“I will die trying,” Hwanin vows.
“Ethan.” Sunny buries her head against my chest. “I’m so tired. So much death, so much loss. I want it all to end.Iwant to end it all.”
“And you will.” I run my hand down her hair, as Hwanin closes Yeomla’s lifeless eyes. “Is Sunny ready to face the Amheuk, Lord Hwanin?”
He opens and closes his mouth, then tries again. “Perhaps she—”
The screams of countless people rise in an earsplitting roar, drowning out Hwanin’s words.
We are out of time.
Chapter Fifty
Sunny
I don’t remember getting up from Ethan’s lap, but I’m already running out to the street. The screams grow impossibly loud as a swarm of terrified shinbiins form a dam in front of me.
We have to get to our friends.
“This way.” Ethan snatches my hand and runs into a narrow alleyway.
“Where are we going?” I ask, keeping pace with him. “We need to find them.”
“There.” He points at the sky with his free hand.
An incomprehensible wall of black hovers in the distance, but vibrant beams of red, blue, green, and silver light up the sky. It’s not enough to drive back the Amheuk, but the magic of the four life sources is slowing the darkness down.
“They’re okay,” I breathe. Iknowour friends are okay. Iknowthey’re the ones giving the Amheuk a run for its money.
“We have to hurry, though.” Ethan picks up his pace.
As I run next to him, something niggles at the back of my mind. In our rush to reach our friends, I forgot that I’m a fucking goddess. With an irritated click of my tongue, I tighten my grip on Ethan’s hand.
“Hang on,” I warn, then teleport us to our friends.
Unfortunately, we materialize in front of a black tentacle mid-swing. Ethan shoves me behind him—hereallyhas to stop doing that—and takes the hit in his stomach. We are flung back, but I stop our fall midair and float us down to the ground.
“Ethan.” I catch him when his knees buckle.
“I’m okay.” He groans as he regains his balance and waves me away.
“We can’t hold them off for much longer,” Jihun rasps, limping over, and points toward the Queen of Sky, Bora, and Taeyoung, pushing back a monstrous arm of darkness at the other end of the field.
“Right,” I say grimly.
Absorbing two divinegiat once should have flattened me, but strangely enough, everything is quiet within me. The four life forces flow through my Yeoiju without hesitation—as though they’ve been a part of me all along—braiding together into one force.
“Now that I’ve absorbed all four divine life forces,” I tell my friends, “let’s see if all the fuss was worth it.”
I teleport to where the monarchs fight. To their credit, none of them so much as yelp when I appear out of nowhere.
“Imo,” I shout in alarm as the Queen of Sky staggers back, her lightning flickering weakly from her fingers.
Bora and Taeyoung aren’t in much better shape.
“Step aside,” I yell.
I form a ball of white light between my cupped hands as easily as taking a breath, and I fling the light at the dark monstrosity. With a keening screech, the tentacle disintegrates into dust.
