Page 18

CHAPTER 18

REN

West of the Haebaek Mountains

Occupied Territories

THE NEXT MORNING, the outlaws gathered to bid Ren and Sunho farewell. The leader approached with a mare on a lead. “This is Gukhwa. She’s a reliable mount, sturdy. It’ll be faster on horseback. Once you’re in view of the city, release her, and she’ll find her way back home.”

She was beautiful, with a marking in the shape of a chrysanthemum on her forehead. Ren reached out both hands, pressing her fingers against the mare’s rough coat; Gukhwa snorted, blowing out a breath of hot air. Hwi would have adored her.

Jinyoung came over with Ren’s satchel and umbrella, tying them to the side of Gukhwa’s saddle. He handed Sunho his sword in its bag, and Sunho took it, swinging the case over his shoulder.

“Perhaps we’ll meet again one day,” Jinyoung grumbled. “Until then, try not to get yourselves killed.” He walked away without looking back.

Sunho turned to Ren, raising a brow. She suppressed a laugh—Jinyoung was unexpectedly soft of heart.

Placing his boot in the stirrup, Sunho swung his leg over the horse, then held out his hand to Ren. She took it, and he hoisted her onto the saddle in front of him.

“Thank you,” Ren said, her gaze lingering on each of the outlaws.

“The best of luck to you,” their leader answered in a surprisingly gruff voice. “Let’s meet again one day. Hopefully by then we’ll each have found a place we can call ‘home.’”

Ren pressed her knees to Gukhwa’s side, and the horse leaped from the clearing and into the trees.

Sunho shifted his weight forward as Ren did, his hands above hers on the reins. Gukhwa galloped through the forest, splashing across a shallow river and into a sun-dappled wood. She could feel Sunho’s steady heartbeat, echoing her own. They didn’t have a path to follow, only the knowledge that Seorawon lay to the north, over the mountain. Before long, the terrain became uneven, with great rocks protruding from the mountainside. Ren pulled on the reins, slowing Gukhwa to a gentle walk. They entered a darker part of the forest as the sun rose higher; the trees here were thicker, with trunks wide enough to hide a person.

The forest was just like the one in the story. As they rode, she could picture the deer darting through the trees as it led the woodcutter to the pond where the celestial maidens were bathing.

“There’s a path to the left of us.” Sunho’s voice came from right by her ear, and she felt a shiver go through her. His presence at her back felt more intimate than when she was facing him, front to front, with the mask between them. His hands released the reins, sliding along her waist.

She guided Gukhwa to the left. “What do you think they’ll do?” she asked. “The outlaws.”

“This morning, Jinyoung told me they have a camp. It’s where Binna’s daughter and the rest of their families are hiding. They scout the area in case of Sareniyan patrols. That’s how they found us.”

Ren felt uneasy. “How long will a camp like that last?” she asked.

“Until the Sareniyans find them, or they run out of food.”

An uncomfortable feeling lodged in her chest.

She had just turned seven when she fled the Floating World, and had only thought of it as a place she wanted to forget.

She hadn’t thought about what it meant for the general to have taken over. Binna and the others had suffered because of his wars, Sunho had suffered, he and his brother had been sold to the army, forced into battle.

It was easier to believe that none of what was happening had anything to do with her, when she was on the other side of the great mountains, surrounded by her loved ones. Though even that wasn’t true. Gorye Village had been attacked by a monster from the Under World, and even before then, she remembered the villages their caravan had visited, with their empty fields and streams. Something is ill with the earth.

What if she was meant to fix what was broken ten years ago, by reclaiming her birthright, by using her magic?

Ren felt a chill sweep through her.

The path Sunho had found was narrow, edged on one side by the forest, the mountain wall on the other. As the sun began to set, the shadows lengthening, she closed her eyes. She needed to calm down. Guilt and exhaustion had confused her. She had a goal—find a cure and bring it back to Little Uncle. She would save him, only him. Then she could have the life she wanted, one that was peaceful, that was safe.

Still, the coldness within her persisted.

She thought she would only rest for a short while, but soon she nodded off into sleep.

The troupe performers were from the world below. She’d seen them arrive hours before on a rickety flying machine, tumbling out like apples from a barrel. Now it was evening. Lanterns cast a warm glow over a paper theater. The troupe was performing “The Woodcutter and the Celestial Maiden” with wooden puppets to a rapt audience of children and palace servants. Though Ren had heard this story told countless times, seen it enacted in a half dozen different ways, the tale of love and loss still delighted her.

She yearned to remain and watch the entirety of the performance, but there was somewhere she needed to be, something she needed to do. She dipped her hand into the pocket of her dress, relieved to find her treasure tucked away at the bottom, exactly where she’d left it.

Jumping to her feet, she tugged at the arm of her friend, who sat cross-legged on the grass beside her. “Let’s go.”

“What?” He tore his gaze from the stage. “Why?”

“I want to show you something.”

He wrinkled his brow. “I don’t know…” She smiled as, reluctantly, he got to his feet. “Last time it was a frog.”

She grinned, remembering the incident, and the way he’d yelped and thrown the frog back into the pond where she’d caught it. “It’s not a frog this time. I promise.”

Together, they wound through the crowd, stepping over feet and earning peeved looks from the audience members. Ren glimpsed her nursemaid, Doona, dozing among a group of similarly occupied older people, and quickly slipped down the lantern-lit path that led deeper into the gardens.

The gardens surrounding the celestial palace were sprawling, spanning over several hundred acres. Though her friend was a head taller, he matched her footstep by footstep.

They raced over curved stone bridges and past red and green pavilions with winged rooftops.

It was the Festival of Light, and the gardens were alive with music. They passed a lone pavilion where nobles lounged on silk pillows as a woman dressed in an elaborate gown played a zither, her hands sweeping over the long instrument, plucking the strings like she was an archer, the sounds like arrows released from a bow.

Finally, Ren found the place that she’d been searching for, near a high stone wall at the back of the easternmost garden. Here, beneath the shadow of a tree, she reached into her pocket to pull out her treasure.

Peering at it, her friend’s eyes widened. “It’s a feather,” he said. Though it was more than that. It was the length of her elbow to her wrist, as white as an eggshell. Even in the darkness, it glowed, shimmering with a bright incandescence. And when she concentrated, she could hear a soft humming sound, as if the feather was singing.

“It was on my pillow when I woke up this morning,” Ren explained. “Maybe it was left by a heron, or a crane, perhaps?”

Her friend reached out to touch it. “Careful,” she whispered, and he drew back. “I want to give it to the queen.” She was Ren’s mother, but Ren was forbidden to call her that.

Queen. Maiden. Goddess .

Her friend pouted. “Then why are you showing it to me?”

Ren watched as her friend looked back toward the way they’d come, her heart lurching at his hollow expression. It had been appearing more and more often of late.

“Jaeil,” Ren said.

He turned at the sound of her voice. “What is it? I have to go. I’m not supposed to be here. My father forbade it.”

His father was the general of her mother’s empire. Ren despised him, as he was the reason for those times the light left Jaeil’s eyes.

“Ren?” He tilted his head to the side.

“Do you think she’ll like it?” Her voice came out small.

Jaeil’s expression softened. “She’d be foolish not to.”

Ren giggled. “You just called the goddess foolish.”

“She’s not a goddess.”

Ren bristled. “How dare—”

“If she’s a goddess, then so are you,” he said. “And if you’re a goddess, then we can’t be friends.”

Her anger faded as quickly as it had risen. He looked so serious.

Jaeil sometimes said things that she didn’t understand. She would have pressed him to explain himself, but he distracted her, saying, “I’ll wait for you. We can go back together.” That’s right . She was on her way to her mother. She’d almost forgotten.

“Wait for me,” she said hurriedly, “by the zelkova tree.” He knew the one she meant. “I’ll give this to my mother, and then I’ll be right back. We can watch the fireworks together.” The fireworks always ended the Festival of Light.

“Okay,” Jaeil said, in a voice so quiet she almost didn’t hear him. “I’ll wait for you. Don’t forget about me, Ren.”

“What a silly thing to say,” she said, already turning away. “I won’t forget.”

She pushed back the hanging strands of the tree to reveal a crack in the wall, low to the ground. Dropping to her hands and knees, she crawled through, emerging on the other side to a moonlit wood.

A white string was tied between the trees to mark the barrier.

She thought of Doona’s warning as she ducked under the string. It’s dangerous, little bird .

Her body trembled with fear, but she took a deep breath, gripping the feather tighter in her hand. It was more than a gift. The feather was a key, one that would unlock her mother’s heart.

Lately her mother had been spotted coming out beyond the barrier. It was all the palace servants talked about.

She wanders , they’d said, as if she were a spirit, lost among the trees .

If she was lost, Ren would find her. She’d bring her mother back.

Thunder rumbled overhead. A storm was fast approaching. Ren sucked in a breath as the first cold droplets hit her skin.

A branch snapped in the woods. She whirled around to see great shadows lurking behind the trees, yet when the rain blurred her vision and she brushed her eyes to look again, they were gone.

Was this why Doona had warned her? Were there demons in the woods?

Between the trees, she spotted a glimmer of red, her mother’s robe trailing out behind her like a ribbon.

She raced forward to where the stretch of trees ended abruptly. In front of her was the edge of the Floating World.

The queen stood at the precipice, her toes over open sky. Ren’s heart lurched.

“Mother!” she cried out, stumbling forward. “Get back! You’ll fall!”

The strong winds swept her forward and she reached out, wrapping her arms around a tree stump sticking up from the ground. “Come back, please!”

Her mother’s crimson robe whipped out behind her, threatening to drag her into the sky.

“In the story, the maiden had wings.” Her mother’s voice carried across the wind and rain, and Ren felt it, like a thorn piercing her heart. “Where have my wings gone?”

Since Ren could remember, she didn’t understand her beautiful mother. She was like a cold and distant star, far away, even when she was standing near. But that didn’t matter. Ren loved her. She would give her mother wings. She would give her anything. As long as she stepped back from the cliff’s edge, as long as she stayed .

“Your Celestial Majesty!”

Jaeil’s father stood only a few short steps from her mother. Relief swept through Ren. She feared and hated the general, but he was sworn to protect his queen. He would take her hand and lead her away from the edge, toward safety.

Unlike her mother’s cloak that whipped around her, the general’s fitted armor didn’t move in the wind; it was as ungiving as he was. One moment, he was steps away, and then suddenly, he was beside her mother.

Ren waited for him to coax her back, to beseech her.

Instead, he pushed her.

A stray branch swept toward Ren, and she flinched away. When she looked back, the general stood alone at the edge of the Floating World.

She screamed.

He turned in her direction, and he no longer had the face of a man, but a monster.

Turning, she ran and ran and ran. The thunder was so loud now, crashing all around her. In between the booms, she heard Jaeil’s voice calling out to her, “Ren!”

A hand snagged her robe from behind and she screamed. It was one of the shadows from before, though she knew now they weren’t demons, but the general’s soldiers. They converged upon her, hulking, menacing. The soldier was only gripping the back of her robe, so she slipped from the cloth, leaving it behind as she raced once more through the woods.

She didn’t stop until she reached the walls of the palace, her breaths ragged, her tears blending with the rain that fell down her cheeks.

That’s when she realized her hands were empty. The feather was gone.

Ren lurched awake. Her violent movements startled Gukhwa, and the mare reared backward, her forelimbs kicking the air. Ren felt the saddle shift beneath her. She clung to it, hanging momentarily suspended over a massive ravine.

She screamed. Digging her legs into Gukhwa’s side, she swung herself back onto the saddle. She then leaped in the opposite direction, landing hard on her bottom and scrambling backward until she was pressed against a rock wall.

Through her panicked mind, she registered that, while she’d slept, night had fallen and they had continued to journey up into the mountains.

“Hwi.” Sunho crouched beside her. She noted that he’d seen to Gukhwa’s safety first, securing her to the branch of a pine tree protruding from the cliff face. “What happened?” he asked, his voice gentle. “What’s wrong?”

“I-it’s not… You wouldn’t understand.” She was trembling so hard, it was difficult for her to speak. Her heart still raced from the dream. No, the memory.

“Explain it to me.”

She shook her head. How could she tell him about that night, when she watched the general push her mother off the edge of the Floating World? The memory was embedded in her soul. It was the reason she’d frozen in fear on the white rocks outside Gorye Village, endangering not just herself but Little Uncle.

But she couldn’t explain this to him without revealing the truth of her past, and so she whispered, “We’re too high.”

She turned her face to the wall. Why was she so afraid? She’d thought maybe she’d get braver in the journey, but she was just as scared as when she’d started.

“Hwi, look at me.” She lifted her gaze to his. Though it was nighttime, the moon was bright. The light fell on Sunho’s face, and she was arrested by the sight of him. The outlaws had called him handsome, but he was more than that. His shoulders were strong. And though his face was pale, he had luminous eyes. “I won’t let you fall.”

She placed her hand in his, and he closed his fingers around hers. He crouched on the ground and turned his back to her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he stood. With one hand holding Gukhwa’s lead, he continued up the mountain path. She didn’t ask him if she was too heavy nor questioned how he could carry her uphill in the dark. Her mask dug into his back, but he didn’t complain.

She didn’t know how much farther they traveled, but not once did he falter.

She was still trembling when Sunho found a small nook in the cliff face, sheltered by a stand of trees. Depositing her in a spot farthest from the ledge, he tied Gukhwa to a branch before building a small fire.

She pulled her knees to her chest, staring at the crackling flames. A spark landed near her toe with a fizzle. She moved her feet back.

She felt Sunho sit beside her, pressing his back against the rock wall. “I told you that for two years I’ve only had a single memory,” he said quietly. “The morning we met, I had another.”

She looked over to where he gazed into the fire, the flames reflected in his eyes.

“I was in a forest,” he went on, “seated by a campfire, like this one. It was winter. My brother was leaving the next morning to join a regiment of older boys, one that would take him closer to the fighting.”

Ren could picture a young Sunho, maybe twelve years old, half the height he was now. He’d be awkward, without the grace he had now.

“I was worried for him. We’d never been apart. But also… I was afraid. In our small regiment, I was the weakest. Junho protected me.”

Junho. His name matched his brother’s. “What changed?” she asked.

“It would be easy to say that I don’t know because I can’t remember, that in the three years between that night in the forest and when I woke alone with only a single memory there were no clues to what happened to me… but that wouldn’t be true.”

He drew in a long breath, letting it out slowly. “There’s a darkness inside me. I can feel it sometimes, when I’m threatened, or when my emotions are heightened. Since leaving the Under World, the darkness has been rising more often, becoming harder to control. I’m afraid the more I lose control, the more I’ll lose myself.”

She wondered if the darkness he spoke of was the one she’d sensed before, first when she was healing him, and then again when they’d been threatened by the outlaws. She hadn’t felt anything evil in the darkness, quite the opposite, but she could understand the feeling of losing oneself.

When she’d seen the Floating World again, she was afraid of how the journey might change her, and since then hadn’t used her powers. He was the exception. She’d used her powers to heal his wound. And now, she must face the truth of what happened that night ten years ago, as well as the many atrocities the general had since committed.

Losing himself. It’s what he feared the most.

Losing herself. She shared the same fear.

It came to her gradually that she was no longer trembling. That awful, cold feeling had disappeared. She realized, with complete clarity, what Sunho had done.

He’d revealed his fears to distract her from her own.

She could have predicted hundreds of possibilities of what she might encounter on her journey, but never could she have predicted him.

She didn’t think she could have come this far without him. It wasn’t just his physical strength that she relied on—it was his steady presence, his kindness, and, most of all, his friendship.

His eyes were downcast, his long eyelashes brushing his cheek.

“I won’t let you lose control,” she whispered. He lifted his gaze to hers. “And you…” In his eyes, she saw a glimmer. Blue. “You won’t let me fall.”

He smiled, a slight quirk of the lips.

It was natural for her to draw closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder, for her hand to slip into his, grasping it softly.

Her eyes fluttered closed, and if she had sorrowful dreams, she didn’t remember a single one.