The sand was running out in the hour glass but that didn’t matter. Yifan would set it right again and watch the flow of time seep through just as quickly as he had lost a part of his soul when Suho was kidnapped. Yifan barely remembered a time when he had lived without his friend before he lost him to the demons. He never understood how much Suho influenced his life until he was gone. Now all Yifan was was a lonely man who had no one to share his fears, tears, and happiness with. He had no one who will ride with him to war just as swiftly as for a chase down dirty alleys dressed as commoners looking for the best wine. He had no wise council, no brother in arms, no soul that wrapped him in kindness, no smile that was only his. He had no friend.

It’s been more than a year since Suho had gone missing and yet questions around his disappearance remained. The rebellion that had demanded Suho’s blood had eventually been quelled and conspirators were finally arrested. What he didn’t expect was his wife to have played such an important role in it. The woman he thought of as the love of is life had proven to be a traitor who had planned to kill Suho and weaken the kingdom of Asegi, so that her clan can easily invade the most prosperous human nation. Ironically, she died simply because Suho wasn’t around to advocate mercy. Yifan had publicly seen to the death of Yuna and her entire clan. The rage of betrayal though was still aflame in him as Suho was yet to be found. Just as much as their current king, Asegi had once loved its red thunder, and so common men and women had joined the search for their beloved ex-king along with the military police.

And so it came to pass that one evening, just as the Sun was about to set, a frantic messenger rode into the palace from the borders with news of two exiled prisoners of the demon kingdom claiming to know Suho’s whereabouts. The fire in Yifan fueled by guilt and betrayal sparked anew

Hope is a precious dynamite that can blow entire nations into motion. The same nation that had shunned Suho in the past years now looked at him as the totem meant to turn the nation around towards a more righteous path.

Xiumin and Luhan would have loved to make their home in a small village and tend to sheep, but they did owe their lives to Suho. Scarcely two days past, Asegi was gearing up for battle against the demon kingdom in its quest to bring home its red thunder.

______________________________________________________________________________

Sehun was not prone to serious thinking. It was not in his nature to get anywhere near a mystery, simply because curiosity is tiresome. But ever since his father uttered the name ‘Jongin’, Sehun had been much annoyed with his own brain. It had not allowed him to rest for the past weeks and it was greatly inconveniencing him. Finally, he decided to do something and had worked his contacts in the underworld. What he got was a name of a seer.

Sehun was not happy about the seer living near the sea. Air around the sea was always salty and made for a muggy atmosphere that didn’t agree with his complexion. He could already feel sweat dripping down his back and messing up the fall of his robe. Regardless, he made his way to the village near the sea where he was to meet Baekhyun a seer who seemed to be much revered. The dark alleys disgusted Sehun but he pressed on until he arrived at a small shack. A young man sat in the front.

“I was waiting for you.”

Sehun sighed. He hated seers. They always knew everything.

“Ah, that saves me a load of trouble. So tell me what I want to know then.”

Baekhyun grinned.

“That would be too easy wouldn’t it? But, I can do one better. I can show you. Come with me.”

“What! No!”

Sehun backed off, but Baekhyun just jumping up in front of his, grabbed his hand and dragged him along. Sehun didn’t expect to be manhandled buy a guy almost half his size

“Hey, let me go. I changed my mind, I don’t care to know anything from you anymore.”

“Oh lord of death, if you are but patient and do my bidding, you will have answers to not one but two secrets. And one concerns you personally a lot. Aren’t you curious?”

Sehun looked at the blue haired impish man. The tattered robe defied an ethereal aura around the crazy looking man. With a sigh, Sehun stopped protesting.

They walked to the shore and took a boat that Baekhyun mischievously made Sehun row. After an hour they came across a number of small islands among which was a small heart shaped island. Baekhyun directed Sehun to dock their boat on the shores and they both got off there.

“Not far from here, there was once a village where a transient was born. The villagers shunned her because of her unusual red hair and pale complexion. Her father was a fisherman and when his wife died, moved to the edge of the village with his daughter. They lived peacefully and happily off the land until one day a stranger washed ashore. The fisherman’s daughter saved him and inevitably fell in love.

Sehun rolled his eyes and groaned.

“Seriously, my robe is wet, my hair is out of place and my arms are aching with all the rowing and all this just to listen to a cheesy stupid mortal love story. I think I am going to go rogue and kill you for this.”

Baekhyun laughed and continued

“No no, wait. The stranger was not human actually. He was a death demon. Just like you.”

Sehun sat up and stared at the seer. He felt goosebumps rising at the back of his neck.

“The death demon and the transient lived happily for a while and even had a baby boy. Unfortunately, the death demon’s time was running out. Time passed and the old man died. Soon after the death demon was summoned to the nether worlds and he never came back. The boy grew without a father but with a loving mother who did everything for her son. Unknown to her, the death demon was a lord of the underworld and fought hard and bitter with his father to reunite with his wife and child. Finally, he was granted permission to go and be with his family. However, a faction of the nobles in the underworld feared this as a weakness and plotted to kill him. They sent an assassin after the death demon and managed to deliver a fatal blow. They thought they had killed him and left. But the transient had a capability. She can feed a dying creature her own soul using a spell. Only problem was her soul will be exchanged for another and she will die leaving no memory behind in the one she saved.”

Sehun sat unmoving. He knew where the story was going.

“Needless the say, the minute she uttered her spell, her soul was exchanged for the demon’s and she died. The death demon woke up with no knowledge of why he was there and who the dead woman was. But there was a small helpless child crying over the dead woman. Not knowing what to do, the death demon took the red haired boy to the palace of Asegi and left him there.”

“Death demons are stronger than men, hence he was able to slowly recover his memory of his son. But he did not remember any other detail and hence searched in vain. Hi son grew up to be a stunning young man who shaped the future of an entire nation. His family and history were not known to any other person and soon that part of the young man’s life was erased except for a smattering of his mother’s native dialect. No one would have known if not for an endearment from that language surfacing again recently.”

“Jong… in” Sehun whispered.

“Yes, the word means, ‘prince of stars’”

Sehun sat stunned. It all made sense. The pale skin, the red hair, and Jongin…