Hyeran walked down the corridor, turning over the order she had just received.
Don't ask why. That one sentence had told her the reason anyway. In the fifteen years Hyeran had served the Chieftain, that tone had always meant she was hiding something.
While drawing up the replacement list for the junior handmaidens, Hyeran paused. Beside the names of two handmaidens, she wrote their assigned area.
Yeon's room.
Hyeran's expression hardened. She had said nothing, but the pieces were falling into place in her mind.
One of the replaced handmaidens, Miryeong, couldn't return to her room that night. Instead, she headed toward the quarters where the other junior handmaidens gathered, near the back entrance of the Concubine Quarters.
“Why were you suddenly thrown out?”
A fellow handmaiden asked. Resentment and anger mingled across Miryeong's face.
“I don't know. They said they were changing me for no reason. But…”
Miryeong lowered her voice.
“Do you know where we were that day? In front of that fourth one's room. The very day the Chieftain came to inspect the Concubine Quarters.”
The other handmaiden's eyes widened.
“No way.”
“I don't know. It could have been a coincidence. But to be reassigned because of what happened right in front of that room…”
Before she could finish, the rumor had already begun to take shape. The night in the Concubine Quarters was quiet, but something was slowly spreading beneath that quiet.
The Chieftain is protecting the fourth one.
For now, it was only a whisper.
Two days later, Seolhwa sent a letter to the Concubine Quarters.
The concubine evaluations will begin. Individual interviews. The Chieftain will decide the order.
When Hyeran brought her the letter, Seolhwa was already changing clothes. She was not wearing her usual Chieftain's robes. A short top that exposed her shoulders, with a wide sash cinched around her waist. It was what Wolf Clan women wore in private.
“My Chieftain, that outfit…”
“It is an evaluation. Formality hides one's true nature.”
Hyeran closed her mouth. The logic was sound. Still, her eyes lingered for a moment on Seolhwa's exposed collarbone before dropping away.
“The first interviewee?”
“The fourth.”
Hyeran's brush stopped.
“I'll start with Yeon.”
“…Some may attach meaning to the order.”
“That is why I'm starting with the fourth. It will look as though I'm getting the one I'm least interested in out of the way first.”
Hyeran lowered her head. She did not answer. Only the fingertips guiding her brush slowed for the briefest moment before moving again.
The interview room was a small annex deep inside the Concubine Quarters. It had only one window, and sunlight slanted in, drawing a long rectangle across the floor.
Seolhwa was already seated. Several letters lay spread across the table. They were for recording the evaluations. She dipped her brush in ink. Her fingertips trembled faintly. Seolhwa set the brush down and placed her hands on her knees.
The door opened.
Yeon entered.
His head was bowed. His fox ears were folded down. His shoulders curled inward. No—he had shrunk even further. Two days in the Concubine Quarters had made the man withdraw deeper into himself.
“Sit.”
Seolhwa's voice was flat. Yeon sat across from her. He did not raise his head. One table stood between them. Less than two steps apart.
“Raise your head.”
Yeon slowly lifted his head. Red eyes looked up at Seolhwa. There was fear in them. Beneath it, desperation. Seolhwa's heart gave one hard beat.
Seolhwa lowered her gaze to the letter. The words would not come into focus.
“How is life in the Concubine Quarters?”
“…Nothing is uncomfortable.”
A lie. Seolhwa knew the comb, still broken, was in her own drawer. But she could not let him know she was aware of it.
“Your meals.”
“I eat well.”
Another lie. Yeon's wrist looked thinner than it had two days ago. His sleeve fell to the backs of his hands. Seolhwa's gaze settled on the edge of that sleeve.
“Roll up your sleeve.”
Yeon's body went rigid.
“…What?”
“It is an evaluation. I am checking your health.”
Seolhwa's voice was businesslike. After hesitating, Yeon slowly rolled up his left sleeve. A slender wrist was revealed. There were no bruises. Seolhwa began to nod, then stopped.
“The right one too.”
Yeon's hand trembled. He rolled up the right sleeve more slowly. When the fabric reached his elbow, Seolhwa saw it. Old burn marks on the inside of his wrist. Several small, round ones. Signs that someone had made them deliberately.
Yeon felt Seolhwa's gaze. He quickly pulled the sleeve back down. His head bowed again. His fox ears folded completely toward the floor.
Seolhwa's fingernails dug into the flesh of her knees.
Don't ask. The moment she did, this would no longer be an evaluation.
“…Enough.”
Seolhwa's voice dropped. Yeon remained motionless with his head bowed. The silence stretched. Sunlight from the window settled over Yeon's hair. Its muted red grew more vivid beneath the light.
Seolhwa raised her brush over the letter. Her hand did not tremble. A Chieftain's hand does not tremble.
“Next question.”
Seolhwa continued with her questions. His position within the Fox Clan, why he had entered the selection trials, his goals in the Concubine Quarters. Yeon's answers were brief and quiet. Seolhwa recorded them on the letter. Her handwriting was neat. No one would find anything strange in the record.
The interview ended.
“You may go.”
Yeon rose. He bowed his head and walked toward the door. Just before placing his hand on it, he stopped.
“…Chieftain.”
Seolhwa's heart seemed to stop. It was the first time Yeon had spoken first in this room.
“Is it possible… that there was another reason my room's handmaiden was changed?”
There was something strange in the way he asked. It was not the tone of someone merely curious. It was the tone of someone who had already heard something.
Seolhwa's expression turned to stone.
“It was a routine replacement. It applies to every room.”
A lie. Only the handmaiden assigned to Yeon's room had been replaced. But Yeon had no way to confirm that.
Yeon did not answer for a moment. He did not seem to believe her. Even so, he did not ask anything else.
“…Thank you.”
Yeon bowed his head and left. The door closed.
Seolhwa placed both hands on the table. She looked down at the writing on the letter. A neat, orderly record. There was no mention anywhere of the burn marks.
Seolhwa turned one of the letters over. She set her brush to the blank back.
She wrote nothing.
The tip of the brush remained suspended over the paper. Ink spread into a tiny dot. Seolhwa stared at that dot for a long time.
She wanted to ask what had been carved into the man's arm.
The Chieftain did not ask.
Seolhwa folded the letter and tucked it into her sleeve. She would put it in the same place as the drawer containing the broken comb. A drawer no one opened. A place no one knew about.
Seolhwa's steps were slow as she left the interview room. Hyeran was waiting at the end of the corridor.
“Shall I call in the next interviewee?”
“That is all for today.”
“After only one?”
Seolhwa did not answer. Hyeran's gaze lingered for a long time on Seolhwa's back.