The Heavenly Fortune String
The guards who witnessed the scene let out a roar. “Lift the beam! The Royal Inspector is in danger! Quickly!” But their desperate shouts reached her as if through water, blurred and distant. Seoryeong could only stare up at Myeong-do in a daze, the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes trailing down her temples one after another.
The massive beam was hauled upward by the hands of several men.
Crushed beneath it, Myeong-do fought with everything he had to hold his body up, bracing his elbows so that not an ounce of its weight would press down on Seoryeong. He protected her until the very end.
“Khh….”
Myeong-do coughed up blood. And even then, he kept his eyes fixed on her, checking that she was safe.
As if the weight of his agony was nothing at all compared to the weight of his worry for her.
“….”
Impossible. Seoryeong's eyes blinked slowly, as though she couldn't believe it even seeing it with her own eyes. The way Myeong-do looked at her was achingly tender.
This wasn't your fault. My omen simply came true, that's all.
That's what I should be saying to him….
Her eyes kept sliding shut. She forced them open, blinking slow and heavy, and the Seoryeong he had longed so much to see gradually blurred, drifting out of focus.
Thud. Myeong-do, who had gathered Seoryeong into his arms to shield her, collapsed, tilting to the side.
“….”
Seoryeong could not say a single word. Her mouth only hung open as she stared down at him. He must be in agony — pain beyond what anyone could bear. She hurriedly pulled him into her embrace.
The beam had stood at the heart of the curse ritual, and it was saturated through and through with foul energy. Myeong-do's back had turned pitch black, as if it were being burned away from within.
Dark crimson blood seeped in threads from the back that had borne the weight of the cursed wood, soaking into the ground.
And the Five Blessings String wrapped around Myeong-do's wrist snapped. Myeong-do's red blood bloomed across the white cloth.
“…Myeong-do.”
For the first time, Seoryeong called his name. With trembling fingers she brushed his cheek — but Myeong-do still did not open his eyes.
She drew his limp body tightly against her chest. Still, he did not open his eyes.
“Myeong-do. Myeong-dooo…. Hhic, ah…! Myeong-do…!”
She wept like a child, as if the only word left inside her was his name. Her face a mess of blood, sweat, and tears, she clutched him to her.
“Myeong-do, please, ah, please…! Nooo…! Myeong… do….”
She called his name in broken, mangled syllables, like a plea. The name she had never once been able to bring herself to say, because it was too precious.
“Myeong-do…! Please, please just….”
But Myeong-do, eyes closed, did not answer.
As if he were dead.
As if this parting were forever.
“Let the condemned hear—!”
Bound in rope, Seonghwi shook his head with everything he had. The shadows beneath his eyes were pitch black as he stared at the palace he had craved for so long — dark as the wicked things he had served.
“The condemned Seonghwi's crimes are grave and deep. He plundered the wealth of the people to fill his own greed, raised a private army to covet power for himself, plotted rebellion to throw the kingdom into chaos, and conspired with a sorceress to incite treason. How could any punishment ever repay what he is owed?”
The King sat upon his high seat once more. Seonghwi thrashed and struggled, but he looked no more than a wriggling insect — stripped of every trace of majesty.
“Therefore, by law, the condemned Seonghwi shall be judged: his title of Grand Prince stripped from him—”
“No! No, it cannot be…!”
“—and he shall be cast into prison, never again to see the light of day.”
With a resounding crash, the door of the cell slammed shut behind him. Seonghwi, sprawled against the wall, scrambled forward on his hands and knees and smashed his forehead against the bars.
“You dogs! You insolent wretches! I will remember every one of your faces! The day I! The day I become King, you think I'll let a single one of you off?!”
Clang, clang-clang. He hammered his head against the bars until it bled. But on the other side of the door, there was no one at all.
“Mm-hmm~. Hmm, hmm….”
From inside a wooden box placed near Seonghwi, a song came drifting out. Within that box, ringed thick with talismans, Yeomga sang in a soft, lilting voice. It was a tune he had heard somewhere before.
Claw Ghost — it was the same hum his mother used to sing for him. Yeomga was singing a lullaby.
Inside her sealed box, she was thinking of her child once more. Like a curse.
“Aaagh!”
And Seonghwi, now trapped in the same space as her, screamed.
The kingdom turned busily onward. The King and Yunhwi poured their strength into rebuilding what had been broken.
“Cheonmaekji, and beyond it Hyeon-unji, Chimmyeongji…. We will appoint new royal inspectors to all nine districts….”
The royal treasury Seonghwi had spirited away had to be recovered, and the people of those lands cared for. As heir to the throne, Yunhwi resolved to make the rounds of the provinces once more.
And he would need to examine with his own eyes the officials newly installed there. This time, above all, the people had to be properly looked after.
“I trust you.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Having received his orders, Yunhwi mounted his horse. But he could not ride swiftly forward. Again and again he turned to look back, his face full of worry.
Myeong-do still had not opened his eyes.
Seoryeong stayed at Myeong-do's side, his upper body wrapped in bandages. Just as he had once done for her when rain-sickness had laid her low, she soaked a handkerchief in cold water and wiped his brow. The white cloth moved across his pale face.
“….”
Since that day, Myeong-do had never once woken. Seoryeong's cropped hair had grown out some, and she simply crouched in silence, keeping watch beside him.
No matter how much of her divine power she poured into him, Myeong-do remained unchanged.
She did not cry. But her eyes looked as though they might.
Behind Seoryeong as she gazed down at him, refusing to wake, the sun set and rose again. Before she knew it, her shorn hair had grown back long.
As if to prove that the world went on turning even without Myeong-do.
Autumn leaves tumbled, snow fell, and bare branches stood stark against the sky — and through it all, Seoryeong never left his side. She only looked at him, wordlessly.
The words I love you were too heavy a sin for her to say.
Seoryeong went to see the King where he sat upon his lofty chair. In the vast expanse of his chamber, he looked somehow forlorn. She knelt and bowed with full formality.
“I have long been in your debt.”
“…You mean to leave.”
“Yes. It must be so.”
Seoryeong smiled faintly. The King, who had been looking down at his documents, lifted his gaze to her.
Curled up before him was a girl so small and slight it was hard to believe she had saved the kingdom.
“If Myeong-do never wakes as he is, what will you do?”
“…Every trace of the curse's energy is gone. When his strength returns, he will shake it off and rise.”
Seoryeong forced the words out, swallowing her tears down hard.
“It may be that he cannot wake because of me. It was because of me that this happened.”
Her two hands, folded on the floor, trembled faintly. Merely hearing his name made her heart clench again and again.
“Before you go, speak one last wish. Whatever it is, I shall grant it.”
So the King told her, and this was Seoryeong's answer:
“…Look after the weak, I beg of you. I wish for nothing more.”
At that reply, the King slowly rose from his seat. Step by step he descended, until at last he stood before her.
And the King bowed his head.
“Your Majesty…!”
“Thank you.”
It was the salute owed to a hero who had given everything to save the kingdom.
Seoryeong came to see Myeong-do one last time. Lying on the white sickbed, he breathed his slow, even breaths today as on every other.
Seoryeong smiled quietly. She, who slept so much, had never once seen Myeong-do asleep — it had always been the other way around. And thanks to that, she could now recall every moment of them together even without him beside her.
Myeong-do smiling. Myeong-do stony-faced. Myeong-do angry, Myeong-do grieving. Myeong-do running toward her, shouting her name. And even Myeong-do with his eyes closed.
“….”
She fixed him in her gaze one final time, as if to swear she would never forget. Then she slipped something beneath his hand.
“Live well….”
It was the trinket he had once handed over, calling it the thing he treasured most — the keepsake, he'd said, from his late mother. Having returned it to him, Seoryeong turned and walked away without looking back.
Click. She heard the sound of the lattice door closing.
The hand that held the trinket twitched, ever so slightly.
Seoryeong walked slowly. A life without purpose had just begun, and there was nothing to hurry toward anymore. Her steps out of the palace were languid.
The world that she and Myeong-do had protected with their lives was utterly at peace, as if nothing had ever happened at all.
The thought was unbearably bitter, so she forced the corners of her mouth up into a smile.
“Come, come! I'm selling the finest goods you'll ever see!”
A vendor grabbed her by the shoulder, hawking his wares. Seoryeong looked at him. Judging by her gentle face that she'd be an easy mark, the merchant rattled on without taking a breath.
“Buying a Five Blessings String for the Festival of Five Blessings? That's old news! Have you heard of the Heavenly Fortune String?”
“Heavenly Fortune String?”
“Ah, heavenly fortune — they say it draws blessings down from the heavens! Wear this string, and love will come true.”
Seoryeong looked at the string carved with peach blossoms and let out a laugh of pure disbelief.
“Oh my. You don't believe it? Standing right in front of the Heavenly Fortune String that brings the one you long to see running to you?”
But before long, she was stroking it with wistful eyes. Her wrist did feel rather bare, after all — she decided to be fooled, just this once, and took one in hand.
“…How much?”
“For you, specially, just twenty nyang—”
“If you're planning to fleece me, think again. I know fair prices now.”
“Th-then if you buy it together with these flower shoes, just for you, twenty nyang—”
Myeong-do had taught her so many things. How to live honestly, how to help people — and even how to love.
With the Heavenly Fortune String wound around her wrist, Seoryeong set out once more on the long road. The road she had once walked with Myeong-do, now alone.
She walked the mountain path and pushed through the tall grass, and where she arrived was Jeong-an's grave.
“Jeong-an, I'm here.”
She set her newly bought flower shoes down before it. Weeds had overrun the grave, but the sunlight streaming down kept it from looking lonely — it almost looked warm.
“You were right. Everything flowed the way it was meant to.”
Seoryeong idly kicked her feet before the grave, tapping up little puffs of dirt with her toe. There was so much she wanted to say to Jeong-an. But she couldn't manage a single word. Her eyes burned.
“…Thank you.”
Only after a long while did Seoryeong speak.
“I'm… going to live well.”
That was all it took. She forced a bright smile, but though her mouth turned upward, the loneliness in her eyes remained.
And so, gazing at Jeong-an's grave, Seoryeong turned her back on it. Where she had stood, a single pair of flower shoes that no one would ever wear lay abandoned in the grass.
It was at that very moment that hoofbeats flashed across the screen.