RC 04

Chapter 4

Perhaps because autumn had only just begun, the flowers were still in full bloom in the rear garden of the detached palace. Prince Uijeong, Lee Yeol, walked through the garden, taking in each flower one by one.

It was still quite early in the morning. Walking through the garden before anyone else had awakened was something Prince Uijeong had loved to do since he was young.

Especially now, standing before a storm as violent as the Crown Prince’s death, it was a routine he could not afford to skip.

Born as Emperor Lee Yun’s youngest son, Prince Uijeong had grown up wanting for nothing. All he had ever wanted was to walk alone, quietly and peacefully.

A sparrow startled at the sight of the Prince and flew up onto the roof. The fluttering sound of its wings brought back memories he had briefly forgotten.

That terrible accident.

The day he had to say goodbye to a beloved brother and nephew.

The day he had nearly lost his only daughter as well.

Even now, whenever he thought of that moment, goosebumps rose all over his body.

“Father?”

His quiet solitude was broken by a small voice. A smile appeared at the corners of the Prince’s mouth.

“When did you arrive? I didn’t hear you come in.”

“After midnight. It was so late that I came in quietly. But what about you? Why are you out this early?”

At the appearance of his only daughter, his one and only child, the lingering images in his mind seemed to melt away. Seon smiled brightly and stood beside him.

“I had a lot on my mind. I woke up early.”

“I see. Of course you did.”

Bitterness crept into Prince Uijeong’s smile. He had lost family too. It had been only two days since the accident that had taken his dependable elder brother. He had spent his entire life as a member of the Imperial family, learning to pretend that nothing affected him, but there was nothing he could do about the heart that was quietly rotting away inside.

“Grandfather gave me a task.”

The moment Seon spoke, a flash of dismay crossed Prince Uijeong’s face. The change was so obvious that even Seon noticed it.

“Father. It’s all right. I’m not a child anymore.”

Prince Uijeong did not want to lose Seon. She was his only daughter. Just as he had lost his brother, he did not want to lose his daughter too. That was why, even at twenty-seven, he still treasured her as though she were the child he held in his arms. The anxiety creeping over him left him shaken.

“A lot is going to change.”

“I suppose it will.”

Seon answered calmly. Her father’s gaze rested on her for a moment before quickly moving away.

“Don’t add to your mother’s worries.”

“Mother is always worried about something.”

Seon replied as she erased the smile that had been fading from her face.

No matter how much the Imperial family had tried to narrow the distance between itself and the people, there were clearly limits.

Marriage was one example.

They no longer issued a formal decree to select a spouse as they had in the past, causing a great commotion as they searched for a suitable partner. Instead, they carefully chose from families that had been vetted to a certain degree—new aristocratic families whose social standing and status were not lacking, even if they were not members of the Imperial family.

But Seon’s mother, Lady Yeosan, Song, had been different. Her family was the same one the previous Empress had come from, but she was not a close relative, and the family’s financial circumstances were not particularly good. Moreover, before her marriage, Lady Yeosan had been…

“I still can’t believe Mother used to be an actress. I’ve heard that world is just as ruthless as the Imperial family.”

She had worked in the entertainment industry as an actress. Apparently, she had even been called a rising star in her youth. But whenever Seon saw her mother with tears welling up in her eyes at the slightest thing, it was difficult to imagine that she had ever been part of the entertainment industry.

“You don’t have to be strong-willed to survive there.”

Prince Uijeong’s voice softened slightly.

The fact that the two of them had broken Imperial tradition and successfully married for love was still talked about, even thirty years later. A dramatic romance was bound to attract attention in any era.

“Please be considerate of your mother. She didn’t grow up living the same life we did.”

“I know. But can I really go against an Imperial order?”

Prince Uijeong let out a long sigh.

His daughter, who looked frighteningly much like him, weighed heavily on his mind.

If he had been twenty-seven again, he would have said the same thing.

That a member of the Imperial family must always obey the Emperor’s orders.

The foolish young man who had known nothing of the pain of losing something precious overlapped with Seon in his eyes.

But there was one crucial difference between Seon and himself.

At twenty-seven, Prince Uijeong had never truly experienced the bone-deep pain of losing something precious.

At twenty-seven, Seon had already known that pain all her life.

And that was why he could not stop her.

“What did His Majesty ask you to do?”

Prince Uijeong swallowed his anxiety and asked. He managed to arrange his expression into one of calm, but he could not hide the way the corners of his mouth kept twitching. Seon glanced at her father, then quietly looked away as though she had seen nothing.

“He said there was something suspicious about Uncle’s accident.”

“What?”

The moment Seon finished speaking, Prince Uijeong staggered backward. His eyes shook with terror as though he had seen a ghost rising from its grave.

“That… That can’t be.”

Seon quietly looked at him as he struggled to deny reality, then continued.

“I’m scared too, Father.”

A faint, hazy smile appeared on Seon’s lips.

“I couldn’t help but understand why Grandfather gave me this task.”

At that moment, the face of one man flashed through both their minds.

A man who smiled often, who loved to joke, and who had a way of making everyone around him happy.

“Seon. I’ll speak to His Majesty.”

Prince Uijeong hurriedly spoke, an ominous feeling rising within him. His face was filled with urgency.

“No. It’s too dangerous.”

“You seem to think so too, Father.”

Seon’s smile twisted.

It was not a beautiful smile. It spread across her face like a reflection of everything inside her that had been rotting, bending, and twisting for years.

“Maybe I was supposed to die that day, Father.”

“Seon!”

“And yet, the fact that I was the only one who survived and ended up here must mean I was meant to uncover the truth.”

Seon reached out and toyed with a flower petal. The petal swayed in the breeze, tickling her fingertips.

Yes.

The flower she had seen that day, through the shattered car window, beyond the black heel of the shoe she had glimpsed outside the overturned vehicle—it had looked like this.

Cosmos.

The symbol of autumn.

“I was a child with so many dreams until I was seven. You remember, don’t you, Father? One day I wanted to become a nurse. Another day I wanted to be an astronaut. Then there were days when I said I wanted to become an actress like Mother.”

Seon’s voice remained steady as she continued speaking, as though she were telling someone else’s story.

“But after that day, when I was seven, I couldn’t dream anymore. I had to live carrying the lives of two people on my shoulders.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“No. I had no choice. I was the only one who survived.”

Seon finally withdrew the hand she had left resting on the flower petals. With the breeze gone, her fingertips suddenly felt empty.

“After that day, my dream became revenge. Finding the man who killed my third uncle and Cheongsong Hyeonju was the only dream I had.”

“Seon… Seon.”

“And if that man was really involved in Uncle’s accident too…”

“No! No, he wasn’t!”

Prince Uijeong shouted. He quickly looked around, his face filled with fear that someone might have heard.

The detached palace was merely a space belonging to the Imperial Household Office. It was not somewhere Prince Uijeong could ever truly feel safe.

He was terrified that someone might be hiding nearby, listening to their conversation.

Terrified that the fragile peace they had finally found might be taken away.

“That was an accident. It was an accident!”

Unlike her father, who was trembling with fear, Seon remained calm.

“I’m different, Father. I won’t let what happened to my third uncle happen to me.”

There was strength in her voice as she declared it.

She was a daughter who looked eerily like him, yet at times like this, she was nothing like him.

Even in his most passionate youth, Prince Uijeong had known how to be afraid. He knew how to read the direction of power and bow his head just enough to survive.

But Seon did not.

Even when she was afraid, she would not give up the truth. She had never allowed the desire she had carried in her heart for so many years to go out, not even for a moment.

And if this was her last chance, she had no intention of letting it slip away.

The card her grandfather had forced into her hand might be poison capable of turning her entire life upside down.

Even knowing that, Seon had no intention of giving up.

“I won’t pretend not to know what everyone already knows.”

“Seon.”

Prince Uijeong called his daughter desperately, despair filling his eyes.

“The reason I’ve endured my second uncle all this time was because, without evidence, I didn’t want to turn my back on him. He was higher in rank than me, after all, and much more senior.”

At last, the name he had dreaded hearing was spoken, and Prince Uijeong’s face went pale.

Seon quietly watched her father tremble, then strengthened the faint smile on her lips.

“But Father. If my second uncle was behind this too…”

“Lee Seon!”

“I won’t sit back and do nothing.”

Seon declared it as her father shouted her name like a scream.

Her eyes shone more brightly than ever.

Prince Uijeong could only fall silent, as though every bit of his strength had left him in the face of that determination.

He knew it well.

Someone with eyes like hers could never be stopped.