Hanseong, Joseon
Late Spring 1837
The rain came early that week, settling over Hanseong in a steady, quiet fall that darkened the stone paths and soaked into the wooden beams of the palace halls. Courtiers moved more carefully across the courtyards, lifting the edges of their robes to keep them from dragging through the wet ground. The air carried the scent of damp earth and aged timber, and for a brief time, the city felt unchanged, as if the season alone had shifted and nothing else.
Inside the palace, the mood was different.
The whispers had not stopped, but they had changed in tone. There was less repetition now, fewer careless opinions passed from one man to another. Instead, there was waiting. The kind of waiting that came when people expected confirmation but did not yet know what form it would take.
It did not arrive with ceremony.
It arrived with a man.
