Page 49 of Reign of the Talon
My Imugi slowly slither around us, forming a cage around the Dokkaebi, tongues darting into the air as if tasting already his capture. Lightning cracks across the sky. Blue fire dances in the palm of his hand, weaker than it could be from the rain.
Haneul’s mouth is a flat line. He stares at me, my enemy, and his eyes are unreadable. Some uncanny emotion—harsh, yet soft—shoots down the bond. I cock my head as I feel Sonagi’s silent question—if she may attack. I shake my head imperceptibly.Not yet.
His gaze takes in the Imugi, closing in around him. I feel his hesitation and chance a step closer, smiling precisely how he hates it. “I did so enjoy giving you nightmares,” I whisper coldly. “Yet now I cannot reach you. Where is it you are hiding?”
Egged on by my icy fury, my Imugi hiss violently, swaying back and forth. Sonagi’s hood flares; she grows impatient.
“I would suggest that you answer,” I spit, holding up a hand to temporarily placate my Imugi long enough to extract this information. “Where do you go, in the dead of night? What is this place I cannot follow the thread to?”
A sharp suspicion has formed, and I wait as Haneul’s eyes flick over my Imugi, lingering the longest over Chan. Yet he will never have him, not if he does not return to me my Gumiho. At his sides, his fingers twitch, clearly longing to free his friend. Yet reluctant defeat crests through that red thread, and the blue fire is extinguished.
As my Imugi hiss with promises of violence, he knows he is outnumbered.
Haneul says nothing as he steps back into his shadowed corridor, empty-handed.
Says nothing as I lunge for him, for answers.
He disappears, and the world is silent once more.
…
With gnarled fingers, I probe the corners of my mind carefully, searching for that hidden corner where the Prisoner is locked. I am weary from the Bulgae attack, and our Sanyeongto siege must wait another day. This, though, is urgent.
Suspicion swirls through me, whispering possibilities. There is only one place I can think of where Haneul may go that I cannot follow, and I wonder if this suspicion is more than just paranoia.
And it is not amusing towonder.
I look carefully for that cell, the one I locked the Prisoner in long ago. I cannot see it, but I canfeelit.
And something is…wrong.
Rage rises up within me, molten hot. My search grows frantic, for I cannot feel her within the usual confines. She has—moved.
Moved.
Frantically, I search every crevice of the mind that I can think of. Panting, I search and search until…
There. A pathetic speck of consciousness, where it should not be. In a spacecloserthan the prison was. Higher up in the deep, dark mindscape. But where, exactly? I cannot see her, I cannot hear her, but I can feel that tiny mote of being scuttling around. My lips thin in displeasure, and a cold sweat begins to form on the nape of my neck. It is no coincidence that, after Haneul disappears to the one place I cannot follow, the Prisoner has somehow escaped her cell of containment. I do not know what he said to her, to make the foolish girl do something so rash. Yet grim certainty has me snarling a curse, for there are things Idoknow.
She escaped the prison.
Now she will try to reclaim this body.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Rui
The Dokkaebi emperor considers himself to be extraordinarily lucky as Dalnim and Haemosu retreat to Okhwang. The Bulgae are, in many ways, extensions of the divine siblings, and the hounds’ defeat has wearied them, even more so than it should have due to the long centuries they have spent lounging in the heavens, unengaged in battle. He considers himself extraordinarily lucky, too, that his part in the Bulgae’s defeat has gone unnoticed by Dalnim and her brother.
It seems that Gameunjang truly does stand behind him.
Had Rui not involved himself, the twins’ defeat may very well have been a victory. The Bulgae took down three Imugi—three. It takes the entirety of Rui’s army to achieve that level of casualties. If he had not arrived when he did, there would have been more.
Yet as weakened as the gods are, they will be back.
If Rui fails to hold Sanyeongto, if Wyusan falls, the moon and the sun will descend with a fury. It is what they warned before they left, pale with fatigue. Rui bowed his head and attempted to calm his thundering heart, breathing only when the deities left. Now, he strides through the palace in Sanyeongto, making his rounds through the troops. They are still under orders to leave the Prophecy to him. Though for how long they will obey that, Rui does not know. His silver tongue will only hold for so long.
Gameunjang’s words echo through his mind.She must return to her body, avoiding the Dalgyal Gwisin. And you must purchase her time to do so.
