24. Daehyun
By the time they arrivedat the inn, the rain was coming down in sheets, drenching them to the bone. Puddles had flooded their quarters, and so they sought shelter in the kitchen.
Yul burst in as quick as the rain shower, hurriedly preparing them bowls of tea. “Tell me everything later,” she said, grabbing a tray of rain-catchers. “Wonsik-samchon! Help me bring some more of these! I can’t have the rain ruin all the rooms!”
Daehyun crouched before the clay stove and took a gulp of the tea, but he could taste nothing. His mind was elsewhere—on Iseul, huddled next to him, her features softened by the warm furnace light. His attention kept straying to her as she tied her damp hair back, exposing the length of her graceful throat and the delicate freckle under her left ear. He dragged his gaze away. Iseul was becoming a distraction.
“You have done your part,” he said coolly. “If you wish, you may return home. Should we succeed, I will bring your sister back to you.”
She shot a bewildered glance at him. “You know I cannot.”
“Do I?”
“My sister needs to know that I am here. I cannot leave until she is free.”
His fingers dug into the bowl. He wanted her to live, not die—this girl who had embraced him, her warmth still lingering in his memory. A warmth that had seeped under his skin.
“The Great Event might kill us all,” he warned quietly. “But if you leave now, your sister may still have a home to return to.”
She shrugged. “If I perish, I perish.”
He let out a sharp breath of irritation. “Could there be a woman less concerned about her life? Are you so unafraid of death that you would charge straight into it?”
“Of course I am afraid, but what I fear most is regret.”
They sipped at their tea, watching the furnace glow bright orange.
“What—” Daehyun hesitated, but he wanted to know her. “What is it you might regret?”
She sipped again, but the cup was empty. “I am still surprised Suyeon chose to write to me at all… after what I did to her.” Her hands tightened around the cup. “She is trapped in that godsforsaken palace, and I am the one who sent her there.”
He was stunned that she thought so. “You did not send your sister into the palace.”
“But it is my fault that she is there. We were never supposed to leave the hut, she and I,” Iseul whispered. “Yet I ran out after quarreling with her, and she followed me—right into his monstrous clutches.”
“It is not your fault that your sister was taken,” he said matter-of-factly. “It is the king’s fault for taking her.”
“But if it weren’t for me—”
“Sisters bicker and quarrel. They despise and love each other. You cannot stand each other, yet when the other bleeds, you bleed, too. That is family. So do not feel guilty for what occurred. None of it is your fault. Let the king, and the king alone, carry the weight of all his crimes. Do not fall victim to the king’s games. He enjoys—nay, he needs—to set people against one another, to set people up against their own selves.” He glanced down at his reflection in the tea. “He encourages the monstrosity in others to justify his own.”
She hesitated, then lowered her lashes as she asked, “Is that what His Majesty did to you? Your brothers…,” she began, only to stop. “Never mind.”
He stiffened, waiting to recoil, as he usually did. Yet at this moment, he realized he did not mind the idea of telling her his innermost thoughts.
“Do you know how Lady Jeong and her sons died?” he asked, slowly and quietly. “They were like family to me.”
“It is public knowledge—your foster brothers beat their mother to death.”
He did not flinch; he had repeated the scene in his mind too many times. “They did not know it was her, yet could not live with themselves. They wanted to save me, though. Lady Jeong had been as close to my birth mother as two loving sisters might be, and she’d always wanted her sons to protect me and treat me as family. And so they did.”
She glanced up at him, and he avoided her gaze.
“It is also public knowledge,” he said, “that I betrayed them. In a sense, I did. My brothers wanted to ensure that I gained the king’s favor, so they ran away when soldiers came to arrest them.”
“Did your brothers not carry out the king’s order? Why would they be arrested?”
“Because the king knew my brothers might try to seek revenge. And so my brothers feigned their escape and ordered me to prove my loyalty to the king by offering to capture them, dead or alive. The king agreed to this; it is his favored tactic, sending family members to capture their own. And so I did. My brothers let themselves be captured, and they told me to survive and seek revenge on their behalf.”
“Then that is not betrayal,” she said, looking relieved. “You were simply honoring your brothers’ wishes.”
He fell quiet. The urge to shield his vulnerabilities was strong, but in the gentle glow of firelight, he found a rare sense of security. Or perhaps it was her presence. “I ought to have died trying to save my family.”
She shook her head. “My mother was killed right before my eyes, and I ran away. I watched my father be executed while I hid on the hillside. What can we do but watch when the king shows his wrath? We are not generals with a thousand soldiers behind us. We were but mere children, you and I. We were wholly unprepared for such cruelty. And as you said to me, I say to you: Let the king, and the king alone, carry the weight of all his crimes.”
A silence settled, at first tense, then one filled with a sense of understanding. As if a page had been turned.
“I did not think, when we first met,” she whispered, “that you would one day offer me such wise counsel, and that you would ever think to confide in me.” Then she looked up at him with a deep, appreciative look. He noticed for the first time that her eyes were honey brown.
“My heart feels a little lighter,” she said softly, as a light smile flit across her lips.
He felt undone.
Before their conversation could continue, Wonsik rushed in, rain dripping off the brim of his straw hat. “A servant came from Official Choi’s household. It is an urgent letter arrived for you, daegam.”
Daehyun took a moment to read it and whispered, “Your uncle received word from Deputy Commander Park. Everyone is to gather at the House of Bright Flowers in one week’s time.”
“I wonder whom he is referring to by everyone,” Iseul murmured, glancing out the entrance. “Do you think my uncle has recruited other officials?”
Daehyun stared at the handwriting. For all his preparation, he had not truly imagined what it would be like to join in a real coup. Not the hypothetical one he and Hyukjin had discussed and theorized over for months.
Iseul abruptly reached for her neck. “I think you need this more than me. Here.” She untied a necklace holding a double ring—a garakji, likely her mother’s. “Consider this a talisman of sorts that will protect you.”
Hesitating, he finally accepted the trinket. “You are superstitious.”
“One must believe in something. And when the Great Event is over, and the kingdom rises anew, you must return and give that ring back to me. You had better, or I truly shall haunt you for all of eternity.”