Its been awhile... sorry :D This chapter is slightly shorter than the normal length so... yeah 

Byul felt like she had been thrown off a waterfall into the cascading waters. Her whole body ached. She had a headache forming just above her left eyebrow, most likely the result of dreaming of her past, memories she kept hidden deep inside her mind, they had surfaced in her sleep. She could feel the sun beating down on her eyelids, making her eyes burn. She knew it was time to try and wake herself up, she could hear the other two bickering about something but she wasn’t sure what, though she was pretty sure she heard her name a few times. 

She tried to lift her hand up to shield her eyes so she would be able to open them but her arm felt like lead and dropped back down to the ground with a thud. “Byul?” She wasn’t sure which one had said it. Hands grabbed her one hand, soft and warm, must be YongSun. “Are you awake?”

Byul’s mind struggled for words. Instead she just emitted a grunt. The soft hand squeezed her a bit tighter. Slowly, painfully she was able to pry her weighted eyes open. A blur of green consumed her vision, she quickly closed her eyes again, the headache only getting worse. “Give her some water, she is dehydrated.” TaeOh’s stern voice reached her ears, making her body automatically relax, if he was here then she was safe. 

Byul felt the water skin touch her lips, YongSun’s soft hand came up to her neck to hold her up so she could drink from it. Once it hit her lips she wanted to eagerly gulp it but YongSun was making sure to pour it slowly. 

Finally, she was able to open her eyes once again. Her eyes focused on YongSun. The princess’s smooth face was wrinkled with worry, Byul could see it in her deep brown eyes. Byul thought she looked beautiful. So much so she wished she could reach up and touch her lips to YongSun’s, but she shoved that feeling away. YongSun smiled at her when she noticed her eyes open, it was as bright as the sun, making Byul’s heart do tricks in her chest. She felt this radiating feeling of warmth coming from YongSun that made Byul want to close her eyes again and sleep but she fought them open. 

She slowly sat herself up, with YongSun’s help. Her head spun as she did but she managed to stay sitting. Her eyes found TaeOh, who was trying to lounge like he didn’t care but Byul could see the tension all over his body, she must have been in bad shape for him to look like that. “How bad?” She asked him as firmly as she could. 

His eyes softened a bit, they’d both been in this situation before. “Poison, a common one but the delay of treatment made it worse, you’ve been out for two days.” 

Two days? It must have been pretty bad then, worse black out she had ever had was a week after she took a club to the head in battle. It dawned on Byul how much she had put the journey behind, they would be reaching Velcorn today if not for her, that was days they could not afford to waste. “I am sorry,” Byul said averting her eyes. “For everything.” She cleared . “For revealing who I am, for delaying the trip.”

“Byul.” TaeOh said firmly, making her look back at him. “You have nothing to be sorry for, we survive together, like always, we will make it through.” She watched him for a moment, reading his eyes, then she nodded. “But if you are feeling up to it, we really should get moving, you know the issues of sitting ducks.” Byul pulled herself to her feet, as hard as it was, they needed to move. 

YongSun felt worried. As they walked on, she could tell Byul was still way too weak to be moving around, even TaeOh was keeping a slow pace. However, she was mostly worried about what happened the other day with Byul while she slept. She’d run through it a thousand times since it happened and still no answers have come to her. Was it Byul, was it her? There were still so many secrets hidden behind the two warriors she travelled with, could this be one of them? She had been trying to get the courage up for the last two days to ask TaeOh about it, but every time she looked into his deep brown eyes, she couldn’t form the words. 

At first she was determined to keep her distance from Byul so it wouldn’t happen again, but that only lasted a few hours, when TaeOh had to sleep, someone had to take care of Byul, and no matter how scared she was, she wouldn’t let the girl suffer because of her fear. But now that she was awake, that may change. She needed to get to the bottom of this and fast, for fear it could happen again but this time while both of them were awake. 

There wasn’t much talking on the trip. Byul was too weak, TaeOh was too determined, and YongSun was too eager to stay away from the both of them. Before she knew it, they had walked the whole day, with a few rests in between, and were now setting up camp for the night. They were still one day out from Velcorn. TaeOh wanted to scout out ahead, see if he could find this Ernesto before endangering a wounded Byul and of course making sure it wasn’t some trap for YongSun. Though it was her father that had sent them there so she was sure her father wouldn’t be sending her into a trap. However, TaeOh made a good point that throughout their travels someone could have found out where they were headed and beat them to it. He was worried about leaving them unprotected behind, but Byul was quick to get annoyed at him, saying she made one mistake, that didn’t mean she was forever defenceless. She said it was more important if he set out ahead of them to track this man down, and then she and YongSun followed at a slower pace and meet him there. YoungSun really didn’t like this idea, mainly because then she would be alone with Byul and she wasn’t ready for that yet. However, it dawned on her that as soon as they met this man, if it was safe, the warriors might leave her in his care. She wasn’t sure she was ready for that either. The warriors did most of that talking over dinner, it was decided that TaeOh would leave at first light to journey to Velcorn and Byul and YongSun would follow a few hours after. YongSun could see TaeOh really didn’t want to, probably because of what happened the last time he left them alone but if he didn’t do this, they could all be walking into a trap. But it was the best plan so it was the one they had to go with. 

YongSun made sure to clean Byul’s wound one more time before handing the job off to her. It was different seeing the warrior’s body while she was awake. It was different from the first time as well. Her body was full of muscles and scars, but she was also very thin. Pale skin was soft in some spots but rough in others from training. YongSun was still trying to get use to her with