Dragon Pearl(80)

“You are coming perilously close to promising something you can’t give,” Captain Hwan said to me over the ghosts’ rising hisses. “There’s still another way for us to get out of this. Your brother may no longer be . . . available, but—” He raised his eyebrows at me.

The captain was referring to Charm. He didn’t want to say the word out loud, in case the ghosts caught on.

I remembered Nari’s parlor and how she’d used her Charm to manipulate whole crowds of people. Over the past few weeks I’d learned that my power with Charm was even stronger than hers. I wasn’t confident that it was persuasive enough to sway the thousands upon thousands of ghosts who had gathered around us, though, and I only had one chance to get it right.

No, my idea was safer. Maybe, for once, I could help without using Charm.

The ghosts’ angry glares had settled on Captain Hwan. As glad as I was that the force of their hatred and misery wasn’t directed at me for a change, I had to get their attention again.

I lifted the Dragon Pearl into the sky with my good arm. The ghosts were drawn to its pulsing colors. “You have gone too long without a proper burial,” I shouted.

The wind subsided into murmurs of assent.

“With the Pearl, I can turn this land into a tomb for you,” I said, enunciating each word as clearly as possible. “I can give you your peace at last.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Eui said.

I brought my arm down and held the Pearl close to my heart, as if swearing an oath. “Jang trusted me. He is one of you now, and so is”—I gulped—“my brother. They deserve funeral rites, too.” I looked at Jun, but he was gazing at the horizon. The lump in my throat was never going to go away. “I’ll do it for their sake, if no one else’s.”

Captain Hwan regarded me with furious eyes. I started to sweat. What if he tried to snatch the Pearl away? With my injured shoulder, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to resist him. If I couldn’t sell him on this plan, we were doomed.





The captain leaned forward ever so slightly and hissed, “You’d trust the Pearl? When taking it doomed a shaman at the height of her powers?” Then he grabbed my upper arm before I could dart away.

I stifled a gasp as his fingers dug into my flesh and he yanked me toward him, wrenching my injured shoulder. I could shift and try to escape with the Pearl, but where would I go? And I couldn’t Charm him into releasing me—the ghosts were watching, and that would only renew their distrust. I had to find another way.

I stared at Haneul and Sujin, willing them to look at me. “Think of Jang,” I pleaded with them. He stirred next to me and I held still, refusing to flinch from his wintry touch. “Don’t you want to lay him to rest?”

Sujin’s brow furrowed. “Is that what you want, Jang?”

The Fourth Colony’s ghosts muttered and clamored. The wind was whipping up again. Jang hugged himself, looking more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him before. I was forcibly reminded that he’d only been a couple years older than me, the same age as my brother.

“You kept your end of the bargain,” Jang said to me. “Now it’s my turn to help you.”

Turning to Hwan, he said, “Let her go.” He didn’t speak in a deferential tone, as a cadet to a captain, but in a hollow, detached voice, as one of the dead to one of the living. He rested his insubstantial hand atop the captain’s, which was still wrapped around my arm. The chill bit my skin. Surely the captain felt it, too.

“Captain, sir,” Haneul said unexpectedly, her voice shaking, “we’ve already been cursed by enough bad luck. Don’t you think it would be better for us to do what the ghosts want?”

Sujin hesitated, then nodded. “Haneul’s right, sir,” they said. They were carefully avoiding my eyes.

“But it would be such a waste,” Hwan said almost under his breath. “When I think of what the Pearl could do . . .”

His grip on me tightened, and I thought his next act would be to strangle me then and there. In anticipation, the breath stopped in my throat.

Jun said, “This is your chance to bring honor to the Space Forces, Captain. And some measure of peace. If nothing else, do it for your lost comrade, Myung.”

Hwan went still at the sound of her name. Then, suddenly, he exhaled explosively and let me go. I almost dropped the Pearl out of sheer surprise.

I whispered to the orb before Hwan could change his mind. “Let’s do this together,” I said. Its soft, swirling light enveloped me, and warmth spread through my body. Even the pain in my injured shoulder felt distant. “Let’s make a proper grave for the dead.”

The ghosts’ spokeswoman floated up to the four of us. “Swear on the bones of your brother,” she said to me. To Captain Hwan: “Swear on the bones of your comrade.” And at last, Eui said to Haneul and Sujin, “Swear on the bones of Jang, who was your friend.”

I shuddered as her words reverberated through me. If I broke such an oath, I could expect my own ghost to wander until I found some way to redeem myself.

“I swear,” I said. “I swear on my brother Jun’s bones”—I heard him sigh quietly—“and on the bones of all my ancestors, and on the bones of everyone who has died for the Pearl.”