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The Prophecy

They will all bow to me soon enough.

A fact that twists my lips into a smile as my forces march over the Yaepak Mountains, where it is perennially winter despite the crisp autumn that touches the lands of the Eastern Continent elsewhere. Biting winds whip my face where I ride atop Sonagi. My Imugi slither through the snow, silent and graceful and deadly. We ride toward Fulfillment, an age of dragons and destruction.

It has been three months since I claimed the first kingdom, Sunpo, as my own. I had expected to have claimed all three kingdoms by now. Yet the skirmishes with the Dokkaebi have been more time-consuming than I anticipated. Haneul Rui’s army tried, frantically, to prevent my own from crossing Habaek’s River and reaching these mountains.

Haneul. My smile becomes a scowl as a white-hot sear of hatred lances through me at the mention of the Dokkaebi that I am soul-stitched to. My greatest enemy. He is a deceiver.

A liar .

Because of him, my sister is dead. I could have used her. She would have carried on the great Shin name. But now she is in Jeoseung, and even when I visit that realm and impatiently call out her name, the girl does not show herself at the other end of the bridge between life and death.

Infuriating. A wrench in my plans.

I am tired of Haneul’s tactics. He brings upon my sister’s death and sinks my ships.

A geobuksun that Im Yejin, my shipsmith, crafted for me was ruined during one of the river sieges. Inconvenient. The Sunpo mercenaries and assassins that I have deigned to bring along with me, who are included in my plans for Wyusan, nearly drowned. They flailed around in the waters like helpless children . I was tempted to let them die. But I need their weakness, for it will come in use later. So I reluctantly allowed my Imugi, my water serpents, to buoy them to the other boat, which will take them around the mountain range.

They don’t currently march with us. I have a plan for them, and to carry it out, I need them alive. The Dokkaebi are focused on targeting me. Already there have been four skirmishes on these mountains. They do not focus on the boat, winding the longer way around the mountains toward the Wyusan Wilderness, where we are heading.

The humans will do their job well once their voyage ends. They know how lucky they are. They could be back in Sunpo, at risk of my serpents’ maws. I keep only enough alive that I have worshippers, and the Imugi younglings who do not ride with me to war are hungry. They are growing, after all.

Song Iseul rides to my right on the sinuous Uloe, one of Sonagi’s firstborn, a male Imugi of immense strength and speed, and the same glistening teal coloring that all of his kind possess. The Gumiho’s eyes are narrowed against the snow. Like me, Iseul perches atop a black saddle on the serpent’s large neck. Her pale hair whips in the wind as we crest the rocky peaks underneath the white moon. The Gumiho’s large ax is strapped to her back, and underneath her cloak, she wears a black stealth suit like mine. I had it outfitted for her. She is my personal guard and, as such, must be treated as one treats a weapon. Polished and shined. Honed to perfection.

Bang Bomin rides on my left. Out of all the allies I collected in Sunpo three months ago, the prominent halji-dealer is the only one I have taken on this journey. The favors he accepts as payment are useful, and the inside intelligence he supplies concerning the other two kingdoms of the Eastern Continent has earned him the right to ride. Although if he does not stop wearing his ridiculous orange top hats, I may kill him after he has served his purpose and the Three Kingdoms are mine. I cannot stand those top hats.

Wyusan and Bonseyo know that we come. They do not, however, show their hands. Bomin’s source in Wyusan tells me that Empress Moon is waiting to see if the Dokkaebi triumph on these mountains. And Bonseyo concerns itself with its warring dynasty, fatally underestimating my power, assuming that Wyusan will stop me. Both kingdoms will fall.

And I will be the one to kill them.

Sonagi moves lithely beneath me, but my body abruptly tenses. There it is. That tug in my chest, one that I have grown all too familiar with. If I squint, I can will the red thread of fate into view. The foul thing extends out of my chest, swirling through the snow-flurried air, stretching to a point perhaps fifty feet in the distance where nothing stands— yet .

Lovely, I seethe.

I brush my mind against Sonagi’s consciousness, a wall of scale and serpent. He is coming.

Underneath me, she halts. Her head sways back and forth, tongue flicking out as she smells the air. “So he isss,” the Mother of Imugi grumbles in the Serpentine Language.

“Stop,” I hiss in the same tongue to the others, who do as I bid. The wind carries my order behind me, toward all one hundred serpents.

“Today’s ambush?” Iseul asks. The Gumiho does not sound too upset at the thought. In fact, Iseul sounds almost hopeful. She is, after all, a violent creature. It seems as if she still blames the Dokkaebi for failing to help stop the Fox Hunt fifty years ago. Honestly, I do not care about her motives, as long as she kills who I need her to kill. And so far, she has done just that. Exemplarily.

“Yes,” I reply, summoning my scales. Faster than the flit of a butterfly’s wings, they unfurl across my skin, crusting the edges of my face before rippling down my neck toward my heart, and then outward along my arms, a diamond-hard armor against whatever bloodshed the infernal Gyeulcheon army has planned. “ Brace ,” I hiss, just as the air explodes around us.

Shadowed corridors burst into existence like splashes of dark ink on white paper. Dokkaebi leap forth from the portals, clad in battle gear that flashes under the sunlight. Their furious war cries echo over the peaks, harsh and grating on my ears. Scowling, I gesture for Bomin to take cover. The favor-collecting dealer is admittedly useful despite his propensity for eye-sores of fashion statements, and I can’t have him dying in a fight. His Imugi, Beongae, moves toward a rock outcrop, hiding him beneath the ice-glazed stone.

There are hundreds of Dokkaebi warriors appearing from thin air, and I once again curse Haneul for administering the wongun enhancer to his forces, restoring the power to move through these portals to basic Dokkaebi. This… development …has been most inopportune, as we can hardly go a day without some bloody clash interrupting my march.

It’s annoying, to say the least. But my army knows well what to do. In one swift motion, Iseul launches herself out of Uloe’s saddle, swinging her formidable ax as her Imugi rears back and hisses. Venom sprays through the air, and although Uloe is careful not to shower Iseul in the deadly liquid, the green poison catches a pair of Dokkaebi in the face and they fall screaming to the ground. Just like Haneul’s friend, Hana, did three months ago when my Imugi bit her in Sunpo’s palace. She died not long after. Suffice to say, her lover wants desperately to kill me. I worry not. Kim Chan will die. This pair will, too.

The warriors had been rushing toward me. They always do that. It’s almost funny. They always try to make it to me first, although their emperor has decreed me his . Every battle, he directs his Dokkaebi fire toward me, as if trying to free that weak, sniveling girl from my mind before he is forced to deliver a fatal blow. But even he knows it’s useless. Although such strategy worked before, it will not work again. A fool’s hope, even with his heavenly fire.

For she will not emerge, even if given the chance. He knows that to stop me, he will have to kill me. Undoubtedly he wishes for it to be painless, in some act of foolish nostalgia for the girl who once inhabited this body. I won’t afford him that luxury when I kill him. It will be painful, and it will be ever so slow.

Overhead, thunder booms. This is Sonagi’s doing—she is summoning a storm for me. One of frost and lightning. The heavy rains have put out the Dokkaebi fire for me before, and today, the produced sleet will bank it enough for me to avoid injury. For the flames—tapped directly from the heavenly realm of Okhwang itself—are one of the only weapons that can render me truly weak. And despite their inability to produce the metamorphosis that Haneul so clearly wishes for, they can still sear my skin and scales.

I scowl as the tugging in my chest intensifies. As the battle clashes around us, the sound of swords against scales ringing through the air, my eyes focus on an explosion of shadow not twelve paces away from me. Sonagi hisses in furious distaste, her long body tensing as the Emperor of the Dokkaebi bursts onto the snow-crusted battlefield atop his white mare, Duri.

As the red thread connecting me to him materializes into full view, a deep, glimmering scarlet bond of hatred.

My eyes narrow at the horse who, to my utmost chagrin, is winged. A chollima. The first time I saw her, I nearly choked on my rage. In Gyeulcheon, when I was weak, when I was not who I am now, I rode atop her back. She was wingless then, but I know now that the white-feathered appendages were only hidden.

So many secrets Haneul kept from me.

So many lies.

His eyes are burning with blue Dokkaebi fire as Duri’s hooves crunch against the icy ground, stepping over the bodies of the two fallen warriors with a muscle pulsing in his jaw. Underneath his black helmet, his short, wavy hair whips in the bitter winds. His armor is undoubtedly meant to intimidate—although what it only does is enrage . He wears dark-green plate armor laced together over simple black robes to cover his shoulders, torso, and waist. A sash holds the sword that he never uses, instead preferring to blast me with his foul fire.

Yet I do not look at his sword. I glare at his plates, so recently forged from the dead scales of one of my fallen Imugi. She is my only Imugi casualty so far. The Dokkaebi dogpiled her on these mountains three days ago and tore her scales from her body, knowing their value as defense. Now, Haneul wears them as he slowly makes his way toward me. The din of the battle seems to fade, and nothing exists except us and our steeds on this icy plain. I feel his emotions, pummeling me from the outside in: Grief. Rage. Guilt. I know that he feels mine: disgust and determination.

Thunder roars again and rain bursts from the gray clouds, freezing to sleet and snow as the Yaepak air meets it. “Hello, husband mine,” I croon as lightning splits the sky. Sonagi hisses menacingly at Duri, who huffs and flaps her wings, ascending so that she and her mount look down upon us.

“Prophecy,” Haneul says, voice almost as cold as the sleet pounding upon us.

I smile. He does not call me “Lina.” He never does. He does not understand, I suppose, that I am Shin Lina in many ways. To him I am simply the Prophecy , the one who will transform the Imugi into Yong and reclaim their land. Yet it goes deeper than that. I am not the cowardly girl with the foolish desire for redemption, the girl I have trapped in my head forevermore. “Really, Dokkaebi. Is that any way to speak to your wife ?” I purr.

Through our bond, there is a bolt of sharply lanced pain. Pain and longing. I know that Haneul is thinking of our wedding, a wedding that was only ever a pretense. A foolish ploy to thwart my destiny. Laughing, I check that my scales, hard and glittering, cover my vitals as I summon the scaleblades from the back of my hands. The fatal blades extend from the back of my wrists, sharp and glittering. Sonagi hisses as I stand upon her saddle, looking up at the chollima and the Dokkaebi.

Haneul tenses, as if he knows what I am about to do.

I leap into the air with a grin as bloodlust overtakes me, soaring upward as cerulean Dokkaebi fire crackles between Haneul’s hands. He shouts in rage as I grab onto one of Duri’s hooves. The chollima panics, kicking wildly, wings flapping haphazardly as she thrashes. It is with great satisfaction that I watch Haneul tumble from the sky and onto the icy ground below. He rolls, flipping himself to his feet, snow crusting his armor as he curses violently.

Leaving the chollima for now, I drop to the ground, descending the ten feet and ignoring the burst of pain in my left leg as I land. Haneul pants hard, eyes narrowed in fury. The red thread between us, still visible, tightens as I take a step forward.

“You should really give up,” I tell him, smiling in the way I can feel hurts him the most. It’s a cold smile, a cruel one, filled with mock-love. One that my lips had to grow used to. This face had never smiled like that before, not when she inhabited this body. “She’s not coming back. No matter how hard you try. And I am not her.”

“ Silence ,” snarls the emperor. As if he can command me . His voice turns raw. “You are a parasite, a leech under her skin.”

The sleet is coming down heavier now. A normal fire would have no hope of lighting in this storm, but Haneul’s fire is no ordinary fire. Even so, it is a weaker flame between his fingers than it might have been. I watch it warily, licking my lips as I take another step closer. The emperor flinches as my next words strike through the air like a whip.

“I do not love you, Dokkaebi. I love the storms that rage in the skies, and the blood that wets the ground. I love the kiss of a blade against a throat, not the kiss of your lips against mine. I love war and ruin. I love fear and fire and fury. I do not love you .”

It is ever so pleasant, to feel the agony these words cause him. To see the way he blanches, as if he’s been run through by a sword.

“Silence,” he says again, and now his voice is broken and raw.

All around us, Dokkaebi are dying. Imugi are laughing. Sonagi is eliminating those who rush toward their emperor with thoughts of helping, currently facing down the white-haired Chan, who is roaring my name so loudly and in such hatred that I can’t help but snicker. On the wind, I hear Iseul cackling as her ax wetly meets flesh.

“Let me kill you,” I murmur as I pause, so close to him that the red thread between us is only the length of a jikdo. “Perhaps then I will show mercy to the others. Let me kill you, husband . I will enjoy it so very much. The color of your blood is so beautiful.”

A wave of fury crests down our bond. “You,” seethes the Dokkaebi. “You are despicable .”

My smile disappears, and with a hiss of hatred, I launch toward him, my scaleblades aimed at his jugular. Haneul spins, a blur of speed, avoiding my attack, clumps of snow flying up from the ground as he moves.

We do this dance nearly every day, and always the result is the same. A retreat on his side before I can kill him. It is frustrating, but no matter. I am still winning. Haneul’s forces are fine fighters, yes, but what are they against me? Against a Prophecy? Prophecies are always, always fulfilled. He knows this, and yet he fights. I do not pretend to understand his foolish, inane ways.

But I do not need to understand his folly to kill him.

A column of blue fire rips across the snow toward me, but the sleet has banked its power. It is not so fast as it could be, nor so vibrant a blue. I whip away from it, and it disappears, returning to Haneul’s hands. He is panting, chest heaving. It hurts him to do this, to fight against the body that once housed the weaker me. How I hate her. She kept me trapped inside of her mind for so long, and even when I wrestled my way to the front, she still fought back. But now she is quiet. I hear not a peep from my weaker self. I do not expect to ever hear her again.

The red thread of fate gleams as Haneul summons another wave of Dokkaebi flame. It is wider, this one, and the Imugi closest to us hiss in pain as it encloses me in a circle and singes their scales. For a moment, I feel a flare of caution. This fire, it hurts . But the Imugi are summoners of storms, and the fire is pounded by sleet, opening a space between the flickering flames of blue for me to escape in a sharp dive. I grunt as I hit the icy ground, hooking a foot around Haneul’s ankle, sending him staggering. He is strong, but what is he against the Goddess of Wrath?

Already, temples in Sunpo are being built. Worshippers invoke my name with mixtures of awe and fear. Shin Lina. Shin Lina. The goddess. Soon, there will be temples in every kingdom, and my Yong will soar in the skies. The world will be as it should have been centuries upon centuries ago. Reclaimed by its true denizens, dragons of old, regaining the lands they were so forcefully exiled from.

I leap to my feet. Between us, the red thread flexes, rippling. It is insubstantial, which is truly a pity, as I’ve tried to sever it many times with my scaleblades. I do not enjoy being tied to this Dokkaebi, even as mortal enemies. I do not like that he is able to find me anywhere, no matter what I do. My only consolation is that I can find him, too. Even in dreams.

I like to haunt his nightmares. In those, I have killed him many times over since this war began.

A bolt of white lightning lances through the sky, shattering the damp snowflakes as they fall. My lips thin. This skirmish. I grow tired of it. Reaching for the ancient Mother of Imugi across the battlefield, I summon Sonagi, running a hand against her cold, sleek consciousness. She has plunged her way further into the fray, ripping apart enemy soldiers with her venomous fangs. Golden blood sprays onto the white snow. But at my summons, she twists, slithering back toward me. There are other Imugi I can use, but none that I am bonded with in the way that I am Sonagi. We are linked, she and I, as lightning is to thunder. Where one strikes, the other follows. She is with me always.

“I am coming, my child,” she assures me, pausing only to spit venom onto a Dokkaebi warrior in her path. The winds of her storm carry her voice above the din to my ears. “Do not fear.”

Haneul is gritting his teeth, a ball of Dokkaebi fire burning between his palms. His silver eyes meet mine, and I feel the depths of his pain. Annoying. His grief is distracting as his arm pulls back, and as the orb of fire soars through the air, faster than mortal eyes would be able to see. Fortunately, I am not mortal.

Although I dodge it, the flames lick my stealth-suit, and I curse. The fabric is flameproof, but it will not hold up long against Haneul’s fire—even as faint as it currently is from the sleet. I’ve no choice but to roll in the snow to extinguish them, just as Sonagi arrives. Her enormous head bends down, offering me access to her flexuous neck—upon which my saddle sits. In one fluid motion, I grip the black leather straps dangling above and, with a grunt, propel myself upward from the ground, flipping myself around and mounting the Mother of Imugi. She extends herself to her full height, and together we tower over Haneul, who must be at least twenty feet below.

The Dokkaebi scowls and whistles sharply. His chollima rushes to his side, her mane soaking wet with snow. Breathing hard, the emperor mounts the winged beast. Her white-feathered wings begin to flap, bringing them upward. Haneul’s frustration pierces me from the outside as I bare my teeth down at him. He sends me a rude gesture, and I respond by reaching to the same straps underneath the saddle that I used to haul myself up.

They harbor a hidden bow and a quiver of iron arrows, the points of which are tipped in Imugi venom—lethal to even Dokkaebi. Kneeling on the saddle, I nock an arrow and aim.

Haneul shouts, pulling Duri to the side as the weapon whizzes past.

I narrow my eyes.

Sonagi twists as he swoops around. I let the next arrow fly. I expect it to hit true, but his silver eyes widen, and he unhooks himself from his own saddle, dropping through the air as the arrow slices through the place where, moments before, his throat was. He hangs from Duri by the stirrup. Below, my Imugi look up, maws stretching open eagerly. Duri, whickering anxiously, takes him higher, but I can see his fingers are slipping. Finally. Today, he will die. This thorn in my side will be plucked out.

I close one eye, aiming my next arrow carefully. Yet—through the bond, I feel Haneul’s panic. He is staring down at his troops, watching as Iseul in her snow-colored, nine-tailed fox form rips out the throats of his soldiers. He is watching his Supreme Commander, Chan, lose himself so completely in the battle-frenzy that the white-haired Dokkaebi does not realize he is bleeding profusely from his side, spilling gold ichor.

This is always the part where Haneul retreats, pulling back his forces only to reappear the following day with renewed vigor. His eyes meet mine as the air around him begins to move, the summoning of his shadowed corridor commencing.

“FALL BACK!” Haneul roars. “FALL BACK!”

So painfully predictable.

I narrow my eyes and let the arrow rip through the air. It is aimed true, and I smile. Finally. After all these skirmishes, all these attacks, I have killed…

But a moment before my arrow pierces the armor protecting his heart and buries deep within the skin, Haneul disappears through his portal, Duri vanishing with him.

I hiss a curse as the arrow tumbles through the air and cleaves in half on the rocky ground where his troops are following his lead—dark portals bursting back into existence, the wounded being dragged by their comrades. Only Chan is still roaring, facing down Iseul, who is the one responsible for the wound in his side. Her teeth are sharp, her claws even more so. I watch with grim satisfaction as the Imugi swarm the one remaining Dokkaebi, and as Chan—finally realizing he will get himself killed before he gets the chance to murder me—staggers back into the portal he has summoned. But not before his eyes meet mine through the sleet, a flashing emerald of hatred. They are filled with what he thinks is a promise: for Hana’s death, I will pay.

I have absolutely no intention of doing so, and I tell him so through a little smirk, delighting in the anguish I see burning him from the inside out. He staggers backward into his portal, the shadows closing around him.

A moment later, the battlefield is empty of Dokkaebi save for the dead.

I stroke Sonagi’s head as the storm begins to recede. Iseul shifts back into her human form and grins at me, strutting over to where Sonagi stands. Her light, almost white, hair is soaked golden with blood, and she licks her lips as the sea of Imugi parts to allow her through. They adore her, and although she cannot fully understand them aside from a few susurrations here and there, she has a special bond with Uloe, the serpent upon which she rides.

“Well,” Iseul declares, tapping the space between Uloe’s flaring, scaled nostrils with a dainty and bloody finger, “that was exquisitely fun, don’t you think? The snowstorm was a nice touch, as always.”

“Thank you,” hisses Sonagi, swaying in pride. Her hood, akin to one of the cobra’s, is unique to her as the Mother of Imugi. It flares with pleasure at the fox’s words. Iseul has caught onto enough of the Serpentine Language to send Sonagi a wink in return as she remounts Uloe.

Bomin emerges upon Beongae, looking rattled atop his Imugi. “No,” the halji dealer wheezes, fumbling in the pockets of his elaborate lavender robes for a roll to smoke. “No, that was not fun. Actually, I hated every single moment of that.” The thin, reedy man shakes like a leaf as he always does after one of these ambushes.

Beongae’s golden eyes are laughing. “My rider iss a coward,” he tells me. “He cried. It was most amusssing, Empresss.”

Bang Bomin might be a coward, and the sight of his hat may incline me toward violence, but he is smart. Some humans in Sunpo did not respect the idea of my rule after hearing the Prophecy. They were swiftly dealt with. Bomin knows that his alliance to me is the most useful thing he possesses.

As Bomin lights his roll of halji with shaking hands, my throat itches. An intense flare of annoyance rises inside of me at the weakness this body feels for something as trivial as the drug. “Bomin,” I snap, gesturing impatiently. I am too busy to try to fight this addiction. My weaker self was a fool, trying to outrun this. When he tosses me the lit roll, I put it between my lips and inhale deeply.

Iseul collects my fallen cloak from the snow and hands it to me with a mischievous smile. “Onward, then?” she asks, eyes glittering. It is a relief to see that the shine is not due to tears. For weeks after that healer-boy Ryu Seojin left her, forsaking his alliance with me, Iseul was prone to crying. It was irritating to no end. He is a worthless thing. I do not understand why she loves him so. Bomin has told me whispers that Seojin has been seen with the Dokkaebi, perhaps apprenticing under Jeong Kang as a healer, helping mend the wounded Dokkaebi on the opposing side. I don’t particularly care. If he’s with them, he will die, and we will be all the better for it. I have not told Iseul of his allegiance. She doesn’t need to know. Just as she does not need to know that I am not the Lina she once knew. I’ve no desire for unnecessary complications.

As Iseul waits expectantly, I smile precisely the way that Haneul hates. I love the feeling of it on my lips, the feeling of knowing it is something he despises. I hope, through our bond, he can feel my smug satisfaction at the battle won.

A flicker of rage in response tells me he can. My grin grows.

“Onward,” I whisper, and my smoke-hoarse voice drifts over the mountain tops toward Wyusan.