I stop falling a hand’s width away from the ground, my scream hitching in my throat. What’s happening? The puffs of my ragged breath create dust whorls on the rocky surface as I float, suspended in the air. I don’t move a muscle. I don’t make a sound.
“You would have died,” the lone cypress says, “and you still didn’t change. You would rather die than accept your destiny?”
The Seonangshin just confirmed that Icandie. It’s reassuring to finally know for sure. But yes, I was willing to die rather than take my gumiho form. Fuck destiny. Besides, what does my choice of going furry or not have to do with my destiny? Who says selling shit at a casino in a tiny, hideous dress isn’t my destiny?
Of course I say none of this out loud. I don’t dare speak before I pay proper respects to the young cypress. And she already knows my answer anyway. I inhale and exhale carefully through my nose. I’m a little emotional—I almost died, for fuck’s sake—and I’m scared shitless to be in the presence of the Seonangshin.
While I calm myself down, she spins me in the air and places me feetfirst on solid ground. My knees buckle when she releases me from her hold, but I manage not to fall. Once I feel steady enough, I unhook the backpack from my arms with a wince and pull out the bottle of Johnnie Walker.
I avoided doing so until now, but I raise my eyes to face the lone cypress. Tall, sinewy, and jagged. Her harsh beauty takes my breath away, and the powerful pulse of her gi compels me to kneel. With my eyes downcast once more, I pour the entire bottle of whiskey on the edges of her roots and pay my respects, bowing with my forehead pressed to the ground.
“Rise, my child.” The young cypress speaks through the wind and the waves.
I lift my head off the ground, but I stay kneeling and keep my gaze glued to the ground. I don’t want to take any chances and offend the god of Mountains. With my voice wavering, I say in rusty Korean, “Sacred One, I seek your guidance.”
“You have hidden from us, but we never lost sight of you,” she intones.
My eyes shoot up to the lone cypress in alarm. “I never imagined I could hide from the Seonangshin.”
“We witnessed the cruelty of your fate and your suffering, but turning your back on your destiny will bring you no peace.”
“It is not peace I seek. I don’t deserve it. You must know what I’ve done.” My voice breaks as hot tears trail down my cheeks. I wipe a hand across my face and stare down at the moisture. The last time I wept, I was on a boat headed for America. “You showed me too much mercy in saving my life just now.”
“There is much you do not know. But you will know in time,” the Seonangshin says. “For now, know that your old enemy has risen.”
“Ris ... risen? Daeseong is dead. I extinguished his life force.” I clench my fists on my lap and fight against the tidal wave of panic building inside me. “There can be no resurrection. That is the law of the Shingae.”
“Do not presume to explain the law of the Shingae to me.” Thunder booms in the dark sky, and I bow my head again. “Daeseong has returned. Even we could not interfere with his resurrection, because he has drawn from the powers of the Amheuk.”
“The Amheuk?” I gasp, the hair on the back of my neck standing. The Amheuk—a force of true darkness—was defeated toendthe Endless War and was banished to the edge of the worlds. How can this be possible? “But the price ... so much blood has to be shed. How could he pay that from the beyond?”
“His followers,” she answers.
None of this makes sense.
Daeseong was once a scholar driven by his quest for knowledge. When he discovered the existence of the Shingae, his quest was twisted by an insatiable hunger for magic, becoming something sinister and bloodthirsty. He became a powerful dark mudang and joined the Jaenanpa. He then led the faction in a rampage against the Shingae. But Daeseong’s vision became too horrific even for the Jaenanpa. They cut him out of their ranks, and only the most loyal of his followers stayed with him.
“But how?” I whisper.
I killed the last of his followers when they came after my mother and me. But it had been too late.Ihad been too late. The memories of my past breach my defensive walls and flood my mind until I’m drowning.
No traces of the friendly, smiling villagers remained as they formed a violent, angry mob—their eyes slashes of hatred, their mouths black pits of rage. The stones they threw cut and bruised us.
It was when we were cornered against the sheer drop of a cliff that Daeseong stepped forward. He withdrew a strip of paper from his sleeves. It was a bujeok—a talisman. I couldn’t make out what it said, but my mother stepped in front of me and transformed just as the paper combusted on Daeseong’s palm, his lips moving silently.
“The women and children had remained behind.” The Seonangshin’s soft voice echoes in the night, startling me out of my waking nightmare into an even darker, bleaker present. “It took them over a century, but their faith was fanatical. They did nothing out of line. They lived, procreated, and recruited—nothing even the gods could interfere with.
“But once their numbers reached five thousand with the birth of a child, they acted without hesitation.” The wind moans around me. “We sensed the first dark ritual immediately, but it was too late because it was also the last. Daeseong’s followers had synchronized the blood sacrifice down to the second and performed it at the exact same moment. Five thousand humans, including the newborn, took their final breath as one.”
I can’t tell if I’m crying or if it’s the rain pouring down from the ripped sky. The Seonangshin lament as well. In the far recesses of my mind, I recall the news of a South Korean cult committing mass suicide. The blood sacrifice and the powers of the Amheuk resurrected Daeseong, and now he’s after me. My head jerks up as terrifying understanding dawns on me.
“Sacred One, if Daeseong’s life was drawn from the Amheuk, how can we destroy him?” I’d imagined my worst-case scenario to be finding out that I needed to take down the entire Jaenanpa faction. If that were the case, I might’ve been able to target the top tier of their ranks to stop whatever ploy they had against me. But if Daeseong was resurrected from the Amheuk ... “Can we defeat him with the sacred ashes?”
“Not ones from my young limbs.” The cypress sways and shakes her branches in the once-more-clear night. “You need the ashes from the roots of an ancient cypress tree.”
An image of a grove of cypress flashes and settles in my mind. She has shown me the location of the ancient cypress grove. “Will their sacred ashes be enough?”
“Nothing might be enough to forestall the coming of the Amheuk.” The wind howls, low and mournful.
