BA3 - Chapter 27

“They were doing what they thought was best,” I fired back, angry for the truth of it, and his exploitation of the truth to get a rise out of me. I knew this was how he operated. He’d always been manipulative.

Ko-nah hummed. “Hopes and good intentions don’t do you much good when it comes to trust, does it?”

I clenched my teeth and looked to the towering city in the distance. The wind carried soft noises from the nearby market. Sonma was still bartering away with the power of electricity to keep the bazaars well lit. They drank and gambled too, but nothing like in outer-city. Sonma was more like the outskirts of Busa-nan than outer-city.

Homesickness washed over me in a wave and I wished I’d never met Ko-nah. I wished the drugs had never come to Busa-nan, that my mother had never taken that potion, and that my father had never left.

“Everyone I’ve ever trusted has lied to me on this journey,” I said in a moment of weakness. Why was I confiding in this traitor?

Ko-nah nodded. “Everyone but me.”

“You’ve done enough lying for a lifetime,” I snarled the words, my cheeks hot with anger. How dare he cozy up to me after what he’d done.

He sighed deeply. “I’m sorry.”

Unlike his hollow apologies of months past, I felt the weight in his words. The deed he’d done was heavy on his soul. He’d never imagined he’d go so far—take lives to save one he loved. I was better than that. I wouldn’t kill an innocent to save myself heartbreak. I would’ve killed wansil Wong, a monster of a man who willingly aided an enemy of his home.

The heat in my chest boiled over into my stomach, filling me with adrenaline. “Say that to Se-nim’s mother, or Gui-nam’s_TK fiancé. Say that to the thousands of people you hurt, or killed, back in our homeland.”

“I wish I could!” He yelled, frustration in his shaking fists. “I wish I could undo everything and start again. I wish I would’ve killed that fujek sangomnyon Wong and taken my mother deep into the hills.” His arms dropped to his sides and he closed his eyes. “I was too weak.”

“Then you should’ve asked for help,” I snapped. “We offered it to you many times.”

He scoffed. “You never cared about me, you only cared how much I’d seen of your ghost.”

“A not so insignificant secret!” I yelled back, indignantly. “Can you imagine what kind of power Dokun would have now if he’d captured me?”

“So, you offered hollow salvation to save your own skin?” he asked, true emotion showing in his reddened face.

My voice caught in my throat. Was that not what I’d just shamed him for doing? On a smaller scale, but yes… I had sacrificed Ko-nah’s wellbeing to serve my own needs instead of trying to find another way, a path that didn’t have suffering.

“What could I have done if you wouldn’t cooperate with me? How could I help you if you never told me what you were up against?” I posed back, feeling less certain my words had much ground.

Ko-nah shrugged and slumped to the slanted roof tiles. “How could I put faith in someone who made hollow promises, and judged me so harshly?”

I scowled. “Those were my personal thoughts.”

“And I could hear how you lied to me at every turn and plotted against me, so how could I share anything with you? Use every resource, every insight. Use everything you have to survive.”

I frowned as I looked at Ko-nah in a different light. Those were the words of nomad clans—caravan raiders the lot of them.

“So that’s where you get your thieving, cowardice nature. You’re a nomad_tk[JH1] .”

Ko-nah’s glare turned venomous. “I am not! I was raised among them, but I am not one.”

“How can you be raised like one, but not one?” I asked, eyes narrowed on him.

“Because I was stolen from my home! The nomads came to my village and destroyed it, then took every woman and child…” he trailed, his eyes darkening as he stared through me. “Mother—my birth mother—died before I was six. The woman I call mother now raised me as her own because she could bear no child.

“She wanted to give me a good life. She loved me like a real mother would. One night, she carried me away from the clan into the forest. We huddled in dark caves and secluded glades for weeks, attacked by monstrous horrors you wouldn’t imagine. She defended me from all of them until her body was broken. I took us to the only place I knew she could get help… back to my home, to Busa-nan.

“She didn’t make it past the main road, but we were fortunate when wansil Wong’s carriage passed. He stopped and took pity on my mother. Took her in to heal her wounds and tend to me, a helpless boy. I think he had a heart, then.

“Mother was taken with him. She wanted to be his wife, and cared to his every need, but Wong wouldn’t divorce—his pride couldn’t stand it, even for love. When his wife died, there were whispers that my mother was responsible for it. There was a black cloud over our heads, but it didn’t stop Wong’s love.

“They were married, and when he discovered she too could bear no child, he was furious with her. She had lied to him. She had said she was withholding pregnancy to keep their love affair a secret.”

There were tears in his eyes and he sniffled them back. “I’m sorry I’ve burdened your conscious with my sob story.”

I took a few deep breaths as we sat in silence. The moon’s light cast rainbows through our cold breath while I considered his words. I felt Mae’s presence at the periphery of my mind as she did the same, weighing the words to find their truth or treachery.

“What you told me in the forest before we fought the shūspekta was a lie? She wasn’t your real mother.” I finally said.

Ko-nah looked to me with a furrowed brow, his tears stopped. “I used a small lie to uncomplicate my true story so I could explain it faster,” he corrected.

I laughed. I had done this many times over the course of the mission—small, semi-truthful lies to get myself out of trouble. “I guess we have little lies in common, then.”

“Lying. Making mistakes. Misjudging people. It’s life.” He exhaled hard, as if pushing the weight of the statement away from his body. He didn’t want it to be real, and neither did I.

“Some mistakes have been greater than others,” I said, considering how stupid I’d been about Eun-bi’s situation in my first year. I should’ve taken a handout to save my sister—my pride wasn’t worth her life. I could’ve tried to negotiate with Hiro. If he was telling the truth, I could’ve saved a lot of people. I’d been angry, and headstrong. I’d believed I could not escape my fate except through action. But what if my inaction was what was needed?

“Some mistakes exceed what we can repay in a lifetime,” Ko-nah whispered and stared out at the twinkling city. Candles and simple electricity lit the houses of Sonma, but far beyond, the towering spires of Kokyu’s capital shimmered in bright neons. The city was alive.

A chill ran down my spine and I stood, wrapping my arms across my chest for warmth. “What matters is that we try. We must try to repay our debt of misdeeds, cleans ourselves, even if we may never truly be clean.”

Ko-nah’s eyes snapped to my face. “Do you believe in second chances?”

I quirked an eyebrow and looked down on him. “You’ve blown past that already.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine, third chances. I swear to you on my mother’s life—on the woman who raised me—I don’t want you or the others hurt. I don’t want Busa-nan fall to war, and I don’t want Dokun rise to power. I’ll do whatever’s necessary.”

I’d seen all sides of Ko-nah. I’d seen his darkest self; the one who would kill. I’d seen his wretched self; the one who wished for nothing more than to turn back time. I was seeing his hopeful self; the one who would do anything to repay his debt and clear the blackened mark from his soul.

“Yes,” I said as I looked out to the city. “I think we should give one another every chance we have earned.”

We were quiet for a moment, then Ko-nah cleared his throat. “Have I earneda third chance? If not, what do I have to do?”

I took in the young man, master of ry and deception. “Fight along side us when the fighting starts. Defend us and our mission so we can protect the world from Dokun’s plots.”

He furrowed his brow sarcastically. “Oh, is that all? You may as well have just asked me to commit suicide.”

I harumphed. “What do you think we’re all here doing?”

“Yes, and about that. I’m sorry I forced Shin-soo to fight you… he was about to blab the whole story, and it was not going to line up with Genta’s mission in the slightest,” Ko-nah said with a grimace.

Heat returned to my stomach and I stood. “You did that?”

Ko-nah shrugged. “I had to. It was the only way to keep him quiet and get you all to understand the danger I’d been trying to tell you. They’re working with Dokun.”

I scowled. “If you’re truly fighting against them—” I didn’t get to finish my sentence before being blown from the rooftop by some invisible force.

I twisted mid air and saw Ko-nah, his arms glowing a soft blue as he redirected the flow of wind from the top of the building and scooped me into it. My feet dangled dangerously close to the ten story drop to the ground. Panic shot through me but I’d been prepared. My clothes ruffled and I assumed the slow down position, ensuring that if he dropped me, I’d have a chance of survival.

“You snake,” I snarled at him.

“You’re in a bad position to be name-calling,” Ko-nah said with a shake of his head. “Yes, I am working with your father, and I had to get Ena to explain her needs to you so everyone would shut their gobs. First rule of spycraft—never reveal your intentions.”

“You’re pretty good at that one,” I snapped back, gritting my teeth.

He pulled his arms inward and the wind retracted, pulling me back to safety. The gust altogether stopped when Ko-nah dropped his pose. “I just needed to stop you from doing something stupid in the moment. You’re pretty fond of overreacting.”

“Oh,I am? Who’s holding who of the ledge of a building right now?” I shouted and he held his finger up to quiet me.

He pulled his arms inward and the wind retracted, pulling me back to safety. The gust altogether stopped when Ko-nah dropped his pose. “Look, the fact is

“Why are you working with my father? He threatened to kill my mother—he pressed a blade to her throat!”

“And you knew he wouldn’t do it, didn’t you? You saw with your eyes there was no way he was going to execute her, because he loves her more than anything.”

My mind’s eye filled with the half hazy images of that night. The ry deception in his throat when he projected his voice, and the trembling in his fingers. No, he wouldn’t have killed her. I knew that deep in my heart.

“See,” Ko-nah said. “He’s not such a bad guy.”

I grabbed him by the collar. “He aided in murdering hundreds of people, and altering the lives of thousands forever.”

“He didn’t know that was going to happen,” Ko-nah whispered, looking away.

“Liar,” I snarled and tossed him back.

“I didn’t either, not explicitly. I could imagine that it wasn’t going to be good, but honestly, that wasn’t what I expected.”

“I don’t care,” I said, and turned away.

“Yes, you do. You want to know how your own father could do something like that—and whether or not your capable of it, too.”

I gritted my teeth to keep my mouth shut, then took a deep breath through my nose. “He was in control of the signal. When he saw what it did, he should’ve turned it off. Anything less is inexcusable.”

“That’s what you think. Hiroto was never in control of the signal, it was the ghost.”

I whirled on him. “Which he could’ve disabled or broken! Stop making excuses for a horrific man and a despicable crime.”

Ko-nah scowled. “And have all of Wong’s men turn on him? You forget, your father didn’t have any allies here—not even me. I still wouldn’t consider us friends. We’re mutually beneficial to each other’s ends.”

“Which is?” I asked, fuming.

“, I’m trying to help save the world from Dokun, and your fatherhe’s…” Ko-nah shrugged. “He’s trying to save his familyyour life.”

I scoffed. “Even if that wasn’t a lie, it’s pathetic. He hasn’t changed, and this is exactly the thinking that had him holding a knife to his wife’s throat.”

“You’re wrong. There’s more than one way to kill a man, you know. His plan doesn’t involve putting you in harm’s way, if you’d just hear him out.”

I sneered. “I’m sure it includes running away from my family for years on end, hiding from the threatI did. It included hiding away in the mountains for years to become powerful enough to fight Dokun. He’s always been a coward, running away from everything in his life.”

“Your instructors have no idea what they’re going to face. That was why Woong-jitried to send you home.They know they’re going to fail and they can’t lose you—” he stopped mid-sentence, flustered, thenpointed to my chest—“youto the enemy.”“It does.” Ko-nah nodded. “He wants to take you into the mountains to tame the red munje, the TK_coolname. He wants to make you a formidable opponent to Dokun, so you can face him together.”

“Why wouldn’t they just tell us, then? They had to take away my freedom to choose my own fate?For Mae to choose hers?” I snarled.

“Because they didn’t trust you—” he pointed to my face—“to make the right choice.” He air quoted the words.

Heat filled my cheeks and the tight, head-drooping sense of shame swirled in my gut. They didn’t trust me. This was all starting to make sense.

“Oh,” Ko-nah snapped his fingers and reached inside his robe. He put his hands to his back, and then pulled something free with a jerk.It felt too good to be true. The long-lost father trying to rekindle his relationship with his son and build him into a fighting machina to take out the man he once served. I laughed and turned away again.

My family portrait!“You don’t believe me?” Ko-nah asked, offended.

He offered it to me. “They didn’t want you to stay, but I did. So, I figured if you were going to escape, and we were going to make this workwith the original plan, you’d need all your tools, right?”

I took it and mumbled a thanks, then hid it in a similar way as Ko-nah had. “How did you know I was going to escape?”

He raised a cocky eyebrow. “Really? You somehow manage to overpower a sixth band munje user last year, you can remotely access machina at a master level, and you have a built in assistant to do all your math for you.”

I scowled, unamused. “Mae is not an assistant. She’s a person trapped inside me, and performs tasks for me to keep herself from… getting bored.” I grimaced, trailing off.

‘You don’t think I treat you like an assistant, do you?’

Mae snickered. “Of course not. We’re friends, and I’m making my keep by helping out. Sometimes you even listen to me when I give you advice, that’s always nice.” She ended on a clearly sarcastic note and flashed a winking face in my vision.

My frown deepened. ‘Really comforting.’

“We better get back. I’m not sure how long my ry shield will last,” Ko-nah said, turning away from me. He stopped at the edge of tk_the shoot and looked back. “Wait a few minutes, would you? Two boys coming back to their room at the same time may raise suspicions I don’t want to deal with.”

I grunted. “Surely, a few innocent rumors wouldn’t hurt on top of everything else?”

He shook his head with a deep sigh. “News travels fast in this town. My mother would know before lunch and I’d never hear the end about living my life honestly, not from the shadows.”

I grimaced in sympathy. He didn’t need to endure further emotional pain on my accord. That wouldn’t be true justice, anyway. He waved and jumped into the spell stream. With a whoosh he zipped up into the air, then closed his arms and dropped below the edge of the roof into the building.

“What are you thinking?” Mae asked, though she was fully capable of checking without my awareness. I appreciated the guise of privacy, though.

‘I wish I could see Dokun without him seeing me. I want to know if he just a walking act, or if this is truly his persona. What if he isn’t the monster we all think him to be?’

“It’s true, we have inconclusive hearsay from everyone, but the only real facts are what you saw and heard with your own eyes. Perhaps a bit of subterfuge is in order?”

I smirked, then jumped into the air shaft. ‘Let’s get some more insight.’

I stepped up to the edge of tk_the shoot and glanced over my shoulder. “That’s the most ridiculous lie you’ve ever told, and you should be ashamed of how terrible it was.”

Without letting him say another word, I jumped into the tube and shot down into the school. I spent the walk back up the stairs replaying his words in my head.

‘How stupid does he think I am?’

“Well, he’s gotten away with worse before, but I don’t know, Jiyong. His story seems far-fetched, but the data is pointing to it being a real, possible truth,” Mae said, her face blurring into view in my darkened vision.

‘It’s a fairytale to manipulate us. I don’t know what he’s up to, but it’s not good.’

“I’ll keep my eye on him. In the meantime, we need to work on analyzing that red munje together, and figuring out how to use it reliably.”

‘Very true. Let’s set about some private practice in the morning before breakfast.’

Sung-ki’s warning from the year past swam in my head. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t do it.” Yes, well, desperate times called for desperate measures. We needed to evaluate the new munje and that required experimentation.

I reentered our room quietly to see Ko-nah already snuggled in, snoring softly.

Genta sat up on his bedroll. “Have anything you want to tell me?” he asked with an air of judgment.

I shifted my robes to obscure the outline of the picture frame. “My excrement was very solid. I may be dehydrated.”

Genta furrowed his brow then rolled over, murmuring, “Idiot.”

I returned to my bed and waited for Mae to report they were all sleeping—save Ko-nah, since we could never tell when he was truly sleeping. I sent a trickle of ma munje to the frame and activated the first lock of thirty with a sigh. It was going to be a long night.