Seo Yena didn't return to the servants' quarters after leaving the prince's chambers.
She couldn't. Not yet.
The talisman burned faintly against her skin as she walked through the narrow passage behind the kitchens. It was hidden inside her sleeve, but she could feel its weight like a second heartbeat....unnatural, restless.
She slipped through a side door into the old temple wing, long abandoned and cloaked in dust. Once used for the Emperor's private ceremonies, it now housed broken lanterns and crumbling prayer stones. No one would find her here. No one ever came.
Yena dropped to her knees before the old altar. The lotus-shaped candle stand still stood, wax hardened into long-forgotten tears.
She lit a single stick of incense, then unrolled the talisman and placed it on the altar.
"Please," she whispered, not to any god in particular, "show me what you are."
The ink bled suddenly across the page like it was alive, forming words she hadn't written, in a script she hadn't studied but understood all the same.
"The voice that speaks will not live to speak again."
"The eyes that saw the truth were drowned in silence."
A silencing curse. But more than that—it was a warning. Not just for the eunuch. For her, too.
The air turned cold.
Yena closed her eyes, centering her thoughts. Her old teacher's words came back like a forgotten lullaby: "To listen is to invite the dead. To understand them is to make peace. But to answer? That's the most dangerous thing of all."
Too late. The whisper came before she could stop it.
"He didn't die by accident."
She turned her head slowly. The eunuch's ghost sat beside the altar, knees pulled to his chest. His face looked younger in death....peaceful, almost. But his eyes held the same fear she'd seen before.
"They're hiding something," he said. "But not from the Prince. From someone else. A minister… someone close. Too close."
"Who?" Yena whispered.
He opened his mouth. No sound came.
Then he vanished.....like smoke pulled into the wind.
Yena stood slowly, chest heavy. If someone inside the court had sent that curse… if the eunuch had been silenced before he could speak....then whoever did it was still in the palace. Still watching. Still planning.
And Prince Joon was right. She was already involved.
Back in the servants' quarters, Yena scrubbed the same floor tiles she had cleaned a hundred times before. She kept her head down, but her ears were open.
Maids whispered about the body. Guards were being doubled. The lotus pond had been sealed off "for cleansing."
No one mentioned the ghost. No one mentioned the talisman.
And no one mentioned Prince Joon.
But then Minji leaned closer to her during supper, voice low.
"You went to him again, didn't you?"
Yena didn't respond.
Minji lowered her voice even more. "They say the Crown Prince is cursed because of what his mother did. That she wasn't just a concubine… she was something else. Something unholy. The spirits in the court are still restless from her death."
Yena looked up sharply. "His mother?"
"She died in that eastern wing. Years ago. But some say she still walks there. Still guards her son. That's why no one dares go near him."
Yena said nothing. But her mind raced.
So much of the palace's silence wasn't fear....it was memory. Repressed. Avoided. Buried.
And ghosts didn't stay buried for long.
Later that night, she returned to her tiny chamber. The wind howled outside her window, rattling the shutters. She lit a candle, then reached into her sleeve to pull the talisman out again.
Only this time, it was gone.
In its place was a folded note she hadn't felt slip in.
"You're being watched. Do not speak to the ghost again."
There was no signature. No seal. Just the mark of a coiled serpent pressed faintly into the corner.
Yena's hands trembled.
Someone knew.
Not just about the curse. Not just about the ghost.
They knew about her.