“Sunny, wait.” Ethan sprints after me.
I step blindly into Heaven Lake, thinking of Roxy’s because someone planted the seed in my head. But my foot sinks into the lake up to my ankle. What the hell? Was I not specific enough? I take a step with my other foot—Roxy’s Diner in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the United States of America. My foot meets my other foot in the water.
Ethan wraps a hand around my wrist. “Don’t go.”
“I can’t—”
“Please.” He spins me around. “Sunny, I ...”
“No, I mean Ican’tgo.” A chill runs through me. “I can’t moon shift.”
“What? I don’t understand.” Confusion draws his brows together. Snatching my hand before I can react, he takes a step into the lake. His eyes widen when his foot lands in the water across from me. I numbly accept that he knows how to moon shift. And he, of course, tries again with his other foot and ends up with a pair of soggy Converse like me. “I can’t moon shift.”
“What? You thought I was lying?” I tug my hand free. “Or did you assume the uncouth fox spirit was doing it all wrong?”
His nostrils flare with temper. “That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” I bark with incredulous laughter, jagged and angry. “I can show you fair, but you wouldn’t like it.”
“Come now. There’s no need to argue.” A dark, distorted voice echoes around us, and the surface of the lake shivers. “It would be a shame to ruin this delightful little gathering.”
The water turns freezing, the cold piercing my skin like a thousand needles. But the pain is nothing compared to the icy fear that grips my heart. I stand paralyzed until Ethan wraps a protective arm around my shoulders, and I stumble out of the lake with him. The suhoshins rush to our side at the edge of the lake.
“It’s him,” I whisper, my teeth chattering. “Daeseong is here.”
SHATTERED TEARS
Soothed by the sap of the tree, she rests. It guts me to see her hurting. I wish I could hurt for her instead. My eyes wander to the ruins of her childhood home—the fire banked to embers. What the hell happened?
I squeeze the back of my neck and tilt my head this way and that, but the tension knotted in my shoulders refuses to relent. As my hand slides off my neck, I grow still and reach for the base of my throat.
My necklace. My mom’s necklace.
I react without thinking. I jump on top of the collapsed house and tear through the still-smoking wood. It doesn’t take me long to spot the glow of green within the depth of the embers. I hardly notice the singe of heat against my skin as I dig through the smoldering wreckage.
The leather string has long burned away into nothing, but I gingerly lift the jade disk. Hairline fractures run across the entire surface of the stone. I feel as though those fractures are mirrored in my heart. I close my hand around the necklace, swallowing my sorrow.
I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll find a way to fix it.
I don’t notice it at first, the disk pulsing against my palm like a heartbeat. Then blinding green-and-silver flames burst through the seams of my fingers, and I’m thrown flat onto my back. The firesurrounds me—then consumes me until it burns inside me. It levitates me off the ground, holding me aloft for a split second before it explodes. I crack like the jade disk. My shout escapes my throat as green-and-silver fire, and my eyes flare with the flames. And I burn.
Iamthe fire.
Then it ends. I know who I am. I know the sacrifices made for me. I know ... what I must do.
I stand at her side again and watch her sleep. Helpless tears run down my face, and all-consuming rage rips through me. I silence the scream building inside me so she can rest. I fall to my knees beside her and struggle to face the unacceptable truth. I don’t want to. I want to run. I want to hide. But there is no running—no hiding—from the blood that stains my hands.
With my first breath, I sentenced my mother to death. And my very existence means the death of my soulmate ... a love destined by the heavens.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Daeseong appears in the middle of the lake and walks toward us—on water. The dark mudang is taking his god complex to a whole new level.
My companions’ eyes light up with the gi that sources their magic and their lives. Hailey, the jeoseungsaja, and Jaeseok, the dokkaebi, have eyes that glow red, since they receive their life force from Underworld. Jihun’s eyes burn silver, evidencing his origin from Sky. And now I understand the swirl of silver and green in Ethan’s eyes ... He’s of both Sky and Mountain.
My eyes, I know, are still brown because I’m paralyzed with terror. I can’t breathe. I try taking small sips of air. It doesn’t work. I try dragging in big gulps of air. My lungs only burn hotter. I panic and begin to hyperventilate.
My old enemy looks exactly as I remember him. He still appears to be in his forties, with a pleasant face and the distinguished air of a scholar. I figured being resurrected by the Amheuk would’ve left a mark on him. Maybe a horn or two. Even some long walrus-like incisors would’ve been less anticlimactic.
