Baekjoseon, Year of the Tiger, Nineteenth Winter
"I do not fear death. I only fear becoming what they wish me to be." —Reflections of King Yi Hwan
The gates of the Seo residence opened with a restrained whisper. The night air was thick, heavy with the last snowfall, and frost still clung to the soles of the rider who dismounted without haste. Seo Jisoo had been away from the frozen kingdom for years, but his dark eyes did not falter as they gazed upon the old house of his childhood. He had returned from the Great Ming Empire as a scholar, yet his face bore none of a sage's pride—it was crossed by a shadow denser than the journey itself.
He stepped over the threshold like one entering a battlefield.
Awaiting him was his father, Seo Gyeom, Minister of Rites. Standing with hands clasped behind his back, draped in black silk, he observed his son like a craftsman inspecting a piece returned by the goldsmith after years of forging. There was no warmth in his eyes. Only a flicker of satisfaction and calculation.
"You have returned," he said without moving.
"Just as you asked," Jisoo replied. He did not bow. He did not smile. There was a long history between them—of silence and fractured obedience. "Crossing the border was no easy feat. The north is a bleeding wound."
His father nodded slowly, asked nothing more. Then he turned and walked into the house, settling at the table in the main hall, where a brazier glowed faintly. He offered neither tea nor seat.
"The king is dead. Yi Hwan will be crowned by morning. We do not yet know how he will rule—but we will find out." The minister paused. "I need you to enter the Court of Ice."
Jisoo looked at him in silence. His eyes were calm, but something flickered within them—a tremor, the echo of an old memory.
Yi Hwan?
"As royal secretary. The post will be yours. I've pulled the necessary strings to secure your place in the Palace."
"Why me?"
"Because you are clever. And because he won't dare suspect you." The minister turned his gaze slowly toward the brazier. "You know him, don't you?"
Jisoo lowered his eyes. He did know him. But not in the way his father imagined. Not as a strategic piece on a chessboard.
"I saw him once," he said softly. "When we were children."
And then the memory returned.
The Palace was shrouded in the mist of an early frozen morning. Between the marble pillars of the north wing, where servants rarely wandered, a boy sobbed in silence. He wore a patch over one eye, his hands stained with blood, his face drenched in tears he dared not let fall aloud.
Jisoo had found him by chance. He was only seven, curious and defiant, chasing a butterfly that danced through the frozen palace gardens. But upon seeing the boy hidden beneath the stone steps, he stopped.
"Are you lost?" he asked.
The boy shook his head. He didn't look up.
"Are you hurt?"
Silence. The wind stirred the fallen red leaves of the royal gingko.
"It seems you carry winter with you," Jisoo whispered. And then, for the first time, the boy looked at him. One dark eye. The other concealed beneath seasoned silk.
"Do I frighten you?"
"No."
Yi Hwan remained silent for a moment. Then, barely, he nodded—as if the simple gesture cost him a world. Jisoo sat beside him. No more was said.
"And what am I to do as secretary?" Jisoo asked, returning to the present. His voice was neutral.
"Listen. Watch. Record. We must know if he weakens, if he hesitates, if he can be manipulated. Do not forget —he is not like the others." His voice lowered. "He hides something beneath that patch..."
Jisoo swallowed hard. His gaze remained steady, but a shard of frost had lodged in his chest. The boy who wept beneath the steps. The unwanted crown prince.
"And if there's nothing to tell?"
"There's always something. Find it."
"Is that an order?" Jisoo countered.
"It is. For the good of the nation."
For the good of the nation, Jisoo repeated inwardly, trying to grasp meaning in the words. But instead, he asked:
"Any clues as to the assassin?"
The minister raised an eyebrow.
"None at all. Eunuch Choi Seung appears to remember nothing. They may subject him to a trial of truth."
"They'll summon a Haetae?"
"It's possible." The minister met his son's eyes. "I trust by then you'll be close to the new king."
With that, he turned and returned to his affairs. The conversation was over.
Jisoo did not reply. He stepped out of the hall with quiet steps, but within him, something trembled. A child's voice whispered in his memory, louder than his father's command:
"It seems you carry winter with you."
And now, that winter would become king.