Everyone darted to attention as Kija stirred — and it was Kija. Shin-ah could see it immediately and reached to help him up. Everyone could see it only a moment later, in the way he unthinkingly arranged himself and raised his head with ingenuous grace.
"Kija!" Yona cried.
"Lord White Dragon!" Granny was less distressed but no less affected. "What a night this has been! I always told you you could do it if you just stopped worrying so much. But to meet the founder and speak with him — who could have imagined? The time was too short but who could ask for more than this? You were able to speak to him, weren't you? It would be such a waste if you weren't, you must have had more to ask him than anyone."
Kija listened, occasionally venturing to open his mouth but only now finding an opening. "Yes, I was able to speak with him."
"Ahh! What did you talk about?"
What had they talked about, before what had happened? About the difficulty of letting go — but Kija didn't want to repeat that to everyone, and it was no good delaying the important news. "He and I made a promise with each other," he said, and he drew himself up straight to make his announcement. "After tonight, I will be entrusting my duties to him."
Granny blinked at him uncomprehendingly, but Yona heard Zeno pull a sudden hiss of breath, saw Jae-ha turn and stare in horror.
Hak started back. "What are you talking about?"
"I mean just what I say," Kija explained. "After tonight it will be Lord Guen who accompanies you as the white dragon."
"But then, what will happen to you?" Yona asked.
"I will stay behind… in the other world."
"But — but that's like saying you're going to die."
Kija breathed in deep and forced himself to meet her gaze. He couldn't remember anything more difficult that he'd ever had to do, but he would certainly be ashamed if he couldn't look his master in the eye and tell her the truth. "Yes, Princess," he said. "At dawn, I will die."
Where the sound of his voice reached, a crushing, nauseous silence followed, and it spread still further as villagers at the surrounding tables whispered to confused neighbors. Zeno buried his face in his hands. Yona and the others stared.
It was Yoon who broke the silence. "You're kidding, right? I mean, someone else taking over your body — that can't really happen, can it?"
Shin-ah curled inward, hugging himself. Jae-ha was cursing under his breath.
Granny burst into tears.
That pushed other villagers out of their paralyzed confusion. Some of the older men passed word, and people started picking up their children and filing out of the hall. The night had suddenly turned into something that shouldn't have an audience.
"Lord White Dragon!" the elder sobbed. "You've always been one to try too hard, but this—!"
"Granny, don't cry," Kija said, hands on her tiny, heaving shoulders. "Hasn't this been the desire of every white dragon, to give our all for our master?"
"'For'… " Yona echoed. "No! Kija, I don't want you to do this! Go back and talk to him again! Tell him—!" She came up short. What did she want Kija to go back and say? 'Stay dead, we don't want you'? The familiar comfort she'd felt at meeting Guen was too strong for even this to wipe it completely away, too strong to send a message like that. She deflated, letting words escape without thought. "Tell him… please… I don't want him to do this…"
Kija turned on his knees to face her. "I already made a promise. Would you ask me to break my word?"
"Listen, White Snake," Hak hissed, leaning into his shoulder. "Swallow your pride for once! You made another promise, too — 'I'm your dragon,' remember?"
"Yes, I did pledge my life," he said aloud, forgoing the aside. "Forgive me, Princess, but this is the way that life can best serve you. The founder and I both agreed that that was the most important thing, and he is… much stronger than me."
"I don't care! I don't care!" Yona shook her head, flinging tears.
Yoon took her by the shoulders and held her silently, still dumbfounded.
Zeno had sunk to a seat on one of the tables and began nodding along tragically. He understood all too well; both white dragons were stubborn and reckless enough in their scruples to agree to a contest, but it would have been no contest at all. It was the disaster that had begun to take shape in his mind just too late to head it off, and now those same stubborn scruples meant that it was probably too late to undo the damage.
"So you just found someone else to do it, eh?" Hak snarled. "After all your big talk, you're the one who just let himself be bought off."
"Of course not!" Kija snapped, and the flush of anger stayed with him, unlike with Hak's usual needling. "After all this time, I thought you might understand my feelings as a dragon."
"What I understand is that you're an idiot."
"I'm with Hak," Jae-ha offered over his shoulder, with the music of a strained smile in his voice. "If you want to talk about 'feelings as a dragon,' I'm a dragon myself and I don't understand it."
"Of course, I know that your feelings are different than mine," Kija said, turning respectful again — then he gave a gentle, reminiscent laugh. "You're the one who once told me that I was terrible at using my power."
Jae-ha whipped around and stared for a moment, wide-eyed with shock, then he snatched Kija by the front of that stark white robe, hauled him up from the floor and punched him.
A gasp washed over the room as Kija went sprawling. Shin-ah sprang up to put himself between the two of them.
"Lord Green Dragon, please —!" Granny started.
Yona burst out, shouting over her. "Stop it! Everyone stop it!"
Kija picked himself up from the floor, rubbing his bruised cheek and probing at a loosened tooth. The sensation of it, the prosaic fact of it in his body, felt intensely real; it had been such a shock, there was so little time left for such things, and there was something about it that he couldn't quite grasp, the intensity of feeling that it had imparted to him… "That was something I never understood about you," he told Jae-ha, "but now… Somehow that does feel good."
Jae-ha opened his mouth once, twice, but in the end he turned away. His usually silvered tongue had no words for this.
"Why?" Yona lamented. "Why does it have to be like this?"
"Um, yeah, can't you two just share or something?" Yoon asked doubtfully.
"No. Sadly, no," Granny explained. "Such a thing has happened once before. When the two spirits couldn't choose amongst themselves, both were lost. To receive the founder's power, this can only be done through Lord White Dragon's sacrifice."
Jae-ha let out a bitter laugh but said nothing.
Shin-ah began to close up on himself again. Kija noticed and took him by the shoulder. "Shin-ah?"
He turned, his face downcast, his eyes still closed.
"Will you look at me?" Kija asked. "Please, show me your eyes one last time."
Zeno looked up at the uncomfortable echo. A sad scene from his past was replaying itself…
And this time it was even more tragic. Shin-ah didn't move for a moment, and then he shook his head.
Kija's face fell. "Shin-ah?"
"I'm afraid… what I might do," Shin-ah answered softly. "With this power, is there a way I could keep you here…?"
Kija drew him closer and hugged him. "Forgive me. Forgive your big brother." He looked also at Yona, who was still sobbing, supported by Hak and Yoon on either side. "This is my own fault. I could have spared you all this pain if I had only been stronger."
"No, don't blame yourself if you couldn't beat him," Zeno said. "Back in the Red Dragon King's time, there were constant wars where the strongest fighters survived and rose to the top, and even then, no one could beat Guen. His tribe said no one could beat him even before he had the dragon's claw.
"But White Dragon," he said, "you know you're going somewhere Zeno can't follow you."
"No, I don't think so." Kija reached to take Zeno's arm and pulled him into the hug as well. "I believe we will all be together again someday. Doesn't tonight prove that no reunion is impossible?"
It moved Zeno to a sad smile. That was true, wonderfully true with the words he'd heard from Kaya, but now he felt a guilty wish that it had ended with that — and an equally guilty thrill of blessing to have one of his old friends back, not to be alone anymore, the only one with those memories. Even the joy of it twisted painfully inside him; it would be betraying a friend to push it away, but it would also be betraying a friend to embrace it.
He took a breath and wiped his face with his sleeve. "Tonight also proves that no matter how many times you lose someone, and no matter how much you know it'll happen someday, nothing ever makes you ready for it."
"Lord Yellow Dragon is right," Granny agreed. "I've already buried your father and the white dragon before him, but to lose you, the beautiful light of our village…" She fell to sobbing again.
Kija turned and reached toward her, but before he could speak, Yona seized him from behind and joined the embrace. "Kija, you idiot! When I asked for your power, it was because I didn't want to lose anyone else."
He tensed, his face washed with warmth as he felt her face, her tears against the back of his neck. Zeno and Shin-ah clung to him miserably; Jae-ha wouldn't even look at him. Hak's jaw was grinding, and Yoon was still holding his head in disbelief. Most of the villagers had left, deferring to such a personal tragedy, and the ones who remained were in tears. Even Granny's bearers had lost their perpetual smiles; one of them handed her a cloth to dry her lined cheeks.
Another perfect thing in shambles, he realized. He wasn't sure this had ever seemed perfect, but in that moment that seemed so long ago, when he had requested the honor of the contest, it must have.
Yona squeezed him tighter, and for the first time he felt a qualm of doubt that this was the right thing to do. "Princess," he said hesitantly. "It is true that I gave you my word first. Now and always I am your dragon. If you order me—"
The others looked at them hopefully, but Yona clutched him tighter and burst out louder. "Don't say it like you're a slave! If it's just because I told you to, not because you want it…"
Jae-ha turned away again with a sigh; it would have been worth it for this idiocy to stop, but he couldn't argue with Yona's answer.
At the same time, Shin-ah flinched with a gasp. Yona's words had thrown a spark down to the bottom of the black, gaping hole that had opened inside him, and suddenly he could see the shape of it. The story of his mother who had seen his eyes and killed herself, Old Ao exulting 'I can finally die!' — it had left a darkness inside him that whispered, 'People would rather die than stay with you,' and now it was whispering, 'You see? It's happening again.'
He grasped Kija's arm, his voice soft with panic; "You don't want to go."
"Shin-ah…"
"Please say you don't want to."
Kija reached to find an answer in his own shaken resolve, and he did find one. "This is what I have to do."
"But if you didn't have to, if it could just be how you wanted…"
Kija understood the question at last, and he held Shin-ah close again. "If it were like that, of course I wouldn't. How could I want to leave my little brother? If it was only a matter of what I wanted, I would never leave you, or the princess — any of you. What I would want would be for us all to be together forever." His voice wavered, unexpectedly touched by his own words. Like the risk he'd taken, this was a truth he had known all along but passed over first as irrelevant and then as uncomfortable, and only now that Shin-ah made him put it into words did he truly face it. It was better to face it. It was better to say it, for everyone to know; the pain of it was sweet but deep and intense.
"But listen," he said. "I'm sorry to leave you without your big brother, but I know that your uncle will take good care of you. It's true — he's much stronger than I am. You are all sure to face many more dangers ahead, and a time might come when the princess or any of you might be hurt, when he could protect you and I couldn't. If such a thing were to happen even once, it's worth my sacrifice."
Shin-ah shook his head against Kija's shoulder.
Yona gripped fistfuls of his robe and pressed her face into his back. "Stupid. I want to protect you, too, you know — all of you."
But she said it too softly for most of the room to hear.
Instead, one of the village men had burst out bawling. "Lord White Dragon, why do you always have to be so noble!?"
"You're breaking all our hearts!" Granny cried. "But Lord White Dragon, if this is where your duty calls you, your devotion and courage fill us all with pride."
"We'll build you the most magnificent tomb," one of the men insisted.
"Your birthday will be a holiday forever," said another.
Kija was distracted for a moment by Jae-ha's joyless laughter, but he turned to Granny and the villagers with a smile of long-suffering nostalgia. "There's really no need for any of that," he told them, "but…"
There was one village tradition that had to be performed. While the white dragon had the duty of blessing the newly-born, it was considered a violation of their sanctity to bring them into the presence of the dying, so that duty fell elsewhere.
Kija gently disengaged himself from Yona and the others and bowed before Granny. "Elder, please, give me your blessing before I go."
Granny burst into tears again, fell on his lowered head and wept into his hair. "As if I would forget!" she scolded, but her voice was strained, and for some time she just held him.
The other villagers who were left came and lay their hands on him; the lower elders, Granny's bearers — even the scribe who had stayed put down her brush. Kija felt Shin-ah and Zeno come close, too, and touch him. He couldn't see it when Yona and Hak and Yoon joined in, but he knew that the hands beside the other dragons' were theirs; he had faith that they would all be there for him, and they were — except Jae-ha, who still held himself apart. Even that, Kija knew, wasn't out of unkindness; he had known that this wouldn't be easy, but he hadn't anticipated any of them taking it hard in quite that way.
Granny finally composed herself enough to sit up and lay her hands decorously on his head, but she recited the traditional blessing with uncharacteristic softness, choking on the words until they could hardly be understood.
She must have done this for Father, Kija realized. Sometime before that morning when he'd climbed into his father's room and found him lying there alone, such proper things must already have been done.
And now his own turn had come. When Granny finished her blessing and lowered her hands, when the other villagers took their hands away, it all seemed deeply real, in a way that it hadn't until that moment. This was the end. Now that he was at the crossing himself, 'bitter' hardly seemed like the right word; he felt light, cool yet feverish. Every sensation felt vivid — the sounds of everyone's breath, the slight sigh of snow on the roof, the crackling of the fireplaces and the mingling of warmth and chill they threaded through the air… Shin-ah didn't let go but lifted him up from the floor, and he saw the sky through the high-set window; already the infinite blackness of midnight was turning opaque with the promise of dawn. Perhaps another hour or two…
Yona clung to him again, and he felt locks of her hair curl against his ear and his neck. He turned toward her and saw Hak's hand on her shoulder; his heart plunged for a moment, but he thought that leaving her with Hak — the one who'd protected her from the start, the one she turned to so much — surely that was better…
"Lord White Dragon," the scribe spoke up. "If there are any words you would wish to leave us with…"
Kija didn't have any great wisdom in mind, but silence wouldn't do, and he trusted the words to come as he opened his mouth. "I—"
His voice betrayed him. The sound would barely emerge. Every vivid sensation outside himself had distracted him from the pressure of emotion building inside, and now he found that it took great strength and care to speak without losing control.
"I have been… so blessed," he said. "Blessed to be born in this village… Blessed to meet my master and my brothers, all of you—"
He had to stop there and rein his voice in again. He found himself wishing that this could have happened somewhere along their journey, deep in a forest. There, he thought, in front of Yona and the others, he would have simply let himself go, but here in front of the village, how could he show them their Lord White Dragon behaving that way? How could that be his leave-taking? But whether he wanted it or not, he realized he couldn't hold it back for long.
Slowly, he stood and took a few steps away from everyone to give himself space.
"Kija?" Yona called after him.
He turned and risked a look back at everyone — even Jae-ha had turned to look at him — before he lowered his eyes. "What I feel for all of you… is more than I can possibly express," he said carefully. "The best I can do is to let these be my last words."
"What?"
"But—"
He heard the tangle of everyone's voices, confused, objecting, as he knelt and bowed one last time, head to the floor. This time he let the necklace fall, and the beads made a restrained pattering on the floor mat.
"To all of you, I am so…"
Unintended words rose in his mind, the urge to say 'I am so sorry.' He had to take a deep breath and press forward with the words he had chosen.
"I am so… very grateful."
"Kija…"
"But it's not dawn yet —"
"What do you mean 'last words'?"
He heard them starting to move, and one set of rapid footsteps. Jae-ha finally rushed to his side and seized his shoulder. "Now, listen—"
But it was too late to talk. Kija braced himself on his claw and reached to take Jae-ha's hand; it wasn't enough, but it was what he could do…
"Kija, you've taken this far enough!" Jae-ha hissed.
Kija gripped his hand tighter and managed a strained whisper. "Forgive me."
Then he turned away, back toward the other world.
His hand fell away. His shoulder slipped from Jae-ha's fingers. His body, still bowing, settled and at last slumped over to lie curled on one side, hands tangled in front of the face.
Shin-ah covered his eyes with his hands.
Yona screamed. "Kija!"
Guen was waiting on the other side. Kija arrived there stumbling, blinded with tears, and out of the nothingness surrounding him, he felt the founder's arms enfold him, that other dragon claw embrace him.
He let himself give in to it, let himself be held against Guen's chest and cry against the fur of his tunic. There was nothing else to do. There was nowhere else to turn now, but he felt something in his heart clench, more trapped than comforted. The founder surely meant to be gentle, but Kija could still feel his inescapable strength, and he had to push down a small, perverse voice in his mind crying 'let me go!' That would be too ingracious, too disrespectful…
In mastering it, he was able to get himself under control and quiet down, but he still tensed when the founder ruffled his hair.
"What did I tell you?" Guen said. "So brave."
Again, the praise didn't sink in. This time Kija knew for certain — it wasn't true. Staying behind and collapsing in tears might have been undignified, but it would certainly not have been cowardly. Looking back with a twinge of regret, Kija didn't think he'd taken the brave course at all.
"Forgive me," he said, unsure who he was saying it to.
"Maybe I should be the one saying that," Guen admitted. "This is hard on you, no shame in admitting it. But to do what's best for the king, even when it's this hard… It makes me proud."
That did give him a little reassurance. This was the right thing — if it could save the princess and the others from any danger or injury, it was worth the sacrifice. At least someone else understood him in that.
"This is going to be hard for everyone," Guen observed.
Kija followed his gaze back toward the village hall, like looking into an unsettling dream. He could see himself curled on the floor, swathed in his plain white ritual robe. Yona clung to him, screaming "Kija, wake up! Open your eyes!" as Hak held her shoulders. Zeno and Shin-ah clung to each other, rocking back and forth. Jae-ha beside him and Yoon not far away each sat silent and frozen with shock. Granny and the villagers were all in tears.
"I don't think they'll all be happy to see me," Guen said.
"The village is happy, you'll just have to give them time," Kija replied. The founder's return was a miracle — why wouldn't they be happy, once their grief had passed? Indeed, he thought, everyone just needed time. "The others will come around, I'm sure. The dragons can't hate each other for long."
"That's true. We didn't get off to the best start the first time, but we were all brothers after all."
"The truth is, I didn't make myself charming at first, either," Kija admitted, blushing to think of when he'd tried to dismiss Hak with money, when he'd assumed the other dragons must be as eager as he was, knowing nothing about Shin-ah's isolation or Jae-ha's chains — but shared destiny had brought them together soon enough.
And it would bring them through this. All that weighed against it in the end were his own selfish wishes. His heart shook at seeing Yona's tears, but the right path was clear.
Still, when he looked back at the founder, he felt that ingracious twinge, that sense of being trapped here with this person, when their presence should be a gift. In the silence, it only niggled him more.
"Lord Guen," he said, "there's no need for you to stay here any longer."
"Now hey, I know you want to put on a brave face, but that's going a little far. Am I supposed to just leave you here?"
"That was our promise," Kija pointed out, feeling a little patronized.
"At dawn. Everyone else has plenty of time, and you only have until then," Guen argued. "This is your chance to give me an earful. If I have to carry the weight of your regrets, I don't want to leave anything behind."
Something about that resonated, reminding Kija of what Zeno had told him, that the previous white dragons' souls clung to him like evil spirits, but that he'd tamed them without knowing it, accepting all their regrets. Those, too, surely he was leaving in good hands. And as for himself…
"As a white dragon, I have no regrets," he said, his chin held high. "And as a human being, the regrets that I have are nothing that I can pass on to anyone. I will hold them myself and treasure them."
Guen nodded slowly. "Yes, some things are that way."
"I believe," Kija said, "that it will ease my heart more if you go to them. If you wait until dawn, and I never see you all together…"
"Ah. I understand." Guen still hesitated for a moment, then clasped Kija's claw in his. "The gods will bless your journey," he said. It seemed to be a traditional phrase.
But Kija took it for what the words meant. "They will surely bless yours as well."
With a final squeeze of his hand, Guen set out.
Kija watched him go, and he let himself relax. It was done. All that was left, all he could do for the others now was to watch over them. Who could say whether he would be able to do even that after dawn — no one had ever gone this far and come back to tell the scribes about it — but for whatever time he had left, he wouldn't abandon them.
So he stood and watched, alone.
Or not quite alone. As he let go, with nothing left to do but accept what came, he realized that he could feel something, almost like the touch of the founder's claw but more delicate and ethereal, so much so that he couldn't say when it had begun. But in this moment of bereft stillness and quiet, it was certainly there — a gentle, supportive pressure between his shoulder blades, over his scars.
He could feel a hand against his back.
Kija's body stirred.
"Kija?" Yona questioned.
Everyone turned to look, daring to hope, but from the way he levered himself up from the floor, the squint of one eye as Yona watched his face, it was obvious.
"Guen," she said.
He bowed to her, claw to his chest. "At your service, Your Majesty."
The reaction was quiet at first. Jae-ha gave a sniff.
"Lord Founder," Granny began.
"Come on," Guen shook his head. "If you're not going to use my name, at least call me 'White Dragon.'"
"Then… Lord White Dragon… please forgive us," Granny said, still sobbing. "Of course we're blessed to have you with us, but it's so sudden. Lord… that is, the lord white dragon you met tonight, I raised him from the day he was born…"
"I understand," he assured her.
Yona caught him by the collar and drew him closer. "Listen, Guen, this is… You can go back and talk to him, can't you? Kija wouldn't want to break his word to you, but if you talk to him again…"
"Your Majesty," he cut in gently, "do you think I didn't promise him anything? I swore to protect you with all my power. If he's gone this far in trusting me, how can I go back on it?"
While Yona stared, Jae-ha picked himself up and turned away again. "Don't bother dressing it up with pretty words," he snarled. "He promised this, you promised that — as if I didn't know you could kill someone with a dirty contract."
"Now hold on there —"
"Droopy Eyes has a point," Hak agreed. "Take someone less experienced, who looks up to you, and get them into a 'deal' like that — any way I look at it, you're the one taking advantage."
"If you'd torn him to pieces, it would have been ugly, but at least it would have been honest," Jae-ha said.
Guen stood to meet the challenge. "Don't you think you're being disrespectful?" he demanded. "Your brother is sacrificing his life for you, and this is all you can say? You couldn't even look him in the face — are you going to be satisfied, sending him to the next world like that?"
Jae-ha met his gaze, eyes wide with the shock of a nerve sliced open.
"It seems to me you should at least apologize while you can."
At that, Jae-ha found himself again and replied with a bitter grin. "Oh, yes, for punching him after that idiotic thing he said. The last thing I'd send him off with is an apology for that."
Guen, grimacing, reached for his arm. Jae-ha knocked it away, and his feet dodged into a guard stance — but in a flash Guen had the dragon's claw around him and pinned him to the floor. "Calm down," he demanded. "Now, apologize."
Everyone rushed to break them apart; even Granny gasped in shock. Hak and Shin-ah tried to pry his claw away, but of course no one could break his grip. Zeno took Guen by the shoulder placatingly.
Another scene from the past was replaying itself and going wrong. Zeno was suddenly sure that Guen had done this before at least once, when Shuten took badmouthing the king a little too far; then, it had gotten him some angry barking and grousing and eventually the requested apology, but Shuten had been able to take it as a good-natured tussle. Jae-ha, on the other hand, was trembling with rage.
"You don't have to do that," he told Guen. "White Dragon and Green Dragon — well, the young ones understand each other. It's better if you just let it go."
"But—"
"Stop it!" Yona cried. "Let him go!"
From her, it was enough. "If you insist." He lifted his claw.
Shin-ah helped Jae-ha to his feet and tried to shepherd him away. For several steps he let himself be led — then he tore himself out of Shin-ah's hold and whipped around with his right hand suddenly full of knives.
"Lord Green Dragon!" one of the villagers cried.
Guen sprang to his feet. Zeno threw himself between them. Shin-ah tackled Jae-ha's threatening arm and Hak caught him by the other shoulder.
"Calm down!" Hak hissed in his ear. "If we ever want White Snake back, he needs a body to come back to, right?"
Jae-ha barely seemed to hear him, but with Shin-ah hugging his arm he gave in, let the knives fall, and let them steer him as he stormed blindly away, still shaking and speechless. Hak maneuvered them over to the feast table and pushed a bottle of wine into Shin-ah's hands; "Give him that."
It was a calculated risk; Jae-ha tended to mellow with alcohol and Hak had never seen him violently drunk, but then, he'd never seen him like this. He'd never seen Jae-ha lose someone so close to him. If it were himself — if after that night in the castle everyone had demanded that he not only acknowledge Soo-won but like it and let himself be treated like that — Hak thought he wouldn't have taken it any better. He gritted his teeth, disgusted with himself for taking it better now.
Guen backed down readily enough, patting Zeno's shoulder. "Look, you don't have to push yourself to protect me."
"I'm tougher than you think," he said. "And don't misunderstand. If I thought fighting with you would change your mind, I'd do it myself. But knowing you, you'd just be that much more determined, right?"
Guen looked at him, honestly hurt. It gave him an urge to patch the rift, to say 'I'm happy to have you back' — but how could he say that now?
Yona touched Guen's white sleeve. "It's not that we don't want you. I don't remember, but as soon as I met you I felt like I'd known you forever, like you were an old friend. But Kija… He was the first dragon I met. He's… Nobody can replace him."
"I know better than to try to do that," Guen agreed.
"But to lose him like this, when I feel like this about you, too… That's why it hurts so much…"
Zeno nodded; leave it to the miss to put her finger on it.
"Shuten is still around, too," he said.
Guen looked at him. "Really?"
"Not like me. He's kind of a ghost, but… He stayed here to wipe away his children's tears, and here you are making everyone's children cry," Zeno said, with mist tickling his own eyes.
But angry ghosts weren't a danger here like they'd been at the green dragons' tomb. Zeno glanced at the white dragon spirits who had followed Kija for so long. Now they were gathering around Guen. Certainly, Zeno had no worries that his old friend could handle them and satisfy their regrets — so far he seemed just as pure and unfazed as Kija always had — but Zeno couldn't help feeling a guilty stab of betrayal. The spirits had hovered over the tearful goodbyes, drunk Kija's self-sacrifice with relish, and now, so easily, they left him behind. All of them.
All but one.
Kija watched, his heart sinking more heavily at each new sign of the others' pain — Zeno's lowered face and miserable smile; Shin-ah's wary, vulnerable glances back as he knelt with his arms around Jae-ha, literally trying to hold his eldest brother together; Yona's tears, her voice saying 'it hurts so much'… He was watching the founder make all the mistakes he'd made in the beginning, with the same blind confidence. He was sure that now as then, it would smooth itself out in time — but he might never see that, and in the meantime it piled more and more weight on him to watch, to reach his hand toward them and touch nothing, not even air…
But every time the burden of it all threatened to bear him down, that hand on his back held him with greater and greater strength. By now it was clear — it was a white dragon's hand, and Kija felt certain that he knew just who it was standing behind him.
"Father," he breathed, "thank you. I finally met the king you longed for. I'm glad I was able to devote myself this much, but this… This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. To lend me your strength now… Thank you…"
The hand on his back pressed still more firmly.
Everyone had fallen silent. The villagers sat with bowed heads, mournful and reverent. Yona clung to Hak, sniffling and moaning "Kija…" Hak sat as her unspeaking support, his jaw tense and shifting as he tried to think of a way out of this mess and came up with nothing. Shin-ah still huddled and held Jae-ha, who had at least relaxed with the wine, but it only left him slumped on his younger brother's shoulder.
Zeno watched the two of them. Just like this, they were all that was left of the current generation.
Guen, unsmiling, toyed absently with his necklace. "This is…"
Zeno nodded. "They've kept it all this time."
Yoon edged forward on his knees. "Um, listen…" He felt half-silly, still thinking this couldn't possibly be happening; surely it was Kija he was talking to, play-acting as someone else. He'd seen enough to know that that couldn't be true, but he still couldn't believe it. "I get that you want to do what's going to help us the most, but this — it's not just about having the strongest person with us. We won't be as strong if we can't all work together, so…" He glanced around at his friends, who'd been joking with each other at dusk and now sat scattered in defeat. There was no need to explain.
Guen nodded patiently. "I know what you mean, but it's not going to stay this way. It's hard for all of you now, but the dragons can't hate each other for long, with our blood to bind us together."
Jae-ha burst out in savage laughter. "One big happy family, eh? If you think I'll forgive the person who murdered my friend — no, the one who drove him to suicide — I'll never forgive you!" He whipped around with a snarl, then turned to scan the room until his eyes fell on the villagers. "I'll never forgive any of you! Who do you think put this ugly garbage in his head?" He let Shin-ah coax him back down and lifted a cup of wine, laughing again. "Congratulations. He made you all proud."
Jae-ha ignored the answering mumblings from the villagers. Granny pressed her lips into a knotted, quivering frown but said nothing.
Shin-ah clung to Jae-ha; he didn't know how else to help, and he held onto the sensations of a warm, breathing, shifting body that he still could hold onto.
He was the only one close enough to hear as Jae-ha muttered, "That idiot was always in such a hurry." He raised his hand and drew Shin-ah closer. "Listen, Shin-ah," he said, very quietly, "it's unsightly to get ahead of your elders, you know."
Shin-ah drew in his breath as he understood; Jae-ha meant to leave him someday, too. It wasn't that darkness; it wasn't 'I would rather die than stay with you,' but 'I would rather die than face losing you.' But still, someday…
He held on tighter.
Kija was still watching and listening.
"If you think I'll forgive the person who murdered my friend — no, the one who drove him to suicide —!"
Jae-ha's words plunged through his heart like lead. No! It's not like that! But he was past the hot pique of being misunderstood. Now it was a cold, crushing weight. It wasn't like that; how could he leave a wound like that? He reached out, but he couldn't touch them. The only one he could reach from where he was now was Guen, and his pride still stopped him. The praise hadn't sunk in the way it should have, but still, after the founder had told him 'So brave,' how could he say 'Wait, I take it back'? The dignity of tradition still halted him.
And it was Jae-ha's next target. "Congratulations. He made you all proud."
The ghostly hand on Kija's back seemed to freeze and waver for a moment, then it bore down on him with suddenly greater strength, so much that it hurt. It was no longer supporting him against the weight of his own pain — it was crushing him between the two merciless forces.
"Stop! It's too much!" Kija blurted out.
The hand on his back only pressed him harder.
"Why? This is… This isn't what you wanted," he realized. Of course his father would have wanted him to see it all through himself, but to punish him like this… "I know it isn't what you wanted, but I gave my all. I tried so hard! Please…"
Yona looked up at the high-set window, and her fingers flew to her mouth at the sight of a rosy glow in the sky. "It's dawn. It's over."
"Not quite yet," Guen told her.
"The ceremony continues until the rays of the sun fall on… Lord White Dragon," Granny explained.
Yona snatched Guen's sleeve. "If there's still time, don't do this! Guen, please, I don't want you to do a thing like this!"
"It's better this way," he told her.
"It's not! It's not!"
His face remained grim but calm. "Are you going to order me?"
"Stop it! Stop saying things like that!"
Yoon held her up by the arm as she sagged, shaking with ragged, panicked breath. Hak took her other shoulder. Shin-ah came back to her, and Jae-ha started to follow but froze, looking at the western wall.
The villagers saw it too and gasped and muttered. "The light…"
The sun had risen so high to reach this mountain valley, the first rays coming through the window already struck halfway down the high wall of the hall. Slowly, almost imperceptibly but unstoppably, the glare inched toward where they were gathered. There could only be minutes left.
Granny burst out bawling.
Yona tore herself from Yoon's hold as she whipped around to see the sunlight, then she fell forward on her hands. Her heart pounded fire into her blood. It couldn't happen like this — she had to fight it — but this wasn't a problem she could solve with a kick or an arrow. All she had was her voice — if that. "Kija! Kija, can you hear me!?"
"Miss, he can hear you," Zeno told her. He couldn't see Kija where he was now, but true or not, it was the only answer.
"Kija! Don't give up! I'll come for you!"
The village men gasped. "Your Majesty!" one of them protested.
"Where he is now — you mustn't!"
"That's the last thing he would want!"
"I don't care!" Yona snapped. "If he can go there, there has to be a way! I won't let it end like this! Kija, hang on and wait for me! I'll come no matter what!"
Kija had nearly buckled under the crushing, stifling pressure when Yona's voice reached him.
"Kija! Don't give up! I'll come for you!"
Princess!
Her words tore at him, raw and sweet, as if ripping through bonds and ripping him open to the air, searing and freeing.
"That's the last thing he would want!" one of the villagers insisted.
They were wrong. It was everything he wanted. But for the princess to go that far toward such danger — the edge of death — he couldn't want that. He wasn't supposed to want that. A white dragon couldn't allow such a thing.
He clutched his head with a roar. His body burned — or was it his soul? — but the world — I can't I can't — was closing in to smother him again.
The light was closing in. It sliced through the air of this place, descending inch by inch like a blade to cut him off from that voice, from her, from all of them —
"Kija, hang on and wait for me! I'll come no matter what!"
Through the heat and pain Kija realized — this was the bitter crossing. He'd been so presumptuous to think he knew his father's suffering, his ancestors' suffering. Now he felt it — that bond, that love, that miracle, promised but slipping away. This pain — regret — too intense to bear, too precious to let go — perhaps the tortures of hell were nothing but this.
What monster, having felt this, would wish it on someone else? What kind of demon would knowingly inflict it on their own child?
And still his father's dragon hand bore down on him without mercy.
"Stop it! Stop it!" he roared. "Why are you doing this to me!?"
The pressure vanished. He took one breath — and then, where the crushing pain had been, he felt claws pierce his shoulder and slash across his back, retracing his scars in one brutal stroke, leaving trails not open to the air but filled with cold, suffocating poison.
Regret — can't let it go — can't change it — can't bear it — the poison flowed through him, pain upon pain, acid flowing through the cracks just where he had already begun to break, and now —
Kija did break.
"How dare you!?" he screamed, slashing behind him with his claw — but there was nothing there. There was no one in reach.
Except Guen.
He was no different. He knew very well what he was doing. The blessing he'd clung to with his dying breath, that he'd gone mad to feel it being taken away — how could he stoop to stealing it, and from his own grandchild? The memory of those kind eyes, that lopsided grin, the patronizingly indulgent words — Do you want to try again? — streaked across Kija's mind trailing flames. Who could commit such villainy with a smile?
Kija reached toward him.
Guen turned as if feeling his presence, and Kija could see his face still wearing that monstrous calm.
How dare you? How dare you!?
Zeno stared hopefully as Guen listened to Yona's cries, his face lowered and grim — but his jaw clenched tight. It was no use; he was set in his course. Once that happened, changing his mind would take much more than one night, if it could be done at all. Abi and Shuten and the king would have fared no better.
The light kept inching downward. The furthest of the circled tables were bathed in it now.
When Zeno looked back again, Guen's face had gone slack, his eyes distracted and distant. "Hey, I understand how you feel, but there's not much time," he said thickly, to no one in the room.
He was talking to Kija.
He shuddered suddenly; his balance wavered. "…Was I wrong…?"
Zeno darted to catch him as he collapsed. He shifted vaguely for a few moments, then suddenly the dragon claw swung forward, groping and massive, and tore up the floor mats with curling fingers.
"…How could you…!?"
"Kija!" Yona cried.
Just a low, distant growl — who could say how, but Zeno knew it, too. It was Kija.
A fleeting bolt of hope gave way to a cold grip of fear.
'When the two spirits couldn't choose amongst themselves, both were lost.'
When Guen turned — "I understand how you feel, but there's not much time" — the words were barely out of his mouth before he caught sight of Kija's claws coming at him. He dodged — away from the world, away from where Kija needed to be, but not enough.
"What is this!?"
"Get out of my way!" Kija swung again.
Guen caught his claw and gritted his teeth as they wrestled hand against hand, force against force. "Was I wrong about you? I thought you were so brave."
"How could you!?" Kija screamed. "How could you do this to me!?"
With a switch of his arm, Guen redirected the force and sent Kija spinning away, but he instantly came back around, firm on his feet.
"You're the one who said this was right. You gave me your word!"
"And you took advantage of me!" Kija roared back. "All my life I admired you, and now you act like — like a bloodsucking insect!"
Guen braced himself in a guard stance, claw forward this time. "I didn't want it to be this ugly, but if this is the real you, you won't get past me — and I don't have time to go easy on you."
Kija charged.
He knew it would be ugly. He knew it would be struggle and agony, but he ran straight into it with all the force of passion. He struck on instinct.
Guen parried with his forearm and lunged, scales sliding against scales. An underarm swing plunged his claws in, under Kija's ribs and upward.
It was a seizing wave of pain. If the blow had struck his body, it would have pierced his heart; the battle would have been over in an instant.
But this was not his body. This was his soul, and his heart was unbreakable. The pain was only more energy surging through it.
Guen cried out in surprise as Kija's claw came up and tore into him, chest and throat and bone —
Kija's body thrashed on the floor, crying out in one voice, then another, then both. His claw groped and slashed, ripping the cushion before the feast table, flinging shreds of fiber and matting and splintering planks below. His robe and his hair spilled into tangles; the necklace beads rattled against the floor.
"Kija! Guen!" Yona screamed.
She tried to dart toward them, but Hak caught her and pinned her shoulders. "Princess! It's too dangerous!" Kija would never forgive him if he let Yona into the path of those blindly-swinging claws.
"What's happening!?" Yoon cried.
Shin-ah's eyes were open, staring in horror. "Fighting — they're fighting with each other."
Jae-ha whipped around. "The light! Don't let the light hit him!" With his right foot he hooked a table and swung it toward the east.
"Don't just stand there!" Granny commanded. Her bearers and the village men rushed to join in piling the tables to build a wall, build a shadow, but nothing could hold back the sun for long.
Zeno darted over to Shin-ah and clapped a hand over his eyes, clinging to him for support even as he shielded him from the horror and temptation — the blue dragon's power could only make things worse now, if worse was imaginable.
He knew Guen was devoted and stubborn, literal-minded enough to take Kija at his word, but to fight him for his place even when Kija chose to live — Zeno hadn't known that he would go that far.
But now, suddenly, he did know. No wonder the unsatisfied white dragon spirits had aligned themselves with Guen so easily; no wonder their desires didn't faze him — he was on the same path ahead of them. To do a thing like this, to take so long to read the signs, to appear tonight as if a thousand years hadn't even happened — these were the marks of someone who refused to let go and who had a god-given grip.
And if anyone could fight him, it was Kija.
Zeno couldn't see the battle — from the way Shin-ah trembled, he was glad he couldn't see it — but he could see the ancestor spirits drinking it in, the clashing passions at war with each other but both true and both hungered for.
I'll never let go. I'll do anything for this promise.
My life's worth is more than this promise.
Caught between the two of them, Kija's body writhed and screamed — it was cruel enough just to watch that much.
"Stop it!" Yona cried. "Both of you stop it!" She lunged and struggled against Hak's arms. She couldn't let it happen like this — she had only her voice to fight —
Unthinking, she screamed — "Give Kija back!"
The struggling body froze as if struck, then suddenly jerked back with a roar, struggling upward. The dragon claw swung around, smashing through the shade-wall of tables, and it was Kija — raw and awkward, thoughtlessly graceful — who struggled to his feet, gasped in the light like a drowning man gasping in air.
Before anyone could reach him or even call, Kija's right hand sprang to his chest. It was a hand now, the size of a hand, but where it clenched, a stain of blood blossomed and glowed scarlet in the sun.
"Kija!" Yona cried. This time Hak let her go. As she dashed forward he was barely a step behind her.
Kija's arm lashed out —
And the necklace string snapped. Beads were flung in every direction and pattered like rain as they struck. Yona flinched as one of them hit her face, cold and hard and smooth.
Kija crumpled and fell.
Hak and Jae-ha caught him. Everyone rushed toward him. Shin-ah threw his arms around him. Yoon was shaking and crying.
The villagers pressed forward, too. "Lord White Dragon!" They said it again and again like a prayer — or a lament.
Kija raised his hand, weak and trembling. He took Hak and Jae-ha's hands where they held him up, and he raised his head.
"Lord White Dragon!"
He only stared back with wide, vulnerable eyes.
With her dimming vision, Granny at last saw through him. She shuffled forward on her knees until she could take his cheeks in her tiny hands.
"Lord Kija," she said.
He burst out crying. "Elder! I've done a terrible thing! I was selfish! I broke my word to our founder! I attacked him and insulted him!"
"I know, I know," she said soothingly. Tears ran down her own cheeks, but her voice was steady. "Do you think I'm going to scold you? We've all spent half the night fearing and grieving that our Lord Kija would be lost in the world of the dead. Maybe this was a sin, but don't think you have to bear it alone. This village — all of us — will bear this sin with you."
"Granny…!" Kija rested his head against her, his nose dripping tears, his chest dripping blood.
And then he fainted.
Chapter 4 - END