The gods might not grant our wishes. But I could. For Joon. I could grant his wish.
I rush to the prow of the boat and leap onto the edge. “Take me instead!” I whip out my knife and make a deep slash across my palm, raising it up high above my head. “I will be the Sea God’s bride. I pledge my life to him!”
My words are met with utter stillness from the dragon. And right away, I doubt everything. Why would the Sea God take me instead of Shim Cheong? I haven’t her beauty or her elegance. I just have my own stubborn will, the one my grandmother always said would be the curse of me.
But then the dragon lowers its head, turning to the side so I can look straight into one of its black eyes. It’s as deep and endless as the sea.
“Please,” I whisper.
In this moment, I don’t feel beautiful. Nor do I feel very brave, my hands trembling. But there’s a warmth in my chest that nothing and no one can take from me. This is the strength I call upon now, because even if I am afraid, I know I’ve chosen this.
I am the maker of my own destiny.
“Mina!” my brother shouts. “No!”
The dragon lifts its body out of the water, dropping a length of its massive bulk between my brother and me, separating us. In the silence, surrounded completely by the dragon, I hesitate, wondering how much it can understand.
I grasp for the right words. The truth.
I take a breath, lifting my chin. “I am the Sea God’s bride.”
The dragon drags its body away from the boat, revealing an opening in the churning water.
Without looking back, I jump into the sea.
2
As I sink, the roar of the waves abruptly cuts off, and all is silent. Over and around me, the dragon’s long, sinuous body circles, swirling a great whirlpool.
Together we fall through the sea.
Strange, but the urge to breathe never rises. My descent is almost … calm. Peaceful. This must be the dragon’s doing. It’s using its magic to keep me from drowning.
My throat tightens, and my heart pounds with relief—all the brides before me, they lived.
Down into the darkness we sink, until the sea above me is the sky, and we—the dragon and I—are like falling stars.
The dragon circles closer, and through its tightening coils I catch sight of one hooded eye, opened slightly to reveal a glittering pool of midnight. Time slows. The world stops. I reach out my hand. Droplets of blood leave the open wound to trail like gemstones across the distance between us.
The dragon blinks, once. A rift opens up below me.
I drop through it into darkness.
* * *
My grandmother often told me stories about the Spirit Realm, a place between heaven and earth filled with all kinds of wondrous beings—gods and spirits and mythical creatures. My grandmother said it was her own grandmother who used to tell her the stories. After all, not all storytellers are grandmothers, but all grandmothers are storytellers.
My grandmother and I would make the short walk through the rice fields and down to the beach, each carrying one side of a folded bamboo mat. We’d spread the mat on the pebbled sand and link arms as we sat side by side, dipping our toes into the cool water.
I remember the way the sea looked in the early morning. The sun peeked out from over the horizon and lit a golden pathway across the water. The briny air misted over our faces like salty kisses. I would lean closer to my grandmother, basking in her steady warmth.
She’d always start with stories first, those with beginnings and endings, but as the orange and purple hues of the early morning settled into the bright blue of afternoon, she would begin to ramble, her voice a soothing melody.
“The Spirit Realm is a vast and magical place, but the greatest of all its wonders is the Sea God’s city. Some say the Sea God is a very old man. Some say he’s a man in his prime, tall as a tree with a beard as black as slate. And others believe he might even be a dragon himself, made of wind and water. But whatever form the Sea God takes, the gods and spirits of the realm obey him, for he is the god of gods, and ruler of them all.”
My whole life, I’ve lived surrounded by gods. There are thousands of them—the god of the well at the center of our village, who sings through the croaking of the frogs; the goddess of the breeze that comes from the west as the moon rises; the god of the stream in our garden, to whom Joon and I used to leave offerings of mud cakes and lotus lily pies. The world is filled with small gods, for each part of nature has a guardian to watch over and protect it.
A strong sea wind swept over the water. My grandmother lifted her hand to her straw hat to keep it from being ripped away into the darkening sky. Even though it was still early in the day, clouds gathered overhead, thick with rain.