Year of the Dragon (Changeling Sisters Book 3) (38 page)

Of her future eyes, how I longed to gaze upon them and see what awaited me there. A massive weight settled over my mind when I tried, and its burden was too heavy for me to handle. I caught a glimpse: a terrible, horned king who bent to smile at me with teeth made from the bones of children—

Sun Young’s past and future eyes mercifully closed. Only her present ones remained awake, flickering like silver pools as they fixated on Heesu.

Her voice settled over our minds like light, wispy pillows, easy to sink into and drift peacefully away:
I remember you now…Daughter.

Heesu burst into tears and seized the chrome dragon’s foreleg in a hug. Sun Young nudged her head and then rose to regard me from where I cringed beside a tangled net of Japanese fishing globes.

Name yourself.

A simple question, and yet my mind remained blank.
Alvarez? Yong? Mejía?

“Raina,” I finally said.

The Serpent looked at me, and I knew she saw all of me and yet said nothing.

“Don’t be mad at her, Umma,” Heesu suddenly said, and I felt gratefulness pour toward my half-sister as she rose by my side. “Appa made a mistake, but it was not Raina’s fault.”

Your father has made many mistakes.
Sun Young’s coils shifted as she slithered restlessly around her underwater tomb.
Yet he sets; you rise.

“What is the Final Trial of Wisdom, Umma?” Heesu asked.

The Dreaming Dragon’s chrome scales flared with sudden light, which refracted off of the metallic treasure avalanches.

So eager, little imugi. But this Trial will not be like the others.
Sun Young bowed her head amongst a trio of obelisk diamonds, which magnified her colorless eyes.
Once, not so long ago, two young imugi stood where you do now, awaiting the Final Trial. One was a cunning shadow dragon, and the other was a young, powerful fire dragon.
Sun Young paused.
Your father.

Heesu and I glanced at each other. I inched closer despite myself, hypnotized by the lyrical beauty of the Dreaming Dragon’s voice:

Your father was formidable and charming, even for an imugi who had not grown his fourth claw. However, the shadow dragon was equally clever. The previous Serpent Guardian, Net, tested them for many days beneath the sea. Then Net discovered that the shadow dragon had stolen one of his precious treasures. The shadow dragon denied it, but Net disqualified her from the Trials. Net thanked your father for discovering the thief and blessed him with his fourth claw. Thus did your father rise above his siblings to become the first Celestial Dragon of Autumn for the New Age
. Sun Young’s past eyes began to flicker rapidly with past memories: wars, freshly inked treaties, handshakes, explosions.
The shadow dragon was punished.

“Why did Net believe the shadow imugi was the culprit?” I asked. Heesu swung toward me, her face darkening with anger. However, then she, too, awaited the Serpent’s answer.

Because of who she was.
Sun Young gazed upward beyond the dark crevices of the underwater tomb.
In the old days, the dragons were not the most powerful of all the serpent folk. There used to be gods. The shadow imugi was the reincarnation of the Korean goddess of wealth. So when his favorite Serendibite Scepter was found in her possession, Net wasted no time in extracting his vengeance.

Sun Young’s past eyes suddenly awoke, flashing silver with the blood of the gods. I caught a glimpse of smoky black wings evaporating on the ground with a sigh.

“Gods are real?” I whispered.

The Dreaming Dragon’s lilting laughter hung aerially in my mind like a choir’s harmony gathering at the top of a cathedral.
Every people has their gods who watch out for them. Once you could travel to Eve and seek out their counsel from the Beyond. These gods even elevated wise spirit walkers to the position of Elder Life Spirit, to serve as their messengers between the spirit and the mortal world. However, in recent times, the gods have begun to fade across the world from root, memory, and blood.
The Serpent cocked her head.
Why worship a god when you can become one yourself?

Heesu shook her head. “No, Umma. That doesn’t make sense. The Celestial Dragons are always born from
our
lineage. The past seasonal cycle was out of balance, true, but that was because Appa’s siblings died in the Korean War. He had to carry on the burden of being the sole Celestial Dragon for the entire age. He told us how the gods grew sick because of the Vampyre Court’s presence in the East. When their shrines remained empty, our deities weakened further. The Vampyre Queen saw her opportunity and tracked down the gods to lock them away, one by one. Soon only Appa and the Elder Life Spirits were left to defy her.”

I raised my head. “Then why haven’t they returned?”

Amongst the silence of shadows troubling Heesu’s face, the sea abruptly rushed up in an awful roar and crashed over the Great King Rocks. Sun Young’s present eyes fluttered like a candle about to wink out.

Many lips have been sealed to guard such a secret—
her voice trickled across our minds, dwindling to a faint rasp—
My duty as the Fourth Spirit Guardian forbids me from speaking of it. Yet I travel in the past and the future. I see what they want to remain hidden
.
From the age of a young girl, I always knew my sight would mean my death.

“Umma, what do you mean?” Heesu asked timidly. “Just give us the Final Trial and then leave Eve. Come home.”

Sun Young leaned forward and propped a claw under Heesu’s chin.
You know I cannot, Daughter. How I tried to last as long as I could, for you. But my mortal body was sick. Your father searched so hard for a cure, but there was never one to be found. There was only this…a trade.
The chrome dragon swept around her underwater prison of riches.
My Were was always stronger than my mortal spirit. Net was quick to agree to the trade. For these treasures had come to haunt him, you understand. It was only after I became the Fourth Guardian that I discovered…

Her future eyes suddenly awoke, burning with fire so radiant that they were impossible to look at. The Dreaming Dragon’s nostrils flared, and then a slow roar built up in her throat. Abruptly she released it, an underwater scream that the world would never hear.

Heesu and I clutched each other as the cavern shook. From out of the crevices dropped several sea snake women, each one holding a lyre. They began to play soothingly, and the haunting melody coaxed Heesu’s mother to the ground. She stared ahead unblinkingly, her spirit somewhere we couldn’t follow.

“She will come back,” our original sea snake guide gurgled at us. “When she does, do not waste her time. Chuseok approaches, little imugi. The Night of Falling Dreams will soon be upon us. The world needs a Celestial Dragon who will place it first.”

“My father already did that,” Heesu reported coolly.

I slowly raised my head. Ankor’s anguished face stretched across my mind.

“Did he?” I asked softly.

Heesu glared at me. “It is easy for you to be hard on him, Raina. You don’t see him as your father. But you don’t
know
Abeoji. I saw how much he cared for Umma and us. Look at everything our father has done to help build Korea into a place of progress. Yong Enterprises produces the most advanced technological marvels in the world! It is a place for spirits and mortals alike.”

“Do no mistake me. I mean your father no ill will. But he has long dismissed the North in favor of the South, and I am a tiger. My loyalty is to the Lady of Eve.”
The wily words of Baek Bo Ra continued to taunt me. Although I loathed the Second Guardian for forcing me into the decision of choosing between myself and Ankor, what I hated more was the fact that I had believed her. I hadn’t put the world first. I had fallen for the weretiger’s clever deceit: I had chosen to believe that I had no other choice than the one she had put before me.

Yet there had been. Heesu had said no and remained standing. It was my own view shaped by those in power that had told me there was no other way.

“I do not doubt our father believes he is doing the right thing,” I told Heesu. “But listen to the story your mother just told: Mun Mu never passed the Fourth Trial of Wisdom. He arose to be the Celestial Dragon because there was no one left to oppose him.”

Heesu turned toward me, and her shoulders slumped as if they carried a huge weight. Yet she didn’t crumple.

“So.” Her chin trembled as she raised it stubbornly. “Appa broke the rules…and ruled.”

A snort echoed, as loud as a motor spluttering to life. The Dreaming Dragon’s crystalline claws scraped metal as she awoke. Her present eyes snapped open, reflecting the world.

Name yourselves.

Heesu bit back a cry, and I placed a reassuring arm around her shoulder.

“Great Serpent, you know your daughter.”

This time Sun Young was agitated, still haunted by whatever she had seen. She thrashed restlessly as the echoing waves built around the cavern, but her colorless eyes paused to refocus on Heesu.

Daughter. I remember you.

This time, I was ready when the waterfall of memories crashed down.

And Mun Mu’s other daughter. Not the one he hoped.

“Umma.” When Heesu smiled up at the silver dragon, her eyes were shining with tears. “What is the Final Trial?”

The Dreaming Dragon exhaled, and her breath was a thick, glittering fog that spun characters in the air:

First Lesson: There is suffering.

Second Lesson: Suffering is attached to desire.

Third Lesson: To control your desires, you must claim your demons.

The Fourth Guardian crouched before us, golden coins spilling between her claws.
The
Fourth Lesson is this: Awareness of your desires cultivates the path to release. So, imugi children: you have passed the first Three Trials of Wisdom. Now, what is your awareness that will shape your Celestial Dragon’s path?

I opened my mouth to speak, but the Dreaming Dragon’s mist hushed me with a whisper:

Do not speak it to me. This is the answer you must tell the stars. Chuseok has come, imugi. The Night of Falling Dreams is upon us, when Eve and the mortal world cross paths. Many stars will fall tonight. Most will be false, but one will be true. You must speak your truth with the dragon’s breath, and then your fourth claw will grow. That shall be my mark.

Heesu and I shared a confused look. “Umma, what is the dragon’s breath?”

The thunder of waves drew ominously closer, and the cavern shuddered with such intensity that the lights of the fishing globes flickered. The Serpent grew agitated.
Go!
she cried, her voice so strong that it
pushed
us toward the rope.
The sea comes; you must flee. Go! Fly!

“Umma,” Heesu tried once more, pleading, but the distressed silver dragon wouldn’t listen.

Leave now.

Salt water began to splash into the cavern from above, so we wasted no more time. Heesu’s eyes fixated on what was left of her mother for a moment longer, and then she sprang into action. We shimmied up the rope.

Heesu pulled herself into the upper tunnel first. I was right behind. Suddenly, a silvery whorled tail lashed around my ankle. I clung to the slick rope in panic and stared down into the depths of the abyss.

Sun Young had followed me.

To my horror, I realized she was no longer there. Her present eyes were closed. It was her past eyes that bore holes through my head—two long, black graves.

You do not see her,
the Dreaming Dragon whispered.
You must see.

Her mist breath rushed my senses. Then the salt of the sea, the rumbling tomb, Heesu’s shouts—all of it vanished. I was sucked into the past.

Chapter 46: The Dreaming Dragon

~Raina~

“Hana, deul!”

One hundred voices shouted in answer to their instructor’s commands as they flowed through basic taekwondo exercises. I drifted amongst the halls of a brightly-lit
dojang
, peering into windows and watching Korean kids about my age take their stances on the mats. Their instructors walked up and down. They adjusted an elbow here and straightened a shoulder there. I entered a locker room and realized many of the kids were much bigger than me. Or maybe I had shrunk.

Glancing into a mirror, I realized that neither of those were quite true, because it wasn’t my face that stared back: It was Sun Bin’s.

Why was the Dreaming Dragon giving me this memory? Was something wrong with Sun Bin?

I didn’t fight the push and pull of my fellow classmates as the laughing, jostling mob flowed into the main gymnasium. Then I felt Sun Bin’s confidence build up inside of me. My arms and legs took on a consciousness of their own as I dragged my backpack briskly over to the bleachers.

Envy burned in my chest as I watched my classmates hit the mat. Father had said I couldn’t participate until my homework was done.

For the next hour, I watched other students twirl and kick to the tap of the instructor’s cane. To the far left of the mats, a sparring match was going on. Sullenness seeped into my vision. My father stood on the sidelines, nodding approvingly as Ankor took down an opponent twice his size. The match was called, and Mun Mu clapped rapidly before resuming his stoic pose. I felt my resentment growing and turned back to my arithmetic.

Nyssa sat nearby. She was a couple of years older than me, but she was more like a friend than a governess. I’d lost track of how many times we’d played “house.” We would always force Ankor and Heesu to be “the children,” and if they misbehaved, then we would send them to bed without supper or make them write lines— Nyssa was the more lenient parent.

Recently, however, Nyssa had begun to treat me differently. She was always on the phone with her classmates. When she spoke to me, her voice carried a condescending tone, as if she were addressing someone who needed babysitting, like Heesu. Now she completely ignored me, sweeping her long raven-black hair over her shoulder as she laughed and gossiped with two older schoolmates. I huffed and glared down at my homework, irritated to find that it hadn’t magically completed itself yet.