The White Dragon Priestess of the Rear Palace (1)
The woman with snow-white hair spilling down her back like a waterfall—Seoryeong—shuddered quietly as she recalled the Emperor’s face from a few days earlier, when he had spoken to her with that playful, mischievous grin.
Ugh, that lunatic… I hope I never have to look at him again.
No matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t believe anyone would treat a person so openly like some exotic specimen. The Emperor was clearly far more dangerous than even the wildest rumors suggested.
“Still… a concubine, huh.”
Seoryeong gazed out at the restrained elegance of the garden beyond the pavilion. It was incomparably more luxurious than the flower garden she had tended back in Cheongsin, yet somehow never felt cluttered or excessive.
“It sounds nice when they say it out loud.”
She began to sift through what she knew about her current location—the rear palace.
The rear palace.
The Emperor walked a path of thorns where no one could predict when or how his life might end. In order to spread his seed widely, women were gathered here for the sole purpose of bearing his children. In other words, this was the residence of the Emperor’s potential consorts.
These candidates, chosen for their exceptional beauty, refinement, and appropriate status, were ranked as lower, middle, or upper concubines depending on how often the Emperor visited them.
Among them, the one who gave birth to his legitimate heir—or the one who ultimately received the Emperor’s favor—would become Empress.
I heard the current Emperor doesn’t even have an Empress. Is that true?
Seoryeong quietly recalled the stories she had gathered from a few maids during her stay in the rear palace over the past several days.
The present Emperor supposedly had no significant relationships with women. Five years ago he had taken an Empress, but she had been frail from birth. Not long after her appointment, she passed away without ever producing a child.
Though his ministers occasionally pressured him into visiting a few of the rear palace women, rumors claimed he was the most absent Emperor since the rear palace was first established.
Instead, as he had openly admitted, the current Emperor’s hobby was collecting and raising all manner of rare creatures.
“When I realize that creature is supposed to be me, it feels incredibly unpleasant.”
Seoryeong wrinkled her lovely face into a deep scowl, remembering the way the Emperor’s eyes had sparkled like a child’s as he looked at her.
It didn’t bother her that he didn’t see her as a woman. In fact, she preferred it that way. But being treated as something inhuman… for someone who had acquired a non-human body later in life, it hurt more than she cared to admit.
Pet priestess, my ass.
Deciding she would have to look for a chance to escape someday, Seoryeong perched on the pavilion railing and pulled a long pipe from her robes, tapping it absently with her fingers.
Jin-ah won’t be around for a while anyway… perfect time for a smoke.
What she held was a long smoking pipe, commonly called a gomdae.
Rustle. Rustle.
She turned the pipe—which was slightly longer than ordinary ones—upside down and tapped it to clear any remaining impurities. Then, rummaging through her robes as if searching for something, she finally slipped her hand deep inside.
“Ah, there it is.”
She had hidden her emergency stash of dried herbs between her overflowing breasts in case they tried to confiscate them during a body search. Pulling out the bundle, she began crushing it between her fingers.
“Hoo…”
If anyone had seen the expression on her face as she squeezed the herbs with a hand covered in blue scales, they would have screamed that a wicked great demon had appeared in the rear palace. Fortunately, no one was there to witness it.
Squeeze… squeeze…
With practiced movements, Seoryeong packed the crushed herbs firmly into the end of the pipe. She then pulled out a small metal rod and struck it against the scales on the back of her hand without hesitation, producing a spark.
Hiss…!
Flames caught at the end of the pipe. As the herbs began to burn and release their smoke, Seoryeong inhaled with an expression of pure ecstasy, as if savoring the finest liquor.
“Haa… That’s better.”
The cool yet slightly bitter aroma filling her mouth must have pleased her, because her face relaxed into complete contentment as she savored the white smoke.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing, Priestess!”
But happiness, as they say, is merely a fleeting sweet dream.
Seoryeong’s peaceful expression crumpled as she heard the patter of hurried footsteps and a girl’s voice scolding her from afar, pointing accusingly.
“It’s dangerous to burn something like that in the garden!”
The girl wore a green top and dark blue skirt with deep indigo trim—the uniform of one of the countless maids one might encounter dozens or hundreds of times a day in the rear palace.
“Hello? Are you even listening to me? You need to put that out right now!”
“I don’t want to. This stuff is expensive.”
Seoryeong pressed down firmly on the chattering maid’s head with one hand, preventing her from reaching for the pipe.
“You’re the one in charge of feeding anyway. This is my food. So leave me alone.”
“Ugh…! You’ve been eating your meals so well these past few days, there’s no way your stomach is upset…!”
The maid who fed both Seoryeong and the other rare creatures kept in the rear palace garden met her eyes.
“By the way, aren’t you scared of me?”
“Huh?”
“…Never mind. That answer tells me everything I need to know.”
On the day she first arrived at this garden, nearly eighty percent of the maids responsible for the rare creatures had fainted the moment they met her eyes.
Yet the girl before her was the only one who hadn’t passed out. Instead, her eyes had sparkled with curiosity. Seoryeong remembered her clearly.
Hiiiiiss…!
“Ah, that looks dangerous…”
“To you it just looks like a hand, doesn’t it? It’s fine.”
With clear reluctance in her eyes, Seoryeong finally tapped out the bundle of herbs from her pipe and crushed them in her fist.
“So why are you here if it’s not feeding time?”
“Oh, right!”
“…Hey.”
The maid finally seemed to remember why she had come. She stuck out her tongue cutely and avoided Seoryeong’s gaze, acting shy.
“It’s about the guard who was looking after you, Priestess…”
“Jin-ah?”
“Yes! She said she’ll be back tomorrow to resume her duties!”
Come to think of it, there had been talk of that. Realizing her peaceful days were truly coming to an end, Seoryeong smiled—whether from genuine pleasure or a more complicated longing—and gently stroked the maid’s head as the girl continued chattering away.
“That’s good news.”
“Wait, didn’t you say just a few days ago that her nagging was too much and you preferred it this way?”
“…Don’t you dare tell Jin-ah I said that.”
“Ehe. What should I do about it, I wonder?”
“I’ll share some snacks with you later.”
“Okay!”
Fortunately the maid didn’t mind the scaled hand stroking her hair and simply beamed. Seoryeong let out a small sigh of relief. For the first time, she felt rather satisfied with her situation. Being treated as the Emperor’s pet apparently came with better quality goods than most of the actual concubine candidates received.
“Come talk to me whenever you have free time. It gets terribly boring otherwise.”
She continued stroking the maid’s hair with gentle affection, thinking the girl was about the same age her little sister would be now if she had grown up safely back home.
“Ehehe. Yes! I’ll visit often!”
“Not too often, though.”
After the maid finally left—having kept her company for quite some time—Seoryeong watched her retreating back.
The rear palace, huh.
She sat back down on the pavilion railing, hugging her tail—which now ended in a metal ornament—and thought quietly.
What exactly am I supposed to do here?
The maids of the rear palace called her “Priestess” for convenience, but Seoryeong knew the truth. Even if she had performed such duties in Cheongsin, now that she was staying in Ran, she would never work as a priestess again.
I wonder if my family is all right.
At the same time, she worried whether anything bad had happened to her homeland now that its barrier priestess had vanished.
…Though when I really think about it, I don’t feel like I actually did much as a barrier priestess anyway.
With these faint worries and a now-idle mind, Seoryeong passed the time thinking about this and that.
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
As if trying to shake off her strangely gloomy mood, she stood up with an exaggerated sigh.
“Since I’ve come to the rear palace after all this time, I might as well enjoy it while I can.”
It was a place the original Seoryeong would never have shown any interest in. After all, it was a forbidden zone for men.
If the women here were all beautiful enough to be candidates for the Emperor’s consorts, at least there would be something worth looking at.
Besides, I have that cheerful child who comes to talk to me so I won’t get bored.
If you can’t avoid it, you might as well enjoy it. With that thought, Seoryeong—as always—cradled her heavy chest with both arms tucked inside her sleeves and savored the breeze blowing through the garden.
However.
The maid who had smiled so brightly and promised to keep her company whenever she had time never appeared again. Not the day after Jin-ah returned to the rear palace, nor the day after that… not even after nine full days had passed.
Seoryeong would not see the maid again until fifteen days later, on a rainy afternoon, when a single drowned corpse floated up from the moat outside the rear palace walls.