Year of the Dragon (Changeling Sisters Book 3) (29 page)

My sapphire nagi figurine crawled back to me. Trapped in its tail was a familiar white cellphone, which it had swiped from Sun’s pocket. I held up the phone and watched the Winter Dragon’s face tighten in glacial fury.

“I always wondered if dragons hoarding treasure was a myth. Modern day valuables just aren’t as shiny,” I said, aware that I was trespassing on increasingly dangerous ground. “Now, which picture was it you didn’t want sent again?”

“You’re dead, Alvarez!” Powdery snow erupted in the courtyard as Sun shifted. I just had time to see the large, sleek beast with creaky honeycomb wings made out of black ice launch toward me before I turned and dove into the nearby moat. I emerged from its depths as an azure-scaled dragon, weeds tangling around my horns and sludge dripping from my mane.

Creeping into the wilds of the jungle, I turned to crouch behind an overturned log. I had baited her, but had Sun Bin fallen for it? What was to stop her from destroying the temple now that I had retreated?

The temperature in the glade plummeted, and I realized she was right behind me. Her jaws, blackened with tar-hardened ice, ripped into my thigh, and then her silvery whorled horns bucked me into the swamp. I whirled around, scrambling to get a grip on the slippery weeds. Sun Bin roared. My challenge was met. She wanted to destroy the vampyre tombs, but she would make sure I was defeated first.

I braced myself as the Winter Dragon lowered her head and charged.

Chapter 34: The Air Dragon

~Raina~

I was quickly regretting going after the cell phone. If I had chosen another personal treasure to destroy, then Sun Bin might not have been quite so vicious. Mud stung my eyes and flooded my nostrils as I plowed through two mosquito-infested puddles, making a dragon-sized hole in the jungles of Angkor Wat. Graceless, I smacked into a banyan tree. I couldn’t see Sun Bin anymore from where she hovered, high above the canopy. But I felt the temperature drop again, this time to a sub-zero chill. Terrified, I realized she meant to freeze the entire swamp and me in it.

My breath came out in wisps of frost. I slipped and slid in the muck, trying frantically to escape the maze of banyan roots before the Winter Dragon froze me in a crystalline cage. Ice crept down the trunk like blue fingers. I held my breath before diving deep into the murky swamp.

Great. This was the second time I had faced Sun Bin in a fight, and it always seemed to involve overwhelming humiliation and hypothermia.

At first, I couldn’t feel anything amidst the thick hide of the banyan’s roots plunging deep into the earth, to where even the monsoon rains couldn’t shake them loose. Then I felt something thick and scaly loop around my neck: a python.

I froze under the mud. I was highly aware of my burning lungs and the way my air evaporated up toward the surface as bubbles, only to ping uselessly against the blue ice swiftly encasing the swamp.

The python wasn’t the only one.

From out of the depths, all manner of snakes fled the oncoming winter. Wart snakes, elephant trunk snakes, and rainbow water snakes all rippled like torpedoes toward the surface, only to smack against the thickening ice. I even felt the ridged back of a monitor lizard graze my belly.

The python’s hold loosened. I heard something shift amidst the churning muck, and then I realized that the snakes had banded together, tugging at the roots imprisoning me. They twisted their tails around the weakest branches and pulled repeatedly. Finally, the roots gave way.

Lack of oxygen was burning holes in my brain; I couldn’t waste another second of their labors. Drawing as much water as I could around me, I hurtled up toward the ice and burst through, showering the nearby foliage with half-frozen mud. The groan of Sun Bin’s heavy wings descending through the leaves was all the warning I had; then she was on me.

We crashed through the underbrush. Her black ice wings battered my weakened scales. I managed to back-kick her into a tree; she responded by shooting a volley of three-foot-long icicles from her back. I parried with a gust of warm wind. By the time the deadly ice spears hit my face, they were mere splashes of water. The blurry shape of Sun Bin lunged right behind them, and before I knew it, her icicle claws had encaged my throat.

“Pathetic,” the Winter Dragon snarled in my face, her gaunt black eyes promising two early graves: one for my body, and one for my pride. “Your wolf sister should have been the dragon instead of you.”

Shame nearly made my leathery wings droop in defeat when she threw my Second Trial fear in my face. How often had I burned with the same inner dread, that I was nothing but a cowardly oversized lizard amongst graceful dragon royalty? Citlalli would have fought tooth and nail from Day One to earn their respect—if not out of love, then at least out of fear. Sun Bin would have known the Alvarez name was a force to be reckoned with. The Dark Spirits would have never grown so bold.

How they much have laughed when the last Celestial Dragon, the legendary Changeling Soul, turned out to be me. How Donovan must have dismissed the news of my transformation with a flick of his hand. I had the body of a great water dragon, but the mind of a frightened little girl.

Yet all I could think, with Sun Bin breathing ice daggers down my neck, was that the monsoon storm had finally broken over the northerly Mountain of Lychees and now rolled down its face like a silent avalanche. Sun Bin was an air dragon. She would sense it coming as well.

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?