Chapter 14

Hwayoung’s first mistake was trying to take a step towards Baekhyun, and the second one was forgetting that her ankle was still injured. She was pretty sure it would’ve been in an even worse position if Kyungsoo hadn’t been quick enough to steady her, saving her from potentially injuring her ankle again.

As soon as he seemed to deem that she could balance on her own, he stepped away. “What’s going on?” he asked, turning towards Baekhyun. “It’s barely been a day since Soyi got here?”

Baekhyun shot him a look. “That’s not the point,” he said sharply. “Hurry. It’s in the forest.”

Kyungsoo started forward, then hesitated. He turned to look at her, eyebrows drawn together. “Don’t,” he said. “Your ankle will never heal if you continue to strain it. We’ll be able to control it.”

That was a definite no-go, and Hwayoung opened to snap at Kyungsoo, completely forgetting about their conversation from before. Before she could get anything out, Baekhyun shook his head at her. “He’s right,” he said quietly. “Your ankle needs rest, and this is too dangerous for you when you’re injured. We’ll be able to handle it fine.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re the one telling me that or Kyungsoo is—” she started, but before she could even finish, both of them had started in the direction of the forest.

Angry and slightly humiliated, Hwayoung tried to go after them, though trying to speed up with her ankle was nearly impossible. She had barely managed to go another five steps when Baekhyun and Kyungsoo had disappeared out of sight into the line of trees, and she was left alone in the clearing.

They were probably right. She could barely walk properly, much less actually fight, and for the past couple of days, all she had been doing was strain her ankle. The last thing she needed to do was fight a dragon when she was nearly immobile.

Then again, it didn’t really matter if they were right and she was making a terrible choice. Maybe it was a matter of pride, but she was an assassin after all, and on top of that, there was no way she was going to shy out of a fight just because the prince had told her to. It was more the reason to go. Steadying herself and taking a deep breath, she called on her power.

Hwayoung didn’t prefer flying. It was, really, stressful, and she preferred watching out for dangers around her when she was on the ground than worrying about being shot, which had happened before. Still, there weren’t any soldiers in the forest and the dragon was apparently incapable of flying.

She was in the air a moment later. The wind was barely more than a slight breeze, which made it hard for her to keep her power under control and to keep aloft, and Hwayoung found herself struggling to reign in her power. A couple of dangerous times she wavered, barely able to hold onto what she was already having a hard time grasping, but her power steadied after a little while.

Up in the air, it was pretty obvious where the dragon was and where they’d all headed.

If the power from Soyi wasn’t obvious, then the sudden flashes of light from Baekhyun were. The dragon’s low growls were there too, and abruptly, roars that seem to shake the whole forest. Whatever was going on down there, the dragon definitely hadn’t fallen into the trap, nor were they having an easy time subduing it.

Hwayoung managed to land herself a distance away. She struggled forward towards the chaos, putting as much weight as she could on her uninjured foot. She could hear the branches snapping, occasional shouts from the three (she couldn’t distinguish who from who) and then abruptly nearly plummeted into another trap.

The cover crackled beneath her feet, and her injured foot tore through the hole. Panicking, Hwayoung righted herself with her power just as the whole trap crumbled into another pit.

Steadying herself, she turned to the other direction again. They weren’t far off—at least she was pretty sure they weren’t—and then the group of trees nearest to her seemed to snap right down the trunks as something huge slammed into them.

Hwayoung barely managed to roll out of the way before the creature barrelled into the spot she’d been standing seconds ago. It gave a roar again, this time louder and angrier, the tail flailing wildly behind it, knocking over more branches on the tree, as it snarled and struggled to its feet again. She backed away a couple of steps—her ankle didn’t seem any worse than the beginning, which was a good thing—and the creature turned its attention towards her.

Her first thought was that the creature was so beautiful that it was offensive they had to kill it. The dragon wasn’t big, but it was almost delicate, sleek, amber eyes regarding her balefully. Its skin was a dark green with hints of gold—it took Hwayoung a second to realize that the gold not only came from its scales but the cuts on its body. A crown was raised at the back of its head, and it stared at her for a couple of seconds more before opening its mouth and letting out a roar.

She flinched into action—before she could even summon her power, the creature pounced towards her, snapping a couple more small trees in the process.

Hwayoung didn’t even have time to react. She managed a shriek of surprise, tried to raise her hands in an attempt to summon her power to keep it back, and then someone all but tackled her out of the way as a wall of earth simultaneously rose in front of her eyes, destroying yet another patch of the forest.

She ended up on the ground winded, gasping for breath as Kyungsoo coughed through the dirt that rose from the wall of soil he’d pulled from the ground, a couple of feet away from her. The dragon howled in rage as the wall trembled, already beginning to crumble despite Kyungsoo’s efforts.

“You idiot!” he shouted over the roars, and Hwayoung tried to catch her breath as quickly as she could. “I told you not to come! Do you have issues comprehending basic words?”

Still not quite recovered fully yet, she shook her head at him mutely. Kyungsoo swore under his breath—she wanted to tell him that it wasn’t very princely, but didn’t nearly have enough breath to actually speak properly. Before she could do much, the dragon hurled itself at the wall between them again.

Kyungsoo’s face was slightly scratched, and he looked a bit bruised up. Still, he was alert enough to practically haul her to her feet before attempting to move into the forest, away from where the dragon was.

“What the hell is going on?” Hwayoung managed finally, still wheezing. “Where’s Baekhyun and Soyi?”

“Trying to set a trap,” he yelled. “I’m supposed to distract that thing.”

“You’re doing a fine job!”

“Not now, Windwalker,” he grumbled. “You’re not even supposed to be here.”

“I thought your princely couldn’t handle it,” she shot back. “What’s the plan?”

The ground seemed to tremble beneath them. Hwayoung was pretty sure Kyungsoo was straining with his power—the fact that he hadn’t answered her meant that he couldn’t afford to concentrate on something else, which really was a good thing seeing that the dragon on the other side seemed to be intent on killing them.

“I can’t hold this for much longer,” Kyungsoo yelled, then the other half of his sentence was drowned out by another howl of rage. “Get out of the way!”

“You’re surrounded by earth, shouldn’t your power be stronger here?”

“Move!” he yelled.

It was more than difficult to summon her power when she was surrounded by trees—the wind was already minimal—but Hwayoung managed one large gust. Hoping the wind would pick her up before she hit the ground (which would result in probably another ankle injury, and at that point, she was pretty sure she would be crippled for life), she lunged for Kyungsoo, somehow managed to grab hold of his cloak, and summoned enough wind to bring them up into the air as the wall of earth behind them crumbled back into the forest floor. Freed from the barricade, the enraged dragon charged forward with a roar, just in time for both of them to move out of the way.

Kyungsoo was shouting in alarm. For once, Hwayoung was pretty sure why he was worried—her power was what was supporting both of them, and she was barely hanging onto it, but to Kyungsoo, he most likely thought that she was holding him by the back of his cloak. The fact that he was struggling wasn’t helping the least bit, but if she’d been in his shoes, Hwayoung was pretty sure she would’ve done the same. They managed to fly a couple hundred of feet before the wind, already thinning, gave out beneath them. Hwayoung kept it controlled until they were near the ground, and then both of them landed roughly on the forest floor.

The one good thing about it was that she basically landed on Kyungsoo, so there was no damage done to her ankle. Hwayoung tried to soften the blow with her arms—it worked, really, except she knocked the air out of Kyungsoo first. He gave a choked noise of pain when she landed on his chest before the impact threw her to the side too.

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