THE INTERROGATION
920 Words
Chapter 2: 🌊The Interrogation🌊
*{Joseon Palace, Prison Cells, Fourth Watch}*
The cell smelled of rust and old fear.
Seo-yeon sat on the cold stone floor, wrists bound in iron that bit deeper every time she shifted. The guards had left her here twenty minutes ago, but it felt like hours. Time moved differently when you were waiting for someone to decide if you lived or died.
Across from her, the wall wept water through a crack. Each drop echoed like a heartbeat.
She closed her eyes and reached for her shadow.
Nothing.
The absence felt like a missing limb. When her shadow was gone, she felt exposed, like walking through the palace naked. It had been gone for three nights now. Since the first murder.
Footsteps. Measured, heavy, the kind that didn’t rush.
The cell door scraped open. Cold air rushed in.
General Han Tae-wook entered alone, a single lantern in hand. He didn’t bring guards. That was worse. If he planned to kill her, he didn’t want witnesses.
He set the lantern down and crouched until his eyes were level with hers. Up close, the scar on his brow looked older, rougher. Like it had been earned in a fight he still dreamt about.
“You’re quiet,” he said. “Most women scream by now.”
“Most women aren’t innocent,” Seo-yeon replied. Her voice was hoarse from holding it steady too long.
Tae-wook studied her face. Searching for a lie. “Innocent women don’t have shadows that walk without them.”
“And guilty men don’t have nightmares they wake from screaming.”
His eyes flickered. She’d struck something. Good. Let him know she wasn’t afraid of him. Fear made people careless.
He stood abruptly, pacing the small cell. The iron on her wrists felt heavier with every step he took.
“Guard Kim was twenty-three,” he said. “Youngest son of a silk merchant from Gwangju. He wrote to his sister every month. Do you know what he wrote in his last letter?”
Seo-yeon said nothing.
“’The palace is safe. General Han watches us like a hawk, but I sleep well.” Tae-wook stopped in front of her. “He doesn’t sleep well anymore.”
The accusation hung between them, thick and ugly.
Seo-yeon swallowed. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Then where is your shadow?”
She looked down. The space beside her on the floor was empty. A void that felt accusatory.
“It left,” she said softly. “It always leaves when death is near.”
“Liar.”
The word hit harder than the slap she’d been bracing for.
Tae-wook knelt again, close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. “I’ve hunted traitors, smugglers, foreign spies. I know a lie when I hear it. You know something. And if you don’t tell me, more men die.”
Emotion cracked through her carefully built walls. Not fear. Anger.
“Do you think I enjoy this?” she hissed. “Do you think I wanted to be born with a curse that makes people cross the street when I pass? My mother died because of it. My father disowned me. I live in the outer palace like a ghost because the king thinks my presence will stain his court!”
For a second, something shifted in his face. Surprise. Maybe pity. He hid it fast.
“That doesn’t explain the shadows,” he said, quieter now.
“No,” she admitted. “It doesn’t.”
Silence fell. Only the dripping water remained.
Seo-yeon studied him back. The set of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, the way his hand never strayed far from his sword even in a cell with an unarmed woman. He was afraid too. Not of her. Of failing. Of another body turning up cold with no shadow to bury.
She saw the weight of it on him, and for a moment, she hated him less.
“Let me go to the courtyard,” she said suddenly.
Tae-wook frowned. “Why?”
“Because my shadow goes where I can’t. If I stand where Kim died, maybe it will return. Maybe it saw something.”
“Or maybe you’ll run.”
“I have nowhere to run, General. The palace is my prison.”
He hesitated. Duty warred with something else in his eyes. Instinct, maybe. Or the dangerous pull of curiosity.
“One hour,” he said finally. “Guards on you the entire time. If you try anything—”
“I know,” she cut him off. “You’ll kill me.”
He didn’t deny it.
When he stood, he offered her a hand to help her up.
Seo-yeon stared at it. No one offered her a hand anymore. Not since her mother died.
She didn’t take it. She got up herself, ignoring the ache in her wrists.
Tae-wook’s hand fell back to his side, and she saw a flicker of something she couldn’t name cross his face. Disappointment? Frustration?
“Don’t make me regret this, Lady Min,” he said as he unlocked her shackles and replaced them with rope.
“I don’t intend to,” she replied.
But as they walked through the dark corridors, her heart beat faster for a reason that had nothing to do with fear.
He believed her. Even a little.
And that was dangerous. Because if she started believing him too, there would be no going back.
- Writer
