Eight – Hourglass

A million of stars shone in those ruby spheres like a vortex to another galaxy. They him in, hypnotized him for a moment, taking his breath away. For a moment, the mage was lost and didn’t know where he was, what he was doing, and who he was. Yet the face of the man before him was like a portal to the past, bringing him back from the beginning until the end.

“Chen,” the prince called, worry laced in his now honey, baritone voice. “You’ve got to hold yourself together. You need to escape this place. Right. Now.”

Disoriented, Chen tried to stand with prince’s help. He looked around, found the cave where he stayed as he remembered it, but with difference.

The walls, they were decorated with lines that almost covered up all the spaces. But they weren’t just lines as they were separated by fives. He looked down on himself, thinner than he remembered. But his hair, it grew so long that it reached his knees.

“H-How… W-What happened?” he muttered, catching his head with his hand.

“Stop spacing out!” The prince hissed, taking him out of his trance.

”You need to go back to Cepherus, before Chanyeol finds you.”

Upon hearing the name of his land from the prince’s lips, Chen snapped out of his frantic state and remembered his purpose when he left his land. And right now, in front of him, was the answer to all his questions.

“Baek Ahn,” Chen muttered, falling on his kness, loud enough for the prince to hear it.

The prince took a deep breath, his lips pressed into thin line. He pulled out a vial that was connected to his golden necklace before handing it to him. “Take this. It’s the most potent essence of moon dust I could make. It took me years to make it perfect. Pour it on that lake around a huge tree, and have everyone with the disease bathe in it. It should relieve them from their pain.”

“You… you’re the lost Moon Child,” the mage sat on his shins as his eyes warmed up, welling with unshed tears.

The prince of Daevrics reached out and cupped his right cheek with a tender touch. “Don’t.” he whispered, “I’m not your Moon Child, Cepherean,” he smiled, albeit it was obviously forced. “I’m the prince of this kingdom, My name is Hyun Ryu.”

The Garnlok mage shook his head, “Then how did you know about the people dying from our land? How come you made this thing for me to use to heal them?” Chen stubbornly gripped the prince’s wrist, desperately holding to the man he respected and followed his whole life. “If you’re not Baek Ahn, then why are you trying to save my life?”

“There’s no more time to argue,” Hyun pulled up the mage back to his feet.

“Baek Ahn—“

“Go back to Cepherus,” the mage watched the prince’s eyes bleed from crimson into a familiar silver. The light and power of the moon seeping out from his soul, and into the very air they were breathing. Suddenly, a ring of wild fire around the mage, fencing him from the Daevric prince. Before Chen could utter one more word, the fire roared and climbed higher, almost reaching his eyes.

Soon, the orange tongues of fire became icy blue, spiraling around him. “Ahn,”

“I will see you soon.” He promised.

That was the last time Chen heard and saw him before he vanished with the fire.

----

The moment the mage disappeared, the prince removed the mask he had put on before coming to the cave. He observed his surroundings, found the lines against the walls of the cave somewhat disturbing, knowing that these were just some of the days Chen had spent locked up in this place. In this dimension. A frown marred his beautiful face, brows pulled together as he traced the lines carefully.

He was sorry, but it was the only way to keep the mage alive.

Time was a reliable friend, but it could also be a terrifying foe. Looking back to the years he had spent locked up in the castle, doing nothing but steal books and scrolls that might help him understand the world he’s living in, he realized that he had wasted enough of it which caused hundreds of lives.

Every night, the dreams he seldom saw as a child became a recurring one once he turned thirteen. They haunted him every night. He heard screams of agony from the people who lost their beloved ones. He saw horrified eyes as they knocked helplessly on death’s door. They reminded him of Chen the first time he saw him.

That was the time he put the dots together. All those years, he was seeing how the people of Cepherus were suffering from an unknown disease. The reason why he could see them were still unknown. However, as Yifan reported, Chen’s condition improved every single day until it never came back anymore.

He knew it had something to do with the moon dust, as he had witnessed how it affected the Cepherean the first time he took him in the cave. From then on, he spent his days studying, experimenting about the moon dust, about the Moon itself until he found a book about the Celestial’s powers. Only then he realized the reason why the people from Cepherus were getting this disease.

Chen once told him that they used to have a moon, but for some reason, they no longer have now. If what he said was true, then that means the lack of passive energy the moon gives had slowly manifested a plague in their land.

Hyun Ryu decided to make a potent essence of moon dust that might help Chen and his people for the mean time. However, in one of those days, Yifan came back with a news that he found the mage unconscious and wasn’t able to wake him up.

Hyun escaped the tower without Chanyeol knowing. He used fire to take him there leaving no traces behind. And as he set his foot inside the cave where he left the mage, he saw him almost lifeless on the ground.

With the help of Yifan, they laid him on a better position, flat on his back while his head rested on a folded animal fur. Chen’s energy was completely drained and its regeneration was so slow he could die if he wasn’t strong enough. The only thing he could do then was transfer some of his own energy to save the mage.

He remembered how he sat by his head and placed his fore and index fingers on both sides of Chen’s temple. While he was on it, Hyun had travelled inside the Cepherean’s mind.

“Chen, can we disturb you a little?”

“Three hours,” he said in a soft icy voice.

 “T-That’s more than enough! I know my way in the library so it wouldn’t be hard for me to look. Thank y