Chapter 34: The Shadow of the Pagoda Palace
Before making a choice and pondering over it, you had to reflect on your origins. And on the dark shadow that still clung to your ankles.
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The Pagoda Palace, where the Imperial Descendants resided, was a rather pleasant place.
With wide buildings great for hide-and-seek and gardens aesthetically maintained by diligent gardeners. Daily high-quality food was served, and the servants were eager to satisfy most of their whims.
If there was one thing notably lacking at the Pagoda Palace, it was sufficient affection.
Due to the old Emperor’s concerns, palace servants were swapped out regularly. Moreover, if any signs of affection began to sprout between the Imperial Descendants and the servants, the latter were promptly whisked away. Poof!
This led the Imperial Descendants to view the servants as essentially nonexistent, or perhaps mere golems. They paid no heed to their every move and even if feelings like interest or gratitude arose, they simply suppressed them.
After all, they totally knew that the moment they expressed gratitude to the maid who picked up a dropped handkerchief, her face would vanish like the last slice of pizza at a party.
So, if there was one thing distinctly missing in the Pagoda Palace, it was indeed affection. That void of warmth was filled instead by the Imperial Descendants themselves.
“Big sis, are you the seeker today?”
“Sledo, the butler said I should be called ‘Noonim.’”
“Ugh, that’s too stiff for my taste!”
They were learning emperor studies and memorizing the various noble family crests and their meanings, yet they were still, at heart, just children.
Elaine, Irid, and Sledo played merrily.
It felt as if they were the only beings inhabiting this tiny world.
And always, the First Prince watched them from his armchair.
From the get-go, he had been dignified and wise beyond his years. While he didn’t join his younger siblings in their playful escapades, he showered them with praise when they returned from a day of fun.
He would chide them not to run in dangerous places and encourage them when they accomplished something. In the midst of all the Imperial Descendants keeping their distance from servants…
It could be said that the First Prince played the role of an adult. Essentially, he served as the emotional support that embraced the little tykes’ mishaps. Awww!
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Fast forward a year since the Emperor’s summons… Things started getting a bit odd in the Pagoda Palace.
The Third Prince, Sledo, ended up injured when a teacup fell from the second-floor balcony. Ouch! He suffered some burns and a nasty cut from the sharp glass.
Just as the Second Prince, Irid, stumbled and almost managed to poke his eye out on the unexpectedly sharp end of a mop handle, which just so happened to be chilling there. Oof!
And as for you, the First Princess Elaine, you were not excluded from this unusual wave of misfortune either. While crossing the hall on the first floor, the hinge of the chandelier overhead suddenly snapped with a horrendous crack!
If the devoted chamberlain hadn’t shoved you aside in that very instant, you would’ve met your maker, or at the very least, gotten seriously injured.
You witnessed the chamberlain crushed beneath the chandelier, resembling nothing more than a squashed tomato. Squash!
This ‘misfortune’ had escalated from tiny mishaps to now directly threatening lives!
With anxiety crawling under your skin, you felt the shivers. Even after calling priests for a full building consecration or bringing in court wizards to investigate, nothing came to light.
The malice lurking behind all of this was far too chilling to merely brush off as ‘bad luck.’
Thus, you sought counsel from the most trustworthy of them all—First Prince. After all, he always led his siblings with a steady hand. And oh, that effortlessly charming atmosphere he radiated could light up a room!
He had the shiniest golden hair you’d ever seen. His deep blue eyes sparkled with mischief. But he exuded a soft dignity in every single gesture. It made you think, if there were anyone destined to be Emperor, it could only be him!
That’s why you had faith in him. You believed that if you turned to him for help this time too, everything would sort itself out.
In an armchair bigger than the tiny table beside him, he sat reading a book and sipping black tea. Instead of throwing yourself at him and crying over your troubles, you, the young yet dignified one, knocked politely before approaching him like a fancy princess!
You opened your small mouth.
“Big bro, do you know anything about what’s happening in the palace…?”
“’What incident?’ You mean about the scar on Sledo’s face and how Irid almost got hurt? Oh, and right! One poor chamberlain kicked the bucket too. I’m glad you weren’t hurt, Elaine.”
“… Yeah. I don’t think this is mere ‘bad luck.’ Everyone says nothing’s amiss, but I felt a sense of malice. I think someone wants to harm us… What do you think, Big Bro?”
“About that… I’m the one behind it.”
“…Uh, excuse me?”
You blinked, completely lost as confusion clouded your thoughts.
The First Prince laughed refreshingly and nodded enthusiastically.
“Yep! I orchestrated it! You won’t find any evidence to pin it on me, but the fact remains that I did carry it out. You can totally trust me on that!”
“…That’s a cruel joke, Big Bro.”
“Did it come off that way?”
It certainly did not! His once warm eyes now bore down on you like you were just a chess piece. Gulp! That gaze was disconcertingly cold, as if it could freeze your blood solid.
You sensed a diabolical playfulness swirling in those eyes.
“…If that’s true, then why?”
Why would he commit such an act? Why was he revealing it to you? It felt like a trick question. He just smiled, pulling the corner of his mouth up before responding.
“This is merely a… trivial game. A pastime. I’ll give you one month, Elaine. After a month, Sledo will be the first to go.”
“…What!?”
“Time to find some fresh toys! I’ve found something interesting, so time’s running out! If possible, I’d like to play with you just a tad longer!”
And with that, he wrapped up the conversation.
Your brain was spinning in a cyclone of confusion. You wanted to believe it was just a joke, but it was too vivid to dismiss as such. And it was difficult to accept the fact that the very Big Bro you had known for the past decade was plotting to take your life.
Moreover, you couldn’t recall his name, and when asked to recount memories shared with him, your mind was a complete blank! That just amplified your terror.
A choice had to be made.
Misfortune escalated day by day.
A chamberlain severely injured or dead, Sledo developing a phobia of sharp objects, and Irid beginning to mistrust anyone who casually passed by.
You, an eleven-year-old girl, cried, shivered with anxiety, and went into a full-on panic before realizing you needed to act swiftly. The First Prince had put a game in your hands.
To protect Irid, Sledo, and yourself…
You condemned him. You cried out that all of this misfortune was part of the wicked plot of the First Prince!
But you had neither evidence to persuade others nor the authority to lead them to believe you even without proof. So, you became someone who was perceived as trying to undermine her elder brother in the competition for the throne.
You pleaded before him, begging him to end all this madness.
Yet, he seemed to revel in your reaction! Whether you were angry, sobbing, or laughing, it appeared to him as nothing more than another fun toy!
And then, he addressed a crowd of witnesses with those cold words.
“You’ve had a tough time, Elaine… I can understand your anxiety during these trying times. But you must distinguish between delusion and reality.”
What a statement to brand you as unstable!
In that moment, you realized—was that First Prince that you knew being impersonated halfway through? Or had he always been this way, hiding his true nature? Regardless, that being was definitely not human!
Did the old Emperor know about this obscurity lurking in the Imperial Family?
The Emperor’s cryptic advice was simple:
Survive.
An anxiety flooded over you, the nagging thought that perhaps all of this was just a mental breakdown. The faintest trace of faith in the First Prince mixed with a raging fury. Your mind felt frayed at the seams, a psychological unraveling. With every injury to your brothers, guilt swelled, compounded by the pressure that a one-month time limit loomed like a storm cloud.
You locked yourself in your room, pondering endlessly. Your golden locks, once glittering under the sunlight, now dulled. Eventually, after much thought, you arrived at a resolution.
You chose to ignore all these feelings. Just to survive.
If you fixated solely on survival, the answer became crystal clear: the threat had to be eliminated, which meant… the only way through was to eliminate the First Prince. Cue dramatic music!
You donned a facade, pretending as if nothing were amiss while stealthily waiting for your chance to strike.
Then, imbued with desperation and weeks of groundwork, you poured poison into the First Prince’s teacup.
That scene remains branded in your mind, seared like a hot iron. The First Prince sipping tea, and then, all hell broke loose as he began spewing black blood. In a final serene grin, he glanced about, and then with a thud, he fell face-first onto the table.
Everyone in the Pagoda Palace understood who had poisoned the First Prince. They saw through the charade and knew who had murdered the most likely heir in cold blood to grab power!
As you sighed in relief that it was finally over, cold piercing gazes filled with accusation pierced you. Questions echoed through the air, asking how you could kill such a loving Big Brother. The servants either shunned you or feared your presence.
“I did my hardest… to survive, to protect everyone,”
you reassured yourself, willing your heart to accept that everything was now in order. You wanted to tell Irid and Sledo, “Let’s run barefoot in the yard and enjoy our time together as we did before catastrophe struck the Pagoda Palace!”
“I’m the one who protected everyone…”
But only fearful gazes returned from your baby brothers.
You heard a crack. Probably your heart breaking again. Tired of all those stares, you decided to just… let it be as though it had always been like this.
After that incident, Irid began to question you. In his eyes, you no longer looked like the nurturing sister you once were.
Sledo ceased speaking to you entirely; he treated you as if you were a stranger, unworthy of kinship after betraying the family.
And you, too, began to suspect your own self.
When you stared into the mirror, you saw the old Emperor’s watchful gaze lurking behind you.
Others’ stares still stung like a thousand tiny needles. Every time laughter echoed in your ears, you feared it was merely the prelude to another game of malice about to commence.
You harbored an odd certainty that the First Prince, who had pulled such abhorrent tricks, wouldn’t just fade away over a single poisoned cup of tea.
Thus, your singular focus was on survival.
Survival today. Survival tomorrow.
You amassed power, shattered potential threats, accomplished major feats, and toughened your body. This wasn’t a pursuit of dreams… but rather an all-consuming struggle for survival.
No, it was not merely simple survival. You needed to clutch it. You had to grasp that one short word: Survival. After all, it was all you’d managed to retain after losing the beautiful memories of childhood and every shred of affection you once had for Irid and Sledo, your only family.
That remained the only thing you clutched firmly.
You were alive, but you were not truly living.
The burden of mere survival grew heavier with each passing day. But still, you clung to it. Letting go of that would mean losing everything.
The wandering had not ceased. The path forward had lost all sense of direction. Even if you meandered aimlessly, there was no substance, no improvement through introspection, and no echoes returned from your plaintive cries.
Hope that things might improve remained elusive. So, even now…
You continued your search for “Paradise.”
To put an end to this entire escape saga.
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Distance remaining to Paradise: About 30 centimeters. Dramatic pluck of strings!
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