Page 1 of King Foretold
Chapter One
I sit up with a gasp and scramble for my sword. My hand wraps around the hilt of my hwando, and I sag on my sleeping mat, my shoulders dropping from my ears. I glance longingly at my pillow, but I’ll never be able to make the morning roll call if I give in to the temptation. The timid light of dawn is already seeping in through the hanji-pasted windows, staining the near-opaque paper a sweet coral.
Sweet coral? Fantastic. I’m a poet now.The timid light of dawnis particularly poignant.
With a snarl curling my upper lip, I kick away my rumpled comforter. But I cringe and freeze when my roommate, Hana, stirs across the room. Not wanting to rob her of a good hour of sleep, I slow my movements and soundlessly extricate myself from my sleeping mat.
I fix the bedding and smooth my hands over the silk duvet to make sure not a single wrinkle remains. In the Kingdom of Sky, even a lowly suhoshin cadet gets silk bedding as long as everything remains immaculate—sharp, wrinkle-free, and spotless.
I slip off my pajamas, fold them neatly, and place them at the foot of the sleeping mat before I change into a fitted dobok, the official uniform of the soon-to-be-dead cadets. With the annual trial on Lunar New Year taking out three-quarters of the cadets, they have better odds at becoming corpses than suhoshins.
I, of course, have no intention ofeverbecoming a high-and-mighty suhoshin. The defining characteristic of the guardians of the Shingaeis that they all have sticks up their asses. I would rather avoid that discomfort.
Well, that’s not entirely fair. Hailey and Jaeseok are chill for suhoshins. I might even go so far as to say they’re cool. The jury is still out on Minju, a historian of the Order of the Suhoshin, since she did stab me in the chest. Even though she only did it to confirm I possessed the Yeoiju and healed me immediately after, I get a touch jumpy when she comes within arm’s reach of me.
As for Jihun, he definitely has a stick up his fine ass. I make ayuckface and shut down my thoughts on the caliber of the suhoshin captain’s ass.
I briskly braid my hair down my back and secure it with a scrunchie Hailey brought from the Mortal Realm. She has no ideawhereexactly—the jeoseungsaja confuses cities with states and states with countries.
You would think having a good handle on geography would be a prerequisite for someone born as a grim reaper.What do you mean you’re not Cindy from Rome? Ohhh. You’re Cindy from Rome,Georgia. My bad.Fortunately for everyone, Hailey became a suhoshin instead of someone responsible for harvesting the dead.
I scrub a hand down my face. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Or the sleeping mat. I’m in a mood—even for me. I wholly attribute it to the fact that I’ve been a sappy idiot ever since I fell in love with Ethan.
Because, come on,sweet coral? I irritate the hell out of myself. And I’m ashamed of taking it out on Hailey with my mean thoughts. I typically find her difficulty with geography a great source of entertainment, not something to snark about.
The sooner I fall out of love with the Prince of Mountains, the better. For both our sakes. My heart ... I clench my fist, ready to punch my wayward brain. My stomach—notmy heart—aches. I must be hungry. I execute a blasé shrug to perfection with no one around to witness it. Maybe I developed acid reflux in my old age. Iamonehundred and thirty-two. But since I stopped aging at eighteen, I might not be able to play the old-age card.
At any rate, the ache in the vicinity of my chest cannot have anything to do with love. I already decided I can never be with Ethan, so my heart ... or stomach ... or whatever is hurting had better get its shit together.
With my boots in my hands, I skulk out of my room, slide the latticed door closed behind me, and head down the hallway toward the training courtyard. The cadet barracks is a hanok, a traditional single-story building with a stone-tiled roof and curved eaves, inside the walled parameters of the Suhoshin headquarters.
The other hanok structures in the sprawling property include an extensive library, offices and meeting rooms, living quarters, and the Donggul, where the Suhoshin trial is held. I have no idea why the shadowy building butting against the jewel-toned forest got nicknamed “the Cave,” and I want to keep it that way.
The Donggul gives me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe because only one in four cadets comes out of that building alive. The creepy factor is exponentially exacerbated by the fact that the ones whodomake it out never breathe a word about what lies inside. And whenever anyone even utters the wordDonggul, the faces of the new suhoshins spasm uncontrollably. Some suhoshins actually curl into a fetal position on the ground, rocking back and forth. It’s not a pretty sight.
Anyway, there’s no point thinking about the Donggul, especially since I don’t ever plan on darkening its doorway. I hope to be far, far away from the Kingdom of Sky and the Realm of Four Kingdoms by the time the trial rolls around.
I just have to master the Yeoiju inside me before the Lunar New Year—and destroy the corrupt mudang resurrected by the Amheuk, an ancient force of darkness. I mean, how hard can it be?
“Don’t answer that,” I mutter to myself, stepping out to the main hall, which opens up to the courtyard.
A part of me wishes Daeseong won’t emerge from the depths of Heaven Lake for a long, long time—even if it means I have to participate in the trial. At least I have a 25 percent chance of surviving the Suhoshin trial. My odds of defeating the demented shaman are a big fat zero at this point.
We are nowhere close to forging the sword of light, and my attempts to wield the Yeoiju, our only other weapon against Daeseong, have been a study in abject humiliation.
At least no one but sweet and patient Minju, my private magic tutor, gets to witness my shame. She insists on secrecy to protect the Yeoiju, the most powerful and coveted magical item in the realms, and me, its reluctant vessel. Even Jihun, Hailey, and Jaeseok aren’t allowed to observe my clandestine lessons.
The only one in our group Minju hasn’t explicitly banned is Ethan—probably because he’s the King Foretold, the one prophesized to unify the Realm of Four Kingdoms and all that. Or it might be because he hasn’t asked to watch my progress like the rest of my friends. I apparently have those now.
Ethan used to be one of them and could’ve been so much more ... but he’s been keeping a wide berth from me ever since we left Las Vegas and the Mortal Realm. Can I blame him, though? I threw his beautiful love back in his beautiful face. Maybe he’s not even my friend anymore.Shit.My stupid stomach hurts again.
The only saving grace in this entire situation is that the cadet dobok is black and much cooler than the kind eight-year-olds wear to their taekwondo lessons. Hanbok dresses dyed in the colors of the sunset are undeniably beautiful, but I’ll take this black dobok any day. What can I say? Black is my color. It never fails to brighten my day.
I jog down the three stone steps leading to the training yard and drop my boots on the dirt ground. I grin as I pull them on because they happen to be black as well. I find joy in the little things. Laughter barks out of me. I am so full of it.
I walk out to the vast yard, swinging my arms back and forth to wake up my body. The suhoshin instructors are merciless, so I warm up with some deep stretches. After the first day of training, I couldn’t lift my spoon to eat my gukbap because I hurteverywhere.
Three weeks into the boot camp from hell, I’m in better shape than ever, but that doesn’t mean a day of training won’t kick my ass. Contorting myself into a pretzel now ensures that I’ll be able to limp, not crawl, to my room later.
