“It’s only you and me here.” He struggles to swallow. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. You won’t hurt anyone.”
“Areyouno one?” She pins him with her blazing white eyes.
“I am your fated love.” He closes the gap between them. “Our love is destined by the heavens. If you die, I die. I am not no one. It’s only that you and I are one.”
The deafening silence stretches on until cold sweat slides down his back.
“No,” she whispers. “That’s not how it’s supposed to happen.”
“How what is supposed to happen?” the king asks.
“I can’t control the Cheon’gwang, Ethan.” Her eyes shift to a warm brown, her despair plain for him to see. “The prophecy of the End of Days ... I am meant to be the End of Days, and you are supposed to be my salvation. I die, and you live. I die so everyone lives. That’s how it’s supposed to happen.”
“I will never kill you.” A tear rolls down his cheek. “I love you more than life, Sunny.”
“If you love me, then you will never let me become the End of Days.” White fire consumes the brown of her eyes again.
“But there is no one left in this realm.” He spreads his hands. “You won’t be hurting anyone.”
“You don’tunderstand.” She breathes fire in her helpless fury. “I will not stop at destroying the Realm of Four Kingdoms. My powers will reach the Mortal Realm.Everyonewill burn at my hands.Youwill burn.”
“I don’t care if I die as long as you live,” the king shouts.
“But I am an immortal goddess.” Her voice turns pleading. “You are asking me to kill you, and everyone else I love, and continue existing on my own in the ruins of my destruction. You are asking me to live with that unbearable pain.Alone.”
“Please, Sunny.” He sobs. “Please don’t ask me to do this.”
“Ethan, I don’t want to be alone again.” She falls to her knees, fire burning around her, within her. “You promised me that I would never be alone again.”
“Why does it have to be me?” He kneels in front of her. “Why, Sunny?”
She recites:
The true heart of the righteous shall
Shatter the light that reveals all paths.
“You are the righteous one. I know you are.” She cups his face in her burning hands. “You are meant to shatter the Yeoiju. That is the only way to stop this.”
“What heart?” He takes her hands from his face and presses them against his heart. “My true heart is not the one inside me.Youare my beating heart. Sunny, you are my true heart.”
“I ... am your true heart?” She blinks, her eyelids fluttering like butterfly wings. She opens her mouth to continue, but a scream emerges instead.
She crashes to the ground, and the skin of her arms and face undulates like a snake is swimming through her veins. She kicks her legs and claws at her throat as though she cannot breathe.
“Sunny.” The King Foretold frantically runs his hands over her body, not caring that his hands burn and blister. “What can I do? Tell me what to do.”
Her eyes roll back into her head as she convulses, and her prone body levitates off the ground. And no matter how hard he holds on, the goddess of Light is ripped from his arms and raised into the sky.
The King Foretold takes flight after her, but a force, more powerful than him, slams him back. Even so, he tries again and again until he plummets to the ground, his body too battered to move.
It’s okay, Ethan. I will come back to you.
The voice inside his head is warm and at peace. But the scream that rips from the goddess’s lips is pure agony, and her body trembles violently from head to toe.
“Sunny!”
It’s okay.She catches his eyes with her warm-brown gaze, blood dripping from one corner of her mouth.Don’t be afraid.
