The Concubine Quarters were located at the farthest point from the Wolf Clan's main palace.
Seolhwa had ordered it that way. If the concubines were nearby, political rumors spread faster. Keeping them far away signaled a lack of interest. Either way, the distance had to remain advantageous to the Chieftain.
"A report on the first day in the Concubine Quarters."
Hyeran, the Head Handmaiden, held out a letter. Seolhwa did not take it.
"I'll see for myself."
Hyeran's eyes wavered faintly. It was not customary for the Chieftain to inspect the Concubine Quarters in person. But there was a light in Seolhwa's eyes that allowed no objection.
"How many escorts?"
"Just me."
"Chieftain, that—"
"I said I would assess the concubines' qualities. If they know they're being watched, they'll hide their true natures."
Hyeran fell silent. It was logically sound. Seolhwa wanted to believe that herself. That the thought of the fourth man's drooping ears was nothing more than an interest in the assessment.
As soon as she entered the grounds of the Concubine Quarters, she heard a commotion.
More precisely, the sound of something breaking.
Seolhwa did not stop walking. When she rounded the corner of the wall, the central courtyard came into view. The space assigned to the four concubines. Their rooms surrounded the courtyard, and an incident was unfolding in its center.
It was Kang.
The red-black-haired man was overturning the dining table. The dishes served for breakfast lay scattered across the floor. Two Wolf Clan maids who had been serving him were backing away.
"You call this food?"
Kang's voice was low, but it rang through the entire courtyard. His fox ears were pressed flat against his head. It was not anger. It was humiliation. The very fact that a Fox Clan warrior had to receive food from Wolf Clan maids was grinding down this man's pride.
One of the maids whimpered. Kang did not stop even after seeing it. He kicked the broken pieces of pottery aside.
"Tell the Chieftain this. If she wants to treat a Fox Clan man like a dog, she should at least serve him proper dog food."
Seolhwa watched from behind the wall. Her expression did not change. This level of defiance was within her expectations. She had already read the pride in the man named Kang during the selection trials. There was no need to break it. Once broken, it would be useless.
Then Hyeon came out.
His golden hair hung loose as he strolled beneath the morning sun. He looked down at the shattered dishes, then lifted one corner of his mouth.
"Kang, you're free to break dishes. But you do know those maids report directly to the Chieftain, don't you?"
Kang's movements stopped.
"If you make direct maids cry, word reaches the Chieftain. Once it reaches her, you'll lose points in the assessment. Of course, if you don't care about the assessment, then I suppose it doesn't matter."
Smiling, Hyeon approached the maids. He knelt and picked up the broken pieces. He placed them in one maid's hands and dipped his head slightly.
"You must have been startled. I'm sorry. I'll clean this up."
The maid's face reddened. Hyeon's touch was gentle, and his voice gentler still. Kang ground his teeth but caused no further disturbance. While soothing the maid, Hyeon's eyes read Kang's reaction. At the same time, his gaze swept once around the courtyard, checking whether anyone might be watching the commotion.
Seolhwa hid herself farther behind the wall. Hyeon's gaze passed over her.
A calculating man. Looking after the maid and restraining Kang were both moves meant to win the Chieftain's favor. Seolhwa was not unaware of that. Still, she acknowledged how precise his calculations were.
Across the courtyard, Yun's door stood open.
Yun had not come out despite the commotion. He was folding his bedding inside. He was doing for himself what the maids were meant to do. He had already finished his meal cleanly. The dishes were arranged neatly. No complaints. No calculations. No defiance. A man who adapted to his circumstances, followed the rules, and quietly established his place.
Seolhwa's gaze rested on him for a moment, then passed on. Yun would not cause trouble. And not causing trouble meant he would not touch Seolhwa's heart, either.
Then there was the fourth room.
Yeon's door was closed.
Seolhwa was about to pass it when she stopped. Voices leaked through the gap in the door. More than one.
"You passed the selection trials? That's laughable. Who do you think you are?"
An unfamiliar voice. One of the maids assigned to the Concubine Quarters. Not one of Seolhwa's direct maids, but a lower-ranking maid responsible for managing the quarters.
"Do you even think you have the right to be here? Everyone knows which of the four fits in the least."
A second voice. Another maid. It was impossible to know what basis she had for saying it. Only two things were clear: this man was different from the other three, and that difference had become a target for ridicule.
There was no answer from inside the room.
Seolhwa's hand curled into a fist. Her body leaned forward from behind the wall. The impulse to go in collided with the judgment that she must not. The moment a Chieftain protected a particular concubine, it became politics.
The door opened.
The two maids came out. One of them threw something in her hand onto the floor. A small wooden comb. It had been broken in half.
"A comb is wasted on you. A comb for hair like yours."
The maids laughed as they passed. They disappeared on the opposite side of the wall from where Seolhwa stood. They did not know the Chieftain was there.
Seolhwa looked down at the broken comb.
It was a cheap wooden comb. Not something supplied in the Concubine Quarters. Yeon had brought it with him. It might have been the only thing he had brought.
Through the gap in the door, she could see inside.
Yeon sat on the floor. He had drawn his knees to his chest and buried his forehead against them. His fox ears were completely folded down. It was impossible to tell whether he was crying. No sound came from him. He was the kind of man who made no sound even when he cried.
Seolhwa's heart tightened as though squeezed.
The Chieftain's judgment was clear. She had to turn away. The maids' behavior could be dealt with later through Hyeran. It was not something she needed to intervene in herself.
Seolhwa's feet did not move.
She picked up the broken comb. She placed the two pieces in her palm. Light, worn, and worthless. And yet this was all the man had.
Seolhwa slipped the pieces into her sleeve.
Then she turned away.
Her steps quickened. As she left the Concubine Quarters, her heart pounded in her ears. On the way back to the main palace, Seolhwa did not look back even once.
She sat in her office. A pile of letters lay stacked before her. Her hand rested over the pieces of the comb inside her sleeve.
Hyeran entered.
"Chieftain, how was your inspection of the Concubine Quarters?"
"Change the maids' assignments."
"Pardon?"
"Replace the two lower-ranking maids in the Concubine Quarters. Don't ask why."
Hyeran's eyes narrowed. They were trying to read something. But there was nothing to read on Seolhwa's face.
"...Understood."
Her answer came a beat late.
Hyeran left. Seolhwa took the pieces of the comb from her sleeve. She placed them deep inside her desk drawer. A drawer no one opened. A place no one knew about.
No one could know that the Chieftain was keeping a concubine's broken comb.
Seolhwa closed the drawer.
The rough grain of the wood remained against her fingertips.
Hyeran walked down the corridor, turning over the order she had just received.
Don't ask why. Those words alone told her the reason. In the fifteen years Hyeran had served the Chieftain, that tone always meant she was hiding something.
As she drew up the replacement list for the lower-ranking maids, Hyeran paused. Beside the two maids' names, she wrote down their assigned area.
Yeon's room.
Hyeran's expression hardened. She said nothing, but the pieces were falling into place in her mind.
One of the replaced maids, Miryeong, could not return to her own room that night. Instead, she headed toward the quarters near the rear gate of the Concubine Quarters, where the other lower-ranking maids gathered.
"Why were you suddenly kicked out?"
A colleague asked. Resentment and anger mingled across Miryeong's face.
"I don't know. They said they were changing me for no reason. But..."
Miryeong lowered her voice.
"Do you know where we were that day? In front of the fourth room. On the very day the Chieftain came to inspect the Concubine Quarters."
Her colleague's eyes widened.
"No way."
"I don't know. It could've been a coincidence. But to be reassigned because of what happened right in front of that room..."
Before she could finish, the rumor had already begun to take shape. The Concubine Quarters were quiet that night, but something was slowly spreading through that silence.
The Chieftain is protecting the fourth one.
For now, it was only a whisper.