--

21

--

Months passed by, and Seungho was very pleased with your progress. The weather was still as cold as ever, but it would be warming up soon, a fact that made you excited. Woohyun became your sparring partner, but you hated how easy he went on you.

“Come on, Woohyun. How am I supposed to get better if you keep pulling your punches like that?” Woohyun went flying back and slammed into a wall, wincing slightly as he fell onto the ground, catching himself on his feet. He stared at you in disbelief for a moment before falling to his knees.

“Spare me. Please. I’m not pulling my punches. Please don’t get mad at me,” he said, giving you a pleading look. You squinted your eyes and looked for any flash of color, and when you didn’t see one, you immediately felt guilty.

“Oh my lord! Are you okay?” you asked, dropping your training sword and running over to him. You kneeled down beside him as he sighed heavily and leaned on your arm.

“You hit a lot harder than you think you do. Look at this.” Woohyun lifted up his shirt, and your eyes widened as a large bruise in the shape of your wooden sword started to heal, turning from purple and black to green and yellow until it disappeared.

“I’m sorry, Woohyun! I didn’t know. I thought you were just...”

“Going easy on you?” Woohyun grinned at you before ruffling your hair. Seungho watched the events unfold and sighed. Your powers were nothing to joke about or take lightly. It increased exponentially over such a short time, Seungho wouldn’t be surprised if you could take out all of the knights on your own.

“Alright, that’s enough for today. I didn’t expect you to get this strong for another few years actually,” Seungho said as you helped Woohyun up to his feet.

“Does this mean she can take a few years off, and we can go travel?”

Seungho blinked a few times. If you continued at this rate, then he’d have nothing left to teach you over the years. He had a few magical things he wanted to save for later, until after you could really control the fine details of magic weaving. Combat wise, you could be an army of one.

You were clumsy at first, when it came to weaponry, but there were plenty of years to learn that. Well, almost plenty. Seungho’s life was starting to wind down, and he could feel it in his body. But he didn’t want you to worry too much about him.

“I suppose. Take a few years and travel. Come back and visit to let me know you’re still alive.” You stared at Seungho with wide eyes as Woohyun grabbed you around the waist and buried his face in your hair.

“We got permission to go! Let’s go before he changes his mind!”

--

Preparations for your trip were taken care of by Joon and Woohyun. You could hear Joon nagging at Woohyun for a number of things and couldn’t help but laugh at how overprotective he seemed.

“And don’t forget, your skin dries out if you don’t lotion it up after you take a bath, but you can’t use anything without honey, because it’ll be too rough on your skin and-”

“Joon. Calm down. I know,” you said as you packed a small bag for yourself. Woohyun had some new clothes tailored for you for the pick up in temperature that would happen when you two were traveling.

“I just. I just. You’re going to be gone a long time, and I won’t be there to help take care of you, and I’m just worried that something will happen and-”

You turned around and hugged Joon, effectively cutting him off. He sighed and wrapped his arms around you before kissing the top of your head.

“You’ll be okay, right? Promise me you’ll be okay.”

“I promise,” you said with a laugh, “and if I break that promise, feel free to tie my corset as tight as you want.”

Joon snorted and squeezed you in his arms until you couldn’t breathe.

“I’ll do worse than that. I’ll make you sit with me in the kitchens while I’m eating dinner.”

--

Seungho watched as yours and Woohyun’s carriage left as the sun started to set. He forced Woohyun to let a few guards go with them, just in case something happened. Woohyun protested that he could take care of himself and his wife, but Seungho just wanted a little more peace of mind.

“Woohyun, just let them tag along if it’ll make Seungho feel better,” you said, grabbing his arm. Woohyun sighed and gave in, only because you asked.

With you and Woohyun gone, Seungho was back to doing paperwork by himself in his study, just passing the time away until it was all gone.

He sighed as he signed his thousandth scroll of the night and looked over at the covered portrait of Gyuri. Clenching his fists, he dropped his quill into the inkwell and rolled up the rest of his scrolls before getting up and walking over to the portrait.

Seungho reached out with trembling fingers and gripped the cloth over it to steady his hands. He took in a deep breath and his lips before pulling the cloth off, letting it fall at his feet as he was met with the sight of the woman he loved for hundreds of years.

--

Seungho grew up in Rivedon as an apprentice mage to the current High Mage. Before he moved to Rivedon, though, he lived out in the country, where the farms were. His family was well known for their quality horses.

His memory between then and moving to Rivedon as a teenage was hazy, something he suspected was of Gyuri’s blood’s doing, but he was remembering things in bits and pieces and writing them down so he could fit them all together after he remembered everything.

He trained hard with the High Mage. The trainees were so much younger than him, though, that he had his doubts about being able to catch up.

“Don’t doubt your ability,” the High Mage told him, “your talent exceeds theirs by leaps and bounds. It’s just a matter of harnessing it.”

Harnessing it, Seungho thought to himself. Those words were words he heard often from the High Mage at the time.

“Would you be proud of me if you saw me today, Jihoon?” Seungho mused out loud. His eyes focused in on the portrait of Gyuri, and he thought about the first time they ever met.

--

Seungho was barely twenty-two when Jihoon said he had to take a leave of absence from the castle of Rivedon to take care of matters in his home town. Jihoon was very loyal to his home town, and rumors and word of bandits trying to take over the town had him out of the gates faster than Seungho could blink.

In the mean time, Seungho was put in charge because Jihoon trusted that he would be able to do a good job. He was well respected by the castle staff, and Jihoon knew that no one was going to try to take advantage of Seungho. Time and time again, Seungho proved that he had a fast wit and an ever quicker temper.

“Sir, someone wishes to make your acquaintance,” he heard someone say as he sifted through all of the paperwork on Jihoon’s desk and sighed. Jihoon would leave him the bulk of paperwork to do. He hoped that he wouldn’t still be doing this over the next few centuries.

“Hello. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“No, you’re not. I was just-” Seungho looked up and his words caught on his throat. A beautiful woman made her way into the study, giving him a soft smile before she sat down in the chairs in front of the desk.

“I-I...”

“My name is Gyuri. I’m a friend of Jihoon’s. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Rivedon, so I thought I’d come by to visit, but it seems he isn’t here.”

Seungho sat down in his seat again, trying not to look so awestruck by the woman’s beauty, but it still showed on his face from the way she covered and chuckled at him. “He heard of some problems in his home town and went to go see what was happening. In the mean time I was put in charge and... Would you like something to drink? Some tea?”

“Oh, no. I’m fine. Someone told me he was gone and that he had his apprentice holding his position until he came back. I was curious to see who it was.”

Seungho’s memory was fuzzy after that. Something about it didn’t seem quite right, and every time he thought back to it as time passed, it was a little bit different. He supposed that it was Gyuri’s blood disappearing from his system.

“Sir?” Seungho snapped out of his daze, turning around to see Joon standing in the doorway, blinking rapidly at the picture of Gyuri. “Oh. You finally uncovered it?”

Seungho turned back to the picture and stared at it for a few more seconds before bending down to grab the cloth and throwing it back over the picture.”No. I’m not ready yet.”

Joon rolled his eyes and laughed. “The same answer you gave me last time. Anyway, there’s a delivery man down at the gates with something for you. He wouldn’t let us sign off on it for you, saying it had to be you that collected it. It’s from Seunggi, apparently.”

“Oh. Seunggi. Right,” Seungho said, making his way towards the door and patting Joon on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

Joon watched Seungho walk away a few more steps before calling out to him. “Do you remember anything yet?”

Seungho stopped and frowned slightly. “Bits and pieces. Not really enough of anything to put anything together yet.”

It was Joon’s turn to frown slightly before it turned into a fond smile. “Oh. Okay. I was just wondering, that’s all.”

When Joon disappeared from the doorway, Seungho got the feeling that it was a little bit more than nothing, but he decided he would question him about it later.

--

“Seungho, finally. I’ve been trying to get out of here and back home, but this guy won’t move his wagon,” Dongwoo said with some exasperation. Sunggyu left some time after the wedding, leaving you with an expensive diamond necklace as a parting and wedding gift.

Dongwoo gave you a supply of his best crafted blades, something Woohyun thought was inappropriate and hid them from you, but you found them and hid them somewhere else where Woohyun wouldn’t find them. He lingered around the castle a bit, relaxing until his relaxation turned to boredom.

“Oh? You’re finally going back home?” Seungho asked, taking the parchment from the delivery man and letting him drop his package off. It was a small box, wrapped up in a bunch of cushioned cloths with a letter attached.

“Oh god. He sent me a letter. It’ll probably take me months to decipher what this says.”

--

Seungho unrolled Seunggi’s letter to be met with his famous hieroglyphic handwriting. He sighed and shoved it off to the side before unwrapping the box. He opened up the box and was met with a strange looking device.

“... Okay, Seunggi. You couldn’t have left instructions with this thing? Or instructions that were legible,” Seungho said to himself, glancing back over to the letter. He sighed before picking up the strange device.

It was shaped like a ball and had various orbs of colors all around. Seungho poked at all of the orbs until the red on sunk in, and it started whirling in his hands. Surprised, Seungho dropped the ball back into the box as a flickering image of Seunggi appeared in front of him.

“Hi, Seungho! If you’re watching this, then you managed to read my letter, or you pressed enough buttons on this thing to get this message to start playing.”

Seungho blinked a few times, gripping the arm rests of his chair until his knuckles turned white. What in the world was this?

“This is just a little device that I’ve been working on since everyone’s been complaining about my handwriting. I’ve been working on my penmenship, and it doesn’t seem like it’s enough so I got to work on inventing this! It’s a bit of work, with some illusion spells and other things that I won’t bore you with the details with. The point is, I’ll be able to send you messages like this from now on. Handy, no?”

“Yeah, real handy,” Seungho said, leaning forward in his chair.

“This is just a projection of myself, so I won’t be able to hear anything you say. After this message is over, you can send me one by pressing the blue button with the green one, and then when you’re done talking, just press the green button again to stop it.” Seungho peered into the box to look for the designated buttons and nodded to himself.

“Anyway, what I really wanted to talk to you about, and what I wrote about in the letter in vain probably, is Myungsoo.”

Ah, Myungsoo. Hopefully, Seunggi wasn’t going to be the bearer of bad news and tell him that Myungsoo died or something.

“I don’t know if you ever caught it, I’m guess you didn’t since you had that eternity stone made for him, but he’s not actually a warlock. He’s a mage. I could feel his other elements straining underneath something when he got here, so I checked it out, and it turns out there was a pretty powerful binding curse on him.”

Seungho furrowed his eyebrows. A binding curse?

“I know warlocks don’t come often to Rivedon, but you didn’t really think those marks on his body were supposed to be there in the moonlight, right? Eli never said anything about those marks. But then again, I suppose it’s been a while since Eli went to visit Rivedon, playing peacekeeper with the elves and such.” Seunggi said it like it was so obvious that Seungho rolled his eyes. Not everyone in the kingdom was as magically adept as he was.

“Anyway, so Myungsoo is actually a mage. I modified his eternity stone with a magic base with some of the symbols from the archaic magic, you know, the kind that was used to convert energy into other forms of magic? But I changed it around a bit so it would be able to harness the power of the binding curse so Myungsoo could use it to boost his power.”

“Oh lord. He experimented on him, didn’t he? Myungsoo’s dead, isn’t he?” Seungho asked out loud preparing to burying his face into his hands.

“And before you get mad, yes, I did experiment on him, and no, I didn’t kill him.” Seungho breathed a sigh of relief before sitting back in his chair.

“It’s been a few weeks since I put the eternity stone on his body. He’s learning how to use the other elements in his body, and it’s pretty funny to watch. It was like when you were a kid, and you were using your wind powers to blow the dirt off of your family’s porch, or the tiny water stream you used to fill the horses’ buckets up with water for them to drink.”

Seunggi chuckled fondly at the memory and sighed, pausing for a few moments before snapping out his memories. He was just as old as Seungho, and his secret, he would never tell.

“But anyway, back to this curse. I haven’t seen a curse this powerful since... well. Since this land was first born, and the Titans were bound by the three strongest monsters in the land to keep them from overrunning it. I’m sure you’ve heard the story, Seungho.”

Seungho indeed knew the story of the land of the dead. The Titans were deadly creatures that ruled over the land of the dead with an iron fist. Three of the strongest in the land challenged the Titans to a battle and won, sealing them away for all of eternity.

“But what I’m sure you haven’t heard, is that one of them was a vampire. A vampire you knew very well, in fact.” Seunggi’s face got serious as Seungho felt his heart race. No. It couldn’t be.

“I’ve been tracing the origins of the land of the dead, Seungho. Gyuri was one of the founders of the land of the dead, I’m sure of it. The way this binding curse was woven, it screams Gyuri. It has her style and her artistic sense to it, along with her strength. I’m positive of it, Seungho.”

Seungho let his head fall back on the chair. There was a running rule with Gyuri that he wasn’t allowed to ask how old she was. It wasn’t proper for a gentleman to ask a lady her age, she always told him whenever Seungho got curious. But from the time of the land of the dead’s creation, that would make her thousands of years old before she died.

“I know we can’t exactly ask her now, but I’d like a sample of her blood to see if I can remove the curse from Myungsoo’s body completely. I don’t think it will be a boost to his power for long. I can already see that it’s rewriting itself to counteract the eternity stone.”

Seungho sighed. The only people that had Gyuri’s blood in them would be him and Woohyun. And Woohyun was out on a trip with you for the next few years, and Seungho couldn’t afford to leave the castle without having someone in his place. He’d have to send a letter to Woohyun and tell him to stop by the knight’s training den soon. But Seungho wouldn’t blame Woohyun if he didn’t want to.

“Send it as soon as you can! It doesn’t have to be right away, I think Myungsoo would be okay for a couple of years. If he can learn to overcome it on his own, that would be ideal, but just in case. He might not be able to use his elements again. He reminds me a bit of you, Seungho. He has the talent, and he definitely has the finesse and strength. You did a good job with his training. Maybe you should consider taking his as your apprentice to be High Mage. I’ve heard you’re not going to take another vampire, so you’re getting old, fast. At least, fast for us immortals,” Seunggi said with a laugh.

“It’s be a shame to lose you because you’re so stubborn, so I guess I could share my secret with you... Maybe when the time comes. We’ll see. I look forward to seeing you again soon! Stay healthy, and I’ll keep you updated with what goes on here at the knight’s den.” Seunggi grinned at him before his projection was gone, and the ball stopped whirling.

“Well then. That was certainly enlightening,” Seungho said, picking up the ball. He pressed the green and the blue buttons before recording his message to send back to Seunggi.

--

Woohyun’s travels were only a few months in with you before he received a letter from Seungho. You were taking a nap when the messenger arrive, and Woohyun opened the scroll, reading it with a slight frown on his face.

Seungho wanted him to go give a blood sample to someone in the knight’s den. To help Myungsoo with some sort of curse that was on his body. Woohyun’s frown deepened as he looked over at your sleeping figure.

The past few months had been amazing, traveling through the forests and the valleys outside of Rivedon. You’d met so many people, so many different animals. Woohyun was anxious to get you to the jungle, then the desert to show you all the different landscapes before taking you out to sea.

Woohyun did feel like he owed something to Myungsoo, and the proof of it was sleeping on his lap right now.

--

“We’re stopping by the mountains really quickly. The guards can show you around the aclove while I take care of something really quickly, okay?” Woohyun said. You were surprised when he said he was taking a quick detour towards the mountains, saying Seungho wanted to take care of something for him near here.

“I won’t be long, love.” He leaned over and kissed you before disappearing in the night, leaving you on the carriage with a sigh.

--

“Woohyun! I haven’t seen you since... well. Since I had to save you from Seungho. How have you been?” Seunggi asked as soon as Woohyun walked through the door of his house. Woohyun stayed with Seunggi briefly after Gyuri’s death. Seungho was on a rampage and couldn’t be anywhere near Woohyun, lest he kill him.

“I’m fine. I’m actually traveling with my wife. I got a letter from Seungho that you needed some of Gyuri’s blood to help Myungsoo out, so I’m here. Take however much you need, and make it quick.”

“Ah, that’s right. You married the Arch Mage. How is she doing?” Seunggi asked, looking around for some of his vials and needles.

“She’s fine. As happy as I can make her.”

“That’s good, that’s good. Sit here.” Woohyun sat down and held out his arm as Seunggi set a few things up and got his needles ready. “Alright, this shouldn’t hurt a bit.”

--

“Shouldn’t hurt a bit, what a liar,” Woohyun mumbled to himself as his wounds healed. Seunggi missed his veins three times before he finally got it, making Woohyun scowl slightly at the three extra puncture holes in his arm.

“Sorry, I’m a bit out of practice,” Seunggi said to him before letting him go.

Woohyun was getting ready to leave when he saw Myungsoo sitting outside of his dorm on a bench, staring up at the moon. He only moved his eyes towards Woohyun as he got closer to him.

“What’re you doing here?” Myungsoo asked, turning his eyes back towards the night sky.

“Errands for Seungho. How’s your training going?”

“Fine. Could be better. It could always be better.”

There was silence between the two of them before Myungsoo sighed and looked over to Woohyun with sad eyes. “I heard the two of you got married. Congratulations. How is she?”

“She’s... good. She’s happy. I’m doing my best.”

Myungsoo nodded. “That’s good to hear.”

“She misses you,” Woohyun said, looking away. Myungsoo laughed and sighed again. Woohyun noticed that he lost a lot of weight. His clothes looked a lot bigger on him than they used to.

“You don’t have to lie to me. Vampire are bad liars.”

Woohyun blinked a few times before shoving his hands into his pockets. “She doesn’t remember you,” he said softly.

“... She doesn’t?” Myungsoo said after a few moments.

“She loved you so much, when I bonded with her, my blood had to make her forget about you before it could bond to her.”

Myungsoo nodded again. The silence between them stretched, and Woohyun wanted to ask about Myungsoo himself, but he got the feeling that Myungsoo just wanted to be alone.

“... It was good seeing you. Come back from training in one piece,” Woohyun said before disappearing.

Myungsoo let Woohyun’s words sink in. You forgot him. Perhaps it was for the best, he thought to himself. You were happy with Woohyun. And after he came back from training, he’d be able to be by your side as a protector. And you two could start over as just friends, and nothing more.