I rub at the ache in my chest again. I don’t know if Sunny would be any safer here, but I want her by my side. She would never let me shield her from danger.My beautiful, ferocious warrior.But at least we can fight together.
“Your Majesty.” Jihun approaches the dais, dressed in his brass-scaled battle armor.
“Must you call me that?” I glance up at him with a bad-tempered scowl.
“Yes.” His lips don’t so much as twitch, not that he smiles often, but his expression softens when he asks, “How are you feeling?”
“Swell.” I push to my feet and stretch out my stiff back. “I should bedoingsomething, not hiding out in here.”
Jihun reaches down to the floor and retrieves the viridian robe of the King of Mountains, the gold bear emblem embroidered on each shoulder and on the chest and back. He shakes it out with great care, then offers it to me. I hesitate, grimacing in distaste, before I snatch the silk robe out of his hands.
“You subdued a rebellion two days ago, then fought off a deadly assassin last night. I would arguethatconstitutes doing something,” my royal guard remarks as I shrug into the robe with sharp, impatient tugs. “And the soldiers are preparing to fight for the Kingdom of Mountains and their new king. Your place is on the throne. That is what your people need.”
“Don’t you get tired of always being right?” I lower myself onto the throne with a weary sigh. My body sinks into the comfortable seat, even as a shudder of distaste runs through me. This throne—thisentirekingdom—belongs to me now. I have to stop thinking of them as my father’s.
“It’s a blessing and a curse.” This time, one corner of his mouth quivers for a split second.
I chuckle but quickly sober. “Do we know who sent the assassin? My father? Or my grandfather?”
Why do all the males in my family want to kill me?I’ve come to terms with my father’s longtime aspiration to see me dead, but I recoil from thinking about my grandfather’s betrayal. It’s too new, too raw.
“We chased her down, but she killed herself before we could question her.” Jihun hisses a frustrated breath. “But when she used magic to evade capture, her eyes burned with green fire.”
“She’s a being of Mountains, and her suicide fits the tyrant’s MO.” I rub my forehead, too tired to be angry. “How did my father send an assassin when he’s locked up in the dungeon?”
“We will get to the bottom of it, Your Majesty,” my royal guard vows.
I nod curtly. “Have you heard from Captain Seo?”
The captain is one of the best trackers in the Order of the Suhoshin. Shouldn’t she have found Sunny by now?
“She has only been gone a day.” A muscle bunches in Jihun’s jaw.
So that’s a no.I drag both hands down my face. “Sunny’s been gone for two.”
“I’m well aware,” he all but growls.
My surprised gaze shoots toward him at his uncharacteristic flash of temper. His expression remains stoic, but he must feel as frantic as I do. He’s in love with Sunny. My fists clench around the arms of the throne, but I slowly unfurl my fingers.She is mine.I have no reason to be jealous, especially not now.
She went after the darkmudangon her own, while I got sidetracked subduing an uprising. I wish I had waited for her outside my father’s prison like I’d promised. I wish I’d stormed back in there and gotten her the hell away from that insidious bastard. But the lives of a thousandhumans—perhaps the fate of the Mortal Realm itself—depended on her extracting Daeseong’s location from the tyrant.
Nevertheless, I wish I hadn’t left her side. Whatever my father told her sent her running to the Mortal Realm without so much as a goodbye. I went after her as soon as I heard—only to catch a glimpse of her back as she disappeared into the Gray Void.
In that desperate moment, I would’ve gone after Sunny if Jihun and Jaeseok hadn’t found me. I would’ve plunged into the Gray Void if they hadn’t delivered the devastating news of General Bak’s betrayal. My grandfather, a general of the Kingdom of Sky, plans to exact his revenge and wage war on the Kingdom of Mountains, even though the tyrant no longer sits on the throne.
Even then, a part of me still wanted to follow her to the Mortal Realm. I considered leaving my people to face the Kingdom of Sky’s invasion on their own—an invasion I brought down on them.
Shame burns through me, but my love for Sunny burns brighter. In the end, I didn’t abandon my people, because I love her. I stayed to defend the Kingdom of Mountains because she would never want me to do anything that would make me hate myself. Even so, it took every ounce of my willpower to resist the call of my heart, telling me to run to her—telling meshecomes before all else.
“It has been a taxing few days,” Jihun says by way of apology, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Try a taxing few months.” I offer him a wry half smile.
Before she left, Sunny told Hailey that she had mastered the magic of the Yeoiju, a gift of the Cheon’gwang. And Jaeseok relayed that Draco and Minju had left for the Mortal Realm to bring Sunny the sword of light, a weapon powerful enough to stop the darkmudang. With the added help of Minju’s intelligence and the might of Draco’s dragon, Sunny had to have defeated Daeseong.
Then why aren’t they back yet?
I claw at the collar of my shirt as the cold hand of fear wraps around my heart and squeezes. It has been two days since Sunny, Draco, andMinju went after the darkmudang—and a long, silent day since I sent Captain Seo to the Mortal Realm to find out what happened to them.
