Page 67 of King Foretold (Realm of Four Kingdoms #2)

If I didn’t possess the Yeoiju, it wouldn’t have fallen on me to kill Daeseong and to stop the coming of the Amheuk.

I wouldn’t have had to put my life on the line again and again.

And if I didn’t possess the Yeoiju, Ethan wouldn’t have to fulfill the prophecy.

He would have no reason to kill me. We could love freely without the shadow of the prophecy dogging us, tainting our happiness.

“Think, little fox. You are a clever thing,” the dark mudang entices. “Give me the Yeoiju and return to the arms of the King Foretold.”

Ethan. I love you so much.

“No,” I snarl, my will pulsating into the darkness. Even if I survive somehow, my life would be forfeit as long as Daeseong lives. If he ushers the Amheuk into the worlds, life itself will cease to exist.

Despair will not trick me into relinquishing hope.

My body spasms and twists. I didn’t even realize I was breathing, but my lungs seize in abrupt panic.

The light is expanding too fast. My gi rushes toward it like water past a crumbling dam.

I ... I can’t stop it. The darkness tightens around me and crushes my chest with unspeakable force, trying to stop the light from exploding out of me.

Pain spears through me—the light pulling to arch my back, the dark pushing against it.

Agony builds at the bottom of my spine, and I feel as though I’ll snap in two.

I whimper, but the light and the darkness swallow the sound like I don’t exist. And I’m tempted to let them erase me.

I’m tired. I don’t want to fight anymore.

You must reach beyond you.

I did not just think that. That ... wasn’t my thought.

But understanding spreads through me as warm and serene as the white light. The Yeoiju is not merely a part of me. It is me. It can’t erase me without erasing itself. It cannot exist without me because we are one and the same.

How did I forget? Or maybe I just didn’t truly believe it until now.

I am not alone.

Did I already know this? A memory flickers in the back of my mind—the cold void, the warm light—but it vanishes too quickly for me to catch it.

I focus all my energy on the nature surrounding me, and I see past the darkness.

The stunning life forces of Mountains, Water, Sky, and Underworld—green, blue, silver, and red—radiate around me.

The gi born of the Cheon’gwang undulate in the night, their dance more haunting and beautiful than the brightest aurora.

The Yeoiju and I, we need your help. My mind reaches out to the gi around me—to life itself. Help us defeat the darkness.

My eyes widen in astonishment. I understand now. The green of Mountains, the blue of Water, the silver of Sky, and the red of Underworld swirl together and converge until there is only one life force—the white gi.

The light inside me—the power of the Yeoiju—is the four life forces united as one.

The Yeoiju isn’t a mere gift of the Cheon’gwang. It is the true light.

“Wh ... what are you doing? What are you doing , beast?” Daeseong screeches as the light surrounds us. “You cannot defeat the powers of the Amheuk.”

The white gi rushes into me, and the world around me snaps into clarity.

It fills me with strength, and I summon the light of the Yeoiju to my hand with absolute control—with absolute faith.

The light doesn’t seek to explode from me, draining me, because I am not alone.

I am strong. Both my gumiho and I. We are safe.

The darkness tightens around me and fights to extinguish my light. I welcome it with a smile. I can’t have Daeseong plunging to the bottom of the caldera. I ease the gi into my sword of light, and the sword at last glows white with power. It is the Shin’gwangdo.

I raise the sword in a double-handed grip and bring it down with absolute certainty. Light rips through the darkness in a long, diagonal slash.

Daeseong screams—a sound of pure terror—and the darkness dissipates. I see the night sky of Santorini and the Aegean Sea before me again.

On the rugged outcropping where Draco lies still and small, the dark mudang stands before me in his corporeal form. Darkness oozes between his fingers as he presses his hand against the gash in his chest.

He can’t run. He can’t hide. I am too fast for him—too powerful.

“Do not think you have won, daughter.” His face twists into a mask of hate, terrifying and wrong.

“I don’t think anything. I know I won,” I spit out even as a corner of my heart chills. Daughter? I won’t let his Hail Mary mess with my head. “You lost, mudang.”

“You think I am lying.” His chuckle is indulgent until a hacking cough overtakes him, and thick, greasy darkness drips down his chin. “About your inevitable defeat. About you being my daughter.”

“What I think is that you bore the shit out of me.” I grip the hilt of the Shin’gwangdo in both hands and raise it horizontally above my head. Then I widen my stance and dip low on one knee, the other leg stretched long. “Do you really want to blabber nonsense so you could live another minute?”

I don’t give him a chance to respond. I don’t give in to the doubt and fear flickering in the corner of my mind. My human body doesn’t just move as fast as my gumiho. It moves as fast as light. And I bury the glowing white blade of the Shin’gwangdo in the dark mudang’s heart before he can blink.

I meet his stricken gaze and hold it as I withdraw the blade slowly , making sure the motherfucker hurts. Then I step back as he crumples to the ground.

It’s done. It’s over. Nothing else matters.

“Your mother was filth like you,” Daeseong sneers, even as his eyes roll back.

“Shut up.” I hate that my voice trembles.

“She bewitched me to fall in love with her, then she stole you from me,” he hisses. “She ran from me, pregnant with my child.”

“ Shut up ,” I scream. He’s lying. He has to be. He is lying .

I should chop his head off so he stops talking. So why don’t I? The Shin’gwangdo shakes in my grip. Why can’t I?

“You don’t get to speak about my mother. Just die already.”

“She hid you from me for eighteen years, but I found you,” he rasps, his lips stretching into a dark smile.

Horrified laughter bubbles up my throat. Do I smile like that when I taunt people? I swallow the laugh and crush the thought.

“I found you.” He coughs wetly before he continues, “Didn’t I, daughter? And we both learned on that mountain that you are more like me than your mother. There is darkness inside you, Mihwa. Darkness born of me.”

“You’re lying.” My legs give out, and I fall to my knees.

I have to think. What does he have to gain by lying to me in this moment? To see me suffer. He wants to see me suffer before he dies. He wants me to doubt myself. He wants me to falter. That’s all.

“Your mother stole you from me,” he babbles. He’s delusional. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore. He was already insane before I stabbed him in the heart. Now he’s insane and dying. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. “She stole my Yeoiju from me.”

Daeseong is not my father. He can’t be. My mother said my father was a gentle, mild-mannered scholar. He died before I was born.

“The Yeoiju can reveal everything , daughter.” Darkness spills from the corner of his eyes like tears. “That’s all I ever wanted. Why is it wrong to seek knowledge? I only wanted to understand ... everything.”

I sit back on my ass with a thump.

Daeseong was a scholar before he became consumed by his obsession with magic and power. Had my mother been speaking in fucking metaphors? Did she mean Daeseong the scholar died when he became Daeseong the dark mudang?

My lungs tighten around every ragged breath. I would scream if I weren’t hyperventilating. Why, Mother? She can’t do this to me. She can’t. It’s not true. None of it is true.

“No,” I mutter past numb lips. I grab Daeseong by the shoulders and shake him hard enough for the back of his head to bang against the rocky ground. “You are lying .”

“Why the tears, daughter?” He cackles. “Sad to see your father die so soon after you have found him? Are you crying for me, daughter?”

I swipe my forearms across my eyes. Why am I crying? There’s nothing to cry about. He is not my father. I have no reason to cry, because my father is not an evil megalomaniac.

Why should I cry? It’s not like I stabbed my father in the heart. I’m not the daughter who killed her own father. I wipe away the unending tears streaming down my cheeks.

Seriously, why am I crying? I can prove he’s lying.

Daeseong moans, and his eyelids flutter. Oh gods. He’s dying. I don’t have much time. My heart lurches, and wild panic slams into me. I have to hurry. He can’t die until I get the truth out of him. And I will get it, even if I have to rip it out of him.

I grab him by his lapels and lift him until his eyes focus on mine. “You will tell me the truth.”

I bare my teeth in a snarl as I wrench free the power buried deep inside me.

Its wrongness jars me to the core of my being, but I don’t stop calling on the power.

The night grows darker as the white glow fades from the sword of light, and the gi of nature scatters away from me.

And my chest fills with searing heat, even as my skin crawls with shame.

“Am I your daughter?” The words drip from my tongue as sweet and cloying as honey, my voice both sibilant and echoing. “Tell me the truth.”

“Yes, Mihwa,” he answers, obeying my command. “You are my daughter.”

“You’re lying,” I shout, the honey still coating my mouth. “Tell me you’re lying.”

But it wouldn’t mean anything because I would’ve forced him to say those words. Besides, it’s too late for him to tell me anything.

Daeseong is dead.

My dark power sputters out, and I fall limply to my side.

I killed ... my own father.