“Why are you crying?” I growl. “Do you think your tears will break my will?”
I can feel it breaking. I am not like Joon, who has a gentle heart. I can be stubborn and cruel. I can be bitter and resentful. I want to be all of those things now, because they keep me brave. They keep me angry. And don’t I deserve to be angry, after all that he’s done to my village, to my family?
But the expression on the Sea God’s face matches Shim Cheong’s on the boat. There’s such loneliness there and a deep, unbearable sadness.
A traitorous thought slips into my mind, and I wonder …
Is it you that makes the world cry, or the world that makes you cry?
My legs give out beneath me, and I sink to the floor.
So much has happened in a night, from discovering Joon was missing to chasing him in the rain to jumping into the sea. By now Joon will have returned with Cheong to the village and told our family what I’ve done. I know my sister-in-law will weep, and my heart aches knowing that I’ve caused her further grief. My eldest brother will want to scour the sea in search of me, unable to accept that he can no longer protect me. As for my grandmother, she’ll have faith that I’ve entered the Spirit Realm, that I’m on my way to meet the Sea God at this very moment.
“And what would the Sea God’s bride do, once she’s found him?” I stood with my grandmother in the small seaside temple. It was the first night of the storms, and the rain pattered on the clay tiles of the rooftop.
“She would show him her heart.”
I frowned. “And how would she do that?”
“If you were to show the Sea God your heart, what would it look like?”
My eyes caught on the odd assortment of items left on the shrine, offerings from the children of the village—a seashell, a wind flower, a curiously shaped stone.
Reaching forward, I picked up the tail feather of a magpie.
“Brides don’t often travel with gifts for the Sea God,” my grandmother chided. “Use your voice.”
“But I have nothing to say! End the storms. Protect my family. Watch over us all. He has done none of these things.” Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
My grandmother patted the rush mat, and I sank to my knees beside her. Gently, she took my hands in her own. “You remind me so much of myself when I was your age. After much loss, grief and disappointment were rooted deep in my heart. It was my own grandmother who took me to this very same shrine. She was a lot like you, incredibly fierce and devoted to those she loved.”
It was not the first time my grandmother likened me to hers, and I instinctively reached for my knife, comforted by its weight against my chest.
“It was she who taught me the song that I’ll pass on to you now.”
In the Sea God’s hall, I rise to my feet. The melody my grandmother used to sing to me, I sing it for the Sea God now.
Beneath the sea, the dragon sleeps
What is he dreaming of?
Beneath the sea, the dragon sleeps
When will he wake?
On a dragon’s pearl,
your wish will leap.
On a dragon’s pearl,
your wish will leap.
The echo of my voice fills the hall. Tears slip down my cheeks, and I brush them away with the back of my fist.
The myths of my people say only a true bride of the Sea God can bring an end to his insatiable wrath. I may not be the chosen bride, but is it too much to hope that a girl like me—a girl with nothing but herself to give—could be the Sea God’s true bride?
I catch a subtle shift out of the corner of my eye. The Sea God’s fingers twitch, the barest tremble of movement.
I reach out my hand toward his. The Red String of Fate, as if sensing the immensity of the moment, pulls taut, and I wonder, hope like the fluttering of a bird’s wings, if my life’s about to change.
A voice like steel cuts through the silence. “That’s enough.”
3
Three masked figures stand below the dais, positioned in a half circle like the arc of a crescent moon.
The space of the hall is cavernous, and yet I’d heard no sign of their approach. Clouds pass overhead, sealing off the light from the rafters and sweeping a curtain of darkness over the hall. It eludes two of the figures, those positioned nearest the throne, enveloping the third standing apart from the others. The last glimpse I have of him before he’s consumed by darkness is the curve of a pale cheek.
“What’s this?” The figure on the right flips a dagger into the air and catches it. “A magpie lost in a storm? Or is she another bride for the Sea God?” His low voice is muffled beneath the cloth mask. “Are you a bride or are you a bird?”