Page 66 of Reign of the Talon
INTERLUDE
They all feel it as the second kingdom falls, its legs cut out from beneath it.
It is a great rumble throughout the Eastern Continent, as the earth itself is groaning in terror. The towering pines of the Wyusan Wilderness tremble and shake, the icy mountains of the Yaepak Range crumble, avalanches of white roaring their fear. In the Yongwangguk Sea, a weary lobster falters as the sea’s sandy floor trembles, small cracks splitting and growing and stretching.
A small boy in Sunpo wails as the grimy kingdom shakes, as the unstable huts just outside of Fishtown cave in on themselves, as the Boneburrow’s jumaks and pleasure houses shudder. He clings to his appa, who holds him tight with hands sore and calloused from the building of the Goddess of Wrath’s temple.
On the Sanyeongto Battlefield, a terror-stricken Dokkaebi emperor lurches away from Imugi venom as the serpents hiss in celebration, golden eyes shining with triumph.No, he thinks.No, no, no—
A girl trapped within the intricate planes of the mindscape falters on the stairs she climbs, hands flying to her mouth as she feels it, too, that horrible assertion of victory. Trembling, she begins to run faster, taking the stairs three—then four—at a time, but the staircase seems to stretch on forever and ever and ever…
In the hidden pocket-realm of Gyeulcheon, a muzzled advisor staggers in his apothecary, clutching his staff tightly, knowing what has occurred and wishing desperately his poison had worked, his weapon had hit true, and that his emperor was more selfless than he is, than he has potential to be.
Not far away, in the sickbay, a Gumiho chained to a healer gasps in surprise as battle-weary Dokkaebi soldiers appear from Iseung, heads bowed, a victory lost. The healer takes in the injuries, the burned flesh and weeping eyes, yet can barely move as he listens to those horrible words of defeat…
Bonseyo’s emperor chokes in surprise as the ground quakes, the floor roiling. Once he has gotten ahold of himself, he shouts for his guards, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck.
And far above, in the realm of the gods, the moon goddess and her brother exchange glances of discontent.
“The Dokkaebi has failed,” she says, stroking the flaming fur of her Bulgae.
“You know what we must do now,” replies her twin. “We gave him the luxury of another chance. Now he has none.”
Dalnim sighs. “Of course,” she murmurs. “But I will not take any pleasure in his death.”
Haemosu unsheathes his golden sword. “I will,” the sun god whispers, and a shadow darkens his face as he glances down to the burning realm below.
PART THREE
THE FURY OF THE GODS
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The Prophecy
THREE DAYS LATER
“They kept me in the dungeons,” Jeon Eunwoo of Bonseyo says, leaning back in his chair and smiling. The bastard prince is always smiling, but it is not one of cheer. There is something distinctly unhinged about Eunwoo’s smile, and his dark eyes are hungry for something—perhaps even ravenous.
For what, I cannot fathom. Revenge, most likely. Yet sometimes it seems like he longs for somethingmore, something that runs deeper. And it feels like he smiles because he has heard, somewhere, that a smile brings forth whatever he is seeking. An end to his eternal loneliness, perhaps. He is starved for even a sliver of affection, and I will gladly give it to him, if it means his loyalty. A winged prince is a useful tool to keep in one’s pocket.
And this winged prince is Jeon Eunwoo. Bastard son of Emperor Jeon and—if this strange bird boy is to be believed—a winged Seonnyeo, one of the pantheon’s Heavenly Maidens, renowned for their beauty. The emperor was frightened of this son, with the feathered extensions of a raven and sharp, purple eyes—who the maiden left on the palace doorstep before returning to Okhwang. In the Jeon Dynasty, the royal family is known to kill each other for power, and it was clear that even as an infant, Eunwoo was powerful. The emperor would have killed him, yet he feared the Seonnyeo would punish him for his transgression.
I watch Eunwoo warily as he walks his pale fingers across the wooden surface of the long table in the Sanyeongto war room, on which a map of Bonseyo is spread. “They chained me to the ground so I couldn’t fly. I spent most of my twenty years down in that dungeon. I made friends with the rats. Knew all of them by name. Yet above ground, nobody knew of me.”
Eunwoo was allowed to step foot above only for sunlight and for when the emperor knew the maiden would look down for her son, which she did on every eve of his birth, perhaps only out of some distant nostalgia. It did not seem as though she was particularly interested in seeking him out any other time of the year.
They kept him well-fed in there, in preparation for his mother’s annual glimpse. Allowed him outside every week to feel the sunlight on his face. Yet they never let him fly, keeping a heavy chain with an iron ball attached to his ankle. He showed me the pale band of flesh where it used to be.
Used to be, because Jeon Eunwoo apparently escaped from Bonseyo four months ago on the eve of his twentieth birthday. It had been a plan years in the making, and he had just barely pulled it off. In the dungeon, he had trained, using the heavy chain around his ankle to his advantage. He learned how to move with the weight, working his muscles until he was strong enough to learn to fly beneath the towering ceiling, even with the iron ball. No guards reported this to his father; no guards were there. Everybody thought Eunwoo complacent.
They were wrong.
The moment he was unchained and released on his twentieth birthday, Eunwoo killed the three men accompanying him in the royal garden and flew out of Bonseyo as quickly as he could manage. Without the chain, he was faster than he’d ever expected, and even his father’s archers could not shoot him down. Eunwoo flew and flew until he reached a rural Bonseyo village far away from the palace, where he heard of me. Of my war. Of my plan for Bonseyo, which the royal family has still disregarded.
Thirsting for vengeance against the family who imprisoned and abused him, he set off to Sanyeongto. And now he sits before me, tapping the Bonseyo map.
“And because I was in the dungeons for near to twenty years,” Eunwoo says, “I know their secrets. Secrets that could be useful for you.” He eagerly walks his fingers over the sketch of Bonseyo’s palace, which is surrounded by a dense grove of persimmons and apples. Bonseyo is renowned for their fresh produce—fruits and vegetables so sweet and so fresh they’re sold for an impossibly high sum of yeokun in the Sunpo Fingertrap. “Such as how to enter the palace without anyone—even my father’s army—knowing.”
