Chapter 19 — The Shin House And The Royal House (4)

The ritual implements had been arranged according to the principles of array-craft, so that no malign energy whatsoever could approach the place where the rite would be held.

Shin Yuhyeon instructed Yun Jinseong to pour out his spiritual power, and waited until the ritual ground was filled with that energy before bidding him withdraw it and step back.
Only then did he begin to move, slowly, deliberately.

The rite, by rights, ought not to have been drawn out so.
It was as though he meant Shin Hweein to watch and learn.

“By the ancient pact, I, Shin Yuhyeon, beseech thy power…”

And yet the incantation he intoned was hardly anything at all.

A mudang would call upon her god, a monk upon the authority of the Buddha, a Daoist sorcerer upon the strength of the gods of myth.
But the sorcerers of the Shin House relied solely on the power of the shikigami that warded themselves and their lineage.

The incantation, therefore, was brief.
And the shikigami from whom he borrowed strength this day were only two: Purple Cloud, who had warded the Shin House for generations, and one other, by the name of Yuryong, of whom Shin Hweein had never before heard tell.

“Now.”
“Yes.”

At Shin Yuhyeon’s curt utterance, Shin Hweein stepped forward, took up a handful of ash, and cast it into the air.

A portion of it halted as though nailed to the empty space, and the remainder began to fall.
Then Shin Hweein, as if he had been waiting for precisely this, flicked his hand and sent the ash drifting back into the vial.

“…”

For the briefest instant Shin Yuhyeon’s face showed surprise; yet he gave a solemn nod and carried the rite onward.

The ash scattered through the air kept changing shape, drawing strange patterns, forming things that resembled characters, none of it the kind of thing an ordinary man could have made sense of by looking.
Shin Hweein could not interpret it either, and yet he held his gaze upon it, focused.

And then, of its own accord, something came to him.

This is not, in itself, the meaning. It is only the trigger. Or it is a new eye, granted to me so that I might come into contact with the knowledge I seek.

Perhaps it was much as the moment in the Specter Realm when he had sensed the kudan’s birth.
Much as the way that, simply by facing another person, he could intuit the feelings that person bore toward him.
Something that words could not explain, and yet that, simply by looking, brought him an insight beyond mere intuition.

To read from the flow and the moment: that was precisely what this was.

“I have it. Old Aengseol’s word was true indeed. Their resistance amounted to no more than a token gesture.”

When Shin Yuhyeon completed the rite and released the breath he had been holding, the kudan-ash that had served as the medium burned away in the air as though consumed by flame.

Shin Hweein likewise let out a long breath, and Yun Jinseong, who had finished his part and stood in reserve behind them, spoke.

“How was it, Brother?”
“Before that, shall we compare answers?”

Shin Yuhyeon swept a hand through the air, sending every implement back to its proper place, and turned to Shin Hweein.

“Did you read it?”
“I read it.”
“He read it!”

At Yun Jinseong’s astonished exclamation, Shin Yuhyeon turned a cold gaze upon him, and Yun Jinseong drew his neck down between his shoulders.

“I’m impressed, that’s all. Impressed.”
“Tsk. …Begin with the country.”
“Hwa.”
“Hwa. Truly, Old Aengseol’s eye is sound. These Honwondorae creatures really are trying to sow discord between us and Hwa —!”

Shin Yuhyeon waved a hand and outright sealed Yun Jinseong’s mouth.

“And the region.”
“Gyeongdo. Hwa’s Gyeongdo is a city particularly thick with Specter Realm Gates, where every manner of mystery breathes and stirs. Without drawing upon that energy, they could not have so much as attempted the sorcery to craft a kudan.”
“Precise. Can you name the locality in detail as well?”
“As for the place name…”

Shin Hweein had never been to Gyeongdo.
He knew nothing of its precise geography, nor even the names of its districts.

Catching this, Shin Yuhyeon drew a phone from his robes, opened the screen to a map of Hwa’s Gyeongdo, and held it out to him.

“It is here.”

Shin Yuhyeon checked the area Shin Hweein had pointed to and nodded silently.

“One last question. There is a Specter Realm Gate in this place. Do you understand what that means?”
“They could not have kept the kudan’s mother-body secured in the present world. So they bound a yokai to the Specter Realm Gate. They made it, by force, the overseer of that region, so that it could not escape. It would be one of the gate-handling arts they have mastered.”
“And?”
“The summoning rite must be performed within the Specter Realm. If we were to take on the further burden of crossing between the present world and the Specter Realm, the rite’s chance of success would drop precipitously.”
“Correct. …All correct.”

With his gaze fixed on the screen of his phone, on the map of Gyeongdo, Shin Yuhyeon gave a quiet nod.

“Tomorrow’s summoning rite should pose no trouble either.”
“Pff! Now, hold on — what exactly did you teach him, that you can say tomorrow’s rite will pose no trouble? Hweein got a fair number of things right, sure, but did you slip him a lesson by mind-speech while I wasn’t looking?”

At Yun Jinseong’s pressing question, Shin Yuhyeon, having broken free of the sorcery under his own power, shook his head slowly.

“I have never had a gift for teaching.”
“Then what was all that Hweein answered just now?”
“He watched, and learned. Of his own accord.”
“That? How on earth — ?”
“Well.”

As I myself once did.

Adding only that, quietly, Shin Yuhyeon opened his subspace storage, far more naturally than Shin Hweein himself could manage it, and drew out a notebook.
Until the very moment he drew it forth, it had clearly been a notebook without a single mark on it; yet by the time he had murmured something under his breath and held the book out to Shin Hweein, four neat Hangul characters were already inscribed on its cover: Summoning Rite.

“This holds what you must know beyond what you have learned today. Memorize it perfectly, and there will be no trouble. We will review the order once tomorrow morning, then enter at once into the rite. We shall make use of the Aeshin Great Gate; I will have word sent to the King, who will see to every preparation.”
“Understood.”
“Hah, this is truly maddening. A rite as important as that, and you couldn’t take the boy in for even a single night to teach him. Exchange a few words after all this time, slip him a bit of pocket money…”
“Shall I seal your mouth shut for three days or so?”
“Now, now.”

In front of Shin Hweein, or any of the other children, even before the King himself, Yun Jinseong had always shown only the steadfast, dignified bearing of a fully grown man.
And yet now, conversing with Shin Yuhyeon, he was carrying on as though he had shed a good thirty years.

But that men changed their manner according to whom they faced was something Shin Hweein knew well enough.
Then what of Shin Yuhyeon?
Did his manner change, in turn, when he stood before his own family?
The things he had shown today, at least, before Shin Hweein’s eyes…

“I have come here today as a sorcerer.”

And then, as though he had read those interior thoughts, Shin Yuhyeon spoke.

“Not as anyone’s father.”
“How relentlessly miserly you are with people, to the very end.”
“And the same for Shin Hweein. He has come here as a promising sorcerer of distinguished service to the nation, as a sorcerer who will, tomorrow, bear an even greater part. Is that not so?”
“…It is.”

Shin Hweein answered, quiet.

“Therefore, we have not yet met today as father and son.”
“That is so.”
“And after how excited someone was about being taught a bit of sorcery, no less.”

Unable to bear it any longer, Yun Jinseong snorted; but Shin Yuhyeon ignored the remark cleanly.

“Whatever feeling you may hold toward me, it ought not to be laid bare so plainly in this place. The same goes for me.”
“Of course.”
“So, after tomorrow, I shall return to the House and wait there for you to come to me as a son.”
“It will not take long.”

At that, at last, Shin Yuhyeon let out a faint, dry laugh.

“And when that time comes, and you come to me… you may grab me by the collar, or anywhere else you please.”
“That is precisely what I intend.”
“I shall look forward to it.”

Yuhyeon nodded, and made to leave first.
Then he stopped.

“There are two things I would tell you ahead of time.”
“I will hear them.”
“One: Shin Hweein is still a son of the Shin House. The severance is not made final unless I, Shin Yuhyeon, head of the Shin House, sanction it. And I shall not.”
“I had wondered that the thread had never quite come loose.”
“As for the second.”

Shin Yuhyeon hesitated a moment.
Then he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, and when he opened them it was with the look of one who had settled his mind, and he went on.

“Two: before you return home, I should like at least two cups left in that liquor bottle.”

Shin Hweein lifted his head.

The words were so utterly beyond what he had expected that, for an instant, his mind would not turn, and the answer slipped out of him by pure reflex.

“Two cups?”
“Two cups, to be shared between father and son.”
“…That will depend on Moa’s tolerance.”
“Tsk.”

At Shin Hweein’s honest report, Shin Yuhyeon sighed, then flicked something glittering into the air.
Catching the meaning of it at once, Shin Hweein gave an inward, helpless laugh.
What was it he had said again? That Shin Yuhyeon could not interfere with his own arts?

— It is your fault, young master.
— Truly, my fault?
— If you hadn’t mentioned it just now, I’d never have known! That man is that sort of man. The moment you say a thing aloud, he knows.
— That stands to reason. So it was, too, the moment the King spoke my name…
— You ought to have guessed it yourself, young master. You merely let your guard down, didn’t you? Just because that man brought up liquor.
— Yes. My apologies. I shall have to discipline myself further.

If she had not wished to be caught out, she ought only to have refrained from moving.
Geum Moa had not chosen to do so.
Was Shin Yuhyeon’s “offering,” perhaps, that much to her liking?

At the sight of the small object cast into the air vanishing in midair rather than falling to the floor, Yun Jinseong’s eyes flew wide.

“Don’t tell me — don’t tell me… it can’t be.”
“The rite went undisturbed. That is enough. And the fact that it was accepted, I shall take as her agreeing to grant my request.”

With a faint sigh of relief, Shin Yuhyeon opened the door and stepped out.

Shin Hweein, curious why his father was so fixated on the liquor, made to follow after; but by then there was no sign of Shin Yuhyeon outside.
Yun Jinseong, having likewise confirmed that Shin Yuhyeon had vanished, fixed him with an unhappy look and asked,

“And so? What was it?”
“I didn’t see either.”

— I won’t tell.

“She says she won’t tell.”
“This one and that one alike.”

The next morning broke.

Shin Hweein, who had been given lodging within Gyeongbokgung, opened his eyes before dawn, bathed and purified himself, and put on clean robes.

The Aeshin Great Gate was concealed in a place of considerable seclusion even within the inner palace.
Beyond the members of the Royal House, the seven representatives chosen from among the Spell Army and the royal sorcerers, and those whom the direct line of the Royal House were each entitled to designate, one apiece and no more, none were permitted so much as to approach it.

“That a privilege such as this should be granted so simply is without precedent. I had to spend my one allotted privilege solely for this. Half forced into it!”
“Is that so. Since it is for the sake of the rite, it cannot be helped.”
“You will not be allowed to settle the matter with ‘it cannot be helped.’”

The Princess, who had somehow contrived to seek Shin Hweein out, sat down at a proper distance from him and began at once to air her grievances.

“Do you understand what this means now? It means His Majesty has taken it into his head to marry the two of us!”
“Anyone is free to take whatever he pleases into his head. His Majesty the King appears to find me rather to his liking.”
“That tongue of yours.”

The Princess ground her teeth.

“To the ruler of Aeshin, far too impudent. We have had quite enough of impudence from your father alone.”
“It is the privilege of the Shin House. Were you unaware?”
“No — I know. But —”
“Those who know.”

Recalling the day he had first heard tell of this not-particularly-remarkable privilege said to be enjoyed solely by the direct line of the Shin House, Shin Hweein said:

“Those who know do not call it into question. You do not know.”
“…I had heard you rose from your sickbed not long ago.”

Sensing he would not yield, the Princess changed the subject.
Shin Hweein checked the time remaining and nodded.

“That is so.”
“And before that, I had heard you could scarcely work sorcery properly either. How did this come about? What happened in the Specter Realm? Even high-ranking sorcerers cannot vouch for their lives in there, and yet you, overcoming even the affliction you bore from birth…”
“You are —”
“Princess Mirye.”

Shin Hweein did not miss the faint trembling of her hands as she fixed him with her glare.

“Has Princess Mirye yet entered the Specter Realm?”
“Ngh… No. Is that a fault? I have not even had my coming-of-age rite.”

So it is, after all.

Like a hedgehog curling itself into a ball before something strange and frightful, to shield itself, the Princess only sharpened her manner; and at it, Shin Hweein simply shook his head.
The hostility she bore toward him was not because he had been impudent to the King.
It was, he understood, merely because she had seen in him things she had not seen in any of her other subjects.

That is to say, it was hostility turned upon him as an extraordinary element that denied the daily sameness she required of the world.

“Not at all. To fear what one has not yet endured is reasonable. It is, at the very least, far wiser than to fling oneself in headlong.”
“That does not sound to me like a compliment.”
“Of course not. To worry in advance about what one will never face is no better.”

It was plain enough that Shin Hweein had been chosen as Princess Mirye’s designated proxy.
It was plain too that the King, having locked horns with Shin Yuhyeon over whether or not to draw Shin Hweein into the Royal House, was, as part of that same maneuvering, trying to bring the two of them closer.

But whether to fall in with his designs was a thing for the Princess to decide for herself; and besides, those who would enter through the Aeshin Great Gate would be only Shin Hweein, Yun Jinseong, and Shin Yuhyeon.
She had been listing, from the moment she sat down, possibilities she had not faced and would never face, and fretting over them.

“The Princess will have no occasion to enter the Aeshin Great Gate today.”
“But something might come bursting out from within.”
“Do you know the weight of words? To say a thing will be is, in itself, to draw the world a little nearer to its being.”
“I know nothing of sorcery. We do not inquire into mystery. Before us, mystery must not exist.”
“You know already, then. Do exactly that.”
“D— do what?”

Shin Hweein rose to his feet, and said:

“Continue to deny it, just as you have. That no mystery shall appear before you. That no preternatural thing shall come bursting out beyond that gate. Deny fear, and fear is extinguished. That is your power.”
“I am not afraid!”
“Princess Mirye — I am.”

The door opened.
Ham Seoyeon and Yun Juna, Shin Yuhyeon and Yun Jinseong, were there to receive him.

“And because I am afraid, I go to erase it.”

Within the Aeshin Great Gate, the rite would soon be held.
A rite upon which the future of the Aeshin Royal House hung, and yet, beyond the palace walls, not a soul knew of it.
And it would end without a soul outside ever knowing.