Page 3 of King Foretold (Realm of Four Kingdoms #2)

“Again,” I wheeze at my enormous sparring partner. My early morning duel with Jihun, on top of the hour of sleep I lost, took its toll. And lucky me, I still have a long day of training ahead of me.

“Are you sure, Mihwa?” Haesan wrings his hands, the smooth planes of his face etched with concern.

My chest heaves, struggling to drag oxygen into my burning lungs. Even in my human form, I’m pretty fast and strong. But I have my limits, and I’ve apparently reached them. Not that I’d ever admit that. I would rather collapse, vomiting blood.

“Yes I’m sure.” I swipe the back of my hand across my mouth, probably smearing blood across my cheek. “And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Sunny?”

“Mihwa is easier to remember than Sunny.” The merman rubs the back of his head, his golden barbels flickering by his lips.

Gang Haesan is an in’eo from the Kingdom of Water, and like most of the cadets, he doesn’t speak English.

Only the Suhoshin travel to the Mortal Realm and speak multiple languages to navigate the human world.

The rest of the Shinbiin in the Realm of Four Kingdoms don’t need to speak anything but their native Korean because they never leave their precious realm.

“Mihwa means beautiful flower , and you are beautiful like a flower,” Haesan continues, cupping his hands in front of him like he’s cradling a blossom.

“Yet, you said Sunny means bright like the sun , but you always wear such a dark scowl. Your American name should be something that means stormy . Then I’d be able to remember it better. ”

I bite my cheeks to hold back a smile. It’s hard to glower at someone who’s genuinely kind and earnest. Why does he have to be so endearing?

He has got to be the most annoying merman I’ve ever met.

Even his life force is a perfect cerulean blue like the unpolluted waters of the tropical ocean.

So annoying. I don’t need more reasons to like him.

Then I gasp as my gaze ping-pongs around his large form. I can see his life force. But how? My spirit eyes aren’t open. It doesn’t make any sense.

All beings of the Shingae originate from the four life sources born of the Cheon’gwang, the true force of light.

And the gi of each source radiates a different color—green for Mountains, silver for Sky, red for Underworld, and blue for Water.

In the Mortal Realm, I needed to open my spirit eyes to perceive the life force of magical beings, but in the Realm of Four Kingdoms . ..

The hairs on the back of my neck stand. I have a feeling Captain Seo is giving me the evil eye from somewhere in the training yard, but I don’t risk turning around to confirm my suspicions.

It’ll only make matters worse if our eyes meet, because I’m not in the habit of backing down.

Whatever is happening to my magic, I don’t have time to worry about it now.

I need to shelve it and ask Minju tonight.

“Shut up and come at me,” I bark at the merman with the beautiful blue gi. Damn it all to hell. I give my head a rough shake, and the color disperses. I might very well be losing my mind, but I’ll deal with that later too.

Haesan reluctantly widens his stance, bouncing lightly on his knees, and raises his arms loosely in front of him.

I’m still getting used to the fact that he has legs rather than a tail and fins.

In fact, other than the barbels and the gills behind their ears, the in’eos look no different from the rest of the Shinbiin.

“We don’t have to do this,” he pleads one last time.

“Have you met Captain Seo?” I gape at him. “We definitely have to do this.”

I take a surreptitious glance around the training yard.

At the opposite end of the long courtyard, the cadets not sparring are running through drills under the watchful eye of the junior instructors.

My gaze skims swiftly over them in search of Captain Seo.

I find her making the rounds through the ten sparring circles, stopping at each to point out the good and the bad. She’ll reach our circle soon.

“Come on, Haesan.” I beckon urgently with my hand, but the big softy doesn’t move. Damn it. I have no choice but to strike first.

I launch a flurry of attacks on Haesan. I feint a kick toward his head, anticipating his dodge that leaves his left torso open, and pivot to bury my knee into his unprotected ribs. When he grunts and takes a halfhearted swing at me, I kick the side of his head.

The mountainous merman sways slightly on his feet, and I rush him like a linebacker, angling my right shoulder toward his stomach. If I plow into him hard enough, he might stumble outside the sparring circle, and I can take this round.

My plan backfires when I bounce off his ridiculously muscular body with only a ringing head to show for it.

Haesan, who I know has been holding back, reaches for me with lightning-fast reflexes and grabs me before I fall flat on my back.

With an apologetic grimace, he lifts me up by the arms and gently sets my feet down outside the circle.

“Sorry, Cho Mihwa,” he whispers, releasing my arms when my head stops lolling from side to side. “I mean, Sunny Cho.”

What started out as a bad morning is turning out to be an even worse day.

I can’t seem to catch a break. Ever since we returned to the Kingdom of Sky, I’ve been hanging on by a thread.

I saved Ethan and my friends from Daeseong but almost died in the process, and I’m terrified I won’t be able to do it again. I can’t lose them. Not now.

Gods. I’m no closer to understanding the powers of the Yeoiju than I was three weeks ago. I don’t have time to play suhoshin cadet.

“Why are you sorry? Are you scared my gumiho will toss you around like a toy?” I let my incisors lengthen, and I flash Haesan a vicious smile.

The merman pales but holds his ground, catching himself before he backs away from me. Shit. I shouldn’t take out my frustrations on him when he has been nothing but kind to me—unlike the other cadets.

Even though we’re forbidden from using our magic during training—including taking my fox form—the vast majority of the cadets stay clear of me. They fear me because I’m an unknown quantity. I get that. But I’ve faced enough racism in my hundred years in America to recognize bigotry when I see it.

The cadets ostracize me because they believe they are better than me.

They believe they deserve all that is good and fair in life because they were born the way they are, and I don’t deserve any of it because I was born the way I am.

They only have to exist to garner all the privileges of this realm.

But it infuriates them that I dare exist alongside them, fighting to earn my share of the goodness and fairness that is just handed to them.

Their deeply ingrained bigotry makes my skin crawl, but I refuse to direct that disgust at myself.

I refuse to give in to the instinct to shrink in on myself, to hide from myself, to erase myself.

It took me more than a century to embrace the gumiho in me.

The Shinbiin can hate me all they want. I will not be ashamed of who I am.

But Haesan is a good male. He’s smart enough to fear me, but he didn’t back away when I baited him because he didn’t want to make me feel any more reviled. I didn’t mean to befriend him, but I did. Then I threatened to play hot potatoes with him. I am definitely the asshole here.

“I’m sorry, Haesan.” I drop my head. “I didn’t mean that. Neither I nor my gumiho would ever toss you around. Besides, my gumiho is me. And I am my gumiho. We’re the same person. And you’re my ... friend? So yeah, I wouldn’t do that.”

I press my lips together to stop babbling. I’m obviously as bad at apologizing as I am at being a good friend. Even so, Haesan’s face lights up with a guileless smile.

“You don’t need to apologize.” He claps me on the shoulder, and I’m damn proud of not crumpling to the ground. The male is freakishly strong. “You were just being you. Speaking of which, what’s an American name that means dark like a storm ?”

“ Stormy ,” I grumble in English.

“‘Store-mee’?” He sounds it out.

I shrug. “Close enough.”

“Well, better luck next time, Stormy.” He grins.

“Yeah, yeah.” I take his teasing lying down because he’s earned it.

But he stiffens, and his smile dies a swift death.

I glance over my shoulder, following the direction of his gaze, and stiffen as well.

Then I wince because every part of my body feels bruised and battered.

Haesan felt squeamish about punching me with his paint-can-sized fists, so he opted to throw me onto the ground during our first two rounds.

“Who gave you permission to stop sparring?” Captain Seo’s voice slashes down on us like a whip.

“We finished the three rounds, Captain.” Haesan stands at attention.

“Is there a victor?” the captain asks with a straight face, even though everyone in the whole damn training yard knows there’s a victor.

Haesan is by far the best in hand-to-hand combat.

A few cadets with similar builds have put up a good fight, but he has never lost a sparring round.

Captain Seo matched me up with him so my ass and my pride would take a beating, and she knows it.

She’s been extra nasty to me all day, ever since Jihun came to the cadet quarters this morning.

“Haesan won all three rounds.” I try to keep my tone civil. I really do. But civility isn’t my forte, especially when Captain Seo routinely berates me in front of the other cadets for my many inadequacies. And I’m pissed at myself for giving her more ammunition to humiliate me. “As you well know.”

Captain Seo pivots on her feet in slow motion until we stand face to face. Her expression is set in stone, and there’s menace in every line of her body. “And how would I know that?”