Hanseong, Joseon
Early Winter 1837
The cold did not arrive all at once.
It came quietly, almost unnoticed at first. One morning, the wind carried a sharper bite than before, slipping through sleeves and beneath layers of cloth. By evening, that same cold had settled into the stone floors of the palace, clinging to the corridors long after the sun had disappeared.
Servants moved faster than usual, their steps quicker, their breaths visible in the air. Doors that were once left slightly open were now kept closed. Braziers burned longer into the night, though they never seemed to fully push the chill away.
Even the voices within the palace changed.
They were softer, more measured, as if the cold itself demanded restraint.
Inside the walls of Hanseong, the shift in weather matched something else entirely.
The tension had not left.
If anything, it had grown quieter, but heavier.
The meetings at the coast had ended.
For now.
But nothing had been resolved.
