Dragon Pearl(79)

I bent over, practically wrapping myself around the Pearl, and shut my eyes, fearing that the ghosts would turn on me next. “Stay close, Jun. I need you to protect me.”

“You don’t need me, Min,” Jun said. “You know what to do. You’ve always been the cleverest one in our family.”

I opened my eyes. The ghosts were swirling around me, but they hadn’t called down any lightning strikes, or driven me off a precipice, or frozen the blood in my veins. They gazed at the Dragon Pearl, but not in anger. In expectation.

I didn’t know exactly what they wanted, but I was beginning to get an idea.

“Long ago, you were wronged,” I called out, my voice shaking. “Let me make it right.”

“Don’t believe her!” said the captain. “She’s a fox. All foxes are liars. She only wants the Pearl for herself, like that shaman did.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but then I spotted Haneul and Sujin, still ringed by Hwan’s soldiers, and the words died in my throat. I’d lied to them from the beginning. There was no reason they should believe me, either.

The wind picked up again and Eui floated toward me ominously, interpreting my lack of response as an admission of guilt. “On the day you come to the gate between the world above and the world below,” she said, her voice rising, “no one will guide you to the welcoming dark, and no one will say the rites over your grave. No one will—”

“Honored ancestors,” I shouted, standing my ground, although what I really wanted to do was run and hide like a small child. “You shouldn’t have been abandoned by the rest of the Thousand Worlds. You need us to help you. You can’t wield the Pearl yourselves, because you’re dead, right? But we can do it for you and give you what you’re looking for.”

From behind me I heard bitter laughter. “Pretty words, Min,” Captain Hwan said. “But what makes you think you can control the power of the Pearl?”

“Let Haneul and Sujin go,” I said, clutching the Pearl, “or I’ll use it against you.” I wasn’t sure how I’d do that, exactly, but if I had to, I’d figure out a way.

Then I noticed Haneul’s and Sujin’s expressions. Haneul wouldn’t meet my eyes, and her cheeks were flushed. Sujin, on the other hand, stared defiantly at me.

My heart sank. I waited for an explanation. But I’d already started to figure it out—why Sujin had called the captain, why Haneul had tried to warn me before I flew off in hawk shape . . .

“The two cadets were never in any danger,” Captain Hwan said, confirming my guess. “It was a ploy to win your confidence so you’d lead them—and me—to the Dragon Pearl.”

The truth stung, even though I knew I didn’t have any right to feel hurt. After all, I’d tried to dupe them, too, and I hadn’t admitted my true identity until the captain unmasked me.

“Why?” I asked them. Over the howling wind I heard the ghosts’ mocking laughter, and I flushed hotly.

“Jang was a friend,” Sujin shot back, even as Haneul shook her head. “Did you ever think about how the people who knew him would feel about the way you pretended to be him for weeks? You didn’t let us give him a proper funeral.”

A proper funeral . . .

The ghosts crowded closer and closer as Sujin spoke, drawn to an anger that echoed their own. We could be in big trouble if Sujin went on like this. I had to calm the goblin down.

“I talked to Jang’s ghost,” I said, keeping my voice level even though I was tempted to shout back in my defense. “He wanted me to continue his training cruise and help him find out who hired the mercenaries who killed him. I promised to do it. I even swore it on the bones of my ancestors.”

“Words are cheap,” Sujin said. “How—?”

Whatever Sujin had been about to say died in their throat.

Slowly, another ghost materialized next to me. I was buffeted by a familiar cold breeze. “Jang? I thought you—”

“Min is telling the truth,” he said to his friends. Then he addressed the other spirits. “She helped me, and she will help you.”

I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but the roaring of the wind seemed to die down a little.

The captain narrowed his eyes at Jang. “You,” he spat. “If you’d gone properly to your rest, instead of plaguing us with ghost luck—”

Jang glowered at Hwan. “I served you loyally,” he hissed. “And what did I get for it? You knowingly sacrificed me!” It looked like he wanted to lunge at the captain.

“Not now, Jang!” I said through gritted teeth. I clutched the Dragon Pearl more tightly. It hummed at my touch, and gradually I felt a sense of serenity wash over me. I shut my eyes. Help me, I asked whatever spirits dwelled inside it.

In answer, I saw a momentary vision of a calm ocean, its waters the same changing colors of the Pearl itself. In the pale sand along the shore, I saw the shadow of a fox. My shadow.

I opened my eyes and gazed into the Pearl. Its glow brightened. Whether it was an answer from the artifact I didn’t know, but a thought sprung to my mind. In the old stories, the number four signified death—the Fourth Colony had turned its own name into a prophecy. I might not be a shaman, but I knew magic responded to suggestions, just like people responded to Charm. And between Haneul, Sujin, Captain Hwan, and me, there were now four living supernatural creatures on the Fourth Colony. Perhaps this was all meant to be. . . .