Page 54

The Prisoner

The Dalgyal Gwisin has not shown itself since it scuttled into the icy woods. I know better than to be relieved. Yego is planning…something, and I must tread carefully. As I climb the final stairs to the next level, keys warm against my chest, I keep my grip on Rui’s firesword tight and sure, tossing a wary look over my shoulders into the shadows coating the stone in darkness. Yet there is nothing—no chattering of teeth, no glint of a wet, dripping maw—that meets my eyes. A feeling of unsettlement curls up in my stomach like a sleeping snake that will strike at a moment’s notice.

Is it possible that Yego went ahead of me? That now it lurks in one of the higher levels, lying in wait, ready to take me by surprise? I try to ignore the faint, and ominous, throbbing of my bandaged head wound as the staircase ends, and I step into a bedroom from times long past. The décor, the soft cream blankets of the bed, the lace curtains and other furniture imported from the Northern Continent, the smell of honey scented oils… I know who this room belongs to.

Chara and Chryse wait for me, perched on a light pink love seat. Their eyes widen as their green eyes land upon me, and they stand in lithe, graceful movements.

“Lina,” they chorus.

Chara. Chryse… Are you real? Is it really them ? This is not a memory like the scene in the gardens… It is something else, but I know not what.

Chara smiles mischievously. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I mean, for all you know, we might just be your ideas of us.”

“Oh, Chara, don’t torment her,” Chryse chimes in before giving me an apologetic wink. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

I swallow hard, blinking back tears, and Chara rolls her eyes, but she looks sad. “Oh, Lina, none of that. We never blamed you. You should know that by now.”

“Yet she doesn’t,” Chryse whispers. “Even now, after all this time, she doesn’t believe it. Not deep down, not really.”

“I suppose there’s one way to take care of that.” Chara stands, expression determined. “Lina, we never blamed you. It wasn’t your fault. There,” she says, hands on hips. “Now, if that doesn’t satisfy you, I don’t know what will. Fight back those tears, Lina. We have work to do.”

Chryse rises from her seat as well, striding to the corner of their lavish room, where a large gilded mirror stands on a wheeled platform.

I don’t understand , I sign nervously as the mirror approaches me, and I avert my gaze from my reflection. What is this for?

“It’s for you, honey,” Chara says gently. Her fingers nudge the underneath of my chin and tilt my gaze up so I stare at her, at her long-lashed green eyes and perfect, pert nose. The nose I always wished I had. “All of us, I think, had complicated relationships with our bodies.”

I can’t stop my lips from parting in surprise, and Chryse sighs. “Our entire function in the Talons was to be desirable,” she says, joining her sister’s side. “To be the epitome of lust. It’s what kept us alive and useful to Yoonho. Without our looks, we would have had nothing.”

“But we would have had everything,” Chara whispers.

A slow trickle of dread pools in my stomach.

“We kept it from you,” Chryse explains, remorse flitting across her face. “Things…happened during our assignments that we never shared with anybody but Yoonho, who made sure that they paid in blood and pain. We understand the pain of existing in a skin that feels like it doesn’t belong to you anymore. Like it’s…tainted.”

My heart slams against my ribs in horror. I never knew. I never…

“It hurts,” Chara says, smoothing back my hair. “You feel sick. You want to escape your own body.”

“It’s a type of pain that no one should ever experience. But the three of us have.” Chryse’s eyes become hard, flinty. But not toward me. “They should not be able to take it from us. Our bodies are our homes. We should never feel threatened inside of them.”

“We want to help you reclaim yours,” her sister murmurs. “Which is why we’re here. To help you get ready. So when your body is your own again, you feel safe.”

I don’t know if that’s possible. My hands shake violently as I form the words. Revulsion lances through me. What the Prophecy has done to me… I’m terrified.

“I know,” Chryse replies, voice ragged.

But I want to—to try . I do. That body was mine, once. I lived in it, breathed in it. It was as Chryse said. It was my home.

Yet the Prophecy has used my body to do such horrible things. Once, it fed words onto my tongue and shoved them out with gnarled fingers despite my protests. It made me dance for it like a puppet on a string, dance to a song of death and destruction.

“You’re not alone,” Chryse whispers. “We’re here with you.”

What do I do? I ask, trembling.

“You start by looking in the mirror.”

My mouth dries. Terror tightens my chest. I wonder if I will see the Prophecy, a parasite in my skin, jerking my limbs around like a puppet master playing with strings. I’ve not looked in a mirror for…so long. To be quite honest, I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to again. It is one thing, to see myself through Rui’s memories. It is another to face myself through my own eyes.

Exchanging looks, Chara and Chryse each take one of my hands and squeeze them gently. “You’re not alone,” promises Chara.

“We’re here with you,” Chryse agrees. And those words, oh, those words… They give me a sudden flood of resolve. Taking a deep breath, I force myself to look at the mirror.

To my surprise, there is no reflection.

As I peer into it, images swirl into its depths, flashing through sparkling mist. I cannot help but to lean forward until my nose nearly touches the glass, holding my breath in a mixture of fear and anticipation. There is something so comforting about the mist, something soothing.

With a final swirl, the mist clears and reveals a scene. My eomma—young and rosy-cheeked—lying sweaty in a small bed, a bundle wrapped in her arms. The baby is a tiny, chubby thing, with wet black hair and wrinkled skin like a prune, but my eomma stares down at her with an expression of warm, intense love.

“Lina,” she murmurs, kissing the tiny forehead reverently before smoothing down the baby’s dark hair. “Lina, Lina. You’re perfect.”

The scene ripples, changes. I am four years old, in the barley field surrounding our chogajip, laughing as my appa swings me around and around in the air. My small arms are outstretched to better feel the sky. “I’m flying!” I squeal, and my appa laughs, bringing me back down and hugging my small frame close to him.

“Like a bird.” He laughs, but then he is gone, and I am eight, crying as I run back to the chogajip from where I was playing outside. My knee is bleeding, and it hurts.

“Lina!” Eomma gasps and ushers me inside, where she gently tends to the tiny wound—first cleaning it with cold, cold water from the well and then wrapping it with a strip of cloth. Her fingers are gentle on my skin, and when she is done, she pulls me into a hug. “Be careful, please…”

Then I am ten, and holding a tiny Eunbi, marveling at how warm, how sleepy, one little girl can be. She smells like something sweet and almost floral, and when she stretches, one of her tiny hands bumps against my face. Content, she gurgles up at me, blinking with wide, bleary eyes. I smile down at her and kiss one of her cheeks with a big, loud smack that makes her giggle.

Thirteen. One year before the shipwreck. I’m gangly and awkward, with a pimple on my forehead that won’t go away. “Eomma,” I complain, hovering near my mother as she sweeps the floor of the tiny chogajip, “why won’t it leave? It looks ugly. I look ugly.”

She pauses from her work and peers at the ugly mark. After washing hands that have grown more callouses over the years from raising two daughters, and working on the barley farm, she dips a finger into a tiny jar of precious salve that we can only afford once a year. “Here,” she murmurs, carefully dabbing it on my skin. “But you don’t look ugly, Lina,” she says as she cups her hands around my face. “You’re beautiful. My beautiful girl.”

Fourteen. My first year with the Talons. I’m crying hard in the gardens, missing my eomma and appa. It is one of the only times I will allow myself to grieve like this, to get distracted from my work. “Lina?” a voice asks, and then Sang—the young spymaster—is hesitantly wrapping his arms around me. “It’s okay,” he murmurs. “It’s okay.”

Fifteen. I’m in Chara and Chryse’s room, and they’re running their fingers through my hair as they weave ribbons around the dark locks for the fun of it. “Your hair’s so silky,” Chryse sighs enviously. “Like silk .”

“I think that was implied,” her sister snorts, and then I’m seventeen, kissing Sang for the first and last time in his room, my skin touching his, his fingers running over mine in gentle worship as we discover each other, all the hidden places we harbor. At the end of it, he kisses my forehead, and we smile at each other…

Eighteen. Rui and I are dancing, sweeping through his ballroom, one of his hands on the small of my back, the other holding one of mine. We are on the beach, kissing each other hungrily, black sand cradling our bodies. We are in Gyeulcheon, those last few days before my return to Sunpo, and he is making any excuse to touch me. Flicking my nose. Playfully tugging on the end of my braid. Taking my hand in his, comparing their sizes against each other. Little touches, just here and there, touches that I welcome and cherish.

My lips, parting, panting and puffing, as I worked so damn hard to wean my body off halji. A triumph that tasted so sparklingly sweet until the Prophecy ruined all of it, inhaling the curling smoke through the mouth it stole from me.

Rui’s and my wedding night, when I was my own self for the first time in so long. The way Rui held me, touched me, marveling over the slopes and curves of my body. His delicate fingers skating along my skin, his lips slanting across my own as we find a rhythm, a song that only the two of us can hear.

That moment, when he nearly drove the Prophecy out of my head, when I was so badly burned… When he held me close, uncaring that I smelled of death, of fire…

It ends then. The scenes within the mirror vanish, and for a moment, there is only the three of us. Chara. Me. Chryse. Each of us staring into the mirror, tears rolling down our cheeks. I make myself meet my own eyes, although every inch of me fights to recoil away. The girl in the glass gazes back.

A moment later, again the scenes start, and holding the twins’ hands, I watch each and every memory over and over and over. Watching my body be cherished. The home that it once was. I watch myself make decisions that are solely my own. Watch myself be happy . Loved. Valued. Watch myself triumph against my own addiction.

I don’t know how long I gaze into the mirror for. It might be hours, or days. Yet when I finally step away, I feel…lighter.

Because that body was mine , long before the Prophecy took it for its own.

My forehead was kissed by my eomma. My appa lifted me up by the belly to show me what it would be like to fly. Eomma bandaged my knees, placed Eunbi in my arms, swept her calloused fingers over one of my awkward, teenage zits. Sang squeezed my shoulders and later held me close. Chara and Chryse played with my hair, trailed their fingers over my head, whispered secrets into my ears. And I gave my all to Rui, body and soul.

As I hold tight onto Chara and Chryse’s hands, something stirs deep within me. That body was mine .

My home. My sanctuary. Mine .

And it could be again.

Breathing heavily, I let the tears roll down my face. Chara and Chryse shift to embrace me, and I am so certain that somehow, they truly are here.

For the first time in so, so long…I miss my body. Being within it, present in the world that raised me, more than just a girl trapped in a mind—but a girl of flesh, of blood, of bone. In a body that did so much more than act as a puppet. A body that still belongs to me .

I will not allow myself to hate the same body my parents loved. My sister loved. My friends loved.

My soul-stitched loved.

“It’s still yours, Lina,” Chryse murmurs. “It always has been.”

“It’s not dirty or tainted,” Chara says through her tears. “It has felt more love than it has felt hate.”

“Don’t be afraid to go home,” Chryse whispers. “Don’t be afraid to reclaim what is yours.”