PART ONE

“Where do I begin?”
“Anywhere.” 

Midnight began with the crackle of a fire - a steady dance of light against the shadows of an unknown.

Jongin leaned back - a quick scan around the circle to find hollow gazes still locked next to him. 
He filled his lungs, breath even yet deep because the silence was suffocating - 

-and so was the wait.

He his lips nervously and then nudged his brother for attention. 

“Baek....,” he murmured softly.
“Sorry...,” Baekhyun answered, eyes wide as if awoken from his trance. 

He remained frozen for another few seconds and then raised his head - fingers combing through his blonde locks as he breathed a heavy sigh. There was a look in his eyes that Jongin found confusing - maybe pain or anger. or was it desperation? It distorted with every blink and then dissolved as his brother began to speak. 

“This wasn’t exactly how I planned to tell you,” Baekhyun admitted, his knees turned in towards the other. “But I was going to eventually. You have to at least believe that.”
Jongin nodded, comforted by the warm squeeze of his brother’s hand.

Another sigh.
Jongin met his brother’s gaze only to find hesitation and something akin to fear - it was an expression he was not used to.

“Is it really that hard? Telling me?” Jongin inquired. 
“Yes.”
“Why?”

A gulp and then his brother turned away with a vacant stare directed towards the now raging fire. 

“Baek, nothing’s going to change,” Jongin expressed, a soft tap to his brother’s back, “You can tell me you’re the Red King himself for all I care - it wouldn’t change a thing!”

A smile pulled at Baekhyun’s sullen cheeks; he could see his brother’s determined gaze through his peripheral vision. 

The truth - was it because he held onto it for so long that it felt so hard to let go?

He pressed his lips together and then worded - 

“Gaamor.”

One word.

The Zeros leaned forward and mouths agape as if that word meant everything. 
 Their friends who were silently giving the brothers their space sat up straighter, ears perked and eyes expecting.

“Gaamor.....,” Baekhyun repeated again with a hint of bitterness. The orange of the fire burned brilliantly in his distant gaze. 

“My story begins in Gaamor.”

8 YEARS AGO AND PRIOR
Baekhyun's POV
Age 4-10

(A/N: We’re going to jump through a few parts of Baek’s memory so hang on)

I have no memory of my birth or even how I came to be. The first memory I had as a child was of visiting my sickly mother. 

Do I have to? 

-that’s what I thought when they brought me to her room. My memory of that day never escapes me, no matter how hard I try. 

I remember the darkness - heavy velvet drapes that closed her off from the rest of the world. 
I remember the stench - putrid and sour, drenched in the air like mist. 

“The witch is dying.” 

It was the only answer I received that morning, and Lottie, my nursemaid, quite enjoyed putting it so bluntly. 

To be honest, the news didn’t shock me. In fact, shortly after her death, the word spread quickly that I hardly shed a tear by her side.

Truly a monster, the whispers would say - as if they even knew the meaning of those words. 

You may think my lack of emotion cruel for a child who just lost his mother, but in truth, that morning was only the second time I had ever seen her.

Do you know I’ve tried countless times to remember the shape of my mother’s face or even the color of her eyes? But I never can - not for the life of me. 

I can, however, remember the loose stitch on her sleeve. Red. 
Funny, isn’t it? 
Of all things to remember, it had to be something as insignificant as that. 

And I can remember the touch of her hands - cold and lifeless. That was the first time she ever held me - that morning.

I wondered then if this is what a mother’s hand feels like. And I never wanted to feel hands like that ever again. 

So you see, there was no special bond between her and I. She was a stranger, just like any other and maybe that’s why it was so easy to let her go. 

Two weeks after my mother’s passing, I met him, my father - eyes a frightening red, face mutilated by battle, and lips eternally cast into a disapproving frown.

My meeting with him was uneventful - I knew the day would eventually come. My father assumed my core awoke then, but he was wrong. I always had my powers for as long as I could remember, and I never had one such moment as awakening my core, because it was always there like the blood in my veins. 

From birth, I knew of things that normal people shouldn't, and I saw the world with the wisdom of lives before me. 

“You’ll finally be of some use,” Lottie snarked at me then.

It did make me hopeful, though. After all, what use is a prince if not in service of the King and the Kingdom? 

And that was precisely the subject of our meeting  - my service to the Kingdom. 

“Such a young age.....”
“So much we can study......”