to assassinate Seruhwa, but with the Emperor dead and everything in an uproar, it's been quiet for now.
The Chief State Councilor, too, had gone silent—though my watcher bug kept fixed on him all the same.
The court had settled, and the Crown Prince was finally being treated with the respect due his station.
Fate-ironing seems to have wrapped up more easily than I expected. But then why… do all those dangerous omens still hang over Seruhwa's future?
Everything looked perfectly smooth on the surface. Was something else going to erupt down the road, like the plague that was still two years off?
Well, no use worrying myself sick over it. I just have to stay sharp, that's all.
And so, just as I was turning my attention to preparing for the memorial pilgrimage scheduled for May, the guest I'd been waiting for arrived.
“O Radiant Blossom of Unyeon! What an honor to be received by Your Highness the Crown Princess.”
The pleasantly smiling man wore the unmistakable garb of a shaman.
A new guest tutor, introduced to Jaebang on Princess Onseol's recommendation.
“My name is Jo Man-hee, baksu mudang at your service. When Her Highness Princess Onseol mentioned that she sought a shaman to teach theory to the Crown Princess, I volunteered at once. To be frank, most shunned the task—teaching half-baked shamanism to a mixed-blood who cannot even receive spirit descent—but I! A grand shaman bearing even the title of Manshin! Volunteered out of pure, undying devotion to Your Highness the Crown Princess!”
This was a lesson I had been looking forward to immensely—so why did the very opening of it leave such a bad taste in my mouth?
What is this guy?
Fighting to keep my face from scrunching up in distaste, I let my gaze slide past the shaman called Jo Man-hee.
A girl with a shadowed, gloomy face knelt on the floor behind him.
His daughter, or his disciple? His shaman robes are dazzling—so why is she dressed in rags? Her complexion's awful, too…
Sensing where my gaze had landed, Jo Man-hee's face took on a slightly displeased cast.
“Ah, that child is my adopted daughter. Not by blood. A disappointing creature in every way, but what can you do—the ties of fate brought her to me, and I performed her descent ritual for her. If she offends the eye, pray overlook her; think of her as no more than a slave girl.”
Suddenly I want to march straight to Princess Onseol and demand answers.
Your Highness—did you really, truly pick a good one this time? There wasn't, perhaps, a bribe involved somewhere along the way?