Page 3 of Reign of the Talon
It is ever so pleasant, to feel the agony these words cause him. To see the way he blanches, as if he’s been run through by a sword.
“Silence,” he says again, and now his voice is broken and raw.
All around us, Dokkaebi are dying. Imugi are laughing. Sonagi is eliminating those who rush toward their emperor with thoughts of helping, currently facing down the white-haired Chan, who is roaring my name so loudly and in such hatred that I can’t help but snicker. On the wind, I hear Iseul cackling as her ax wetly meets flesh.
“Let me kill you,” I murmur as I pause, so close to him that the red thread between us is only the length of a jikdo. “Perhaps then I will show mercy to the others. Let me kill you,husband. I will enjoy it so very much. The color of your blood is so beautiful.”
A wave of fury crests down our bond. “You,” seethes the Dokkaebi. “You aredespicable.”
My smile disappears, and with a hiss of hatred, I launch toward him, my scaleblades aimed at his jugular. Haneul spins, a blur of speed, avoiding my attack, clumps of snow flying up from the ground as he moves.
We do this dance nearly every day, and always the result is the same. A retreat on his side before I can kill him. It is frustrating, but no matter. I am still winning. Haneul’s forces are fine fighters, yes, but what are they against me? Against a Prophecy? Prophecies are always, always fulfilled. He knows this, and yet he fights. I do not pretend to understand his foolish, inane ways.
But I do not need to understand his folly to kill him.
A column of blue fire rips across the snow toward me, but the sleet has banked its power. It is not so fast as it could be, nor so vibrant a blue. I whip away from it, and it disappears, returning to Haneul’s hands. He is panting, chest heaving. It hurts him to do this, to fight against the body that once housed the weaker me. How I hate her. She kept me trapped inside of her mind for so long, and even when I wrestled my way to the front, she still fought back. But now she is quiet. I hear not a peep from my weaker self. I do not expect to ever hear her again.
The red thread of fate gleams as Haneul summons another wave of Dokkaebi flame. It is wider, this one, and the Imugi closest to us hiss in pain as it encloses me in a circle and singes their scales. For a moment, I feel a flare of caution. This fire, ithurts. But the Imugi are summoners of storms, and the fire is pounded by sleet, opening a space between the flickering flames of blue for me to escape in a sharp dive. I grunt as I hit the icy ground, hooking a foot around Haneul’s ankle, sending him staggering. He is strong, but what is he against the Goddess of Wrath?
Already, temples in Sunpo are being built. Worshippers invoke my name with mixtures of awe and fear.Shin Lina. Shin Lina. The goddess.Soon, there will be temples in every kingdom, and my Yong will soar in the skies. The world will be as it should have been centuries upon centuries ago. Reclaimed by itstruedenizens, dragons of old, regaining the lands they were so forcefully exiled from.
I leap to my feet. Between us, the red thread flexes, rippling. It is insubstantial, which is truly a pity, as I’ve tried to sever it many times with my scaleblades. I do not enjoy being tied to this Dokkaebi, even as mortal enemies. I do not like that he is able to find me anywhere, no matter what I do. My only consolation is that I can find him, too. Even in dreams.
I like to haunt his nightmares. In those, I have killed him many times over since this war began.
A bolt of white lightning lances through the sky, shattering the damp snowflakes as they fall. My lips thin. This skirmish. I grow tired of it. Reaching for the ancient Mother of Imugi across the battlefield, I summon Sonagi, running a hand against her cold, sleek consciousness. She has plunged her way further into the fray, ripping apart enemy soldiers with her venomous fangs. Golden blood sprays onto the white snow. But at my summons, she twists, slithering back toward me. There are other Imugi I can use, but none that I am bonded with in the way that I am Sonagi. We are linked, she and I, as lightning is to thunder. Where one strikes, the other follows. She is with me always.
“I am coming, my child,”she assures me, pausing only to spit venom onto a Dokkaebi warrior in her path. The winds of her storm carry her voice above the din to my ears.“Do not fear.”
Haneul is gritting his teeth, a ball of Dokkaebi fire burning between his palms. His silver eyes meet mine, and I feel the depths of his pain.Annoying.His grief is distracting as his arm pulls back, and as the orb of fire soars through the air, faster than mortal eyes would be able to see. Fortunately, I am not mortal.
Although I dodge it, the flames lick my stealth-suit, and I curse. The fabric is flameproof, but it will not hold up long against Haneul’s fire—even as faint as it currently is from the sleet. I’ve no choice but to roll in the snow to extinguish them, just as Sonagi arrives. Her enormous head bends down, offering me access to her flexuous neck—upon which my saddle sits. In one fluid motion, I grip the black leather straps dangling above and, with a grunt, propel myself upward from the ground, flipping myself around and mounting the Mother of Imugi. She extends herself to her full height, and together we tower over Haneul, who must be at least twenty feet below.
The Dokkaebi scowls and whistles sharply. His chollima rushes to his side, her mane soaking wet with snow. Breathing hard, the emperor mounts the winged beast. Her white-feathered wings begin to flap, bringing them upward. Haneul’s frustration pierces me from the outside as I bare my teeth down at him. He sends me a rude gesture, and I respond by reaching to the same straps underneath the saddle that I used to haul myself up.
They harbor a hidden bow and a quiver of iron arrows, the points of which are tipped in Imugi venom—lethal to even Dokkaebi. Kneeling on the saddle, I nock an arrow and aim.
Haneul shouts, pulling Duri to the side as the weapon whizzes past.
I narrow my eyes.
Sonagi twists as he swoops around. I let the next arrow fly. I expect it to hit true, but his silver eyes widen, and he unhooks himself from his own saddle, dropping through the air as the arrow slices through the place where, moments before, his throat was. He hangs from Duri by the stirrup. Below, my Imugi look up, maws stretching open eagerly. Duri, whickering anxiously, takes him higher, but I can see his fingers are slipping.Finally.Today, he will die. This thorn in my side will be plucked out.
I close one eye, aiming my next arrow carefully. Yet—through the bond, I feel Haneul’s panic. He is staring down at his troops, watching as Iseul in her snow-colored, nine-tailed fox form rips out the throats of his soldiers. He is watching his Supreme Commander, Chan, lose himself so completely in the battle-frenzy that the white-haired Dokkaebi does not realize he is bleeding profusely from his side, spilling gold ichor.
This is always the part where Haneul retreats, pulling back his forces only to reappear the following day with renewed vigor. His eyes meet mine as the air around him begins to move, the summoning of his shadowed corridor commencing.
“FALL BACK!” Haneul roars. “FALL BACK!”
So painfully predictable.
I narrow my eyes and let the arrow rip through the air. It is aimed true, and I smile.Finally.After all these skirmishes, all these attacks, I have killed…
But a moment before my arrow pierces the armor protecting his heart and buries deep within the skin, Haneul disappears through his portal, Duri vanishing with him.
I hiss a curse as the arrow tumbles through the air and cleaves in half on the rocky ground where his troops are following his lead—dark portals bursting back into existence, the wounded being dragged by their comrades. Only Chan is still roaring, facing down Iseul, who is the one responsible for the wound in his side. Her teeth are sharp, her claws even more so. I watch with grim satisfaction as the Imugi swarm the one remaining Dokkaebi, and as Chan—finally realizing he will get himself killed before he gets the chance to murder me—staggers back into the portal he has summoned. But not before his eyes meet mine through the sleet, a flashing emerald of hatred. They are filled with what he thinks is a promise: for Hana’s death, I will pay.
I have absolutely no intention of doing so, and I tell him so through a little smirk, delighting in the anguish I see burning him from the inside out. He staggers backward into his portal, the shadows closing around him.
