Page 21

The Prisoner

“Rise to your feet, Shin Lina. One last time.”

The words ring in my ears, over and over and over again, as I fall into something almost resembling sleep—and as I sink into it, I find not the empty darkness I expect, but my sister.

She is underneath the cherry blossom tree, sitting in the tall grass, but this time she is alone. Sang is not with her—only two small dolls of straw, which she has hopping back and forth, acting out the story that spills from her lips.

It is a story I know well. A story I told her, just nights before her death, snuggling next to her in bed, attempting to comfort her after she’d discovered the death of the Talons. I’d whispered of a selfish man named Bak, who refused to share his wealth with his impoverished neighbors, only to be given a rather rough awakening by none other than Yeomra himself. Bak, having fallen fatally ill, slipped quietly into Jeoseung only to find that his place of rest within the realm of the dead was cold and barren, influenced by his wickedness in the world of the living.

“Bak was sad,” Eunbi murmurs, the doll that must be Bak drooping a bit in her hand while the doll that must be Yeomra shakes one of its small fists. “But Yeomra gave him another chance, because it wasn’t really his time to die yet… Bak had things to do, first…”

Death is coming for us both, Lina. It is only a question of how we choose to meet it.

Throat tight, I draw closer to Eunbi. She’s frowning a little, as if in intense concentration, her lower lip jutting out just a bit. Has she forgotten the end of the story? I watch as she thinks, long and hard, for a moment.

Eunbi brightens.

“—and then ,” she finally says, the Bak doll perking back up, “Bak returned to the world of the living, where he fought to redeem himself!”

It is as if an echo of the past has made its way here. The words are, verbatim, what I whispered into her ear all those months ago. And hearing them now, from Eunbi, strikes some chord deep inside me, harmonizing with the plea that Rui left me with. Slowly, I sink to my knees as Eunbi adds on her own variation to the story—in which Bak adopts a small army of woodland animals, marries a runaway princess who’s actually a goddess in disguise, and founds a restaurant catering toward hungry ghosts—and wonder.

I used to believe so fully in the gods. Part of me wants to believe this vision of Eunbi, this story, is sent by them—that through these signs, they urge me to fight back, just as Rui does.

Yet they abandoned us long ago. And I was never worthy of their gaze.

But could I…do it? Reclaim the body that has been so violated by the Prophecy?

Exist in a world without my little sister?

The thought has a wave of sickness rolling through me like an unstoppable tide. Needing some small semblance of comfort, I reach for Eunbi.

My fingers graze the silken pink fabric of her hanbok.

Her head jerks up with a small gasp. I freeze as her eyes suddenly dart upward. Not onto me, but close enough that my heart stops beating.

“Hello?” she whispers. Can she not see me, as I thought she once did? “Is that…really you ?” She frowns, squinting, as if looking through a fogged window. “I feel you. In here.” She hesitantly taps her chest.

My hands flutter helplessly. I want to speak to her, but I can’t—as my voice rises in my throat, something pushes it back down. My fear. My shame. My guilt. And Eunbi does not know the Quiet Language, nor can she seem to see me.

Eunbi clambers to her feet, still looking around. “If it is you…” She frowns, and my heart breaks as, all of a sudden, I see confused hurt and betrayal on her face. “If it is you, I-I’m so mad at you!” She stomps a foot, throwing her dolls down onto the ground. “Every day, so many more souls come down here, and they all say it’s because of you .”

She may as well have stabbed me in the heart.

“What are you doing ?” Eunbi cries, scrubbing at her face with an arm, glancing about like she might catch a glimpse of me—but never seeing me, not truly. “You need to—to stop. Please, it’s not too late to stop … You can be Good, if you just try. Please, just try!”

The vision fades, and I wake with a gasp, my hands scrabbling at the cold floor of my cell, Eunbi’s pleas ringing in my ears. She thinks—that the Prophecy is me . Of course she does. To her, there is no distinction. To so many others. Nobody, save for Rui, has seen this cell.

And if these visions of Jeoseung truly are as real as I’m beginning to think they are, if my death comes and I find myself in the underworld…with all those the Prophecy has killed…faced with the horrible truth that I never lifted a finger in their defense…faced with Eunbi’s disgust…

It’s not too late to stop. Please, just try.

Try to find redemption, like Bak.

Try to face death as anything but a puppet to this Prophecy.

One last time. One last time.

For Eunbi. For Rui. For the victims of this senseless war.

And maybe for myself, too.

Breathing hard, I plant one fist on the cold ground of my cell. And the other. Gritting my teeth, I push myself up.

One last time.

…

I scrutinize my prison with something more than the eyes of a prisoner who has given up all hope.

I look at it with the eyes of an assassin who has infiltrated countless Sunpo prisons—and escaped, with the target either safely in hand or dead in their cell.

It is a small cell, cold and damp and dank. The stone walls are bare when Rui’s door does not appear. The cracks between the stones are small, more fissures than anything.

The bars are made of some cold sort of metal. At least, that is how they appear. This is no physical realm. It is a mental realm—but for all purposes, the bars seem like metal, so I will think of them as such…if only to preserve the few remnants of sanity I have left. The spaces in between each bar are barely enough for one of my arms to stick through. There is a lock, I believe, that has seven keyholes. But I have never seen the keys.

Perhaps I need to find them.

Past the bars is the Dalgyal Gwisin.

And I can make it bleed.

Behind it is a dungeon. I have not always paid attention to it, with its dark shadows and cracked, grimy ground. My goal, when I peer past the bars, has always been to un-focus my attention and therefore reach the eyes that used to be mine. But now, when I look through, I take stock of the narrow dungeon hallway…

And the slight right turn at the very end of it, underneath an arch of cobwebbed obsidian.

It looks as if it is the very beginning of a staircase. I can make out the dark shadows that compose the first step.

A stairway.

A…way out?

Narrowing my eyes, I wrap a hand around one of the cell’s bars. It is icy cold and bites into my warm palm. The Dalgyal Gwisin cocks its head at me, almost as if it knows what I’m thinking. How my mind is beginning to stitch together the dregs of a plan.

One that I cannot do alone.

…

My soul-stitched sits across from me, his hand outstretched toward mine.

For a long time, I do not take it.

But then, I…I do. Gods help me, I do.

For his fingers have begun shaking with the effort of remaining outstretched, and those minute tremors break the remaining fortifications around my heart. I take his hand in my own, and his palm is more calloused now, hardened by war and weaponry, but it is still the hand I remember. Long, elegant fingers and that ring, that silver ring that matches the one I once wore. I squeeze his hand, and he inhales sharply.

The pulsing mass of bitterness within me as I look at him is no more. I blamed him for what happened to Eunbi, but that blame… It was so terribly misplaced. I can see that now…can allow myself to see it. Fault falls on me. Me.

Yet perhaps it is not too late to redeem myself to my little sister before we die. That is what I focus on, blocking out the Dalgyal Gwisin’s taunts.

Anticipation builds within me for what I must ask. My heartbeat quickens almost painfully; my stomach is a bundle of nerves. If this does not work, I do not know what will.

Steeling myself, I slip my hand from Rui’s. He reaches for it like a child reaches for an elusive butterfly. This moment is what I have been working up my courage for…this one request.

Now, now is when I ask for—

I hesitate a moment too long.

It happens at once. Pain, sharp enough that I gasp, slamming back into the wall. Rui shouts my name and lurches to his feet, but then he is groaning, too, staggering back.

Agony is searing through my right shoulder, burning deep, deep, deep. I choke on it, breathing hard, and when I take my hand away from where the wound burns…it comes away red. I realize with a start that in here, I somehow bleed mortal scarlet, not monstrous emerald. And Rui, Rui is bleeding from his shoulder, too. Bleeding gold.

“Lina?” Rui’s eyes are wide with panic, but I don’t understand…

It hurts too much to lift my right hand into the air to sign the Quiet Language. I shake my head as blood seeps down my arm. How— how do we have the same wound?

The answer comes to us both in the same moment. I see it in the way Rui’s eyes widen. It’s the Prophecy. She’s been—she’s been injured, and somehow in here, in this mind prison, I have been injured, too. This has never happened before, but I do not think that she has been wounded like this before, either.

But…why is Rui injured?

“This,” he pants, clutching his shoulder, “this is new.” Suddenly, he curses. “ Chan ,” he hisses.

I stare at him, confused, hardly able to think through the pain.

“Chan went rogue,” the emperor pants as he stumbles toward me. “I meant to warn you. He left to track down the Prophecy. I couldn’t leave Sanyeongto. He must have found your body.” Swearing again, Rui kneels down in front of me, and scans my face in fear. “He has fireswords. They’re forged in my fire, Lina. They have killed Imugi.”

My eyes widen. Fighting back panic, I sign, Is this how we die?

No. No, not yet. Please , not yet. It can’t be, can it? Prophecies are not so easily thwarted, yet the possibility seems so very real as my shoulder screams in agony. Have I decided too late to fight back?

Should I have acted when I had the chance?

The Dalgyal Gwisin makes that horrible, rattling sound deep in its throat. Laughing. It’s laughing at us. How is this happening—

“Lina,” Rui pants, “we need to get you out of here—” But then the golden door is appearing on the wall, and I watch in shock as it seems to yank Rui through it before slamming shut. Something—perhaps the pain of the wound, our wound—must have broken his concentration. Something must have jerked him back into the physical world.

Blood drips down my shoulder. I need to know what has happened. I need to. Gritting my teeth, I stagger to my feet and collapse against the bars of the cage, peering into the Prophecy’s eyes.