Nara left the room in tears. She ran through the corridors, past the kitchen chambers, heading straight to the far end of the garden on the other side of the vast property.
Hidden between thick bushes and tangled shrubs lay a small wooden door set into the ground. Nara pulled it open with both hands. It creaked loudly as it gave way.
She stepped down carefully onto the narrow wooden stairs, which groaned beneath each footstep. Reaching the bottom, she paused, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then she remembered the candle she always kept there.
She found it to her right and lit it, and a soft glow spread through the underground space, warming the cold stone walls.
Still wiping away tears and hearing Lady Jang's harsh words echoing in her ears, Nara sank down onto the stone floor.
"Mother… I wish you were here," she whispered, leaning against the stone tomb where her mother had been laid to rest.
This hidden chamber in the backyard had become both a grave and a refuge — the only place where Nara felt safe when loneliness consumed her.
For seventeen years, she had lived as a stranger in Lady Jang's house, constantly reminded that she was a "bastard child," as the lady of the house liked to call her.
This underground hollow — dug the very day she was born — was where her mother's body had been placed. Saran had died giving birth to her.
Nara had never known her mother's love. Only her absence.
Minister Jang had ordered Saran buried there because she was "unworthy" of the family graveyard. She was not a Jang. She had been a maid — a woman who, according to Lady Jang, had brought shame to the household by claiming she carried her master's child.
That was the story Lady Jang told.
Seventeen years earlier, before he entered the Court, Minister Jang had been a prosperous merchant known for profitable trade deals. One day, he brought Saran into the household and instructed his wife to accept her as a maid.
Lady Jang, pregnant at the time with her first child, demanded to know where the girl had come from and why her husband had brought her home. He forbade her from asking questions — about Saran or anything else.
That silence was enough to ignite suspicion.
Lady Jang treated Saran harshly from the beginning. The girl was barely nineteen. She was clumsy at household chores, often breaking items or making mistakes. It seemed as though she had never performed such labor before.
Her soft hands, fair skin, and slender figure did not resemble those of a working servant. She looked more like a girl from a respectable family than a maid.
When Saran began falling ill — growing pale, fainting, losing strength — Lady Jang did not show compassion.
One afternoon, while serving fish at the table, Saran suddenly ran outside, covering her mouth to vomit.
That was the moment Lady Jang understood.
Although Saran's belly grew day by day, Lady Jang increased her workload, forcing her into more strenuous labor.
Instead of sympathy from one expectant mother to another, Saran received curses, exhaustion, and sometimes beatings. Lady Jang convinced herself that the girl must have seduced her husband or manipulated him with threats of pregnancy.
"If that child is not a boy, you will not live another day in this house," she often muttered.
In late December, Lady Jang went into labor.
Saran, heavily pregnant herself, was forced to assist.
After hours of painful labor through the night, Lady Jang gave birth. In Saran's trembling arms lay a crying infant.
"What is it?" Lady Jang demanded anxiously.
"A girl, madam."
Lady Jang felt her world crumble.
If Saran gave birth to a son, everything would change.
That same night, Saran went into labor as well. With the help of another maid, she fought to bring her child into the world. She knew that if her daughter were left alone, she would suffer under Lady Jang's cruelty.
But Saran was too weak. The bleeding would not stop.
She died holding Nara against her chest.
Minister Jang ordered the underground tomb built that very day. Saran's body was placed inside, sealed beneath the wooden door.
Then he instructed his wife to raise the child alongside Hana.
Lady Jang refused to take responsibility for a "bastard." Instead, she ordered the maid who had assisted the birth to raise Nara — not as a daughter, but as a future servant.
Hana and Nara grew up together, never told they were sisters.
Nara was raised as Hana's attendant — her shadow. She dressed her, cleaned her garments, prepared her meals, studied beside her, and accompanied her to lessons.
Because of this, Nara learned to read and write — rare privileges for a maid.
They discovered the world side by side. Nara knew all of Hana's secrets.
Hana treated her far better than Lady Jang did, though she was constantly warned not to grow too close to the "dumb maid."
At times, Hana wondered why her mother despised Nara so deeply. But she never questioned it aloud.
Nara, however, understood.
Hana was cherished. She spent hours laughing with her mother, ran into her father's arms when he returned home.
Nara watched from a distance.
Minister Jang frightened her less than Lady Jang did — he was cold and indifferent. But there was one day she would never forget.
She was eleven.
On a hot summer afternoon, she brought him cold tea in his study. As she turned to leave, he shouted suddenly and hurled the cup toward her.
"You disgusting thing!"
He grabbed her arm and dragged her across the courtyard to the far end of the garden. He opened the wooden door in the ground and threw her inside.
The darkness swallowed her.
She was already feeling ill that day. She woke at the bottom of the stone steps, disoriented. It was too dark to see clearly. Squinting, she made out the rectangular stone structure in the center.
A tomb.
Terror seized her. She cried herself to sleep.
When she awoke the next morning, she was in pain. Her stomach cramped. Her skirt felt wet.
At first she thought she had soiled herself in fear. But when she looked down, she saw blood.
Panicked and believing something terrible had happened, she screamed and pounded on the wooden door until someone heard.
Minister Jang had been preparing to leave the house when he heard the noise. He ordered Lady Jang to release the girl.
"But why did you lock her there?" Lady Jang asked.
"That filthy creature brought me tea while she was stained with her menses," he spat before leaving.
Lady Jang sent a maid to retrieve Nara, wash her, and explain what had happened — what it meant to become a woman and how she was to behave from then on.
That day, Nara learned shame.
She went to apologize to Minister Jang for "offending" him. He kicked her away from his study and forbade her from ever entering again.
That was the last time she faced him directly.
And it was that same day Lady Jang told her the truth.
"That place is where your mother is buried. You may go there if you wish. But you will never tell Hana who lies there. Do you understand?"
Nara understood.
She carried the secret alone.
She knew everything about Hana — about her habit of sneaking into the kitchen to overhear gossip about the King, the Queen, and the Crown Prince. She knew about her dreams of becoming Queen.
And Nara knew something else.
She knew about the mark.
While helping Hana bathe, she had seen it many times — a large brown birthmark shaped like a circle, beneath Hana's left breast.
It had always been there.
And it was the one thing that could destroy everything.