Dreamslinger, page 16
“Everything can change in a single moment.” She smiled knowingly. “But first, you must let it.”
After the training, Lion was still acting out of sorts. Even Echo was oddly jumpy, refusing to eat the snacks Tui offered him. At lunch, Lion absently moved his spoon around his bowl of kimchi jjigae, hardly eating. And when Aria asked him for knitting tips, he didn’t even respond, which was highly unusual.
“Lion, honestly, what’s wrong?” Aria demanded across the floating table.
He shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t know why you keep making a thing of it.”
Eventually, Aria pulled Tui aside, bereft. “Tui, do you think Lion is acting weird, or is it just me?”
Tui laughed. “The old mate’s as weird as they come. But that’s nothing new. He’s like one of those mysteries that if you try to unravel them, they get even more tangled.”
Aria frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, think about it. All the heritage folk here avoid him like the plague, but we’re still none the wiser about why. He’s prone to disappearing at random times and we have no idea where he’s going or what he does. Every other heritage kid goes to see their family on the weekends, but Lion stays in the palace with us. Not to mention he’s some kind of martial-arts prodigy, and can knit a sweater in half a day. Need I go on?”
“When you put it like that…”
Tui was right, and frankly, Aria was annoyed she hadn’t picked up on it earlier. What had he done to become such a social pariah here? Where was he disappearing to all the time? Who even was he? There were more questions than answers when it came to their earmuff-wearing friend.
Still, mystery of Lion’s history aside, Aria couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off with him today beyond his normal strangeness. It felt like a cry for help.
That’s when she remembered the beaconsap she’d been gifted by the private investigator at Nam Samchon’s house. He’d explained that the accompanying beaconmap would let her track the sap’s whereabouts in real time.
So after lunch, as Lion stood up to leave, Aria leaned in to give him a hug… and stealthily stuck some beaconsap on his back. If he wasn’t going to open up about it, she’d have to find another way of figuring it out herself.
Aria had been sitting in her bedchamber, watching Lion’s little beacon dot on the beaconmap for a while before she finally saw it move. Lion was leaving the Pavilion, where he’d been studying in the library, and was now headed to Central Palace.
Rio was having a deep nap on her bed (probably exhausted after embarrassing Aria at training), and Aria didn’t want to wake her—she didn’t think the seedling would make a discreet spy companion. So she sent an urgent butterflymail to Junghee requesting her babysitting services before setting off after Lion.
The gama (pirate-themed, complete with a mini gangplank ramp) expertly assisted Aria as she tracked Lion to the northern corner of Central Palace—an area Aria hadn’t been to before. She followed him all the way to a hanok, and discreetly jumping off the gama without being seen, she shadowed him into what looked like a small but ornate private library. She quickly hid behind a tall, densely packed bookshelf covered with scrolls from top to tail, and held her breath.
“Abo-mama,” she heard Lion call out. “Is the mudang doing okay? Is she recovering?”
Aria frowned. She wasn’t 100 percent sure, but she thought she’d seen that word before in a scroll. Abo-mama. She was pretty sure it meant father in certain contexts.
“It may take a while for a full recovery, but she’ll make it,” said a voice that sounded somewhat familiar but that Aria couldn’t quite place.
A pause. “Do you—do you think it was me they were after?” Another longer pause. Aria heard Echo whimper. “Do you think it’s because of what I did?”
Aria leaned forward, wedging herself in between a bunch of scrolls that were precariously packed on top of each other.
“I darn well hope you weren’t the intended target of that blade!” the voice exclaimed. Then he sighed. “And no, son, I think something like this would’ve happened eventually, regardless of your decision.”
Lion’s father stepped into Aria’s view then, and she got a glimpse of his face.
She staggered back. She knew that face.
Her back hit the shelf and the stack of scrolls toppled forward, clattering to the ground.
“Who’s there?!” Lion demanded.
There was a release of heat and the angry squawk of a solar phoenix from somewhere behind Aria. A talon clawed at her, and Aria edged out to avoid being mauled.
Lion’s father stared at Aria, and his eyes widened, as if he thought for a moment that she was someone else.
Aria swallowed thickly.
“Oh. Um. Hello, Your Majesty.”
ARIA SWIVELED TO FACE HER earmuff-wearing friend, Lion Lee-Hendrick, teenage John Legend lookalike, knitter extraordinaire, and Taekkyon maestro.
“You’re the prince? But you’re—but how—?” Aria stuttered. “I didn’t even know the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk had a prince!”
It clicked now where she’d seen the word abo-mama. She’d read about it in a royal terminology scroll that explained the special term was reserved for princes and princesses when addressing their father.
Lion gave his father (the king!!) a look that said I told you so. “Yes, it’s true. I am the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk.” He lowered his gaze to his hands, looking genuinely remorseful. “And I’m sorry I had to lie to you. I really didn’t want to. I swear. But I was given no choice in the matter.”
Aria suddenly found herself curtsying on autopilot to her friend, then frowned. She put her arms on her hips in defiance, but then, thinking better of it, curtsied again. “Am I supposed to call you Your Royal Highness now? I’m so confused.”
Lion grimaced. “Please don’t.”
“Why did you lie about who you were?” Aria asked, trying to ignore the warning tail flick of the king’s phoenix.
Lion looked to the king, who nodded his permission.
“It’s all to do with my manifestation wish,” Lion began. “I was a late bloomer. My recurring Heartsglade dreams only manifested when I turned fifteen. Usually they start when dreamslingers turn thirteen.”
Aria nodded. She’d had her first Outburst when she was thirteen.
“It’s tradition in the kingdom that a royal, upon manifestation, can make a wish of their own choosing, no matter how grand or outlandish, and it must be allowed. Mine was to open the Annual Trials to every teenage dreamslinger in the world.” The king grunted at this. “Because unlike my abo-mama, I think the gifts of the Asleep—the dreampanions, the nightjoys, all of it—should be shared, not squirreled away for a lucky few.”
Aria remembered the conversation in the underground tunnels, and how passionate Lion had sounded about the kingdom being opened to others. He wanted the world to understand the League’s peaceful ways—from the inside.
“Which is exactly the kind of naive thinking I have advised against time and time again!” the king lectured, looking unimpressed. “As you have both seen for yourselves, anti-slinger sentiment is on the rise. They are getting bolder. And my job as sovereign is to protect my kingdom, not to invite danger into our borders. As you can imagine, for my son, the Rising Sun of the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk, to wish upon such frivolity was not a moment I recall with pride.”
Aria’s gaze flicked down at Lion’s norigae, how simple it was yet so undeniably regal, with the golden sun rising out of the gray. Then she studied Echo, whose petaled scales were as majestically gold as the sun. She suddenly had a flashback of meeting Junghee for the first time, when she was giving her a tour of Spring Palace.
And of course, our Spring Palace in the east, and the sun also rises in the east, which is why it’s the home of the—
She’d stopped herself before she’d finished her sentence. But Aria understood now. Junghee was referring to the prince. To Lion. He lived in the Spring Palace because he was the Rising Sun of the Kingdom, and the sun rose in the east.
She couldn’t believe it. The clues were all right there. She just didn’t know to look.
Lion huffed, throwing off his earmuffs, as if they were hindering his ability to show his true self. Echo stomped on them with satisfaction. “But my abo-mama, here, would only allow my manifestation wish on two conditions. One, if only twenty Novices were inducted at the end of the Trials, to lessen the risk of outside influence. And two, if the entire kingdom was sworn to secrecy about my true identity—to protect against any ambush or attack on the prince. On me.”
“I had to protect you somehow, my son!” the king boomed, obviously still incensed by the whole thing.
Aria’s eyes widened. It all made sense now. Why Lion was always disappearing—presumably for secret meetings with the king. How he’d known about the underground tunnels. Why all the heritage folk avoided him like he was a walking virus. It was because he was their prince, but they were forbidden from acknowledging it. They had to pretend he was a nobody.
“And that’s the whole truth,” Lion swore. “I never lied to you—everything I said and did was me, the real me. My Korean name is Lee Saja. Hendrick was my mom’s last name, and Saja means Lion, so Lion Lee-Hendrick is really my English name.”
Echo rubbed his head in Lion’s side, as Lion lowered his eyes. And despite looking remorseful, he seemed less troubled now. As if telling the truth had made him feel lighter. “Do you hate me?”
Aria blinked. She was too stunned to take it all in yet. But she knew one thing. If they were comparing crimes, her secret was worse than his. Being a spy trumped being forced by royal decree to hide your identity. Love wasn’t even her real last name. A prickly wave of guilt washed over her.
“No, of course I don’t hate you,” Aria responded truthfully. “But—but I think I’m going to need some time to get my head around it all.”
He bit his lip but nodded. “I understand.”
“What about Tui?” Aria asked. “When are you going tell her the truth?”
Lion looked hopefully at his father, but the king only shook his head.
“It’s enough of a risk having one foreign trialeer know Lion’s true identity,” the monarch declared. “I forbid you—either of you—from telling another soul. Not until after the induction ceremony. Do I make myself clear?”
Aria and Lion remained silent, and the king raised his voice.
“I said, do I make myself clear?”
Lion sighed, and Aria nodded.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Back in her bedchamber, Aria found a note from Junghee saying that the maid had taken Rio to the dreamtailor. Her mom had needed some help in the shop, and she figured Rio might enjoy the new environment. They were scheduled to be back soon.
It was just the time Aria needed to get her thoughts in order. She took out a stack of paper and her writing brush. And in a feverish state, she began her formal report to her dad. She told him about the real reason behind the kingdom’s unexpected reopening. There had been no ulterior motives, no nefarious intentions. It was simply a fifteen-year-old boy’s idealistic wish for the world to know the League’s good intentions. In the spirit of sharing their knowledge and power.
As she wrote, she felt a sense of tightening in her chest, then a swelling, followed by a release, and a lightness. It was as if all the weight she’d been carrying was slowly being laid down. With the true reason for the reopening known, and nothing to suggest there was anything evil brewing, she hoped this report could finally end her double life as a trialeer and spy.
As she burned her folded report in her lantern’s flame, it struck her that at some point—although it was hard to pinpoint exactly when it’d happened—Aria had come to embrace the League. She’d come to understand in a fundamental way, in her very bones, that the League wasn’t trying to engineer child soldiers or create conflict. They were merely trying to teach them the skills their genetic mutation had afforded them.
Before the Trials, Aria had genuinely believed that her dad’s suppression approach to Outbursts was the only way to promote dreamslinger welfare. But she could see now that it was only one approach. Like Lion said in the tunnels, perhaps only looking at the risks was defeatist. What about the opportunities that came with the risks?
This place wasn’t perfect. They were rigid, they lied, and they held secrets like a troll hoarded treasures. But she thought of Resthaven—of their armbands, their metal-fiber gloves, all their rules and restrictions… And she understood that nothing and nowhere was ever perfect.
Knowing what she knew now, could she really blame Lion or the League for having done things this way? As Tui put it, would that just be buffetsplaining?
At that moment, Rio came bursting through the doors, accompanied by Junghee. They were both brimming with energy.
“Check out Rio’s new outfit!” Junghee exclaimed.
The bloom dragon was dressed in what could only be described as a mermaid tail, as if the seedling were wearing a prosthetic for her stub.
“She found the fabric herself, and demanded that I make it for her,” Junghee said, laughing. “It’s woven with eelweed, so it can even move!”
She pointed excitedly as the tail swished ever so slightly before it flopped heavily on the floor. Junghee groaned, complaining about how all her designs were failing.
Rio, on the other hand, did not seem to care that the tail hadn’t worked. She loped toward Aria, spinning and strutting in circles, proud as peaches, as if she couldn’t wait to show it off to Aria.
“Well, someone’s a fan!” Aria chuckled, unable to help herself. Rio’s enthusiasm was contagious. In fact, she couldn’t remember another time Rio had so eagerly and openly approached her. It was like she was with a completely different seedling.
As Rio affectionately rubbed her floppy fake tail against Aria’s feet, purring and seeking her approval, Aria wondered if this is how she must’ve looked to her dad, when she’d first learned the Outburst suppression techniques at Resthaven. She remembered how eager she’d felt to show off her achievements to her dad—to earn his attention and pride. And when her dad had praised her, she’d felt like she could fly. Despite believing she was “less than” as a dreamslinger, Aria’s dad had never made her feel any less loved.
Rio purred even louder now as she looked up at Aria expectantly, waiting for the dreamslinger’s mark of approval. And as Aria gazed down into her seedling’s hungry eyes, the cold hard truth slapped Aria on the cheek like a wet fish. Rio was waiting for Aria’s affection, her attention, her love. But unlike her dad, Aria had never given it to her dreampanion. She had never shown Rio her love.
Rio’s enthusiasm for her prosthetic suddenly made sense. This whole time, Rio must’ve thought Aria had put distance between them because of her lack of tail. That her faulty stub was the reason Aria had not shown any real affection for the seedling. After all, even when Jina had insulted Rio by calling her deformed, Aria hadn’t stood up for her. Now that she had a tail—fake or otherwise—Rio believed she was finally worthy of being loved.
The realization shattered Aria’s heart, and she let out a sob. “Oh, Rio, I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you, or make you think there was something wrong with you. I’ve always loved you—from the moment you unfurled, no matter the length of your tail. You’re a part of me. I just…” The truth struck Aria then. “I just didn’t accept myself yet. And without accepting myself, I guess I couldn’t embrace you, either. I’m so sorry!”
Perhaps it was having sent her final report to her dad that allowed it to happen. But as she opened the floodgates to her feelings, she let her love for Rio, well, flow. She thought it would feel like entering a black hole, foreign and frightening and endless. But all she felt was a warmth that enveloped them both so completely, that she wondered if she’d witnessed the edge of existence.
Rio licked her all over the face, tickling Aria with her long whiskers. Then she wrapped her serpentine body around Aria and squeezed tight, as if saying It took you long enough! Her little stub tail thumped against Aria’s ribs.
Later that night, Rio discarded her own bed and instead jumped into Aria’s. And as the seedling snuggled into her (taking up the entire bed space), Aria realized for the first time since entering the competition that she didn’t just want to pass the Trials. She genuinely and wholeheartedly wanted to become a royal slinger. She wanted to be a Fellow of the Royal League of Dreamslingers.
The revelation was so great, so obvious, and so powerful that she couldn’t go to sleep. She tried the anchor cards to no avail. She sang the lullaby her mom used to sing her, but that didn’t work either. In the end, as Rio snored and drooled next to her, Aria resorted to the flash cards one of the aunties had gifted her at Nam Samchon’s house. She guessed it wouldn’t hurt to learn a few more Korean words.
She flicked through them, trying to commit them to memory.
Horangi → Tiger
Tokki → Rabbit
Bada → Sea
Jib → House
Gom → Bear
Iseul → Dew
Haneul → Sky
Her blood stilled. She went back one flash card and stared at the picture of a morning drewdrop pooling on a green leaf.
Iseul → Dew
Something in her mind clicked into place, and Aria touched the lucky number eight pendant around her neck.
She gasped.
Ko Iseul was the name of the mudang’s late sister.
And her mom’s name was Ersa… after the Greek goddess of dew.
IT WAS THE MIDDLE OF the night, and Aria knew what she was about to do would blow her cover. But she didn’t care. She felt like she was going to burst, and she needed to confirm if her suspicions were correct.
Before she could register where her body was taking her, she found herself outside the mudang’s hanok in the eastern quadrant of Central Palace, surrounded by the glistening golden walls. When studying for the Knowing, she’d learned that the shaman lived on the eastern side of the king’s quarters, because she was his right-hand advisor.
