Page 104 of King Foretold
“No need to worry your little head over it.” He snickers like he’s impressed with his own witty retort. “This has been diverting, but we have much to do tonight.”
With a flick of his fingers, he extinguishes my light orb. My eyes skip around the darkness as an ominous rumble rolls through the cave. The mouth of the cave collapses with a deafening roar, drowning out even the meager moonlight.
I swallow my gasp. Fear is the last thing I can show him.
“If we have so much to do, let’s get on with it,” I quip, even as panic skitters down my spine. Where is he? What is he doing? “I wouldn’t want all your party planning to go to waste.”
“You really are rather amusing.” His laugh rings from every corner of the cave, even from the wall behind me. I can’t hold back my shudder. “It would be a shame to kill you.”
“Too bad I can’t return the compli—”
I dig my nails into my throat, trying to loosen the rope of darkness tightening around it. With my air supply cut off, I can’t hold my fear at bay. My eyes bulge and my legs kick under me as the noose lifts me into the air until the top of my head brushes the high cave roof.
He did something similar outside of Akrotiri ... before he drove me into the ground. I’m not as high in the air, but he could always throw me down harder. I need to shift so I can bear the impact of the fall. My gumiho’s back snapped, but at least I didn’t die.
All thoughts come to a screeching halt as the darkness closes in on me like a physical wall. No, it’s more like thick, wet clay molding against every surface of my body—even my eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. I’m suffocating, not from a lack of oxygen but from a lack of light.
Light is life.
I gag and gurgle as I struggle against the oppressive power, but I can’t move an inch. I am encased in a hungry, unending darkness. I rein in my terror and call forth the light of the Yeoiju. I don’t care if it’s nothing more than a pretty white orb. I need ... warmth.
Light sparks to life on my palm, but it doesn’t stay long enough to warm my skin. The darkness suctions the white light from me like a powerful vacuum.No.I stop summoning the light and hold the Yeoiju tightly inside me. But a different light, the beautiful green of my gi, begins to trickle out of me.
“Do you recognize my true form?” Daeseong’s voice echoes in my head. “Last time, I tried to blanket all of Heaven Lake, but I’ve been humbled by my mistake and learned from it. I realized I only need to swallowyouto consume your light.”
With my ears muffled by the dark, my pounding heart echoes deafeningly through my head, too loudly for me to think. My life force continues to leave my body, turning oily, oozing, and black in Daeseong’s embrace. Tears well in my eyes, but they can’t fall past the impermeable darkness that erases even the memory of light.
“No.” The single word bursts out through my mind.
“How are you ... speaking?” The darkness quivers around me in shock. “No matter. Soon you will not have much to say, telepathically or not. With every beat of your heart—with every life-giving pulse—you are surrendering your life to me. Do you want to live, little fox? Then give me the Yeoiju.”
No,I say into his mind.I am not giving you a fucking thing.
It isn’t enough to conjure a measly little orb. I need to call forth the living, breathing light that sent Daeseong running in fear. I have to summon the white light that nearly sucked the life out of me. If I’m going to have my gi siphoned out of me either way, I’d much rather give my life force to my Yeoiju than let the darkness have any part of me. My only wish is to take the dark mudang with me.
I stop listening to the frantic beating of my heart. I turn my back on the terror sinking its claws into me. I listen for the song of the Yeoiju at the core of my being. It starts as a pinprick of light, sound, and warmth. I don’t know if I’m seeing, hearing, or feeling it—maybe all three—but it’sthere.
My body spasms in sudden panic. I can’t control this power in my human form. But just as fast, I quiet, because my gumiho isn’t strong enough to control it either. Nothing is strong enough, and my heart sings at the thought. My Yeoiju will defeat Daeseong. His darkness can’t withstand my light.
I . . . let go.
The pinprick expands inside me, my gi flowing like a river into the orb. The light beams out of my chest, growing ever brighter. The tips of my fingers prickle as they evanesce. I realize the Yeoiju isn’t suckingthe life out of me like Daeseong’s darkness was. My body isn’t withering into an empty husk. It’sevolving. I am becoming the light of the Yeoiju.
“S ... stop,” the dark mudang screeches. “You can’t control the Yeoiju’s power. Y ... you will destroy this entire island, you evil, selfish girl.”
I flinch and falter, but the Yeoiju doesn’t. The light spills out of my eyes, mouth, nose, and ears, dissolving the darkness that was suffocating me. My arms and legs burst wide like a starfish as my chest thrusts forward, my back arching into a bow. The light pierces the darkness in a hundred different places, like starlight through the blanket of night, and Daeseong’s agonized scream rings out.
With a menacing boom, the cave crumbles around us in a rain of boulders and jagged rocks and plummets into the caldera, tearing up the calm waters. But Daeseong and I, darkness and light, remain untouched, hovering in the air—weightless, formless ... all encompassing.
The Yeoiju makes a sorrowful sound inside me.
“It’s ... okay. It doesn’t h ... hurt,” I reassure it. “You can take the rest of me. We have to stop the Amheuk.”
It keens again as my thoughts turn fuzzy around the edges.
There is another way. You are not alone. You must reach beyond you.
I smile sleepily. The Yeoiju sounds just like me.
