Sehun got off the ground and bowed at me once more, before he stretched his lips into another grin, "Yun Seung it is, then. I didn't expect to be found by someone so pretty."

I could feel my cheeks blush at the compliment, though I couldn't tell if Sehun was trying to get that kind of reaction out of me. I cleared my throat and looked away so I wouldn't have to see his smile.

"If we're done with introductions, shall we leave the field?" I asked gently, making sure I wasn't looking up at him as I spoke. 

No answer came, so I looked up at the male I'd just met, but his gaze was elsewhere. Sehun was looking around at the wind turbines in puzzlement, as if he had no idea of what they were.

"This is a... field? But there are these giant- things here!" Sehun exclaimed, waving his hands around in an unhappy manner, "There shouldn't be these things in a field where wind should pass freely!"

I laughed gently at his reaction and shook my head. If he was asleep for as long as Tao was, then of course he didn't know about the turbines. Lightly, I tapped his shoulder, and much like Tao, he flinched and leaned away as if I planned to harm him.

"They used to use these turbines to power towns nearby before we were invaded." I explained, pointing to the turbines as I started walking in the way I had come from.

I heard his footsteps pad against the field as he followed me, and as we exited the field, I wondered just how it was possible for the wind to have actually slowed down enough for me to get into the field to Sehun.

"We use magic now, so we don't need them; but I guess everyone just figured that these things would be destroyed by now already, so they didn't go and take them apart." I shrugged as I kept explaining and glanced around to see if I could see Tao's tall stature in the distance.

So far, we were still too close to the center to find Tao-

"Did you find one of the other mages?" Sehun muttered, though his voice was loud enough for me to hear as I turned to him, "I can feel someone's presence ahead."

"You can feel him? But he couldn't feel you until I told him about the field." I frowned at the information, since it was strange for me to know Sehun could feel Tao when Tao couldn't feel Sehun.

"Ah, I can feel him because he's not in his ring. If he was in his ring, I wouldn't be able to sense him. It was part of the enchantment that put us in our rings so we wouldn't be able to find each other." Sehun smiled lightly then walked ahead of me in a different direction. I followed him since he could sense where Tao was, though I found myself being more confused. Just why weren't they allowed to find each other? More importantly, why were they put in the rings?

"I have a question for you." I was brought back to reality when he spoke and ended up jogging to catch up to him when I saw him walk ahead of me by a few feet, "Why are you looking for our rings?"

"Because finding you, and setting you free gives me a goal. Without a goal, I'd have nothing to live for." I told him honestly, and Sehun threw a glance at me from over his shoulder in amusement and maybe even disbelief. 

"You have a family to live for, right?" He turned forward again, and I was going to tell him that my family situation wasn't great, but I remembered that these boys had been placed in rings long ago, and their families had probably already all been wiped out. 

"They have more people protecting them." My mouth stretched into another smile because I just knew everyone would be safe. We were a fighting town, after all, "And I think wanting to set you all free first is good enough of a reason for me to halt going back home."

Sehun stopped walking so suddenly that I almost bumped right into his back, and had to stop right before I could actually bump into him. Then, the tall boy turned around and sent me a wide smile, "You're really going to set us free?"

I found myself nodding rapidly before my eyes passed Sehun and landed on Tao's figure in the distance. Tao was looking right at us with wide eyes and it looked like he wanted to run towards us, but his eyes had glanced up at the wind turbines and back at us warily.

"Hey, Sehun, do you think you can stop the wind so he can get closer?" I asked the male beside me, and he nodded enthusiastically before waving his hand at the turbines, ceasing them immediately.

Not a moment later, Sehun and Tao had run towards each other and were sharing a hug so tight I thought they'd break each other in half.

Instead of standing and staring at them, I merely shook my head and started walking away from the wind turbine field. We didn't need to be there anymore, and the sooner we fount the other mages, the better. Plus, they hadn't seen each other in over 300 years; I didn't want to get in the way of their bonding.

The two chattered with each other as we kept walking, and though I felt a little out of the loop, this type of situation was common in my life. Considering the fact that they spoke with me even a few times was better than how I'd been treated back in town.

We walked until the sun set, and surprisingly found the ruins of an older town. My jaw dropped at all the destruction I'd seen around me, though one or two buildings were barely managing to stay together. I decided we'd stay there for the night before even glancing at the mages behind me. This town, no matter how destroyed it was, reminded me of home, and had homes that would give us warmth in the normally cool desert. 

"Are we really staying here?" Tao spoke suddenly, and I quickly turned back to look at him to see he and Sehun were both looking around the deserted and destroyed town in wonder.

I pointed at one of the houses that was still intact, "We'll stay in there for the night. I don't know about you two, but I don't want to spend another night out in the cold."

"If only hyung were here." Sehun muttered, and though I looked at him to elaborate, he didn't seem to notice and walked in the direction of the house. Perhaps I hadn't been paying attention before, but I suddenly realized that Sehun spoke with a lisp.

As I stood there and stared at the back of the mage I'd just met, Tao had started to pass me and grinned, taking my hand to drag me along so that we wouldn't get left behind. Going further into the town and toward the house, we started noticing dead bodies around the streets, and I covered my nose to block out the smell of decaying flesh.

Tao seemed to be confused as to why I was doing that, "Is something wrong?"

"It smells like death." I replied, dumbstruck. He and Sehun kept walking as if none of the sights or smells bothered them even slightly.

Sehun turned around at that and raised his head, sniffing the air as if he didn't know what I was talking about, "It smells normal to me."

I dropped the topic and kept walking, making sure my nose was covered as best as I could. We soon found ourselves in front of the house we were planning to stay in for the night; a two story house that was made of brick and had a chimney sticking out from the back corner of the house. It was easier to live in stone houses, as it took a lot to destroy those buildings.

Sehun reached out for the door and knocked on it to see if anyone was inside. When he realized that it was uninhabited, he wrapped his hand around the doorknob and attempted to open it.

A moment later, he stood back and hissed, "It's been enchanted."

"Does that mean we have to keep looking?" Tao's voice sounded exhausted and when I looked over at him, it was reconfirmed that the tall and dark haired male was exhausted.

"Stand back." I sighed, reaching for one of my pistols. I wasn't sure if it'd work, but I was apparently full of surprises recently.

"What are you going to do?" Sehun put a hand on my shoulder and I turned to grin at him.

"I'll get us in there, promise." I reassured him, and with a hesitant nod, both he and Tao took steps back so they wouldn't get caught in crossfire. I pulled out my right pistol and aimed it right at the lock. 

"Isn't that-" I heard Tao gasp about something, but I zoned him out in order to focus on my shot, and I hit the lock right on. The door opened instantly, and I grinned at my accomplishment before walking with the other two following me.

"I never thought I'd see the inside of a house again." I was gleeful about being in a house, and that was understandable.

"Wait-" Sehun was about to say something to me, but I ignored him and dropped my backpack onto the ground so I could go explore the house.

I found myself in the kitchen first, and I searched through all the cabinets and even the fridge, but other than stale and moldy bread, there was no food to be seen in the kitchen.

"Yun Seung!" Tao called, and in a panic as to why he'd suddenly call me like that, I ran back to the living room to see the two of them were already seated on the couch, looking up at me with furrowed eyebrows.

"What is it?" I asked cautiously. They'd been acting a little strange since we'd gotten to the house, and though I was curious as to why, I didn't want to imagine that I'd done something wrong.

"It's nothing." Sehun suddenly smiled and though it was suspicious, I didn't think much of it and let the subject drop as I watched him get up and stretch, "I just wanted to know if you have any food to spare. It's been a while since I ate."

Tao snickered under his breath and I looked over at the taller male to see he had already gotten up and was searching through my bag for food bags. I shook my head in amusement because Sehun was just another guy after all.

As those two ate, I explored the rest of the house, and surprisingly found myself in a study room that looked almost untouched other than the papers littered across the room. I found myself being overly curious because of all the bookshelves in the room and when I walked over to the desk in the corner of the room, I balked at the fact that there was a map sitting on top of the desk.

Upon closer inspection of the map, I realized it was a recently updated map that I could use to plot our next course, but something caught my eye. I saw where my town was on the map, and there was a pin pushed into a section of the map where I realized was the caves in which Tao was found. I told myself was a coincidence, but then I felt my face pale when I found the wind turbine field on the map; it also had a pin through that spot. There were ten other pins scattered across the map, and something told me I had to find those places in order to find the rest of the mages.

It seemed like a flawless plan.

There was only one problem about this.

Someone else knew about the "EXO" rings.

And I had a feeling they knew someone like me was looking for them.