Chapter 26 – The Ode of the Harbour Road #11
“A very good soldier.”
“Thank you.”
“A reasonable friend.”
“I appreciate that.”
“A terrible king.”
“That seems unnecessary.”
She laughed again.
The sound lingered between them.
For a little while neither spoke.
The silence no longer felt awkward.
Only comfortable.
The sort of silence that existed between people who no longer needed to fill every moment with words.
Far away, beyond the palace walls, beyond the rain, beyond the harbour roads and the southern sea, Nari waited.
Minseok waited.
The conspiracy waited.
The kingdom balanced upon a knife-edge.
But here, beneath stone and darkness and forgotten foundations, none of those things could reach them.
Not for a few minutes.
Not for one quiet hour.
And perhaps that was why both of them remained seated long after either had found an excuse to leave.
Neither wanted to return to the world above quite yet.
Rain fell over Gyeongju.
Soft at first.
Then steadily.
As though the heavens themselves had decided the kingdom required washing clean.
Unfortunately, rain had never removed corruption.
Only hidden it better.
Meanwhile, Jaeho and Taejin had been ordered to remain at the palace.
Naturally, neither intended to obey for very long.
They sat overlooking the city walls while rain drummed softly against the roof above them.
Taejin looked exhausted.
Jaeho looked worse.
“You know,” Taejin said eventually, “if we survive this, I would still like one month.”
Jaeho glanced sideways.
“You already said that.”
“I remain committed to the idea.”
“No kidnappings.”
“No kidnappings.”
“No prophecies.”
“No prophecies.”
“No secret tunnels.”
“Very important.”
“No crystals.”
Jaeho sighed.
“You are obsessed with the crystals.”
“They are objectively causing problems.”
A pause.
Then:
“No palace.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“No ministers.”
“Even more unlikely.”
“No disguised scholars pretending to be eunuchs.”
That finally broke Jaeho’s composure.
The image of the poor scholar dropping an entire serving tray while twelve women stared at him returned immediately.
Taejin pointed triumphantly.
“There.”
“You planned that.”
“I absolutely planned that.”
The laughter faded slowly.
Not because anything had changed.
Because everything remained exactly the same.
Nari was still missing.
The harbour conspiracy still existed.
The king still watched everything.
And somewhere beyond the southern horizon, a storm continued gathering.
Taejin stretched his legs out before him.
“You know what bothers me most?”
Jaeho already regretted asking.
“What?”
“The merchants.”
“The merchants.”
“They are too polite.”
Jaeho nodded reluctantly.
That was true.
Bandits were simple.
Traitors were simple.
Even enemies were simple.
The Red Dragon merchants smiled.
They offered tea.
They spoke reasonably.
They dressed their ambitions in good intentions.
That made them harder to fight.
Because parts of what they said were true.
The future was changing.
The harbours were growing.
The sea routes were expanding.
The kingdom was already becoming something new.
The question was who would control it.
And what would be sacrificed along the way.
Below them, the city glowed beneath rain-soaked lanterns.
Beyond the walls, roads stretched south.
Toward the sea.
Toward Nari.
Toward Minseok.
Toward answers.
Jaeho’s gaze remained fixed on the horizon.
“We’re leaving.”
Taejin smiled immediately.
“I knew it.”
“The moment we know where.”
“The general will be furious.”
“Probably.”
“The king may be worse.”
“Probably.”
Taejin folded his arms.
“I am surprisingly comfortable with both of those outcomes.”
For a while they sat quietly listening to the rain.
The city slept.
The palace plotted.
The women waited.
The kingdom drifted steadily toward a choice it could no longer avoid.
And somewhere far to the south, beyond harbour lights and storm clouds, the next move was already being made.
“We were scouting,” Jaeho replied.
The disguised scholar stared at him.
“You disappeared.”
“We found a route.”
“You vanished.”
“We were mapping.”
“You took the priestess outside the palace.”
That finally caused Taejin to look guilty.
Only briefly.
“The flowers were educational.”
The scholar looked ready to resign from life entirely.
“General Hwanryuk is looking for you.”
The laughter vanished immediately.
That was different.
The general rarely searched personally unless something had changed.
Jaeho straightened.
“What happened?”
The scholar swallowed.
“The Tang prince.”
Silence.
Taejin immediately looked suspicious.
“The actual prince?”
“The actual prince.”
“Oh, that’s worse.”
“The king hosted a private audience.”
The scholar’s expression darkened.
“Then he requested another.”
Seolhyun already knew she was not going to like whatever came next.
“With whom?”
The answer arrived immediately.
“With you.”
Of course.
The graveyard suddenly felt very far away.
The flowers.
The forgotten names.
The quiet.
Gone.
Replaced once more by politics.
The scholar continued walking while they followed.
“The king is entertaining delegations all week. Tang officials. Merchants. Naval advisors. Marriage envoys.”
Taejin groaned.
“The hats.”
“The hats.”
“The endless hats.”
Even Seolhyun laughed.
The scholar looked confused.
Jaeho did not bother explaining.
Some jokes became impossible to translate.
The tunnel sloped downward.
Cool air returned.
Stone replaced sunlight.
Freedom slowly became palace once more.
Before entering the hidden passage fully, Seolhyun paused.
Only for a moment.
She looked back toward the grove.
Toward the weathered stones.
Toward the forgotten women sleeping beneath flowers.
The evening breeze stirred softly through the trees.
A scattering of blue petals crossed the grass.
Then the moment passed.
The tunnel swallowed them once more.
As they descended, Taejin quietly handed Seolhyun a small pouch.
She opened it.
Gooseberries.
Far too many gooseberries.
“Taejin.”
“What?”
“You stole an entire bush.”
“It was a diplomatic acquisition.”
Jaeho sighed.
“The man has no shame.”
The scholar looked from one to the other.
For the first time he seemed to understand why General Hwanryuk looked perpetually exhausted.
By the time they emerged inside the palace foundations again, night had already begun falling.
Lantern light flickered through corridors.
Servants hurried past.
Music drifted faintly from distant halls.
The Tang prince had arrived.
The palace had become a theatre.
And somewhere within that theatre, every player had begun moving into position.
The king.
The Tang.
The merchants.
The harbour conspirators.
The women.
The soldiers.
The monks.
Everyone.
As Seolhyun stepped back into the palace, the crystal at her throat pulsed once.
Softly.
Not warning.
Recognition.
The game had changed again.
And somewhere far to the south, beyond the sea roads and harbour lights, Nari lifted her head at exactly the same moment.
As though some distant part of the song had heard the note and answered.