The palace doors slammed shut behind her with a deafening finality. Rain lashed against the stone paths, cold and merciless, soaking through the tattered silk of her hanbok. The golden embroidery—once a symbol of her status—was now smeared with mud, torn apart by the very guards who once bowed to her.
Queen Dowager Eun-Seo was no longer a queen.
She stumbled forward, her breath ragged, her body wracked with exhaustion. The echoes of the throne room still rang in her ears—the accusations, the shouts, the venom in their voices.
"Treason! The queen has conspired against the king!"
"Strip her of her title! Cast her out before she poisons the royal bloodline!"
"The child she carries shall never know the palace!"
A sharp sob clawed its way up her throat, but she swallowed it down. Crying was a luxury she could no longer afford. Her trembling hands clutched her stomach, feeling the faint, fluttering movements within. The only warmth left in her world.
"My child…"
Her body shuddered, a mix of fear and fury coursing through her veins. She had loved the king once. She had trusted him. Had given him everything—her youth, her devotion, her unwavering loyalty. Yet, in the end, he had turned his back on her without a second thought.
How easily he had let them rip her away.
"Did you ever love me at all?"
She knew the answer before the question even finished forming in her mind. No. She was nothing but a political pawn, a woman married off to secure alliances. And now that she was no longer useful, she was discarded.
Her breath hitched as a wave of pain rippled through her abdomen—not from the pregnancy, but from the deep bruises left by the guards who had dragged her from the throne room. They hadn't even allowed her dignity in exile.
With every step away from the palace, a part of her crumbled. This was her home. The place where she had dreamed of raising her child, where she had once stood beside the man she thought she knew.
But no more.
The Eun-Seo who had walked through these halls as a queen was dead. The woman who remained had only one purpose now.
She pressed a shaking hand against her stomach. "You will live," she whispered, her voice hoarse but unbroken. "You will take back everything they stole from us."
She didn't know how. She didn't know when.
But she would make sure that when the time came, her child would return—not as a victim, but as a ruler.
With one last glance at the palace she once called home, she turned and walked into the storm, her shadow swallowed by the darkness.
And so, the kingdom's greatest secret was born.