Page 11 of King Foretold (Realm of Four Kingdoms #2)

“What do they know?” She pats my shoulder. “They’re a teenager.”

But for a teenager, Draco seems wise beyond their years.

Maybe dragon spirits take after Yongwang, the god of Water, who is the wisest of all the gods.

Or maybe they grew up in a hurry when they lost their parents much too soon.

They said they were thirteen when their dad died, and even younger when their mom passed away.

I sniff away the sudden sting in my nose. I’m glad the kid isn’t alone anymore, even though they’re a pain in the ass.

Commotion erupts outside the sliding doors, but I can’t make out a single word. I’m impressed at how well the latticed doors mute the noise, considering they’re made of thick paper and wooden slats. The door slides open an inch, and a sliver of Jihun’s face appears in the crack.

“Are you finished?” Jihun growls, a tuft of cerulean hair popping up and down behind him.

“Finished with what?” Draco manages to sound both curious and sullen. “Why can’t we go in?”

“I’m done drawing the symbols, but she can’t cover up until the ink dries,” Hailey reports.

“What do you mean, she can’t cover up?” One sexy, long-lashed eye squeezes past the sliver of Jihun’s face. “Does that mean she’s uncovered right now?”

“Do not test my patience,” Jihun snarls with enough menace for both the sexy eye and the blue hair to disappear from view. “Sunny, turn your back toward the door.”

I comply without hesitation, too tired from my tickle torture to question him.

Then a warm breeze sweeps across my back.

I shiver despite the warmth, a confused blush rising to my cheeks.

Jihun is only manipulating the air to dry my back.

It’s not like he’s actually touching me, or blowing air on my bare skin through his lips.

Even so, the wind at my back feels strangely intimate.

“Okay. It feels dry,” I say abruptly and pull on my tank top. “You can unleash Thing One and Thing Two.”

“I better not be Thing Two.” Jaeseok wags a finger at me as he steps into the study, with Draco skulking in behind him.

“But you’re okay with being Thing One?” Hailey side-eyes the dokkaebi.

“What can I say? I like being number one.” With an incorrigible grin, he drapes himself onto a chair across from us, oozing sex appeal.

He looks like a rakish pirate in his white linen shirt and tight black jeans. While Hailey doesn’t blink an eyelash at his seductive display—she spends enough time with the goblin to be immune to him—I let myself enjoy the view for a moment. I see no point in fighting it.

With Ethan, I feel like I’ll spontaneously combust if I look at him for more than a second. But with Jaeseok, who is hopelessly in love with Minju, the flirty exchange feels harmless and fun.

“Why don’t you tell them what you’ve been up to, Lieutenant Cha?” Jihun arches his brow, reclaiming the seat he’d vacated. “It’ll help them make an informed decision about whether you’re indeed number one ... in wreaking havoc in our lives.”

“Sure thing, Captain Song. I’m happy to share about our breakthrough.” Jaeseok ignores Jihun’s scoff of outrage. “You know how we haven’t been able to get the forge hot enough to meld the dragon scale and the sacred ashes together?”

“Of course I know,” Hailey groans. “Even your dokkaebi fire isn’t hot enough.”

“Wait.” I glance between Draco and Jaeseok. “What are you using to test the temperature?”

“My dragon scales and the sacred ashes,” Draco says from their seat next to me, the unspoken duh made explicit by their expression.

“You’re using the actual sacred ashes?” I shout in alarm. The poor kid flinches away from me, their teenage apathy slipping for a moment. Shit. I immediately wrangle in my panic and modulate my voice. “You cannot waste the sacred ashes on failed experiments.”

I had to relive my mother’s death to obtain the sacred ashes. Samshin Halmeom, a manifestation of the Seonangshin, sacrificed a part of her arm for me ... She burned her forearm, the root of an ancient cypress tree, into ashes. She is like my own grandmother, and I had to watch ...

“Sunny.” From my other side, Hailey places a gentle hand over mine.

“Minju dug up every last bit of information she could on the Gwangdo, but there is no instruction manual on how to forge another one. Jaeseok and Draco can’t figure out how to make the sword of light without using the actual material. ”

I blow out a shaky breath. I know they’re doing what needs to be done. I get that. But I’m still worried we won’t have enough left to forge the sword of light. Samshin Halmeom entrusted me with the sacred ashes. We have to treat them with respect.

“I promise we won’t waste a speck of it,” the dragon spirit says with rare gravity.

As I offer them a solemn nod, I realize I’m not worried about disrespecting the Seonangshin or wasting the sacred ashes.

At least, that’s not all of it. I’m more worried about not being able to forge the sword of light, making the Yeoiju our only hope.

I’m terrified that I will become our only hope.

I’m so sick of letting people down—I can barely come to terms with having people to let down—but I have to face the very real possibility that the Yeoiju might be a lost cause.

I ... might be a lost cause. With the dark mudang already stirring, I don’t have months to master the Yeoiju’s powers.

I have weeks, maybe days. I’m not giving up, not by a long shot . .. but we need the sword of light.

“If I may continue.” Jaeseok raises his brows at me, and I give him a weary nod. “This morning I—”

Draco clears their throat loudly, back to their cocky teenage self.

“That is, Draco and I had a brilliant realization.” Jaeseok pauses dramatically. “I have two words for you. Dragon. Fire. ”

Hailey and I share a wide-eyed glance. He’s not overselling it. That is brilliant.

“I can’t believe we didn’t think of it before.” Draco breaks the awed silence. “Dragon fire is the only thing that can melt dragon scales. It’s so obvious.”

“How about what happened afterwards, Draco?” A muscle jumps in Jihun’s jaw. “Was that obvious ?”

“What happened afterwards?” Hailey asks warily.

“Well, we had to test our theory.” Jaeseok shrugs sheepishly.

“Of course.” I drum my fingers on the conference table. “Go on.”

“So Draco took their dragon form ...” Jaeseok pauses when Jihun groans and drops his head into his hands.

I feel Jihun’s pain. Considering we secretly snuck a dragon spirit into the Kingdom of Sky, Draco taking their dragon form is .

.. problematic. The Kingdom of Sky is filled with angelic beings with wings .

Even in the confines of a walled courtyard in a heavily guarded estate, an enormous serpentine dragon with glowing blue scales would be hard to miss for someone with a bird’s-eye view.

“Look, I know how it sounds.” Jaeseok holds out his hands. “But there was no other way. We can’t make dragon fire without a dragon.”

Jihun raises his head to glare at the dokkaebi. “You two could have waited for the cover of night.”

“Huh.” Draco huffs as though the thought never occurred to them. “But that wouldn’t have changed what happened afterwards.”

“Once again.” I’m afraid to ask, but I might as well rip off the BAND-AID. “What happened afterwards?”

“You want the good news?” Jaeseok hedges. “Dragon fire is hotter than any fire we’ve ever—”

“No more good news,” Hailey cuts him off. “What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is ...” Jaeseok cringes. “We accidentally burned down the forge.”

“It took all of us a fortnight to build that forge,” she cries.

“I should be grateful I checked in on them when I did,” Jihun says with a resigned sigh. “Otherwise, they might have burned down my entire estate.”

“It’s not all bad. I might go so far as to say that there’s more good news,” Jaeseok continues with renewed pep. “The glamour held even against dragon fire. It stayed invisible until the forge burned into literally nothing.”

When Hailey narrows her eyes at him, the dokkaebi tucks his chin into his chest and wisely ceases delivering good news.

I bury my face in my hands as a heavy silence descends on the room.

No matter how bad things have seemed, I’ve soldiered on out of pure bullheadedness, but this is too much even for me.

We don’t have time to start over. Not now.

Does this mean it’s all down to me? Gods, no.

“But the real good news is,” Draco says with a sly smirk, “we did it. We melded the dragon scales and the sacred ashes into one.”

“What?” I lurch forward.

“Behold.” Jaeseok withdraws something shimmering and pearlescent from his pocket and holds it out on his palm. “The needle of light. Or the tiny sword of light. I’m flexible on its official name, but here it is.”

Hailey, Jihun, and I scramble to our feet and gather around Jaeseok, who is all smiles again. I stare at the slender needle gleaming with white light. Oh thank gods. The force of my relief sends a wave of dizziness through me, and I sink down onto the nearest chair.

“It’s beautiful.” Hailey presses her fingers to her lips.

“Any reason you didn’t start off with this?” Jihun pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Jaeseok shimmies his shoulders, presumably to express how much fun he’s having with his way.

“For fuck’s sake,” I hiss under my breath. I’m ecstatic that our hope for the sword of light lives on, but I was ready to curl up and die in a dark corner a minute ago. How’s that for fun?

Rather than shoving the sexy dokkaebi off his chair, I discreetly bang my fist on the conference table. More of a tap, really. But everyone jumps back as the table shatters into a thousand tiny splinters. It’s like I dropped a bomb on it, not bopped it with my fist.

“What . . . How . . .” Coherent speech is beyond me.

“Now we know what those symbols do,” Hailey whispers.

I glance over my shoulder as though I can look down my own back. Of course, I can’t see a damned thing since I’m not a giraffe. But I don’t need to see the arcane words of power to know they are bad news.