Chapter Forty-One Sunny
Chapter Forty-One
Sunny
Ethan spoons me from behind and pulls the comforter over us when the dreaded knock comes. He groans and buries his face against my neck. He doesn’t seem surprised, though. Like me, he expected this to happen.
At least I got to make him officially and irrevocably mine.
“I am so sorry,” Hailey yelps from outside. “But we couldn’t buy you as much time as we wanted.”
“That’s okay.” I speak loudly enough to be heard through the hanji-pasted doors. “We’ll be right out.”
“I-I’ll go wait in the audience hall,” she says. “I’m leaving some clothes out here for both of you. Just . . . hurry.”
Ethan and I dress in the mortal clothes that Hailey left for us—me in my favorite all-black ensemble of a fitted top and jeans, and him in a white T-shirt and blue jeans. But even with the Shin’gwangdo strapped low on my waist, I feel far from prepared for an audience with the gods.
We rush into the audience hall, only to be greeted by stifling silence. And the gravity of the situation slams back into me with the force of a wrecking ball.
What did it cost our friends to buy us that hour?
Taeyoung, Gyun, Hailey, and Jihun stand in one cluster, and the rest of our group stands in another. Everyone looks weary and exhausted. I narrow my eyes in suspicion and turn my magic gi goggles on them.
Their life forces . . .
“What have you done?” I breathe.
“We reinforced the boundaries of the Kingdom of Sky,” Jihun says matter-of-factly, as though they didn’t nearly deplete their gi doing it.
I bite my cheeks to stop myself from berating every one of them, because . . . a small part of me knew what it meant for them to buy us time. I didn’t realize they would sacrifice so much, but I knew there would be sacrifice. I glance at Ethan, who stands silently at my side, his expression grim.
Both of us knew.
Still, we let them do it. We couldn’t refuse their heartfelt gift, so selflessly given. And we selfishly wanted that one moment to carry with us, no matter what lies ahead.
I will make it up to them. I will protect them with my life.
“What happened while we were . . . gone?” I ask, even as guilt twists my stomach. Something must’ve happened to cut our time short.
“The Amheuk is stirring,” Taeyoung answers. “It is still daylight, but darkness is seeping into the Kingdom of Sky.”
“Shit.” I grab my forehead, and Ethan smooths his hand down my back. I meet his gaze and nod. “That’s okay. We got this.”
I turn to the Judge of Tenth Hell, the only one with his gi intact. The rest of our friends must have stopped him from contributing his life force—he wouldn’t have sat out by choice—because he needs his full strength to teleport us on our . . . quest.
Our quest to find the sleeping gods so I can absorb their gi. I swallow the urge to laugh, as trepidation tightens my scalp. My instinct screams at me to run, but Minju said this was the only way. I can’t let my friends down.
“So what’s the weather like in purgatory?” I quip with false bravado. “I want to make sure I pack the right stuff.”
The tension breaks in the room when Hailey bursts into laughter. And Gyun’s gaze shoots toward her and stays there. She looks gorgeous in a pair of black yoga pants and a pale-pink T-shirt, so sheer that it hints at the black sports bra she’s wearing underneath.
“You will feel neither too cold nor too hot,” the judge says, reluctantly glancing away from Hailey. “You won’t feel much at all. Purgatory is governed by its own unsettling rules.”
“That sounds fun.” I scowl at him for tanking the morale in the room an extra notch. “Not sinister at all.”
“It is not particularly sinister either.” Gyun shrugs his big shoulders, his tailored suit jacket shifting fluidly with his motion. “You will see when we get there.”
While I mutter grumpily under my breath where the judge can shove his enigmatic reply, the Queen of Sky, Bora, Minju, Jaeseok, and Cheyun join us.
“When do we leave?” Ethan asks.
“Soon,” Jihun says grimly, even for him. “Every shinbiin willing and ready to fight has been dispatched to protect the perimeter of the Kingdom of Sky. But once the Amheuk forces its way inside, we won’t be able to hold it off for long.”
“We’ll be back in time,” I assure him—a bold statement, considering I have no idea what awaits us in purgatory. But in for a penny, in for a pound, and all that. “With reinforcements.”
“Sunny.” Minju steps hesitantly to my side and whispers, “There is more you need to know.”
“Of course there is.” I force a wry chuckle. “I don’t suppose this can wait . . .”
“No, I must tell you before you leave,” she insists, then turns to the others. “I need to borrow Sunny for five minutes. We will not be long.”
Too many pairs of eyes turn toward us, and I’m suddenly desperate for air.
“I guess we’re doing this now.” With a resigned sigh, I tuck her hand in the crook of my elbow and head toward the doors. “Let’s talk outside.”
Ethan raises his head from his conversation with Taeyoung, and I mouth, Be right back.
We stroll to the pond in the courtyard in subdued silence. I stare out at the water, trying to give Minju time to work up the courage to tell me whatever it is she needs to tell me. But my heart trips and stumbles in my chest, and my stomach wraps itself into an anxious knot.
“Let me guess,” I blurt. How bad can it be? “If I absorb the life force of the gods, I might die?”
“Yes.” Minju flaps her hand like that’s a foregone conclusion. “But it can be so much worse.”
“So much . . . worse?” I gulp. Worse than dying?
“No mortal being, even one nearly immortal, can absorb the gi of a god and survive.” The historian taps her chin in full nerd mode. She doesn’t realize she’s telling me—her dear friend—that I’m for sure going to die. “Never mind the gi of all four gods.”
“Interesting.” I copy her chin tapping, but she doesn’t even catch my teasing. Well, that’s no fun. I can’t even rely on my snark to distract me from the blood-draining sense of doom. “But that just means I’ll die, like we already discussed. What do you mean it can be so much worse?”
“The thing is you might not die,” she continues, making that sound like a bad thing. “At least, not until you destroy the worlds.”
“Until I do what?” My knees go weak.
“Because of the Yeoiju, you might be the one mortal being in all the worlds who can absorb the gi of the four gods.” She paces back and forth, gesturing with her hands. “But controlling such power is an entirely different matter. And if you lose control . . .”
My breath comes in rough pants. Oh gods. I need to know, but I don’t want to know.
Minju stops pacing and meets my eyes, finally seeing me. “Oh, Sunny.”
“Tell me.” I dig my nails into my palms, clenching my back teeth.
“You might burn down the Realm of Four Kingdoms,” she whispers, “and the Mortal Realm. You will be . . . unstoppable.”
Now I understand what can be worse than dying. That. Stopping the Amheuk will be meaningless if I bring about the end of the worlds.
And everything comes full circle.
“I want to hear the prophecy of the End of Days,” I rasp.
“Prophecies don’t have to come true—”
“What does it say?” She backs away at my tone, and I bite my lip. Get your shit together, Sunny. “I’m sorry, Minju. Please tell me. I need to know.”
My friend takes a shuddering breath and recites:
Darkness takes its final breath,
Double dragons reunite.
Fierce shall jade and silver burn,
The truth of tears and blood unchained.
Blinding sorrow extinguish dreams,
Hope shines forth, the unveiled pearl.
The true heart of the righteous shall
Shatter the light that reveals all paths.
Ethan and I are the double dragons. We were both born in the year of the dragon—one hundred and eight years apart. And by breaking his jade necklace, he unchained the truth of his mother’s blood and tears, along with his silver-and-green magic.
The Yeoiju, of course, is the unveiled pearl.
I bitched and moaned about being the last hope to save the worlds, but a secret part of me was .
. . proud. I always feared that I was the bad guy, but the Yeoiju gave me hope that I could be the good guy after all—the good guy who saved the whole freaking world.
But I had it all wrong, didn’t I?
“And I presume ‘the righteous’ in the final verse refers to Ethan?” I ask woodenly, even though I already know the answer.
“I-I believe so.” Minju’s chin trembles as tears rain down her cheeks.
I know so because I remember the last verse of the prophecy of the King Foretold:
Brave is the King who discerns,
Path of truth from path of shame.
When Ethan broke the stone of tears, his mother’s memory revealed the prophecy of the End of Days to him.
That’s why he told me at Heaven Lake that he is the one destined to kill me.
Even then, he understood who he was—the righteous king who discerns the path of truth.
But he didn’t understand why he has to kill me.
I do, though.
When the time comes, he and his true heart will know what to do. He will kill me before I burn down the Realm of Four Kingdoms and the Mortal Realm. He will understand that I would rather die than become the destroyer of the worlds—the death of everyone I love.
“Stop being a crybaby, Minju.” I wipe away her tears with the pads of my thumbs. “I know what must be done. Everything will be okay.”
Because I understand now.
My destiny is to become the End of Days. And Ethan is meant to be my salvation.