Year of the Dragon (Changeling Sisters Book 3) (25 page)

“Ah.” Bo Ra’s guttural growl cut in. “But the enemy does not.” She pointed a scarred finger at Heesu. “What is the First Trial of Wisdom’s lesson?”

“‘There is suffering,’” Heesu muttered.

“The second lesson is this: ‘Suffering is attached to desire.’” Bo Ra folded her arms and studied each of us in turn. “Know your enemy’s weaknesses, but even more so, know your own. You face no flesh-and-blood foe, but ghosts of vengeance and bloodshed. The vampyre princes and their Dark Spirit allies can see beneath your skin. They can visit your dreams and see what haunts you. To pass Deul, the Second Trial of Wisdom, you must identify the desires that are attached to your suffering and let them go. You must come to peace with yourself. Otherwise you will be defeated before you begin.”

Nyssa stood and bowed. “When shall they take this Trial, Baek sunsaeng-nim?”

Bo Ra clambered to her feet and planted her pole in the soil. “It begins tonight. We shall make camp here. Each day at sundown, one of you shall make the climb to the summit and gaze upon Heaven Lake, a window into your soul. When you return, tell me whether you passed or failed. The order shall be this: Sun Bin, Heesu, Raina, Ankor.”

We glanced at Ankor, and he gave a sarcastic bow. “Ladies first.”

Bo Ra clapped her hands. Her weretigers emerged from the crevices with gray camouflaged tents and backpacks. “Make camp,” their chieftain commanded. “You, girl,” she continued, pointing at Sun Bin. “Prepare. You leave tonight.”

I approached Ankor later when he was tending the campfire, but he shook my hand from his shoulder.

“What did your sister mean?” I pressed. “How are you half a dragon?”

He wheeled on me, shadows from the flames dancing across his face. However, his eyes stood out like glittering onyx, flaring with a startling kaleidoscope of color. I took a step back in shock. I had never seen an inner Were of such intensity before.

“I am not half of anything,” Ankor snapped. “Sun Bin is bitter. She doesn’t understand that Appa always pitted us against one another. I was never his favorite any more than she was. But there is no time to play these games anymore. The threat of a Children of Death Coalition is real. Soon I will be whole again, and this time I will show the Were Nation how to win a war.”

Nyssa joined me, crouching beside the flickering flames. We watched Ankor stalk off, smacking aside branches as if they had personally offended him.

“This will not be an easy trial, I fear,” the werenagi said softly.

“Was Mun Mu really too busy looking for his wife’s cure to help in the Were War?” I asked, dreading the answer.

Nyssa sighed, smoothing her long braid. “Oh, Raina. There is much that we owe the royal dragons, it is true. However, more often than not, it is a happy coincidence that they free us from our oppressors, rather than their intention. First and foremost, the dragons care about themselves.”

“I’m not like that,” I said defensively. “I care about Citlalli and my family more than anything in the world. I saw the lengths the Were Nation went to save me and the kidnapped girls.”

Nyssa smiled sadly and patted my shoulder. “That is nice to hear, Raina. Sun Bin and Ankor once thought the same, too.”

I caught her glancing up toward the shadowy summit of Mt. Baekdu, a silver sliver in the dark of the night and yet unmistakably present: a mighty behemoth debating whether to cradle or crush us while we slept.

“Sun Bin will be okay, Nyssa.”

“Of course.” Nyssa clutched her shawl tighter and attempted a chuckle. “I’ve always known Sun was a force to be reckoned with. If anything, I should fear for those in her way.”

I offered her another cup of tea, and she accepted. Surrounded by the ferocious weretigers in the hostile wilderness of North Korea, I knew neither of us planned on sleeping tonight.

Chapter 30: The Second Trial

~Raina~

Mid-morning broke surly gray across the forested valley, and Sun Bin had not returned. Nyssa strode back and forth in agitation. A heavy silence fell over our camp, broken only by the bubble of the hot springs and the distant roar of the waterfall. I breathed in the scent of pine and stretched, glancing toward Heesu.

“Morning flight?”

She caught my underlining meaning and nodded vigorously. However, Bo Ra appeared as silently as a ghost. “No fly,” she growled. “Many spirits who are not your friends dwell within these peaks.”

I hesitated, looking back toward an anxious Nyssa. “Surely it can’t hurt to investigate a little ways up the trail.”

“No,” the weretigress said flatly, her amber eyes flashing in annoyance. “Speak of this again, and I shall declare you unworthy to complete the Trial. Sun Bin must return on her own.”

Ankor spotted her first. A little past noon, when the crickets began to hum, Sun Bin stumbled around the bend and lurched, headfirst, toward the hot springs. Ankor sprang to his feet and caught his twin, lowering her slowly so she could catch her breath.

As soon as she’d dipped her feet in the water, we smothered her with shouts and hugs. Sun Bin endured it all with a weary grin, but her face hardened when Bo Ra approached. We parted to let the weretigress through.

“Yong Sun Bin,” the Second Guardian said. “What was the outcome of your Trial?”

Sun Bin’s fingers tightened on her brother’s shoulder, but then a slow smile broke across her face. “Pass,” she whispered.

Everyone broke into whoops and cheers except for Bo Ra. The sunlight hit the gleam of her extended claws, and that was all the warning Sun Bin had. Then Bo Ra drew a tiger’s claw on Sun Bin’s palm, next to the Jackdaw’s inky footprint.

Sun Bin swore, and Nyssa hurried off to find a bandage. The weretigress merely turned to Heesu. “A token of favor is earned. It is your turn to prepare, child. You leave tonight.”

Sun Bin’s hand shot out to grab her sister’s wrist. “Look for the carrions, Heesu-ya. I left them to guide your way.”

“‘Carrion’?” Heesu repeated the unfamiliar English word curiously.

“Small piles of rocks,” Sun Bin said, nodding at me for confirmation. “Look for them if you lose your way. What awaits you up there…” She shuddered and gazed off into the steam of the hot springs.

Once more did one of our siblings leave us that night to enter the vast darkness of Mt. Baekdu. Once more did Nyssa and I sit side-by-side before the campfire in companionable silence. Sun Bin collapsed exhausted in her tent, dead to the world. Preferring the company of no one, Ankor wandered off until the night swallowed him completely.

Dawn crept beneath my eyelids. I shot awake, an unshakeable dread filling my chest until I couldn’t breathe. I dashed to the trailhead.

And there was a small, grinning Korean girl accepting Bo Ra’s claw mark on her palm.

“Just you and me left, Alvarez.” Ankor stepped up beside me, and I knew from the shadows creasing his eyes that he hadn’t slept much, either.

We feasted on
budae jjigae
that afternoon. Ankor was a patient cook, cracking open tins of spam and crunching up ramyeon noodles to add to the seasoned red broth. I slurped down two bowls of the “army stew.” I was desperate to fill the anxiety in my stomach, which grew more incessant the further the sun crossed the sky.

At last it was time. Heesu advised me to follow the carrions, while Sun Bin threw an arm around her younger sister’s shoulder and commented that she hoped I wasn’t afraid of ghosts. Ankor said nothing, crouching to tend the fire.

Suddenly, Bo Ra appeared and doused the fire with a bucket of water. Ankor stumbled backwards with a startled, “Mweo-yehyo?”

Bo Ra drew us close and sniffed the air. She put a finger to her lips in caution. “No fire tonight. My scouts scented something strange in the valley. There may be enemy soldiers close tonight.”

“North Korean soldiers?” Sun Bin demanded. “You do know how much Raina could go for ransom if they catch her out there?”

Bo Ra snorted. “They will not patrol the mountain at night. They know that what awaits them up here does not fear their guns.”

“So it is us who should worry.” Sun Bin folded her arms. “You tigers better not try anything. My father will flip shit if anything happens to us.”

“Unlike the dragons, the tigers do not care to become lazy and complacent with material wealth,” Bo Ra replied coolly. “Selling you to the North Korean military would not accomplish much, but it would rid us of your petulant whining. So don’t tempt me. And as for your father, see if he even remembers how to find his way through the North to find you.” She sauntered past Sun Bin so smugly that I half-expected to see her cat’s tail wave in taunt. “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.”

So it was that I left a camp brimming with hostility to enter colder darkness. The trail gained elevation quickly, and I adjusted my headlamp. Ghostly blue tigers with red eyes dripping venom watched me from their high cliffs, and I quickly averted my eyes. The only solace I found was every time my beam of light fell upon a little mountain of rocks. I knew I was on the right path.

Snow still encased Mt. Baekdu’s slopes despite the summer, creating large blue cocoons and anamorphic shapes that caused me to jump once or twice. I lost the trail and found myself facing a field of boulders leading up to the summit. My heart fell, but then I spotted a small carrion sitting atop the largest rock.

My hiking boots slipped in the shale, causing small avalanches, but I hoisted myself up onto the giant boulder. Panting, I crawled over to rest against the trail marker.

Suddenly, I heard a strange scraping noise echo from below, as if something were crawling up after me. A pale hand appeared first on the boulder, and then a wasting humanoid figure pulled itself up. It moved with slow but intentional malice. It turned its head to look at me, and I saw its mouth stretch into an impossibly long smile from ear to ear. Black wisps of hair dangled around its cadaverous ribcage. The monstrous thing extended a hand.

–Yong Rai Na–

I backed up, but the Dark Spirit pulled itself closer, its grin continuing to grow.

–I hope you don’t mind. I moved your little rocks–

Horror growing, I jumped away from the carrion. The wasting humanoid slithered ever closer, its long fingers leaving deep gouges in the stone.

–You are not the broken one. It is no matter. You are better. You are one of
ours
. So lonely and bitter. You thirst day and night for
revenge
–

“Get the hell away from me!” The winds leaped to my command and buffeted the wretched creature. It blew over backward, but then rebounded to its feet with inhuman speed. Its mouth twisted in a silent scream, and then it raced toward me.

I felt its cold fingers wrap around my ankle, but by then my wings were able to tear free from my coat. I shot up the mountain, terror fueling my speed. However, I couldn’t shake the numb feeling from where the Dark Spirit had grabbed me. The cold spread like a cancer up through the tips of my wings, weighing me down. Suddenly, I couldn’t feel them at all. My stomach flipped, and then I plummeted toward the earth.

The moon emerged from behind the clouds. I just had time to glimpse an enormous lake full of swirling, inky-black eddies. Then I crashed through its surface, and everything went dark.

***

Music invaded my head, loud and angry. I hazily opened my eyes and saw the pink converses I hadn’t worn since I was seven years old. Miguel was in the driver’s seat beside me, hollering at the top of his lungs in a horrible rendition of song. The music was bad and the song vulgar, but Miguel didn’t notice. His face was wan, and his eyes were streaked with red veins after staying up for so many nights. My younger self stared at the red blotches carpeting his inner arm and started to cry.

Somehow, he heard my tears over the deafening drop-beat, and his face knotted up in rage.

“You should be upset!” Miguel pointed a finger at me. His eyes spun about wildly; I shielded my face as we hurdled through a stop sign. “He can’t be around the rest of us because you remind him of it! Every day! Shit, you don’t even
look
right! If Mami wants to leave us, then you can just get on the plane with her! Go! Be with the rest of your kind!”

The wheezing Jaguar squealed up next to the drop-off for the airport. I stared in abject terror at the throngs of strangers shoving through revolving doors while cars honked and security guards blew whistles.

However, I was more frightened of being left alone in the car with my brother. When he told me to get out, I stumbled onto the pavement, clutching the strap of my blue backpack and my favorite dolphin stuffed animal. Miguel peeled away through the crosswalk, causing two parking lot attendants to chase after him half-heartily.

I stayed frozen on that curb for over thirty minutes, certain that any moment now, Mari and Daniella would come and get me. The security guards began to look at me. They were very tall and smelled like cigarettes. I backed away through the revolving doors.

The airport lobby twisted long and far ahead of me as I trotted around and called out to women who looked like Mami. Each time they turned, strange faces that weren’t hers cocked quizzical eyebrows, and I ran away.

The cleaning lady found me curled up sobbing in a bathroom stall. An hour later, a familiar rusted SUV pulled up to the curb. I dashed straight into Mari’s arms. Daniella smoothed a blanket over my shoulders while our older sister spoke with the police. I tried to ask where Papi was, and each time Daniella
ssh
ed me. I saw the blue siren lights flickering over the car window. They briefly illuminated Citlalli’s head leaning against the back seat. She was sound asleep.

Watching that fateful night now, an angry rumble awoke in my chest. My dragon’s growl rose as the memories began to cascade. Citlalli, doted on by my father and brother as the true youngest child. Citlalli, fearlessly sacrificing herself to save me from the Vampyre Queen. Citlalli challenging bullies like Sun Bin without batting an eyelash; Citlalli receiving Mun Mu’s praise; Citlalli earning Yu Li’s respect; Citlalli even taking Khyber, whom I had thought tethered to me in some way by our unforgettable experience in the Vampyre Court. Now my vampyre prince and half-sister were bound together for life, a bond I would never have.