Page 27 of Reign of the Talon
Iseul watches, eyes wide, as a hand snakes forth and slams the soldier’s head into the wooden post with enough force that the whole thing shakes. The Dokkaebi drops like a stone, and the others—theyknewwhat they were doing was wrong, and the way that they run only proves it—flee.
Revealing Ryu Seojin.
Seojin? No—it can’t be. She blinks rapidly. She has never seen his healing hands turn to violence before in her life. Yet itishim.
And he just slammed a Dokkaebi unconscious for her.
His chest rises and falls rapidly beneath the light blue robes of the medics, and a lock of black hair falls into his brown eyes. When they meet hers, she gasps softly, her heart fluttering in her chest…
And then screams at him so loudly that evenherears ring.
“YOU BASTARD!” Iseul howls. “YOU SET ME UP! YOU INSTIGATED MY CAPTURE! YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING, SMALL-BRAINED BIRD!” Coming from Iseul, this is a grave insult. Birds are the worst creatures to exist. “GO DUNK YOUR HEAD IN A TUB OF ALCOHOL AND THEN DROP A MATCH ON IT!”
Seojin grimaces, but Iseul isn’t done. Far from it, actually.
“SHAME ON YOU!” she screeches. “SHAME ON YOUR MOTHER! SHAME ON YOUR FATHER! SHAME ON YOUR ENTIRE LINEAGE AND EVERY PIECE OF EARTH YOU’VE EVER WALKED ON!”
“Iseul—” Seojin tries.
“I WILL STEAL YOUR SOUL AND EAT YOUR LIVER!”
“Right,” Seojin grinds out, obviously finally losing his patience, “you screaming that you’re going to do all of that really is not helping your case, spitfire.”
Iseul cuts off, panting, jerking forward. The manacles only let her go so far, but she gathers as much dignity as she can and waddles a few steps forward. “Free me,” Iseul demands haughtily, “and Imightlet you live.”
Seojin’s eyes soften. “I can’t,” he says quietly, and there is a funny hitch in his quiet voice. “Iseul, you are killing innocent people.”
“They’re not innocent,” she spits. “You heard them. They killed them. They killed themall. You don’t know what it’s like to be at the center of the Fox Hunt. You’ll never know because you’re one ofthem.”
“One of them,” Seojin repeats, trying to ignore how much hearing that hurts. He looks at Iseul, like he’s trying to find his friend within this creature of rage and ruin—this creature that she’s always been, deep inside. Like he’s trying to find the girl who once meant more to him than anything on this earth.
Perhaps he can’t see her anymore.
The thought hurts more than Iseul cares to admit.
“I’ve never been anything but your friend,” he says stiffly. His dark eyes shine, glassy as if a tear might roll down his face, but Iseul knows it won’t. “Iseul, I would never hurt you.”
“My friend?” scoffs Iseul. Her lips curl into a snarl. “Youabandonedme.”
His inhale is sharp. His eyes narrow. “That isn’t fair,” he says quietly. “I didn’t want to. I never wanted that.”
“But you did.” Iseul’s throat constricts, and she glares at the ground, at anywhere but Seojin. “Either get me out of here, or leave.”
Seojin closes his eyes. Iseul thinks she might see a glimmer of a tear slip from underneath one eyelid, but a moment later she knows she must have imagined it. Ryu Seojin does not cry.
He does not allow himself to. Not even after his brother died did Seojin allow himself to shed a single tear.
Instead, he walks away, leaving her imprisoned.
And Iseul does not know it, but Ryu Seojin has never hated himself more.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Prophecy
I exhale a plume of halji, leaning against an old tree in the Wyusan Wilderness as Daeyang escorts my wounded to the realm of Jeoseung. There, they will recuperate where no Dokkaebi fireswords can reach them. There, they will heal.
Imugi medicine, I have observed, involves using both the fast healing of the serpents and a variety of strange herbs that Daeyang has been collecting through our journey. The Imugi chews these herbs up in his mouth and then spits them onto the wound. It is disgusting, but if it works, I am not one to judge the healing practices of my serpents.
