Chapter 2
The eyes tightly shut beneath thick brows trembled. On I-rip’s face there was no longer the tearful longing or the childish gaze. Only the expression of a predator who had endured and survived stubbornly remained, and in it a beast-like stare was etched.
Tap, tap — beyond his bulging veins the oil lamp’s light seeped into his skin. Even that small warmth was unbearable, and I-rip twisted his head away.
From beyond his ear came the sound of the desert wind howling through the sand.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince, did you dream the same dream again?”
As I-rip accumulated years and time, he had not stayed alone through those passing days like Su-oh had. Su-oh, who now stood beside the grown I-rip, had reached the age of a young man.
When he stepped closer, leaving the book he’d been reading, the scar at the corner of his eye, previously hidden in shadow, became more distinct.
Who had said time is a cure? Memories and wounds that time could not erase only grew darker.
“It’s an old matter now….” I-rip twisted his lips in self-mockery and rose to his feet.
The candle hadn’t burned even a span; he must have slept at most half an hour. Bones and muscles, stiff from hours atop the horse, felt as if they were twisting back into place.
“We’ll soon set foot in the territory of Hoan. How far remains to Simryeon, the capital?”
“We should arrive sometime tomorrow. There you can rid yourself of the long fatigue from travel.”
“Before that, I want to check on the people of Geonryung still left in the provinces.”
“…I don’t know. Whether the princess of the Ongju will permit it.”
I-rip shook his head and scattered the lamp’s light with his eyes.
“Isn’t it something you can do without telling them? Can a man who can’t even discipline his own wife truly be called a husband?”
Before Su-oh’s faint smile had completely faded, I-rip’s shadow drew nearer.
“Your Highness…?”
Before Su-oh could stop him, the hilt of the long sword hanging at I-rip’s waist slid open with a whisper. I-rip spun like a martial artist in one smooth, one-and-a-half turns.
As the translucent outer robe fluttered like wet petals, the sword’s sharp tip scratched across the wooden lattice with a rattling sound.
When the gap opened weakly and a shadow collapsed inward, I-rip twisted his wrist and horizontally sliced through the lattice bar.
“Tell them no one is to enter my chambers.”
He flicked the tip of the sword and a handful of hair snapped free and fell.
Su-oh nodded as if understanding, accepted the sword from I-rip’s hand, and fastened it to his own waist.
Through the slit in the lattice, in the dim corridor, a woman stood holding a medicinal broth with trembling fear and sobs.
“Ongju-ja-ga said that if Your Highness the Crown Prince is not presented tonight, we are not to expect to return alive.”
“Ah.”
I-rip pressed his palm to his forehead and sighed deeply as if exhausted by annoyance.
“So the Ongju’s word weighs heavier than my orders.”
“Th-that’s not it… The girl’s mother has fallen ill….”
At the word “mother,” I-rip’s thick brow twitched.
“Drink it.”
Brushing up the hair tickling his forehead, I-rip spoke coldly, and the woman’s body trembled for a moment.
“Eh?”
“Have her taste that precious medicinal broth first.”
The bowl trembled wildly in the woman’s quivering hands.
“How dare you make me wait.”
The woman hesitated briefly, then brought the bowl to her lips and drank carefully.
The surface of the dark-red tonic rippled and receded.
The woman swallowed and looked up at I-rip. As if bewitched by the dark pupils of his lowered gaze, she extended the bowl again.
While I-rip’s eyes flickered briefly gray, the woman, unable even to swallow the breath in her mouth, shut her lips.
“There is something you should have known before you betrayed the Ongju.”
“Y-your Highness…? What do you mean… The g-girl is—”
I-rip slammed the bowl the woman had lifted down onto the floor and picked up the most sharply broken shard.
“I do not drink medicines handed to me carelessly by others. It is an old habit of those who are close to me.”
The woman barely blinked as the shard slowly rose until it touched her throat.
“Who are you?”
“I—I am…!”
In that brief moment while I-rip’s voice hung and fell into the air, the woman’s face went as white as paper.
She shoved I-rip with all her strength, snatched a fragment of the broken bowl from the floor, and with all her might cut her palm. The wound split open like a red handprint.
“My name—hear it in the next world!”
At that instant the oil lamp was violently overturned and the end of the tent caught fire.
Through the ripped slit the sandstorm forced its way in and scattered the book I-rip had been reading into tatters.
Sand stung Su-oh’s eyes; he blinked them forcefully and waved his hand, searching for I-rip.
“Y-your Highness, where are you!”
Fire. Red fire.
Sparks blooming like flower petals. Flames spreading with intent to leave nothing behind.
I-rip felt his mind go blank white.
“Heh heh… I don’t know your habits, but I know your weakness!”
The woman who had leapt onto I-rip laughed, brandishing the shard.
As red droplets of blood fell across her pale skin, she reached out and smeared her bloody hand over I-rip’s face.
Droplets clung to his skin. Instinctively, I-rip closed his lips and held his breath.
“Eek…!”
When blood could not seep past his tightly closed mouth, the woman forced her bloody hand against his lips and smeared them.
The handsome man’s face daubed in red did not contort; rather, it seemed peaceful.
In fact, extreme contempt can resemble indifference.
When the crease between I-rip’s brows tightened for a moment, the woman sighed long and deeply as though letting everything go. Then without hesitation she raised her hand a little higher.
It happened in an instant. Before his heavy lashes could close, the woman’s droplets wetted his eyes and ran into the veins.
“Your Highness!”
Su-oh, who had finally extinguished the flames and found I-rip, approached without hesitation.
The woman, with a hollowed-out expression and a look that seemed relieved yet slightly fearful, bit her lip and slit her own throat with the shard.
That, too, took place in the blink of an eye.
I-rip, his eyes stained red, looked up past the fallen woman to the deep, dark blue sky.
The sun always rises in the same place, so one could not lose direction.
As Su-oh had said, it looked likely they could reach Simryeon before the day ended.
Hoan’s summer was boisterous. Perhaps because the capital sat in the center surrounded by sand deserts, it was extremely hot and water was scarce.
They had a tradition of boiling even muddy water to make it drinkable, so the habit of drinking tea was common.
Was it different in the imperial palace? The scent of brewed tea saturated the air.
Clack — a teacup shook slightly in the shade of the awning.
Or perhaps it was Yeo-ro’s gaze that trembled.
The season had withered the vegetation; leaves, exhausted by the heat, dropped off. Yeo-ro stood under the overhang of the pavilion, barely in the shade, just outside the scorching sun.
Her hands trembled and her head swam; the laughter of honored guests floated faintly like a ripple.
Jeong Gu-bi, who watched Yeo-ro biting her tongue to hold on to what little sanity remained, narrowed her eyes and smiled.
“Even if Heo Sang-jae has been absent-minded, how could he forget decorum at Simryeon, the capital of Hoan, and especially in the most solemn of palaces? The palace maid who broke a branch in the cold palace trembles and has lost her appetite in this season.”
“That matter is clearly Heo Sang-jae’s and Princess Yeo-ro’s fault; I will impose an appropriate punishment.”
Only then did the Empress slowly move, beckoning Yeo-ro into the pavilion’s shade.
Their golden armor plates clicked sharply against one another.
Princess Yeo-ro finally straightened and could stand fully.
“What punishment would be suitable…?”
The Empress rattled the armor plates and pretended to contemplate, clearing her throat.
