Unknown
Since I was the main thing slowing our party down, the moment I climbed into the Crown Prince's shadow palanquin, everyone made quick, easy work of climbing the mountain—so quickly that we soon caught up with the Right State Councilor's group, which could hardly help but move slowly with two young grandchildren in tow.
“…….”
“…….”
We did not pass them. The Crown Prince silently followed behind, and the Right State Councilor, for his part, simply kept walking ahead without a word.
Only the twins kept stealing curious glances at the shadow palanquin I rode in.
Not long after we wound our way up the mountain path like that, a sun-warmed slope came into view.
Graves were scattered across the hillside. This appeared to be the burial ground of the Right State Councilor's family.
The Right State Councilor walked slowly forward and came to a stop before a headstone so clean it looked brand new.
Lady Sim, Consort of the First Rank
Sim Bu-ok
He gazed down at his wife's headstone in silence. In the meantime, the Councilor's servants and maids spread out mats and began setting up an offering table.
The Crown Prince brought our party to a halt and simply stood there, waiting without a word. I too climbed down from the shadow palanquin out of courtesy and waited quietly at his side.
We waited through all of it—through the Right State Councilor's bow, the bows of the Councilor's eldest son and his wife, the bows of the twin grandchildren, the Councilor pouring wine and scattering it over the grave, and the letter he had evidently written by hand being burned and carried off on the smoke of the incense fire.
Pretending not to notice that we were waiting, the Right State Councilor saw every last rite through at his own unhurried pace.
His eldest son and daughter-in-law fidgeted restlessly, clearly uneasy about leaving the Crown Prince standing there, but the Councilor never once glanced back at them.
At last he gently laid the flowers he had brought atop the grave and rose to his feet.
Forsythia…… That's hardly the usual flower for a grave. And they can't have been blooming this late in the season, either.
They must have been flowers Lady Jeonggyeong had loved in life—she had clearly dried and kept them on purpose before bringing them here.
The sight of those neatly dried, quiet yellow blossoms blanketing the grave like a garland seemed to lay bare everything the Right State Councilor had carried in his heart for her.
I felt the Crown Prince, watching the scene beside me, press his lips tightly together. Quietly, I took the little one's hand.
He turned to look at me, his eyes trembling, then gripped my hand firmly and faced forward again.
With clear, unflinching eyes—as if to say he would not look away.
What a remarkable little one.
Smiling inwardly, I kept my expression composed on the surface.
Once the rites were finished, the Right State Councilor's party gathered their things and rose. Only after they had silently made their way back down the mountain path did our party finally move.
While the palace attendants spread mats and set up the offering table, this time it was the Right State Councilor's group who remained, standing on the path without leaving.
They're not leaving?
Did the Crown Prince mean to observe how they paid their respects?
In any case, we offered our rites to the grave in the same manner—bowing, pouring wine, burning a memorial address, laying down flowers.
The Crown Prince bowed deeply before Lady Jeonggyeong, addressing her with full honorifics. Beside him, I bowed as well, offering a silent prayer for her peace in the world beyond.
In the name of Princess Cheonmyeong…….
My name carried no small weight, so it would be of great help to Lady Jeonggyeong, who was surely standing judgment in the underworld even now.
Until we had finished everything and risen to our feet, the Right State Councilor simply watched us without moving.
When our party, belongings tidied away, approached him on the path, he looked at the Crown Prince and spoke.
“Your Highness, the Crown Prince.”
“Speak, Lord Uuijeong.”
“Your Highness…… can you truly become a wise and virtuous king?”
It was an abrupt question. But the Crown Prince was not thrown.
“My lord, I have no confidence that I will become such a king.”
“…….”
“How could someone as young and untried as I dare promise it of myself? If I said so now, it would be nothing more than a boy's recklessness.”
“…….”
“But I will do my utmost. I will always remember what I carry upon my shoulders, and always ponder what serves this realm best…… and I will strive to distinguish what must be held fast from what must be set down.”
“…….”
“So I ask you, Lord Uuijeong—keep your eyes fixed on me.”
“……I beg your pardon?”
“If a man such as you watches me with unblinking vigilance, I will walk the truer path and conduct myself with greater care.”
A boy of only twelve years gave a wry smile.
“Even if I did not intend it, something irreparable happened because of me. I do not wish to run from that responsibility. So I would have you keep watching me—so that I never forget the wrong that was done.”
“…….”
“Even if I were to become a wise king, how would that erase the sin I committed against Lady Jeonggyeong? A life that has been lost can never be repaid. All I can do is carry it. I cannot promise to become a wise king…… but here, I will promise you this: I will never set down what must not be set down.”
“…….”
The Right State Councilor fell silent, as if the words had been struck from his mouth. Standing beside him, I was blindsided by a shock of my own.
……I only planned to recruit that man to the Crown Prince's side because he did his job well.
How was this a twelve-year-old human child? Now that I looked closer, wasn't he maybe someone who'd descended the mountain mid-enlightenment, or the reincarnation of an immortal?
For the first time, I found myself feeling genuine respect for the little brat called the Crown Prince. So this was what it meant to be upright and true.
While I marveled inwardly, the Crown Prince gave the Right State Councilor a deep, formal bow, and set off walking again.
The Councilor stood frozen on the mountain path for a long while, watching our backs as we went.
Before long, we arrived again at the clearing partway up the trail where we had meant to eat lunch earlier.
Everyone was receiving the food the attendants had prepared and settling into their places when the sky suddenly darkened overhead.
And then, straightaway, a drop of water went plip—and fell.
“Rain……?”
“It seems to be a shower, Your Highness.”
Behind the Crown Prince's calm reply, the attendants descended into chaos.
“It's pouring!”
“The canopy! Get the canopy up, quickly!”
“Your Highness the Crown Prince! Your Highness the Crown Princess! This way, if you please!”
The raindrops falling were fat and heavy. The downpour showed no sign of being ordinary, and the attendants, hurriedly pitching the canopy, ushered us into its shelter.
The Crown Prince clicked his tongue softly.
“If it rains this suddenly, then the Right State Councilor's party…….”
Sure enough, there they were, hurrying down the mountain path. The Crown Prince called over the eunuch at his side and spoke.
“If the rain keeps pouring, the path will be dangerous. Tell Lord Uuijeong to rest here a while before descending.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Umbrella in hand, the eunuch scurried off to meet the party coming down the trail.
The rain was now torrential and the earth was turning slick with mud, so the Right State Councilor's party did not refuse the Crown Prince's invitation.
They were soon shown into one of the canopies by the eunuch. The meal laid out had been generous, so the Councilor's group also received provisions from the attendants and took some refreshment.
“……This shower is a fierce one.”
The Crown Prince, peering out at the edge of the canopy, clicked his tongue again.
The sudden rain was less a shower than a full deluge. The landscape, moments ago lush with green, turned grey in the blink of an eye as water came sheeting down as though flung from buckets.
Climbing down a mountain with no proper trail in weather like this would be madness. The Crown Prince sighed as he watched the rain fall harder and harder.
“It seems we will have to camp here for the night. Will that be all right, my lady?”
“Of course. It would be far too dangerous to go down in this weather.”
Soon the Crown Prince summoned the eunuch and ordered full preparations made for an overnight camp.
While the attendants and the Royal Guards bustled about and the Crown Prince oversaw them, I sent a quiet pulse of thought into the forest where Seok-ran was waiting.
Seok-ran hesitated, uncertain of her own instincts, then let out a low whimper.
Someone is making it rain on purpose?
Were they aiming at us? Or had a battle broken out somewhere nearby, or had someone scrambled to hold a rain-summoning rite in their desperation, calling this down by accident?
I studied the sky beyond the canopy carefully, then frowned.
I can't tell…….
Aside from the dense black clouds and the extraordinary volume of the downpour, I felt nothing at all.
With my main body in danger, I had every scrap of divine power—the Cheonmyeong Eye and the rest—sealed away, so it stood to reason that Seok-ran, a fox of a thousand years, would be far more sensitive than I was.
If even she could barely sense that something was off, then my feeling nothing was only natural.
I glanced around me.
The Royal Guards stood at their posts in a line, the Crown Prince was right beside me issuing orders to a eunuch, and Cheoyong's warding effigy still hung snugly at my waist.
After a brief rustle of movement, Seok-ran's presence soon faded into the distance.
“Um… Your Highness, the Crown Princess?”
A cluster of small heads peeked out shyly at the entrance of the canopy. The twin siblings were looking at me with wide, sparkling eyes.
Before I could say a word, the Crown Prince spoke up in alarm.
“How did you get here in this rain?”
“Y-your Highness, the Crown Prince! W-we came along the canopy awnings!”
The royal canopies had cloth stretched out from their edges like eaves—meant to give the Royal Guards room to stand watch and the attendants space to come and go.
These little ones, it seemed, had waited for their parents to look away and made their way here through those very awnings.
“And what business brings you all the way here?”
The twins looked at each other, then answered hesitantly, fidgeting.
“……We wanted to meet Her Highness, the Crown Princess……”
“There's something we just had to ask……”
The Crown Prince's expression hardened.
“Did you ask your parents' leave before coming?”
“…….”
The children shrank back a little.
Those two are the Crown Prince's age—so why do they seem years younger? That's just how grown-up he is, I suppose.
When the children failed to answer, the Crown Prince let out a soft sigh and began gently, in the tone one might use to chide Sa Young-joon.
“At your age, wherever you go, you ask your parents' permission first. If you wish to meet the Crown Princess, go home and ask—”
“Huh?”
Lee Yeon-ju cut the Crown Prince off and suddenly pointed a finger straight at me. Then Lee Yeon-jo muttered after her, with a dopey look on his face.
“There's something strange at Her Highness the Crown Princess's ankle.”
“What?”