"Hold her!" hissed a man's voice. "Quick!"
"Let me go, you incense-sucking frog humpers! I'll hex your liver!"
She flailed and kicked as hard as she could—elbowed one in the nose, kneed another somewhere soft, and managed to scream, "HALMOOOONIIIIII!"
But a fist thumped the back of her head, and the world swam sideways.
Her last thought before passing out was,
If I die from this, I'm haunting your chicken coop until your cows stop giving milk.
---
Some Hours and One Very Bumpy Cart Ride Later…
Chorae came to with a headache, a mouth full of cloth, and the distinct feeling she was in a sack.
Literally.
Her arms were bound, her feet were numb, and her nose was pressed against a rough burlap weave that smelled like dead rice.
She wriggled furiously. "MMFFFHHH!"
"Is that one still alive?" someone muttered nearby.
"Barely. She bit me," another replied.
"Looks like a wild girl. Hair like a porcupine."
"Should we dump her?"
"She's on the list. Special request."
"Seriously?"
Chorae made a mental note to bite that one too.
The cart jerked to a stop.
There were footsteps. Then a voice she didn't recognize—old, nasal, and oozing too much formality.
"Deliveries for the inner court?"
Chorae stopped struggling.
Inner court?
Someone muttered titles, names, and honorifics. Papers were exchanged. The cart creaked forward again, but slower now. Cobblestone under the wheels. Echoes. Gates opening.
Her heartbeat went still.
Wherever they were, it wasn't a market.
It smelled too clean. Too old. Too important.
---
Arrival at the Palace
The sack was dropped.
She hit the ground with a loud thud and an undignified groan.
Then the bag opened, and sunlight stabbed her face.
"Ughhh—!" she hissed, blinking rapidly.
The first thing she saw was a pair of polished shoes. Then red silk robes. Then a long face, pinched like someone who never smiled without calculating taxes first.
A eunuch.
He looked down at her with interest, holding a ledger.
"This is the one?"
"Yeah," said the guard. "Little beast kicked my shin. Took two of us."
"She doesn't look special," sniffed the eunuch. "Dirty. Bruised. Smells like garlic and grave dust."
"She's... eccentric," offered the guard.
The eunuch sighed. "Well, orders are orders."
He leaned down and tapped her on the forehead with a rolled-up scroll.
"You," he said. "Welcome to the palace."
Chorae blinked at him. "I will bury you under your own wig."
"…Pardon?"
"Nothing," she smiled sweetly. "Where's the exit?"
"There isn't one. You've been selected for—ah—special service. Congratulations."
"Is that what nobles call kidnapping these days?"
He ignored her and waved a hand. "Get her cleaned. Bathed. Dressed. She's being sent to Water Palace Hall."
Chorae sat up sharply. "The what now?"
The eunuch smiled for the first time. It was a thin, unpleasant smile.
"Oh, don't worry. It's where the palace sends the broken ones. You'll fit right in."
As two servants grabbed her arms and began dragging her off, Chorae kicked and thrashed.
"Did he just call me mad?! I demand rice cakes! I demand a lawyer! I demand to haunt you after I die!"
One of the maids leaned over to whisper, "She's feisty. Think she'll last as a maid?"
Chorae twisted, eyes wild, teeth bared. "A maid?! Do you know who you're talking to?! I once made a goblin cry blood! Want a demonstration?!"
The eunuch muttered under his breath, rubbing his temple, "Why do the dangerous ones always look like wet raccoons?"
---
Water Palace Hall wasn't a palace at all. It was a detached compound behind the main walls, close enough to be under surveillance, far enough to be forgotten. The stone gates had faded motifs of lotus petals and cranes, but the paint had chipped, and moss clung to the corners. Rumors called it Ghost Hall or Hall of Cold Women, depending on who was gossiping.
No one who went in came back out the same.
Some said it was for noblewomen who went mad.
Others whispered it was where seers and failed shamans were hidden—too dangerous to be free, too useful to be killed.
Chorae was dumped in a wooden tub the moment she arrived.
They scrubbed her. Cut her nails. Burned her patched hanbok.
When she tried to complain, a servant calmly shoved salt water in her mouth.
"Spirits cling to dirt," they said. "You'll bring filth to the walls."
"They'll be lucky if all I bring is dirt," she sputtered.
Hours later, in a dull gray robe, hair braided into a tight knot, Chorae stood barefoot on stone tiles, staring up at a looming painted screen in the entry hall of Water Palace.
It showed cranes flying toward a red sun.
'I will get out of here, mark my words!!'
---
Five Months Later…
Chorae leaned against the wooden railing of the laundry pavilion, her arms dangling over the edge as she watched a sparrow hop across the cobblestones. The air was thick with steam and the scent of wet fabric. The other maids bustled around her, wringing out sheets and hanging them to dry.
She sighed dramatically, flicking a stray thread off her dull gray sleeve. "In the end, I couldn't escape," she muttered to herself, voice heavy with mock despair. "The pay here is too good."
"Are you talking to yourself again?"
Chorae's closest friend in the hall, Maeun, sauntered over with a stack of freshly folded robes, one eyebrow raised.
"Talking to the spirits," Chorae said with a grin. "They're the only ones who understand my suffering."
"Suffering?" Maeun snorted. "You've gained weight. You get three meals a day and even extra rice cakes if you play cards with the eunuchs. You call that suffering?"
Chorae scrunched her nose. "I miss my herbs and my rusty pins. Here, I can't even poke a passing ghost without some servant screaming 'demon child!'"
"That's because you scared the head maid into thinking the water jars were haunted," Maeun said dryly. "I heard they called a real shaman to purify the whole hall."
"Fake shaman," Chorae corrected, rolling her eyes. "He couldn't even sense the ghost in the bathhouse."
"There was a ghost in the bathhouse?"
"No," Chorae said sweetly. "But he didn't know that."
Maeun shook her head. "You're going to get yourself killed one of these days."
"Maybe," Chorae said, eyes narrowing as she watched a line of palace guards march by in perfect formation. Her gaze lingered on one in particular—a tall, broad-shouldered man with a sharp jaw and dark eyes. He didn't look at her, but there was something about him. Something that made her skin prickle.
"But until then," she said, more to herself than to Maeun, "I'll be the best little maid they've ever seen."
She smiled.
And in the shadows, something smiled back.