Page 64 of Reign of the Talon
Yet there is nothing I can do, not right now. Despite that, I feel myself sinking into a familiar bloodlust…
Sang’s words from underneath the willow tree echo softly in my ear.
“Revenge is ugly. And it’s ugly inside and out.”
Something aches painfully in my heart. What if…instead of losing myself in a violent craze, Icarefor the Dokkaebi in front of me? I think of Ryu Seojin, Sang’s younger brother, healing those who have suffered at the hands of another. Fighting back not with weapons sharp enough to kill, but with…compassion?
What if, instead of uncontrollably obsessing over how Jeong Kang must die and letting it consume my every waking moment until I lose myself again in the process, I reach out my hand to help Rui?
I can do it. Or I can…try, at least. For now. I make no promises about leaving Kang alive when I am free from this place, but that is a thought for another time.
Slowly, I stroke the sharp edges of Rui’s cheekbones. He shivers slightly underneath my touch, eyes going half mast. I feel him begin to relax, and it is only then that I realize how terribly tense he has been. His breathing slows, evens.
And it feels strangely good. To do this. To help him, instead of hurting another.
Yet a few moments later, I again draw my hands away, and this time, he lets me: he must know I’ve a question to ask him.
Why did he do it? Why now?
“To end the war. To kill your body by killing me. He was not…pleased…that I thwarted the Bulgae attack.”
The what?I demand and then listen in abject horror as he informs me of the twins’ ploy to stop the Prophecy. At how he intervened. Disgust curls up in my stomach. This, I did not see. I have missed much.
“Lina, I will not stop fighting for you until you are freed.” His eyes shine. “Gameunjang, little thief. Gameunjang ison our side.”
My eyes widen at the story of his meeting with the Goddess of Luck, absorbing his words with a holy reverence. To know that Gameunjang herself uttered this…encouraged him to stop the Bulgae…that Gameunjang knows that I am not the Prophecy…I press a shaking hand to my mouth. The cold spots cratering my heart begin to warm.
There is a way to stop our deaths. To stop the Prophecy. After years of praying to empty shrines in abandoned temples, a goddess hasfinallyextended her hand to help me. I blink rapidly as tears blur my vision. There is hope, after all.
It has been so long that I forgot what it felt like, this buoyant feeling inside of me. Gameunjang herself believes I am worth saving from this tangled, knotted mess that is my fate. I sway on my feet, suddenly feeling so very light.
Rui’s hands gently come up to steady me. “Lina,” he breathes. “Careful.”
My heart stutters in my chest as his throat bobs. Gone is my hazy, confused resentment of him, snuffed out by the knowledge that Eunbi’s blood is not on his hands. That I was wrong. So wrong.
Instead, that resentment… It has been replaced by something else. Something I felt once before, some tender emotion that somehow has once again taken root within me now and begins to grow once more. I do not know how there is still space for it, yet…
His throat bobs. “Little thief…” It is as if there is more that he wants to say, but then there is a faint scratching sound and he is stiffening, whipping to the window. “What was that?” he demands, and his voice is a soft snarl. Alarm jolts through me, and through the red thread of fate. Damn it. I thought I’d have more time, time to rest, to recuperate, before the Dalgyal Gwisin caught up…
The noise comes again. My eyes quickly find the source of it: two jagged, icy branches scraping against each other. I sag suddenly in relief, going as limp as a puppet cut loose of its strings. I am in no shape to fight. Not yet. I need sleep…
When Rui turns back to me, his face is grim. It is as if a clock hangs over both of our heads when he says, “You cannot let it catch you. And I cannot allow the Prophecy to take Sanyeongto. I must return. We are trying to contain her to the northwestern sector, but she’s nearly breached the north, where the palace lies. If she takes it, Wyusan is lost.”
He covers my hands with his and presses his forehead against mine. A tumult of emotions surges through my blood, more potent than a puff of halji could ever dream of being.
“Rest, little thief. Rest, and then run. Run back to us. Run back tome.”
Our breaths mingle as I nod, as I close my eyes and wonder what we might have been without this war.
Would we be wed as we are now?Trulywed, not just out of our desperate ploy to thwart a Prophecy, but out of love? Would we be laughing? Hurling snowballs at each other on Gyeulcheon’s icy mountains? Or bickering, as we always used to, over anything and everything all at once?
So many possibilities. My throat aches as I step away. I wish to cling to him, but I…I am not worthy of his love. So I move back, even as he again reaches for me.
Be careful, I find myself telling him, and there’s so much more meaning beyond those two little words. Even with Lady Luck standing behind him, this war is ruthless. And it is bloody.
He smiles, hesitant and hopeful. “Always.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
