Page 30

The Prophecy

When they come, they come with fire.

Hounds, blazing with orange flames, streaking across the night sky. Landing before us, singeing the ground, growling with muzzles pulled back to reveal fangs of fire.

There are six. No, eight? It is impossible to tell as they speed in a circle around us, becoming nothing but a ring of burning, flickering flame. I shout as Sonagi rears, the two of us encircled, the other Imugi unable to reach us as the hounds race in a ring.

This, I seethe, this is the work of the gods .

Yet I am glad that the dogs are here, instead of the deities themselves. Their mere canine lackeys cannot stop a Prophecy.

We are only some hours’ ride away from Sanyeongto. Trust the meddling deities to intervene when Wyusan is so close to falling into my grasp. My skin slick with sweat as the heat surrounds us, I lift my arms and call upon a storm. Thunder booms, low and heavy in the now cloud-swollen sky as my Imugi also summon the storm. Cold water bursts through the air, frigid and sharp.

Fire, I think, should not only be fought with water. It should also be fought with flame. Chan’s firesword is in the satchel underneath where I sit upon Sonagi. I fight back revulsion as I take the empty hilt in my hand and, unlatching myself from my steed, rise to my feet and flick my wrist. The blue blade emerges.

The hounds have not faltered with the rain. Still, they move in a circle, brightly burning. The ring of fire is growing higher, and I feel Sonagi’s panic. Mind-to-mind, I remind her that this fire is not Dokkaebi fire. It cannot hurt us in that same terrible way.

“It isss sstill heavenly fire,” she hisses back. “It is not as potent and does not have the same effectsss, but it is still dangerous to be burned by. These are Bulgae, Empressss, divine houndsss of Dalnim and Haemosu.”

An unpleasant development. Smoke thickens the air and stings my eyes. Rain pounds down, falling in heavy sheets, plastering my hair to my scalp. The Bulgae howl, and the sound is chilling.

There. A slight flicker in the ring, where the rain subdues enough flame to create a small opening. I issue my command to Sonagi, and I feel her acquiescence, feel the muscles beneath me tighten in preparation. And then she is launching herself over the flame, with me fighting to keep my balance where I stand atop her. The fire licks at her underbelly, and she lands with a hiss of pain. I leap from her and face the dogs as they snarl, having stopped sprinting in a ring and slowly advancing toward me, fire rippling through the pounding rain.

“Be gone,” I demand, slashing my sword viciously. “Lest you regret it.”

The Bulgae growl and lunge forward. We become a mass of fur and claws and scales and fangs. We fight viciously, violently on the field surrounded by forest, so close to Sanyeongto. It is true that their fire is not the same as Haneul’s—I burn and heal—but it hurts all the same. Flames eat flesh. Blades swipe through fire. Thunder booms.

They pile atop me, vicious, burning hounds, leaping as I stumble, fire piling onto me. Pain ravages my body as the scales I have summoned protect my flesh, yet blacken and curl all the same. Screaming for my Imugi, I slash and twist, attempting to escape the mass of flames. Yet even with the rain slamming down, there is no exit—

A tugging in my chest, and then a roar. My eyes narrow underneath the pile of hounds. I cannot see anything save their fire, but my mouth curdles all the same. Haneul?

Surely not. It makes no sense.

Underneath the storm, I hear my Imugi shriek in shock and feel Sonagi—who has been frantically seeking a way to aid me—as confusion rips through her. There is a wave of blue, burning blue, yet with the Bulgae atop me, the Dokkaebi fire only reaches them. The cerulean flames seem to burn past the Bulgae’s fire, licking their fur. The hounds whimper, and I choke as they scamper back, leaving me laying on the scorched ground, recovering from their attacks as my scales begin to heal. I make out two black, leather boots as they step near the side of my face and hear Haneul’s voice as he warns, “Go.”

The Bulgae whimper and flee, taking to the skies, flying away in streaks of orange.

“What is this?” I rasp, climbing to my feet. Three of my Imugi lie still. Fury clouds my vision in red.

Haneul is panting and he, too, is covered in rapidly healing burns. The angry red welts are fading into his skin, yet I could have sworn that the Dokkaebi had not been touched by the Bulgae. And—I can swear, now, that each burn he holds is an exact duplicate of the ones dappling my body.

My nostrils flare. “What is this?” I demand again, fearing that I already know the answer.

The Dokkaebi emperor, breathing hard, fixes me with a searing glare. “This?” he asks with a malicious leer, gesturing to his wounds. “Oh, forgive me. I forgot. You’re not yet aware of the red thread’s unfortunate development .” He points a finger at me and grins, but there is nothing at all amused in his feral teeth-baring. “You die, I die. I die, you die. Kill me, Prophecy, and you go with me.” He laughs under his breath. “Poetic, is it not?”

Such a thing cannot be possible. “You lie,” I growl.

The emperor tilts his head. “Really?” he purrs, and before I can put an end to this inane conversation, he is flipping the firesword in his hand and dragging the blade down his right cheek in a shallow cut.

And the skin on my right cheek stings and tears with each inch the blade passes, green blood dripping out of the wound. Outraged, a hand flies to my cheek, fingers coming away wet.

“No,” I breathe.

“Yes,” Haneul replies, and I see red. My cut does not close until his own heals.

So this is why he has intervened, despite the will of the gods. The coward does not want to die, even if it means his side wins the war. My Imugi hesitate, unsure of whether or not to strike. But any wound they inflict upon him will be reflected upon me, and I order them to stand down.

This has become…complicated.

“I’ll be taking back my Supreme Commander,” Haneul continues, eyes flitting to Kim Chan, strapped atop Uloe and unconscious. I follow his gaze. It’s always satisfying, seeing the once-great warrior so subdued and useless.

I lick my lips as an idea strikes me. Perhaps I am not able to kill Haneul anymore, but capturing him as I did Chan is an altogether different matter. Silently, I alert Sonagi to this new tactic. Bound, gagged, and stuffed away, Haneul will be as good as dead. Sonagi quietly hisses orders to the others. Capturing the emperor with minimum harm will be difficult, yet my creatures of storm and scale are capable. But first, I have a question for him.

A question that has planted a seed of suspicion in my stomach.

“Tell me, Dokkaebi,” I say quietly, adjusting my grip on my firesword, “where is it that you go at night that I cannot haunt you?”

My Imugi slowly slither around us, forming a cage around the Dokkaebi, tongues darting into the air as if tasting already his capture. Lightning cracks across the sky. Blue fire dances in the palm of his hand, weaker than it could be from the rain.

Haneul’s mouth is a flat line. He stares at me, my enemy, and his eyes are unreadable. Some uncanny emotion—harsh, yet soft—shoots down the bond. I cock my head as I feel Sonagi’s silent question—if she may attack. I shake my head imperceptibly. Not yet.

His gaze takes in the Imugi, closing in around him. I feel his hesitation and chance a step closer, smiling precisely how he hates it. “I did so enjoy giving you nightmares,” I whisper coldly. “Yet now I cannot reach you. Where is it you are hiding?”

Egged on by my icy fury, my Imugi hiss violently, swaying back and forth. Sonagi’s hood flares; she grows impatient.

“I would suggest that you answer,” I spit, holding up a hand to temporarily placate my Imugi long enough to extract this information. “Where do you go, in the dead of night? What is this place I cannot follow the thread to?”

A sharp suspicion has formed, and I wait as Haneul’s eyes flick over my Imugi, lingering the longest over Chan. Yet he will never have him, not if he does not return to me my Gumiho. At his sides, his fingers twitch, clearly longing to free his friend. Yet reluctant defeat crests through that red thread, and the blue fire is extinguished.

As my Imugi hiss with promises of violence, he knows he is outnumbered.

Haneul says nothing as he steps back into his shadowed corridor, empty-handed.

Says nothing as I lunge for him, for answers.

He disappears, and the world is silent once more.

…

With gnarled fingers, I probe the corners of my mind carefully, searching for that hidden corner where the Prisoner is locked. I am weary from the Bulgae attack, and our Sanyeongto siege must wait another day. This, though, is urgent.

Suspicion swirls through me, whispering possibilities. There is only one place I can think of where Haneul may go that I cannot follow, and I wonder if this suspicion is more than just paranoia.

And it is not amusing to wonder .

I look carefully for that cell, the one I locked the Prisoner in long ago. I cannot see it, but I can feel it.

And something is…wrong.

Rage rises up within me, molten hot. My search grows frantic, for I cannot feel her within the usual confines. She has—moved.

Moved .

Frantically, I search every crevice of the mind that I can think of. Panting, I search and search until…

There. A pathetic speck of consciousness, where it should not be. In a space closer than the prison was. Higher up in the deep, dark mindscape. But where, exactly? I cannot see her, I cannot hear her, but I can feel that tiny mote of being scuttling around. My lips thin in displeasure, and a cold sweat begins to form on the nape of my neck. It is no coincidence that, after Haneul disappears to the one place I cannot follow, the Prisoner has somehow escaped her cell of containment. I do not know what he said to her, to make the foolish girl do something so rash. Yet grim certainty has me snarling a curse, for there are things I do know.

She escaped the prison.

Now she will try to reclaim this body.