When I had climbed back up to the living room, I was glad to know I was still alone. I wasn't sure of how I'd react if the other mages walked in while I was in such a terrible state. After leaving the room BAP had been in, it took me a good half an hour to get back due to how distracted I'd been. Why was it so complicated, anyway? Why did I have to learn that it was my family that ruined those mages' lives? 

I had to tell the mages, I knew that. I refused to keep this a secret from them, but my heart was clouded in fear. How would they react when I told them the truth about who I am? Would they hate me knowing I had stemmed from the very people that cursed them and locked them away? Would they lose their trust in me and believe that I'm going to do the same? 

"Oh, you're still here." I hadn't realized that the mages had returned from the journey until Joonmyun spoke, and I turned around to see him look back at me with confusion and worry in his eyes, "Are you alright?"

Sehun had walked in at that point and immediately rushed over to me, cupping my face and wiping off any tears that were on my cheeks, "What happened? Why are you crying?" 

"She probably just looked at Kai's face." Baekhyun gave a helpless shrug as he walked over to the staircase and yawned, "Come on, Yeol. Show me to the room."

Chanyeol had been standing beside Xiumin and Chen when he was called, and after shooting a worried glance at me, he ran after the shorter mage, "Coming, Baek."

"I'm fine, Sehun." I moved his hands away from me and walked past them to the door, "I'm going out for some air. Please don't follow me."

Sehun knew I was talking to him, and though a soft whimper escaped his lips, he never said a thing, and I left the house as quickly as I could. This information, though I knew I had to share it with them, would be the destruction of the friendship we had worked so hard to form. I had been hated and shunned my entire life, and now I had real friends who treated me well even though I was useless and pretty weird. I wasn't ready to lose them, I would never want to lose them.

"What did I tell you about thinking so hard?" I stopped in place and took in a deep breath to calm myself down before turning back to Xiumin. The frost mage wasn't smiling or being cheerful like he usually was, but walked up to me so we could walk together. When I didn't move, Xiumin stopped a few steps before me and turned back, "Why are you so gloomy?"

"I said not to follow me." My voice was low as I spoke, though it was more because I was trying not to cry again, and not because I was angry at Xiumin, "I just wanted to be-"

"How did you get that?" I was confused about what he was talking about for a second, but then I noticed that his gaze was on the book I held in my hand. I had forgotten all about the book, but seeing Xiumin's calm expression had me feeling suspicious, "When did you find it, and where?"

He was too calm about this to be innocent, I realized, and I held the book against my chest, "You knew about this? You knew I'm the descendent of who put you in those rings?"

Xiumin turned around to start walking again, and this time, I actually found myself following him, "It took me a while to figure it out, of course, but I recognized your face."

"Do the others know?" I found myself right beside him as we walked, taking slow steps to wander around the desolated town we'd taken refuge in.

The mage looked at me thoughtfully for a moment before turning away and humming, "Well, I'm sure they've all had the feeling that your face is familiar. If they know who your ancestors are, though, they haven't let it show."

"Would they... hate me?"

"I don't see why they would." Xiumin's words had me confused, and he stuck his hands into his pockets as we walked back toward the house, "You're undoing what your ancestors did to us, Yun Seung. We owe you our lives for even bringing us this far."

I had unknowingly shed a few more tears and hastily wiped them away so no one could see them, "Thank you, Xiu-"

"Minseok." he corrected me as if it didn't mean much to him at all, "A lot of us had our names changed when they rewrote our identities. The Minseok that once had been a soldier that fought for the pride of his country was turned into a mage. They said that if he agreed, he'd be allowed to blanket his world of destruction in rebirth and make it a world without war. He was stupid enough to agree."

Snow was thought of as a symbol of rebirth, of starting anew; and I couldn't help but think of Minseok as the same. When he had saved me that once under water, he had given me another chance to just be. 

"Why do you all hate your powers so much?" I couldn't help myself when I asked this, biting my lip uncertainly.

"It's not the powers that we hate." Minseok insisted, a grin then lighting his face, "Trust me, I love being able to make it snow. I just hated that the masters would take that snow and turn it into a blizzard for even wider destruction."

"It's a shame, too," he continued, "because they never understood the beauty of snow."

As he finished, snowflakes fell from the sky and I was left in awe as they landed in my hair, on my clothes, and on the ground around us. It was beautiful, really, and just another bit of proof to show how wonderful snow really was.

"Minseok, Yun Seung." Joonmyun walked over to us with his arms crossed over his chest. He had been watching us from the doorstep and was clearly unamused that Minseok made the snow fall.

"Joonmyun, I have to tell you something." Joonmyun was one of the mages who was skeptical of me ever since we met, so I knew I couldn't keep a secret like this from him.

"I knew it." his lips were pressed into a firm line as he said this, after hearing my explanation with an incredible amount of patience, "I knew meeting you wasn't just a mere coincidence."

Finally, he cracked a smile and walked over to me, gently ruffling my hair, "I'd wait to tell the youngers until after Kris arrives. The three of us as elders would be able to help you move forward in telling them."

I was about to answer when Chen's voice cut in, and the mage of lightning ran out of the house in excitement, "It's snowing! Guys! It's snowing!"

Not a minute later, and nine of the mages were hurling snowballs at each other and laughing as one another hit the ground after being pelted by the snow. As I was watching the mages from the sidelines, glad that I wasn't in the middle of their fighting, I felt a snowball hit my back, and when I turned around, Sehun was high-fiving Tao before they both ran off.

Yixing ran over to me with a devious glint in his eyes and winked over at me, "I'll help you, Yun Seung. Those two have been asking for it."

Grabbing Jongin, who had hit Joonmyun with a snowball and was now on the ground in laughter, by the collar and pulling him to his feet, the two mages were off and running after Sehun and Tao.

Finally, my eyes strayed over to where Baekhyun was, and I watched as he sneaked into the house without either Chanyeol or Chen noticing, and I followed him. When I found him, he was in the kitchen drinking tap water out of a glass he found somewhere in the cupboards. I wanted to talk to him and try to know him better, but I was terrified all the same.

"It's considered rude to stare, you know." His voice caught me by surprise and when I looked up at him, he was slowly turning around to face me with his eyes widened in shock, "Oh, it's you."

"Who else would it be?" I glanced out the window at the other mages who were still fooling around with the snow and then back to Baekhyun, who was watching me warily.

"Exactly what is it that you want from us? Money? Power?" He put the glass down on the counter and walked toward me, his face contorting in anger. I should have moved away or at least pushed him away, but I stood there and took in everything he said. "If you want our powers, then why are you promising to free us? Do you think we're that stupid?"

After hearing all that I heard from BAP and now knowing that even Baekhyun was thinking ill of me, I couldn't take it. I couldn't take the thought that maybe all their warnings were right and that I'd just end up being like all the other masters they had before. I was scared of letting them down. I ran up the stairs and into my room, curling up with my pillows and blanket and crying there for hours until I fell asleep with the hopes that maybe my dreams could at least give me some comfort.

Of course, I was wrong.

Another shift in the nightmare. This time, the hallway was lit and I could see ahead of me and behind me, but there was still something chasing me, and I didn't know what. There were shadows at the end of the hall, shadows that were gaining on me, and I had no way of escaping them other than to run in circles until I found a place to hide. Now that the light was on, I could see several doors down the hallway, but every door I tried to open was locked and I continued to run. 

The hallway was familiar to me. I couldn't exactly remember where I had seen it before, but I knew I had run down it before. How else could I know which turns to make and how long the hallways would be before I had to find another direction to go? At least, I thought I knew where I was going, until I ran straight into a wall and pulled back to wipe my forehead in aggravation. 

I knew the wall hadn't been there before, that was why I was shoving at it and kicking it, but it refused to budge and I looked around me to try and find another way in vain. The shadows were getting closer and I gasped when I finally saw who was chasing after me, knowing I had to get away and quickly. So, I ran to the closest door and turned the door handle, locking the door behind me when I was finally sure I was in a place where I could be safe. Wait, did I say safe? I remembered the last nightmare I had and looked around the room cautiously for any sign of random objects raising off the ground and throwing themselves at me.

There was nothing, and I was even more frightened by that. I knew I had seen something, no one could tell me otherwise, but with the lights on, it looked like an ordinary room. If you count the floating ring box as ordinary, that is. It wasn't on a pillar this time, but literally floating in the middle of the room. Like in my previous nightmare, the ring box was open, and I gingerly made my way to it to see what was inside the box, but I jumped and turned back to the door, noticing that the door was rattling as if it were going to fall off its hinges. Then, to make matters worse, the light turned off, and I was left alone in a dark room with someone trying to come in and kill me.

I turned back to the ring box, then, thinking that maybe this mage would be able to save me if I claimed the box, but when I took a step closer to it, some sort of force field pushed me back, and I slumped against the wall in pain. Why was this ring box throwing me away? Was it afraid? Angry? Was it defending itself from me because I was a threat?

As I began to push myself onto my feet, my eyes widened, and I covered my ears to block out the voice. It was the first time I heard someone's voice in any of my dreams or nightmares, but this one time was enough to petrify me and make me curl up on the floor once more. 

"Don't look for me." the voice was angry and thick, the words slurred and barely recognizable. He was telling me to stay away, whoever it was, "This is my final warning, Yun Seung."

I sat up in bed, panting heavily and holding one hand to my stomach so that I would not hurl on myself. The mage attacked me knowing who I am. He attacked me to keep me away, because he didn't want me to go near him. Was it because he knew my family line? What did he want from me? 

Just then, the door to my bedroom burst open and Tao walked in, his own chest rising and falling quickly as he panted, "Yun Seung. I heard his voice again. I'm scared, Yun Seung."

That night, Tao and I slept on my bed together, because I knew neither of us would have been able to sleep without the comfort of each other. We were the only ones who knew of this angry voice, of this nightmare, but I wanted to know why.

Why was this mage trying to keep us away?

It took some time to write this chaper. Sheesh, I was constantly erasing lines and rewriting them like, "this is terrible, Jeb. Don't even think of uploading this". This chapter is pretty bad, I know, and I apologize. I did my best with it but I had to add this chapter and well, the next chapter includes another ring and stuff. It's a lot of , guys. Thankfully, by the rate of how quickly I'm finishing this part, it seems I'll be able to get into the second part next week! Woohoo! 

I decided to just do a rotation thing about the mages' story. The second part is going to be following each of the mages' POVs and the third part will be returned to Yun Seung. Fair warning, there will be little to no interaction between Yun Seung and the mages during most of the second part. Like I said, it's a lot of . 

I've decided on an antagonist, though it's a secret from you guys. I did like your suggestions though, for the most part! I'm sorry, but I can't imagine Onew as a bad guy. I really can't. I'm biased and I know it. 

Now, for your question of the day;

Who do you think should get the first kiss scene with Yun Seung?

You know what's coming, right? Thanks for all the reading, subscribing, upvoting, commenting, and supporting you are all doing for this story! I appreciate it and I'm very glad that you guys enjoy this story! I hope to become a better writer in the future and hope you continue to enjoy my updates! Enjoy this chapter, and have a brilliant day!