“Is it not your dutystillto protect the realms?” Ethan steps closer to me, laying a protective hand on my back.
“There is nothing more I can do.” The god of Underworld shrugs, turning up his nose. I am sorely tempted to break that pretty nose.
“Lord Yeomla.” Gyun bows with due deference, then straightens to his full, considerable height and breadth. “We know you can do more.”
“Do you, now? Let me rephrase my answer,” Yeomla drawls. “There is nothing more I amwillingto do.”
“But are we not your people?” Hailey blurts. “How can you be so selfish?”
“I am a god.” His voice thunders, making the ground shake beneath us. “I can be whatever I want, my prettysaja.”
“Do not speak to her that way,” the Judge of Tenth Hell warns in a dangerously soft voice.
“Or what?” Yeomla cocks his head. “I grow tired of this nonsense.”
“We are not asking you to fight with us.” I rush to explain before he disappears to take another century-long nap. “We only need a part of your gi—”
“Apartof my gi?” The god scoffs, something like fear flickering in his expression. “You do not know what you ask. Now, begone.”
“I’m not going—” My objection gets lodged in my throat as I’m sucked in through a straw. Or at least, it feels that way. Then, before I can scream, I’m spat back out.
“Wh-what happened?” I stumble, and Ethan catches me by the elbow.
Even when I regain my balance, he doesn’t let go. Instead, he slides his palm down my arm and laces our fingers together. And I need the reassuring warmth of his touch because ... we are in a barren desert, made bleaker by the nearly colorless world surrounding us.
Shit.
The god of Underworld didn’t disappear. Hedisappearedus.
“I have never felt so ashamed to be a being of Underworld,” Hailey huffs. “Are you guys okay?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I nod. “Where the hell are we anyway? Which kingdom has a desert?”
“We are not in a desert,” Gyun answers. “We are in the Kingdom of Water.”
“Where?” Ethan spins in a circle. “There isn’t a drop of water here, much less a kingdom of it.”
“That river in the Kingdom of Underworld was bone dry as well,” Hailey murmurs, pursing her lips.
“Maybe Yongwang, the god of Water, is using purgatory’s water as his blanky,” I joke.
“Something like that.” Gyun walks out to the cracked earth that used to be the ocean. “I believe Lord Yongwang went to sleep in his dragon form, in the only body of water left in purgatory.”
“What body of water?” I ask.
“You will see,” he says in a deep voice.
I scowl at his enigmatic back as we follow the Judge of Tenth Hell out to the dry ocean and trek on for what feels like hours. Our landscape changes back and forth between the four kingdoms, but we unfailingly end up back here, with nothing but the salted earth as far as the eye can see.
“Are we there yet?” I whine for the eleventh time.
Gyun mutters unintelligibly under his breath, and Hailey giggles at his side.
“Are you getting tired?” Ethan says close to my ear. “I can carry you.”
“We should’ve brought a palanquin,” I grumble crossly, then I blush like a beet, recalling aparticularpalanquin ride.
With a knowing grin, Ethan runs his hand down my back and slides his thumb beneath the hem of my shirt. “I can always go for a palanquin ride.”
