RS~02

CHAPTER~02

The Empress Dowager didn’t offer even a single word of comfort to a mother who had just lost her child.

Instead, she blamed Su-ryeon.

But Su-ryeon could not speak back to her cold, heartless mother-in-law.

“More importantly—where is His Majesty?”

The Empress Dowager searched for her son, the Emperor.

Now that she mentioned it… Su-ryeon realized her husband had vanished sometime earlier.

“He must be busy with affairs of state and is likely in his office. Shall I go look for him?”

One of the court ladies beside the Empress Dowager asked. The Empress Dowager turned, her gaze landing on the Empress.

“Tsk, tsk. Even when his daughter has died, your husband devotes himself to his duties.”

Her eyes toward Su-ryeon were sharp and full of disdain.

“And yet the nation’s mother stands there like a fool, vacant and useless… How could I *not* worry for the future of our imperial house?”

Su-ryeon’s husband had always been consumed by work.

He had even been absent from the palace right up until Sehee’s death.

Su-ryeon knew this.

She knew she was not just a grieving mother—but the Empress of this country.

She knew she had a duty to support the man who ruled as sovereign.

So when the Empress Dowager scolded her, Su-ryeon forced herself to rise.

“…I will go.”

As though she had been waiting for that answer, the Empress Dowager made no effort to stop her.

Su-ryeon’s steps as she left Taewonjeon were unsteady.

The wind was still cold this time of year, but she felt none of it.

She simply walked, empty-minded, toward the place where her husband should be.

She did not know how long she wandered like that when—

“Su-ryeon.”

Her steps halted at once.

She lifted her head toward the familiar voice, and her face visibly stiffened.

“Iheon…?”

It had been nearly a decade since she’d last seen that face, yet she recognized him instantly.

He had been her childhood friend—and once, the person she had promised a future with.

“How are you… here?”

After the sudden deaths of the late Emperor Yeonjong and his Empress, he had left Korea entirely.

She had thought he would never return.

The shock lasted only a moment.

A part of her—a desperate, lonely part—longed to lean on someone, anyone, and she took a step toward him without thinking.

But the instant she remembered where she stood—inside the imperial palace—she froze and bowed her head.

Tears burned behind her eyes.

In this moment she wanted nothing more than to cling to him and weep without dignity.

But she could not.

“Su-ryeon,” Iheon said again, stepping toward her.

Su-ryeon took a step back and murmured, “Thank you for coming such a long way. Her Majesty the Empress Dowager is at Taewonjeon. You should greet her. Then… I’ll be going.”

Before he could respond, Su-ryeon fled.

If she stayed a moment longer, she felt she would forget every ounce of dignity she had left as Empress.

She hurried across the palace grounds for what felt like ages.

Only when her legs began to ache did she look up.

“…This isn’t…”

She wasn’t standing before her husband’s office at all.

She was standing before Hyangwonjeong—the pavilion where her daughter had drowned.

She must have wandered here without realizing.

The moonlight cast a pale sheen over the black, still water.

Su-ryeon turned her head away, her chest twisting painfully.

Thinking of her daughter dying here—alone—made her heart tear apart all over again.

She forced her gaze away.

*I should go.*

She didn’t know how much time had passed, but if she tarried any longer, her mother-in-law would berate her again.

Just as she turned to walk toward her husband’s office—

There was movement from the direction of Hyangwonjeong.

Su-ryeon blinked and tilted her head.

“That’s strange. There shouldn’t be anyone there.”

Ever since the princess’s death, Hyangwonjeong and the bridge leading to it, Chwihyanggyo, had been closed off.

Even if they hadn’t been, who would willingly visit the site of a death that occurred only days ago?

A chill of unease crept over her.

Almost in a trance, Su-ryeon stepped toward the sound.

She quieted her footsteps until even she couldn’t hear them.

And then—from inside the pavilion—a sound emerged.

A woman’s sobbing.

“H-hic… What do I do, Your Majesty? I… I never imagined Her Highness the Princess would die like that…”

Su-ryeon froze.

She knew that voice.

It was Jeong-ah—the princess’s own nanny.

*Your Majesty…? In this palace, the only one she could be calling—*

Heart pounding, Su-ryeon leaned toward the slightly open door.

What she saw made her eyes widen.

“…!”

Her husband was holding the sobbing nanny in his arms, comforting her.

*What… what is this…?*

She tried to make sense of what she was seeing, but her thoughts shattered when she heard his voice.

“Don’t cry. It was nothing but an accident. It wasn’t your fault.”

“But if it becomes known that I took Her Highness to Hyangwonjeong because I wanted to meet Your Majesty in secret—!”

*What?*

Su-ryeon’s ears buzzed.

Had she heard that correctly?

*Sehee didn’t go to Hyangwonjeong of her own will?*

“That day… I wasn’t supposed to bring her. If only I hadn’t left her outside alone—none of this would have happened…!”

She left a five-year-old child alone.

By the water.

At the very edge of an unguarded bridge.

“So no one must ever know we met that day. Understand? As far as anyone knows, I wasn’t even in the palace, and you were playing hide-and-seek with Sehee.”

“Your Majesty…”

Jeong-ah wiped her tears against his chest as she leaned into him.

Su-ryeon’s face drained of all color.

*I thought no one was to blame for Sehee’s death…*

She had believed Jeong-ah was only indulging the princess’s wishes.

She had thought it was a tragic accident.

She had even blamed herself more than anyone else.

That was why she had accepted it when her husband slapped her before the palace staff.

Accepted it when her mother-in-law called her a child-eating monster.

*But Sehee died because those two were secretly meeting?*

Su-ryeon’s hands trembled violently.

*My daughter died because of them.*

Her rage boiled up from deep within, lodging in her throat—

“I’ll be expelled from the palace soon,” Jeong-ah whimpered.

Their conversation resumed.

“I failed to care for the princess properly… I’ll surely be punished…”

Her voice trembled with fear.

The moment she did, Lee Jun held her tightly, reassuring her.

“Don’t worry. You’re my woman. Who would dare expel the Emperor’s woman from the palace?”

Then he soothed her with honeyed words.

“There’s no way I’d let that happen. I only struck the Empress that day because I feared she might try to blame you. I had to keep that timid woman quiet.”

“Your Majesty…”

“And everyone around the Empress is on our side. Even Chief Lady Jeong, whom the Empress treats like her own sister, knows all about us.”

Chief Lady Jeong had been with Su-ryeon since her Crown Princess days—her closest confidante in the cold palace.

Su-ryeon shook her head in disbelief.

“No one is on the Empress’s side. So what do you have to fear?

Besides… you carry my child. No one can touch you.”

Jeong-ah let out a trembling, ecstatic whisper.

“I’m truly happy… that I can give Your Majesty the son you always wished for…”

Lee Jun wrapped his arms around her tightly as if he could not contain his joy.

“Yes. The son I’ve always wanted. Mother will be pleased—no one wanted a son more than she.”

Jeong-ah leaned her face against his chest, satisfied.

“I hope so… This child will fill the void Her Highness left behind.”