Page 61

Iseul

In the dead of night, the message appears through a small, shadowy portal—along with a small bottle of ink and a quill. The troops are still on the craggy hill, with Rui having refused to move Kim Chan, who really does look quite deathly ill. The Prophecy is seething up a storm, pacing impatiently many feet away, when it arrives, sliding out from the portal onto the grass. Iseul is leaning against an Imugi’s sinuous body, and she is grateful that the creature is asleep as she grabs the parchment and unfolds it with careful fingers.

For a moment, the symbols scratched out onto the parchment do not make any sort of sense, and Iseul is rather worried that she’s suddenly become illiterate—until she blinks, and the baffling letters click into place. Oh. Oh .

In the stables, Rui sent his letter to Seojin. And now it is Seojin who somehow sends this back, writing in a code that only Iseul will understand. Her eyes prick. It is a code they created out of boredom one hot summer, scratching out various ridiculous shapes for various phonetic sounds. She hadn’t thought Seojin still remembered it—each specific squiggle and its translation. But he had. He has . Her heart warms in her chest. Her clever, clever boy.

Iseul , Seojin has written, General Lee is apprehended. Thank you. There’s a small smudge, as if Seojin had wanted to write more but hadn’t the time. The gods—Dalnim and Haemosu—have returned to Gyeulcheon, carrying news of today’s battle. They are furious. It is all anybody can talk about: the emperor, switching his allegiance. I cannot fathom it. Morale is low here.

My only comfort is knowing you are safe and alive. The twins have been informed of your help. They will not hurt you in battle. They ask you for this: if you write to us of your destined location, the forces may be able to move quickly and make an interception. Where are you, Iseul? Where did Lina’s army head after the battle against the twins?

I have to go. Kang has said he will send this to you.

I miss you, Iseul. Please be careful.

Please come back.

—Seojin.

She can almost hear his soft, gentle voice in her ears. Iseul traces the still-damp ink reverently—

—and hastily stuffs it in the pocket of her pants as Jeon Eunwoo swoops down from the sky, where he’s been flying in circles, keeping out an eye for any enemies. Well, enemies for them . Iseul rather feels like a mouse in a den of vipers.

Eunwoo touches down in front of her, careful not to wake the Imugi, and levels a look at her. For a horrible second, Iseul is convinced he has seen the letter from Gyeulcheon, but Eunwoo only smiles. His smiles are strange, as if he’s not used to smiling but very much wants to learn how. This one seems to signify that he wants to put the past behind them (broken noses and all) and start anew.

Unfortunately for him, Iseul is not so willing.

“What, exactly, do you want?” Iseul huffs.

His eyes go to the chain around her wrist. “I can take that off for you,” he offers and apparently mistakes her silence as surprise, rather than reluctance. Eunwoo crouches down and takes her left hand in his. His skin is cold to the touch, and Iseul fights back a shiver as he frowns down at the manacle. “I know what it’s like to be chained,” he says with a jerky, hesitant shrug. His eyes are glassy, and Iseul wonders if the only time the princeling is not on the brink of tears is when he is in the midst of battle. “It’s never pleasant.”

If he were not a Jeon, his eagerness to help would be endearing. But he is a Jeon, and therefore Iseul hates him, tortured past or no.

It is a matter of principle.

“It’s perfectly fine, thank you.” Iseul yanks her wrist away from Eunwoo’s touch, inexplicably possessive of this one link to Seojin, the time they shared. “Shouldn’t you be keeping watch?”

The prince nods. “I am,” he replies, and Iseul stiffens. Has the Prophecy asked him to watch her ? Does she suspect? Oh, lovely . Perhaps Iseul should have been more…well…violent during today’s battle. She’d thought that the Prophecy was too occupied to notice, but apparently, she has eyes on the back of her head.

“Is that so?” Iseul murmurs, wondering if Rui will open up an escape portal for her. Yet although every part of her longs to return to Seojin, there is still yet information to gather here.

“Iseul,” Eunwoo says, settling down next to her and leaning against a snoring Imugi—getting far too comfortable for Iseul’s taste. Her ax is in her lap, and she fingers it in warning, only to receive a look of appreciation from the princeling. How utterly baffling. “Something tells me that you would have wanted to stay in Gyeulcheon.”

Iseul’s heart falters in her chest, but Eunwoo is speaking quietly enough that even she must strain to hear it. “However could you tell?” she retorts sweetly. “Was it when I broke your nose? Or when I scratched you half to death?”

Eunwoo shakes his head. “Neither. It was the way you looked at that boy when I took you away. Like half of your soul was being torn from you. And you still wear this . Like it’s some sort of…bracelet.” Something flickers in his eyes. It’s almost longing as he traces the cuff around her wrist. And hungry envy. As if Iseul has, somehow, a thing that he desperately wants. A small part of Iseul wonders about Eunwoo’s story. Has the boy before her ever been loved by anyone? Or is he utterly alone, still chained to the Jeon dungeon in spirit if not in flesh?

Ah, well. He’s a Jeon. Iseul shan’t waste any tears on him.

“Lina will notice if you’re not careful,” Eunwoo finishes quietly. “Maybe she already has…”

Maybe. Possibly. Probably.

Iseul must not show her hand. Yet something tells her that Eunwoo has already seen it, and he is not reacting with the ferocity she expected from him, Lina’s little lap dog. Or, more accurately, her lap bird . Sighing, she arches a brow. “Are you going to tell her?”

He shakes his head and then smiles. The prince still doesn’t quite seem to know how to smile right, and combined with his flat stare, the result is rather unnerving. “No,” he says and then waits, like Iseul is going to praise him magnificently for showing a single semblance of basic human decency.

Iseul blinks. No?

This desperate desire to please everybody, to garner some semblance of friendship from each person here despite their own agendas, will only hurt Jeon Eunwoo. Yet it will help her , and that’s what really matters, isn’t it? If Eunwoo is caught in the aftermath, that is not one of Iseul’s problems at all, really. She couldn’t care less about this boy with wings and hard eyes.

Oh, she’s turned a new leaf , so to speak, but her grudge against the Jeons is one that will continue to permeate every aspect of her lovely personality. She might not be able to kill this strange, bastard princeling—it seems he harbors as much of a vendetta against the Jeons as she does, and any enemy of the Jeons is not precisely an enemy of hers (in the loosest sense, of course. Iseul would not be opposed to sending Eunwoo tumbling down from the sky yet again)—but she doesn’t need to help him, either.

And she will have her fun eventually.

Because, she consoles herself, once this is all over and done with—once the real Lina reclaims her body and this war ends—who’s to say that Iseul can’t, well, destabilize the Jeon reign? With the threat of dragons and destruction receded, Iseul will be free to do as she pleases to those pig-headed, selfish, horrible bastards.

Eunwoo is still waiting, like a dog returning a stick to its master.

Iseul sighs and grits out, “Thank you, Eunwoo.” She settles back pointedly. “I’m going to sleep now. Privacy would be appreciated.”

“Of course.” The princeling grins in that strange way of his, looking altogether pleased with himself as he takes back to the skies. She watches him go in a mixture of amusement and disdain before turning back to Seojin’s letter—and his request.

If you write to us of your destined location, the forces may be able to move quickly and make an interception.

If she tells the gods of the Bonseyo Shadowshafts, they will come, and they will kill Lina’s body. Rui has expressed that in order for Lina to reclaim her body, the body has to be kept alive. She glances over to where Rui is bent over a clump of herbs growing from the ground, looking suspiciously delighted. Chewing on her lip, she turns back to the letter and reads it once more, a cold sweat breaking out on her neck.

This is rather troubling , Iseul decides with a grimace. She seems to be residing in the gray area of this war, with the emperor. Drumming her fingers on the paper, Iseul whispers something exceptionally unsavory under her breath. She does not particularly like this impasse at which she finds herself.

If she doesn’t tell Seojin of the Shadowshafts, then the Prophecy may very well come to fruition, and then the Eastern Continent will become an utterly depressing cesspool of dragons and dragon shit , and there will be nothing that any of them can do. Seojin will also be furious with her, and Iseul finds that she does not quite like the idea of Seojin once again viewing her as a horrible, bloodthirsty monster.

If she does tell Seojin, then Rui will hate her— Well. Iseul eyes the emperor as he creeps over to the pile of animal carcasses the Imugi hunted for their supper and sprinkles what looks like crushed herbs over the bloody meat before gleefully melting back into his strange shadows. Iseul truthfully does not quite care if the Dokkaebi does not like her, but she does care about the real Lina, who deserves every chance to reclaim what is rightfully hers.

But…

Does she care enough to deny Seojin this crucial piece of information? This is the sort of knowledge that can change the course of a war, after all, and a war against a Prophecy already has such a small chance of succeeding.

Sighing, Iseul traces the letters of her and Seojin’s summer language. The still-damp ink marks the tips of her fingers.

How long would Seojin survive in the Prophecy’s world?

How would she survive without him?

Not long. Not long at all.

The choice rests between saving Lina or saving Seojin. It is a dreadful choice, a damning choice. And although she attempts to mull it over, Iseul knows who she will always— always —choose to save.

Slowly and quietly, Iseul makes a decision.