Page 41

The Prisoner

It is not another memory, nor another confrontation, that awaits me on the next level. It is as if my mind knows I desperately need rest, need to make the most of the time I’ve bought by wounding the Dalgyal Gwisin. Severing its limb may have slowed it down, but it is still coming for me.

And it will keep coming for me.

Until this ends—one way or another.

The impossible strength and stamina I’ve carried within me for however long I’ve been running has finally begun to run out. I’m stumbling by the time I finally reach a silent clearing of snow and starlight.

This clearing is surrounded by frost-gleaming trees. As I stagger forward, breathing hard, a cozy chogajip appears. Puffs of smoke drift out from the chimney. Glancing behind me for any sign of the Dalgyal Gwisin, I hurry to the door and slip inside, where a crackling fire awaits…along with a blanket-heaped bed.

Thank the gods. I sway on my feet and slowly sheathe my sword after ensuring the door locks and that there is no hint of the Dalgyal Gwisin beyond the small windows.

Thankful for the warmth of the chogajip, I curl up on the bed and hug my knees close to my chest before un-focusing my gaze to look through the Prophecy’s eyes. It is the same as it has been—war and carnage. She is fighting to take Sanyeongto, working against a fair bit of resistance toward the kingdom’s northwestern sector. She has had some minor injuries but nothing dangerous. As for Rui, he has only suffered small cuts and bruises as well…and for that, I am grateful. It could be so very much worse.

Pulling my gaze from my body, I burrow underneath the blankets. Rui has not been able to visit in so long, faced with the fight for Sanyeongto. I’ve not seen him since I escaped my cell. Have not had time to miss him, not between being chased by a Dalgyal Gwisin and facing my own fears disguised as levels to this prison.

Willing the red thread into view, I curl my fingers around it, knowing that my soul-stitched lives, and fights, on the other end of it. Although it may be a futile hope, I tug gently on the thread. Perhaps it will guide him to me, as it did that first time.

The fire crackles and pops. My eyes grow heavy as the minutes tick by, only opening when he arrives.

The door from which Rui appears materializes on one of the chogajip’s walls, shining and golden. I am sliding shakily out of the bed a half moment later, staring at him, drinking him in. He still wears the Imugi scale-plated armor, the hilt of a firesword sheathed at his waist. Mud flecks his face, and his hair is held back from his face with a silver helmet that he removes with dirt-crusted hands.

Rui , I find myself signing. You came. I’m glad.

“Lina.” He smiles tiredly but fondly, looking around the chogajip. “Well…I have to say, this is certainly a step up from the cell. Where is our friend, the Dalgyal Gwisin?”

Delayed, but not for long.

“Delayed how?”

I chopped off one of its arms.

Rui looks indescribably delighted.

Yet I swallow hard, unable to miss the way he is swaying haggardly on his feet. It is the same way I am swaying, unsteady and exhausted. You should sit down , I sign awkwardly, gesturing to the bed.

Rui snorts. “I’m covered in grime and blood. I doubt you want that.”

I don’t mind , I reply honestly. He smiles, a half-moon curve of the lips, and rakes a hand through his hair.

“I can’t stay long. I only wanted to check on you. I felt you call.” Rui steps closer, hesitation flitting down the red thread. “Are you well, little thief?”

No. Not at all. Yet… Yet I feel steadier than I did before. Calmer. As…well as I can be. And you? There is something he is not telling me, something that weighs upon his shoulders. I can feel it. A bitter mix of betrayal and fury pierces me from the outside, and Rui—after a beat of silence that holds more than I expected it to—clears his throat.

“About that,” he says and shifts on his feet.

My fingers spasm in trepidation. What happened?

“Well.” Rui’s eyes glitter. He cocks his head. “I’m afraid that Kang tried to poison me. And then when that failed spectacularly, he tried to, ah, behead me.”

I gape, shock striking through me. What? Are you sick? Are you hurt? I cannot stop myself from rushing closer to him, taking his face in my hands and tilting it from side to side, scouring for any hint of injury or sickness. I have not felt anything but minor wounds from him, but what if the bond between us missed something?

Rui goes so very still under my touch, and I realize that this is the closest we have been in…so long. So very long. I stare up at his silver eyes, heart in my throat. My hands flutter nervously on the sides of his face before I make to move back…

He raises his hands to mine, gently keeping them in place. “Please,” he whispers. “Please, don’t go.”

My heart breaks in my chest. How can he still want me? After all the pain I have caused him, all of the selfish, terrible decisions I have made… How does he believe that I am worthy of him?

His skin is so warm underneath mine. Rui leans into my touch, nuzzling my hands. The thought that Kang tried to poison him makes me sick to my stomach. Yet I know that Jeong Kang is no stranger to bloodshed. He brought my sister to hers.

I want to rip him apart. Slowly. I do. And perhaps at the end of this, I will.

Yet there is nothing I can do, not right now. Despite that, I feel myself sinking into a familiar bloodlust…

Sang’s words from underneath the willow tree echo softly in my ear.

“Revenge is ugly. And it’s ugly inside and out.”

Something aches painfully in my heart. What if…instead of losing myself in a violent craze, I care for the Dokkaebi in front of me? I think of Ryu Seojin, Sang’s younger brother, healing those who have suffered at the hands of another. Fighting back not with weapons sharp enough to kill, but with…compassion?

What if, instead of uncontrollably obsessing over how Jeong Kang must die and letting it consume my every waking moment until I lose myself again in the process, I reach out my hand to help Rui?

I can do it. Or I can…try, at least. For now. I make no promises about leaving Kang alive when I am free from this place, but that is a thought for another time.

Slowly, I stroke the sharp edges of Rui’s cheekbones. He shivers slightly underneath my touch, eyes going half mast. I feel him begin to relax, and it is only then that I realize how terribly tense he has been. His breathing slows, evens.

And it feels strangely good. To do this. To help him, instead of hurting another.

Yet a few moments later, I again draw my hands away, and this time, he lets me: he must know I’ve a question to ask him.

Why did he do it? Why now?

“To end the war. To kill your body by killing me. He was not…pleased…that I thwarted the Bulgae attack.”

The what? I demand and then listen in abject horror as he informs me of the twins’ ploy to stop the Prophecy. At how he intervened. Disgust curls up in my stomach. This, I did not see. I have missed much.

“Lina, I will not stop fighting for you until you are freed.” His eyes shine. “Gameunjang, little thief. Gameunjang is on our side .”

My eyes widen at the story of his meeting with the Goddess of Luck, absorbing his words with a holy reverence. To know that Gameunjang herself uttered this…encouraged him to stop the Bulgae…that Gameunjang knows that I am not the Prophecy…I press a shaking hand to my mouth. The cold spots cratering my heart begin to warm.

There is a way to stop our deaths. To stop the Prophecy. After years of praying to empty shrines in abandoned temples, a goddess has finally extended her hand to help me. I blink rapidly as tears blur my vision. There is hope, after all.

It has been so long that I forgot what it felt like, this buoyant feeling inside of me. Gameunjang herself believes I am worth saving from this tangled, knotted mess that is my fate. I sway on my feet, suddenly feeling so very light.

Rui’s hands gently come up to steady me. “Lina,” he breathes. “Careful.”

My heart stutters in my chest as his throat bobs. Gone is my hazy, confused resentment of him, snuffed out by the knowledge that Eunbi’s blood is not on his hands. That I was wrong. So wrong.

Instead, that resentment… It has been replaced by something else. Something I felt once before, some tender emotion that somehow has once again taken root within me now and begins to grow once more. I do not know how there is still space for it, yet…

His throat bobs. “Little thief…” It is as if there is more that he wants to say, but then there is a faint scratching sound and he is stiffening, whipping to the window. “What was that?” he demands, and his voice is a soft snarl. Alarm jolts through me, and through the red thread of fate. Damn it. I thought I’d have more time, time to rest, to recuperate, before the Dalgyal Gwisin caught up…

The noise comes again. My eyes quickly find the source of it: two jagged, icy branches scraping against each other. I sag suddenly in relief, going as limp as a puppet cut loose of its strings. I am in no shape to fight. Not yet. I need sleep…

When Rui turns back to me, his face is grim. It is as if a clock hangs over both of our heads when he says, “You cannot let it catch you. And I cannot allow the Prophecy to take Sanyeongto. I must return. We are trying to contain her to the northwestern sector, but she’s nearly breached the north, where the palace lies. If she takes it, Wyusan is lost.”

He covers my hands with his and presses his forehead against mine. A tumult of emotions surges through my blood, more potent than a puff of halji could ever dream of being.

“Rest, little thief. Rest, and then run. Run back to us. Run back to me .”

Our breaths mingle as I nod, as I close my eyes and wonder what we might have been without this war.

Would we be wed as we are now? Truly wed, not just out of our desperate ploy to thwart a Prophecy, but out of love? Would we be laughing? Hurling snowballs at each other on Gyeulcheon’s icy mountains? Or bickering, as we always used to, over anything and everything all at once?

So many possibilities. My throat aches as I step away. I wish to cling to him, but I…I am not worthy of his love. So I move back, even as he again reaches for me.

Be careful , I find myself telling him, and there’s so much more meaning beyond those two little words. Even with Lady Luck standing behind him, this war is ruthless. And it is bloody.

He smiles, hesitant and hopeful. “Always.”