Year of the Dragon (Changeling Sisters Book 3)

by Heather Heffner

  “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 ti
mes 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.

  “Yeoboseyo?” Nyssa picked up her phone, suddenly alert. “Neh, ajumeoni. We’re on our way.” She grabbed my shoulder as if I suddenly existed again. “Come. Your mother has arrived and wants to attend your violin lesson.”

  “I don’t want to play the violin,” I declared. “Tell her I haven’t had a chance to fight yet.”

  Nyssa blew out a tuft of her hair impatiently. “Must you always be so difficult? You’ll fight next Saturday. Hurry! We don’t want to be late. You have an evening hagwon session after, and I’ve seen how much English practice you need.” She turned to her two middle school friends, suddenly mischievous. “During Sun Bin’s oral exam, she was trying to say, ‘I have a cough today,’ and do you know what she said? ‘I have a cock.’”

  All three of them howled with laughter, and I flushed angrily. Neither Nyssa nor my parents would explain the stupid English mispronunciation to me. My father had only remarked on Ankor’s perfect score and the need to send me to study abroad as soon as possible.

  Nyssa finished her hysterics to find me no longer there. I vaulted from the bleacher and shoved my way through the students jostling around the sparring ring until I found him: Lee Geon-woo, the only undefeated fighter in our grade.

  Geon-woo sighed. “Aish, Sun Bin. I already bested your brother and his friends today. Let’s put this off until next weekend. Look, your father is here. Do you really want me to clean the floor with you in front of him?”

  I glanced around to make sure I had everyone’s attention. “I understand if you need a week to rest so I’ll defeat you in two minutes instead of one.”

  Geon-woo’s gaze darkened, and then he jabbed a finger at the mat. “Ka.”

  I caught a glimpse of my father and Ankor standing disapprovingly on the sidelines. My head gear suddenly felt very heavy, and my chest guard cumbersome. Then Geon-woo’s shadow draped me, and I assumed my fighting stance.

  He was tall, so I stayed out of kicking range before skipping in and attempting a roundhouse. Geon-woo dodged, and I danced away before his gorilla fists caught me. If he lured me in too close, then I was dead. We parried back and forth across the ring, and then his foot snuck in. I fell face-flat on the mat, hard.

  I rolled up and found myself on the defensive, blocking his punches. I twisted and then danced in again for a hatchet kick, but Geon-woo only smiled. His absorbed the blow so he could retaliate, and I saw his foot fly toward my head.

  My eyes darkened to inky midnight, and my pupils morphed into silver slits like a lizard’s. Then I seized his foot and sent a burst of ice-cold shock zinging up his leg.

  Geon-woo’s kick glanced weakly off my temple, but I refused to desist, sending jolts of paralyzing cold deeper. My dragon senses luxuriated in the feeling of his strength seeping away. Geon-woo groaned, and I made my move. Before he could blink, I added a three-hundred-and-sixty degree spin to my roundhouse kick. Geon-woo dropped like a stone.

  The silence shattered with ear-splitting applause. My master nodded once, pleased. Ankor entered the ring to help up Geon-woo and then shot me a scathing glare. I ignored my sullen twin. He was upset because he hadn’t thought of it first. Geon-woo would never know, but he had faced a royal imugi. No one should ever be allowed to win against the likes of us.

  I scanned the admiring faces for any sign of my father. I finally spotted him near the bleachers, but his back was turned. My mother had entered the gym because of the hold-up, and she had needed to rest on the bleachers. My cheeks burned. I knew I was going to get lectured about making her exert herself later.

  A hand clamped down hard on my shoulder: Nyssa’s. Her nostrils flared, and I caught a glimpse of her inner nagi flash emerald green before she yanked me to my feet.

  “Selfish brat,” she said, “let’s go.”

  My inner Were still pounded in my ears, and I couldn’t force Winter’s icy claws from my heart in time. My fingers tightened around her wrist. Before I could stop it, frost shot up to her elbow. Nyssa’s eyes widened, and she whipped around to make sure no one had seen. But she didn’t let go.

  Drawing me close, she slapped me across the face. Swift and hard.

  “Stupid little girl,” Nyssa breathed. “You think that will work on me?”

  “Nyssa-ya!”

  My father beckoned from the exit. Holding my stinging cheek and trying not to cry, I allowed Nyssa to tow me out to the car. My mother and Ankor were already inside.

  My father held the door open for Nyssa and then closed it on me.

  “Yong Sun Bin.”

  I shuddered at the rumble in his voice but forced myself to look up. Mun Mu’s jaw was locked, and his eyes glowed baleful orange, like dancing flames.

  “I defeated Geon-woo today, Appa!” I whined. “Umma would understand! I thought you would be happy!”

  “You endangered us all by revealing your powers,” Mun Mu said softly. “You will not be returning to the dojang with Ankor again.”

  My jaw dropped. “This isn’t fair!” I cried, tears stinging my eyes. “I am the one who beat Geon-woo! Not Ankor! You should be training me!”

  “Ankor can control himself,” my father reported, impassive.

  I stomped my foot. “But Appa, I am your first-born! I shouldn’t have to be like Ankor! He should be more like me!”

  “You are headstrong and listen to no one but yourself. If you heed no one else, then by all means”—my father swung open the driver’s door—“find your own way home.”

  “Appa!” I pounded on the car, but Mun Mu revved the engine and pulled out of the lot. I caught a glimpse of my mother leaning against the window on the passenger side. Her blank eyes were somewhere else as usual. Then I was left alone in the parking lot, the wintry breeze swirling around my bare skin.

  Usually I didn’t feel the cold. But today it buried me beneath snowy drifts until I couldn’t feel anything at all.

  ***

  I resurfaced from the memory with a gasp, cold shock flooding me from the dark salt water lapping at my toes.

  “Raina!”

  There was Heesu frantically gesturing to me. I grabbed her hand and pulled myself out of the treasure chamber. I spared one last glance over my shoulder to catch a flash of silver in the bottomless abyss. Why had Sun Young shared that memory? Did she want me to forgive Sun Bin, so we could all work together? Did she think her first-born daughter should have been the finalist in my place?

  Or had she simply been confused and wanted to show me more of the dark side of our father? Whatever curse held her there also held her tongue; Sun Young had already hinted there was much she couldn’t say.

  Another wave doused my head as the ocean reclaimed its spirit tomb, and I fled after Heesu without another thought.

  Chapter 47: Tica’s Sacrifice

  ~Citlalli~

  I rested against the ashen rock and tried to remember a time before my world had plunged into unending tunnels of yawning darkness. The lava tubes switch-backed like veins across the body of the volcano. Our only guide was the strange “fire rock” path that the servant ghosts had mentioned. The red stones gleamed like rubies amongst the scarred tunnels, leading us further and further up the peak.

  We reached a cavern that held an underwater lake, and Khyber signaled that it was safe to rest. I collapsed on its shores and gulped down water. I’d heard the droplets echo
amongst the tunnels several miles back, and it had driven me mad plodding along without finding the source.

  Khyber crouched by my side, watching with amusement as I lapped up the water as if dying of thirst. “We will stay here until nightfall. We are close to the summit, Citlalli. We must be sure the moon has risen in order to be at our full strength.”

  I wiped a hand across my mouth and stopped, catching a glimpse of the cavern’s walls reflected in the lake’s waters. “This is another one of those cursed boxes, Khyber.”

  “Burnt out, from the looks of it.” Khyber drew a finger down the charred slashes carved in the wall and then glanced toward me, where my hand was half-raised toward my throat. “You should be fine.”

  I shivered and glanced toward the narrow tunnel that led to the summit. Where the fate of South Korea rested. Raina and the White Tiger needed the Emerald Veil brought down now. “How can we kill these weather spirits, Khyber?”

  Slowly, he looked up at me. “By fire. That will reveal them, and then I can kill them. But you already knew that, didn’t you, demon girl?”

  “Don’t call me that,” I growled, feeling Wolf’s hackles rise.

  The vampyre prince gave a grunt of annoyance. “Did you think no one would notice? Even your own pack feels their guard rise around you, and they do not know why. But I do. I have felt it encircling your mind for a while now…the flames. My brothers thought you were warding yourself from our compulsion. But I know that you have lost all control. You don’t even know how much the demon has grown inside of you. Your mind isn’t protected. It is trapped.”

  My single left eye blinked rapidly. Inside the hollowed crevice of my right, I felt heat smolder.

  “Leave Her alone,” I said softly, surprising both Wolf and Demon. “She is part of us. Fred didn’t create anything that wasn’t already there.”

  Khyber’s eyes flashed. “Please, human. There is darkness and light in every living thing. That is why you had one soul, where your angels and demons could coexist in balance. The kumiho may not have created anything new, but he did unbalance you. Shapeshifters with their half-beast souls are bad enough. Does your ‘Demon’ have a consciousness? Does She speak to you, little whispers about what She wants?”