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Hands shackled behind his back and mouth gagged with a foul-tasting cloth, Seokga is roughly escorted from his holding cell in the dungeon by a squadron of scowling palace guards. His emerald hanbok is ripped and tattered, splattered with blood. His own blood from the beating that Hwanin ordered. Every step sends pain bursting through his body, and his vision dims. No. Seokga forces his eyes to remain open as he is shoved through the corridors of Cheonha Palace, through the ruined wooden archways, and across the cold stone-tiled floor that bites into his bare feet. Rubble from the battle of his traitorous army litters the ground. It smells like blood and shit and rage. Seokga gags. He will not faint. He will never show such weakness.

The doors of the throne room loom into view. Two guards shake their heads and haul open the battered doors as he approaches, revealing the cracked scarlet pillars and cratered black floor inside, and the impressive dais on which Hwanin's throne is situated—a throne of ruby red, embellished with golden designs of the moon, the sun, and the stars that are echoed on the redwood ceiling. Hwanin himself sits on the throne, so high up above the floor, with his strange blue eyes cold with hatred. His son, Hwanung, stands beside him, nearly identical to his father in both looks and clear abhorrence.

It's poetic, Seokga thinks bitterly, that Hwanin's damned throne survived the battle.

The other deities are gathered before the throne and part to allow Seokga entry, roughly shepherded by the Okhwang guards. There is Jacheongbi, goddess of love and agriculture, black hair woven with cherry blossoms that match the color of her elegant silken hanbok. Her eyes narrow in distaste as Seokga is shoved to the ground, his knees barking in pain. And there is Dalnim, goddess of the moon, her silver eyes bright with disgust as she inches away from Seokga and toward her brother Haemosu, god of the sun. Haemosu's mouth puckers in clear revulsion as Seokga glances toward him, his expression nearly as black as the crow-feather headdress he wears atop his head.

"Disgrace," Habaek the river god sneers down at him. "There has not been such a big disgrace since Mireuk. Shame on you, you miserable, loathsome bastard. You truly do take after your father. Mago would be ashamed."

Seokga breathes heavily from behind his gag. That mad old god. It is undoubtedly thanks to Mireuk and his creation of suffering that Seokga now suffers so. Perhaps he should pay a visit to his pitiful excuse for a father in his underworld prison and show him his thanks.

Or perhaps he suffers so because of Gameunjang. The goddess of luck has never been fond of Seokga. He glares at her where she stands with Samsin Halmoni, goddess of motherhood. As always, Samsin Halmoni is very, very pregnant. If there was such a thing as a sixth trimester, Seokga would estimate that Samsin Halmoni was a good halfway through it.

"Silence," Hwanin orders. His voice cleaves through the throne room. He rises from his throne, his flowing blue robes rustling with the movement. He glances to the guards. "Ungag him. His silver tongue will be of no use here, anyways."

The gag is ripped from his mouth with an incredible amount of violence. Seokga spits blood out onto the ground, glowering up at Hwanin.

"Really, brother," he says through the blood dripping down his chin, "aren't you overreacting? This was just a bit of fun."

"You tried to overthrow him," Jowangshin, goddess of the hearth, reminds him venomously. "You brought a legion of monsters from the Dark World into our heavenly realm. You ruined half of this palace. An Unruly yong almost bit me in half. You ought to be put down in Jeoseung with Mireuk."

"Silence," Hwanin repeats frostily, still glowering at Seokga.

Jowangshin gives Seokga one last sneer before turning away.

"Enlisting twenty thousand Unrulies from Gamangnara," Hwanin says softly, "is a coward's tool. But I suppose it makes sense. For you, Seokga, are a coward." He descends from the dais, his robes flowing behind him. "And an envious, power-hungry coward at that. You have always desired what you have not been able to have. When we first planned to dispose of Father, you knew that I would claim my birthright at the end of it, yet you still despised me when I did. And you still hold that grudge close to your heart. I have been anticipating an attempt at a coup for a while now—ever since I took the throne, I have known one was coming. I was not surprised when it failed. If anything, I was disappointed your try was so…sloppy."

Seokga rolls his eyes. "Oh, please," he says, fumbling for a way to utilize his silver tongue against whatever Hwanin has planned for him. "I am the god of deceit, brother. God of tricks. God of untrustworthiness in general. This little…attempt at a coup was merely in my nature, as giving birth daily is in Samsin Halmoni's. I can't be blamed for it, not really."

"Samsin Halmoni," Hwanin says, staring down at Seokga, "did not try to kill me."

Hwanin does have a point. But Seokga scoffs. "Listen, brother. This was but one bump in a very long and ever-winding road. We are immortal, you and I. Let us make amends now, for we have an eternity to spend together in Okhwang."

"Well, that's the thing," Hwanin says very quietly. "We don't."

Oh, no.Seokga does not like the gleam in Hwanin's starry blue eyes. Oh, no…

"I have arranged a suitable punishment for you, brother. A punishment that will take you away from my sight for centuries." Hwanin tilts his head. "Hwanung, come forth."

The god of laws dutifully joins his father's side and smirks at Seokga.

"This, Seokga the Silver-Tongued, is your punishment. Your realm of Gamangnara will be locked for all eternity. And I swear on my son, Hwanung, god of laws and kept promises, that you will henceforth be cast from Okhwang to the mortal realm of Iseung with your demons. You will be stripped of your power. To earn your redemption, Seokga the Silver-Tongued, you will live as Seokga the Fallen in a state of disgrace until you have slaughtered twenty thousand Unruly monsters. You will only be redeemed in my eyes once you have done so. Only then will I allow you to return home. Only then will you again be a god."

Seokga chokes as Hwanin smiles down at him cruelly. No. No. No.

"No," he rasps as around him the other gods snigger. This isn't…Hwanin can't…No. "You cannot—"

Hwanin bends down to look him square in the eye. "I most certainly can," he says softly, "and I most certainly will."

Sharp, merciless betrayal pierces Seokga's chest as deeply as a finely honed dagger. "This," Seokga snarls, rage overtaking rationality, "is not fair. My nature—"

"Consider yourself lucky, brother, that I have not sent you to Jeoseung."

"Iseung," Seokga hisses, "with those sniveling mortals is far, far worse."

"Perhaps." Hwanin shrugs, turning his back on Seokga as he walks up the stairs toward his throne. Once, Hwanin would not have dared to show his back to his brother, lest Seokga plant a dagger in it. That he does so now is a purposeful barb, a reminder that the trickster god has utterly failed. "But you have no heart for anything, Seokga. For anyone. Iseung will do you a great service."

"You fucking bastard—"

Hwanin smoothly sits back on his throne. "Goodbye, Seokga," he says coolly. "I will see you again one day, perhaps one thousand or so years from now."

Seokga screams in utter rage, straining against his shackles. "You dare? You—"

Hwanin sighs, looking bored.

And then he snaps his fingers and it all goes white.

Seokga is falling, falling through the sky…and falling fast.

Seokga awakens with a great gasp, drenched in a warm, sticky sweat. He sees nothing but darkness, and feels nothing but terror as he lays on something hard, tasting bile.

He…What was…

He has fallen. He is doomed to carry out this punishment for an eternity. Damn Hwanin. Damn the other gods. Damn Iseung—

But…No. No, that was six hundred and twenty-eight years ago. Seokga trembles, scrambling to sit up, events of the past centuries rushing back to him in a flood. The Unrulies. The Scarlet Fox. The bargain, Hwanin's bargain.

The eoduksini.

Hani.

Seokga sits up, his eyes slowly adapting to the darkness of the club. Where is she? He freezes as his eyes adjust to the shadows blanketing the room.

Bodies lay limp all around him, piled over one another, ridden with bulging black veins. Blood seeps across the dance floor, a pool of gleaming red, and Seokga realizes that he's not drenched in a thick layer of warm sweat, after all—he is drenched in blood. Their blood. The writhing, gyrating crowd of the Emerald Dragon is no more. The dancers are lifeless on the ground that had shaken with the booming of the bass and the stomping of feet just moments before, their faces contorted in terror, their eyes gone, nothing but empty sockets in their place. Their chests are in tatters, hearts gone. Bodies pile up over one another, forming towers of death and mutilation.

Seokga is drowning in a sea of gore as he struggles to his feet, a blinding, crippling terror overtaking him. He is alive—but where is Hani? Where is Hani?

If she has been fed on…If…If she has been taken…

A low, hoarse noise escapes his lips as he falls back down to his knees. He bows his head, struggling to remain conscious as a wave of dizziness pounds at his skull. "Hani," he groans, scanning the bodies for her. "Hani…" Seokga turns around, ignoring the way that the floor seems to spin beneath him as he catches sight of her—of Kim Hani, still, a hand reached out limply in his direction.

What if—what if—Seokga chokes out a sound that might be a whimper. But although Hani's still face is screwed shut in horror, she's alive. She's breathing. She's breathing.

Seokga staggers over to her. "Hani," he croaks, shaking her shoulder gently. "Wake up." Foolish—they have been so foolish to think that they could thwart the eoduksini. "Hani." But she doesn't stir, still caught up in the tide of a nightmare.

He can almost swear that the shadows of the Emerald Dragon tremble in laughter.

"You,"he snarls into the darkness, even though he knows that the eoduksini won't reveal itself. No, it's having far too much fun. "You will fucking pay. I swear it on Hwanung." Muscles shaking from exhaustion, he hefts Hani into his arms. Her head lolls limply as he wades through the sea of corpses and blood, the weight in his arms not as heavy as the horror weighing down his heart.