Chapter 23 #2
“And power always invites conflict.”
Flower petals drifted downstream between the rocks.
Claire smiled sadly.
“But this place will never be forgotten.”
The maid watched her.
“You speak as though you have already seen it.”
Claire lowered her gaze.
“Maybe I have.”
For a long while, none of them spoke.
Only water.
Birdsong.
Wind through cedar branches.
At last Claire turned gently toward the maid.
“In the meantime,” she whispered, “we must find happiness where we can.”
The maid nodded.
Jaiho watched them both before finally saying,
“So… we simply do not discuss the tiger anymore.”
Claire laughed softly.
“There are poems about creatures like him. Legends. Folklore.”
She glanced toward the trees where he had vanished.
“But we know what we saw.”
Jaiho remained thoughtful.
“He may return.”
“He probably will.”
“That is not comforting.”
“No,” Claire admitted. “It isn’t.”
She rested one hand lightly over the crystal.
“One thing I know for certain…”
“The crystal always calls home.”
The maid frowned.
“Then why not return?”
Claire’s expression softened with quiet sorrow.
“Because if I return, it may lead the next powerful people directly to it.”
The truth settled heavily between them.
The maid looked down at her basket.
“So bringing the crystals to Silla… and to the bell…”
Claire nodded.
“It was diplomacy.”
Her eyes drifted toward the mountains.
“Protection.”
“An alliance meant to keep my own people safe.”
Jaiho finally understood.
“Not surrender.”
“Survival.”
Perhaps that was all kingdoms had ever truly been.
Groups of frightened people desperately trying to protect home before larger powers arrived.
Claire looked once more toward the distant cedar forest.
“Perhaps that is all many of us are in the end,” she murmured.
“Protectors of the places we came from.”
The kingdom entered spring beneath uneasy skies.
Though market roads remained crowded and temple bells still rang each morning across the lower districts, something subtle had changed beneath the surface of Silla.
People had begun listening too carefully.
Every dream mattered.
Every strange illness.
Every omen.
Every animal cry in the mountains.
The palace tried desperately to quiet the stories after the Night of the Screaming Bells, but fear travelled faster than any royal decree.
Especially among servants.
Especially among women.
Especially among those who whispered after dark.
Claire felt it immediately.
People bowed lower now when passing her.
Some avoided meeting her eyes entirely.
Others secretly touched prayer charms after she walked by.
The priestess had become less a person than an omen.
Meanwhile, the missing women had begun to change.
The first incident arrived quietly.
One of the former attendants assigned to a noble household near the eastern district began sleepwalking toward the sea.
Servants followed her one evening and found her standing knee-deep in black water at midnight, drawing unfamiliar symbols into the wet sand while whispering,
“The fires must be lit before the ships arrive.”
By morning she remembered none of it.
The second woman began hearing bells constantly.
Not ordinary bells.
Deep underwater bells.
She described them as an old bell buried beneath the sea itself.
Soon afterwards she stopped sleeping entirely.
The palace physicians called it exhaustion.
The monks called it resonance sickness.
The court scholars called it female hysteria.
Claire called it separation.
Then came the third.
The dangerous one.
Not violent.
Not possessed.
Broken.
She had once been among the quietest attendants, travelling near the rear of the caravan. Few even remembered her name before the dreams began.
Now servants claimed she stood motionless for hours with one ear pressed against stone walls.
When spoken to, she answered conversations that had not yet happened.
At night she filled entire rooms with drawings.
Dragons.
Waves.
Stars.
Spirals.
Burning coastlines.
And always—
nine circles.
Nine women.
Never twelve.
Nine circles.
Nine women.
Nine tones.
Nine resonances.
The palace physicians declared her unstable almost immediately.
The King quietly ordered her removed from public view.
Yet the moment the guards attempted to transport her away from the capital, every crystal within the temple began to scream again.
Not singing.
Screaming.
The sound rolled through the valleys and echoed into nearby villages.
Farmers abandoned their fields, believing demons had awakened beneath the mountains.
Inside the townhouse, Claire finally understood the terrible truth.
The women had never merely escorted the crystals.
They were part of the resonance itself.
Not individually powerful.
Not magical.
Connected.
Balanced.
A living harmonic system carried unknowingly through generations of ritual.
Separate them too far, and something within them fractured.
That evening, rain fell softly across the townhouse gardens.
Jaiho sat beside Claire beneath the open corridor, watching lantern light tremble across wet stone.
For a long while, neither spoke.
Six of the Nine remained within the townhouse.
Claire.
The two maids.
Jaiho.
Taejin.
Hanul.
The remaining women had been scattered through noble households and palace service.
Jaiho disliked discussing such matters before others.
Hanul’s connections within the palace meant he heard whispers long before soldiers did, and Jaiho had begun to fear the unspoken truth.
The three separated from the Nine were becoming the most feared of all.
Fear, in the palace, often became disappearance.
At last he spoke.
“You knew this would happen.”
Claire watched the rain.
“No.”
Then, after a long silence,
“I suspected.”
She swallowed quietly.
“I think part of me already knew.”
The crystal beneath her robes pulsed softly.
Jaiho no longer feared its song.
That frightened him far more than the sound itself ever had.
Claire rested her head against the wooden pillar.
“Meleon once watched over kingdoms,” she murmured.
“Not one kingdom.”
“Many.”
Jaiho listened without interruption.
“He was never truly worshipped,” she continued.
“Not at first.”
“He was guidance.”
“A presence between rulers.”
“Between wars.”
“A serpent of water that learned the language of fire and sky.”
Her gaze drifted toward the distant mountains.
“He rested in buried caverns beneath ancient ice.”
Rain whispered through the courtyard.
“What happened to him?”
Claire’s expression grew distant.
“I do not fully know.”
The dreamscape offered only fragments.
Resonance.
Echoes.
Memories crossing impossible distances.
She remembered another realm.
A great silence.
Something choosing to leave.
The sorrow of immortality stretched beyond endurance.
“Meleon had companions once,” she whispered.
“Mentors.”
“Perhaps even worlds beyond this one.”
“Minds speaking across impossible distances.”
Her fingers tightened around the crystal.
“But eventually…”
“Even ancient protectors fade.”
Jaiho looked at her carefully.
“And now?”
Claire smiled with quiet sadness.
“Now people paint him onto banners and crowns.”
“And forget he ever truly existed.”
Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the town.
Jaiho looked into the rain.
“The women.”
“Can they recover?”
Claire did not answer immediately.
“I think they must be brought together again.”
“Or somehow returned to harmony.”
“And if the King refuses?”
Her eyes settled upon the mountains beyond the rain.
“Then Silla will continue mistaking imbalance for madness.”
From inside the house, laughter suddenly echoed through the corridors.
Apparently Taejin had lost another card game and was loudly accusing Hanul of weaponising cheating.
For one brief moment, warmth returned.
The ordinary sounds of home drifted into the rain.
The eunuchs argued.
The maids laughed.
Someone dropped a bowl.
Someone else blamed the cook.
For a heartbeat, they were simply people again.
Temporary.
Fragile.
Wonderfully human.
Jaiho listened to the voices before turning back toward Claire.
“You speak as though all of this disappears someday.”
Claire watched the rain fall beyond the lantern light.
“Everything disappears someday.”
The words settled softly between them.
Then she added,
“But that does not make it meaningless.”
Jaiho lowered his head.
By morning, he had already made his decision.
One of the monks would carry a message into the mountains.
Another would travel quietly toward the palace.
The Nine had to be gathered again.
Whatever the cost.
For if the resonance continued to fracture, it would not be only the women who suffered.
The kingdom itself would begin to forget how to remain whole.