TAP—

The cold underground dungeon of the Emperor’s Palace.

At the sound of someone running hard, Consort Suk, crouched in a corner, gave a start and shivered.

Presently the footsteps stopped in front of her iron bars.

“Consort Suk. My lady...!”

She lifted the gaze she had kept buried and looked at the one who had come.

Maid Giye.

When Chor Yeon entered the palace, Consort Suk had placed this maid at her side.

Though Chor Yeon had been brought in as a criminal, Consort Suk meant to learn what treatment she truly received, where in the palace she lived, and what she did.

Giye was to watch her every move.

But when the Emperor suddenly moved Chor Yeon’s quarters to the Palace of Heavenly Purity and cut off outside contact, they had lost touch.

“Ugh... Consort Suk... How... how did you end up in a place like this...?”

Giye sniffled when she saw Consort Suk’s state.

“I am sorry, my lady. I was not equal to the task... I could not help you. Just as you told me before, I sent that woman to the Central Harmony Hall the moment the uprising began, but...”

“So it was thanks to you that she went to the Central Harmony Hall.”

She had thought herself betrayed when she could not make contact.

“It is enough. I have avenged my son.”

Consort Suk let out a low laugh.

She had confirmed at least that Chor Yeon had not come out of the Hall of Preserving Harmony.

They had used far more Explosives there than at the Central Harmony Hall.

The woman must have been caught in the blast and torn to shreds so thoroughly that not even a corpse could be found.

“Thanks to you, a long-cherished wish is fulfilled.”

From the depths of her heart, she was grateful to Giye.

Had she failed to kill Chor Yeon and been caught instead, she might have gone mad with resentment and rage.

Though the rebellion had ended in emptiness, the only reason she had endured this accursed palace was that woman.

“My lady. I brought a little food. Please take a bite at least.”

Giye took out and untied the bundle she had hidden in her bosom.

“It is enough. A life that will soon end—what use is eating?”

“Even so... Then please, at least have some hot tea. It will warm you.”

Giye held a flask wrapped in thick cloth through the bars.

Consort Suk looked at it for a moment, then stepped closer and took it.

She was grateful for the heart that tended her to the end, and as Giye said, the floor of the underground dungeon was cold.

GULP...

The still-warm tea wet her mouth and flowed down.

Truly, warmth entering her body seemed to drive back the chill.

CLANK—

“!”

Giye startled and glanced toward the corridor of the dungeon.

“Go now. If you’re found out here, they’ll take you too.”

Looking troubled, Giye looked between Consort Suk and the corridor, then rose.

“Then... I’ll go...”

Consort Suk nodded.

“Um... my lady...”

“?”

“Thank you... for everything...”

Giye gave a last deep bow and left the dungeon.

Consort Suk watched the space beyond the bars in silence until the sound of her footsteps safely passed out.

GULP...

At least with the tea Giye had left, it would not be as cold as before—

“Kh—!”

At that instant, she suddenly clutched at her chest with a cry of pain.

CLATTER—

The flask fell from her hand, hot tea streaming across the floor.

But Consort Suk did not even think to set the flask upright; she gripped her chest and the nape of her neck.

“Kh—k— cough—!”

A surge of red blood burst from her lips.

She stared, appalled, at the blood she had brought up.

“W-what is... this...”

Then—

SCRITCH, SCRITCH.

Light footsteps drew near, and someone’s shadow stretched long beyond the bars.

When the figure appeared, Consort Suk could not hide her shock.

The one who had come was Blood-King Poison, Chor Yeon.

She had been sure the woman died in the blast.

“We meet again, Consort Suk.”

“Y-you... how are you...!”

“My, you seem quite startled. The sight of someone alive who ought to be dead—did you take me for a ghost?”

At Chor Yeon’s sweet smile, a look of utter shock spread across Consort Suk’s face.

How... how can this be!

She should certainly have been caught in the explosion.

Certainly, she had not left the hall—

“Cough—ha...!”

Only then did Consort Suk realize.

“You... you fed me poison...”

“Strictly speaking, I did not feed you anything. You drank it yourself.”

“When would I—!”

Her eyes, as if struck by a thought, dropped to the tea spilling from the flask rolling on the floor.

“Don’t tell me...”

Giye... that girl...?

“Is your body feeling a bit warmer?”

Chor Yeon gave a soft laugh.

“When I said her guilt would be lessened if she got you to drink tea, she snapped up the bait. As they say—what is joined is not apart?”

When the water above runs muddy, the water below cannot run clear.

It was a turn of phrase to fling back at Consort Suk’s selfish nature.

Consort Suk drew harsh, pain-choked breaths and glared at her.

Then, suddenly, she burst into laughter like someone unhinged. “Ahahaha!”

“So in the end you kill me after my son. I should have known when you broke the water bowl in front of him...!”

When Chor Yeon first entered the palace and met that prince again, she had shattered the bowl she was holding, unable to overcome her fear.

Finding it strange, ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ Consort Suk had remembered it ever since.

Had she dug further into Chor Yeon’s behavior then, she might have saved her son.

She had lived her life racked by that guilt.

“Kill you?”

The faint smile at Chor Yeon’s lips vanished in an instant.

“Regrettably, that poison will only wound you internally. It is not enough to bring death.”

“...What?”

“You will pay before all for the crime of raising rebellion.”

“...!”

Chor Yeon drew a small vial from her bosom and set it with a tap on the floor, far from the bars.

“My revenge on that prince ended more than twenty years ago. What I gave you now is revenge for hurting my person.”

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

The prince had caused the villagers’ deaths, and paid with his own. The poison given to Consort Suk was the price for the internal injuries done to Seop Mugwang.

“I have asked His Majesty to grant you the penalty of burning.”

“...!”

“That is the last revenge I will take on you.”

Chor Yeon looked at her.

The eyes that moments before had glared as if to kill now held nothing but fear.

“I’ll leave the antidote.”

“!”

“Whenever you feel the pain searing your insides, look at it and repent—for having laid hands on one you should never have touched.”

At the word antidote, a glimmer of hope had returned to Consort Suk’s gaze; now it sank again into despair.

Pitiful as she looked, Chor Yeon’s eyes were only cold.

Blood-King Poison.

A negative epithet given to the young palace physician who had killed a prince with poison.

But the Chor Yeon of now was that epithet made flesh.

At eighteen, she had climbed to the post of palace physician driven by venom, solely to avenge the prince who had murdered her family and the villagers.

“Y-you... heartless—without blood or tears...!”

“Precisely because I have blood and tears, I do this.”

“Vile girl!”

“How sad that you see it only now. Had you known earlier, you might not have piled up a grudge against me.”

“Y-you—!”

BANG—!

Chor Yeon slammed the iron bars with all her strength.

At the sharp report that rang through the wide underground prison, Consort Suk flinched and hunched without meaning to.

“If you prize your child, you must know to prize another’s child.”

Chor Yeon glared at her through the bars.

Clear tears welled in her wide eyes.

“If you had properly taught this simple truth... my family and my villagers didn’t have to die like that. Isn’t that so...?”

Her hands, gripping the bars, trembled.

The fury in her voice sealed Consort Suk’s mouth.

After holding her in that glare, Chor Yeon turned and left the dungeon.

The soldiers guarding the entrance shut and barred the door tight as she came out.

SNIFF.

“Haa...”

To have shown tears in front of Consort Suk.

“Shameful... truly...”

“That’s not so.”

As she wiped her tears in the cold wind, someone came to her side.

Chor Yeon accepted the white cloth offered to her and looked at the one who had come.

It was Seolhwa.

“Thank you, miss.”

Chor Yeon dabbed at her eyes with a little sniffle.

“For what.”

“You secured from His Majesty the leave to dispose of Consort Suk as we wished.”

What Seolhwa had requested as her reward from the Emperor was the right to determine Consort Suk’s disposition as she pleased.

“I only judged it necessary for you to set your past in order.”

“Which means, for me...”

“Chor Yeon is my person.”

Chor Yeon looked at her, eyes bright with feeling.

She remembered when Seolhwa, as a child, had returned to the Namgoong Clan—how Seolhwa had tried to use her by dangling Chor Yeon’s past.

“Blood-King Poison,” she had said, trying to bind her with a predator’s eyes.

That look had been adorable, too.

“Let’s go back now. Master will wake.”

“Yes...”

Wiping her tears, Chor Yeon started toward the place where Seop Mugwang was.

Seolhwa lingered a moment, watching her walk on ahead.

Blood-King Poison... Chor Yeon...

It’s good she didn’t fall into the Blood Cult’s hands...

Facing Consort Suk in the dungeon, she had looked exactly like Dokwol of the previous life.

Killing at the slightest whim, and rejoicing in it...

At the memory of Dokwol, Seolhwa shivered without meaning to.

It truly is a relief—truly—that Chor Yeon is on our side...

Just then, Chor Yeon glanced back and called out.

“Miss, why aren’t you coming?”

“Ah—coming—”

Seolhwa hurried after her.

The night of the Emperor’s Palace was quiet and bright.