Page 26 of Reign of the Talon
When the Prophecy takes the capital, Wyusan will fall. The people will have no choice but to submit, and there will only be one more kingdom to take before Fulfillment of the Prophecy is reached.
Chan has been sent to Bonseyo, to pry the Jeon Dynasty’s heads out of their asses, as Empress Moon suggested before her death. Rui, head pounding, organizes the evacuation of the children, and of the adults who are unable to fight. It brings him no pleasure, to separate families like this. But they need every fighter they can get.
The evacuations take hours. Night bleeds into day, which bleeds into evening. Chan has not yet returned from Bonseyo. Rui, drained of all energy, finds a quick reprieve in Moon’s old palace. He sleeps on the floor before the phoenix throne, his head cushioned by a floor pillow he found a few halls away. And then he is awake again, meeting with Kang in Gyeulcheon’s infirmary.
They have returned to using the pocket-realm as a base for the wounded. Now that Moon is dead, so is her request. Yet it is still partway honored. The Dokkaebi who are not wounded remain on Iseung with the mortals who escaped unscathed.
“The Gumiho?” Rui asks wearily as he watches Kang stitch the flesh of a wounded human’s lower abdomen back together. It is rather unclear if the unconscious and bloody soldier will make it. The medics are giving the injured mortals priority, but it is a strategy Rui may soon be forced to order abandoned. The human survival rates are already low, and one Dokkaebi soldier is worth five human ones in terms of battle capability. They simply cannot afford to lose any more of Gyeulcheon’s warriors.
“Caged,” Kang says, eyes on his work. Rui sees that the back of his hanbok is damp with sweat, and his chin-length, red-brown hair is lank with it. It is becoming clear that Kang cannot save the human, even with the vast array of medicinal techniques at his disposal, but Rui knows that he will try. Jeong Kang always tries. “She is secure. I will form a strategy later of how to maximize her capture to our benefit. Lina—the Prophecy, that is, will want her back.”
Rui nods and fights the urge to drag a hand down his face, to give into the demands of his exhausted body and sway on his feet. Even after the brief sleep he found in the palace, he knows that if he loosens his grip on his mask of control for even a moment, he will collapse at Kang’s feet. Tired. Haneul Rui is so very, very tired—and frightened.
Frightened of the bloodshed of this war.
Frightened of his—and Lina’s—fates.
That Demon in her mind, that Aglyeong… He knows of its kind.
What it forebodes, should one look upon it.
And they have both seen it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Iseul
Song Iseul is trapped.
They have trapped her like someanimal.
And they are staring at her. Laughing at her. Gawking at her.
She is in the Dokkaebi realm, which, really, falls exceedinglyshort of her expectations. First of all, it smells like horse. Why? Oh, well—perhaps it is because she is in thestable, manacled to the ground of a horse stall, assaulted by the stench of shit. It turns out that the Dokkaebi’s horses shit just as much as regular horses, especially that big white chollima in the stall next to her. It is the only winged horse in the stables and is apparently the horse of His Most Illustrious Majesty, also known as the Pied Piper, or the Worst-Dokkaebi-Ever, whom Iseul would very much like to shove into avery deep holeandthen light on fire.
The image almost makes her smile, but her head is pounding far too much to do so.
“Gumiho,” leers some bruised human, leaning over the stall, supported on crutches. He’s clearly taken a beating, and Iseul woulddearlylike to give him another one. “I thought all of you were dead. My harabeoji used to hunt you. He hung up the pelts in our giwajip.”
The Dokkaebi confiscated her weapons. Iseul desperately misses her giant ax. She also misses her stealth suit. She is wearing a tunic and pants that are incredibly scratchy, but she cannotscratchherself becauseher ankles are manacled to the floor, and her hands are cuffed together.Gritting her teeth against her headache, Iseul closes her eyes and imagines the things she could do to the onlookers if she wasn’t imprisoned in iron and steel. Iseul thinks that she’d start with their livers. Sprinkle them with a bit of salt and pepper, maybe a dollop of sesame oil, and thenmmm.Delicious.
Iseul loves fine dining.
Then she’d steal their souls and send them into non-existence for eternity.
“Is it true you’re also a madame?” one of the males, this one a Dokkaebi, leers.
Iseul’s eyes snap open. This.Thisis why she hates the Dokkaebi. According to the Dokkaebi emperor, they tried, oh, theytried, to stop the Prophecy of the Fox Hunt. But they just couldn’t! There was nothing they could do! And they were so very, very sad about it.
Which is why a group of Dokkaebi are laughing at her now.
She will tear them down one by one. She will hurt them until they forget what it means to be free of agony. She will avenge her people.
She will have survived for a reason.
“I wonder,” that same Dokkaebi says with a malicious glint in his eyes, “what it would be like to fool around with a Gumi—”
He never finishes his sentence.
