Chapter 26 – The Ode of the Harbour Road #4
For one brief moment the corridor had filled with smoke, sparks, and confusion.
Long enough.
More than long enough.
General Hwan Ryuk raised his voice.
“Silence.”
The command struck like steel.
Everything stopped.
The women fell quiet.
The general bent and picked up one of the discarded firecracker tubes.
He turned it over in his hand.
Examining it.
Smelling it.
The sharp scent of burned powder lingered.
Frowning, he lifted it toward his mouth, intending to taste the residue.
A soldier’s habit.
Testing unfamiliar substances.
Seolhyun reacted instantly.
“No!”
The word cracked through the corridor.
Every head turned.
She stepped forward and knocked it from his hand.
The firecracker clattered across the stone floor.
For a heartbeat nobody spoke.
Hwan Ryuk stared at her.
Seolhyun stared back.
Then quietly:
“Don’t.”
The crystal at her throat had become hot enough to burn.
And suddenly she knew.
The kidnapping had not been the end of the trap.
Only the beginning.
Seolhyun knocked the firecracker from General Hwan Ryuk’s hand.
“No.”
The word echoed through the corridor.
The general stared at her.
For a moment neither moved.
Then something in her expression made him stop entirely.
The crystal at her throat glowed faintly.
Not bright enough for others to notice.
Bright enough for him.
“She’s gone,” Seolhyun said quietly.
The certainty in her voice chilled everyone present.
Before anyone could respond, another guard came running down the corridor.
Out of breath.
Pale.
“General—”
He nearly stumbled.
“The old woman from Cradle Lake. She’s missing.”
Several people reacted immediately.
Seolhyun did not.
She simply looked at Hwan Ryuk.
“Yes.”
The guard blinked.
“The old woman—”
“Is not the problem.”
The corridor fell silent.
“The old woman is already where she intends to be.”
Hwan Ryuk studied her carefully.
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
The general frowned.
“You think she escaped?”
“I think she left.”
A subtle difference.
An important one.
“The old woman can look after herself.”
Seolhyun’s gaze hardened.
“Nari cannot.”
That ended the discussion.
The general straightened immediately.
“Continue.”
Seolhyun nodded toward the discarded firecracker.
“The Tang use devices like these.”
No one understood entirely.
Claire did.
The noise.
The smoke.
The confusion.
The distraction.
The kidnapping had been the purpose.
Everything else had been theatre.
“The old woman is travelling home,” Seolhyun continued.
“Someone wanted us looking the wrong direction.”
The general slowly nodded.
For the first time, he was beginning to understand how many layers existed beneath this conspiracy.
He studied the corridor again.
The walls.
The lanterns.
The carvings.
The architecture.
Then he saw it.
A panel.
Barely visible.
Recently moved.
Hidden within a decorative screen.
One of the older palace passages.
His expression darkened.
Around him, the eleven remaining women instinctively touched the crystals at their throats.
Hwan Ryuk watched.
The gesture was impossible to miss.
Not panic.
Communication.
The women exchanged glances.
Listening.
Feeling.
Following something unseen.
“If you know anything,” he said.
“Anything at all that might help us find her, tell me.”
His eyes settled on Seolhyun.
She hesitated.
“The crystals don’t speak.”
The general waited.
“They sing.”
Silence.
Then:
“Nari has not left the radius.”
The words struck everyone at once.
The general’s eyes sharpened.
“You are certain?”
Seolhyun nodded.
“The old woman has gone.”
“Nari hasn’t.”
Hope returned.
Dangerous hope.
“So she remains within the palace?”
Seolhyun closed her eyes briefly.
The crystal felt cold.
Listening.
Searching.
Then she nodded.
“Below it.”
The general turned immediately toward the hidden panel.
His face hardened.
The palace.
Its tunnels.
Its hidden doors.
Its secret routes.
Built to protect kings.
Now being used against them.
Jaeho stared into the darkness beyond the opening.
And suddenly understood.
The ship had never been the first trap.
The ship was the second.
The first trap had always been the palace.
The palace did not sleep that night.
Not after Nari vanished.
Discovery of the hidden passage spread quietly through the inner halls.
Not publicly.
Not yet.
Palace officials worked rapidly to suppress rumours.
Guards sealed corridors.
Servants were questioned.
Witnesses separated.
The king wanted calm.
He wanted control.
Most of all, he wanted no public embarrassment before the Tang delegation.
Which meant the eleven remaining women were confined to secured guest chambers.
Protected.
Guarded.
And effectively trapped.
The crystals could have helped search.
Instead they were being watched.
Jaeho intended to change that at the first opportunity.
Inside the guest chambers, the remaining women sat together beneath guarded lantern light.
Nobody spoke above a whisper.
Mirae occupied the cushion where Nari should have been.
Hanul stood rigid near the doorway.
Even Miso seemed unusually subdued.
Seolhyun sat silently.
Then her eyes drifted toward the kitten.
The ribbon.
The decorative ribbon around Miso’s neck.
Something about it felt wrong.
Too stiff.
Too deliberate.
She reached down and gently untied it.
The kitten immediately attempted to attack her fingers.
No one paid attention.
Until a folded scrap of paper slipped free.
The room froze.
Seolhyun unfolded it carefully.
Writing covered the page.
Not Silla script.
Not one she could read.
She looked toward the eunuchs.
“When was the kitten delivered?”
The two exchanged uncertain glances.
“This evening.”
“By whom?”
“We don’t know.”
Seolhyun lowered the note.
“They knew.”
Hanul’s face paled.
“The Tang?”
“Perhaps.”
The answer was somehow worse.
She folded the paper again.
“Send this to the general.”
Immediately.
Elsewhere in the palace, Lord Gyeon Minseok had stopped behaving like a nobleman.
He had begun behaving like a man in love.
Which made him extremely dangerous.
“The trade guild.”
His voice cut through the chamber.
Several ministers exchanged nervous glances.
His younger brother looked pale.
“Brother—”
“No.”
Minseok slammed both hands against the table.
The sound echoed.
“The warehouses.”
“The shipping records.”
“The harbour contracts.”
“The Tang investments.”
His eyes swept the room.
“You expect me to believe this is coincidence?”
No one answered.
Because no one could.
Nari had vanished the same evening questions arose about trade corruption.
The same evening certain ministers became nervous.
The same evening Tang interests appeared remarkably calm.
Everyone saw it.
The minister finally spoke.
“You are emotional.”
Minseok’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Because someone I care about disappeared inside the king’s palace.”
No one spoke after that.
Not immediately.
Even his younger brother lowered his eyes.
For the first time, he understood the true cost of the investments he had helped arrange.
There were never simply warehouses.
Never simply trade.
Never simply glassworks.
Someone had been using those networks for something else.
And now Nari had become collateral.
Elsewhere, Bokjin hurried through servant corridors carrying messages.
For the first time in his life, he felt less like a eunuch and more like a prisoner.
“This,” he muttered nervously while hurrying through the shadows,
“is exactly how people disappear.”
And somewhere below the palace, beyond hidden doors and forgotten tunnels, Nari waited in the dark.
Not lost.
Not gone.
Waiting.
Yet Bokjin continued anyway.
One message to Seolhyun.
Another to Hanul.
A hidden note toward Minseok.
And finally, one report for General Hwan Ryuk himself.
The young eunuch understood something perhaps better than many nobles.
The women trusted him.
And trust was becoming increasingly valuable.
When he finally returned, exhausted, someone thrust food into his hands and ordered him to rest.
Bokjin ignored the suggestion entirely.
General Hwan Ryuk spent the remainder of the night reading.
Reports.
Witness statements.
Guard rosters.
Corridor maps.
Every document he could obtain.
The more he read, the worse the situation became.
The king wanted silence.
He wanted dignity.
He wanted no scandal before the Tang delegation.
Unfortunately, conspiracies rarely respected royal preferences.
The palace tunnels formed an entire hidden world beneath the visible palace.
Old escape routes.
Storage passages.
Ancient catacombs.
Forgotten construction shafts.
Some dated back to earlier kingdoms.
Others connected unexpectedly to structures built generations later.
Some ended in collapsed chambers.
Others emerged beyond the city walls.
A labyrinth.
Someone familiar with those tunnels could move a prisoner almost anywhere.
That possibility chilled him.
Jaeho and Taejin entered the tunnels before dawn.
Against orders.
Naturally.
Torchlight danced across damp stone walls.
The air smelled of old earth and stagnant water.
The passages twisted endlessly.
Left.
Right.
Down.
Another turn.
Then another.
Every junction looked identical.
Taejin stared at yet another branching corridor.
“I hate this place.”
Jaeho nodded.
“The tunnels feel wrong.”
“Haunted?”
“No.”
His expression darkened.
“Engineered.”
Designed to confuse.
Designed to hide.
Designed to protect secrets.
Exactly the sort of place conspiracies preferred.
Hours passed.
They found footprints.
Then lost them.
A discarded ribbon.
Then nothing.
A broken lantern.
Then another dead end.
Every clue dissolved.
Someone knew these tunnels intimately.
Someone had planned this.
Eventually they emerged into an abandoned storage chamber far beneath the eastern wing.
Empty.
Silent.
No Nari.
No captors.
Nothing.
Taejin struck a wall in frustration.
The echo rolled endlessly through unseen passages.
“They’re gone.”
Jaeho remained silent.
Because the truth felt worse.
The kidnappers were always ahead.
They had not stumbled into opportunity.
They had prepared for it.
Which meant Nari had never been a random target.
She had been chosen.
The realization settled heavily.
“She’s leverage.”
Taejin looked up.
Jaeho’s face had hardened.