Page 11

Chapter Eleven

Seokga

H is brother, with whom he laughed and fought. His brother in blood and also once in arms, before the favoritism from their father and Seokga’s jealousy, before the coup. Hwanin, who Seokga had looked up to, who he had idolized in the very early years of his life. Seokga walked because Hwanin could, and if Hwanin could, that meant he could, too. Seokga learned his favorite curse words from his older brother, during the hours spent giggling together behind their father’s throne. It was Hwanin who taught Seokga how to pet the wild bulgae, the dogs of stardust and sunlight. You have to let them sniff you first, the older boy had whispered encouragingly. Go on, reach out your hand.

His brother, who loved him even through the years of bitter envy, who still reached out a hand to the one that bit him, over and over.

“Why?” Seokga had snapped one night when Hwanin had ventured into his room at Cheonha Palace. It was right after Seokga had shaved off Hwanin’s eyebrows, hoping that if his brother looked hilarious enough, their father’s attentions might shift to him. Yet it was still before Hwanin somehow turned shaved eyebrows into a trend around Okhwang. He knew his brother was hurt and angry, but still he stood in the doorway, hands clenched uncertainly around a tray of food from the kitchens. Fluffy white rice and sokkoritang. Seokga had missed dinner in favor of curling up on his bed, ridden with a humiliating mixture of shame, anger, self-hatred, and above all a terrible jealousy. “ Why do you keep forgiving me?” His voice was hard with rage yet weak with bitter resentment that could not find a strong enough flaw in Hwanin to cling to.

The crown prince seemed to attempt a sage expression. Without eyebrows, it did not work. Actually, it looked rather disturbing and would haunt Seokga’s nightmares in the years to come. “Because you’re my brother,” he replied softly. “If we do not have each other, Seokga, who do we have?”

Seokga knows the answer now.

Nobody. They have nobody.

“I’m sorry, Hwanin,” Seokga weeps. “I’m so sorry—”

Something in the air shifts. Some hidden force that spirals and curls around the small landing, brushing against the walls and bringing with it the indescribable scent of change.

A moment later, the heavens sing and a naked baby plops into Seokga’s arms.

The baby has dark blue eyes flecked with stars, a tuft of black hair not yet dyed silver, and a gurgling, self-satisfied smile as he stares up at Seokga.

Seokga’s wailing abruptly stops.

He stares down at the baby.

The baby stares back.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, ” the trickster swears. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“ Grrmurgrrmur, ” babbles the baby toothlessly, shifting in Seokga’s arms to better grab his own tiny foot and stare at it in amazed delight. “ Brrrbrrrmmbrrrm! ”

Fucking deity reincarnation. Seokga blinks away his tears and sighs in extreme annoyance.

“Seokga—” He turns to see Kisa, who’s still staring at Hwanin’s body, eyes filled with tears. Seokga glares at the corpse as the baby’s chubby hand swats at his cheek.

“Here,” he says, passing the baby into Kisa’s arms. Her mouth falls open, but she handles the baby expertly as Seokga—ignoring the ensuing twinge of pain in his right leg—drops down to crouch near Hwanin’s body.

“You idiot, ” he snaps, all hints of grief forgotten. “You just had to get yourself killed, didn’t you? You just had to land me with babysitting duty for the next eternity? I hate you. I hate you so much. ”

The baby makes inane baby noises as Kisa, nestling him close, gasps softly. Turning back to her, Seokga watches as her expression of horror shifts into hungry curiosity, to sharp realization, and, finally, something almost like delight. It vanishes a moment later as she, looking somewhat guilty, reverts to sadness.

Under any other circumstance, Seokga would be laughing.

“Godly reincarnation,” she whispers, as if reciting from a textbook. “Only an eoduksini can truly kill a god. If a god is murdered by any other means, or has aged enough that they require a new body, their soul will find its way to jeolmeojineunsaemmul, the spring of eternal youth. The god will be reincarnated into its baby form…”

“…and return to where they were last,” Seokga mutters, quite embarrassed to have put on such a show only to be reminded that he’ll never truly be rid of his brother. The feeling in his chest is certainly not relief, he tells himself sternly. Not at all. “You’re currently holding baby Hwanin, Kisa.”

Baby Hwanin burps and delightedly claps his tiny hands.

“Why would anyone kill him?” Kisa whispers as Seokga crouches over his brother’s corpse, examining the messy cavity where his heart should be. She’s soothing the little boy, bouncing him on one hip with such expertise that Seokga suspiciously—jealously—wonders if she’s had a child. Baby Hwanin, the colicky thing, snuggles closer to her chest and yawns gigantically.

“ Mmmmahhhhh, ” sighs the baby, who is his brother but not really, having lost all of his memories and the tiny intellect he had to start with.

“Hwanin had the unique capability to annoy many people,” Seokga mutters. It has been years since he was a detective of any kind, but even now, he can feel himself slipping back into the role. His annoyance at Hwanin is fading, replaced by a cold, simmering anger.

Somebody on this ship murdered his brother, and shoved him into the role of babysitter.

Seokga is not happy. At all.

“They moved him,” he says, standing with help from his cane. “Somebody moved him here so that I would find him. There’s no sign of any struggle, and the floor is relatively clean. There should be significantly more blood around him than there is.” Seokga stares at the gore, the ruined flesh. Hwanin was powerful and physically strong. It would take a beast to put him down. “Without a coroner or a forensic pathologist”—Seokga thinks of Lee Dok-hyun with a familiar guilty pang—“I can’t place the exact time of death—”

“—but it’s quite obvious that it was between approximately seven-thirty and eight forty-five,” Kisa finishes, eyes narrowing thoughtfully, checking a thin silver watch on her wrist. “After he left the greenhouse party, and sometime before now. That’s a window of over an hour…”

“…on an extremely large boat, with an extremely large number of guests.” Seokga sneers. “But that doesn’t matter. I have a rather solid suspicion of who did this.” With one last look at his brother’s body, he continues down the stairs.

“Wait—” Kisa pants. “You’re not going to just leave him there, are you? Shouldn’t we do something? A-a funeral? A… something ?”

—his brother—shouldn’t just—his body—all that blood—

“You’re holding him,” he returns through clenched teeth. “Hwanin is fine. He’s a baby, but fine. Him as an infant might actually be a nice fucking change. No more of that holier-than-thou act for once, since he can’t talk. And his body will disintegrate in a few minutes. Probably into fucking glitter,” he mutters.

“ Gnggblahberp, ” sings the infant (tauntingly, Seokga thinks).

“Be quiet,” snaps Seokga.

Baby Hwanin sticks out his tongue and blows a happy raspberry.

“I really feel like you’re not taking this as seriously as you should,” Kisa pushes. “Somebody murdered the emperor of the gods. That’s—that’s the worst thing you could possibly do. It’s sacrilege.”

“I’ve tried it myself more than once.” Seokga reaches Deck 8’s landing, shoves open the door, and strides through. “A delightful pastime. I had a natural predilection for it.”

Kisa makes a small choking sound. He is forty percent sure it is another hidden, smothered sign of amusement. The other sixty percent of him is certain she’s actually horrified. Perhaps he’s one hundred percent sure she’s feeling a combination of the two.

“His chest was ripped open by claws,” Seokga continues, leaning heavily on his cane as he increases his pace. “I’ve seen enough wounds made by fucking Unrulies to tell. Claws lack the precision of a knife. The edges were too jagged. And what creature has claws?”

—nine-tailed—foxes—

“You think Nam Somi did this.” Kisa hurries to catch up with him, holding baby Hwanin tight. “The gumiho.”

—so quick—to accuse her—

“Who else would fucking do it?” he snarls, and when she cringes away, he also winces. He shouldn’t have snapped like that. He needs to get himself under control. Now.

“No,” Kisa says firmly, apparently having heard his thoughts. “No, it’s all right. Your brother was just, er, turned into a baby. Murdered. But—what motive?”

“Nam Somi is a murderer,” he grits out. “I know of her terrible deeds…” Somi is the only gumiho in existence to have figured out a quicker way to steal souls, the only gumiho to have become a mass murderer in so short a time during the Dark Days.

“I’m not saying that isn’t true,” Kisa admits, and Seokga’s mind is flooded with her rapid musings, so fast that he can barely track them. Luckily, those rapid fragments are collected and neatly arranged into coherence for her next sentence. “She stopped by the sick bay earlier today and quite literally admitted to being a serial killer, but her bone to pick seemed to be with, well, you. And…historically, assassinations of leaders tend to have some political aim. Lincoln. Doumer. Rabin. Even as far back as Rimush of Akkad. That’s something we really do need to consider.”

Seokga has no idea who any of those people are. To be frank, he doesn’t quite care.

Kisa follows him as he stomps past the greenhouse, where the party has hesitantly begun again. Officer Korain is by the window, watching the trickster god with folded arms and a furious expression. Kisa gives him a nervous wave. “Seokga, I really do think we should tell security. We need to check the security cameras, find out where the murder took place—and by who—before we jump to any conclusions.”

“And let it get back to the pantheon that Hwanin was murdered on a ship that, coincidentally, I was on? No.” Seokga sharply turns into the corridor of suites. “Once news of Hwanin’s death breaks, his son, Hwanung, will officially ascend to the throne as interim emperor until his father reaches maturity. Hwanung doesn’t like me and will probably throw me from Okhwang again. I’d be the number one suspect amongst the pantheon. So we absolutely cannot tell them until we’ve found the perpetrator.” He strides up to a door.

“Is that Somi’s room?” hisses Kisa. “Seokga—”

“No,” he replies, “but I plan on knocking each door down until I find her.” He pulls his hand back, fully prepared to make a ruckus until the gumiho shows herself.

“No need,” a familiar voice snorts. “I’m right behind you.”