Page 14

The Prisoner

My fingers spasm as they wrap around the scarlet ribbon protruding from the cloth of my simple, ratty tunic. I scrabble to pull the fabric down. The string emerges just where my heart beats.

If I still spoke, I would whisper a soft curse. I have not seen the red thread of fate like this since the night…since the night…

C R A C K.

It twists from my chest, leading to one of my cell’s stone walls. On trembling legs I walk forward, placing a hand against the cold, slick stone. What does this mean?

I feel the Aglyeong watching me, but I do not cower from it.

Rui? I think, wondering if my soul-stitched, my husband, is on the opposite side of the wall. Surely I am imagining this. Surely…

The wall shifts. It ripples, and for a moment, it looks like a door—a door embossed with golden paint and words I cannot make out. I stumble backward with a soundless cry as in that split second where the wall is a door, it swings open and…

And…

“Lina,” gasps Rui, staggering into my cell, covered in the dust and grime of battle. “ Lina .”

…

Rui.

Rui is… here .

In my cell. In this place that is not a place, only a tiny crevice of a mind. In this strange realm of the spiritual, of the intangible. He is here .

My husband is bracing himself against the wall that is once again the wall, his golden-beige skin pallid, his silver eyes glinting in the darkness as they pierce me, tracking the red thread extending from his chest to mine.

I am frozen, unable to move, unable to breathe. Unable to do anything but stare at him. His hair, once so beautifully long, scrapes against his cheekbones, and I remember the night I cut it with a pair of sharp shears. An uncomfortable feeling tightens my stomach as I look closer and realize that he is not wearing the ornate hanboks I am so used to, nor the glittering jewelries. This Rui is wearing the Imugi-scale plate armor over black combat robes—simple, easy to move in. Attached to his waist is an empty hilt, no blade in sight. All he wears on his fingers is one simple, silver ring. And I know it is a match to the one I crushed with the jade garakji.

Call to me, and I will come.

Even his face is different. War-hardened. No mischief sparkles in his eyes. Gone is his air of languid indulgence.

This is not my Rui. This is—this is the one I have seen through the Prophecy’s eyes. This is the one with a body heavily toned by the rigidity of a time of unrest. This is the one who is looking at me with shock and guilt and grief because he knows…

C R A C K.

He knows the part he played.

“Lina. Is it really you?” he whispers, a tear trickling down his face as he reaches for me with hands that are just as stained with Eunbi’s blood as mine are. I jerk away violently, the red thread of fate between us extending as I lurch backward. In my haste, I slam my head against the opposite wall, but the pain barely registers.

In my chest, agony is ripping open my heart. It is tearing the pulsing red mass open, exposing valves and shredding ligaments.

“Little thief—” He cuts off with a blanch as the Aglyeong laughs, drawing Rui’s attention to it. All the blood drains from Rui’s face as his eyes rest on the demon. He makes a sound of agony and shock low in his throat, eyes flaring wide.

I have never seen him so pale.

“No,” he whispers hoarsely, as the Aglyeong laughs again in a knowing way. “Not this. Not this. Oh, Lina, my love…”

I do not know whether I have ever stopped crying in here, but I am more acutely aware of the salt and sorrow than ever before as I hug myself around my waist and stare at the ground, at the cracks in the cold stone floor, at everywhere and anywhere but Haneul Rui. Shin Rui.

“I’ve been trying to find you for so long,” my soul-stitched breathes, tearing his gaze away from the Aglyeong and holding the thread between us. I feel the slight ripple as he pinches it. “I never stopped looking for you. Perhaps…you had to reach out first. I felt you. I felt you, Lina.” He takes a hesitant step forward. “This is where you have been? All this time…”

He trails off as I slowly raise my eyes to him, letting him see every broken, bitter part of me. I let him feel it, sending that emotion through the thread, knowing it feels like shattered glass underneath the skin.

Rui flinches as if he’s been slapped.

“Oh,” he whispers, his voice terrible in its grief. “Oh.”

My lips tremble violently. Words want to escape—hoarse words of blame—but I cannot open my mouth. I will not speak. I cannot speak. Instead, I hold his gaze as tears flow down my cheeks.

He is shaking violently, and his hands are quivering, as if he does not know what to do with them. A long moment passes, during which I feel the tumultuous sea of his emotions crash through the red thread of fate. There is the bitterness of self-loathing and regret, the icy shock of horror. Fiery rage, fragile grief. And under it all, as delicate as a baby butterfly, yet as unwavering as an ancient oak…

Love.

Rui swallows hard. There are dark purple circles underneath his eyes, and I wonder, despite myself, when he last slept. “I am not leaving you here,” he finally chokes out. “Not with this—not with this thing . The door. Come with me through the door.”

He strides to the wall from which he emerged, and at his touch, it shifts again into a door. Breathing hard, Rui extends his hand, eyes so silver and bright. I know that he wants me to take it, to slide my palm into his, intertwine my fingers with his. He wants it more than he has ever wanted anything—it is tearing him apart from the inside, the desire. Suspended in the air, his fingers shake.

“Lina,” he whispers. “Please.”

I shake my head and turn away. I know, somehow, deep in my heart, that it will not work. Yet, quicker than a hummingbird’s flight, his hand closes around mine. Gently, as I stumble after him, he tugs me to the door…

…which disappears a moment later.

Rui makes a sound that is halfway between a growl and a cry. Releasing me, he touches the wall with his hand. As I step back, the door once more appears. Again, he brings me toward it. Again, it disappears.

It will not work. Why does he not understand? Hot frustration overtakes me, and my hands flutter into the air like a flock of murderous birds. The Quiet Language, taught to the Talons by Yoonho for silent missions. Yoonho, never one to do anything by halves, taught us the entire language .

You are foolish to believe in such an escape , I say, with every ounce of bitterness in my soul, even though I do not expect him to understand me. Foolish and naive—

Something in Rui’s face has frozen with realization. His silver eyes track the movements of my hands, and his throat bobs as he swallows hard. “Little thief,” he rasps. “Why do you not speak aloud?”

He doesn’t understand.

He doesn’t understand that I cannot ever speak again, for the words that have rolled off my tongue so carelessly in the past have hurt and killed . The things I said, urged on by the Prophecy. The cruelty I cultivated like dying weeds in a garden of rot.

He does not understand, but the red thread does. It carries my grief and guilt down its scarlet length. I watch through narrowed eyes blurred with pain as he closes his own, bowing his head.

Rui needs to look at me as I sign, Leave me , over and over until my fingers cramp and falter. There is silence, but finally Rui’s eyes open and he flinches. His voice is little more than a fraying thread, hoarse and thick with pain.

“No, Lina. I am sorry, but I will not abandon you. Not when I’ve only just found you again.”

My eyes widen. He reads the Quiet Language?

The language is not one that is well-known, nor is it one that is easy to understand. It is not rooted in the tongue of the Eastern Continent, nor is it rooted in the tongues of the other continents. The Quiet Language is its own, following different grammatical rules and structures. It relies on not just the movement of hands, but on facial expressions, body language, and other minute movements. To learn the Quiet Language means years of intense study, years that I spent with Yoonho and did not expect Rui to have spent as well.

The emperor leans against the wall and lowers himself to the floor. He does not meet my eyes. Instead, he stares through the bars, at the Aglyeong, with a horrible sort of defeat in his expression. A defeat that is somehow…bone deep. Something thorned, something sharp with terrible foreboding, pricks at my heart.

Is there something I do not know about this Aglyeong?

“Lina,” he finally rasps, “you must understand that I did not plan what happened to Eunbi.”

A dull roaring fills my head with a horrible pressure. I shake my head furiously, retreating to the corner furthest from him. I do not want to listen to this, I do not want to speak of this. My hands fly to my ears. I press down on them hard, trying to blur Rui’s words into smudges of unintelligible murmurings.

Tears blur my eyes as I stare at him. As his hands, always so long and nimble, rise into the air. They swoop and soar, hesitantly at first, but as he remembers the Quiet Language in all its intricacies, the words become legible.

If I could, I would rip out my own heart. I would give it to Yeomra, so he might make a trade.

I shake my head, but I cannot make myself look away. I cannot shut him out completely, no matter that I must. Some small, shriveled part of me wants to hear his excuse, and I hate myself even more for it.

Lina, my love. His eyes shine with tears. For the part that I played, I am sorry. It was not meant to happen, but it did, under my own watch. Despite my ignorance, I am not innocent. So I do not ask for your forgiveness. I am not so foolish to think that it would ever be given, nor should it be.

Slowly, my hands fall from my ears. I can barely see as I reply, and my movements are sloppy, shaking. How could you bring her to me? How could you do this?

“It was Kang,” he whispers brokenly. “The clandestine plot he kept hidden from my ears. He promised me, on his life, it would work. That nobody would be hurt.”

My heart freezes in my chest.

Rui…

Rui…didn’t know?

The world shakes, then spins, around me. I would suspect his silver tongue to be lying once more, but there is… Gods, there is no hint of deceit through our bond. Only a soul-deep shame, a depthless mourning. A terrible, shattered honesty. My breath catches in my throat as my body begins to tremble in shock.

All this time, I’d thought… I’d thought Rui had machinated this. All this time, I’d cradled my broken heart in my hands, believing it was his sword that cleaved it in two.

All this time, I have…hated him. Yet here he stands, in my cell, every word ringing honestly in my heart. Even should I try, I would not be able to deny the deep, soul-bearing truth he places at my feet now. My eyes have been squeezed shut from the truth, yet with it here before me, there is no choice but to confront it.

His…innocence.

Does it change anything? I do not know. I cannot feel the bitter resentment as deeply as I once did. I feel only—confused. Adrift, in a sea of truth that I do not understand how to navigate.

Rui did not know that it would happen, that—

C R A C K.

C R A C K.

C R A C K.

Red ribbons falling through the air.

My soul shattering in one blow.

And then I am clutching my hands to my chest, unable to breathe as I relive it over and over and over again. Outside the cell, the Aglyeong chuckles.

“Do you want to know how it felt? The falling? The crumpling? The fear and the terror in her soul as she was struck down?”

“SILENCE!” Rui roars, whipping his head toward the Aglyeong, his eyes brimming with fire. His wrath seems to shake the cell as the Aglyeong is momentarily stunned into submission.

And then its maw appears, twisting into a terrible smile behind its grimy black hair.

“Brave words, Dokkaebi,” it rasps wetly, “for one who knows what I herald…”

Its words blur into wisps of sound as Rui turns back to me, his face still so pale.

“Lina,” he whispers. He moves as if he will reach for me, but he knows me well enough to stay where he is.

I do not know how long it is before I can begin to breathe again. Before I can suck in any air, as cold and stale as it is. I only know that it might be hours, yet Rui remains the entire time, silently sitting on his side of the cell. I feel, through the red thread, that through all his pain he is hoping .

Hoping that if he sits quietly enough, for long enough, I will become used to his presence. That I will become accustomed to him, like some wild animal caught trapped in a thicket becomes accustomed to a human.

I raise tired, swollen eyes to him. He didn’t know.

Rui didn’t know.

Was any of it real? I ask with hands wracked by tremors. The marriage, the kisses, the love. Did you ever mean any of it? For I did, although he told me, underneath the willow tree in my dreams, that our marriage was a strategy. I still meant…everything. Did he?

“I,” Rui rasps and then swallows hard. “I—I meant it more than you could ever know,” he whispers. “I still do, little thief.”

My chest fills and fills with jagged grief. Rui hesitates in the long silence that follows before finally speaking again.

“I found a door,” he whispers. “In the Prophecy’s mind. I followed it here to you. Yet it was unbreachable, and I thought it only some cruel trick in my dreams, until the Prophecy seemed frightened that I’d found this door. It made me…begin thinking that perhaps you truly were within, that she feared you might…escape. That means there must be a way out. I have since ordered my soldiers to concentrate on taking her alive. We can buy ourselves some time to help you escape.”

The Aglyeong snorts derisively from behind the bars.

Rui shoots it a glare. “There must be some way out. Some way you haven’t found.”

I do not look at him, lest he see the truth of it: that I’ve not even tried to escape, and even if I did, it would surely be hopeless. Instead, I stare fixedly at a point past his shoulder. The cold stone wall. The Aglyeong waiting to eat me. Prophecies always come to fruition. There is no point. Why fight a losing battle?

“Because, little thief,” he says, still softly but with an undercurrent of steel, “we must at least try to end this war. It is a question of honor.”

When have you or I ever been honorable? I wipe an errant tear from my cheek. Think reasonably, Rui. The only way I can leave this place is through death. Even knowing what I know now…that Rui never intended for everything to go so horribly wrong…it changes nothing. There is no way out. That is a sure way to end this war. My body. Do not worry about taking it alive. You must kill it—

He inhales sharply, and when I look at him next, his jaw is tight and a vein pulses in his forehead. His eyes dart to the Aglyeong before darting back to me. Agony burns in his gaze, and his fists open and close.

“ No ,” he growls, fire flashing in his glare. “Not now, not ever , not when I know you are still in here and that there is hope.” As my hands rise back into the air, he cuts me off—voice harsh. “I will not do it, Lina. This, it is the one thing I will never do for you. No matter how much you beg, no matter how much you plead. I will not kill you. ”

I clench my jaw, glaring furiously at him.

He glowers back. And I know that there is no swaying him.

Haneul Rui has always been a stubborn bastard.

The red thread of fate between us ripples with a dark and churning mixture of emotions. He follows my gaze to the string connecting our souls.

“I wonder,” he rasps, “if we’re both.”

Confused, I blink. What? I ask.

He smiles bitterly, curling a finger around the scarlet manifestation of fate. “Love and hate. The thread diverged. One leads to the Prophecy. One leads to you. What if I am soul-stitched to the Prophecy in hatred, but soul-stitched to you in love?” Rui raises his gaze to mine. “You are not going to stay in here forever, little thief. I know that you are hurting. But this war needs you. I need you.” He swallows hard. “I am not leaving you here. I am going to be back. I failed you once; I will not fail you again. Not at the end of all this. Because there will be an end, Lina.” He looks again at the Aglyeong. “And…I hope to the gods that it’s a happy one.”

Behind him, the door once again appears. He lays his hand flat against it.

Wait. His eyes, still on mine, flicker as I rapidly sign the words. The empress. Did she…did she touch you?

My stomach aches horrifically at the thought of it. But I have to know. I have to. My breathing turns shallow and my palms begin to sweat. The feelings I harbor toward Rui are as fickle and tumultuous as a heavy storm, but the thought of that—that woman touching him without his consent sends a wave of nausea rippling through me as I recall her possessive touch.

Rui hesitates as my feelings crest through the thread. “No,” he says quietly. “She didn’t.”

Relief washes through me, cold and calming. The knot in my stomach slowly disappears, and I suck in a small breath of air. She didn’t touch him. She didn’t hurt him. And now she’s dead.

But what if something does happen to him? To Rui? What if something awful—irreversible—happens to him while I rot in here like an old corpse?

I try to push the thought away, but I cannot. The Prophecy is trying to kill him. She won’t stop until she does.

And now that he is before me…

I imagine those silver eyes, dulled as old coins. I imagine him laying still and dead and cold, like so many of the others before him. And for a moment, the pain at the thought of Rui—Rui, who was once my best friend, Rui who was once my lover—dead is enough to have me hesitating, glancing at the bars of the cage. Wondering if there could be an escape route.

This demon can bleed, after all.

But the following thought of existing within that body, that body that has been broken and used like some warhorse, bruised and battered at the whims of another without my consent…

My skin suddenly crawls at the thought of it, and my vision blurs once more. My heart pounds so hard against my chest that I choke, hands raising to my throat.

Rui is a warrior honed by centuries of training. He is an unbreakable column of power. He will survive.

That is what I tell myself as he steps through the door and disappears.

Rui will survive.

Won’t he?