The god does not reply. Fear skitters down Kisa’s spine as the air thickens with a power so acute that Hajun’s hair stands straight up in the air. Goosebumps erupt down Kisa’s arms and legs. The shadows of the ship seem to deepen, to darken.

“Seokga,” Kisa tries again as pure rage, hot and black, shoots down the thread. Cautiously, she steps before him, placing one hand on his hard jaw and gazing up at him beseechingly. “Look at me.”

His eyes remain fixed on some point in the distance. Behind her, Somi shifts nervously and Hajun darts forward to grab Hwanin from his brother’s arms.

“Look at me,” Kisa repeats, and this time her voice is hard, brooking no room for debate. Her fingers tighten around his chin as his eyes slowly move down to hers—clouded with rage and something that is quite distinctly bloodlust.

“Who,” he growls, and there is such unfathomable fury in that one word. Seokga’s nostrils flare as she remains silent. “Who.”

“I don’t know,” Kisa replies calmly, although inside she’s anything but. “I never saw a face, Seokga.” She’s spent seven years wondering who had sufficient enough motive to send her plummeting to her death. Every single time, she’s drawn a blank—a rare phenomenon for Kisa, who typically possesses heaps upon heaps of theories for anything and everything. It’s just that, well—she didn’t have many friends at all, but she had even fewer enemies. The closest she came was her rival at school, Kim Dae, who—despite their competition—had never been anything but coolly polite to her. Part of her wondered if it was her stepmother, but while the woman was cold and disinterested, she wasn’t cruel. And her half-sisters, although they hardly knew her, still tried to make conversation with her at the rare and awkward family gatherings. “I’m not…I’m not sure I’ll ever find out.”

His chest is rising and falling in an uneven rhythm. “I will find them,” Seokga breathes, barely audible. “And I will kill them for what they have done to you. I swear it on all that I am.”

—they—hurt—her—they—killed—killed—they’ll—pay—make—them suffer—

Kisa scans his eyes for a moment more before turning to Somi and Hajun, hand falling from Seokga’s jaw to his chest, where his heart slams against her palm. “Take Hwanin for the night,” she tells them. “Please.”

Hajun’s head bobs in a nod. “I, uh, think that would be best,” he says, hair still standing straight off his scalp as Seokga’s power pulses through the thick air. Hajun quickly hurries off with the god-child, but Somi hesitates.

“Kisa,” she says slowly, “are you sure you don’t want me to stay? He looks…angry.”