7. Iseul
Yeongho stood before me, bothof us tucked behind a massive tree, its branches spread high above us in a shimmering green. He had finally agreed to help me enter the Royal Academy, and I wondered if it was solely because he found my face pleasing.
“Two guards are stationed at the gate,” Yeongho whispered, “and more are stationed around the academy. I will distract the guards, give you enough time to climb”—he pointed—“over there. That is the lowest point in the academy wall. It shouldn’t be too difficult to scale. Understood?”
I nodded. “Do any of the captured girls ever escape?”
“Do you want the truth?”
“Yes.”
“One girl managed to escape with her father, but they didn’t get past the fortress gate. The king placed the entire capital on lockdown to recapture her. Another girl ran away with her family to the mountains to hide, but they were all found one by one and killed. There is no escape, and to even attempt one will result in bloodshed. So I hope you are not planning to flee with your sister. You’ll need a better plan.”
“I have another plan,” I whispered. “I simply want to see her today.”
“Good. Go over that wall.” He twirled his finger, as though whirling my imaginary figure over the barrier. “Once you’re on the other side, you will see an establishment with a sign that reads ‘servant hall.’ There should be a few uniforms within to help you blend in. From there, you will have to pass through two guarded gates. One in the west, then a second in the south, which will take you to the main courtyard where the king hosts his parties.”
“Do you think the king is there right now?”
“When the king is not hunting, he is almost always debauching at the Royal Academy.”
I studied the suspiciously helpful jester. His face was turned away, offering only a crescent of his strongly carved features. His large ears added a mischievous charm to his otherwise manly veneer.
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“I scouted the academy whenever I had the chance to perform, so I know this place well. Families sometimes pay me to get them in to see their wives and daughters.”
“I have nothing to pay you with. I have lost everything—”
“I do not want payment from you.”
“Then… why are you helping me?”
He straightened, then glanced over his shoulder. “Give me your story. That is what I want.”
I blinked. “Begging your pardon?”
“A good story will feed me through the winter, and I think you have one. A pretty girl searching for her beloved older sister… that would wring a few tears out of my audience.” He let out a sigh at my expression. “You look bewildered. The life of a jester is a miserable one, you see. The Bureau of Performance barely feeds us. So we perform in villages whenever we can to earn a few extra coins. If I can find a good story and have it performed… As I said, a good story could feed the troupe for months.”
“My story…” I cast a nervous glance at the wall, the one I was to climb over. Time was slipping away. I hung my cloak on a low branch. “I need to leave now.”
“Of course, of course.” Yeongho waved his hand. “You are staying at the Red Lantern Inn. Expect to see me soon for the story you owe me.” Before I could protest, he touched my wrist. “Remember. Once inside, do not move in haste. Be like the mountain. Move silently and cautiously.”
With that, he was off, rushing toward the guards. “The killer! He has struck again. Come quick, before he gets away!” The guards hesitated for the barest moment before yelling at him to stop as they chased after him, leaving the wall clear for me.
The moment had finally arrived. I might see her again, my sister.
Yeongho’s words echoed. You must love her very dearly.
I had believed, once, that my greatest desire in life was that of prosperity. But Suyeon’s absence had cast such a gloom over all my fantasies of returning to our old life, safely tucked within a mansion. Her absence had stripped me bare, down to the very sinew of my being, and I had no choice but to face the truth: I did love my sister. The same way I had loved my parents, the same love that had left me bedridden with grief and depression, the love that left me haunted and sleepless many nights still. More than ever, now, I was afraid of this love for her, afraid of the intolerable agony that came with loving anyone at all.
I touched Mother’s ring hanging from my neck, drawing courage against my rising panic. “I will bring her home, eomonni.”
With all the speed I could muster, I dashed toward the lowest point of the wall and leaped. Grabbing hold of the black tiles, I hoisted myself higher, struggling to even lift myself. My shoulder blazed with pain, the blood-clotted wound threatening to tear open. But I managed to hook my leg over the top. I landed on the other side, and memories of Older Sister followed me in.
Mother had told me that when I was an infant, Older Sister would crouch before the thick blanket upon which I lay, placing her small hand over my beating heart, and I would lock my pudgy arms and legs around her wrist, as though to anchor her against me forever.
I had clung to her in my younger days, watching and emulating her. I had learned to crawl and walk too soon for my mother’s liking, determined to follow after my sister, who appeared to me like a butterfly flitting from one flower to the next. My dimpled, plump fingers would grab at everything she possessed. All her dresses had appeared the prettiest. All her hairpins had glittered like the sparkling of sunlit waves. And when I was older, I had followed the way she laughed, lips pressed tight, her chest shaking, eyes crinkled at the corners. I had even tried to read more books, hoping that in doing so I might come to think and speak like my learned and brilliant sister.
Then I had grown up.
“Focus,” I whispered, trying to push past the dizzying memories. “Focus.”
It was quiet here. Mountain mist billowed across the yard and crouched under flared eaves. I felt myself floating along with it, right into the building marked SERVANT HALL. Everything was a blur, but my legs were rushing, my hands scrambling, and soon I found a spare uniform—several, in fact—folded neatly within a chest. I shrugged into the turquoise blue jacket and deep blue skirt, the uniform loose enough to accommodate the dress I already wore. Then I stepped out.
I forced myself to walk calmly, steadily through both sets of gates as Yeongho had directed, passing by the guards, who barely noticed me, seeing only a harmless servant girl. As I stepped into the main courtyard, I froze.
A parade of women filled the open space. Hundreds of women were playing instruments and dancing at the center, long sleeves fluttering through the air. Hundreds upon hundreds of them arranged in rows. And the king gazed upon them while lounging before his banquet table. His head lolled from side to side, an intoxicated smirk curling his lips. I have devoured these girls, his satisfied expression seemed to whisper. Their bones are ashes between my teeth.
I moved from pillar to pillar, examining each face. No one looked familiar, and at the same time, every woman appeared the same. Their faces were all powdered white, their eyebrows shaped like willow leaves, lips painted the color of peach blossoms, and their eyes—their eyes were dark and empty pits. They reminded me of statues, all crafted to be identical, with no uniqueness, no soul.
Please do not be here, I prayed.
The longer I studied each woman, the more difficult it became to tell them apart. I might have passed by my sister without knowing it—
A flash of drifting hair caught the corner of my eye.
On instinct, I glanced back, and I spotted a tall young woman with a familiar birthmark on her temple. Her gaze was trained on the floor, her arms hanging limp by her side, and there was a look in her eyes I had never seen before. They seemed the eyes of a frightened yet weary girl clinging to the edge of a cliff, her grip slipping, finger by finger. The eyes of a girl who believed no one would come for her. That she was alone.
Suyeon. My Suyeon.
Hands trembling, I moved behind the row of women, picked up a pebble, and flicked it in her direction.
Nothing.
I took another pebble and cast it her way.
She turned slowly. A bruise the shape of a handprint wrapped around her throat.
How could he—
Howdare he—
Pools of liquid fire burned in my chest. That was my sister, a girl raised by the most loving hands, a girl who had never been struck or even pinched, now bruised by violence. Hands trembling, I discreetly gestured for her to approach. As her gaze met mine, a momentary glimmer of recognition passed through them before her features stiffened into a pale and terrified mask.
Older Sister!I wanted to scream. I am here!
She gestured back at me, a small yet violent swish of her hand. Leave!
It was reckless, but I stepped out of the shadows and bowed before her. “My lady, you have been summoned,” I said vaguely. The courtesans did not look twice my way, and surely, in a parade of over a thousand women, no one would notice Older Sister’s brief absence.
“This way,” I whispered as I took her arm and, with a firm tug, led her back the way I’d come. She resisted at first, then trailed me like a wilted flower, the way she neither followed nor pushed me away. Once we reached the gate, I thought the guard would let me pass, but he stopped us.
“Where is this courtesan going?” his voice boomed.
I faltered. “Where is she going…?” I had not planned for this.
“The lavatory,” my sister whispered. “Please, my stomach is hurting.”
We offered the same excuse at the next guarded gate, and soon I was urging my sister across the courtyard to the Servant Hall, and there she stood, so quiet. She looked foreign, stranger-like, half cloaked in shadows.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered, sounding different, too. Colder. Detached. “Are you mad?”
“What do you think? I came to see you.”
“Return home. And do not come looking for me again.”
“What do you mean?” I cried.
“I am not returning home.”
“What is the matter with you? How could you ever expect me to leave you here?”
Silence unraveled around us, and my dangling question suddenly appeared comical.
“How could I ever expect it?” she repeated, the lines of her face hardening. “We lived together for two years, and do you know I felt alone the entire time?”
“I am sorry.” My voice broke, my eyes stinging with tears. “And I will apologize ten thousand times over once I return you home—”
“No. You can and you must leave me behind.” She twisted herself free from my grip. The remaining ounce of color drained from her, accentuating the angry purple bruise around her throat. And there was a distracting scent rising from her, of musk and salty skin, of overripe fruits and oppressive sweetness. “And even if you asked me to leave with you this very moment, I would not.”
“Why are you saying this? Please. I have a plan—”
“I do not wish to hear it.”
“Well, you will hear it! I refuse to have come all this way for naught. I will find the killer, the one King Yeonsan is searching for so desperately. And I will strike a bargain with the king. I am going to ask for you in return—”
“You are a mere girl. Nothing you do will bring me home,” she said coolly. “There are over a thousand women here who wish to return home but cannot. This is the way of life for us. We are born to be devoured.” Her gaze looked so faraway now, drifting further and further, until what stood before me was not my own sister but a shell. “It is fine. It is fine. This is our fate. We must be silent even when we are in pain; we must endure.”
Her words lodged in my stomach, cold as a brick of ice. She was still alive, yet she stood before me like a woman murdered, as though the king, in making her his, had plunged a knife through her heart.
I reached out. “Older Sister—”
She flinched away from me. “Go.”
Footsteps crunched outside the Servant Hall.
“You must leave now,” the shell whispered. “Find Uncle Choi Ikjun. He may not be our uncle by blood relation, but he was closer to Father than any of his own brothers. He recognized me in court and helped me send a letter to Grandmother. He will find a way to return you home. Perhaps you will finally marry. You can still reclaim the life you always wanted, with a hundred servants at your beck and call.”
The footsteps creaked down the hallway, advancing in our direction.
“Older Sister,” I begged, “I am not leaving until you promise me this. Stay alive—”
“Hwang Boyeon!” She called me by my proper name only when in a fury. “Even if there was a chance that you’d keep your promise, I wouldn’t want you to.” She shoved me over to the back window and unlatched it. “Go, go now. I will never forgive you if you die. Forget about me, Iseul-ah.”
She shoved me out the window, and I landed roughly in the dirt, just as the door slid open.
“What was that?” came a man’s voice.
“N-nothing,” my sister muttered.
“But I heard something—”
A bloodcurdling scream punctured the air, coming from beyond the Royal Academy walls.
“What is happening?” my sister whispered.
“Another arrest being made. No matter. I saw you rush off… Why are you here?”
I froze by the window, a feeling of dread coiled in my stomach; I peeked into the room. It was a middle-aged man dressed in the uniform of a government official. He reminded me of a maggot. So pale, so slimy.
“I will escort you back to the main courtyard,” he said.
Older Sister nodded, hurrying toward the door, but before she made it outside, Maggot grabbed her waist. Brushing aside a strand of her hair, he leaned forward and whispered, “You look beautiful when you cry. No wonder the king wants you. And, to be sure, you ought to consider it an honor that he has shown you favor.”
My sister kept her back straight, her chin held high, maintaining her perfect composure as ever. But now I noticed the slight tremor in her hand, the way her jaw was clenched, and I knew what she was feeling: han. The feeling of outrage, the vicious urge for vengeance to right the wrong, pierced by the acute pain and grief of knowing our overwhelming odds at ever claiming justice.
Older Sister gripped her fingers into a fist, and sweat beaded down her face as Maggot’s lustful grin widened.
As Suyeon finally left with the man, I realized my hands, too, were curled into fists.
I climbed over the Royal Academy wall in a red daze. I wished to claw out Maggot’s eyes. I stormed toward a crowd that had gathered around a screaming voice.
“I b-b-b-beg you!” the female voice wailed. It was the girl from earlier. A young woman who looked around my sister’s age lay sprawled on the ground, scrambling away from a chehongsa officer in his bloodred uniform. “Let me go home! Let me go home to my mother!”
I meant to walk by, as I had always been taught to do before. Mother and Father had bade me ignore the cries that erupted from the other side of our mansion walls. Their desire for us had been to climb upward, as high as we could, away from the violence of life. Marriage had therefore been their primary concern. Marriage is not a matter of love, Mother and Father would often emphasize. Love cannot shield you, my daughters, but a powerful family can. Always seek to align yourself to those with influence. They must have always known that we were in danger of being crushed by the king’s wrath.
Yet as I walked toward an alley, something sharp pricked me awake. Splintered wood from an abandoned cart; it had left a bleeding cut on my wrist as I’d brushed by.
This is our fate, came Older Sister’s despondent words. We must be silent even when we are in pain.
I turned. Beyond the crowd, I glimpsed Older Sister again, as though she was the one lying on the ground—the purple bruise around her throat, her skin coated in the lustful stare of men, her eyes hollow and hopeless.
Something cracked in me.
I broke off a piece of wood from the cart, then rushed through the crowd. I kept shoving, shoving, shoving, until the human wall opened onto a red-robed officer. He was kneeling almost on top of the struggling girl, twisting her arms behind her back, tying her wrists together with rope.
“Let her go,” I barely managed to choke out.
The officer grabbed the girl by her hair, lifting her up.
I was too dizzy to think straight. “I said leave her alone, you filthy boar!”
He turned to look.
I swung my arms as hard as I could.
The chipped wood ripped across skin; blood splattered across my own face.
I grabbed the girl and hauled her to her feet. “Run!”
I whirled around and raised the stick once again. The groaning officer looked up, his cheek torn and bleeding profusely. I could not move. My breath felt caught in the air.
“Inyeona!” the officer swore, drawing out his sword.
I flinched before death—then the spectators surged forward in a riot. Peasants grabbed the officer, twisted his arm around. Others grabbed any item they could find and threw it at him: stones and rotten vegetables. I looked around for the girl; she must have managed to escape.
“You need to run!” It was that jester, Yeongho, shoving me forward. “Get as far away as you can!”
Just as I had stumbled to the edge of the mob, a hand caught my wrist.
Everything happened so quick, nothing registered except a few sensations and sights—the hand around my wrist was calloused, and we were moving quickly, past the crowd, past more crowds, then shadows, narrow walls, dense with more people. Then solitude.
“How will you help your sister,” came a familiar voice, “if you are dead?”
I blinked, and the face came into focus. It was the swordsman from the inn: Wonsik. And we were in a small, empty yard, surrounded by the backs of a few shops. Beyond, the sound of police whistles pierced through the market noise.
“Patrolmen infest the capital,” he continued. “If you’d stayed a moment longer, you would have been arrested and executed tomorrow, without a trial.”
My mouth opened, but I failed to find my voice. It all felt like a fever dream. I tried again, and at last asked, “Why are you here?”
“I went to attend a police interrogation, and Madam Yul said I might find you near the Royal Academy. You certainly drew attention to yourself.” He tossed something soft into my arms; it was my jangot. “I found it nearby and recognized it.”
“Why…?” My voice nearly failed again. “Why were you looking for me?”
“Madam Yul begged me to make sure you were alive. She told me about your wound. An accident in the forest.” He watched me steadily, and when I nodded, he said, “An accident that very much appeared like an injury by arrow, according to Yul.”
“As I said, it was an accident—”
“Who shot you?”
An uneasy sensation unfurled in my chest. “No one,” I said at first, reluctant to divulge the truth. But then I became curious. He was hiding something. “I mean, someone. A prince, I believe; but it happened all too fast.”
He shook his head. “Well, steer clear of forests and princes. Put on your veil.” Wonsik finally looked away, walking over to peer down the alley. “We cannot hide here forever. And I found your travel sack.”
“My travel sack?”
“I will return it to you at the inn.”
Eager to lay hands on my san-jo-in seeds, the promises of sleep, I quickly pulled the cloak over my head, wincing in pain as I did. “Did you find a bag of coins inside?” I asked, hoping to finally pay Madam Yul.
“No. When the bag was found, it appeared rummaged through.”
My heart sank. My hands would soon know hard toil.
“Did you see her?” he asked, quietly now.
“Who?” My voice came out flat and cold.
“Your sister.”
The mere mention of her pierced me like a knife. “I did.”
“Reclaiming your sister from the king is no easy task, nangja. You will need friends.”
“I have not come to the capital to make friends.”
“You will not always be the wisest, nor the strongest, nor the bravest. That is why we need friends. They will guide you down the right path, no matter how dark it grows.”
“Such friends do not exist,” I snapped.
No friend had stood by Older Sister and me amid our growing troubles. Family might cleave to you in times of hardship, as my sister had, for we were bound by blood. But not friends. What reason had they to remain loyal? Friends fled in the midst of chaos, and I did not blame them.
“And when you find such a friend,” Wonsik continued, lowering the brim of his straw hat, “you fight for them, and they will fight for you. But alone, you will not survive in the capital. Either defeat or death will crush you, and you will never bring your sister home.”