The teahouse within the Eastern Wing was silent, save for the soft clink of porcelain and the rustling of plum blossoms outside.
Lady Myung....soft-spoken, sharp-eyed....poured Yena a delicate cup of magnolia tea. She hadn't summoned Yena in months, not since the shaman maid's arrival. Now she smiled like an aunt… one who might stab you if you spilled the tea.
"You've made quite the name for yourself," Lady Myung said gently. "Shamans are rarely so… visible."
Yena sipped. "Visibility wasn't my goal. Survival is more pressing."
Lady Myung's lips twitched. "Good. You'll need that sense of humor."
She reached under the table and slid a folded fan across to Yena. The silk was black, the embroidery silver: a phoenix wrapped around a serpent.
Yena blinked. "Where did you.....?"
"She gave it to me. The Consort."
Yena's throat dried. "You… knew her?"
Lady Myung sat back. "We all knew her. But only a few of us remember her properly."
Later that night, Yena and Prince Joon pored over the fan together. Hidden beneath the outer silk was a coded message, etched with dried blood and powdered ash.
"The second moon bleeds. On that night, the serpent must choose."
Joon frowned. "What's the second moon?"
Yena pulled a book from his shelves. "In ancient lore, it refers to the night of a lunar eclipse… which happens in two days."
Joon stared at her.
"Of course it does," he muttered.
Meanwhile, in the private study of Lord Hae, Minister of Rites, a heated conversation was underway.
"She's destabilizing the flow of fate," one advisor hissed.
"She's a shaman, not a general," another said.
"No," Lord Hae said coldly. "She's something else. And if the Phoenix bloodline is real, then we have a problem that even the Crown Prince can't contain."
He opened a scroll, revealing an inked diagram half family tree, half battlefield.
At its center was a name long erased from court records.
At its end:
Seo Yena.
In the shadows of the Forbidden Wing, an old woman traced her fingers along the carved wooden doors.
"I see you, girl," she whispered. "I see what's waking inside you."
As she turned away, the doors behind her glowed faintly, as if remembering who once walked through them.
And far across the city, hidden in a mountain shrine, a flame flickered to life in a long extinguished brazier.
The Phoenix was stirring.
But Yena was not prepared for what stirred with it.
That night, as she returned to her chambers, a scroll was left tucked neatly into her bedding....no seal, no name, just her own handwriting.
Only, she hadn't written it.
The note read:
"The mirror shows more than your face. Look again."
Her first instinct was to throw it in the fire. Her second was to obey it. And unfortunately, her curiosity always listened to her second instinct.
She lit a stick of mugwort, drew a thin protective sigil across her chest, and stepped before the bronze mirror.
Nothing.
Then...flicker.
Her reflection tilted its head, even though she had not.
It blinked.
So did she.....in disbelief.
"Alright," she muttered, "I officially regret reading that scroll."
The mirror-Yena smiled faintly, then whispered something she couldn't hear. The surface of the mirror rippled, and just for a breath of a second, a second face appeared beside hers.....a woman in phoenix robes, eyes black as obsidian.
Yena stumbled back.
But the image was already gone.
The next morning, the Prince barged into her quarters, cloak askew, hair unkempt.
"We have a problem," he said, throwing down a palace-wide decree.
It was stamped with the Royal Seal.....and it named Seo Yena as a "practitioner of unsanctioned rites".
"You've been accused of witchcraft," Joon said grimly. "And not the helpful, charm-the-crops kind."
Yena snorted. "So I finally made it. Officially a threat."
"Yena, this is serious. The Ministers want you questioned by the Court of Shadows."
Her humor faltered.
The Court of Shadows didn't ask questions. They extracted answers.
She looked at the decree again. "This didn't come from the Dowager. This… this reeks of Lord Hae."
Joon nodded. "And unless we prove your connection to the Phoenix Consort isn't a bloodline, they'll move to silence you."
"But what if I am blood-related?" she asked.
Joon looked at her, truly looked at her...as if only now realizing the weight of what she might carry.
"Then we're both on the throne," he said, "or both in the grave."
Meanwhile, Lord Hae met with a veiled stranger in the northern shrine.
"She's awakening," the minister said. "The eclipse draws near."
The stranger passed him a vial of glowing crimson liquid.
"When the second moon bleeds," she murmured, "so must the heir."
Lord Hae closed his hand around the vial. "Then let the blood spill."