Page 38 of Reign of the Talon
“I am not going to explain our defeat at the hands of the Fox Hunt’s Prophecy,” he snaps, losing his already slipping rein over his temper. Between Kang suggesting he kill himself, and Iseul targeting his wounded, Rui has had a horrible time of it recently. “I already have, and you have already listened. If you choose not to believe me, there is nothing I can do to sway your stubborn mind. And clearly, whatever genius imprisoned you so clumsily deserves to be thrown out a window. You won’t be going back to your holding cell in the stables. You.” Rui’s finger moves to Seojin, who hesitates, unsure what the Dokkaebi emperor wants from him. “From what I remember, she has a soft spot for you. We’re going to use that to our advantage.”
“A SOFT SPOT?” Iseul shrieks. She only barely refrains from stomping her foot like a child. “I HATE him—”
Seojin winces, but Iseul does not fall for thisphonydisplay of regret, even as he swallows hard and says, “Iseul, I—”
She ignores him. “I would gladly RIP OUT HIS LIVER and DESTROY HIS SOUL FOR ALL ETERNITY—”
“Both of you. Bequiet.” Rui’s voice is hard, and despite herself, Iseul falls silent. “From now on, you’ll be monitoring her constantly,” he informs Seojin, who hesitates. Oh, Iseul canfeelhis sudden dread. To abandon her, only to be forced to guard her every waking moment? It must seem like torture. “And I truly do mean constantly.” The emperor rises from his throne. “Song Iseul. Get up.”
Simply to be contrary, she does not.
The emperor summons a column of Dokkaebi fire. It burns and burns next to his black-thorned throne. “Get. Up.”
As the fire crackles, she has no choice but to obey. Rui, to her surprise, uncuffs one of her wrists…
And re-cuffs the manacle to Seojin’s.
“There,” Rui says, stepping back as Iseul’s eyes widen in a mixture of horror and outrage. “I doubt you’ll be going anywhere anytime soon, Gumiho.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Prophecy
I am not accustomed to being injured, and it is not a pleasant experience.
My shoulder seeps green as Sonagi slithers through the night. If I had been struck by a mortal sword, this wound would have healed by now. Yet it was one of thosefireswordsthat struck the blow. The weapon in question is strapped underneath the saddle with my bow and arrows. It was tempting to destroy it, but the Dokkaebi emperor wears armor of Imugi scale. If this blade can pierce my snakeskin, surely it can pierce his heart as well.
Chan, half unconscious, is carried atop Uloe. I have trussed him up like a pig for roasting, and he is slumped over himself, golden blood leaking from a thick gash on his forehead that heals slowly. Despite my pain, I smirk at the sight of the Supreme Commander of Gyeulcheon reduced to this. An ant I can easily crush with a single finger.
We encounter one more village, and it is all too easy for me to remain atop Sonagi as my Imugi do the work for me, dismembering the Dokkaebi soldiers stationed at this point. There are less of them here, perhaps because this village is smaller, or perhaps because Gyeulcheon expected the first village to hold up more of a fight. In any case, its defeat is easy enough even with the fireswords and without my engaging in combat.
My forces camp for the night in a large thicket. I slide off Sonagi and replace the bandages around my shoulder with fresh ones from the satchel that Beongae carries—in which also lies more weighted ropes. Bomin, knowing the routine well by now, gives me a cigarette to smoke as I lean against a tree.
I’ve tied Chan to a tree, and it’s quite amusing to watch him wrestle with his bonds, only to fail. The weighted ropes were invented by Im Yejin, Sunpo’s shipsmith. Originally, they were meant to hold cargo down during the large storms my Imugi and I summon, but I’ve discovered another, more entertaining, use for them. Wounded and tied down, Kim Chan will not be able to teleport away any time soon.
I have only just closed my eyes to seek out the elusive Dokkaebi king when the thicket suddenly plummets in temperature. My eyes snap open as frost cracks across the ground, jagged veins of white slicing toward where I sit. I leap to my feet, drawing my scaleblades and ignoring the twinge of pain in my shoulder. The night’s darkness seems to thicken. Swirl. The glowing ember of my cigarette is the only pinprick of light, and despite my preternatural vision, even I can hardly make out the trees around us.
This is unnatural. Somebody—something—is here, lurking on the borders of the thicket. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and I unleash a low snarl of warning. Suddenly, there is a cool breath on my skin, and I whirl—but familiar, golden eyes tell me that it is one of my Imugi. Sonagi.
“Child,”Sonagi murmurs,“do not fear. This visitor we know. He has come to us before.”
“He?” I demand lowly, still tense. “Who is‘he’?”
A low laugh flickers out of the darkness. “‘He’meansme,” a voice, tinged with an unidentifiable accent, whispers. There is something familiar about that tenor, as if I am intimately familiar with it, as if I have heard it before—but in another language, an unfamiliar tongue. I narrow my eyes as the darkness recedes, and reveals—
“Yeomra,”Sonagi hisses in pleasure as the God of Death inclines his head, stepping into view.
Yeomra.
One of the absent deities.
Former ruler of the now-godless underworld.
The god who, alone, seemed to delight in the death and destruction brought by the Imugi and offered to them Jeoseung as a resting place after the end of the first war, veiling it underneath the guise of an exile. The god who brought them a Prophecy, a “guideline of how to truly reclaim Iseung,” according to Sonagi.
My, my. This is certainly interesting.
In my head, I feel the Prisoner—peering out from behind my eyes—gasp in shock and longing. One of her forgotten gods, standing in the flesh. Fine. I’ll let her look, as I do so cherish her suffering, her knowledge that it is not her meeting this deity, but me.
