Year of the Dragon (Changeling Sisters Book 3)

by Heather Heffner

  But I had known first.

  With the last of my flailing strength, I whipped my tail up in a stranglehold around her neck and drew her close.

  “Citlalli is no dragon. She runs with a pack,” I hissed, allowing her to see the lightning flash in my violet eyes. “I am Spring, the first Celestial Dragon in the heavens when the old year dies and the new year turns, bright and hopeful. I need no one. And I do things my way.”

  The downpour struck from out of nowhere, dropping giant, gourd-sized rain drops. Sun Bin shrieked as her black ice wings sizzled under the rising humidity.

  I didn’t move. My eyes were elsewhere, twin purple-hearted amethysts glowing, as I stirred the heart of the storm. The temperature around us thickened until breathing felt like swimming. The rain softened when it hit my scales, cleansing them of the grime I’d been submerged in not minutes ago.

  Then the entire swamp erupted in boiling water.

  Sun Bin cried out and clawed at her scorched eyes. Her icicle-thick hide began to thaw. Finally, she fell heavily on her side. I planted one claw over her windpipe and the other on her heart.

  A slow clap echoed from the banyan tree. I whirled around to see the black-furred Monkey grinning at me from the labyrinthine knot of branches that had almost become my tomb.

  “It appears I have my second victor,” Set said, grinning viciously. His knobby finger pointed at me, and then toward the panting Sun Bin. “Pass… fail.”

  “But—the Trial isn’t over!” Sun Bin protested, struggling to roll over. “There is still the temple to save!”

  “Which has already been done.” Set extended a hand, and Heesu appeared, surveying the aftermath of our destructive battle with dismay.

  “The earth imugi heeded both of your words, but saw deeper. She saw the connection to the banyan tree, known as the strangling fig to some, as home to others. She saw how the tree kept the waters at bay and if allowed to grow, could become part of the foundation itself. Thus the vampyre tombs are now sealed within the fists of the banyan’s roots, to be lowered deeper within the earth each passing year.” The Monkey held up Heesu’s palm, and we saw the mark of the Third Spirit Guardian’s tooth. “Behold the first finalist. Now see the second.”

  I shifted back to human form as Set approached.

  “You did not save the temple,” the Monkey said. “However, you demonstrated the third lesson of wisdom: to control your desires, you must claim your demons. The weaknesses you are ashamed of can be strengths, and the strengths you are proud of can be weaknesses. The only way you will escape being a slave to either is to embrace both.”

  And then he bit me. I hissed in pain and retracted my hand, shaking it.

  “Make haste now back to Korea, to Bongil Beach. There off the coast lies a crown-shaped island guarding an underwater tomb. That is where the Final Trial awaits you. Do not delay. Autumn comes, bringing Chuseok, the Night of Falling Dreams. If you do not pass the Final Trial, then the yeouiju will fall unclaimed.”

  Startled, I realized that the Monkey clutched my blue nagi figurine. Set cackled and waved it tauntingly. “You are welcome to give chase, little girl, but this time you will not catch me.” Then he disappeared as swiftly as he had come.

  Heesu and I regarded each other across the swamp, the eerie weight of the Final Trial settling over our shoulders. It was time. Eve was waiting for me.

  Sun Bin shifted, coughing up muddy water. We hurried to her side.

  “Unni, are you okay?” Heesu exclaimed. “And Raina! I was so worried for both of you. The jungle shook as if hit by an earthquake. I remained behind to strengthen the trees and make sure the temples remained standing.”

  Sun Bin winced, standing. “You did the right thing, Hee-ya.”

  “Which is more than I can say for you.”

  The familiar low voice was frosty with uncharacteristic derision. Nyssa stood a slender, disapproving shadow amongst the knotted roots of the banyan tree. Serpents of all types slithered across her sandals and looped around her shoulders, glaring balefully at Sun Bin. Mud and leaves stuck to their scales, and I knew they’d been my fellow underwater prisoners. I bowed my head to them gratefully, and they regarded me with guarded lidless eyes.

  “Nyssa,” Sun Bin gasped, ringing swamp mire from her hair. “It’s not what you think. This was all part of the test!”

  “The Monkey Guardian baited you, and you fell for it,” Nyssa replied coolly.

  “I failed this time,” Sun Bin admitted, “but it won’t happen again. I’ll speak to the Monkey Spirit, Nyssa. I will convince him to pass me, and then I will go on to catch the yeouiju, just as we planned!”

  “How? By bullying him?” Nyssa interrupted. I had never seen the quiet nagi so fired up. Here away from the city, Nyssa’s hair came loose from her French bun in thick, black waves, and she stood imposingly despite her small stature. The python dropped down from the overhanging boughs, hissing an acidic comment. Nyssa nodded and raised a hand.

  “You do realize Angkor Wat is home to many serpent folk. You collapsed their burrows, froze their swamps. Hundreds nearly perished with Raina,” she snapped.

  Sun Bin was flabbergasted. “Well…it’s a fight. They should be honored! After all, they witnessed a great battle between Celestial Dragons!”

  “I think they would rather live.” Nyssa stopped and regarded Sun Bin sadly. “The Monkey was right not to pass you. Let me share a secret with you, Sun-a. The serpent folk follow the dragons, but it is not out of love and respect. It is out of fear. You are too powerful and crush those ‘less’ than you without knowing it. But what is worse is that the dragon woman that I followed, that I loved, does know. And she doesn’t care.”

  “Wait!” Sun Bin chased her, but Nyssa melted away into the trees.

  “I thought you’d be different,” her dry hiss rattled amongst the ferns, and then she was gone.

  Sun Bin dropped to her knees. Leaves matted her normally silken black hair, and muck coated her knees. As the jungle’s lively chatter resumed, clouds of mosquitos buzzed around her eyelashes, but Sun Bin didn’t even blink. She stared, stunned, after Nyssa.

  “Oh, unni.” Heesu wrapped her arms around her older sister and squeezed her tight. Sun Bin didn’t seem to register she was being rocked back and forth. “You and Nyssa are meant to be together. She is family to us. Nyssa will come back. You’ll see.”

  “I’ve ruined everything,” Sun Bin whispered, shell-shocked, to no one in particular.

  Awkwardly, I approached and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Sun-a.”

  At the sound of my voice, Sun Bin’s neck whipped around like a lizard’s. Her dark eyes crept up to mine, brimming with malice, but then, just like that, the ice shattered. She slumped in Heesu’s arms and allowed herself to be rocked, staring dully at the ground.

  “Don’t be,” the Winter Dragon said. “We were already broken before you came along.”

  Chapter 35: The Ore Dragon

  ~Citlalli~

  In my dream, Una and I walked side by side through an orchard of flowering cherry trees. Their petals gusted and swirled around us like falling snow. Our skin was soft and unblemished, with no sign of scarring. Ahead, Taeyang waited in a gazebo overlooking a sky-blue lake. His back was to us, and he had one hand in his pocket.

  “Who is this friend you’ve brought me to meet?” Una asked, raising an eyebrow.

  I smiled mischievously and put a finger to my lips. Twice more Una asked, and still I held my silence, beckoning her closer. Laughing, Una followed. Closer and closer we drew, the cherry petals hiding our footprints, until we reached the steps of the gazebo.

  Taeyang turned. It was him, but his eyes burned with Khyber’s cold blue ice. The sun charm slipped from his hand to clatter on the ground, and then fangs descended from his mouth.

  Una shouted and drew her staff. I tried to calm her, but Una pointed the sharpened stave at me.

  “Do not come near me, Child of Death!” she growled. “You are one of
them.”

  Taken aback by the animosity burning in her eyes, I glanced toward the lake for my reflection.

  I didn’t have one.

  ***

  Unnerved, I prowled outside of Ankor’s office after work that evening, waiting for him to arrive back from the Laboratories. My dream, while disturbing, had alerted me to something that had been bothering me for a long time: Taeyang’s origin. Khyber had mentioned creating him by taking Maya’s Four Life Stages one step further. However, he had only been able to create a living, independent semblance of himself after finding a very important object: his soul.

  If Khyber had been able to detach all of the good portions of himself and pour them into a vessel named Taeyang, then was it possible for Ankor and I to do the same? Take Demon and the unstable Energy Dragon and banish them away?

  “You are not a tree you can cut the rot out of,” I heard Una’s voice echo from long ago, when I’d first been infected by Rafael’s werewolf bite. “You can’t cut the poisoned limb to save the others. This is your soul. It is you.”

  “Whatever, Una,” I muttered. Demon sure as hell wasn’t. She was kumiho fire, conniving and vicious. If I could cut Her out of me, then I would.

  Ankor’s secretary finally emerged with a stack of folders in his hands. He cocked his head in surprise.

  “You no know?” he asked in broken English. “Mr. Yong leave early to pack for trip.”

  “Oh!” I was startled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Jeongmal?” Really? The secretary continued, “He go with your family. Your sister.”

  “Cambodia?” I asked, scratching my head. Raina had said Ankor had taken his dismissal from the Second Trial of Wisdom very hard, especially since all of his other siblings had passed. More power to him if he had rebounded already and wanted to show them support during the Third Trial.

  The man nodded. “Neh. Oh! Kwajang-nim!” He bowed, and I turned to see Ankor stalking toward us with his keycard in hand.

  The Autumn Dragon’s flinty gaze looked me up and down with its usual lack of humanity, and then he extended a hand to his secretary. He spoke briskly in Korean, but I caught him asking for the Ko Siwoo files.

  The man bowed. “Algesseumnida,” he said and then hurried to unlock the office.

  “Um, Ankor?” I asked once the secretary had disappeared inside. “You’re going on a trip?”

  Wolf was alert to the tension rigid in his muscles, and I sensed something else brooding beneath his stony exterior: fear.

  “Yes. Cambodia,” Ankor said shortly and then nodded thanks as his secretary gave him the files. I stared at the Hangeul characters spelling out Ko Siwoo with growing dread.

  “Taking those with you?” I asked casually.

  “I really have to pack, Citlalli,” he reported, brushing past.

  “Hey.” I grabbed his sleeve. Ankor sighed and waved his hand impatiently for his secretary to go ahead.

  I planted my feet in his way. “You’re not going to Cambodia, are you?”

  Ankor snorted, adjusting his glasses and opening the folder. “You’re not the Alpha anymore, Citlalli. Good luck demanding answers.”

  I’d snatched the files from his hand before the pesky lizard boy could blink. “I don’t need to be Alpha to get what I want. And Ankor, what I want is your safety. Apparently you Celestial Dragons are irreplaceable, so the rest of us have to put up with your charming attitudes.”

  Ankor shot me a look, and I tried again, softer, “Where are you going?”

  He hesitated and then extended a hand. “May I?”

  I reluctantly turned over the file. Ankor excitedly flipped through the pages and showed me a chart written in Hangeul with a picture of a sickly white orb gripped within a dragon’s claws. I leaned closer, squinting. Yep, there was no doubt about it. I counted only three claws.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked slowly.

  “Yes, Citlalli. This is a yeouiju.” Ankor touched the picture longingly. “However, this is no fully mature Dragon’s Pearl deepened to the color of night. It is a lighter, less powerful yeouiju for imugi. I had heard stories before, but I had never seen one.”

  I stared at the page for a moment, picking out what words I could from the highly technical terminology. Then my eyes traveled to the file’s name.

  “Why is this in Ko Siwoo’s file?” I asked slowly.

  “His family found one before.” Excitement reawakened in Ankor’s eyes, and I recognized the young scientist who had been so thrilled to finally share his secret with someone. “Siwoo’s grandmother was a haenyeo, a sea woman. She dove often with others off the coast of Jeju-do, and they discovered many marvelous treasures lost in the deep. One day she found a pure white pearl, the size of a turtle egg. When Siwoo’s grandmother held it in her hands, the pearl’s surface changed. She could gaze into it and see many things. And she lived to a great old age, passing one hundred and still diving into sea as if she were a spry forty.

  “However”—Ankor put up a finger—“this grandmother only ever touched the pearl with gloves. Anyone who touched the gem with their bare skin went mad and died within three days. Such a fate befell a thief who tried to steal it. They found his body on the beach, and the magical pearl was nowhere to be found. The sea had taken it back.”

  I pursed my lower lip. “That’s a fine story. But aren’t dragons the only ones who can find these magical pearls? You must have developed the wisdom to see them for what they are, or something like that?”

  “For a fully mature yeouiju, yes. But this is a lesser white yeouiju, an Imugi’s Pearl! Siwoo’s grandmother was a woman of great wisdom. She was drawn to it amongst all of the other precious jewels hidden beneath the sea.” My excitement failed to match his own, and Ankor’s face fell.

  “You don’t understand, keh,” he sneered, snatching the paper away. “Siwoo’s grandmother stayed in great health, and all those who touched the pearl in humility received peace of mind. Don’t you understand what this could mean for us, Citlalli? The key to healing the fractured soul of a Triad could lie within this Imugi’s Pearl.”

  “So could our destruction,” I replied softly. “Ankor, Ko Siwoo is dead. This story is a lie told to you from the monster inhabiting his body, an evil nine-tailed fox named—”

  “Fred.” Ankor looked up to find me regarding him in horror. “He told me.”

  Heat pounded in my ears, and my insides curdled in shock. “You know?” I whispered, wildly searching his flat gaze for some hint of remorse. “Ankor, Fred cannot be trusted! Take this from someone who has been tricked by that smarmy vermin an embarrassing number of times!”

  “Fred also helped you heal the corrupted haetae, didn’t he?” Ankor challenged. “Citlalli, Fred revealed his identity to me on his first day of work. The vampyre princes discovered Si Woo’s werewolf family on Jeju-do and corrupted them in order to infiltrate your pack. They chose Fred to lead them. The kumiho knew the vampyre princes were watching him through their Dark Spirit spies. He had to play you to keep their trust. However, Fred wants the Emerald Veil brought down so your friend Una can be rescued. The vampyre princes are watching you, but they aren’t watching me.”

  “Fred is on no one’s side but his own,” I stated flatly. “He tried to kill my brother because of his maniacal obsession with Una, and he turned me into a Triad. I would have thought you would understand that, Ankor.”

  For once, the Autumn Dragon was lost for words. “I’m sorry,” he finally said in a low voice. “I didn’t know he was the one responsible. But, a lot of the things he said make sense now.”

  My head jerked up, and I watched resolve envelop Ankor’s face in a stony mask. “The fox spoke of making amends to others like me. The Imugi’s Pearl is the way to help us. However, we are not the only ones who want it.”

  “That’s what the vampyres are searching for?” I asked, puzzled. “No, Ankor. That doesn’t make sense! Why would they want a pearl that bestows good health and peace of mind?”<
br />
  “They are, and they’re using the haenyeo to find it. Remember: good things happen if one is wise enough to wield the Imugi’s Pearl, but bad things happen if one isn’t.” Ankor checked his phone and swore when he saw the time. “Trust me, Citlalli. I am a former ore dragon who senses the minerals in the earth. If anyone can find the white yeouiju first, it’s me. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  He moved with deadly swiftness down the hall, and my mouth went dry. “Shit. Fred told you how to get through the mist. Didn’t he?”

  The Autumn Dragon didn’t turn, and Wolf’s growl slipped from between my clenched teeth. “Ankor! This is a trap! You cannot go on your own!”

  “I must,” he said softly. “I must go alone or not at all.”

  “You’re taking the word of a shady kumiho over mine? Your family’s?” I begged him. “Ankor, please! If you know the way through the Emerald Veil, then you must share it! Let my pack go instead! Ankor, you are the Dragon Prince! If something happens to you, then the cycle is broken!”

  He whirled, and his hands clenched into fists. “Foolish keh, it already is! By me! I am only half a dragon! I failed the Second Trial of Wisdom! How can the Celestial Dragons ever be full and whole, wielding the sacred Dragon Pearls to force back the Dark Spirits for good, if I cannot shift? My father was right. I failed him and our family. Now I have a chance to set things right.”

  I took another deliberate step toward him, angling toward his left flank. Ankor’s eyes widened incredulously as he read my intention.

  “I’m not letting you go anywhere,” I growled.

  “I will not enjoy this,” the dragon boy promised.

  I struck first, but Ankor absorbed the blow like a sturdy oak. His fingers wrapped around my wrists, creating unbreakable iron manacles, and then he twisted me against the wall. His breath was hot against my ear as he held me pinned. Then Ankor kneed me hard in the back of the leg, and I crumpled. He was a seasoned fighter with years of training, I could tell. My experience was more of the wolf wrestling variety. However, letting Ankor walk out of Yong Enterprises would be the equivalent of sending him to his death.