“Me.” His guileless smile warms me like the sun in the dreary emptiness of purgatory. “But only to you.”
I dig my teeth into my bottom lip and drop my gaze to my toes. If I look at him for a second longer, I will pounce on him. And now is not the time nor the place for that. With a wistful sigh, I turn just intime to catch Yeomla and Yongwang gaping at me, their divine mouths hanging to the ground.
“Thought I’d drop dead, did you?” I drawl archly.
Yeomla, the god of Underworld, gulps. “Absolutely.”
“I had no doubt in the matter.” Yongwang nods in agreement. “Only a being with divine blood could survive absorbing a god’s life force. Or so I thought.”
But their gazes soon drift to a point past my shoulder, and all hint of humor leaches out of their expressions.Hwanin.I remember Yongwang’s grim warning.There will be consequences.
I warily face the god of Heavens, but Hwanin isn’t ... a god anymore. He is still very handsome, his youthful face striking against his silver hair, but not so unbearably beautiful that I want to run away screaming. And hisgi...
Hwanin doesn’t seem to notice the stares directed his way as he studies his hands, like he’s never seen them before. Then he pats down his body and bounces on his feet a couple of times. When he finally raises his head, the devastation darkening his eyes has faded ever so slightly.
“You ... you’re mortal,” I accuse to the shocked gasps of my friends. “Yourgialmost looks as faint as a human’s.”
“You are right.” A ghost of a smile flickers over Hwanin’s lips. “I am still a being of the Shingae, but I am as mortal as a human.”
“H-how is that possible?” I shake my head, dread creeping across my scalp.
I cannot stop until I have transferred all of my divinegito you.
He transferred hisdivinegito me. Why did it not occur to me sooner? How did I not realize that the “consequences” would also apply tome?
I thought I was only absorbing a part of his mighty powers. But he already told me the truth. He transferredallof his divinegito me.
“I am mortal now because you absorbed my divinity,” he answers evenly. “You are now the goddess of Heavens.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Sunny
“No.” I don’t recognize my voice, distorted by fury.
I don’t want to be a fucking immortal goddess. I want to be me, Sunny Cho. A bad-temperedgumihowith wonderful friends I don’t deserve. I want a chance to grow old with my husband. I don’t want to live an eternity alone when he moves on to the next life.
What is the point of all thiseffortif I can’t have the things that matter most?
“Undo this.” My lip pulls back in a snarl as I turn on the former god of Heavens. I stalk toward him but stumble when the Yeoiju flares in my chest.
No, I don’t need you right now. Stop.
Not heeding my command, the fire spreads inside me, wild and fast. I go dead still, recognizing the sensation.
This can’t be happening.
Only it is. I can feel it. The burn of the white fire. The scream of its reckless violence.
If I lose control of the Yeoiju, it will siphon mygito feed the white light. I nearly died facing off against Daeseong until I learned how to wield the Yeoiju by borrowing nature’s life force.
But there is another way to fuel its power.
I glance toward Gyun. I don’t want to acknowledge what happened in the depth of hell, but I think I already knew the truth deep down. I siphoned the life force of the Judges of Ten Hells to save my friends from the demons.
Desperation makes my powers dangerous.
The Yeoiju will take whatever life force it needs to fuel the white light and destroy without reason or thought. And there is no life in purgatory, except for the seven of us here. If I don’t calm the fuck down, the Yeoiju will suck the life out of Ethan and my friends.
