It’s okay, dalbit.

 

Just hold on. It will be over soon.

 

Lamiya was sitting on a chair in the dining room of what she recognized as Kris’ mansion. Her memory, tickled, as if she was supposed to remember something very important, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember anything.

 

She looked at herself - at the short sleeves, then at the high collar of the one-piece, tight dress she was wearing. It was white, with golden patterns sewn into the material and though she’d never seen it before in her life, it felt… familiar somehow.

 

She realized that she wasn’t the only guest in the dining room - many, many plates were set on the table, but all of them were empty, and when she inspected the very-expensive-looking goblet in front of her and all the other places, she saw that it instead contained some dark liquid - most likely wine.

 

“My queen,” a voice piped up from behind her, “I see that you have arrived to your place. The king will be there shortly - he is discussing some matter with Kyungsoo, and he said that he won’t overdo it with discussion.”

 

Lamiya turned, noticing how her hair wasn’t freely falling on her shoulders, but that it was neatly tucked into a bun on top of her head, just to see Luhan in a crimson suit, bowing at her while smiling.

 

She felt so utterly confused, as if something was out of place, but she couldn’t identify what it was.

 

“Luhan,” she tried to say pleasantly, glad to see her friend, but her voice sounded so strange and so full, though she didn’t remember taking a bite of anything recently. She felt hot, as if she would go down with the cold soon, but wished it away as she wiped her brow, that was cold with sweat. No, it wasn’t just the sweat that was cold, her hands were cold too…

 

She must’ve picked up the flu virus somewhere recently. But how was it that she couldn’t remember where she’d been yesterday, or an hour ago?

 

“Yes, my queen?” Luhan answered as he approached her, kneeling in front of her when he arrived next to her chair. “Is everything alright?”

 

He put a hand on her forehead, nodding as he did so. “You seem a little more pale than usual… Let me go get the king.”

 

Luhan got up and disappeared before she had a chance to ask him a stupid question: who was the king? She couldn’t remember… couldn’t remember anything…

 

She gasped as the raised temperature became something entirely else, a fire she couldn’t get rid of no matter how much she rubbed her neck spreading from it through her chest, leaving her feeling as if someone was stabbing her over and over again from the inside.

 

“Lamiya?” His voice was velvety, calming her insides down a bit, but she still struggled to stay in her chair and not fall down on the ground. “What is wrong, my love?”

 

“Yifan, I-” she tried, gasping again as the fire kept spreading, burning her insides. “I don’t- I can’t-”

 

His arms wound around her as he chuckled, kissing her forehead. “Oh, little one, but why would you do something like that? I told you that you didn’t have to wait for me - you are still young so you need to drink very often.”

 

She had no idea what he was talking about and could do nothing but lean into his chest as he brought something to her lips. It was the goblet, and she recoiled from it, not wanting to get drunk now.

 

He shushed her. “It’s okay, it’s okay… You’ll see, you’ll get better immediately after you drink blood.”

 

Blood? She trashed away from him, but he was stronger than her, shushing her and giving her blood to drink as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

 

The moment the blood touched , it all started coming back to her.

 

Dalbit, calm down. I’m here, I’m here.

 

The eight dead allies…

 

Tao, the ninth guardian who had run away…

 

Her search for him, leading her to Kris’ mansion in the mountain Wutaishan…

 

Kris was dead. And he had come back.

 

Asking her to kill him.

 

And then he bit her, inevitably turning her into a vampire, a creature she’d been training to fight her whole life.

 

She gasped, opening her eyes to see a very-worried looking Jongdae. He looked pale, the skin on his face shining from some kind of sweat, and if she hadn’t know better, she would’ve said that the same thing that had happened to her in the dream was happening to him right now.

 

The dream…

 

“Jongdae?” she whispered, her voice not hiding the carnal fear she was feeling. “Where am I?”

 

She saw him subtly put a hand in his pockets, as if he didn’t want her to see something. She’d known him for years, so it was easy to see that something was wrong, but she was too busy trying to figure out whether she was even human to pay enough attention to it.

 

“We are in Kris’ mansion. Thank God you brought your phone with you, because I wouldn’t have been able to find you so quickly using only the information about you buying the ticket for Wutaishan.” He petted her hair, calming her fast-beating heart.

 

She took a deep breath, realizing that she was indeed still human, though her whole body hurt. She was still feeling disoriented, knowing that she was missing the most important part of the story and not understanding why Jongdae was still silent about it. What was going on?

 

“Where is he, Jongdae?” she couldn’t help but ask, sounding even a little desperate as she searched for his hands. He allowed her take only one of them, the other secure in his pocket, hiding God knew what from her.

 

He couldn’t have killed him - Kris was stronger than him, and he was hungry, so they were both supposed to be dead.

 

Then a diabolic laughter made the blood freeze in her veins.

 

“Such a beautiful scenery… especially with your blood still smeared all around her face!” Her laughter was making her head spin even more than it was already, especially since she couldn’t understand what she was even saying. Whose blood on whose face?

 

Lamiya instinctively wiped the space around , but it was too dark for her to be able to see whether they came up even darker than they were already. She couldn’t think about whatever Barbara was saying - she couldn’t think beyond run, kill her, avenge me, make her pay.

 

She couldn’t see her, because the flashlight’s light was shining only over her and Jongdae, and it was weaker than when she’d first turned it on, indicating that it’d been some time since Kris’d bitten her…

 

There were too many things she didn’t understand at the moment, but at least the silver stake was on her waist - she didn’t need to think in order to do what she wanted to do.

 

“Stop scaring her, Barbara,” Chen said calmly, making her furrow her eyebrows. Why wasn’t he in the fight-or-flight mode too? “She’s overwhelmed already. You got what you wanted, now go.”

 

“Oh, I have, sweet little Jongdae,” her awful voice answered, now coming from a different direction, making them both turn towards it. “Or… maybe not all of it, if you know what I mean.”

 

Once again, Chen answered as if he was chatting with Luhan instead of their freaking worst enemy that had betrayed Kris and led to what they’d thought was his death. “A deal is a deal. You got the bite, I finished the spell. You’re not going to kill her - you are bound by an oath, and the religion you’re so afraid of would make you burn into ashes if you tried to cross me over. So choose your move wisely.”

 

What was he even talking about? The bite, the spell? An oath?

 

Barbara laughed, and it sounded so wrong that Lamiya growled, beginning to get up from the floor to shred her into pieces regardless of the fact that she was an old, dangerous vampire and that many more were for sure waiting in the darkness of what she now recognized was the same place where she’d seen Kris, whom she now thought was a real person instead of a figment of her imagination, but Jongdae stopped her - or well, he tried to.

 

Instead of melting into his arms, which was probably what he was expecting from her, she went into overdrive, not caring about anything but Yifan. “You traitor!” she shouted, pushing Chen away and surprisingly, it worked. He flew away from her, landing somewhere in the darkness with a grunt. She would’ve been worried, had it not been for the fact that he actually was a traitor who’d scored whatever crazy deal with this abomination in order to get something small in exchange for everything.

 

Yes, she had no idea what the deal was about, but... she knew exactly what it was about at the same time.

 

“Where are you, you scarecrow?” she screamed, getting up just to find the room spinning, but her vision seemed a lot better than before - was it the vampire poison, finally beginning to work? “I’m going to make you pay for everything you’d done!”

 

Though she most certainly wasn’t looking or acting normal, Lamiya’s heart was calm - she felt some security and rightfulness in the room, and her amplified senses gave her an odd kind of self-confidence that left her feeling as if she was going to die when the adrenaline was out of her blood. And oh, she was going to put it to good use before then.

 

“Make me pay?” Barbara laughed for the millionth time, alerting Lamiya to where she was. “Don’t make me laugh, human. I have more than five hundred years of experience, and you are just a silly woman with her head in the clouds. Exactly what drew Kris to you… But none of it matters now.”

 

Lamiya’d thought that Barbara would be surrounded by millions of vampires, but it seemed as if she was alone.

 

Then again, she’d also thought that Yifan was gone for over a decade, and that being bitten by a vampire guaranteed becoming one, or dying.

 

And that Jongdae would never betray her…

 

Today was proving her wrong in so, so many ways.

 

“Maybe I can’t kill you, but I can make some serious, permanent damage.” The witch was moving through the shadows, seemingly making her retreat into the hallway that she remembered going through after finding the secret passage in the library.

 

Lamiya took the stake out and grasped it firmly. It all ended here and now, today in this room.

 

The academy’s teachers would’ve been proud of her. She didn’t make a sound as she approached Barbara quickly, before she glanced in her direction and noticed her. She the balls of her feet within a moment and aimed the stake just like she’d been taught - to strike and defeat without error.

 

But the stake never reached Barbara’s heart, making her scream and spontaneously combust as she died, that unholy evil creature.

 

Instead, a familiar, cold hand grabbed her own, and she turned, expecting a sea of brown, or at least some familiarity in the darkness.

 

But only the color of crimson and ruthless unknowing stared back at her.

 

Barbara giggled. “Let’s go, darling. We need to kill Tao in order to complete the spell, and I know he’s around here somewhere.”

 

Her head suddenly collided with the concrete wall, making her cry out in pain. She sank to the moldy floor, clawing her hands at the walls but finding her body unable to complete her commands of getting up and fighting the vampires until they were unable to hurt Tao ever again, and she was failing miserably.

 

The last thing she saw before she let the shadows take her away once again was his face illuminated by the flashlight, looking at her with a strange look.

 

One of compassion. And regret. And fear.

 

“Lamiya.”

 

The shadows slowly started letting her go from a seemingly long, dreamless rest.

 

“Come on, it’s time to wake up. I know you can do it.”

 

She squeezed her eyes tightly, wanting to just tell whoever was bothering her to go away, but she felt like she had many, many important reasons to open her eyes.

 

Life got hard sometimes. But she’d pledged to never, ever give up. Because he’d wanted for her to be more than this. Because if she wanted to ever find peace, she would have to fight and at least try to win.

 

“Tao,” she whispered the first thought that came to mind. “I need to see Tao.”

 

She now felt that a hand was petting her hair, in a very familiar motion that she wanted to sink into and calm down, knowing everything would be okay now that he was here.

 

Then she remembered what he’d done, and recoiled immediately, opening her eyes within a moment.

 

“Don’t you dare touch me ever again,” she said bitterly, baring her teeth at the man sitting in front of her.

 

Jongdae looked tired, only a little bit less pale then how she’d seen him in Kris’ mansion, the bags under his eyes a color between purple and indigo blue. She did not know what was wrong with him.

 

She did not care what was wrong with someone who’d been scheming with Barbara for God knew how long.

 

She slowly took in her surroundings while Chen ran a hand through his hair, sighing deeply as he did so. She was lying in a large bed, an IV stand next to her and a suspicious-looking tube connecting it to something underneath the sheets of the bed. The room didn’t look familiar, but the obvious age and vampiric feel of all of the objects in the room - the curtains tied to the bed’s supporting pillars, the makeup table with a huge baroque mirror and the strange carpets with vivid colors all indicated that they were still in Kris’ mansion.

 

Chen’s shirt was bloody. The room was lighted by candles, but since there were dozens, perhaps even hundreds of them, it was light enough for her to be able to notice everything. The beige material looked soaked with blood and she wondered whose it even was - had someone been injured?

 

She willed the part of her worrying if he was hurt away.

 

Instead of fussing about his shirt, she decided that he was old enough to take care of himself and turned his head from him like a child, announcing that she was angry at him.

 

No, actually she wasn’t angry at all. Just very, very disappointed.

 

She tried to cross her arms, but as soon as she moved her right arm, it started hurting, making her wince. She removed the sheets to inspect her arm and saw that the IV tube was connected to it - so she had been seriously injured by that bite, after all.

 

She unconsciously touched her neck, wondering how bad the wound looked. She still had no idea how she was human, but she would not ask Chen.

 

“It doesn’t look that bad,” he said, as if knowing what she wanted to ask. “It’s a clean puncture wound. We’ve brought all the necessary medicines so that you can be treated here in order to avoid any questions from hospitals. I hope you are okay with that.”

 

“Luhan?” she called, and he immediately popped his head through the door of the room. “Can you take this person away? Like, to prison or something? He is bothering me.”

 

Luhan hesitated. “My queen, maybe you two should talk this out-”

 

“I said, Take him away!” she shouted, feeling dizzy immediately but deciding not to think about it or let it affect her judgement. “I don’t want to hear a word from him.”

 

Chen immediately got up, nodding with his head and putting his arms up in the air. “It’s okay, Lu. Don’t worry about it.”

 

And then he left. On his own.

 

Such an empire she had - nobody even wanted to follow her commands. They all treated her like a little child that had her occasional fits and delusions, without any real strength behind her reign. Luhan made no move to trap Chen, as if she was the only person here who thought that him making a deal with that freaking traitor meant nothing!

 

“Lamiya, I-”

 

Her eyes threw daggers at Luhan. “Leave,” she said warningly.

 

She waited a minute after Luhan left the room. Then she put her head in her hands and started crying.

 

Kris was alive.

 

He was alive, and she didn’t know how or what he had been doing all this time. She started wondering whether her crazy dreams before she’d become the queen were actually real; whether he had been following her and giving her instructions for years.

 

But how could that have been true? Why hadn’t he told her he was alive and real? Why did he feel the need to hide from her?

 

And worst of all, what had Barbara done to make him like that? It must’ve been the lack of food, because it could drive a vampire crazy, make him easy to control. Since Kris was old and had a lot of control, it must’ve taken them quite some time to get him into that position.

 

Or… had he decided that she was not worth it after a while? Perhaps he had chosen Barbara on his own…

 

No. She knew that couldn’t have been true, not after her betrayal. Even if he’d stopped loving her, he wouldn’t have chosen Barbara as his mate. She knew Kris well enough to know that.

 

She refused to think about Chen.

 

She refused to think about the fact that she was supposed to be a vampire, but wasn’t.

 

Then she remembered Tao, and a second later the needle was out of her arm and she was trying to get up from the bed, intent to find him no matter what it might take. They would kill him for sure if she didn’t protect him.

 

Getting up was almost impossible. It took her half a dozen tries to even straighten her back and a very long time to get her legs on the floor. But she managed to do it somehow.

 

She felt like she was wasting time, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get herself to get up.

 

When she fell on the floor in a failed attempt, Luhan returned into the room.

 

“Please stop,” he said as he helped her up, returning her to the bed. “You will only make yourself worse.”

 

She was angry at him, too, but she couldn’t help but see how genuinely he was worried for her - the expression on his face told her everything.

 

So as much as she wanted to scream at him that she didn’t need his help, she let him tuck her back into bed. She felt so dizzy and tired; what was going on with her?

 

“How am I not a vampire, Luhan?” she asked brokenly, knowing that he could see her tear-stricken face she was once again not ashamed of. She just needed Tao and Kris back.

 

“You… I think you need to ask Dae about that,” he said slowly, waiting for her reaction. She did nothing but sigh, no strength left in her to fight them on that cause. She would not think about Jongdae and waste precious energy on it.

 

She shut her eyes tightly. “What about Tao?” she asked, partially scared of what his answer might be. “Have you found him?”

 

Ever since the moment he’d disappeared, she started feeling as if her whole world was tumbling down, and it kind of was. The man she loved, who’d died over a decade ago, had returned to life and was now evil, and her best friend had betrayed her for whatever cause.

 

And Barbara had said they needed to find and kill Tao to complete the spell, whatever that had meant. She knew some vampires dealt in magic, but it was forbidden even among their own kind, because it never did anything good but only made a bigger mess out of their problems.

 

“We are searching for him,” Luhan explained matter-of-factly, “Dae is trying his best with surveillance cameras, but this is a remote area so he doesn’t have a lot to work with. Since it’s nighttime, we can’t get out of the mansion for safety reasons - all we could do was shut all the entrances, including the underground one. It is guarded by two men, and the rest have secured the perimeter. There are no vampires in the house.”

 

No vampires. So not her either.

 

She was not a vampire.

 

It was as if a giant stone fell off her chest. Whatever had happened… somehow, she’d managed to get out of it with her soul intact.

 

“Lamiya, I… I’m sorry if I’m meddling in other people’s business, but…”

 

Lamiya looked at Luhan tiredly, remembering the dream in which she was a vampire. Even then, he was at her side, her friend.

 

Even when Jongdae wasn’t… but it was just a dream, and he wasn’t actually interested in Barbara, right?

 

Why would it bother her if he was?

 

“I just think that you should hear him out. I know things seem suspicious and all, but…” His shoulders were a taut wire, as if he was waiting for her to blow up and start screaming at him.

 

She wanted to, but she was too tired and defeated. She just wanted Tao back. Nothing else mattered to her anymore.

 

And Luhan was her friend. So maybe there was more to it than it seemed, after all?

 

“I just… I feel betrayed, Lu,” she said defeatedly, shutting her eyes tightly. “I always felt like I could trust him with my whole soul, because there were no secrets between us. I guess finding out that things aren’t like that, no matter what the reason…”

 

She opened her eyes to find a very worried-looking Luhan biting his lip and staring at her with deer eyes. “It hurts and I don’t want to face it. I don’t have the time to think about it or to let myself feel it because Tao is not safe and I don’t know how to save him.”

 

“Lu,” she heard him say softly. She looked up to see him frowning in the doorway. He looked tired and pale, and he was looking at her. For the first time since she’d met him, she found herself unable to decipher the feelings his eyes were conveying.

 

Luhan smiled at her, giving her a pointed look that seemed to say, Don’t make a fuss and just hear him out, okay?

 

She sighed in answer, enjoying how his hand squeezing hers made her feel more secure. Like things would actually get solved. Like, if she closed her eyes and let Chen explain everything, maybe everything would start getting better.

 

Maybe he’d found Tao. Maybe he was safe and away from Barbara and all her evil plans. Maybe she was worrying for nothing, and it was only a matter of seconds before everything turned out to be a stupid joke they could all laugh at.

 

But as Jongdae made his way into the room, his fingers grazing one of the bed’s curtains as he passed through the room and away, to the window that had long ago been sealed with wooden planks to keep the sunlight from coming in, she knew that things weren’t quite that simple.

 

The silence between them was thick and unnatural. It was something she’d never experienced before; Chen was always bubbly and happy and ranting about something, and she appreciated how conversational and honest he was. How could he have hidden something so big from her so effortlessly?

 

But it was easy to hide something when one knew nobody would be searching for it.

 

She had been a fool for not having believed that she would ever have anything to search for in Chen’s seemingly honest, open gaze.

 

“Lamiya,” he said.

 

It was not a question. Nor an apology. It was an exclamation. A plead.

 

She closed her eyes, wanting to banish all thoughts from her head.

 

“I have betrayed your trust.”

 

The first tear started rolling down her cheek.

 

“I have withheld information from you, and I shouldn’t have.”

 

The second tear joined the first, and the two slowly made their way towards oblivion. But the salt would remain, stinging for a long time to come.

 

“But if I could do it again, I would, without thinking.”

 

A hand wrapped around one of her own. It was warm, so much warmer than hers, and the warmth started seeping into the statue that she was ever since the moment he’d betrayed her.

 

She refused to open her eyes.

 

“Because you wouldn’t have been able to change anything, and you would’ve tried to.”

 

A kiss on one of her cheeks, then the other one. Taking the wetness and the salt away. Nothing remained but oblivion.

 

A whisper. “And I need you to be safe more than anything in the whole world.”

 

An embrace, softer than the softest cushions. Sinking her into the water, making her drown. She was supposed to know how to swim, but she couldn’t remember any of the moves.

 

She didn’t need to, because she wasn’t alone.

 

“Tell me,” she whispered, seeking out his neck with her nose and remaining there once she found it. His grip around her tightened.

 

She wanted to cry from how gentle he was being.

 

“Dalbit, they have poisoned you,” he started, rocking her and bringing her closer to himself ever so slightly. She felt safe again, as if he’d created a bubble around them that could shield them from everything bad in the world.

 

“They have given you the blood of a vampire, inevitably turning you into one of them. Fulfilling your darkest nightmare and making you become one of the creatures that you loathe and want to rid this world of.” She was a child and he was telling her a story. Nothing more or less than that. No Jongdae, no Lamiya, no Yifan, no Barbara.

 

Just a boy and a girl and a story.

 

“I called my parents and asked them,” he said in a voice full of fear and desperacy, “And they said that you can be cured by being given blood - the blood of a vampire hunter.”

 

Where on Earth would they find a vampire hunter?

 

He then let go of her, but only partially - he kept an arm around her, shifting them both with utter carefulness until her back was against his chest. Then he took out something and put it into the palm of her hands.

 

It was the symbol of the Order. An ancient version, one given only to the most valuable and successful ones, but it was the Order nevertheless.

 

She remembered what they did with sympathizers and shivered.

 

His other hand caressed her hair.

 

“Are you one of us?” she asked in a whisper, turning to look at him, just to see him smile earnesty. It was a small, shy smile, one she’d missed seeing light up his face.

 

Nothing but happiness fit him.

 

“I am a stray,” he answered, and she nodded immediately, the thought having already crossed her mind. “But I contacted my parents for this. They know a lot and I didn’t know what to do. I thought she was playing games with me and giving me incorrect information.”

 

Strays were vampire hunters that decided to brush their legacy away in order to pursue a normal career, or, in Jongdae’s case, to go and serve vampires. They were banished from their families, stripped down of all their privileges and even deleted from the official records of the Order’s families and their offsprings.

 

Perhaps that was why he understood her so well. Both of them were merely lost between two worlds, not belonging in any of them but fitting perfectly into the border dividing them.

 

He had never told her this. In more than ten years of friendship, he had not found the moment to tell her that he was the son of vampire hunters, just like she was.

 

She did not know how to feel about that.

 

“I thought I was lucky to find out about it, because now Barbara would have nothing to bargain for, but I soon found out how wrong I was - in order to be able to undo the process, it had to actually happen in the first place, which meant you would have to be bitten by the vampire whose blood has been used as the poison.”

 

She did not want to hear it, the name of the vampire. In a way, she already knew everything, and the puzzles were falling into pieces regardless of the fact that he had fallen silent.

 

He just kissed her forehead, as if knowing that she was still struggling to understand that he was alive, and that he was Barbara’s ally.

 

“She only asked from me to give her an hour-long headstart when you disappeared. I didn’t know when that would happen… I had no idea it would be connected to Tao’s disappearance either.” She turned to look at him, at the agonized look on his face, at the regret and sadness that did not belong there.

 

She started chasing all of those feelings away with her fingers, starting with the wrinkles around his eyes. She needed for him to be Chen again, or she would lose herself, too.

 

“The moment that hour was up, I headed for Wutaishan with the boys. I was so worried…” He opened his eyes, and they were not the warm brown that brought security and peace into her own brokenness. They were hollow, and she could not help but be angry at herself for having caused that.

 

She should’ve let him explain first and then decide to start screaming Traitor and Take him away.

 

After the wrinkles around his eyes, his cheeks were the next to be cleared from hurt and pain.

 

“When I arrived, you were spasming on the floor, all bloody and about to turn into a vampire. My parents told me that I would have to give you my own blood to dissipate the poison, so instead of going after her - instead of going after him - I just ran to you, slit my arm and gave you my blood. Nothing else mattered. And she just… she kept laughing…”

 

The creases between his eyebrows were persistent; no amount of touching them with her fingers would make them go away. She tried with instead, peppering kisses all over them while he shook, clinging onto her for life.

 

What had they done to us, Dae? What have they done to all of us?

 

She shushed him when he tried to say something else, not wanting to hear any more. She knew enough now, at least for the moment, and she could focus on nothing else but settling his head into the hollow of her shoulder and rocking him slowly, even though he was bigger than her, even though she felt dizzy and weak, and even though she felt like breaking down herself.

 

“I’m sorry,” she heard him say. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

 

The minutes passed, but this time, not in awkward silence. It felt as if both of them were bleeding, and with the blood all of the tension between them disappeared, too. She felt close to him - as if the heart that was beating inside of his chest was synchronised with her own.

 

His blood was flowing through her veins. Destroying the poison, Yifan’s poison. Saving her. Helping her remain a human.

 

“Thank you,” she said, deeming that enough time had passed and that now she could kiss his forehead again. For some reason, her lips remained there. “For saving me. I am sorry that I’d reacted that way… But all I could think about was the dream-”

 

“No, I should’ve told you, dalbit,” he cut her off with the shake of his head. “But I didn’t want you to worry - the most important thing was to save you. I was scared that you wouldn’t believe me, that you would do something reckless and…”

 

He trailed off, taking a deep breath to steady himself. Her hand found his and they intertwined - it felt right, as if they would both calm down just from being able to touch each other like this.

 

“But what did she gain by it?” Lamiya couldn’t help but ask, her other hand finding his hair and wounding through the silk.

 

“She said there was a spell she needed to complete,” he answered, his other hand finding her cheek and staying there. It was so cold… how much blood had he lost?

 

She couldn’t help but glance at the clear, crimson cut on his arm.

 

She couldn’t help but bring it to and kiss it. Thank you.

 

He answered her after a long patch of silence, one filled with her kissing the cut over and over again, as if it would somehow disappear if she kissed it long enough.

 

“She said that Kris biting you and Tao dying would complete it. I can only imagine that she’d killed all the other allies. I’d asked my parents about it, but…”

 

It’s okay. We will find a way to solve everything. The hearts were synchronized, and the souls too, it seemed.

 

He kissed her forehead again, and she could do nothing but sigh contentedly. She’d expected a fight… not a reconciliation.

 

“Sleep now, dalbit,” he whispered, settling on the bed next to her and putting her head on his chest. “Your body is still fighting the poison. You need to get some rest. I promise we will find Tao.”

 

She believed him.

 

Warmth and safety were the only things around her in the cushions as she let sleep take over her tired body. And a pair of strong arms, kisses on the top of her head, and a heart beating at the same tempo as her own.

 

And the sound of a Chinese lullaby.

 

Little one.

 

Little one, can you hear me?

 

It was warm… too warm. The warmth was all around her, suffocating her, and she tried to breathe, but the fire seemed to be inside of her, too.

 

Little one, I need you to help me.

 

You can feel me, right?

 

She felt…

 

Dae? Dae, is that you?

 

A throb in her temples. Steady, strange and natural. As if it had always been there.

 

Come on, little one. I know you can do it.

 

It all depends on you.

 

The fire wasn’t all around her - it was leading her somewhere, calling to her, and she felt as if she would suffocate if she didn’t follow the path.

 

I’m coming.

 

She opened her eyes.

 

She could see perfectly well in the dark.

 

Chen was sleeping next to her on the bed, and he was snoring loudly. That meant he would not wake up easily, so she didn’t need to tiptoe around him. Good.

 

She got the needle connecting her to the IV tube out of her arm. It didn’t hurt and took only a second.

 

Her feet on the floor were steady and strong. She felt like she could outrun anyone, and she wanted to test the theory.

 

The fire was calling to her.

 

The sun would rise soon. She did not have long.

 

She was already out of time.

 

A different kind of feeling… something entirely different called out to her, and she her heels, her hands touching the frame of the door steadying her.

 

The sand of the desert stared back at her, and she wanted to get lost in it.

 

For the first time, she wanted for it to be real.

 

Hurry, little one.

 

When she started running, she realized that the theory was correct.

 

She was just a breeze passing next to Luhan and the guards.

 

She wanted to say she was sorry.

 

But the fire was too strong, and she needed to extinguish it.

 

She needed to burn in it.

 

And she was hungry.