Page 64 of King Foretold (Realm of Four Kingdoms #2)

I know she’s right, but that doesn’t make it any easier to walk away from them while they’re in danger. But I take one heavy step, then another, until I’m flat out running for the Red Beach. I need to moon shift to the caldera.

When I reach the beach, I stride into the moonlit ocean without pause.

Then I step out onto the rim of an infinity pool and teeter on its edge, with my arms flailing.

A quick glance around tells me that I’m at a luxury cave hotel, and I nearly tumbled down the stone steps overlooking the Santorini caldera.

After regaining my balance, I leap down to the walkway below the pool and head for the caldera. But when I get there, I don’t feel the dark mudang hiding in the depth of the waters—its serene life force remains undisturbed. Then where is he?

Wherever he is, I have no desire to make my fight with Daeseong a tourist attraction. I hike up the island, guided only by moonlight. Away from the populated villages, Santorini lies asleep in a deep, lightless night. As I climb higher, the landscape grows stark and rocky, beautiful in its own way.

When I reach an abandoned church on top of the hill, the blue of its domed roof long faded to a sandy brown, I stop to admire the caldera stretching wide and open before me. Going by instinct, I summon the white orb to my palm, careful not to let it grow much bigger than a Ping-Pong ball.

I walk to the edge of the cliff and scan the curve of the caldera with the light outstretched in my hand. No, I need to look through it. I bring the orb to eye level and squint at it, searching for ... something. I’m not sure what I expect to happen, but I’ll know it when I see it.

I’m about to give up my experiment, feeling beyond ridiculous, when the orb suddenly becomes distorted as I move it past an outcropping near the bottom of the cliffs.

I whip my hand back toward it, and the light of the Yeoiju undulates against the darkness.

My stomach sinks. I found what I was looking for—I found Daeseong.

The light I summoned in front of Akrotiri wasn’t powerful enough to hurt the dark mudang. It just frightened him. That’s why he isn’t hiding in the caldera. No, he is merely lying in wait for me.

Not giving myself time to chicken out, I shift into my gumiho and take a flying leap off the edge of the caldera.

I half run, half slide down the steep cliff, sending rocks raining into the ocean.

When I reach the outcropping, my eyes widen, recognizing an abandoned monastery I read about in the PC bang.

Tunneled into the face of the cliff, the monastery sits midway between the sea and the clifftop, making access from either direction precarious.

I have no choice but to make the climb up.

Out of breath from exertion and nerves, I skid to a stop on a narrow pathway that leads to the entrance of the monastery and shift to my human form.

With a squeak, I press my back against the cliff and cling on for dear life.

“You might as well come inside,” Daeseong drawls before I can catch my breath. “You came all this way after all.”

“What are you playing at, mudang?” I grit out.

“Akrotiri was getting a bit too crowded for my tastes. This peaceful monastery is a better place for us to chat, is it not?” He pauses. “Well? Are you coming in? Or do you want to stand on your tiptoes all night?”

I mutter a curse and step into the suffocating darkness of the man-made cave. I pitch an orb of light into the air. Daeseong is standing closer than I expected, and I take half a step back before I catch myself. On the plus side, I also catch him flinching ever so slightly.

“Don’t worry.” I smirk as my gaze skitters across the large hall, chiseled into a semblance of a room with four walls and a higher-than-expected ceiling. The two smaller pathways leading deeper into the monastery seem to have collapsed long ago. “It’s just a regular old light orb.”

“I’m not worried.” Daeseong sneers at me. “I know you can’t control the Yeoiju.”

I decide not to tell him I have the sword of light now.

“If you’re afraid of the little white light”—I step around him with my back to the rough wall—“then what are you going to do with the Yeoiju even if I give it to you?”

Never mind that I have no idea how to go about giving anyone the Yeoiju. All I know is that it would kill me to do it.

“No need to worry your little head over it.” He snickers like he’s impressed with his own witty retort. “This has been diverting, but we have much to do tonight.”

With a flick of his fingers, he extinguishes my light orb. My eyes skip around the darkness as an ominous rumble rolls through the cave. The mouth of the cave collapses with a deafening roar, drowning out even the meager moonlight.

I swallow my gasp. Fear is the last thing I can show him.

“If we have so much to do, let’s get on with it,” I quip, even as panic skitters down my spine. Where is he? What is he doing? “I wouldn’t want all your party planning to go to waste.”

“You really are rather amusing.” His laugh rings from every corner of the cave, even from the wall behind me. I can’t hold back my shudder. “It would be a shame to kill you.”

“Too bad I can’t return the compli—”

I dig my nails into my throat, trying to loosen the rope of darkness tightening around it. With my air supply cut off, I can’t hold my fear at bay. My eyes bulge and my legs kick under me as the noose lifts me into the air until the top of my head brushes the high cave roof.

He did something similar outside of Akrotiri ... before he drove me into the ground. I’m not as high in the air, but he could always throw me down harder. I need to shift so I can bear the impact of the fall. My gumiho’s back snapped, but at least I didn’t die.

All thoughts come to a screeching halt as the darkness closes in on me like a physical wall. No, it’s more like thick, wet clay molding against every surface of my body—even my eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. I’m suffocating, not from a lack of oxygen but from a lack of light.

Light is life.

I gag and gurgle as I struggle against the oppressive power, but I can’t move an inch. I am encased in a hungry, unending darkness. I rein in my terror and call forth the light of the Yeoiju. I don’t care if it’s nothing more than a pretty white orb. I need ... warmth.

Light sparks to life on my palm, but it doesn’t stay long enough to warm my skin.

The darkness suctions the white light from me like a powerful vacuum.

No. I stop summoning the light and hold the Yeoiju tightly inside me.

But a different light, the beautiful green of my gi, begins to trickle out of me.

“Do you recognize my true form?” Daeseong’s voice echoes in my head. “Last time, I tried to blanket all of Heaven Lake, but I’ve been humbled by my mistake and learned from it. I realized I only need to swallow you to consume your light.”

With my ears muffled by the dark, my pounding heart echoes deafeningly through my head, too loudly for me to think.

My life force continues to leave my body, turning oily, oozing, and black in Daeseong’s embrace.

Tears well in my eyes, but they can’t fall past the impermeable darkness that erases even the memory of light.

“No.” The single word bursts out through my mind.

“How are you ... speaking?” The darkness quivers around me in shock. “No matter. Soon you will not have much to say, telepathically or not. With every beat of your heart—with every life-giving pulse—you are surrendering your life to me. Do you want to live, little fox? Then give me the Yeoiju.”

No, I say into his mind. I am not giving you a fucking thing.

It isn’t enough to conjure a measly little orb.

I need to call forth the living, breathing light that sent Daeseong running in fear.

I have to summon the white light that nearly sucked the life out of me.

If I’m going to have my gi siphoned out of me either way, I’d much rather give my life force to my Yeoiju than let the darkness have any part of me.

My only wish is to take the dark mudang with me.

I stop listening to the frantic beating of my heart.

I turn my back on the terror sinking its claws into me.

I listen for the song of the Yeoiju at the core of my being.

It starts as a pinprick of light, sound, and warmth.

I don’t know if I’m seeing, hearing, or feeling it—maybe all three—but it’s there .

My body spasms in sudden panic. I can’t control this power in my human form. But just as fast, I quiet, because my gumiho isn’t strong enough to control it either. Nothing is strong enough, and my heart sings at the thought. My Yeoiju will defeat Daeseong. His darkness can’t withstand my light.

I . . . let go.

The pinprick expands inside me, my gi flowing like a river into the orb.

The light beams out of my chest, growing ever brighter.

The tips of my fingers prickle as they evanesce.

I realize the Yeoiju isn’t sucking the life out of me like Daeseong’s darkness was.

My body isn’t withering into an empty husk.

It’s evolving . I am becoming the light of the Yeoiju.

“S ... stop,” the dark mudang screeches. “You can’t control the Yeoiju’s power. Y ... you will destroy this entire island, you evil, selfish girl.”

I flinch and falter, but the Yeoiju doesn’t.

The light spills out of my eyes, mouth, nose, and ears, dissolving the darkness that was suffocating me.

My arms and legs burst wide like a starfish as my chest thrusts forward, my back arching into a bow.

The light pierces the darkness in a hundred different places, like starlight through the blanket of night, and Daeseong’s agonized scream rings out.

With a menacing boom, the cave crumbles around us in a rain of boulders and jagged rocks and plummets into the caldera, tearing up the calm waters. But Daeseong and I, darkness and light, remain untouched, hovering in the air—weightless, formless ... all encompassing.

The Yeoiju makes a sorrowful sound inside me.

“It’s ... okay. It doesn’t h ... hurt,” I reassure it. “You can take the rest of me. We have to stop the Amheuk.”

It keens again as my thoughts turn fuzzy around the edges.

There is another way. You are not alone. You must reach beyond you.

I smile sleepily. The Yeoiju sounds just like me.

“It’s okay,” I repeat as my arms begin to evanesce. First my wrists, then my forearms, and past my elbows ...

“No,” Draco bellows loudly enough to wake the dead—loudly enough to jerk me back to my consciousness.

Their serpentine body glistens exquisitely in the moonlight, every shade of azure, cobalt, and cerulean rippling across their scales. But the fire burning in their eyes is a deep, enraged indigo. Uh-oh. The dragon charges toward Daeseong and me. I think the dark mudang is in trouble.

“You fucking idiot,” Draco shouts into my mind. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“Yes?” I answer vapidly.

“I hate you.” The teenager sobs and slams through the sheet of darkness and light.

My life force crashes back into me, and I suck in a heaving breath—then another—and I fall toward the dark waters of the sunken caldera.