Chapter 55: Ashes of the Past

Anok knew it all too well. He knew full well what the court attendants—acting so duty-bound and worried in front of him—would murmur to one another the moment they stepped outside the chamber doors.

They would say that the Empress, whose sole pillars of support were the Emperor and the newborn prince, was drowning in anxiety at the thought of losing them both. In truth, Anok was well aware that the imperial physician was secretly reporting the state of his health—details kept hidden from Anok himself—directly to the Emperor through the head court lady.

The physician had noted that some individuals suffered from severe melancholia following childbirth, and that the Empress seemed to be afflicted by this very condition. He had advised that Anok needed frequent visits, gentle conversation, and constant encouragement to venture outside. Anok reasoned that this advice was likely one of the few reasons the Emperor bothered to set foot in Gyoeong Palace at all.

After a long silence, Anok let out a hollow, empty laugh, though his face remained crumpled in quiet sorrow.

“Even a single character would suffice. The King of Jinyang’s child name consists of merely one character, does it not?”

“Your Imperial Majesty……” The head court lady bowed her head deeply, understanding the painful weight behind his words.

“Why, then, will he not grant even a single character for my child?”

“……”

“Does he truly despise me to such an extent?”

It was not a question meant for an answer, but a quiet, solitary monologue. Anok lowered his gaze back down to the infant, who was once again sleeping peacefully.

“Summon the wet nurse. Tell her to take the child back to Chaenghyo Hall.”

“I shall obey your command.”

The head court lady rose and hurried outside. Before long, the wet nurse entered, lifted the Imperial Prince gently into her arms, and withdrew back to Chaenghyo Hall.

Left entirely alone, Anok sat through the night with his eyes wide open until dawn.

The Empress, who had rarely spent a single day without cradling the prince in his arms, did not step foot inside Chaenghyo Hall for days after that. Unless the Emperor himself came to visit, Anok neither walked there personally nor summoned the wet nurse to the main hall.

In the meantime, the morning and evening breezes grew progressively warmer.

Anok fulfilled his duties as Empress to perfection. He received the daily morning greetings from Consort Seong, briefly joined the Emperor to check on the infant whenever he visited, managed the intricate affairs of the inner court, and behaved precisely as expected of his status.

Yet, that fragile facade shattered before long. It collapsed the moment word reached him that the Imperial Prince had developed a burning fever—one that refused to abate despite every effort of the imperial physicians.

Deliberating over the seating arrangements for an upcoming banquet in his study, Anok practically threw aside his calligraphy brush and sprinted frantically toward Chaenghyo Hall.

The infant was weeping hysterically, his small face flushed bright red. Heat rashes bloomed across his tiny cheeks. No matter what remedies were attempted to cool his body, nothing brought relief.

The child could not hold on for long and breathed his last.

It was a day swept by an exceptionally gentle, warm spring breeze.

“Ah……!”

Gasping desperately for air, Anok snapped his eyes open, realizing instantly that it had all been a dream. Yet, it was not merely a false nightmare.

It was his lived past.

A past so vivid, so raw, that it remained burned into his mind beyond all forgetting.

Unable to readily free himself from the terrifying aftermath of those days, Anok trembled violently, pulling in deep, ragged breaths. Though early summer was approaching, a cold tremor ran through his shoulders.

“Grand Consort, are you awake? We have just arrived at the estate,” Eunuch Im spoke softly from outside the carriage window, having noticed the rustling inside.

Recollecting memories of the past flooded him with the exact same agony he had felt back then, wrapping him in an overwhelming, miserable haze. Still half-submerged in that painful fog, Anok only belatedly dragged his consciousness back to reality.

Nothing has happened yet.

Not yet.

Eunuch Im placed the footstool down and waited for Anok to disembark. The distance between Jeongan Palace and the Myeong estate was not particularly far, and Anok felt both absurd and horrified that he had fallen into such a deep, agonizing sleep during such a brief journey.

The Grand Consort’s steps were noticeably unsteady and precarious. Eunuch Im reached out to support him, but Anok held up a hand to stop him.

“I am fine.”

The weak, strained voice sounded anything but fine, yet it carried an unmistakable stubbornness. Eunuch Im ultimately bowed his head and stepped back carefully.

Under normal circumstances, Anok would have asked whether Yeo Jae-won had arrived, but he lacked the mental space to care. At this moment, he could not bear to think of the man who was so indifferent, yet occasionally so gentle that it left Anok feeling utterly wretched.

The heartless Emperor of his past and the Yeo Jae-won of the present were fundamentally different people—entirely distinct individuals who merely shared the same outer shell. Anok used the cold, ruthless Emperor of his dream to strictly guard his heart, which had been dangerously close to softening toward the man in front of him.

He was a man who only bestowed the title of Crown Prince and a posthumous name after the child had already died. Anok had deliberately refused to memorize that posthumous name. What purpose could it possibly serve after death?

Feigning composure as he walked into the inner quarters, Anok collapsed the very moment he reached the privacy of his bedchamber. Unable to even drag himself onto the bed, he sank helplessly onto his knees on the floor. In the quiet room illuminated by the long, reddish rays of the late afternoon sun, he wept silently, just as he had in the dream.

It was all the more suffocating because there was no one to blame. The fact that the past Yeo Jae-won and the present man were different people only compounded his agony.

In the end, all blame and harsh judgment turned inward, targeted entirely at himself. He felt intensely cowardly for having a heart so weak that despite constantly resolving to run away, he had never once possessed the courage to act.

Would all this torment finally cease if I were simply to die?

He rubbed his eyes repeatedly with silk sleeves that, despite their softness, quickly chafed the delicate skin around his eyes. Through his blurred, tear-filled vision, a decorative sword hanging on the wall caught his gaze.

Positioned along the far wall near the door—well away from the bed—the ornate sword was meant for self-defense, placed there as both a decorative piece and a guard against potential intruders.

Anok’s unsteady steps carried him toward the doorway. His dull, lifeless eyes fixed upon the lavishly decorated sword.

Perhaps owing to its heavy ornamentation, the weapon felt surprisingly heavy in his hand. Unsheathed, the silver blade gleamed with a sharp, cold light. Though bathed in the warm, reddish glow of twilight, the steel remained ice-cold.

The moment the cool edge touched his skin, clarity abruptly returned. He detested pain. It was precisely that terror of suffering that had driven him to consume swift, lethal poison when ending his life in the past. He lacked the bravery to overcome his own fear; even standing at the edge of the precipice, he had been unable to throw himself off.

Quietly weeping, Anok finally broke down like a child. As if surrendering to fate, he collapsed onto his knees, set the blade down, and sobbed uncontrollably.

Sensibly picking up on something amiss, Eunuch Im had dismissed the surrounding servants, ensuring no one disturbed the Grand Consort. Whether that was a stroke of fortune or misfortune remained unclear.

Thanks to that, Anok was able to cry to his heart’s content. By the time he had emptied every last tear within him, a sudden, violent wave of nausea surged up his throat. He had wept so intensely that his nose was completely blocked, accompanied by a throbbing, ringing headache.

“Ugh……!”

With no tears left to shed, his body attempted to purge whatever little remained in his stomach. Forcing his weak, trembling body upright, Anok pulled the door open. Han-wol, waiting anxiously outside with eyes already brimming with tears, gasped in shock.

“Your Highness!”

Watching Anok press a hand against his mouth as he struggled against the dry heaves, Han-wol turned and sprinted off in a panic. Moments later, Eunuch Im and Court Lady Yoo rushed to his side, supporting Anok as they guided him back into the bedchamber. In their sheer panic, neither of them even noticed the luxurious sword lying discarded on the floor.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Anok retched into the basin Han-wol brought over. Having eaten almost nothing, he brought up little more than clear stomach acid.

Fearing he might faint from exhaustion, Han-wol presented a bowl of water to rinse his mouth, followed by a cup of cool water to drink. Only after rinsing his mouth with salted water and taking small sips of cold water did Anok manage to settle his breathing.

“I shall summon the physician immediately,” Eunuch Im said hurriedly.

Anok’s mind, however, remained dazed and heavy. He could feel a burning heat pressing behind his eyelids. A fever was clearly taking hold.

When the mind and body were thoroughly exhausted, illness inevitably took root. To outsiders, it would simply appear as though his fragile body had succumbed to sickness after making consecutive visits to the imperial palace and Jeongan Palace over the span of a few days. Anok shook his head weakly.

“There is no need. I will be fine after a short rest.”

“Then pray take a little thin rice porridge before sleeping, Your Highness.”

“If I swallow anything now, I feel I will simply throw it back up.”

Eunuch Im spoke with a rare, firm authority, but Anok refused every offer. As a last resort, Eunuch Im signaled to Han-wol with a subtle look.

“However, Your Highness, having purged your stomach like this, you must take something to sustain yourself.”

Anok shook his head limply. Turning away from the worried servants, he pulled back the bedcovers. Left with no choice, his three trusted attendants lowered the thin silk curtains around the bed and quietly retreated.

“Could it be that he has suddenly fallen homesick……?”

“Has there not been a coldness between Their Highnesses of late?”

“Even so, they appeared to be conversing quite closely at Jeongan Palace today. What could possibly be the trouble……”

The low conversation exchanged between Eunuch Im, Court Lady Yoo, and Han-wol was saturated with deep concern for their master.

“Once he falls into a deep sleep, I shall bring Physician Do inside,” Eunuch Im said, shaking his head. “To cry so intensely and retch like that…… I fear he may truly be ill. He seemed to have a slight fever earlier as well, which worries me greatly.”

Court Lady Yoo and Han-wol nodded in agreement with the eunuch’s words. At that point, their main worry was simply that summoning Physician Do might wake Anok and cause him to dismiss everyone in frustration.

However, when Eunuch Im stepped into the chamber roughly an hour later, he was frozen in absolute terror to find his master burning with a terrifyingly high fever. Han-wol bolted out of the inner quarters like an arrow to retrieve Physician Do.

Word of the collapse reached Yeo Jae-won shortly after.

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