Page 74

Shin Lina

My heart. A pulsing, muscular organ in my chest. Pumping blood through my body, blood that runs green but used to run red.

My eyes. Capturing the storm-cloud sky, the smudged grays and smoky blues. Blinking blearily. Unsteadily.

My ears. The unnatural roars tunnel through them as creatures take to the skies, their monstrous bodies visible through the clouds only when a flash of brilliant lightning illuminates the long, sinuous shadows in the distance, swimming through the sky with predatory grace.

My arms. Trembling as I stand in the storm, cold rain kissing my skin. My fingers. Gleaming with another flash of lightning, rings impossibly shining upon flexing fingers. Jade garakji. A thin, silver band. Both once broken into dust, now somehow whole once more.

My feet. Flat upon the cobblestone pavilion of the Bonseyo palace, not six feet away from the dead emperor, whose neck gleams with scarlet blood. The same blood that coats Rui’s hands, flecking his neck, splattering atop his face.

“No,” Rui is gasping, bent over the corpse, a terrible desolation written across his face. “No— No —” I flinch as a terrible sound is ripped from his throat—a snarl and a hoarse scream all at once. With words as sharp as the deadliest blades, Rui curses Gameunjang’s name, looking up to the sky in such agony that it cuts me to the core. Slowly, I take a small step toward him…

…only for Rui to lurch backward, away from me, his beautiful face pale with anguish. He does not know, I realize, blinking through the heavy sheets of icy rain. He does not know it is me. His chest rises and falls unevenly, and he is—he is skittish , this powerful emperor, as skittish as a frightened colt, as wary as a wolf cub.

Rui’s hands…oh, how his hands tremble as he takes the dead emperor’s sword in one hand and summons a few flickering flames of Dokkaebi fire that sputter beneath the storm with the other. Above us, golden bodies move through the air like koi swimming in a pond, moving languorously through the churning storm clouds and streaks of lightning, twisting and twining with the smug satisfaction of untouchable predators.

Rui’s breaths come jaggedly, as if his chest is ripped apart with every exhale. His terror, sharp and honed, pierces me through our bond, joined by a bitter, twisted betrayal. I swallow hard, holding his frightened gaze, willing him to feel me through the thread. But he is too panicked, I see—for he has just lost the war and has been betrayed by the very goddess he thought to trust. When I try to move closer to him yet again, he flinches backward so violently that I wince. I have never seen him like this. I hoped I would never have to.

I remember, with a twist of my heart, how carefully Rui approached me in the darkness of my cell: slowly, gently, carefully…as if I were a wounded animal caught in the thicket, mindful of my claws and fangs, mindful of my terror.

Holding his gaze, and willing him to see me, I take a few more slow steps toward him, my hands raising into the air. Rui, nae sarang , I sign, and his silver gaze sharpens, latching onto the jade garakji, the wedding band, the rings that should not exist yet somehow do. It’s me.

His throat bobs, his blue fire guttering. “Is this some cruel trick?” he breathes, going so very still that he resembles almost a marble statue. I shake my head, and this time, he allows me to draw closer.

“Lina,” he whispers hoarsely as the red thread of fate flickers between us, curling and coiling, connecting us under the dragon-filled sky, where the monsters draw closer and closer, every passing second. “Lina,” he rasps again, stumbling toward me, closing that final distance between us and pulling me into a tight embrace, a small sob escaping from his shaking body as he presses his lips onto my head. “Oh, gods,” he chokes out. “It’s you, little thief. It’s really you.”

Rui, my Rui. Tears brimming in my eyes, I carefully return the embrace. He is so solid against me, so warm, thrumming with a battle heat, with life and love.

Yet my own body feels…difficult to move , somehow. Stiff. Disjointed. Rusty. As if I have been away for so long that everything feels unnatural. Yet my soul-stitched, pressed against me, his familiar slopes and curves—he could never feel so. My other half, my true destiny. Shuddering with a love so potent it turns me cold, I kiss the corner of his mouth, brush blood-soaked hair from his eyes.

My lips. Opening. My throat, struggling to speak. A small sound emerges, lost beneath the bellows of the Yong and the roaring thunder. Rain pounds down, sheets of icy water, a roaring wind bellowing through the pavilion, shaking an old maple tree, ridding it of its heavy auburn leaves. They swirl around us, one plastering itself to my cheek as I raise my head to peer up at the sky, where the Yong draw closer, closer, dark shapes against a dark sky.

I nearly forgot what it was like, to feel sharp canines where smooth teeth should be…to feel this body’s connection with Sonagi, a magnet in a compass pointing north. If I hoped these ties, these scales and fangs would disappear with the Prophecy, I was wrong. Still they exist within and upon me, yet I do not writhe in my skin as I once would have.

Despite everything, this body is mine .

We do not have much time , I sign, stepping away from Rui. His joy, his pain, his defeat all pierce me from the outside, flowing down the red thread, streaming into my own heart. I watch as his eyes catch on the garakji, on the ring, disbelief flickering in his expression. As they catch on the chain’s glimmer beneath my stealth suit, where seven keys and their charms rest against my skin. The line between impossible and possible, it seems, has blurred itself into oblivion.

Gently, I reach out and turn his face toward me. Shivering, the emperor leans into my touch, and a flicker of mourning passes through as my hand leaves so I can tell him, This isn’t over. There is something we must still do.

Rui swallows hard, searching my eyes. “Lina,” he rasps, a broken, wobbling smile touching his lips, “this is the end, little thief. We…we lost. The war is over. Gameunjang…she did not come. I… Forgive me,” he begs, suddenly desperate, his face skewing in a pain so great he sways. “We have been—”

Betrayed , I finish. I swallow the bitter lump in my throat. Yes. We have been…we have been manipulated, Rui. Gameunjang betrayed us. But…there is a future ahead. It is not the sort of victory we imagined, but that path stretches before us now, and…and…we must meet it. There is a bridge for us to cross. Together.

A slow, sad understanding flickers on Rui’s face. “Together,” he murmurs.

My fingers shake. Where we must go now…Rui, there will be no return.

Rui cups my cheek in a gentle hand. “Do what you must, little thief,” he breathes. “Wherever you go, I will follow. I am your shadow, trailing after you even in the coldest of days.”

That unnatural roaring shakes the earth from the sky in triumph, horrible triumph.

It will mean something , I tell him, a tear slipping from my eye, following the path of the scarred mockery of a teardrop left by Wang Jiwoon so long ago. I promise.

“Fear not that this is your end—trust that this is your beginning.”

One last time, I step closer to him, brush my lips against his. Twine my fingers through his hair and send my love, my deep and eternal love, through the bond.

“Do it,” whispers Rui, baring his neck to me. The most vulnerable part of him, offered to me. Only to me. “I want it by your hands. Always yours.”

He closes his eyes as my fingers trail up his neck. Three words bloom unexpectedly on my tongue, words that taste sweet, words that hover on my lips, poised to flutter through the air…

The pain comes first.

A ravaging pain, hard and fast and brutal. Fire, cold fire, icy hot, ripping my flesh and breaking my bones. Brutalizing my body. Sharp shards of agony, gouging my back, bursting through my chest.

It is a pain so final, so… certain . Like the ending chords of a song. The last snow of winter. A cry of a beast before it is felled.

The final cherry blossom fluttering to the ground from a bare tree.

Rui gasps, staggering back, one hand pressed to his chest, face ashen. I open my mouth to cry out, but green blood leaks instead as my eyes flicker down to the firesword embedded in my chest. It flickers a brilliant blue in the darkness as the blade protrudes from my chest, coated in emerald, dripping with it.

“For Hana,” a familiar voice hisses in my ear, and then the blade is withdrawing and I am choking, choking on my blood as I fall to the ground, twisting at the last moment, staring up at a vengeful Kim Chan—bruised and bloodied and swaying on his feet, the firesword in his hands. Heavy cables wrap around the length of his large torso, but the ones around his arms and legs look as if they have been brutally, hastily severed. His eyes spark through a heavy, drugged haze, and his mouth flattens into a thin line as my hands fly to the wound, the hole in my body, the torn flesh and ripped muscle and seeping emerald…

Rui. Oh gods, Rui.

He is roaring my name, having fallen perhaps five feet away, ichor spilling from his body rapidly. He is not healing. I am not healing.

I am not healing .

Somewhere far above, the Yong roar in thunderous horror. A flash of lightning illuminates the twisting bodies as they soar forth, attempting to reach us…

Chan stares triumphantly down at me as I choke on my own blood. Behind him, my failing eyesight glimpses Kang—clenching his gnarled staff, robes blowing in the icy winds, face somber. Beside him stands Iseul, one hand pressed to her mouth, horror-filled realization carving itself over her fine features.

“Lina,” Rui gasps wetly, ichor running from his mouth. His hand stretches futilely toward mine, scrabbling on the stones. He groans, eyes beginning to cloud over.

No. No. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It would have been my hands, guiding us gently toward our death.

Yet there is no escaping fate, is there? Every thread of fate has led…to this. It was always, always going to end here. A low, hoarse sob escapes my lips. It is the first sound I have made in so long, and it is—it is horrible, a blade against my throat, cutting into my lips, shredding my tongue. I reach for him, screaming through my teeth as the wound rips further, as my fingers finally touch Rui’s.

They twitch, growing cold. So very cold, and so very stiff.

The red thread connects our bodies, stretching across the distance, joining our hearts as they begin to fail.

“Chan,” I hear Iseul whisper, her words muted, as if we are underwater. “That’s not— I do not think that is the Prophecy…”

The white-haired Dokkaebi doesn’t move, still standing over me with a snarl. He wants to watch every moment of this, savor every second. But behind him, I hear Kang’s sharp intake of breath.

“No,” he whispers, and then the advisor is crouched down over me, face drained of color. “Can it be?”

Iseul, in a burst of strength, shoves Chan away from me. Already unsteady, the Dokkaebi falls, but his eyes still gleam with satisfaction. She falls to her knees, hands desperately going to the wound in my chest. “Lina,” she cries frantically as Kang rushes to his emperor, whose eyes have already closed. “Lina. Nono no . You’ve only just gotten back, don’t go—”

There is nothing she can do to stop the bleeding. It is flowing from me, my life, like water from a stream. It takes with it the pain, and as my vision darkens, I focus on the feeling of Rui’s fingers beneath mine. His have gone still.

I feel it, the moment his heart stops beating.

It is the same moment my own fails.

Darkness comes as a swift wave, cold and biting.