Year of the Dragon (Changeling Sisters Book 3) (34 page)

The Council of Elder Life Spirits had convened.

One by one, the four visiting elders approached to pay their respects: Xiang the Hawk, fastest Wings in the East; Onikuma the Bear, whose fortitude knew no bounds; Kadru the Nagi, renowned for her healing gifts; and Thavi the Clouded Leopard, who slipped in and out of time.

“Yong Mun Mu, we are honored to enter your home. Kamsahamnida.” Xiang rose first. His predatory yellow eyes shifted with restlessness, betraying the great phoenix that lurked beneath. “Thank you, Lady of Eve, for calling this Council.”

“Yes,” Onikuma the great bear growled, the triangle of white fur on her chest ruffling. “This mist spreads too far. Now it encroaches on the Sea of Japan and the Senkaku Islands.”

“It is the
East
Sea,” Mun Mu rumbled.

Xiang took a step closer. “And these islands you speak of…the Diaoyus….they are
Chinese territory.” The three Elder Life Spirits glared at one another.

A hiss of laughter broke off their staring match. Thavi’s smoke-ringed tail waved tauntingly between the colonnades before vanishing.

“So much talk of mortal humans with their
borders
and their
states
.” The Silver Shadow’s voice winked in and out around them. Mun Mu felt her invisible tail brush his neck as the Clouded Leopard slipped by. “The spirit world never used to recognize such a thing.”

Kadru stretched her human form. A long, jewel-encrusted tail rolled out from beneath her white silken gown in appreciation, its violet scales twinkling. “True, Thavi, but there also used to be gods. It appears that in their absence, we Elder Life Spirits continue to seek out new masters.”

Mun Mu scowled as the nagi’s pensive silver eyes hung on him. “We do not need the gods to return, Kadru. We are the gods, now.”

–The Dark Spirits do not agree. They seek to bring back old gods from the West. Gods of nightmares. The Twelve– The White Tiger paced the heart of the courtyard, and all the eyes were upon Her.

–The Demon Bird did not cross the globe to conquer one country. It came to herald the end of the world. All of our worlds–

Mun Mu lifted his chin proudly. “Do not worry, my fellow Life Spirits. My children draw close to the Final Trial of Wisdom. They will bring down the Emerald Veil and drive Xecotcovach and the vampyre princes from the East.”

Xiang folded his arms. “The twins failed their Trials, Mun Mu. You would leave our fate to the foreign girl and your gentle-hearted youngest daughter?”

“Do not mistake kindness for weakness,” Kadru retorted.

Onikuma huffed at the White Tiger. “These human shapeshifters you have entrusted are taking too long, my Lady! Meanwhile, the veil between our worlds grows much too thin. Its forgetful power is potent, but even the most narrow-minded mortals will begin to notice something is wrong.”

“They will surely know when the Dark Spirits begin devouring them,” Xiang said grimly.

Suddenly, Thavi appeared in a flash of silver smoke, contorting and hissing on the palace floor.

The White Tiger and Mun Mu rushed to her side. “Thavi! What did you see?”

“A boat’s name—
The Sun Young
.”

A host of glowing spirit eyes swung to Mun Mu, and he felt his chest grow unbearably tight. Thavi picked herself up and shook the silver-streaked black hair of her human form. “Shattered. In pieces. Mun Mu, your children are gone.”

Chapter 41: The Forgotten Island

~Citlalli~

My mind jolted awake from where it had been circling an infinite void. Pain was the first thing that flared to life, beating in my abdomen and head. My prosthetic eye was gone. I lifted my sand-encrusted fingers to touch a choker of thick, corded lacerations around my neck.

The second thing I heard was a noise that sounded like screaming. Then I realized it was coming from inside my own head.

Run!
Wolf bayed, and I stumbled upright. The ocean had spat me out on a strange island where the jungle shuddered as if disturbed by a relentless wind. However, I caught a glimpse of a barbed tail ripple in the sky and then vanish. Some sort of evil air spirit. Hundreds of them. They flapped around the spire of the island, which was a misshapen volcanic peak that looked like a crooked finger. Every single tree was flattened on its brow. It looked like something large and dangerous had blown the entire forest out as if wishing on candles.

An eerie green glow emitted from the summit, and I realized that I had made it. I was facing the source of the Emerald Veil itself.

All I could think was: if I was here, then where were my friends?

A familiar roar erupted from the jungle, which sent flocks of egrets scattering in every direction. Demon growled.
Haetae
. While Santiago’s Red Company slept cold and dead beneath the ground, the vampyres’ corrupted servants patrolled the island. And they were heading my way.

“Citlalli.”

The whisper curled around my neck, pleading. I whirled around, half-hoping, half-praying—

And there he was. Crawling toward me was the shell of what had once been Khyber, now the battered plaything of both sun and sea. His head had found its way back to his body.

However, the sun pelted him with merciless arrows. Even as Khyber stretched a hand toward me, the flesh melted from his bones and hit the sand with a sizzle. What was left of the vampyre prince’s eyeballs dripped down his cadaverous face and left a fanged skull contorted in pain. By the time he took three steps, Khyber collapsed in a pile of bones and feathers.

Demon urged me to run. My mind white with panic, I managed to ignore Her. With the call of the haetae rumbling in my ears like an imminent earthquake, I hobbled to gather up as many of Khyber’s bones as I could. Boat debris hindered my way, and my breath caught as I glimpsed a twisted piece of aluminum with the name
The Sun Young
barely discernable
.

“Come on, come on,” I muttered to my groaning body, stooping to find Khyber’s jaw bone wedged beneath a sand dollar. “How many bones in the human body?”

Get out of here, girl,
Demon hissed.

I crashed into the jungle just as the haetae reached the beach, my arms  full of bones. I prayed my pursuers would overlook my footprints in the sand, but miracles didn’t exist on the other side of the Veil. I had to get as deep within the jungle as I could.

Evergreen trees grew in tangles, their trunks zigzagging around one another to break through the canopy. Orchids bloomed between their muddy roots, and I breathed in the distinct smell of fir. I stumbled through a grove of guava fruits, and hunger gnawed at my stomach. However, the moment I tried to eat one of the guavas, my nose picked up the familiar reek of the undead. I crashed through several more bushes, my stomach churning.

Finally, I came upon a bog of mud. I placed Khyber’s bones carefully at the base of a cypress. Then I shed my clothes and slipped in. The mud was soothing against my perspiring skin. I rubbed it up through the roots of my curls, desperate to hide all trace of my scent. Gnats buzzed at my eyelids, and I smacked them half-heartily. For a moment, I glimpsed hazy sunlight above, which was struggling to pierce the thick foliage. Then dark clouds swallowed it.

Wolf’s nose twitched, catching a change in the winds: Ankor’s unnatural typhoon. How far had it traveled since breaking through the Veil?

“Well, well, well. The beast cavorting in her natural habitat.”

I attempted to snap to Wolf before remembering too late that it was midday. I couldn’t feel the moon’s power. Lightness rushed to my head, and then I doubled-over, clutching my abdomen. Even through the muck, I smelled blood. My stab wound had split open.

Wings rustled. I looked up through my snarled hair to see Khyber perched on the branches of a gigantic cypress. Amidst the shadows, his blue eyes deepened to enigmatic shades of gray. A similar necklace of puckered white scars encircled his neck.

“Khyber,” I whispered. Salt and blood churned in my throat, making it hurt to speak. “You died.”

The vampyre prince snorted, leaping from the tree to the mossy ground. He reached the swamp’s bank before slanted sunlight scorched his wings.

“How often do I need to tell you, dog?” he said. “We cannot die. That would mean an escape from pain.”

I shivered in the mud, feeling the familiar chill of the void deepen the dread in my heart. “It was cold. And lonely. I wasn’t connected…to anything.”

Khyber’s eyes slowly rose to meet mine. “You killed yourself.”

“It was the only way the others could escape,” I rasped and then rubbed my scarred throat, unable to speak above a whisper. “Raina and Heesu are going to be okay. They escaped from the mist. I don’t know where the others are. I can’t feel the mind of anyone from my pack.”
Yu Li. Rafael. Sun Bin. Taeyang. Bae.

My heart twisted at that last name. Once more, Bae’s brown eyes clawed frantically to hold onto mine before Santiago threw him overboard. Khyber, an immortal vampyre prince, had survived. That didn’t mean the oldest and bravest wolf of our pack had.

“When it is night, I will fly to try and find them,” Khyber said quietly. “Wolf girl, never do that again. If both of us were to perish without finding the cure to this curse…then both of us will languish in that bottomless void forever.”

“I could say the same to you,” I snapped, cradling my abdomen. “What were you thinking, trying to kill a Dark Spirit with no plan?”

That brought a faint smile to his lips. “You have no idea what the Face Gouger would have done had he lured your friends close. Do not worry, dog. I will make sure never to martyr myself for your kind again. I have never met a shifter worth beheading myself for.”

I grunted, turning back to tend to my wounds. “I’m glad we understand one another. Now, why don’t you go find us a nice cave that doesn’t smell like dead people?”

Khyber crouched to examine something in the reeds. “Incredible,” he murmured, pushing the grasses aside. I jumped as the little statue of a cheerful old man beamed back at us. It was covered head-to-toe in lichen.

“
Dol hareubang
,” Khyber breathed. “A stone grandfather. This island must be close to Jeju-do indeed.”

I inched closer. “What is it?”

“An old tradition. My people used to place these statues around the home to encourage fertility.” Khyber glanced at me, and I was glad the mud hid my blush. “They also warded against evil spirits.”

“So you are originally from Jeju Island,” I surmised. “Taeyang believes he is from there, too.”

The vampyre prince predictably ignored any investigation I ever made into his past. His eyes trailed up the path behind the stone grandfather. “We will find refuge this way. My vampyre kindred despise these old wards.” Brushing aside the overhanging bracken fern, Khyber smiled. “Excellent. A pool where you can wash the reek from yourself. Come, wolf. I will not have you sullying our cave.”

I didn’t roll my eyes because it would hurt too much. Sucking in my breath as another shudder of pain racked my stomach, I ducked my head. “I’ll be right there.”

Khyber dropped the fern, but he didn’t leave. “Your wound has reopened. I can smell it.”

Unable to reply, I managed to wave him on. Surely he would grant me this one mercy and leave me alone to my misery.

But that was a joke. I could never be alone, unless floating in the emptiness of the void. I lunged first at Wolf, and then at Demon. Wolf gazed back with a mournful golden eye, hurt. Demon held back because She was entertained—not because She respected my authority.

Alpha
. Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
When will you recognize the folly of hating yourself? I am merely a part of you, compartmentalized and given a voice. I am all of the passion you are too cowardly to explore.

You are a devil given breath by eviler kumiho fire. As far as I am concerned, Fred is your maker.

And yet you tremble, like a frightened little pup with its tail between its legs.
Demon licked Her lips lustfully as Khyber prowled along the bank to avoid the sunlight.
Why do you hide from him? We defeated his mother, yes? He should be our rightful prize.

Dear God, I would never think like that.

My revulsion gave me the power to shove Her back. But suddenly, ice-cold fingers seized a handful of my hair and wrenched me out of the swamp.

“Your wound, wolf girl,” Khyber commanded. “I know the forests of the southern isles. Let me make a poultice before you bleed to death.”

I snarled in his grip, splattering us both with mud.

“Could the Dark Spirits have bound me to any other creature with less of a will to live? Stupid dog!” Khyber whirled from me as I began to smolder, and his ragtag crow wings scraped my face. Suddenly, the feathers stopped rustling. They folded against his back. Completely still.

“Could it be?” Khyber slowly turned. His rugged face glowed as white as the moon with wonder. “The famous Citlalli Alvarez, the youngest Were ever to be appointed Alpha, is afraid of me seeing her—indecent?”

I attempted a howl, but it came out more like a raspy hiss. That didn’t wipe the smirk off his face. Cursing, I scrambled up with my arms covering my breasts and a curtain of black hair hanging over my baleful one-eyed glare.

“I’m not afraid of you or anyone else seeing me naked!” My legs shuddered. “Give me the poultice. I can take care of myself.”

“Don’t be stupid, Citlalli.” His voice was cold and oddly harsh. It must have taken a lot for him to grunt out my name over the much favored “wolf girl.”

“You have already lost an eye and a finger. I leave a girl with the patience of a dog to heal herself, and soon she won’t care who sees her naked. She’ll be dead.”

“It was only two stabs—”

“With a Toledo blade. I recognize Santiago’s handiwork. He is not good about cleaning his weapons.” Khyber prowled forward and extended a hand. “Come, wolf girl. I have lived many lives, in some of which, I was a medicine man, and in others, a lover to a great many women.” Khyber’s jagged black hair fell into his icy gaze as he leaned forward to sneer: “Your mutt boyfriend needn’t be worried. I am not attracted to reckless hotheads like you.”