Eui frowned at Misun’s accusation.

“That’s a pretty dire claim. Not to mention vague—what do you even mean by ‘compromised’?”

Misun scowled and returned to her corner, fishing through the disorganized pile of documents as she spoke.

“I’m not entirely sure. I have to admit that it’s difficult to separate the signs from my own biases, but I believe that the Kumiho’s spirit is partially to blame.”

“Only partially? How unlike you.”

“Bite me, An Eui. I’m not incapable of learning from my mistakes. You’ve convinced me that each fragment of our spirit ancestor is unique, and that we influence them with our souls as much as they influence us.”

Eui raised her eyebrows.

“I have? Well, I’m glad you took it to heart, but how does that fit in with the Queen, exactly?”

“I’m getting there. Ah, here it is!”

She produced an ornately decorated scroll and held it out to Eui.

“This is a chronicle written about Seong Heiran’s life. It’s from Kucheon, so the tone is rather...sympathetic, to say the least. But it’s one of the few surviving records that even bothers to mention her life before the bloody war she waged against Qin and her subsequent disappearance.”

Eui accepted the scroll, briefly skimming over some of its contents.

“‘...her hair and skin were as silk, her beauty peerless even among fellow sisters of the great Seong clan. Her eyes would ignite the souls and inflame the passions of any who met her gaze...’”

She grimaced and looked up at Misun.

“Wow, you were not kidding.”

“No. But even accounts like that are useful, in their own way. What I find most interesting about that one is that it portrays her as a gentle and kind-hearted woman, forced by circumstance to take on the role of a conqueror, and using her beauty and intelligence to outwit her foes in order to minimize bloodshed.”

“Sounds like pretty blatant propaganda.”

Misun chuckled.

“Oh, absolutely. It’s utter nonsense—Heiran terrorized friend and foe alike, and brooked no dissent. She never held the throne, but in her time she was far more powerful than the queen, and her reign was terrible.”

“Right, but what’s so fascinating about some brainwashed sycophant trying to reframe things?”

“Most don’t. There are plenty of records like this one, falling over themselves in praise of her, and plenty more rightfully condemning her as the evil tyrant she was, but none of them disagree that she was a cruel and violent woman. The ones praising her just revel in it.”

Eui frowned, looking back down at the scroll with a puzzled expression.

“I see. What’s the significance, then? We’re getting pretty far off track from your aunt.”

“Not as much as you might think. This is partly my own conjecture, but the two main differences this text has from most others are that the author knew Heiran before her rule, and that he describes her as kind and gentle. There are two possibilities—either it’s entirely fictitious and the author is a fraud, or Seong Heiran really was a kind and gentle woman, then changed.”

“So you’re back to thinking that she was corrupted by her inner spirit somehow?”

Misun sat back in her seat and crossed her legs, drumming her fingers on her desk.

“There’s not enough data. There could be any number of reasons for a change in her demeanor, but there’s one detail that I’ve never been able to fill in, no matter how I searched. Do you know what our actual relation to Seong Heiran is, my sisters and I?”

Eui shook her head.

“It was hundreds of years ago, so I always assumed it was fairly distant. A great great grandmother or something?”

“No, she never had any children, so we’re not direct descendents. That’s almost the entire limit of what I’ve been able to discover. Who was her mother? Her sisters? Who was sitting on the throne while she went on her bloody rampage? Nobody knows.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. There are people alive today who are old enough to remember it. Do Hye was even one of them.”

Misun gestured helplessly at the mountain of books and sighed.

“My thoughts exactly. Why is it so difficult to find out? My mother and aunt should know, but they flat out refuse to field any questions about Seong Heiran—saying she’s a black stain on our history, better left forgotten.”

Eui scratched her chin.

“Maybe I can try asking some of the older people I know? I might still be able to catch the Qin princesses before they leave.”

“No, don’t bother. I’ve already tried asking them myself. Sun Quan, as well. That man’s hatred of Seong Heiran is unrivaled, but he genuinely thought she was the queen of Goryeo back then. Our communication with other nations has never been good, but it was especially terrible back then.”

“Okay. Well that was all really interesting, but I’m still a little lost.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Misun clicked her tongue.

“Tsk. I expected better from you, but fine. I have a theory. It’s unlikely, and I’ve never given it a voice before today. Honestly, even before you made me question myself, I thought this theory was nothing short of paranoia, but recently it’s been consuming me.”

Eui straightened up and put a hand over her heart.

“If you’re willing to tell me, then I promise to hold it in confidence.”

The princess rolled her eyes.

“I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all if I wasn’t going to tell you, idiot. I assume you’ve noticed the pattern in my family’s given names?”

“I did notice a lot of similarities, yes.”

“It’s an old tradition. I don’t even know why we do it, we just do. However, thanks to that tradition, I do know that Seong Heiran must have been the youngest of three sisters.”

Eui cocked her head.

“Why three? Couldn’t she have had younger sisters?”

“We’re only obligated to bring three new sisters into the clan, and since we don’t marry that’s generally where we stop. Min is an only child, because she was born before Eunhee’s ascension to the throne—the clan mother is free of further obligations, as we are all her children.”

The hierarchy of the Seong clan could get confusing at times, but Eui was following.

“I think I know where you’re going with this, and why you thought that the theory was paranoid.”

“Indeed. But it fits, doesn’t it? Our family is much smaller than it once was, and wouldn’t you know it, the oldest living members are the first and second daughters of the same mother. Perhaps she had two, then became queen. Or perhaps there was a third that they swore never to speak of.”

“You think Seong Heiran was your aunt? The youngest of three sisters including the queen, your mother, and her?”

Misun shrugged.

“I don’t know. It’s a convenient idea—too convenient. When a single answer addresses too many questions, I grow suspicious. All I have are theories, and not enough confidence in any of them to warrant decisive action.”

“So what am I supposed to do about it?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t especially care. If there’s one thing I agree with my mother about, it’s that I can trust you to take care of my sisters regardless of what I ask of you. I don’t think you can trust the queen, and you shouldn’t trust me either. Just do whatever comes naturally, and leave us to pick up the pieces, as usual.”

Eui sighed and shook her head.

“This is getting pretty complicated. But I guess it doesn’t really change anything. I’m not going to let anything happen to Eunae or Haeun as long as I’m here.”

“Good. Speaking of which, you wanted advice about the graduation exam, didn’t you? I assume Min herself is proctoring?”

The sudden change of topic was jarring. Misun still hadn't concretely connected anything she was saying to the idea that the queen was 'compromised.' Whatever Misun was trying to imply, she wasn't willing to say it out loud, even as a hypothetical. In that case, there was no point in pressing the issue, so Eui just went along with it.

“She is. I’ve decided to have Narae take the test as well, but with such a tight deadline we need all the resources we can get.”

“Hm. She definitely wants you to fail, but you can trust her to grade honestly. You’ve got them focusing on the theory section, I assume?”

“Yes. I’m still having them review for the written portion, but two weeks isn’t a lot of time to put together a thesis.”

Misun snorted.

“Two years wouldn’t be enough time. Forget studying—the written exam is a formality and it’s almost impossible to score less than perfect. The thesis is important, but it’s also a trap. The practical section is where Min is going to play dirty.”

Eui blinked.

“Didn’t you just say I could trust her to grade honestly?”

“Yes, but honest doesn’t mean fair.”

The princess pulled out a stick of chalk—an expensive alternative to charcoal used for roughing out spell formations.

“Go ahead and ask me to draw a formation on the spot. Whatever you think is appropriate.”

“Uh...warm a small area without reducing the temperature of the rest of the room.”

Misun quickly scribbled a spell circle on the wall and in less than thirty seconds sent a pulse of mana through it. It glowed a soft orange.

“One hand warmer. It’ll last as long as the chalk does, requires no additional mana stones once started, and doesn’t draw heat away from the rest of the room. Now it’s your turn.”

She handed the chalk to Eui and stood to make room.

“Give me a triple-layered spell matrix that converts any elemental mana provided through the entire spectrum without losing efficiency. The process must use all three layers, must function no matter which layer or element is used to trigger it, must safely handle conversions to and from the Destruction and Void elements without special materials, and must be operable either manually or by mana stone. You have thirty seconds.”

“Wha—?! That’s impossible!”

“Twenty five seconds.”

Yoshika gave the task her full focus, even drawing on Absolute Awareness to give herself more subjective time to think about it. Formations weren’t her strongest subject, but she’d worked with them enough that she was familiar with some of the more complex techniques. The problem was that Misun was asking for an utterly useless formation with constraints that made no sense.

She did her best with what she had, but the end result was quite flimsy.

“There!”

Misun raised an eyebrow as she examined the formation.

“Huh, better than I expected. Let’s try it out...”

She fed some mana into it, watching as the essence flowed through the formation, shifting rapidly between elements. Then she kept feeding mana into it, rapidly overloading the formation until the chalk disintegrated a few seconds in.

“Well, if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m a little amazed that you actually managed the conversion to and from Destruction, but even without scaling it up I’m pretty sure it would have failed after a few cycles.”

Eui shrugged.

“I’ve got some experience with it. So what was the point of that? There’s no way they’re actually going to ask for spells that are so complex and useless, right?”

Misun gave her a flat look.

“Of course they will. And they’ll go out of their way to break them during the grading. Your girls are also going to have just as limited time and resources. You’re graded separately on things like speed, efficiency, leakage, and accuracy. My advice? Fuck the last one. Have the girls drill non-stop on a set of predetermined modular spellforms, then force every assignment to work with those.”

“That sounds a lot like gaming the grading system.”

“No shit. Did you think you were going to make up for years of focused education with two weeks of prep? Min is playing dirty, so play dirty back. Get Hwang Sung to put together the drills.”

Eui started to nod, but then paused.

“Why him? Couldn’t you do it, or Dae?”

“Hyeong Daesung and I passed our practicals honestly, and neither of us has ever proctored one of those exams. Hwang Sung has—he’ll know exactly which ones to practice.”

“I see. Well, thank you for the advice, Misun.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I don’t recall being on a first name basis with you. Is that everything?”

Eui hesitated, eying the giant formation on the floor.

“Do you mind if I have Dae take a look at that? If Do Hye was working on it in his final hours, maybe it really is important somehow.”

Seong Misun narrowed her eyes.

“You want me to share secret research that we recovered from the notes of a notorious criminal with the disciple and adopted son of that criminal, who is himself a wanted criminal?”

“Uh...yes?”

“When can he start?”