The fever had started two days ago.
At first, it was just a slight chill that curled around Seo Yul's spine when the sun dipped behind the palace walls. Then came the heaviness in his limbs, the quiet ache in his joints, and the dull pounding behind his eyes. But he said nothing.
There was no one to say it to.
Hae Ryun was gone with the King. The palace wing where he stayed had never felt more silent or more like a cage.
When the steward delivered a summons that morning from Lady Eun Hye, Seo Yul already knew it wouldn't be kind.
She was waiting at the outer courtyard, beneath the stone arch carved with the royal crest. Her silk robes trailed like mist behind her, but her words came sharp and cold.
"The western hallway floors are dusty. See to it by evening."
She didn't look at him when she spoke as if he were nothing but a servant, one she barely had to acknowledge.
Seo Yul bowed with trembling legs.
He didn't mention the heat on his skin, the pulsing in his head.
He didn't dare.
The hallway stretched longer than he remembered. The buckets were heavier. His knees screamed every time he bent. And as he scrubbed and dragged water back and forth, the world swam around him like a spinning top.
He had to stop once, clutching the wall to stay upright. His breath was shallow. His hands were ice.
But he kept working.
He didn't know someone had been watching him from behind a column.
By afternoon, his arms gave out.
The bucket slipped from his grip and splashed across the polished floor.
A loud sound. Enough to summon her.
Lady Eun Hye appeared in the corridor like a shadow, her smile almost amused.
"Tired already?" she asked, tilting her head. "You've barely done a third."
Seo Yul dropped to his knees. He couldn't stand anymore. He pressed his forehead to the floor both in apology and surrender.
"I… I'm sorry…" His voice cracked.
She stood above him, silent for a beat, then stepped back and spoke with a strange sweetness in her tone, "You must learn discipline."
She turned to the servant behind her.
"Tell the guards. Prince Seo Yul is to kneel at the base of the palace stairs until sunrise."
The order was delivered without a flicker of hesitation.
"Let him remember this."
They brought him there before dusk.
Seo Yul knelt at the marble steps just below the royal court hall. A place where nobles passed in the day, now silent and grey as the sky above.
The guards stationed nearby looked away. None of them spoke to him. He said nothing either.
His fever burned through his bones now. His vision blurred. Time began to slip.
The first drop of rain landed on his hand. He blinked.
Then came the next. And the next.
Within minutes, the storm rolled over the palace with a roar thick curtains of rain cascading from the heavens, soaking the stones, the trees, and Seo Yul's fragile body like ink bleeding through parchment.
But he didn't move.
His hair stuck to his cheeks. His thin clothes clung to his skin. Every breath felt like swallowing a shard of glass. His hands trembled violently in his lap, but he clenched his fists, knuckles white.
He remembered… his mother.
Her voice, soft and full of music.
"If ever the world turns cold, my son, become the fire that warms it."
But there was no fire now. Only rain. Only cold.
Only silence.