Chapter 19

Bun Seo-jeong and Bun Gajin had come to blows.

Still unable, as children, to control their immature tempers, they were shouting over who was the greater, in a quarrel that — for all it played out within a family of high influence — was strikingly petty and primal. Inho watched them with an expression of interest.

Before long, as word of the commotion seemed to spread, Bun Seongsu himself came running.

“You brats! Is it a fight every other day with you?”

“F–father…”

“A fight? I nearly got myself killed by a horse’s kick trying to save him, and instead of gratitude he picks an argument!”

“Silence! Have you no shame before the retainers!”

While Bun Seongsu’s two children took a scolding, his attendants herded away the injured martial men and the palace staff who had gathered at the ruckus. Inho quietly turned his back and made for the stables.

The cause of all this uproar, Danwollin, stood perfectly docile under Inho’s hand. Stroking the horse’s thick mane, Inho spoke.

“I’ve chosen your name. Since you fled with me, it’s only right you take a new one. You leapt over cliffs like a qilinⁱ — I’ll call you Danwollin. Do you like it?”

Danwollin tossed his head this way and that and pranced in apparent delight. Inho was pleased at first, but by the time they had gone halfway back to the stable and the horse was still at it, he lost patience.

“You’re making me dizzy, enough of that.”

The horse gave a low phurr and flicked its tail lazily.

He laid Seol properly upon the bed after she had fallen asleep reading.

“Mm… Brother?”

“Go back to sleep. It’s late.”

Yawning so wide her mouth nearly split, Seol quickly drifted off again.

Looking at her brought to mind, for some reason, the image of the two siblings from earlier in the day, and a small smile tugged at Inho’s lips.

They seemed closer than I’d thought.

He went on placidly with the thought, knowing full well that if either of them had heard it, they’d have bristled.

For Inho — who had lived in a place where killing one’s own blood was nothing if it meant gaining power — today’s spectacle had little in it to surprise him.

Fighting over influence was natural enough; he had seen many who became mortal enemies bent on killing each other. The imperial princes, to begin with, were no different.

If one truly wished for the position of seongsu, it was wiser not to reveal it until fully prepared — easier that way to work in secret.

But Bun Gajin and Bun Seo-jeong, though they shouted that they would be the next seongsu, spoke as though taking for granted that the other would naturally be present in that future. Bun Seongsu, too, even as he scolded his foolish children, seemed never to consider the possibility that they might someday enact the tragedy of kin slaying kin.

Inho forced his mind away from the tragic future that rose unbidden in his thoughts.

A horse will make Seol’s life easier.

Danwollin was for himself to ride when departing for the Mumyeongbu, but the horse gifted to him earlier was meant solely for Seol.

He would see to it that even without him, she could live well on her own — give her a safe place to stay, put a trustworthy elder at her side, provide her with enough wealth to stand alone. And once he killed Bae Honyoung and removed the final threat, then he could leave with an easy heart.

The only regrettable part was that the one place meeting all his conditions was none other than Hwalwon Palace.

He had stayed here but fifteen days, yet no palace he had known in his past life could compare. Prince Eunhun, as lord of the domain, was magnanimous in nature and bore the presence of a hero. Bun Hoegyeong, the seongsu, was somewhat reserved, but devotedly loyal to the prince and deeply affectionate toward the palace and its people. Though the two siblings gave headaches over succession matters, both the prince and the seongsu were in their prime, and no great trouble loomed in the near term.

Manufacturing medicinal prescriptions for the whole empire and dispatching physicians to other regions meant that Hwalwon Palace’s coffers were always full. The economy was not commercially vibrant since most needs were met internally, but in turn there were no disruptive private factions or rampant crime, making it an ideal, peaceful place to live. And with Prince Eunhun already holding him in regard, there was no need to strive to win favor.

If not for the annihilation, there’d be no place better than Hwalwon Palace.

Prince Eunhun was neither the type to plot treason nor did he have any motive for it. Inho knew this all the more certainly from having seen with his own eyes men who truly yearned to rebel.

Which meant only that they had been trapped and framed… but by whom, and for what purpose?

As he stroked Seol’s hair, Inho’s hand went still. A thought that seemed absurd flashed across his mind.

What if Hwalwon Palace could avoid its fate?

He would have to flee before the Chupo-ryeong² was issued in the winter of Jinun 3 — but there was no better place to leave Seol than here.

Please, just Seol… only Seol, I entrust to you…

His mother’s voice in her final moments brushed against his ear — the last request of someone he had failed to protect.

“…And there’s no reason not to.”

When he lifted his head, his eyes gleamed.

There was still time before events came to pass. He needed to learn more about Hwalwon Palace. As quickly as possible.

Hwalwon Palace would be wiped out within three years. If his reconstruction of the timeline was correct, it would be in the winter of Jinun Year 3, around the time the order for his arrest would be issued.

No matter how he scoured his memory, he recalled no rumor of treason before entering the imperial palace. He had heard that the Sixth Prince Tae Piyeon’s faction was small and that he lived quietly — but if treason could erase an entire palace, its ripples would have reached even him at Gwangya Palace, no matter how tightly the court sealed lips.

Inho was sure Hwalwon Palace had been destroyed during that half-year that he, newly taken into the imperial court, had been immersed in education.

“They called it the Penalty of Erasure of Records…”

Erasure of Records was regarded as the most dreadful of punishments for treason: the execution of three generations of the accused’s kin, the prohibition of retrieving their bodies for burial, the purging of their names from all records, and the silencing — on pain of death — of any who dared speak of the incident. Injustice could never be cleared.

For a palace of this scale, charged with the national duty (gukyeok) of medicine, to be thus obliterated from history meant this was no mere case of a prince’s death.

“Treason against the emperor…”

Murmuring the words like a groan, Inho slowly dragged a hand down his face. The timetable felt all the heavier.

Pressing his lips into a tight line, he lowered his eyes to the drawing spread beneath him: a crude map sketched from memory. His draftsmanship was poor, but so long as it was legible, it served.

In the center of Taeseong’s broad lands lay the capital, with the myriad palaces scattered across the realm. In the northern range, isolated, sat Hwalwon Palace — safe for now, but poorly placed for gathering intelligence.

I’ll need to leave for a bit.

His eyes, sharp as blades, swept over the names of places on the map one by one.

He had resolved to go beyond Hwalwon Palace’s walls, but with no proof of identity and nothing to his name, setting out at once would be pointless. He knew this better than anyone, having once fled to Gwangya Palace himself.

Fortunately, Hwalwon Palace received many visitors — and thus, many carriages departed from it. Physicians were dispatched to other regions, too; he would time his move to coincide with such an occasion.

When he turned and opened the door, Seol was lying on the veranda, working on her homework from the Pharmaceutical Hall.

“Seol, are you finished with your homework?”

“Not yet, why, Brother?”

She did not look up from her book. They had been praising her quickness lately, and it seemed she had taken to the studies with enthusiasm. Smiling faintly at her diligence, he said,

“Since you’ve no class today, would you spend the time without playing with your friends?”

“Everyone’s busy with chores today. Yeon-do and San-yeong are there, they asked me to come but I said no — I didn’t want you to be lonely.”

“Then shall we go together?”

“Really?”

Feigning disinterest, she nonetheless set aside her book instantly when he agreed, springing to her feet.

On the way to the Pharmaceutical Hall with Seol, Inho kept running into familiar palace staff. Each time, they exchanged greetings, and at some point it struck him — when had he come to know so many people?

Watching Seol run ahead to greet her friends, his expression darkened slightly.

When he had believed himself unconnected to their fate, their deaths had been nothing to him; but now, entertaining the thought of averting Hwalwon Palace’s destruction made him feel the weight of what they would face.

Letting out a quiet sigh, he reminded himself of his purpose here and made his way to the courtyard where the staff had gathered.

“May I lend a hand?”

The sudden appearance of Inho set the assembled into a small uproar.

More of them were strangers than acquaintances, and the novelty of a new face, when they were bored, had them each remarks as they sized him up.

“Is that Seol’s brother?”

“Yeah — the one working in Inyeondang, right?”

“Heard he was badly hurt, but he looks fine now.”

“And as handsome as they say. Seo Jaegwan! Don’t just stand there, give him a spot.”

“What for? Let the boy play with the others — I’ll bring him a drink instead.”

Seo Jaegwan waved him off, but Inho replied with a small smile.

“I’m waiting for my sister, and I’m bored with nothing to do.”

When he actually rolled up his sleeves to look for work, Seo Jaegwan had no choice but to make room for him.

Footnotes:

1. Qilin (기린) — A mythical creature in East Asian lore, often depicted as a hooved beast of auspicious omen, here used figuratively to connote grace and power.

2. Chupo-ryeong (추포령) — An imperial arrest warrant or order for capture, often broadcast nationwide in historical settings.