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Lina

Goddess of Death

They all return to me, eventually.

With small, bittersweet smiles in faces that have aged, once-smooth skin etched with deep grooves, laugh lines and crow’s feet and other beautiful evidence of long lives lived well. Yet the eyes are always the same—long-lashed hazel, sultry greens, searing purple, flinty emerald.

But the eyes that I wait for, large and brown and sparkling, do not come. Not yet.

In the Bone Hall, I lounge on my throne, Rui sitting in the one beside me—the one I had made for him, to rule by my side over the dead. Although he is not a god, he is an emperor, and has been integral in helping me with this transition into power. His throne is similar to mine, albeit slightly smaller, fitting his lithe frame as he reclines against it, listening to the pleas of the Gwisin who kneels before us, begging to be moved to another Jeoseung village. It seems that she died many years after her family and, as such, does not live in the same region of the underworld as they do.

Catching my gaze, Rui slips a glance toward me, smiling slightly. His silver earrings glitter as he tilts his head, eyes sparking as they meet mine, as he runs a hand through his wavy hair and sends a jolt of his boredom down the red thread. The crown atop his dark locks is white and smooth, a ringlet of shining bone. Nothing as impressive as mine, but he claims it is how it should be. “After all,” he’s fond of murmuring, “ you are the goddess.”

I fight not to roll my eyes as Rui sends another emotion down the thread, a suggestion of something he would much rather be doing. Something involving skin on skin, lips against lips, and teeth grazing all the sensitive places, spilling shivering pleasure.

With difficulty, I focus again on the Gwisin and smile, raising my hands and ignoring Rui’s continued hints. I understand , I say to the girl, whose eyes widen as Rui translates the Quiet Language for her aloud. Jeoseung, tied to me as always, also understands this girl’s pleas. It shifts and ripples in the space around the soul, preparing to carry her to the place her family resides. Go , I sign gently, and the girl beams, thanking me profusely before she ripples and disappears, carried off by my realm.

All these years, and still I do not speak. So many times I have come close, yet words continue to slip away from me, elusive, tumbling back down my tongue and through my throat whenever I attempt to summon them. I almost spoke, that once, before our deaths—yet ever since, I’ve not felt the same urge, the same desire.

It feels as if my voice is… waiting for something. What, I do not know.

The Bone Hall is now empty of my subjects, who may come every morning to ask for favors, to express their content or lack thereof. “Well,” Rui murmurs, perhaps a bit wryly as he stretches out his long legs and tilts his head back toward me with a mischievous smile. “I paid a visit to the Imugi today, deep in the mountains.”

I fix him with an exasperated glare. Rui has grown extraordinarily fond of visiting Sonagi and her children where they reside atop Jeoseung’s towering peaks, in the rivers and lakes of the mountaintops. They descended to my realm not as dragons, but as their original serpent forms. It seems that Rui takes magnificent delight in taunting them about their failed war, often sneaking away to gloat and monologue about our victory. He views it as free entertainment, one that he’ll never grow sick of.

The Imugi, however, have certainly grown sick of it. Decades ago, in fact.

Rui grins, utterly unconcerned. “Sonagi sends her regards.”

I’m sure she does. I shake my head in dry amusement. I choose not to visit the Imugi—I’ve nothing to say to them and personally enjoy pretending that they do not exist.

My soul-stitched laughs, stretching out a hand in the distance between our thrones. I take it, slipping my hand into his. He stands, and I follow, the red thread coiling around us as he tugs me closer to him.

So many years with him, and my blood heats as if we are still new, still exploring each other with wonder and perhaps a little fear of how deeply we have fallen. Although we are forever young, he and I, we have grown old in our hearts, our souls. Rui smiles, mouth quirking upward as he draws me down to the center of the Bone Hall, below the cavernous white ceiling, the balconies. “Do you remember our first dance?” he murmurs, although I doubt that I could ever forget it—waltzing with the Pied Piper underneath the moons of Gyeulcheon, torn between wanting him dead and wanting to feel his lips on mine.

I can’t help but to silently laugh as Rui’s hands slip onto my waist, as we begin to move across the moss beneath us, his silken hanbok rippling as we dance, both of us mindful of my eternally wounded leg. With one quiet command from me, the Bone Hall is filled with a haunting violin, a sweetly mournful harp, and I feel Rui’s delight like it is my own as he leads me through the bone-carved benches, pressing me close to him. My lavender hanbok whirls as he spins me, and I shake with unrestrained amusement as I spin him , as he returns to me with grace, looking incredibly pleased with himself—as he always does, when he makes me laugh.

Our hands intertwine together, his nose touches mine, his breathing hoarse. “Gods,” he whispers, “I do love you, little thief.”

My love for him sparkles down our bond, and Rui smiles before slanting his lips against mine. I close my eyes, running my hands through his dark, silken hair as he crushes me against him.

This. I will never grow tired of this, of the taste of him, the way his breath hitches as I touch him. Our death has been our paradise—together, we have explored every part of this beautiful realm, laughing underneath cherry blossom trees, racing through flower-dappled meadows, tumbling down sloping hills that remind us of Gyeulcheon’s hill lands. He has written poetry for me against white-barked willows, and we have laid together every night underneath the stars, quiet gasps and wandering hands. We have loved for more time than we would ever have been given. We have become one soul, him and I, one spirit—inseparable, immortal.

Rui groans quietly against my lips, and I marvel that I am the one to make him feel this way, the deep pleasure of his I feel through our bond. I deepen the kiss, backing him against one of the bone-carved benches as he shudders in delight, a low rumble sounding from deep in his throat. I kiss his neck, the spot that makes him weak, and just as Rui gasps in impatience…

The garakji on my finger heats.

Shakily, I pull away, eyes falling to the jade ring. It’s—it’s glowing.

Rui has been drinking in my swollen lips and mussed hair with an entirely smug sort of satisfaction, but at my soft gasp, he follows my gaze down to the ring. His eyes widen, and I raise a trembling hand to my mouth, just as there is a whisper to me from my realm, soft and happy and hopeful.

She’s here.

Eunbi is here.

…

On shaking legs, I stand before the Hwangcheon Bridge, which my little sister is crossing. I cannot see her yet, through the mist and sprays of rose-colored water from the Seocheongang, but I can somehow feel her—a familiar presence of happy laughter and shy smiles. Rui stands next to me, holding my hand, and I feel that he too is trembling.

Eunbi. Eunbi is coming, after a long life that Sang spoke of to me when he passed through my halls again. My little sister apprenticed under Seojin and became a great healer. With him, she established hospitals in Wyusan and Bonseyo, where she reunited with the Dokkaebi boy she had once been friends with in Gyeulcheon—a mischievous Dokkaebi named Tae.

It was Tae she married, Tae she loved. The years treated them well, bringing them children—two girls and one boy. My heart rises into my throat. I know that Eunbi was the best mother one could ask for, just as she was the best little sister.

“Steady, little thief,” Rui murmurs as he feels my trepidation flare.

What if she doesn’t want to see me? What if she pleads for me to send her back? What if she hates Jeoseung? What if she doesn’t love me anymore, with so much time and distance between us? My palms begin to sweat, and I swallow hard, fighting back tears—the sort that come when one is so horribly terrified.

A figure slowly becomes visible through the mist. Taller than I remember. Walking with confidence. Poise. I inhale shakily as she steps through the mist, periwinkle stars illuminating my little sister, my Eunbi.

She is…she is elderly now, with a round face and deep wrinkles, with curly gray hair tied back in a simple braid. I blink in surprise, unsure why I expected my eight-year-old sister to skip toward me, unsure of whether I should step forward, should greet her. I am suddenly overly conscious that Eunbi is older than I ever will be, that my face is just as it was at nineteen, unlined, small, young.

I must seem a child to her.

Her eyes fall on me, and they… They are the same eyes. Warm and brown and joyful. Sparkling. “Lina,” Eunbi says, and her face breaks into a smile as tears shine in her gaze. “Older sister.”

And the words, they tumble onto my tongue, tasting sweet and strong. For the first time in decades, I speak, the name barely more than a rasp. “ Eunbi ,” I rasp, and Rui stumbles back in shock as the name leaves my lips. My tongue moves awkwardly, unused to forming words, but there is no blade to stop them this time. My voice is little more than a hoarse whisper. Trembling, I step toward her, to this woman who is my sister.

She looks at me, sees my hesitation, my fear, and a motherly look crosses her face. “You are just how I remember you,” Eunbi whispers gently. “My big sister. My Lina.” She slowly gives me her right hand, where the jade garakji I gave her shines on wrinkled fingers. “I never took it off, Lili,” she says with a warm smile, and then as a sob escapes my lips, she draws me into an embrace.

“You’re here,” I whisper, squeezing her hard. Her body is unfamiliar to me, but somehow she smells the same—sweet flowers and young life. “You’re really here.”

“Oh, Lili,” she whispers back. “All these years, I’ve longed to see you again. I do not think anybody has ever been happier to be dead.” As Rui chuckles in surprised amusement, Eunbi reaches up to pat my cheek. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Rui draws me to him as I step away, my heart so full that I am afraid it might burst. “Welcome back,” he says gently to Eunbi, who grins at him in return.

“Rui,” she says, wiping her eyes. “It has been a while.”

“So it has,” he replies hoarsely with a burst of wry, happy humor down our bond. Rui’s silver eyes are shining, shining like the moons of the realm he once created and nurtured.

Eunbi smiles, and I think that it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Slowly, I slip one hand into hers, and one hand into Rui’s. One is warm and wrinkled with age, the other cool and smooth, curling around my own, squeezing tight. With my little sister on my left, and my soul-stitched on my right, all is finally as it should be.

Rui and Eunbi gaze down at me with so much godsdamned love that my lips spread into an aching grin, barely able to contain my bright, brilliant joy as the three of us set out into Jeoseung—where endings are new beginnings.