Just note that I’m using sorcerer for both es instead of sorcerer and sorceress, just for simplicity. I’m also just going to throw in random names.

Chapter 5 – When it began

While Hongbin had forgotten about Ravi’s warning, Hakyeon had not. Even after the trying conversation he’d had to have with his apprentice, Ravi’s words linger at the back of his mind. Repeating over and over. They’re getting closer. They’re getting closer. They’re getting closer…

 He slides into bed after his bath and sighs as Leo pads his way over and settles down too.

“Do you think Ravi was right?” Hakyeon asks. “If they’re getting closer then it might be for the best if we send Hongbin to stay with Ravi for a little while.”

Leo shifts closer and bumps his face against Hakyeon’s. Hakyeon takes a deep breath and rolls onto his back and Leo rests his head on his shoulder.

“What should we do?”

*Eight Years Ago*

Hakyeon’s heart is pounding in his chest. He’s in awe of the palace but scared about what being here means. He stands in line with seven other sorcerers, attention on a severe looking woman who could probably skin them with one word.

She’d introduced herself as Suhee, the magic advisor to the King and their boss. Suhee looked to be in her early forties but she had to be older to have such a high position. She looks them over critically, stopping for a particularly long time on Hakyeon before she begins to speak.

“You might have been the best sorcerers from your region but right now you’re just the king’s dogs. You do everything to fill his demands and you do it quickly and without question. You’re here to develop spells and weapons to use in the war and nothing else.”

Hakyeon reminds himself to breathe, it wouldn’t do him any good to pass out. It would just make him stand out even more and he didn’t want that. He just wants to blend in, do his work, and get out of here as soon as possible.

The other sorcerers were all older than him. A lot older than him. At eighteen Hakyeon was the youngest sorcerer to ever be selected to serve the king directly. While he had surpassed his teacher in terms of skill, Hakyeon didn’t think he should be the one here. Especially after seeing how hard his teacher had worked to try get this position for the last ten years.

He must hate me now, Hakyeon thinks miserably. He taught me for ten years and I took away his dream.

He doesn’t really have time to get properly miserable though because Suhee has begun to speak again.

“You will work six days a week until the war is over. If you start to become corrupted then you’ll be turned out and you’ll go home. Don’t think for a second that your life here is going to be easy. You barely rank higher than the –”

The large – overlarge – doors on the far side of the room open loudly. Hakyeon is the first to look but he’s the last to drop to his knees. King Jihun enters the room with a number of dignitaries and guards. The dignitaries were dressed in their best suits with neatly combed hair and polished shoes. The guards are in their simple white uniforms with weapons strapped to their belts.

Everybody’s eyes are on the King, except Hakyeon’s. His eyes are on one of the guards to the left of the king. When they’re allowed to stand up Hakyeon’s eyes stay on the guard, not because Hakyeon was particularly attracted to him, but because he was young and he was smiling. Hakyeon glances at the other guards and sees nothing but blank or hard set faces. Definitely no smiles.

“I suppose these are the new sorcerers?” King Jihun asks Suhee.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she answers with a smile that doesn’t suit her. “The best from their regions. All of them have unique inventive abilities I’m sure will be very useful.”

“Good,” he nods back. “I want this war over as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Suhee never finishes her speech. Instead she leads them down into the basement, pointing out where they’ll sleep and eat.

“If you’re here long enough then you’ll have the chance to be moved from developing spells to doing experiments,” she tells them as they walk. “Only the best get that chance, though.”

The basement is bigger than Hakyeon expected it to be and he’s curious. Where did all of these doors go? What experiments? One of the rooms they get shown is huge, and it’s stocked only with ingredients. Their little sorcerer hearts pound at the thought of all the things they will be able to cook up.

Eventually Suhee leaves them in a room with nothing but work benches and books. There are other sorcerers there, but other than giving them a run down on what was expected of them – which they already knew – they don’t talk.

Hakyeon takes up a bench and starts working, hopefully time will pass quickly.

Time does pass quickly and before Hakyeon can believe it, it’s his day off. At first he’d wanted to explore the basement but now he didn’t want to be down here, not after spending the last six days locked away in that work room.

They’d been told they weren’t allowed near the front of the palace, to Hakyeon that just meant that everywhere else was free for all. Without a second thought Hakyeon climbs the stairs out of the basement and up into the palace.

His eyes widen at the sight of the guard stationed by the stairs, it’s the one who couldn’t stop smiling. When he sees Hakyeon that smile returns.

“Hi,” he grins.

“Hi,” Hakyeon returns, unsure.

He sets off down the hallway and the guard follows.

“Where are you going?”

“To look around. Shouldn’t you be guarding something?”

“I’m guarding you,” the guard laughs. “Nah. ‘Guarding the stairs’ isn’t a proper job. They just make me do that because I’m not a proper guard yet.”

Hakyeon frowns and stops in his tracks.

He motions towards the guard’s uniform. “But you’re already a guard.”

The guard continues to grin. “My dad is a guard and I grew up here. Once I’m eighteen I’ll be a guard too, but until then I just follow the king around or do stupid jobs.”

“Oh.”

Hakyeon sets off again and the guard follows. “I’m Jaehwan, by the way.”

“Hakyeon.”

“I know. I looked you up the other day. You’re the youngest sorcerer to ever work in the palace.”

“I know.”

Hakyeon can’t believe how much Jaehwan talks. He considers casting a spell to shut him up but he knows that he shouldn’t use magic on the guards unless he wanted trouble. Jaehwan had a way of talking that made him seem a lot younger than he was and Hakyeon wonders if it was deliberate.

“Are you really powerful?” Jaehwan questions several minutes later.

So far Hakyeon had found a library and a courtyard that he wouldn’t mind sitting in. He raises an eyebrow at Jaehwan.

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

Jaehwan’s grin is back at full strength. “Think you could show me some stuff? I’m pretty good at spells but I screw up potions a lot.”

At first Hakyeon thinks it’s weird that a guard can do magic but then he realises that it would be weirder if he couldn’t. The palace had to have people to protect against attacks from anyone that could use magic. Just how many of the guards were actually sorcerers?

Hakyeon considers what Jaehwan had said. Jaehwan seemed like a half decent person considering he’d grown up here. It couldn’t hurt to have a guard on his side.

“Maybe, if it doesn’t get me in trouble.”

Jaehwan is about to laugh and deny the possibility when the doors at the end of the room they were in opened. Jaehwan takes one look at the room they were in and swears under his breath. Hakyeon also looks around and realises that they’re in the same room he’d been in with Suhee the other day. Near the front of the palace. He repeats Jaehwan’s profanities.

Suhee descends on them so quickly it was like she’d known they were there and her sole reason for entering was to tell them off. She recognises Hakyeon instantly and scowls.

“What do you think you’re doing in this part of the palace?” she demands.

Jaehwan bows to her. “I was just showing him back to the areas he’s allowed in, ma’am.”

Hakyeon doesn’t hear the rest of what Suhee and Jaehwan say. His eyes are instead locked on what had come through the door with Suhee.

It was a boy, young judging by the baby fat still around his chin. At first Hakyeon only sees the boy’s cute face and scared eyes, but then he sees the chains around his ankles, wrists and neck and he sees the guards attached to those chains. Some of them are injured but they cling to the chain nonetheless.

Hakyeon misses what exactly happens – briefly distracted by Jaehwan’s hand patting his shoulder – but one second the boy is standing in the middle of the guards, and the next he’s lying on the floor along with all the guards who had been holding the chain. The guards who hadn’t been attempting to restrain the boy rush forward to pin him down, but whatever he’d done, he doesn’t try it again.

There’s yelling from the freshly injured guards and orders and when the boy struggles they kick him. He doesn’t make a sound, he just lies there panting on the floor. Through all of this Suhee talks to Jaehwan and Hakyeon stares in horror.

“Hakyeon!” Suhee snaps and he tears his eyes away from the boy on the floor. “Are you even listening?!”

Hakyeon apologises and Suhee scowls. “You young sorcerers think you’re the best there is, think you can get away with anything. I will not tolerate you wandering around at the front of the palace where people can see you. Jaehwan is going to be your assigned guard to keep you out of trouble.”

Hakyeon hears it as ‘keep an eye on you’ and is about to protest – a stupid thing to do, really – when Jaehwan coughs. He continues to cough, turning away from Suhee to be polite but meeting Hakyeon’s eye. Hakyeon sighs internally, this kid. When Jaehwan ‘recovers’ he apologises and bows.

“Do a good job, Jaehwan, and I’m sure you’ll get a good position once you’re eighteen.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jaehwan bows again.

Suhee turns her back on them and walks back to the guards. They climb off the boy and she looks at him in disgust. He stares back silently.

Jaehwan grabs Hakyeon’s arm and pulls him from the room. Once they’re a full room away Jaehwan sighs.

“You were almost in so much trouble. I can’t believe Suhee let you off. She must have been busy. One time there was this sorcerer that–“

“Who was that boy?”

Jaehwan frowns. “I don’t know. Probably some prisoner. I’m not really privy to all the –”

“Are they going to hurt him?”

“I think they already did, to be honest,” Jaehwan sighs.

If Jaehwan had learned anything from growing up in the palace it was ‘don’t ask questions’. And he didn’t. Ever.

Hakyeon frowns and starts back to the basement, no longer interested in exploring. Jaehwan follows, finally silent. When they get to the stairs Hakyeon expects Jaehwan to return to his post. He doesn’t. He follows Hakyeon into the basement. Hakyeon gives him a questioning look and Jaehwan shrugs.

“Because I’m assigned to you now. Suhee said that unless you’re sleeping or working I have to be with you all the time.”

“That isn’t a good thing,” Hakyeon informs him. “You’ll be bored out of your brain.”

Jaehwan’s grin is back. “I was bored before, I’m having fun now. Besides, with me around you can probably get away with wandering around more than if you were by yourself.”

Hakyeon hadn’t considered that. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Right? I can get you out of trouble and then in return you can teach me new spells.”

Ah, so that’s the trade, Hakyeon sighs to himself. He rolls his eyes at Jaehwan and opens the door to his room. “Do you want a lesson now or not?”

The guard laughs and follows Hakyeon into his room. “Deal.”

See Taekwoon’s white Hyde outfit in the MV for an idea of what the guards’ uniforms are like.