The next morning came quietly, as if the palace itself was holding its breath. Seo Yena hadn't slept. Not after her encounter with Crown Prince Joon. His final words still echoed in her mind:
"Are you here to save me or destroy me?"
She didn't have an answer. Not yet.
As she scrubbed the stone steps outside the east garden, her hands moved on their own, but her thoughts were a storm. The whispers had gone silent. Too silent.
A chill crept up her spine.
That's when the scream shattered the morning stillness.
Yena shot to her feet, slipping on wet stone as a maid stumbled out from behind the lotus pond, pale and shaking.
"There's a body!" she cried. "In the water!"
The garden was soon swarming with palace guards, their polished armor gleaming in the rising sun. They dragged the body from the pond, a young eunuch, his face pale and blue, his eyes wide open.
No blood. No wounds.
Just a strange black mark across his throat, shaped like a crescent moon.
Yena stood at the edge of the crowd, heart pounding. She didn't know him by name, but she'd seen him just yesterday. He'd delivered tea to the Crown Prince's chambers.
"This isn't an accident," a voice whispered beside her.
Yena turned, startled. But no one was there.
Except… a faint shimmer hung in the air above the pond, like heat rising off stone. A shape, almost human, barely visible.
The ghost of the eunuch stared straight at her.
"Tell him… I didn't betray him," it whispered. "Please…"
Yena backed away slowly, trying not to draw attention.
But someone had already noticed her.
"Seo Yena."
She turned sharply. A royal guard approached, flanked by two others.
"The Crown Prince requests your presence. Immediately."