[Third Person PoV]

“How is he?” whispered Baekho, watching as Mi Young rung out all the warm water out of a cloth, setting it on Ren’s forehead.

Mi Young frowned, “He’s healthy. His vitals are normal.  I really don’t know why he isn’t waking up, why he is showing no signs of waking up.” Mi Young sighed, “He’s not the one worrying me, despite him being unconscious for what we believe to be three days.”

“Who is worrying you?” questioned Baekho, trying to ignore how the twins, who were in a position a little too intimate for being ‘just brothers’.

“Who do you think?” whispered Mi Young.

“JR,” muttered Baekho.

Mi Young nodded, brushing Minki’s bangs back a bit and pulling the spare blankets up to the male’s chin as he shivered, “He’s wearing himself thin…he has a really strong protective barrier up around us all hours of the day and it is clearly doing a deal of damage to his own wounded body. Physically he is in a worse condition than Ren. His health is far worse, because he is constantly using his magic and is constantly moving around – he never allows himself to rest or relax. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the farther we travel, the more anxious he gets – the more restless he gets.”

Baekho nodded, having noticed that about the elder himself.

[Ren’s PoV]

Like all the memories I had seen before, I was watching from someone else’s perspective, sometimes it would be my mother’s and others my father’s, it kept switching. This time, they were standing in the courtyard of a beautiful castle, the city it over looked was void of life – all its inhabitants had evacuated as ordered to by their king.

“Seohyun, I love you,” whispered my father, his arms holding my mother close has she cried, he was holding back tears of his own as he listened to her sobs, as he felt the fear of death pulling at his stomach – tempting him to flee with his wife and leave his friends – the mages outside the Royal family – to bring the barrier up on their own.

With those thoughts invading his mind, he turned his head to look at Jong Suk and Eunji who were hugging beside him, to see Eunji peering at Jonghyun one last time as the sickly baby slept in his father’s protective embrace and Jong Suk at the other child who was wailing in the woman’s arms. Eunji was crying harder than his own wife, but she was leaving more behind…she was leaving behind all of those she held dear, she was the only one other than her younger child that was going to live to see the next day. Her husband promised her that their older child would make his presence known in fifteen years, but she doubted him, believed that the child was as dead as his father – as her in laws.

The vision sudden flickered and next thing I knew was that I was sitting in a carriage, seeing out of my mother’s eyes as she blinked the oncoming tears away, rubbing her stomach soothingly as I rolled around – kicked her, elbowed her, wanting more room in her womb. She peered at the woman that sat across from her, sleeping while cradling a bundled child in her arm – she had cried herself to sleep for the fourth night in a row, not caring for the child due to her tears, leaving the expecting mother to tend to the mage’s wife’s child.

“I know your mother is having difficulty protecting you…” whispered the Queen, “but please protect Minki.”

[Third Person PoV]

“Jonghyun,” whispered Mi Young in worry,  peering at the seriously battered male laying on the bed before her, she ran her fingers through his hair, flinching with the feeling of it being slicked with blood or crusted together by dried blood. She dabbed at his forehead with what used to be a white cloth but was now stained red with all the blood she was dabbing off the male’s head and arms.

The male groaned, his eyes staying glued shut. The one was closed tight since she was currently cleaning the cut above it and he did not want her getting whatever she was using to get into his eye.

“What happened out there?” whispered Mi Young in concern, Baekho was aiding her by getting buckets of clean water for her and placing it over the fire to heat it up.

“I had run in with another Guardian of the Void, this time she had Hounds with her,” muttered Jonghyun, motioning towards the wounds on his forearm which had been stitched and bandaged already.

“What were you thinking?” muttered Mi Young, “Taking it on in the condition you were already in…”

“I couldn’t just let her march her way in here and take Minki, no could I?” questioned JR in frustration, “He is my charge, I’m supposed to protect him. I’ve already gotten him into this condition so let me do at least that.”

Mi Young sighed but silently agreed to the male’s words, “Jonghyun, I know you are doing all of this to protect the five of us, but seriously, you’re going to get yourself killed. Listen to your body; let it rest for a while. After all, what are we going to do if you get yourself killed, who is going to protect us then?”

The injured male sighed but nodded whispering, “Alright, I’ll rest – however, if it gets stolen, you’ll be the first I kill.”

“If what gets stolen?” questioned Mi Young.

“The Book of Air,” whispered Jonghyun, groggily speaking, “I would’ve gotten it already if I didn’t keep expending my powers…”

Mi Young stared at Jonghyun as he fell unconscious, before turning to look at Baekho, “I guess we know what he was anxious about now.”

Baekho nodded from where he sat by the fire.

[Ren’s PoV]

“How’s Jonghyun been?”

“His condition hasn’t improved on bit,” whispered Jong Suk, this time around the memory took place in the midst of what seemed to be some sort of tower – considering that each floor only held a single room.

My father peered down at the baby that slept in the crib, his skin pale and his cheeks flushed – he gently caressed the small premature baby’s forehead, being cautious not to wake the boy up after seeing how long it took the boy’s care taker – his teacher – to get him to finally sleep. Upon his fingers making contact with the child, a spark shot into his fingertips, traveled up his arm and both up and down his spine. He had tensed slightly at the power that had surged through him, that had wanted to get out of the child.

“You felt it didn’t you?” questioned Jong Suk from where he stood in the doorway to the nursery, “The power surge.”

My father nodded, I could feel the after effects of the surge still tingling in myself as I continued to watch the scene in interest, “He is destined to be quite strong if he already has power surges at this age. His powers are developing relatively early, huh?”

Jong Suk nodded stepping to his son’s crib and gently picking the slumbering boy up, knowing that it was probably going to be for the final time, seeing as how the ritual was to be done the following night.

“Yeah, I’m hoping that this is a sign that he’ll be able to do the missions we have set for him and not a sign that the darkness is far stronger than it was the previous time the tear was opened,” whispered Jong Suk, peering at his son with a sorrow filled gaze.

The scene changed to that night, Jong Suk and my father were busy at work drawing some sort of thing on the roof of the tower – where the ritual was to take place. As Jong Suk worked hard with final preparations with the others, my father peered out over the land, taking in the scenery as he knew it one final time, knowing that in the coming years it would become a snowy wasteland, it would lose it’s precious colors and become a place he did not recognized, a place he did not and would not ever call home.

“It’s time!” called Jong Suk over the rumble of a miniature earth quake which was the result of the tear opening even farther in the middle of the kingdom. They all stood in their position on the drawing and my father stood in silence in the middle, his eyes closed and a tear escaping as he thought of me and my mother – silently bidding us one final farewell; before a light consumed him and the mages, shooting up into the sky and then making its way to the boundaries of Miro. I felt sorrow fill me as I heard the distant wail of a baby – obviously Jonghyun, as he felt the loss of his father, the loss of his family…the abandonment as his family left him alone with only one other person, his teacher.

Suddenly another memory flashed in my mind from my mother’s point of view, it was of a bloodied Eunji gasping out her final breaths the night before the ritual – before my birth, “H-he took h-him…S-Seohyun…h-h-he t-took him.”

I do not know why but those final words had invoked such fear in me, it was on an unnamable level.

I shot up, holding my pounding head as I kept my eyes closed tightly and attempted to catch my breath, fear continuing to course through my veins at the final words spoken by Jong Hyun’s mother. He took him…

I trembled; pulling my aching legs to my chest and hugging them close as I hid my face in my folded arms, trying to get myself to calm down…trying to get myself to breathe properly – trying to recall just why my body ached so much.

“Ren!” cried the twins, jumping up from where they had been sleeping on the floor near the fire and running to my bed side, their joyous shouts woke up both Mi Young and Baekho, who sprinted over to me as well. The four hugged me tightly, sensing my fear and successfully calming me down.

“How long was I out?” I whispered to no one in particular.

“Days,” whispered Mi Young, removing herself from the group hug and moving to the other bed in the room, sitting down on the edge and pulling the blankets up over the prone form laying bandaged up on the bed, “We’re already three villages away from the one we had been closest to the day you were knocked out, Jonghyun pushed to move daily – we traveled for three days straight until we arrived here. Where he made us stay for three days, he told us that we could not leave this village just like the others…that it had to be throughally searched. On our fourth day being here, Jonghyun was attacked when he was searching.”

“B-by what?” I questioned, motioning for the twins – who were the only two still hugging me – to give me space, to release me.

“Two Void Hounds and a Guardian of the Void, this one was stronger than the last and the trio tore him up,” stated Mi Young, “However, he still managed to wipe them out and in that state locate the Book of Air.”

“He found it?” I questioned in shock.

Mi Young nodded, “He did.”

“So we know what he’ll be doing once he regains consciousness,” stated Baekho, “He’s only been out for about a day. We would actually wish he would stay unconscious longer since we all know that he needs more rest.”

I nodded in agreement, taking note of the serious bags under his eyes from lack of sleep and days of exhausting himself to locate the book and protecting me from all the danger that came my way when I was unconscious. 

I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. ^^

The story is well underway now - finally, huh? 

I've gotten a good bit of idea on what is to come later on in the story and I'm praying that I'll be able to write a good bit in the coming weeks and months - hopefully I'll be able to finish it and not make you all wait so long for updates. 

Oh and, in this chapter Ren's parts are memories of his parents that he is for some reason reliving during his dreams, there are more to come later on, but instead of it being Ren who relives the memories there are other people. The third person pov are to help you see what is going on while Ren is unconcious. 

Anyway, I really hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Thank you for those of you who are still subscribed to this story despite my months of unannounced hiatus with this story. ^^