Areum covered her mouth, trembling slightly in the dark. The chilling voice from the secret chamber last night still echoed in her ears. That cold tone had uttered her name as if it had long known the blood flowing through her veins.
"You… are not who you think you are. Your inheritance is not meant to be protected, but destined to awaken chaos."
She hadn't slept at all that night. Her eyes were hollow, yet her thoughts spun endlessly. She knew Wang Joon had noticed something was wrong, but she couldn't tell him. This wasn't about trust — it was about survival. Every secret that slipped out could ignite a war not yet meant to begin.
Wang Joon approached Areum the next morning, concern written on his face. "You look tired. Has someone been bothering you?"
Areum only shook her head with a faint smile. "Just… thinking too much about the Seol Hwa manuscript. It's... heavy."
She lied. But for now, that was safer.
A few days later, Areum reopened the Seol Hwa manuscript, searching for something she might've overlooked. In the bottom-right corner of the final page, hidden behind an old fold, she spotted a strange symbol — a flower with three petals of different colors: blood-red, frozen white, and glowing gold.
The sight of it made her heart stop. She had seen it before — once in a painting preserved in the archives of the old palace, and once in her dreams, where it appeared on the forehead of a woman crying blood.
"The Three-Season Flower," she whispered. "What do you truly mean?"
Areum knew she had to ask someone not bound by conventional history. Someone bold enough to defy it — Master Gyeom, the former royal historian exiled for preserving forbidden knowledge about a shadowy organization in Goryeo's past.
That night, disguised as a palace servant, Areum rode her horse through a back passage out of the palace, heading toward a secluded temple at the base of the hills. There, she met Master Gyeom — now old and white-haired, but his eyes still sharp and full of secrets.
"I know who you are," Master Gyeom said quietly. "Since your birth, the stars in the sky shifted. And now you come bearing that cursed symbol."
Areum showed him the drawing of the flower.
Master Gyeom sighed. "The Three-Season Flower isn't just an organization. It's a movement — a secret legacy of the betrayed founders of the old court. They live in the shadows, waiting for the blood of the original heir to return... to open the gates of ruin."
Areum swallowed hard. "Do they know about me?"
Master Gyeom didn't answer directly. Instead, he said, "Find Raena."
Areum stiffened. "Raena?"
"Her name appears in records of the past. She's not from this era, but she knows the future. And she knows who the flower is truly waiting for."
Areum fell silent. Raena — a name she had once seen in a strange document from the future. It hadn't made sense then. But day by day, everything seemed to weave tightly between past and future.
When Areum returned to the palace late that night, mist had begun to blanket the forest along the roadside. Suddenly, her horse stomped and halted — just ahead, the ground had loosened and the safety planks were missing. One more step, and she would've fallen down a steep ravine.
"A trap..." she muttered.
Someone knew where she had gone. And worse — they didn't want her to return.
She was still trembling when she reached the palace. But what greeted her in her personal chamber was far more terrifying. Shelves were overturned, clothes scattered from her wardrobe, her document chest forced open. But the most chilling sight — drawn on the wall near the mirror — was the symbol of the Three-Season Flower.
In fresh blood.