Page 121 of Reign of the Talon
This, despite all, is a wound to the heart.
Kang blinks back tears as he lifts the dead emperor into his arms. His fingers had been intertwined with the girl’s, and it cuts him deeply to tear them apart, but they must retreat. Next to him, Iseul is tenderly scooping Lina up, crying softly.
Another roar, from far above. They are running out of time.
Kang summons a portal. “Chan!” he shouts, but the Supreme Commander makes no move to summon his own, weakened by either injury or shame. Instead, he stares up at the sky as golden dragons cut through the storm clouds like shocks of lightning descending vengefully upon the earth.
White hair whipping in the wind, Kim Chan pulls himself to his feet and opens his arms wide. Kang thinks he is shouting Hana’s name.
Iseul screams in terror, moving toward Kang’s portal, slowed down by Lina’s weight. “GO!” Kang cries, but it is too late.
In slow motion, the Yong come.
Kang closes his eyes just as the dragons descend, maws angled toward the earth with eyes molten from rage.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Lina
It calls to me, this skeletal throne, as I mount the stairs toward it, bone dais cold underneath my feet and my white nightdress rippling in a phantom wind. I am only just barely aware of the Talons, my soul-stitched, and my sister waiting for me below, eyes wide, nervous energy thrumming in the air. Such energy pales in comparison to the magnetism of this throne as it draws me forth.
Slowly, with trepidation, I approach it. The crown rises into the air, swirling above as the throne of Jeoseung beckons me toward it, as if it has been waiting for me for a very, very long time.
With difficulty, I pause, closing my hand around the three truths. A voice, to speak for my people. A bag of barley, to remember my origins, all that has made me myself. A heart, to care—deeply, deathlessly. I hold these truths tight to my chest.
When I take this throne, I take power. Power that I no longer trust myself to have.
But the Prophecy is gone, and here in Jeoseung, I am Shin Lina.
I am a sister. A wife. A warrior. A survivor, freed from the ruins, with a future ahead of her. With a healing mind and a healing heart, who knows who she is—who has learned from her thousands of mistakes, who—after the horrors she has endured—has changed so thoroughly that she trusts herself to take this, to save them all.
Fingers tight around the truths, I turn around and slowly lower myself onto the throne of Jeoseung, my eyes locked on Rui’s silver ones, on the red thread spiraling between us.
And as I touch the carved bone seat, it is as if the entire realm shakes and trembles—yet not in violence. Ifeelthis realm,feelit stretch and yawn, awakening beneath my fingertips, blinking sleepily, contentedly like a cat waking from a slumber in the sun. I feel it come to life, and a rush of power floods through me—power that is not fast and burning as it was with the Prophecy, but gentle, warm rather than scalding, soothing rather than sharp and tearing.
This power…it is the comfort and security of a hot cup of tea during a storm, the familiarity of an old, worn blanket wrapped around my shoulders. It is slow and steady—not overwhelming, butfilling, filling some part of me that did not know it was empty, waiting to be satisfied. It is a kind power, one that does not seek to hurt despite all death entails, but seeks to relieve.
Home, I think.I feel like I am…home.
This warmth, it sparkles through my veins, and my eyes widen as my skin begins to glow, emitting an aura of shimmering silver—and I realize that it is the exact color of Rui’s eyes, with flecks of blue sparkling throughout.
Jeoseung’s power lifts me gently from the throne, spinning me around delicately underneath the still-hovering crown. I watch in amazement as my plain nightdress becomes a familiar lavender hanbok with delicate, falling cherry blossoms and as my long, loose hair is plaited away from my face. Light, lilac slippers adorn my feet and the three golden truths spin up from my hand. A golden chain, materializing from nothingness, connects all three truths before settling around my neck. I close my eyes as the crown fits onto my head, fits as if it was made for me, nestling atop my dark hair.
Rui’s love and pride soar through the red thread as I am once again lowered onto the throne. With a small smile, he climbs the dais and kneels before me. “Goddess,” he murmurs, and I suppose it must be true—with Yeomra gone and this throne claimed, I am this realm’s deity.
I have been…forged.
The Prophecy was wrong about one thing. I was never meant to be the Goddess of Wrath.
No. All this time, I have been meant to become the Goddess of Death.
Smiling gently, I guide Rui to his feet. Jeoseung listens attentively for my first command. Words are not necessary—I tell this realm, quietly, what must be done…just as that future version of myself told me within the mind.
The binding. The Imugi must be brought forth to this realm, not in the way that they possess the capability to visit every so often by the spilling of their blood and the invoking of Yeomra’s name…but through true death, inescapable.
And here, I tell Jeoseung, the realm that is as much a part of me as I am it, they can make their homes in the distant mountains, near the sparkling purple sea that I sense exists beyond the jade and quartz peaks.
Give them peace.
