Page 7

Rui

Swords forged in flames of blue.

Kang, apparently, believes they could be the key to ending this war. For Rui’s fire is the one weapon lethal toward the Prophecy. His advisor proposes that should that fire create armaments, those blades will, concentrated, carry within them those deadly flames. And it will be not only Rui who stands a chance against the Prophecy, but any in possession of a Dokkaebi firesword.

Standing in the Gyeulcheon weaponry, Rui levels his advisor a long look, a formidable expression etched upon his face as he watches a bead of sweat trace its way down Kang’s pallid forehead. Rui lets his silver eyes flash with a hint of the very fire Kang needs him to channel to create the weapons. “Weapons forged in dokkaebibul,” the Dokkaebi emperor repeats slowly, running his eyes over the cold forges. He is only recently returned from Wyusan, and his mind is heavy with exhaustion. If he did not require her aid, he would not suffer Empress Moon Dahee to live. Disgust is still grimy on his tongue. “Made in the masses.”

Something in him falters. If his every soldier stands a greater chance of killing Lina, his goal—a quick, honorable death by his hands—will be harder to accomplish. He thinks warily of Chan, who still seethes, crazed by his deathbed promise to Hana. In the Supreme Commander’s hands, that weapon could bring forth torture and torment.

“If we leave soon for Iseung, we must be prepared,” Kang replies stiffly. Rui bristles. Once, listening to his advisor felt as natural as summer’s descent into autumn. Now, it feels as if Kang is crossing some invisible boundary. As if, despite his title—which Rui has not stripped him of—he holds no right to counsel Rui. Perhaps he does not. Perhaps he should have banished him long ago. But this is war, and Jeong Kang is valuable. “She will ambush us. Our soldiers have families waiting here. Why do you hesitate?”

Rui does not deign to reply, slitting his eyes and fixing Kang with a look that would have sent others running for Gyeulcheon’s hill lands.

But Jeong Kang knows his emperor. Rui wishes he did not as his advisor murmurs, “What you had is not coming back, Rui. The girl you loved is gone. You and Lina are soul-stitched as mortal enemies—”

“Don’t call her that,” Rui breathes, his hands spasming at his sides. His throat works, and it feels as if he is about to be sick. The words that tumble forth are barely more than a hoarse thread of a voice. “That thing is not Lina.”

“The Prophecy,” Kang corrects, eyes infuriatingly dubious. “How many times, these past months, did you attempt to again coax her out with your fire? You don’t need to lie to me. I know that even now, fighting to the death, you try to do it. Even knowing that it will not work, that our people depend on her defeat. That as you try, your people fall. You must let go of that hope, Rui. You must focus .”

Rui sneers, twisting his lips and curling his hands into fists as anger thrums deep in his bones and blood. “It almost worked once,” he says, low and dangerous. “We nearly thwarted a Prophecy. Lina broke back into her body, but Eunbi—” The emperor cuts off with a choke.

He cannot say it.

He has never been able to say it.

It lingers between the two Dokkaebi, as thick and choking as the hot winds of a summer storm. Rui, pain cleaving his heart, yanks his head to the side and presses a shaking fist to his mouth. Kang swallows hard and shudders, and Rui is grimly satisfied to see the agony in his advisor’s downcast gaze.

Kang should hate himself for what happened. For what he failed to prevent.

For what he instigated.

“My fire should be sufficient,” Rui rasps after a long moment, collecting the fragmented pieces of himself and valiantly attempting to piece them back together. “I am well-armed against her. These fireswords, Kang, they seem an unnecessary expense.”

Kang shakes his head. “With the rains, with the storms summoned by the Imugi, it is not possible,” he whispers. “Your fire weakens, it banks. But with the swords, the fire’s very essence will be melded into the metal. Concentrated within it. It will pierce her heart; it will kill her. You can end this.” He touches his emperor’s shoulder. Rui fights the urge to violently shrug him off. “Heat the forge, Rui,” Kang whispers. “For your people, and for the mortal realm.”

And with that order , every muscle in Rui’s body wants to shove Kang to the cold stone ground. He pants, jerking away from Kang’s touch, fury tingeing his vision red. How dare he? How dare he command Rui to create the weapons that will increase the possibility—that damned possibility—that Lina’s body will die a dishonorable death that is grotesque in its pain? The same body he has held, has loved, has cherished. How dare Kang invent the weapons of her death when he is the one who led them to this point ?

Rui had thought—he had hoped that he would be the one to end her. As quick as it could be. And perhaps a foolish piece of his soul had also hoped that by now, perhaps…perhaps she would have returned to him by some miracle, by some blessing.

But he’d seen her face as Eunbi fell.

He knows…she is never coming back.

Yet these swords, they change everything. He may not be the one to kill her. Somebody else may do so with one of these dokkaebibul swords.

Chan may do so.

Inside of Rui, that familiar panic—the feeling that his world is swaying out of orbit, knocking him to the side, leaving him weightless one moment and crashing down the next—begins to rear its ugly head. His breaths come now in short bursts, and he staggers, hitting the ground hard on one knee. Pain cracks up his kneecap, but he pays it no heed.

Kang reaches for his emperor in clear alarm—only for Rui to gasp out a guttural “ no ,” unable to stand the thought of Kang’s bloodstained hands on his skin.

He feels like he is dying.

Would that be so bad, to die?

The answer surprises him. Yes. Right now, yes. Yet he cannot shake the feeling that Yeomra’s shadowy fingers are reaching for him.

His people are dependent on Gyeulcheon’s victory. The people that his family, for thousands of years, have kept comfortable and safe. The people he has sacrificed his soul for, the people he has disgraced himself so utterly for. This battle, it must be won. For his Dokkaebi.

That damned bargain he made so long ago—exile and a bloody tithe—will mean nothing if he does not at least give his people every chance at survival that they have.

As he spat so viciously to Empress Moon, there is no time for greediness and folly in a time of warfare. He loves the girl that the Prophecy’s body used to belong to. He will always love Shin Lina. Loving her is the fickle emperor’s one constant emotion.

He loves her enough to kill her body.

For the girl who loved him in turn is gone. A part of him will never accept that, but he must . And he must remind himself that the Prophecy’s inhabitance of her flesh is a violation . So perhaps the greatest mercy Haneul Rui can give his wife’s body is a greater chance of death, no matter how painful.

Taking a shuddering breath, the emperor stands.

And he lights the forge blue.

…

He doesn’t know why he does it.

The swords have been molded by dozens of blacksmiths, smoke swirling from the dark blue metal in the armory as Rui’s soldiers prepare for the relocation to Iseung. Tomorrow, the weapons will be ready to wield, ready to use. He should not do it, for it only tortures him, but Rui has never harbored much self-control. That has always been his fatal flaw.

He sits in the stables, leaning against Duri’s flank. One of her wings rests over him, a white-feathered blanket as he breathes in the warm smell of hay, grass, sweat, and leather. As the emperor closes his eyes and looks for her. His little thief. His wife.

Lina.

Once, he had been able to find her in dreams, even when the Prophecy controlled her every move. Desperately, he clings to the hope that he might be able to do so again—to find her in some hidden place, somehow.

Rui concentrates, brows furrowing, on the red thread stemming from his heart to the Prophecy’s. In the darkness of his mind, he follows it to that splash of color, where the Prophecy is sleeping next to Sonagi in an icy forest. Undoubtedly, she is waiting for him to fall asleep, so she can haunt his nightmares, as she so often does.

His Lina is nowhere to be seen.

Jaw tight, Rui turns around. He doesn’t know what he expected. He doesn’t…

The emperor’s eyes flare wide as the red thread stemming from his chest and leading back through the gloom splits . Splits , like a fork in a path, or a stream flowing into a river. Never before has it done this— never . One end leads behind him, to the sleeping Prophecy.

And one end…

One end twists and twines deeper into the darkness. Breathing shallow, Rui follows the thread on stumbling feet. He may walk for minutes, or perhaps an hour—he does not know. He cannot tell. Yet eventually, something comes into view.

It is not another splash of color as Rui expected. It is…a door, hovering in the shadows, heavy and at least twice Rui’s height. Upon its dark stone surface, a design stretches as if painted in a glistening gold ink that shines in the darkness.

The red thread of fate passes through that door, although it remains closed. And Rui wishes to do the same.

Rui’s fingers tremble violently as he touches the design, skin smudging the still-wet paint. There are words on this door, too—they are engraved in the stone. The emperor begins to read, his heart slamming against his chest, every fiber of his soul shivering in fear and hope and disbelief.

Here lies the girl who loved the gods.

Here lies the older sister, who protected and cherished and provided.

Here lies the wife of Haneul Rui.

Here lies Shin Lina, the Reaper of Sunpo.

The last of the Talons.

“Lina,” Rui breathes and nearly falls to his knees. Only his desire to open this door, to take his wife in his arms, keeps him standing as he wraps his hand around the handle. Rui lets out a low cry. It is locked, and even as he strains and pants and pushes, it will not budge. He strides around the door, but what he meets is identical to the opposing side. The golden talon, the inscriptions. The emperor shoves until his muscles ache with pain and his skin is slick with sweat. Bitter disappointment swelling up within him, he leans his hot forehead against the cold stone and wonders if he somehow fell asleep in the stables, if this is only another of the nightmares sent to him by the Prophecy. If she is toying with him, as she does in the dreams where he holds Lina in his arms only for her to transform into a serpent and tear out his throat.

“Lina?” Rui whispers desperately, knocking softly. “Little thief?”

There is no reply.

“ Lina !” he bellows, hoarse with grief as he summons the last dregs of his strength.

Nothing.

Swallowing the taste of tears, the emperor steps away and returns to his body in the royal stables.

He does not know that in the dungeon where the door leads, the Prisoner is staring at one of the walls of her cell, wondering if she truly heard a…a voice on the opposite end, a voice that somehow did not sound like the wet rasp of the Aglyeong. He does not know that her traitorous wish to hold the Dokkaebi she once loved has changed something, something integral, something with the power to shake the stars.

He does not yet know. Neither does she.

But they will.