PART 1: THE QUEEN UNRAVELS
The Queen slapped a minister.
Open-handed.
In front of the entire court.
It echoed.
More than the impact, it was the silence after that hung longest—thick and stunned, like the air before lightning strikes. The man who had spoken—a low-level official from the Eastern Grain Commission—stumbled back, hand to his cheek, disbelief painting his face redder than the blow had.
"I warned you," the Queen hissed.
Not shouted. Hissed.
Like something inside her had snapped and hissed in her place.
"You dare question me in my own court?"
"My Queen—" the man stammered, bowing frantically, "I only meant that the tax report was unclear, not—"
"You meant to say I'm a fool."
"No—!"
"You think I'm a fool."
The fan in her hand snapped.
Clean in two.
No one moved.
Not the scribes. Not the guards.
Not even the King Dowager, watching quietly from the far right with unreadable eyes.
Seorin stood near the third pillar, half-shadowed by a draped banner, heart pounding. Her own hands were still. Perfectly still.
But inside?
Rage. Fear. Recognition.
She had been that Queen once.
Cornered. Tired. Haunted by voices no one else could hear. She had snapped at ministers too. Torn robes. Broken heirlooms.
And no one had stopped her then, either.
Not until they killed her.
---
The Queen left the chamber without dismissing the court.
Her footsteps echoed long after the doors closed.
The ministers said nothing aloud.
But when they thought no one was watching, their glances darted—at one another, at the empty throne.
At the crack that had begun to form beneath it.
---
Later, in the upper corridors, Lady Eun said softly over tea, "It's not treason to say someone is… tired."
"She's not tired," replied Lord Baek, lifting his teacup delicately. "She's slipping."
"I would never say such a thing," Eun said, smiling.
"You just did."
Seorin sipped her own tea in silence, seated at the edge of their circle. Invisible but present. Her fox mask gone, but its smile still etched somewhere behind her face.
She watched them test the air.
Testing how much dissent could be spoken before someone struck.
They were circling the throne now.
And she had helped start the circle.
Yeonhwa approached hours later as they walked the east promenade.
"She's dismissed three guards," the maid whispered. "Said one of them 'watched her too long.' He never looked up once."
Seorin nodded once.
And said nothing.
What was there to say?
The Queen was unraveling.
Piece by piece.
And Seorin had laid the threads for it to happen.
She should have felt triumphant.
Instead, she felt cold.
Because what if…
What if the Queen wasn't the one falling apart?
What if something else was breaking its way through?
---
PART 2: THE SONG OF BEFORE
The palace was never silent.
Even in the dead of night, it breathed.
Wind nudged paper screens. Lantern oil hissed in its bowls. Distant servants whispered behind half-closed doors. The trees rustled like silk skirts brushing marble.
But this night… something else stirred.
Music.
A tune. Faint. Wandering.
Seorin woke before realizing why.
She lay still in the dark, eyes open, breath caught.
It came from the corridor—soft, wavering, like someone half-remembering the notes as they sang.
She sat up slowly.
And froze.
Because she knew the song.
Not just the melody—the pattern, the pauses, the way the last line always hung just a breath too long.
Her mother had sung it.
Not the Queen Mother. Not any court lady.
Her real mother.
From before the palace.
When Seorin was just a girl with scraped knees and ink-stained hands, curling up in her mother's lap in a room that smelled of camellias and old books.
She had never sung that song aloud since.
Not even in her own head.
Yet here it was.
Floating through the corridor.
Pulling her from her bed like a thread through cloth.
She opened her chamber door.
The hall was empty.
She followed the sound—barefoot, breath shallow, robe trailing behind her. Past the physician's courtyard. Past the mirrored shrine. Toward the Queen's wing.
The closer she came, the fainter the song grew.
Until it vanished entirely.
As if it had never been there at all.
---
The next morning, Seorin sat in the outer pavilion where breakfast was served in the Queen's wing.
A group of court ladies gathered near the stone lotus pool, laughing quietly.
The Queen sat apart—face unreadable, hair coiled tight, spoon hovering above her untouched porridge.
And then—
She hummed.
Just a note.
Two.
A breath of a tune.
The same lullaby.
Hummed unconsciously, lips barely parted, the tone wrong—just slightly flat—but undeniably familiar.
Seorin's hand clenched around her teacup.
She hadn't imagined it.
The Queen had heard it too.
Or… remembered it.
From where?
From who?
And more terrifyingly…
How?
---
PART 3: THE MIRROR CRACKS
The comb was small.
Bone-white. Plain, save for one detail—a single cherry blossom carved into the base, no larger than a fingernail.
It had once belonged to Seorin's mother. A thing of no worth to nobles. A gift. A comfort. She had carried it with her even after becoming queen, tucked inside a drawer behind more gilded offerings. No one else had ever touched it.
Until she placed it on the Queen's writing table.
She made sure the room was empty.
Yeonhwa stood watch in the hall, murmuring a coded warning if anyone passed too close. The Queen was in council. The window had been left ajar.
Seorin stepped over the sill, moved like shadow, and set the comb precisely where her past self would have kept it.
Then she left.
And waited.
---
The scream came before dusk.
High. Violent. Raw.
Seorin was two corridors away when she heard it—close enough to see the rush of attendants, the scramble of guards summoned without orders. Something had shattered. A tray hit the floor. Two women ran from the room weeping.
She didn't go.
She didn't need to.
---
By nightfall, the Queen had ordered all servants out of her wing.
Even her chief attendant was dismissed with shaking hands and a bitten lip.
"She said the walls were watching her," one maid whispered. "She threw her tea at the mirror."
Another added, "She called out a name—twice. But it wasn't hers."
Seorin asked nothing. Only listened.
Later, under the cover of offering flowers, she stepped into the side corridor that overlooked the entrance to the Mirror Room.
The Queen stood inside.
Alone.
Not moving.
Just staring.
Into the mirror.
Her reflection stared back.
The candle beside her flickered, casting their faces into split shadow—left light, right dark.
Her lips moved.
No sound.
Then:
She raised her hand slowly.
Touched the glass.
And whispered:
> "Get out of me."
---
Seorin didn't breathe.
Not even as she stepped back into the dark.
The Queen wasn't imagining things anymore.
She was sensing them.
And Seorin realized—this wasn't a collapse.
It was a return.
The Queen wasn't breaking.
She was remembering the life Seorin had taken.
And there was no
telling which of them would remain when the memory finished stitching itself back together.
---
PART 4: THE DOUBLE IN THE GARDEN
The Queen's private garden was always empty by the seventh bell.
Even the guards respected its silence.
It wasn't beautiful—at least not compared to the rest of the palace. Not ornamental. The plants were chosen for scent, not color. White camellias. Shadow-thick pine. Sweet flag growing wild along the stone path.
Seorin had designed it that way.
A space to think. To breathe without being watched.
Now, she passed through it not as Queen, but as a quiet daughter taking a shortcut toward the lantern tower. A path no one paid attention to.
Except tonight… she wasn't alone.
She saw the figure before she heard it.
A silhouette near the far pond.
Standing. Still.
Back turned.
Black hair pinned in a shape she recognized—high, looped in the old ceremonial way she had worn it years ago. The robes were different. Not royal indigo. Red silk, trimmed with gold. Her favorite combination. Her signature, when she had been Queen.
Seorin's breath caught.
She didn't speak.
Didn't move.
The figure shifted slightly, head tilting as if listening.
And Seorin saw the profile.
Her own.
Not similar. Not cousin-close. Exact.
And then—
Gone.
The wind stirred the branches. The pond rippled. The scent of pine thickened.
But the figure had vanished.
No footfall. No rustle of robes. No sound.
Just… absence.
Seorin stood rooted in place.
Then turned sharply, exiting the path through the side gate.
Yeonhwa waited for her in the corridor, just arriving from the opposite direction. Her face pale. Her eyes wide.
"You saw her too," Seorin said.
Yeonhwa didn't answer.
Just nodded.
"She wore red."
Yeonhwa whispered, "That's not what scared me."
Seorin raised a brow. "Then what?"
The girl swallowed. "She smiled when she saw you."
Seorin's mouth went dry.
"She didn't look confused. Or lost. Or afraid."
"What did she
look like?"
Yeonhwa didn't blink.
"Like she'd been waiting for you."
---
PART 5: WHEN THE QUEEN WAKES UP
It happened during a morning audience.
The Queen sat at the center of the throne dais, draped in imperial blue, her eyes dull with sleeplessness. Ministers presented reports. The scribe whispered titles. Wind stirred the incense smoke across the hall.
And then—
Her hand twitched.
Just once.
Then twice.
Her breath hitched.
The scroll slipped from her fingers.
And she fell.
A clean, slow slump—like a tree felled by silence.
The court gasped.
The scribe rushed forward. The High Minister called for the physician. Two guards reached her side before anyone else.
Seorin did not move.
She watched from the second tier gallery, knuckles white against the carved railing.
The Queen was still breathing.
Her eyelids fluttered.
But she didn't wake.
Not then.
---
They carried her to the Red Orchid Chamber—an inner room rarely used. The physician closed the doors. Nobles speculated. Whispers coiled through corridors like vines looking for a throat to strangle.
"Blood loss?"
"No… she was fasting."
"A spell? A ghost?"
Seorin said nothing.
But when night fell, she returned.
She waited until Yeonhwa gave the signal—the physician had left. The servants had been dismissed. The guards rotated.
Then she stepped inside.
The Queen lay beneath a curtain of white silk, arms folded loosely, face still and pale.
Then her eyes opened.
Not startled. Not panicked.
Just open.
And staring directly at Seorin.
Seorin froze.
The Queen blinked.
Then said:
"…You moved my comb."
Her voice was hoarse. Raw.
But deliberate.
Seorin's breath caught.
The Queen sat up slowly.
And added, "That was in my mother's drawer. She died before the palace ever saw her face."
Silence.
Then:
She looked at the attending girl in the corner and whispered, "Minhae… pour tea."
The girl stared.
"My Queen… I am not—"
"I said pour."
"But Minhae—" the girl swallowed, "—has been dead five years."
The Queen's head tilted.
Like someone trying to remember which life she was standing inside.
Then, softly: "Oh."
Seorin stepped back.
For the first time since her rebirth—
She felt fear.
Not of death. Not of betrayal.
Of herself.
Of what she had been.
And what still lived in the body across the room.
Because the Queen smiled.
Not warmly.
Not cruelly.
Just knowingly.
Like something inside her had woken up.
And was looking through her own eyes for the very first time.
---