A Woman Narrates:
“It is said that in the beginning, there were two suns and two moons. But day was too hot, and night too cold. All of creation was thrown into chaos, and the people in misery. It was then that a hero appeared and shot one sun and one moon out of the sky with arrows, and brought peace to the world.”
This story is told by the queen dowager (Kim Young-ae) to one of her vassals, Lord Yoon Dae-hyung. She is the mother to King Seongjo, the current (and fictional) king. We are somewhere in the middle of the Joseon era, though since this drama is not based on real history, we aren’t given an exact date.
The story about the two suns and moons is an illustration of the need for hero in times of trouble, and the queen dowager says meaningfully that they cannot just wait for a hero to appear. A veiled reference, then, to solving their own problems through their own means. She tells Lord Yoon to be the hero, because there can only be one sun in the sky; one must be eliminated.
Nighttime. A group of masked men dart through the woods and to a residential neighborhood, dispersing to fulfill separate tasks: One man sticks a yellow paper to a wall — a talisman, it looks like — and another buries a yellow pouch in a house’s yard. A frame job, perhaps?
One masked intruder readies to assassinate his target in bed, but finds it empty. He’s surprised by a sword to the throat; the victim was prepared. He is identified as Uiseong-gun, or Prince Uiseong, the younger half-brother to King Seongjo. Ah. So here’s the threat the queen dowager needed eliminated, to protect her son’s interests. She had mentioned that the brothers had a good relationship, but in her mind the younger is dangerous, just by virtue of being close to the throne.
Someplace else, a woman named Ahri — a shaman — wakes up with a gasp, filled with an ominous feeling. She knows “he” is in danger, and runs off to find him, ignoring the warnings of her shaman friend.
Prince Uiseong fights back, although it’s only one of him against four assassins. He fends them off well, but is eventually felled and disarmed. Enter Lord Yoon, who faces him smugly.
Uiseong is full of righteous anger, knowing full well that the king, his brother, will believe him over the shifty Lord Yoon. But there’s a solution for that, since Lord Yoon plans to kill him before he gets the chance to say anything. He adds that Uiseong’s good friend will be joining him on the other side, and we see that another nobleman is hanged in his home, a falsified suicide note left on his desk.
Uiseong charges, Lord Yoon slices his throat, and the terrified shaman Ahri witnesses this all from just over the wall. She’s spotted and chased through the woods, finding herself cornered at the edge of a cliff. She slips and falls far below.
The assassins check the base of the ravine and only find her official red hair sash. Ah, so she’s a palace shaman, part of the department called Seongsucheong. When the others are assembled, the head shaman notes that Ahri is missing, which identifies the runaway.
Lord Yoon reports to the queen dowager and assures her that they’ll find Ahri. The queen dowager, oddly, is pleased, saying this is a stroke of fortune. Ahri was formerly a slave to Prince Uiseong’s household, so it’s possible they were involved. What if that woman desired her lover to become king? And what if she was manipulating him through some sort of magical power? It doesn’t matter that it’s not true, since the queen dowager can make all this true with her planted evidence. Furthermore, the head shaman is firmly under the queen’s thumb, and can be trusted to act for them.
Uiseong and his murdered friend are labeled traitors, confirmed by the forged letter left at the friend’s house. The deaths are painted as suicides by guilt-stricken conspirators, and King Seongjo (Ahn Nae-sang) receives this report in disbelief.
