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All I know is that it couldn’t have been anyone in the coach. So someone here has to be working with outside people. I’m going to figure out who it is and what they really want. And then I’m gonna kill them.
I couldn’t place the tightness in my chest, and then I did—it felt like family. But this time, a bond that isn’t blood. It’s forged by circumstances, but it can provide the same comfort.
I know better than anyone that families don’t last—they always end in betrayal or heartbreak. But this time I will be the one betraying all of them. I have to get that crown, and it’s not like I can ask Euyn to hand me the key to immortality.
“You are Seok’s son,” I say. “How can you be kind?” “I’ve told you before—I am not Seok. And it’s not difficult to be kind to people you love.”
“I’ve loved you since I first saw you, Sora. When you were only nine but you faced armed men with your chin up and tried to hide Daysum behind you. I fell for your beauty, of course—I’m human—but it was your spirit that did me in. Your capacity to love is deeper than the West Sea. You’re honest. You’re true. You are everything.”
“I tried to forget you while I was gone. It would’ve been better for both of us, I’m sure. But it’s not possible. It’s never going to be possible.” I take a few steps closer to him. “Why is that?” He turns and faces me. “Because I’d know you in this life and the next hundred.”
But all I am is muscle for hire. All I do is make guys bleed. That’s no man for a girl like Aeri. And she’d realize it sooner or later. Maybe if we pull this off and free Hwan, I’ll have enough left to— Nah, it’s better for her if I can put her out of my mind. I can do that much for her. So I do.
Then a bloodcurdling scream rises over the roar of the fountains. Somebody has just been killed.
It was a palace assassin.
I’m not sure how he got the drop on a palace assassin in all blacks, though. All blacks are earned by the best killers in Yusan—we also call them shadows. And the shadows who can lie and manipulate, on top of murder, become spies. And the head of those is the man I love.
He’s saying that someone is trying to hide their connection to a palace assassin. Someone is trying to betray everyone here, and for some reason they killed the man they were working with.
“What’s wrong?” Royo asks. “I just… Nothing.” He raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, it’s really like you to not want to talk.” I smile in spite of myself. He’s been the biggest surprise of this mission. “I like you,” I say. Emotions from boyish glee to regret flash across his features at a rapid pace, and then he looks away. “You shouldn’t,” he says.
I just do not trust this guy. Especially not with Aeri’s life.
The closer we get to tomorrow, the further I am moving from logic or reason. After all, what’s the difference in doing something reckless, like wanting my enemy’s son, when we’ll probably all die? I just wanted to feel. I wanted to feel something other than dread and fear and sorrow. Something that wasn’t worry or pain or guilt or hopelessness. I wanted to feel loved, and Ty said he loves me. I wanted to believe it. And then I wanted to feel it. With no regard for the consequences. Apparently, lust, like grief, can make you disregard the future.
My family has waited long enough for their revenge. I will get it. Even if it means I have to sacrifice Euyn in the end.
“Bring the traitors in alive, Mikail. You’ll be rewarded.”
Someone is making major moves, and we need to figure it out quickly as it’s a threat to Euyn’s throne. Of course, the fact that we killed everyone in The Mine and set the evidence on fire doesn’t help.
Will I be pushed off the bridge by the guards while the nobility looks on with interest and horror? No. I’ll bring in the traitors. One way or another.
These killers are the only people who have truly ever cared whether I lived or died. And maybe it was all the mission. But it didn’t feel that way. I was wrong when I thought nothing’s changed. Everything’s changed.
Is her father Joon, is she the betrayer?
But I don’t miss the look in his eye. Something is wrong, but I don’t have time to sort it out. It’s almost the two-minute warning.
Besides, Euyn will hate me for destroying the crown. Honestly, he might kill me himself, but the price of one man’s life is nothing to free an entire nation. What I’m about to do, I’m doing out of love. Just not my love for Euyn.
“Hands up, please, Prince Euyn. My orders are to bring you in alive…if possible. And I’d rather not kill you, since your lover would like a word.” I close my eyes as my stomach churns. Without any other option, I raise my hands. Mikail betrayed me. He was the traitor all along.
As I firm my resolve, my stomach stops trying to tie itself in knots. Suddenly, for the first time today, I’m calm. And then I know: it’s the right decision. These liars and killers are mine. I have to betray my father.
I reach into the neck of my uniform and grab the amulet. It’s a bell glass so small, it looks like a yellow gem. I wear it on my necklace, always hidden under high-necked dresses. And I never take it off. I haven’t since the night I stole it from Prince Omin’s dead body.
For a terrible price. Each second I freeze ages me, and it seems to only be getting worse. It’s why I’m nineteen but look twenty-four.
etherum is never suspected because people think there is no more magic in Yusan. So they believe it’s sleight of hand. Because no one knows I have the Amulet of the Dragon Lord.
“Sometimes, I wonder…” The king pauses and utters a weary sigh. “How many times will people try to kill a god? Seize them.”
Everyone lied to me—King Joon really is a god. And Mikail betrayed us. And now we’re all going to die.
“Surrender now,” he says. “Why the fuck should I?” “To fight again.”
“You’ll find, Mikail,” Joon begins, “that the real crown of the Dragon Lord is no less brittle than the throne of Yusan.” Lord Yama. It was a decoy.
“Admirable performance. As promised, the sanctions on Umbria are now lifted. You may return north.”
He’s the traitor. He’s the one who orchestrated this whole thing, who approached me from the beginning, and he gave us up in order to make amends for his previous assassination attempt. So that Umbria wouldn’t have to pay a quarter of its earnings in sanctions to Joon.
I’m making a racket with my chains, and the king glances over at me before he turns back to Aeri. “Daughter, you both delighted and disappointed me,” he says. “Father,” she says, bowing her head. But she doesn’t take her eyes off him. What. The. Fuck.
“I haven’t had a moment to properly introduce my daughter.” He gestures to Aeri. “This is Naerium Lin Baejkin. The daughter of Soo Lin.”
My face and my torso go numb. I killed for her. I was ready to die for her. For a fucking princess.
She’s why the palace assassin was following us. The assassin must’ve been protecting her. And it was Aeri meeting with him in Aseyo, but she put a knife in his throat after he was seen by Sora—just to cover up her connection to the throne. It was my fucking throwing knife, just like Mikail thought, because she’d taken it from our room.
But King Joon isn’t looking at Mikail or Sora. He’s focused on Naerium. Something about his expression makes my stomach pitch. Pride mixed with…fury? “You really are Baejkin after all, double-crossing your own father,” he says.
It was all Bay Chin…and Aeri. Joon claimed Aeri is his daughter, but that’s impossible. I haven’t seen her since she was a baby, but his daughter died years ago. Joon has no living children. It’s what made me next in line.
“The five of you are all guilty of high treason and can be sentenced to lingchi or beheading or life in Idle Prison,” he says. “But…I am a merciful lord. I am inclined to forgive you. Reward you, even. On one condition.”
Hubris. My downfall was nothing more than hubris. How unoriginal.
Because I didn’t want to stop. All I saw was an opportunity for revenge. And now a plan nearly twenty years in the making has fallen apart due to my impatience. Now I’m at Joon’s mercy—not a trait he’s known for.
“She wears the ring.” Joon waves a hand as though discussing a trifle. “Bring it to me.” That gets Euyn to blink. “Bring you…the Ring of Khitan?”
He already has the Immortal Crown, and he stole the real Flaming Sword of the Dragon Lord from Gaya during the Festival of Blood. Now, he wants the third relic. He may be trying to get all of them, but the amulet was lost long ago somewhere in Fallow, and the priests of Wei keep killing the spies we send to try to steal the Water Scepter.
“It would be so much faster to kill us,” I say. “Why would I want to?” Joon asks. “The five of you were able to take my crown and survive. Had I not had the real relic on my arm instead, I would be dead, thanks to my daughter.” He stops and glares at her. There is legitimate pain in his expression, but then he blinks and it’s gone. “Therefore, the five of you could also get the ring and make it out of Khitan.”
By setting up this plot, the best killers in Yusan came right to me, bound with a purpose.” He shrugs. “And with Quilimar, I can’t risk failure. Call today an audition, if you will.”
Joon is actually surprised by her request, but he recovers rapidly. “Yes. Bring me the ring, and I’ll release him—you have my word.”
“Bay Chin tells me a man went to prison for a crime you committed long ago,” the king says. Royo suddenly goes rigid.
And from the look on Royo’s face… No. It wasn’t him. This is some manipulation by the northern count. Stars. Royo may kill Bay Chin before I get a chance to. Royo faces Joon dead-on. “Bay Chin knows exactly who killed Allora, I’m sure.”
She looks shattered as she stares at Royo. Which is pretty hypocritical, if you ask me. But then again, I suppose we all are liars and hypocrites, outraged to be betrayed as we planned to double-cross one another from the start. Liars and killers don’t make the best lovers. She and Royo are just newer to it than Euyn and me.
“I never wanted you gone. If you return with the ring before the season ends, you will all be heavily rewarded. Fail, and you all will wish for death. If Quilimar finds out I sent you, I’ll roast your loved ones alive before you watch me feed them to the iku. I swear and I vow it.”
