Page 59 of King Foretold (Realm of Four Kingdoms #2)

When I stand in the soft breeze of the open field, the Kingdom of Mountains feels both familiar and distant—a place that could’ve been home and a place I can never return to.

I shift into my human body and watch the sun sink behind the verdant mountains, hoping it won’t be the last sunset I see in either realm.

I summon the white light to my palm and stare at it in wonder.

How am I able to wield the Yeoiju’s power so easily?

Well, I’m not exactly utilizing its full potential.

All I can do is make a pretty white orb of light.

Even so, confessing my love to Ethan and consummating that love unlocked something within me.

Minju was right. The Yeoiju and I are intertwined.

It no longer feels like a foreign object inside me, but something comfortable and welcomed.

The gateway to the Mortal Realm, a.k.a. the fucking Gray Void, looks perfectly innocuous, no different from the rest of the green field.

But the air around it vibrates sporadically, and an odd energy comes off the area.

I’ve felt that weird vibe somewhere else before .

.. I frown and shake my head impatiently.

I have things to do, places to be. I have no time to be a gi connoisseur.

I wipe my sweaty palms down the skirt of my hanbok and check to make sure my hwando is secure against my thigh.

I bounce on my feet, shake out my arms, and stretch my neck, cracking a vertebra or two.

And I blow out three short breaths like I’m bracing myself to plunge into something unpleasant, which is very accurate. Oh, how I wish I had some chocolate.

Then I stand in the field until darkness blankets the mountains.

“For fuck’s sake,” I hiss. “Quit stalling.”

With a sharp cry, I grip my wrist as unbearable pain suddenly pierces my hand. I stare down at my palm in the moonlight and horror fills me. Blood gushes from the mark of the oath, so fast that I fall to my knees on a wave of dizziness.

I fold in on myself. Leave. Agony wrenches through me. Leave now.

I have to leave. Whimpering from the agony, I crawl toward the Gray Void. I have to fulfill the blood oath. It won’t stop hurting until I leave. Screaming through gritted teeth, I struggle to my feet, then I take off in a dead run.

Bone-chilling water swallows me whole. The icy liquid fills my nose and ears in an instant. I press my lips together to keep from breathing it into my lungs. My chest burns, and my eyes tear up.

The ice burns its way across my back, and fiery heat bursts from the ancient rune. I traded the pain of the blood oath for the pain of the Gray Void. A silent cry rips out of my mouth as my back arches.

The only saving grace is that air fills my lungs instead of the icy water I’d feared. But I already knew that. I hear Jihun’s voice echo through my head. Breathe, Sunny. I suck in a lungful of air as I jerk and writhe.

The ice and fire coil round my spine, wringing me in opposite directions.

I lose feeling in my legs. I know—I don’t know how—but I know the two forces will tear me in half.

I recognize the dark magic in the heat, but the icy cold doesn’t feel right either.

It doesn’t feel like magic born of the Cheon’gwang. It’s twisted and broken.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

Mother.

Ice pierces my chest like a long spear, skewering me. Fire punches through my stomach from the inside out. My body spasms uncontrollably. My limbs flap around, and my teeth clack together. Black edges around my consciousness, shrinking in until only a pinprick of awareness remains.

I shiver as ice coats me from head to toe. The fire is dying, turning lukewarm against my skin, until I only feel a vague warmth on my back. Then it’s gone. Only the ice is left.

I’m cold. It’s so cold. The sliver of my consciousness flickers, blinking in and out. The cold feels ... off. It isn’t good. It isn’t only destroying the word of power and its dark magic. The icy cold of the Gray Void is also destroying me —drowning me in its despair.

My eyes burst open, and the thick gray fog reverberates around me, as though it is screaming.

Then I hear it. The shrill wailing of countless stranded souls .

.. their life forces cold and slithering.

The magic of the Gray Void is born of han—grief twisted into something foul and unholy.

Its magic is not darkness. It is light distorted. And I must not give in to it. I cannot.

Please.

I call on my Yeoiju, again and again. I whimper as the cold begins to seep into my heart, but I don’t stop. I call on the light until it sings to me. The song is faint at first, then it grows stronger ... and stronger. At last.

The Yeoiju is a part of me, so I let it fill me.

I’m not afraid, because it is me. It cannot exist without me, because I am it .

I know this in the depth of my soul. I don’t falter even as it grows inside me because .

.. I am not alone. Warmth surrounds me and seeps into me.

The light shines from the center of my heart to the tips of my fingers and my toes.

It spreads to every corner of my being. And I shine.

The shrieks of the stranded quiet. The icy cold of the Gray Void evaporates. A voice—or perhaps many—whisper.

Thank you.

I blink my eyes open to the night sky, the crescent moon casting a faint silvery light on the woods around me.

I’m lying flat on my back, and literally every muscle in my body aches.

Even the strands of my hair hurt. But I’m alive.

I made it past the Gray Void. How? I don’t remember any of it, except the freezing cold.

Gods, I don’t want to remember the freezing cold.

With a long groan, I push myself onto my elbows and painstakingly sit upright. I glance around me. Why does this mountain look familiar? I look around me again, my mouth hanging open. This mountain looks familiar because I’m in the Mortal Realm.

I realize with a jolt that my plan had been flawed.

Even if I made it past the Gray Void, I had no way of reaching this mountain without being creamed into an unrecognizable blob.

Jihun usually carried me between this mountain and the entrance to the Gray Void, high up in the sky.

I have no idea how I’m still in one piece.

I get to my feet and peer at the tall mountain in the distance. Is it my imagination, or did the ominous looking clouds at the peak vanish? I give my head a sharp shake. I’m here, and I’m not dead. I can ponder all life’s mysteries after I stop Daeseong.

“Fuck.” I grab my hair in both fists. “I really don’t want to go to Santorini.”

Now, there’s a sentence no one has ever uttered.

In any other scenario, even I would’ve been thrilled to visit the stunning Greek island, salty skepticism be damned.

There’s just something glorious about the crisp white buildings with their blue domed roofs, set against the backdrop of the Aegean Sea.

It calls to your soul ... and tells you to put on a tiny bikini.

But in this particular scenario, I’d rather go anywhere but Santorini.

There goes Daeseong ruining everything again.

With a sigh, I squint up at the sky. It still looks like early evening.

I have some time to kill. Not here though.

No matter how familiar the mountain feels, I don’t want to get mistakenly shot down by North Korean soldiers.

I find a shallow pond nearby and moon shift without hesitation.

I step out on the other side without breaking my stride.

I’m at the bottom of the mountain in the fishing town Ethan and I passed through a lifetime ago.

I blink away the tears that burn at the back of my eyes.

I’ll see him again. I won’t stop until I’m by his side, where I belong.

I hike up my hanbok chima and head toward town with determined steps.

I need to lay low for a few hours until Santorini is dark enough for moon shifting.

A PC bang, Korea’s version of an internet café, will be the perfect place for that.

I can research the ins and outs of the island while eating some first-rate snack foods.

But first, I need to get out of this hanbok. The rough fabric is scratchy as hell, and I sheepishly realize that I’ve been spoiled by the luxurious silk hanboks that Miok donned on me. Either way, this hanbok goes.

The owner of the small boutique gives me the side-eye when I walk in, but she is all smiles by the time I hand her the black card Hailey lent me.

As she rings me up, I look down at my new outfit and feel a spark of happiness.

A black tank top, a loose pair of gray-washed jeans, and a perfect black leather jacket to tie the outfit together.

The boutique doesn’t carry Converse, but I can live with the black combat boots the owner dug out for me from the back, even though the military look is so last season .

She hands me back my credit card, and I take it from her with a genuine smile. “Thank you. Have a good night.”

“What about your hanbok?” the owner asks with wide eyes.

“You can throw it away.” I open the door and look back at her. “I need to travel light.”

I walk out into the teeming thoroughfare and breathe in the nighttime scent.

The air smells of garlic, spices, and deep-fried goodness with an underlying trace of exhaust—which is all happy-making for this city girl.

I eye a street vendor cooking up vats of spicy, chewy ddeokbokki and fish cake skewers in broth, and their next-door neighbor serving battered veggies, shrimp, and dumplings.