Prophecy (3 page)

As children, Shin Bo Hyun had made it his mission to tease Kira. He would play nasty little tricks on her, like pushing her into the carp pond, sneaking pepper into her sweet rice punch, or putting honey in her shoes. As they got older, the tricks stopped but his attention remained the same; he was always teasing her about her strange-colored eyes or unnatural behavior.

A hot surge of anger pulsed through her veins. Was this another one of his jests? Since that first fateful encounter with the demon, she’d been trained like her brothers as a saulabi. Her life was so different from that of the other court women. They were raised to expect marriage and children as their due. Kira was an outcast. How could a warrior become a bride?

“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I will never marry.”

“Kira, this is not a request,” the queen said. Her voice was cold and quiet.

“How can I marry anyone?”

“You’ll do it because it is your duty.”

Kira shook her head. “No! Ask me for anything else but this!”

“Please, Kira! You must calm down,” Lady Kang interjected. “My dear sister, let my daughter get used to this idea. After all, you said so yourself. She’s thought of herself as more boy than girl for all these years. Give her time to consider what it means to become a woman.”

Lady Kang threw Kira a pleading glance.

“Your mother is right,” the queen said. “Kira, you are my only niece and I wanted to see your future settled. But I forgot how shocking this must be to you. Once you’ve given it some thought, you’ll realize that this is a great honor.”

Silence followed. Kira knew they were both waiting for her to apologize, but it was as if a demon had a hold of her tongue. She knew arranged marriages were a way of life for all citizens of Hansong. An unmarried woman was a burden to her family, an outcast. But Kira was already an outcast.

Several tense minutes later, the queen dismissed her, a look of disappointment shadowing her lovely face.

Kira bowed deeply to both her aunt and mother, suppressing the urge to bolt out of the pavilion. She resented having to think of marriage when demons were overrunning her city. Once again she cursed the king for insisting on complete secrecy. If her aunt knew of the constant threat to her husband and son, would she bother with this betrothal?

Keeping her head high, Kira walked past the gossiping court ladies, when she heard a loud, complaining voice.

“How can they marry her off to Lord Shin Bo Hyun? She fights like a man, she’s strong like a bear,” the voice said. “Why, she’s liable to kill him in his sleep!”

“She’s not that bad,” someone said. “I think she’s kind of pretty.”

“Pretty like a kumiho,” another voice cut in. “Just look at those creepy eyes!”

“Don’t be stupid,” the first speaker snapped. “Kumihos are supposed to be so beautiful to look at that they can seduce any man in the world. She would just frighten him to death!”

Laughter erupted as the ladies whipped their fans into a frenzy. Kira couldn’t tell if it was the throbbing pain of her wounds or the achy tightness of her chest that made her eyes water. But as she left the pavilion, she vowed to break the betrothal, at any cost.

Kira’s stomach dropped when she arrived at her father’s office. The
king’s guards were lined up outside the doors. She’d hoped to see her father first before facing the king.

To say Kira didn’t have a good relationship with her uncle was an understatement. He never hid his disapproval or dislike of her and barely tolerated her position as the prince’s bodyguard. To King Yuri, Kira would always be the demon child, a freak of nature, and a terrible embarrassment to the royal family.

Better to get it over with
, she thought.

The supreme commander’s office was spacious and drafty. In the center, a long desk was piled with scrolls and heavy parchment; behind it, a padded stool. There were no other seats in the room. The king was dressed in full armor at the front of the desk, next to her father, General Kang, and her two brothers, Kyoung and Kwan. On the other side of the desk stood Brother Woojin, a small bald man wearing the typical gray robes of a monk. He came from the famous Dragon Springs Temple of the Tongey Kingdom and had been the prince’s tutor for seven years.

At her approach, the general stopped talking. Kira bowed to the king and her father and then clasped her hands behind her back.

“Daughter, I would take umbrage at your lateness in reporting to us, but I understand that the queen demanded your presence first,” the general said.

“Yes, sir,” she replied. She kept her head bowed, unwilling to meet the king’s eyes.

“Furthermore, we have received word that there was a public demon slaying in the marketplace today,” he said. “Is this true?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“You deliberately violated the king’s decree?” he asked.

Sweat dripped down her neck as she stole a quick peek at her uncle. The king’s face was as impassive as her father’s.

“I’m sorry,” she replied. “He persuaded the people to protect him. I had no choice. He was heading for the palace to attack the king.”

Looking up, she saw her father and the king exchange glances.

“Your Majesty, this is the third attempt on your life in one month,” her father said. “And there is trouble in the other kingdoms as well. We’ve received word that the Yamatos have invaded Kaya. But of greater concern is the news that King Asin of Tongey, King Mun of Jinhan, and all three of Mun’s sons were murdered. Most likely by demons.”

He faced the king. “This is no coincidence.”

Troubled, Kira stared at the back wall, which was covered with an intricately painted map of the Seven Kingdoms that made up their peninsula. Hansong was located in the middle, bordering the Yellow Sea to the west, Kudara to the south, Jinhan to the east, and Guru, the largest of the kingdoms, to the north. The small kingdoms of Tongey and Oakcho lay between Guru and Jinhan.

For years the southern kingdom of Kudara had coveted Hansong’s prime location. The two kingdoms were separated by the Han River and kept an uneasy peace. Fortunately, blood ties with Guru and Jinhan kept them on friendlier terms. King Yuri’s maternal clan hailed from Jinhan, and Queen Ja-young’s older brother was the king of Guru.

Kira examined Kaya’s location at the southernmost tip of the peninsula, close in proximity to the island nation of Yamato, and bordered on both sides by Jinhan and Kudara. If there was a connection between the invasion and the murders, then trouble was not far from Hansong.

“It is as I suspected. They are killing off the descendants of the Dragon King,” Brother Woojin said. He pressed his hands together. “You are in grave danger, Your Majesty.”

“What do you mean,
Sunim
?” Kira asked, calling the monk by his honorific. “What’s going on?”

The king ignored her and waved off the monk’s words. “It’s Kira’s job to sniff them out.”

Kira was surprised to see the anger on both of her brothers’ faces. They were tall and imposing men. Both had dark-skinned complexions and deep-set eyes. Kyoung, the eldest, was wide and broad-shouldered, while Kwan was lean and wiry. They were two of the deadliest saulabi fighters in all of Hansong. Kira had always looked up to them and they looked after her. She was shocked when Kyoung, the more even-tempered of the two, exploded.

“Your Majesty, you ask too much of her!” Kyoung said. “There’s only one of her and thousands of them.”

“Calm yourself,” the general said. “While we can definitely expect more attacks, the palace is too large to cover completely. Which is why all royal guards will continue to stay with their patrol at all times once they have been cleared by Kira.”

Kira nodded. A few months ago, a demon had possessed a guard and made it through the palace gates. Fortunately, Kira had been close by and eliminated the threat before he could reach the inner sanctums of the palace. Ever since then, the palace servants were not allowed off the premises, and her father had put her in charge of sweeping through the ranks of all the military units every morning to check for demon possession. While she appreciated her brother’s concern for her, she wondered at its excessiveness. What was she missing?

The king gave a loud oath and threw down the silk scroll he’d been holding.

“These attempts on my life are a ruse. The real danger is still to my son,” the king said.

“Your Majesty, I’m afraid that the danger is to you both,” Brother Woojin said.

“Sunim,” the king said sharply. “How many times do I have to remind you that what happens to me is not as important as what happens to Taejo? He must be protected and kept alive at all costs. He is the last of my line.”

He gazed at Kira with barely concealed contempt.

“Kira, you have broken my decree and failed in your duty to keep the public safe from knowledge of the demon threat,” he said. “How can I trust you to protect my son?”

She burned at his words, in anger and shame. Kira knew that to the king, her only value was as the prince’s bodyguard. But for her cursed talent, she would have been killed or banished long ago.

“I swear on my life. I will protect the prince,” she said, her voice thick with the tears she refused to release.

His eyes bore into hers for a long, uncomfortable moment before he dismissed her with a careless flick of his hand. “I will not punish you this time.”

Kira bowed. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“I must go. Your father will brief you on the situation,” the king said. “Lieutenant Colonel Kang and Lieutenant Kang will attend to me now.”

Without a backward glance, he left the room, her brothers following close behind.

As the metallic clinking of armor faded into the distance, she tried to tamp down the anger that always overcame her when dealing with her uncle, but to no avail.

Kira cried out in frustration. “Why must he hate me so much?”

Brother Woojin placed a comforting hand on Kira’s shoulder. “Perhaps
hate
is too strong a word,” he said.

“You’re right;
loathe
is more appropriate. That’s why he always looks at me like I’m a disgusting dung fly he wants to squash,” she said.

“Kira, don’t say such ridiculous things,” her father replied. “You are the prince’s bodyguard. His Majesty doesn’t hate you.”

Kira snorted. “Just because he finds me useful doesn’t mean he likes me. I know he keeps hoping that one day I won’t return and he’ll finally be rid of the monster in the family.”

“Ya! Kira!” her father yelled. “Watch what you say!”

Aggravated, she began to pace. Her father could be so blinded by loyalty that he missed the obvious and erased away past slights. But Kira could never forget so easily.

She’d been seven years old when she had her first vision and killed her first demon-possessed human. Lord Noh, the ambassador to Cathay and an old friend of the king’s, had returned to court after ten years away, no longer human. But only Kira could sense the change. The nightmares that she’d been having, about the prince being attacked by a demon, suddenly made sense. When she tried to tell the king and queen, no one believed her. All she got were ten lashes across her back and the sure knowledge that the king wished her dead.

She’d never forgotten what he said to her that day. “Children die all the time. Why not you?”

Kira had known it was up to her to stop the demon in Lord Noh’s body. She began to follow him everywhere and saw him kidnap the prince and kill all his guards and nursemaids. She was the only one who saw him raise a monstrous
imoogi
, half dragon, half snake, from the depths of Green Heaven Lake. Kira still had nightmares about the imoogi. It was taller than the highest trees and as black as the darkest ink, spiraling over the water with undulating coils. When it roared, its huge fangs gleamed in the sunlight. While Noh’s attention was focused on the imoogi, Kira grabbed her cousin and ran away. Even then she was faster and stronger than any normal child.

But she couldn’t escape Lord Noh. Unable to outrun him, Kira pulled out her dagger and stabbed him in the throat, releasing the demon and sending the imoogi back to the underworld.

But Kira’s most vivid recollection of the events was the sight of her uncle’s disappointed face when he saw that she was still alive.

Now her father patted her shoulder and turned her around. “Regardless of your feelings for the king, you must respect him. He is our sovereign leader.”

Kira shrugged and gave a little smile. “Do you think he would hate me less if I’d been a boy?”

Her father hesitated and then nodded. “It would have made it easier for him to accept you.”

Not surprised by his answer, Kira sighed before changing the subject. “What’s going on? What about the murders and the Yamatos?”

“The Yamato nation is now led by
Daimyo
Tomodoshi, a ruthless man who started out as a mere captain of the Kudara army. Sent as part of a diplomatic mission to the Yamato court, he apparently rose to commanding-general status by ambushing and killing off important tribal leaders. He has proclaimed himself daimyo and is now more powerful than the Yamato king, who is a mere figurehead.”