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The Prophecy

The Prisoner is coming. Running and running. The pounding of her feet echoes in my ears. The rasping of her breaths. I smell her sour sweat and terror as she comes closer. Closer.

Closer.

She would stop this, if she could.

But one cannot stop the howling of the winds or the violent tides of the ocean.

One cannot stop an irrefutable force of nature.

So she cannot stop the dagger as it flies from my hand, a comet against the night sky. She cannot stop it from slicing through a small gap in the fires, nor can she halt its route as it splits through the air toward Bonseyo’s emperor—and strikes his throat in a spray of red.

Haneul is shouting something, words hoarse and broken, face contorted in sheer terror.

And the mortal emperor is falling, limp and lolling. He does not die right away, of course. Haneul tries to save him, to staunch the blood as it pours from his neck. He coats his fingers in it, tears off pieces of his robes, tries to bind the ripped flesh back together.

It’s no use.

I tilt my face up toward the sky and smile as the earth moves beneath my feet. As roars from somewhere belowground rip through the air, muffled but growing stronger. As I am lifted upward by the powerful, powerful force of Fulfillment, wind whipping through my hair, head tilting back, body arching toward the cloud-hidden stars, the Dokkaebi fire extinguishing on my chest as the storm erupts in full.

The emperor is dead.

The Prophecy has been fulfilled.

Long live the Goddess of Wrath.