Chapter Five Sunny
Chapter Five
Sunny
“Not so mighty now, are you?” My nose is an inch away from Blondie’s as I press my sword against his throat. His Adam’s apple bobs, and a single drop of blood wells on his pasty skin and rolls down his toothpick neck. “Careful there. You might hurt yourself.”
A brave soul at one end of the semicircle begins murmuring under her breath. I glance down at the hands curled at her sides. It’s subtle, but she is tapping the tips of her fingers on the pads of her thumbs as though counting something in her head. Ooh, sneaky. She’s incanting a spell.
“Nuh-uh,” I chide with indulgent annoyance and dig the Shin’gwangdo deeper into their leader’s throat.
Blood slides down the blade of my sword, pooling above the hilt.
“No using magic that doesn’t belong to you.
Obviously, that goes for all you psychopaths.
Or else your leader will die before you can utter another syllable. ”
“Sunny,” Minju gasps. “This isn’t you.”
“I hate to break it to you, my friend”—my smile takes on a desperate edge—“but this is exactly who I am. The sooner you accept that, the better.”
I can hasten the process by sharing that I bewitched Daeseong to confirm he was my father. I can tell her I’m capable of violating her in a terrifying way if it served my needs. Then . . . why don’t I?
I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want to lose my friends.
“I can’t move,” the sneaky mudang suddenly yelps. The other shamans mimic her squirming and join in her panicked cries. “Why can’t I move?”
Even Blondie strains against the invisible binds, careful not to jostle his head, and pales even more, until he resembles nonfat milk. Keeping my blade firmly against his throat, I aim an accusatory glare at Captain Seo.
“Still tempted to slaughter the lot?” The captain pierces me with a steely glance. She thinks I’m not far enough gone to kill helpless humans.
I’m not so sure about that.
I redirect my gaze to the fire-slinging mudang.
He boasted about torturing a child to steal his elemental fire magic.
He would’ve killed Draco without hesitation in Santorini if he’d had the chance.
Rage burns in my stomach and rises up my throat, but I hiss out a long breath as the Shin’gwangdo trembles in my hand.
If I slit his throat, there will be no going back for me. Who am I kidding? It’s probably already too late. But do I want to seal the deal for the fleeting satisfaction of ending this coward? Am I willing to erase even a shadow of hope?
I bare my teeth at the piece of trash in a savage snarl, and his khaki pants grow dark around his crotch. Gods, he’s pathetic. My anger drains out of me. He makes me sick, but his irritating existence means nothing to me in the grand scheme of things.
“You’re not worth it.” I step back from him, withdrawing my sword, and glare at Captain Seo. “Happy now?”
She grunts. “What exactly about this situation do you think makes me happy?”
“Nothing.” I’ll give her that. “But I think I found a silver lining.”
I don’t know how. I just know.
Blondie flinches when I face him again, and I drawl, “You have something that doesn’t belong to you, thief.”
I close my eyes and summon a small white orb on my palm.
A shuddering sigh escapes past my lips. The warmth of the white light soothes all the jagged edges of my shattered soul.
The Yeoiju hums deep inside me. It doesn’t hate me.
It didn’t leave me. Relief shivers through my body.
I open my eyes, revealing the white fire I can feel burning in them.
“What are you doing, beast?” The corrupt mudang struggles against the captain’s invisible binds.
I hold out my hand, and the light of the Yeoiju floats between us, pulsating and glowing bright. I call to the stolen elemental magic—a magic born of the Cheon’gwang—trapped inside the thief, suffocating in darkness.
The magic swirls to the surface of his body in tendrils of red gi, pooling at his torso, then surges out of his chest in a stream of fire. The mudang screams in outrage, thrashing against the binds, and a blood vessel bursts in his eye.
“It’s my magic. It’s mine,” he shrieks, face contorting with outrage. “You can’t take it. How are you doing this?”
The white orb expands, embracing the fire magic and its life force, and my heart beats in rhythm with it. The magic once belonged to a young girl, and I can feel the sorrow in her lingering life force.
“You are free,” I rasp past a tight throat. In a burst of white light, the elemental magic and the poor girl’s gi are released back to nature. “Be at peace.”
I reabsorb the light of the Yeoiju and bank the white fire from my eyes. My friends stare at me, their faces frozen in shock—closer to delight for the historian. I clear my throat, and Minju clacks her mouth shut.
“We need to leave.” She grabs the captain and me by our sleeves and drags us toward the door.
“How about if you take the captain and leave?” I tug my arm out of her hold. “I had no trouble staying hidden until you two came along.”
“Are you sure about that?” Captain Seo digs her heels in, and Minju drops her arm with a sigh. “It only took a day for us to find you, and the Jaenanpa had to have been close by to drop in on us like this.”
“Now that you have unleashed the Yeoiju, your magic is too powerful to hide.” Minju lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You are not safe on your own. The Jaenanpa won’t stop until they have your magic.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I say gruffly, not shaking her hand off for some reason.
“We’re more worried for the Jaenanpa,” Captain Seo deadpans. “They have no idea who they’re dealing with.”
“Stop being funny.” I scowl. “I am dangerously close to liking you.”
I scrub my hands up and down my face, then shake my head like a dog drying its fur. I wish I had more margarita. Too bad I can’t hide from reality forever, spewing pretty rainbow vomit.
I can’t make myself regret freeing the girl’s magic, but wielding my Yeoiju right now might not have been the wisest move. I just sent out a beacon to all the Jaenanpa and beings of the Shingae alike, broadcasting my location. More importantly, I’ve put my friends in danger with my recklessness.
Getting blissfully drunk can no longer be my primary objective. I need to keep Minju and Captain Seo alive. My inner turmoil can fucking wait its turn.
Time to flex my avoidance muscles with a side of compartmentalization.
“Let’s go.” I head out the door. “We have a plane to catch.”
We could have flown anywhere. Nothing muddles magic like technology, and an airplane is a shit ton of technology. The destination doesn’t matter as long as we’re airborne in a hunk of human-created metal.
But we are flying to Korea. Are my seraphim companions planning to drag me back to the Realm of Four Kingdoms from there?
To be fair, they would never drag me anywhere.
They would probably ask me nicely. Assholes.
It doesn’t matter. I am focused solely on keeping them alive.
I can’t think about anything beyond that without frying my brain.
I don’t even let myself regret leaving Ford without so much as a see you later.
It’s probably for the best I disappeared on him.
I might already have put him in danger. I can’t give the Jaenanpa any more reasons to connect him to me.
I hope those thieving mudangs are too preoccupied with stealing my powers to concern themselves with a human bartender.
You’re thinking. Stop it.
I cross my arms and sulk—salty that I didn’t get the solo window seat. While it has the unfortunate side effect of making me look like a petulant child, glomming on to superficial feelings is much safer than behaving like a grown-up with an ever-increasing load of emotional baggage.
Captain Seo insisted we share the two seats in the middle row—first class, courtesy of the Suhoshin black card—because she continues to believe I am a flight risk.
I roll my eyes for the tenth time. There is nowhere to run on an airplane—even a huge one like the Boeing 747—especially while it’s flying thirty thousand feet above sea level.
Is she afraid I’ll lock myself in one of the tiny bathrooms?
Minju, the occupant of the coveted window seat, has her nose buried in a romance novel she bought at the airport bookstore. She hasn’t looked outside her window once, but I can’t work up the resentment to begrudge her the seat.
The historian is anxious to return to her tomes and scrolls in the Kingdom of Sky.
She believes she can find a way to increase our chances of defeating the Amheuk, besides just throwing me at it.
My Yeoiju and the Shin’gwangdo might be our best bet against the eternal darkness, but they won’t be enough.
I won’t be enough.
My avoidance muscles flex to shield me from further thoughts on . . . that. Anyway, I feel for Minju. Actively waiting for something is exhausting, nerve racking, and bone-achingly tedious. I’m glad she managed to lose herself in a book.
I catch a glimmer of metal from the corner of my eyes as Captain Seo slips out a shallow copper bowl from one of her dungaree pockets.
Apparently, the captain and Minju moon shifted to Las Vegas, wearing a dobok and a hanbok, respectively.
And they swiped their current outfits from a clothesline behind a trailer home on the outskirts of town to “blend in.”
I didn’t point out that neither attire helps them blend in. In her tiny white dress, Minju looks like an angel made for sin. And Captain Seo has no business looking that hot in freaking dungarees. Rather than blending in, the two of them attract more hungry eyes than is good for us.
Captain Seo sighs down at the bowl in her hands.
“What is that?” I ask.
“My cell phone,” she answers glumly.
“Fine, don’t tell me.” I sniff, leaning into my spoiled-brat era. I play my role so well that I want to smack me on the back of my head. “I don’t really want to know anyway.”
“It is a small, sturdy bowl I can carry around.” With another sigh, the captain tucks it back into her pocket. “It’s difficult to communicate between the realms, but it is impossible without the moon’s reflection.”
“Like for moon shifting?” I cock my head to the side.
“To an extent, yes.” She nods. “But when you moon shift, you leave the bowl behind. With a message, you don’t shift away from it.”
“The bowl is reusable, and you can carry it around.” I grin, perking up a little. “Like a cell phone.”
“Yes.” The captain huffs a frustrated breath. “An incredibly inconvenient, unreliable cell phone.”
Grown-up Sunny pokes her head out before I can stop her. “Did you tell Ethan you found me?”
“No.” Captain Seo rubs her temples, not bothering to deny my assumption. Of course he sent her. She wouldn’t have left his side unless he pulled rank on her. “We were rather busy with the Jaenanpa, weren’t we?”
I don’t even let myself attempt to decipher my reaction to her answer. That would be the opposite of focusing on surface emotions. It’s bad enough I let myself think about him . . . even for a second. Ethan. My head buzzes and vibrates like a jack-in-the-box ready to pop.
“I’m hungry,” I blurt, louder than necessary.
“I’m glad to hear you brought your appetite.” The flight attendant chuckles, handing me an in-flight menu.
I blink in surprise as I accept the menu. He has impeccable timing, and I consider hugging him. Thank you for saving me from grown-up Sunny. But I settle for giving him a dazzling smile.
Only thanks to her lightning-fast reflexes, Captain Seo narrowly escapes being impaled in the eye by the sharp corner of a first-class menu. Pressing back into her seat, she gingerly takes her menu from the dazed flight attendant.
I turn off my smile, regretting my uncharacteristic behavior. And after a bumbling apology at the captain, the poor man makes his way down the aisle, glancing back at me every two steps.
“You should be careful where you flash that thing.” Captain Seo’s lips curl in wry amusement.
Her familiar teasing sends unwelcome warmth through me—warmth I mentally shove away. I don’t want our friendship to thaw out my numb dissociation. I stare a hole into my menu and resolutely ignore her. But her considering gaze makes the side of my face prickle and itch.
I clench my jaw until my back teeth creak in protest. She wants to figure out what’s wrong with me? Fine. Call me Lumière—because she can be my guest.
I sure as hell won’t risk a catastrophic meltdown to figure it out myself, especially since there is no fixing me.