Page 109 of King Foretold
I grab the broken end of a shaft and whimper as agony sears my palm. I grit my teeth and pull out an arrow. Cold sweat beads on my forehead and drenches my back, but I rip the rest of the arrows out in quick succession.
Blood soaks through the front of my tank top, making the fabric cling to my chest. My wounds are slow to heal as well, but I can’t make myself care.Draco.I stagger to my feet and rush toward the patchwork mudang, the sword of light thrust forward.
“Enough,” Daeseong says with eerie calm before the night is cloaked black. His voice worms into my mind again as the darkness surrounds me. “I have had enough of you, gumiho.”
I tighten my grip on the hilt of my sword before I’m fully trapped. Iwillfight this. Draco didnotdie for nothing. Even so, despair seeps into my soul as darkness surrounds me. The only way I know how to fight this is to unleash my Yeoiju—to become the light. But I promised them I wouldn’t die.
I’ll try, Draco.
I summon the white light to my hand. My life force swirls inside me in a flurry of activity as though it’s preparing to pour out of me at the first opportunity. I hold my gi in check and allow only a trickle to feed the light. The darkness will absorb the light if it’s too small, but the Yeoiju will drain me if it grows too large.
You are not alone.
Why do I keep thinking that? I already know. No matter how alone I sometimes feel, Ethan and my friends will always have my back. They love me as I love them. So why?
“Are you trying that trick again, little fox?” Daeseong’s voice slithers through my mind, cold and oily. “There is no need for you to die, you know. Just give me the Yeoiju. Let me absorb it from you ... little by little. If you stop resisting, I can take the power from you without killing you.”
I focus my bleary gaze on him as his lie worms its way into my mind. The Yeoiju has been nothing but a burden to me. If I didn’t have the Yeoiju, my mother wouldn’t have died protecting me. I never would have run from my home. I never would have lived without roots, alone and scared ... always so scared. It ruined everything, and it could ruin everything again.
If I didn’t possess the Yeoiju, it wouldn’t have fallen on me to kill Daeseong and to stop the coming of the Amheuk. I wouldn’t have had to put my life on the line again and again. And if I didn’t possess the Yeoiju, Ethan wouldn’t have to fulfill the prophecy. He would have no reason to kill me. We could love freely without the shadow of the prophecy dogging us, tainting our happiness.
“Think, little fox. You are a clever thing,” the dark mudang entices. “Give me the Yeoiju and return to the arms of the King Foretold.”
Ethan. I love you so much.
“No,” I snarl, my will pulsating into the darkness. Even if I survive somehow, my life would be forfeit as long as Daeseong lives. If he ushers the Amheuk into the worlds, life itself will cease to exist.
Despair will not trick me into relinquishing hope.
My body spasms and twists. I didn’t even realize I was breathing, but my lungs seize in abrupt panic. The light is expanding too fast. My gi rushes toward it like water past a crumbling dam. I ... I can’t stop it. The darkness tightens around me and crushes my chest with unspeakable force, trying to stop the light from exploding out of me.
Pain spears through me—the light pulling to arch my back, the dark pushing against it. Agony builds at the bottom of my spine, and I feel as though I’ll snap in two. I whimper, but the light and the darkness swallow the sound like I don’t exist. And I’m tempted to let them erase me. I’m tired. I don’t want to fight anymore.
You must reach beyond you.
I didnotjust think that. That ... wasn’tmythought.
But understanding spreads through me as warm and serene as the white light. The Yeoiju is not merely a part of me. Itisme. It can’t erase me without erasing itself. It cannot exist without me because we are one and the same.
How did I forget? Or maybe I just didn’t truly believe it until now.
I am not alone.
Did I already know this? A memory flickers in the back of my mind—the cold void, the warm light—but it vanishes too quickly for me to catch it.
I focus all my energy on the nature surrounding me, and I see past the darkness. The stunning life forces of Mountains, Water, Sky, and Underworld—green, blue, silver, and red—radiate around me. The gi born of the Cheon’gwang undulate in the night, their dance more haunting and beautiful than the brightest aurora.
The Yeoiju and I, we need your help.My mind reaches out to the gi around me—to life itself.Help us defeat the darkness.
My eyes widen in astonishment. I understand now. The green of Mountains, the blue of Water, the silver of Sky, and the red of Underworld swirl together and converge until there is only one life force—the white gi.
The light inside me—the power of the Yeoiju—is the four life forces united as one.
The Yeoiju isn’t a mere gift of the Cheon’gwang. Itisthe true light.
“Wh ... what are you doing? What are youdoing, beast?” Daeseong screeches as the light surrounds us. “You cannot defeat the powers of the Amheuk.”
The white gi rushes into me, and the world around me snaps into clarity. It fills me with strength, and I summon the light of the Yeoiju to my hand with absolute control—with absolute faith. The light doesn’t seek to explode from me, draining me, because I am not alone. I am strong. Both my gumiho and I. We are safe.
