Lay had heard on more than once occasion that his healing felt like the sun. Warm. A little tingly. Like a mother’s comforting touch. That was why it was probably only fair that when Lay healed someone, from a life threatening wound to a simple paper cut, it felt like icy needles jamming against his hands. Healing stung, sometimes so badly and with so much ferocity that he could picture the tips of his fingers turning blue and then falling off.

No one knew about it except for Luhan, who tended to know everything about everyone no matter what, and Chen who had found out on accident.

Sometimes when Lay thought about it, he supposed it had to be a matter of equivalent exchange. When Luhan overtaxed himself, or Mama sent him a particularly strong vision, he could be down for days, weak and lethargic. When Tao used his ability too frequently he could lose his grasp on reality, not to mention where he was in time, and potentially drive himself mad. Xiumin ran the risk of hypothermia, and Chen had actually overloaded his own body once with electricity and shocked himself into a frightening few seconds of existence without a pulse before Lay could get to him. Chen hadn’t been breathing and Lay had struggled with the task himself until Chen was awake and talking, on the road to recovery.

They all had to learn to balance when to use their abilities, and that in order to take, they had to be ready to give as well.

It just felt overwhelming at times, being one of three known healers in M. There was little personal time to be found, a great deal of demand for his ability, and the knowledge that one day his abilities would likely kill him. No healer since the beginning had escaped such a fate.

“Lay?”

Lay opened his eyes, having shut them minutes earlier to concentrate on the person in front of him. He’d been alone when his eyes had closed, but now he was in the presence of Chen and the prince, both who were looking at him expectantly. Like he had all the answers.

Cheating death once in a while was a fine thing, but there was no delaying it indefinitely.

“It’s the same as before,” Lay said, gingerly releasing the king’s hand and sliding off the mammoth bed. “I can’t do anything.”

The prince looked crestfallen. “Nothing?”

Lay shook his head. “The damage from constant decades of using his ability, coupled with his age … I can’t make his body strong again, your highness. I can’t even dull the pain anymore.”

He tried not to look too much at the withered, dying king whenever he made his trip to try and save him at the prince’s behest. It was true that the king had been significantly older than the queen when they’d had the prince, but what concerned Lay more was the vision of the future the king made. There was a reason they weren’t surrounded by their ability wielding elders. The body could only hold out under tremendous strain for so long, and the king was no exception. This was the future that they all faced, as long as they continued to use their abilities.

The king had been an exceptionally talented illusionist in his day. Now he was just weak and days from death.

“Are you sure?” Chen asked, eyes darting between Lay and the king. “Absolutely?”

“I’m sure,” Lay ground out, feeling exhausted. He let himself sit on the edge of the king’s bed, his elbows on his knees and his shoulders slumping. “He’s got a day or two at the most, but he isn’t even responding to my touch anymore. There’s nothing I can do for him at this point.”

The prince looked pained, and Lay couldn’t blame him. He’d lost his mother to illness, and now his father to old age. And even if it was common knowledge that the prince wasn’t especially close with his father, losing a parent was an impacting event. Lay knew that first hand.

“Is there anything else we can try?” Kris asked a bit desperately.

Lay offered gently, “Everything that can be done, is. And eventually, your highness, you have to be willing to let people go.”

The prince made an odd noise, then said, “I need him to go when the time is convenient.”

“I’m sorry?” Lay said, not sure he’d heard right.

The king’s chest continued to rise and fall sporadically as Chen relayed to the prince, “I’ll go and inform your father’s inner circle. They’ll want an update on his condition and we have to make it seem like we don’t suspect they’re trying to take control of the situation for their favor. Please remain here until I’m done.”

“Lie,” the prince said, surprising Lay and Chen at the same time. He put an uncharacteristically comforting hand on Chen’s shoulder. “Tell them Lay’s ability is getting stronger and he’s been able to make some progress. Tell them my father is showing signs of improvement, and then station some of the most loyal men you know to guard his doors. No one in or out without my permission.”

Chen ducked into a bow right away, then was striding off to fulfill the request.

“Your highness?” Lay asked, missing Luhan more than anything else at the minute. The pinched features on the prince’s face spoke volumes that he hadn’t been sleeping, likely hadn’t been eating, and was wearing himself thin. Luhan was exceptionally good at getting the prince to relax, or simply just breathe and calm down. Luhan was probably the only person that Kris actually listened to, except for maybe Tao.

Lay often pretended he didn’t see the long looks between Tao and the prince, or the way they’d brush against each other in something that only first appeared to be a harmless manner. It was perfectly acceptable to love someone you weren’t supposed to, it probably couldn’t be avoided all the time. But the prince and Luhan were supposed to be married. Surely the prince wouldn’t insult Luhan’s honor by continuing his tryst with Tao afterwards.

Luhan would be back. He’d be back and healthy and then Lay could stop feeling guilty that he’d slept his way through one of his closest friend’s abduction.

The prince nodded towards the king’s nearby sitting room and said plainly, “Follow me to my father’s study. We need to talk.”

Lay had never been in anything but the king’s private bedroom, and that was more out of necessity than anything else. But the room where a much younger king would have entertained close friends was just as lavishly decorated as Lay would have suspected.

“Is this about Luhan?” Lay asked tentatively, afraid for the answer. “Or Tao?” Tao and Xiumin had mysteriously disappeared a day ago, and while Lay was certain both Chen and the prince knew where they were, neither had said anything on the matter.

“In part.” Kris gestured for them to sit.

“Your highness?” Lay had never seen him look so beaten down.

The prince surprised him by stating, “I know you said your ability isn’t having an affect on my father any longer, and his days are numbered, but he has to live, Lay. At least for a short while more.”

“How much longer?” Lay asked. “A few days?”

“I don’t know,” the prince admitted, running a hand across the back of his neck. “Until Luhan is found.”

Lay eased out, “Found.” But did the prince mean alive and healthy, or until his body was recovered. “Found how?”

After a second more, the prince asked, “How long have we known each other, Lay?”

That was a question worth considering. “Almost ten years now,” Lay reasoned. “I was brought to the palace right after my ability started maturing. We’ve known each other personally for around eight.”

“Do you trust me?”

Lay settled more fully back in his chair. “I trust you.” That wasn’t hard to stay with genuine truth backing him. The prince could be irrational at times, and quick to judgment, but overall he was going to be a very strong ruler once he was a little older. The prince had the ability to put others before himself, and that wasn’t always the case with the royal family.

“Then believe me when I say that for all our sakes, my father has to live until Luhan comes home.”

“Tell me why,” Lay requested, leaning forward.

A dark cloud seemed to settle over the prince, his fingers curling around the ends of the armrests. “Because, Lay, I’m powerless and weak with him in the condition he is, at least without Luhan here to support me.”

“You’re not weak,” Lay argued. “You’re your father’s heir. When he passes, whether Luhan is here or not, you’ll inherit the throne.”

“But inheriting is not the same as having the power. The truth is, Lay, that with my father incapacitated, his inner circle, his advisors, they have all the power. They’re his provisionary rule, and they’re calling all the shots right now. They ordered M to invade K on the king’s behalf, and they’re the ones who made the call to wipe out the neutral area. I’m just putting on a show, trying to maintain the façade that I have some pull over them. I don’t really.”

Lay could see the panic written all over his face, and told him, “But your father will die in a few days. You’ll be king.”

“And those same men making all the decisions right now will likely push for a call of no confidence in me. I’ve never been in battle, Lay. I’ve never proven myself or my worth to M, and they can use that. I’ll have to leave my position in the palace to go and win the people’s confidence while they hold the throne.”

Lay wondered, “How would having Luhan make a difference?”

“Other than the fact that people love him?”

“Other than that.”

The prince sighed. “Nothing would help me more than the love that the people have for Luhan. They don’t even see him as a person anymore. To them, he’s mere a physical representation of Mama. To all the believers, he’s the conduit between us and Mama. And to the skeptics, the ones that refuse to acknowledge Mama, Luhan is still an extremely powerful strength behind the throne. Luhan does nothing but strengthen me, and if we were married when my father dies, we could provide a united front. The people would be able to rally behind us with confidence, and my father’s advisors wouldn’t have any sway over what happens.”

“We don’t know where Luhan is,” Lay offered. “Or if he’s even alive. We barely know what happened to him.”

Confidently, the prince said, “He’s in K. If he were in M, he’d be back by now, or at the very least he’d be able to contact us. That leaves K. And nothing short of Mama herself could kill Luhan.”

The irony of those words were not lost on Lay, not when he spent several nights a week in Luhan’s bedroom, helping him recover from Mama’s increasingly violent visions, the kind that usually brought fits with them.

“He’s alive,” the prince repeated, and Lay could tell that the prince believed in what he said. “And I believe that my father’s inner circle thinks he’s alive, too. They’ve suspiciously diverted a portion of our troops to areas outside of the battle zone, and there are a few known mercenaries for hire who the whispers in the palace tell me are on assignment from the council itself. They’re obviously looking for someone, and my guess is Luhan. If they find him before Tao and Xiumin do, I will have no choice but to comply with whatever they decide.”

Lay frowned. “You think they’ll use Luhan as leverage against you?”

“They’ve tried before,” the prince revealed, surprising Lay. “Back when they thought Luhan was docile and incapable of seeing through their manipulation. It took them a very short while to realize that Luhan is not one to be toyed with. Still, they tried once, and they’ll try again, because they realize that Luhan is the key to the confidence of my rule with the people.”

“But things would be different if you were married, right?”

The prince nodded. “The throne would be strengthened through our marriage. That’s frankly the only reason we’re getting married. We care for each other, love each other even, but we’re not soul mates. However, Luhan understands that his marrying me will provide M and my rule with solidity, and in return he’ll be less of a mark to the vipers in the palace. We’ll each protect each other, though in different ways.”

“Oh,” Lay eased out.

The prince’s face pulled a small, sad smile. “I know how you all talk. You and Xiumin, even Chen and Tao, you’re friends with Luhan. You serve your duty to me, but we’re not really friends, not like you are with Luhan. You must see me as brutish towards him, controlling where he goes, who he spends his time with … and I’m guilty to a fault. But I’m also scared for him, and scared for what I might do if something happened to him.”

The prince wasn’t the sort to get scared easily, and even when he did, he hid it masterfully. But Lay understood that this was a different kind of fear from the kind that usually gripped him. It was the fear that had Lay’s mouth going dry as he tried to ask, “You don’t think they’d hurt him, do you? Your father’s council?”

“I don’t know if they can,” the prince offered honestly. “Luhan is likely the most powerful being in M, between his connection to Mama and his telekinesis. They probably couldn’t kill him if hey tried, but I’m not willing to risk it. But they’ve got to have thought about it. Removing Luhan from the equation would weaken me, and it would weaken the bloodline. I don’t have any other first cousins, and there are very few left with enough royal blood in them to be considered a match to me. So yes, I’m overprotective, and I keep him sheltered, and I make mistakes, but I do it because I’m scared. They’d snatch the throne from me in a second if they could, and I know that’s what they’re trying to do right now.”

The air around them was palpable, and Lay, who had spent a good deal of his life following Luhan around and interacting with the prince, had never felt so close to him.

“That’s where Xiumin and Tao went, isn’t it? To find Luhan and bring him back? But K is too vast a territory. There’s no way they’re going to manage that before the king dies, your highness. There’s no way.”

The prince countered, “They have an idea where he might have ended up. It’s just a guess, but they have to try. If Luhan is found by almost anyone in K with an association to the military, they’ll attempt to kill him. And if the group that my father’s inner circle sent to find him manage it, they’ll take him into their custody and try to use him to force me to push their agenda when I’m king. They won’t give him back to me, Lay. They’ll take him as far away from me as they can manage, and he’ll be nothing but leverage.”

Lay shook his head. “Luhan is far stronger than those men, your highness. They couldn’t take him against his will if they tried.”

“They could with this.” The prince reached into his pocket and drew out a thin, silver band. It was obvious to Lay right away that it was intended to go on someone’s wrist, and could be sized accordingly, but what it was, he wasn’t sure.

“What is it?” Lay asked, taking the object into his own hands. He turned it over, examining it closely, but he was no closer to figuring out what it was.

“It’s the future,” the prince said with a sigh. “For when we demolish K, and take her people into our custody. The normal ones, they’ll be easy enough to control. These bracelets are for the ones with abilities.”

The way he spoke, there was no denying it, he wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of M beating K into submission. Lay had always known that it was the prince’s father, and not the prince himself, who continued to push for reunification with K, but Lay was just now beginning to understand that the prince was even less agreeable to the decision than originally imagined.

Lay guessed, his voice laced with disbelief, “Is this a dampener?” He could feel the unique, eerily nauseating sensation almost radiating off of it.

There was no way. Dampeners were typically foot long, clunky rectangular devices that drew upon a significant amount of power to block out Mama’s gifts. They were faulty at times, hard to move around, and ages away from being implemented in any serious way. Dampeners were only used in the most extreme situations, and even Luhan had refused them at the cost of his health.

But maybe that was more about him almost inherently needing to feel Mama despite whatever consequences.

“Here. Let me show you.” The prince snatched up the bracelet and brought it down on Lay’s bare wrist easily, the metal sliding down without resistance to wrist against skin. “Goes on easy. For someone like Luhan who’s never seen this, he’d never know it was coming.”

“How do I know it’s working?” Lay asked, turning his wrist over.

The prince pushed up one of his long sleeves to reveal a cut running along the length of his forearm. It wasn’t particularly deep, but it was fresh by its red color, and ugly. “Don’t ask. I had a disagreement with one of the knives Luhan usually keeps on display in his bedroom. The set that my father got him for his twentieth birthday when he … started showing interest in our betrothal.”

Lay took the prince’s arm in his hands delicately. “You should stop blaming yourself, your highness.” The last thing they needed was a self-deprecating future king.

The prince ignored him, and instead he urged, “Try to heal the wound.”

When Lay healed people, especially the easy injuries that were usually caused by minor accidents, he could make the skin look as good as new. He’d healed Luhan’s scraped knees over the years. But even the more severe, like Xiumin’s training accident when he’d taken an sword to the ribs and come perilously close to death, and Tao’s frightful fall from the second story balcony of he prince’s rooms, were flawless recoveries. Each injury was now as if it had never been there.

“I …” Lay paused, eyebrows pulling together. “I can’t.” He couldn’t feel the tingle under his fingertips, the telltale sign that he was about to will his ability to manifest. It was horribly disconcerting to feel and he reached for the bracelet immediately. “Hey!” He pulled hard at it, but he couldn’t get it off.

“Hold still,” the prince commanded, leaning forward to grip the bracelet and pull it off easily. “These can be keyed directly to anyone’s fingerprints. This one will only release for mine.”

Lay couldn’t help glaring warily at the bracelet that was sliding back into the prince’s pocket. “It was horrible. Have you tried it?”

“I couldn’t really test out how well they work on me,” the prince laughed. “Short of dropping to my death off the roof, there’d be no surefire way to see if I could still fly wearing one.” Neither did Lay think for a second that the prince would allow himself to be placed in a position of inferiority. He already worried about his weaknesses. He wouldn’t risk the greatest one possible.

His voice dropping to a mere whisper, Lay offered, “You could try it on your dragon.”

There were exactly seven people, that Lay knew of at least, who were aware of the magnitude of the prince’s second ability. Lay had been privy to the manifestation of the prince’s dragon by accident, and he had made number seven. It was a closely guarded secret, right up there with Luhan’s true strength. But it would come out eventually, especially if the prince was going to be expected to lead them to victory in K.

“Not an option,” the prince said gruffly. “But suffice to say, I feel the same way about these things that you obviously do. My father’s been working on these since almost the beginning of the war. We’ll use them on K first, taking away Mama’s gifts without hesitation, and then eventually, my gut feeling is that we’ll start to use them on any of our own people who pose a threat. These small things, they’re going to be the start of something even more terrible than the war we’re currently in.”

“Can’t you do anything about them?” Lay asked.

The prince shook his head and looked extremely tired, like he hadn’t slept at all in days. It was a believable thought.

“Nothing,” the prince relayed. “They’ve already begun being mass produced. They’ll be in K inside the week, and they’ll start to be implemented on a widespread level shortly after that.”

It was probably the one line that M had never crossed with K. Anyone with abilities who opposed M was fair game. But to the best of Lay’s knowledge, M had never directly targeted a K civilian with an ability who refused to fight. The ones that kept their heads down and stayed out of the way were typically allowed to live on in peace. They were usually the first to migrate away from the fighting and weren’t followed.

Lay dared to wonder, “What are you going to do?”

The prince huffed out, “Hope for the best with Xiumin and Tao, for starters. Xiumin thinks his hunch about where Luhan could be is good. If Mama is feeling especially merciful to me today, they’ll recover him before my father’s men do, and it’ll be before my father dies. Then when he’s back, Luhan and I can decide what to do about these dampeners.”

Lay pursed his lips for a second, then said, “Isn’t Luhan always going on about how Mama is constantly guiding him? He swears that she had a direct influence over his life, and it might be crazy, but I pretty much believe everything he says about Mama. No one has a stronger connection to her than he does. So maybe praying to Mama for help with his safe return might actually do some good.”

“I hardly think that Mama can control Luhan. No one, not even Mama, is capable of that.” The prince gave a snort of disbelief. “Don’t get me wrong, I believe in Mama. You and I have seen too much with Luhan not to think that she isn’t some sort of sentient being that really is the genesis of our abilities, but I don’t think she can do anything more about Luhan being lost than Xiumin and Tao can.”

Lay reached out, settling his fingers over the prince’s wound and coaxing his gift out. In less than a minute, feeling the tingle of pain in his own body, Lay had finished and the skin was smooth. “I don’t think it could hurt. I’m going to go visit Mama’s life tree. I’ll pray for Luhan’s safe return tonight.”

The prince didn’t look impressed. “The sun has already gone down. Visiting hours are over.”

Mama’s life tree was at the center of M’s capital, surrounded by tall buildings but never overshadowed by them. Many people from M made a yearly journey from the furthest reaches to pay their tributes, bring their sick children, and praying for various things. The life tree was such a large draw that in recent years there’d been visiting hours implemented. At night the tree was left alone, and for the most part everyone seemed to respect that.

“But I could get a special pass to be near enough to the life tree to touch her, if you were with me. You’re the prince. You have all the pull in the world.”

“I don’t have time to go waste by praying at a tree,” came the immediate protest.

Carefully, Lay said, “Your father is going to survive the night. That isn’t in question and you don’t need to be here for him to sleep through to the morning. You should reconsider coming with me, not just so I can get past security without a fuss.”

“I’ll get you clearance,” the prince promised. “I need to be here.”

“To pace the hallways? To wait for news that probably won’t come until morning, if it comes at all?”

“I don’t believe in--”

“But,” Lay cut in, trying to keep his voice even. “The question isn’t whether you believe that praying will help. The fact is, Luhan would believe. And if you were the one missing, he’d be at Mama’s life tree right now, praying for your return. Neither would it matter to him if you believed that praying would help.”

In an irritated tone, the prince said, “I hate it when you make sense like this.”

Lay smiled victoriously. “We’ll go just for a few hours.”

“Hours,” the prince deadpanned.

“We’ll go find Chen first,” Lay decided happily. “I have no doubt he’s under strict orders from Tao not to let anything happen to you. He’ll most certainly be coming with us.”

“Praying,” Chen said flatly after they’d already left the palace, a couple of additional guards discreetly shadowing them as they took a transport directly to Mama’s life tree. “We’re going for praying?”

“I know,” the prince eased out, sharing a sympathetic look with Chen.

“Very funny,” Lay forced. “You both seem to forget that we barely understand Mama in the first place. We don’t know why some of us have abilities and some are completely normal. Aside from Luhan and a few others, we don’t have the kind of connection to her spirit that we desperately need to understand these things. So why go making fun of praying when we don’t really know enough to form a conclusive decision.”

Chen shrugged. “You can’t make a believer out of me, Lay.”

“I know,” Lay said with a sigh. “But I’m daring to venture his highness isn’t as hopeless as you are.”

They reached Mama’s life tree fifteen minutes later and as expected, the area was perfectly quiet and deserted. There were a few volunteer night watchmen on duty, but for the most part they had complete privacy.

Chen was trailing behind them, less attentive than he should have been, while Lay hopped over one of the fences to toe off his shoes and put his feet bare against the soil surrounding the life tree’s roots.

“What’re you doing?” Chen asked Lay, moving to the prince’s side with a lazy hand on his sword.

“Luhan isn’t the only one with a connection to Mama,” he called over his shoulder. He wiggled his toes in the dirt and grinned up at the massive tree. “When I’m this close to the life tree, I can feel this odd buzzing under my skin. It fades fast if I go more than a few yards away, but standing right here, I can feel Mama’s spirit racing through my body. It’s amazing.”

It was something he’d discovered through pure chance, accompanying Luhan one morning to visit the life tree. Luhan often came to visit the life tree, and Lay suspected it was due in part to the tree being the one destination that the prince couldn’t stop him from going to at any time of his choosing. Luhan claimed he could feel Mama’s sprit at any time, but that it was the strongest when he was in direct contact with her life tree. Lay had only been following after Luhan out of curiosity when he realized the buzzing for what it was.

“I don’t feel anything,” the prince relayed almost disappointedly as he joined Lay. “Mama must not think I’m very interesting.”

“Maybe too stern for her likes,” Chen teased lightly. “Your highness, I mean, look at Luhan’s personality. Maybe Mama has a thing for the adorable, energetic type. Who doesn’t have a thing for Luhan’s big, sparkling eyes?”

Lay told Chen venomously, “The next time you hurt yourself goofing around with Tao, I’m going to let you wail in pain for a while before I heal you.”

Just as Chen made to respond, the shaking started.

“What’s going on?” the prince demanded, whirling around.

“Earthquake!” Lay shouted as Chen drew his sword. “Chen?”

The rumbling of the ground was so fierce that Lay and the prince staggered for a few moments before falling. Only Chen kept his feet under him, holding his sword expertly in one hand while the threat of lightening lit up the air around them. “It might not just be an earthquake! Stay down! Both of you!”

Lay shimmied his way over to the prince. Once he had a firm grip on the older male’s sleeve, his tipped his head up to look at Mama’s life tree. The branches were shaking violent and her roots were rolling across the ground. There was something horrific about the sight.

They didn’t have any ground shakers. At least Lay didn’t think so. So if someone with an ability wasn’t causing the earthquake, it was something much worse.

Then slowly, excruciatingly, the ground began to settle.

“Are you two okay?” Chen asked, still tense, looking every bit the warrior he was.

“I’m okay,” the prince said, letting Lay help him up to his feet. “What was that? An earthquake?”

Lay nodded shortly. “It’s the third one this week alone.” When Lay had been a child, back when M and K had simply been Exo, there’d always been earthquakes to the north. They’d come a couple times a year, lasting a few seconds. Occasionally there’d be an injury, but for the most part they were of no concern. Now they came two or three a week, lasting for ages and killing.

“Again?” Chen eased out, nodding firmly to the rest of the prince’s guard who had rushed to their location. “You said third, Lay?”

Lay’s head fell back again and he couldn’t help gazing up at the magnificent tree above him. “Three, Chen, and the week isn’t done yet. Something is very wrong for us to be experiencing these with such frequency.”

The prince laid a hand on one of the life tree’s upturned roots. “It’s not just the earthquakes, either. There have been freak wind storms, torrential rainfall, and many, many others. The elements are out of control. Nature is … not what it should be.”

Lay demanded, “Didn’t Luhan warn us something was wrong? Isn’t this proof enough?”

The prince argued back, “Luahn suspects there’s a problem, but he doesn’t have any proof. And apparently every time Mama tries to tell him what the problem is, he has a seizure and you have to get him breathing again. Excuse me if I don’t care about finding out why this is happening if that is the result.”

“But there’s no denying it,” Lay said a bit weakly. “Our world is falling apart around us, and I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse.”

What more could pile upon them? How much more could they withstand before they were overtaken?

Looking nervous, Chen said, “We should get back. The earthquake will have upset people. They’ll be worried and I think a lot of them are going to try and come here for some kind of reassurance. We shouldn’t be here when that happens.”

The prince nodded in agreement. “I want to get back to the palace and wait for the incoming damage reports. I’m sorry, Lay. I know you wanted to pray for Luhan for a while, but I think he’d understand.”

Lay was about to ask for permission to stay behind and deal with any crowd that arose on his own when he felt the familiar tingling under his fingers. He looked down to realize he was still holding onto one of the life tree’s roots.

He’d never tried to use his healing ability on the life tree. He’d never had a reason to.

But he was feeling the urge, and it was the kind of compulsion he only felt when he was in contact with someone who was injured.

“Wait,” Lay called out to them, in air. “I think I can--”

He was cut off violently as his ability manifest and he linked himself to the life tree. All at once he felt Mama, like he’d never felt her sprit before. He felt her in his heart, in his soul, and she began to overload his body.

He could feel her pain, dark and pulsing and rampant. Her desperation coursed through him, as if it were his own emotion, and he knew instantly that she was in pain. She was hurting, in need of healing, but there was no way Lay was strong enough for the task.

She was constantly being hurt. The pain was growing. It was gaining momentum and the damage left behind was …

“Lay! Can you hear me? Lay!”

Lay opened his eyes.

“Are you okay? Don’t move!”

Chen was above him, and so was the prince, and they were both shouting at him to remain still, and telling him he was going to be okay. It took him a second more to realize that they looked so odd to him because he was laying flat on his back and they were bent over him.

“I’ve called for a physician,” the prince promised, looking concerned in the way that he usually only was for Luhan. “You can’t heal yourself, right?”

Heal? Lay didn’t think he could even move.

Chen knelt down to him, equal parts concerned and terrified. “Lay, can you even hear me? If you can, I promise, it’s going to be okay. You had a fit of some kind. Sort of like the seizures Luhan has. It stopped when we pulled you away from the life tree, but you’re bleeding and you need to stay still.”

Lay could feel the blood on the skin underneath his nose, and he could taste it at the back of his throat, threatening to choke him.

“Chen,” he gasped out, feeling the man take his hand in a firm grip. “What … I …”

“Don’t talk,” Chen chided.

Above the both of them, the prince frowned somewhat awkwardly. “Did you see something? Lay? Did you have a vision?”

“Mama,” Lay managed with a shuddering breath. He couldn’t feel his toes. His pulse was beating in his head painfully. He couldn’t even remember what he’d been doing five minutes ago, or why he was looking up at Mama’s life tree from a very unflattering position on the ground. “She’s … Chen. Mama is dying.”

“Did you say dying?” Chen asked for clarification, looking then to the prince. “Did he just say dying? Mama is dying?”

A chill raced its way through Lay and then everything was going black.