A Crane Among Wolves

by June Hur

I have devoured these girls, his satisfied expression seemed to whisper. Their bones are ashes between my teeth.

She was still alive, yet she stood before me like a woman murdered, as though the king, in making her his, had plunged a knife through her heart.

“You will not always be the wisest, nor the strongest, nor the bravest. That is why we need friends. They will guide you down the right path, no matter how dark it grows.”

“History moves its course, Young Mistress Iseul,” he murmured, flipping the page of his journal. He took up his calligraphy brush again. “But it is the youth who point the current in its direction.”

“Hwang Iseul,” his voice rasped, his hands gripping tight onto my skirt, “if by any chance we do not meet again in this lifetime, then I will find you in the next—or as many lifetimes as it takes to see you again.”

We mortals exist for but a season, and yet we love as though we are bound by eternity.