“So should I be calling you Jung Eunbi, or Eunha?”

Sowon leaned against a tree, eyeing the shorter girl before her. The pair had left the hideout entirely, not wanting to be heard by anyone. Sowon wasn’t sure if Umji had the place bugged, but knowing her charge, it was entirely likely that it was. She wasn’t about to take any chances.

This was going to be between the two of them only.

“I could ask the same of you.” Eunha raised her chin slightly, folding her arms defensively. The two of them were in a clearing in the woods, a short distance away from the hidden entrance to their hideout. It allowed them a little privacy, and Sowon could watch the direction where the entrance was, preventing anyone from sneaking up on them. The less anyone else knew about this, the better.

“What did that orb do to you?” Sowon pinched the bridge of her nose. “All of you should have died. I saw you as a child before. You were Eunha up until Yuju brought you back. What happened?”

“You say this like you were there.” Eunha started, confusion in her eyes. The fire mage shook her head. “It can’t be...you really are Kim Sojung?”

Sowon sighed, rubbing at her temples. “Unfortunately, yes. I survived Gyeongju. That cursed orb saved my life for some blasted reason. I only remember blacking out and then waking up in some kind of underground facility.”

“But how…” Eunha muttered to herself, starting to pace nervously. “When the water came, Yuju pulled me back at the same time.” Eunha stopped in her tracks, staring back at Sowon.

“Why did the orb save you and not Yuna?”

Sowon glared back, offended. “Excuse you.” The ex-soldier then puffed out an exasperated breath. “Yuna was dead when you dragged her there. I don’t think anything in the world comes back from the dead.”

“We’re all here now.” Eunha continued on stubbornly. Sowon sighed.

“And all of you died 50 years ago. Eunbi, Eunha, whoever you are...the past is over. We can’t live in it anymore.”

Eunha’s shoulders sagged visibly at that. “But then why did I have to go back and watch it all happen again? I lived through it with her, you know? From when my neighbour Hwang Eunbi ran away from home, when I met Yuna at boot camp, going through training together, getting assigned to your team... I watched it all happen, it felt so real… ”

“Wait, Hwang ran away from home before?” Sowon looked interested for a moment, then shook her head. “Not the point. You said you went back to the past ? Was that what happened when you touched the orb?”

Eunha closed her eyes, looking deflated. “Yes. I’m still Eunha, but I saw Jung Eunbi’s life. Lived it with her, really, though I wasn’t really able to doanything until Gyeongju.”

Sowon lowered her head, considering. “If I recall correctly, you were the one who told us we needed to withdraw back then. So it was you as Eunha, and not Lil Jung.”

Eunha nodded. “Everyone born after the Awakening in Korea knows about the Gyeongju Incident.” The fire mage smiled sadly. “I wanted to save everyone, but I couldn’t even talk. My past self was in control the whole time.”

“But you did try.” Sowon frowned. “Wait, if Lil Jung was in control, how did she know?”

Eunha shrugged. “We were the same person in one body. When I got agitated, I think she felt it.” Eunha sighed. “It was the Awakening. Magic was rising, rules were being rewritten. Gyeongju was at the epicenter of it. Whatever separated us was being eroded…” Eunha paused, eyes downturned.

“When Yuna went down, I think we sort of...fused? For a while anyway. She loved her...I loved her too. We both wanted her to live....” Eunha trailed off guiltily.

“And you decided making a deal with a dragon was acceptable.” Sowon finished, putting one hand on her hip crossly. “Eunha, you know dragons aren’t to be trusted, what were you thinking?”

Eunha looked away. “I was upset. I wasn’t thinking straight.” The mage sighed deeply.

“For what it’s worth, I never meant any harm. I just couldn’t deal with her being gone, you know. Magic might have been able to heal her, but my past self had no magic, and even if I were in control, my fire wouldn’t be of any use. The only magical being in Gyeongju was the dragon, and I just thought…”

Sowon reached forward and patted Eunha on the shoulder. The fire mage seemed even smaller than usual, bowed in on herself. Her voice was tiny as she continued.

“I just wanted to save her, and all of us. She did too. Nothing else was more important.”

Sowon sighed again. She was doing that a lot. Could you really blame her though?

“Eunha, what’s done is done. We can’t change the past. Everyone died, we’re here now. It’s a miracle all of us are here together again. This is our second chance to start over. Don’t let the past get to you.”

Eunha shook her head. “I know, it’s just…” The tiny mage looked up with red rimmed eyes.

“I watched myself fall in love with Yuna and then saw her die in front of me. I can’t lose her again. ” Eunha hugged herself, hands clutching tightly at her own arms. She was trembling, and Sowon took her firmly by both shoulders, steadying her.

“Eunha, focus. Yuju is alive. You’re here now, not 50 years ago in Gyeongju. No one here is dying before me, and I’ve lived a ridiculously long time.” Sowon took a deep breath.

“Yuna died. It was terrible and I wish it didn’t have to happen. Yes, I know she died for you, Eunha. Or well, your past self, but you get my point.” Sowon pulled the still shaky Eunha into an embrace.

“But that’s all in the past. You did your best. You’re here now, Eunha. Choi Yuna isn’t. Jung Eunbi isn’t. Yuju is still alive and her own person. Don’t let Jung Eunbi change who you are, Eunha. Let the past rest where it is. We can’t go back anymore.”

Eunha broke down, sobbing into Sowon’s shoulder.

“She was lying in her own blood when I came back...I thought I lost her again...her aura was almost dark all the way through…” Eunha was blubbering almost incoherently. “So much blood…”

Sowon tried her best to soothe her. “But Yuju’s fine now, isn’t she? She’s not dead. You saved her this time, from what I heard from SinB.”

Eunha calmed down slowly, hiccuping through small sobs. Sowon patted her on the back, giving her time to recover. The fire mage eventually composed herself, extracting herself gingerly from Sowon’s embrace.

“Thanks...I’m sorry, Sowon. About everything.” Eunha looked downcast and still somewhat of a mess, but Sowon wasn’t going to judge. The girl was having a hard enough time already trying to juggle two sets of memories.

“Don’t worry about it. You kids are part of my team, I have a responsibility to all of you.” Sowon ruffled Eunha’s hair affectionately.

“Yeah, grandma.” Eunha said sarcastically, earning herself a bop on the head from said ‘grandma’. Sowon scowled. Just because she was older didn’t mean she cared to be reminded of it. Eunha giggled a little at Sowon’s grouchy expression.

“Glad you feel better,” Sowon noted. Even if it was at her expense. “You ready to face the rest yet?”

“In a bit,” Eunha admitted, wiping at her eyes. They were still red, making her look even more bunny-like than usual. “How do I look?”

“Awful. You might need to wash your face.” Eunha suddenly summoned the dragon scales to cover her face, making Sowon jump back.

“Whoa hey, don’t do that all of a sudden. It’s freaky as hell.”

Eunha laughed, the scales shimmering as she did. “At least no one will notice I’ve been crying like this.” The dragon mage paused. “Except maybe Yuju. She probably would know.” Her voice was wistful. Sowon shook her head.

“Eunha, I know you already liked Yuju before this whole mess happened, but try to remember she’s not Yuna, okay? You don’t want to scare her, she doesn’t know anything about the past. It’s just us.”

Eunha nodded sadly. “I’ll try...it’s just hard, remembering how it used to be.” The mage sighed.

“I could have lived without knowing all this. It would have been so much easier.”

Sowon grunted. “Tell me about it. Having amnesia was a lot more peaceful. Now I have to go kill a dragon, because no one s with my team past or present.”

Eunha looked at Sowon seriously.

“You do know that none of us will let you go alone to do that right?”

Sowon folded her arms. “This isn’t your fight. Any of you. This is my score to settle.”

Eunha snorted. “We just had a whole conversation about not living in the past, dear leader. In case you forgot, Mireu is after all of us at the moment. It’s not even about past scores, we have a very present problem right now. Either we kill the bloody dragon, or he keeps sending goons after us. I’m all for killing the dragon, personally.”

Sowon cocked her head. “You are feeling better.”

Eunha scoffed, letting the scales on her face fade back into her skin. The redness on her cheeks and nose had subsided, though her eyes were still somewhat bloodshot.

“Better enough to also notice the way you were avoiding SinB earlier, by the way.” Eunha smirked. “I seem to remember past me walking in on something once…”

Sowon choked. Having someone else who also knew about the past was going to be inconvenient. She drew herself up to her full height and glowered down at Eunha, who still looked unbearably smug.

“I was not avoiding her.”

Eunha shrugged. “If you say so.” The mage looked up at the ex-soldier.

“Seriously though, you can’t not have noticed SinB likes you, even before this. Why don’t you give her a chance?”

Sowon shifted uncomfortably. “She’s too young, she doesn’t know what she wants.”

Eunha snorted. “SinB always knows exactly what she wants. If anything, I’m the indecisive one between the two of us.” The mage frowned suddenly.

“This isn’t about how you feel about Hwang Eunbi still, is it?”

Sowon twitched. Eunha noticed, and snorted again.

“Ha, and someone had the cheek to tell me not to get hung up over the past.”

“Hey, at least it was my past. Give me a break. You just saw someone else’s memories.” Sowon sounded defensive. Eunha rolled her eyes theatrically.

“Same difference.” Eunha paused, meeting Sowon’s eyes soberly.

“At least SinB feels the same way Hwang Eunbi did in the past. You shouldn’t get hung up over it so much. Give her a chance. Give yourself a chance. You said it earlier, we got a fresh new start. Live a little, Sowon. You’re already past 70. If not now, when?”

“Go on, keep talking about my age,” Sowon growled menacingly. Eunha stuck her tongue out impudently.

“I won’t even tell SinB how old you really are!”

That did it. Yuju was very confused when Eunha came running back into base with Sowon hot on her heels, the fire mage taking cover behind the oblivious dog shaman with a squeal. It didn’t really deter Sowon from trying to reach over Yuju to grab at Eunha, but pacifist that the shaman was, she prevented any escalation of impending violence out of habit. Which Eunha had clearly been counting on. Sowon glowered at the pair of magic users protected by a force field. Eunha was snickering while snuggling into Yuju’s back at the same time.

Sneaky little bunny. Sowon shook her head resignedly. As long as Eunha was grounded, she could endure a little teasing. It was better than having the darker half of Eunha’s personality taking control. The leader knew her team a lot better than she let on.

She had failed them once before. She wouldn’t make that same mistake now. They were hers to protect, all of them.

Nothing was more important than that.

It was almost five days later before Umji was well enough to open her eyes without feeling like the world was unravelling around her. She hated every second of it. Even now, she kept her eyes only half open and moved very carefully with help from whoever was nearby. It was uncomfortable, inconvenient, and she couldn’t wait for it to be over.

Sowon and Yerin kept her lying down as much as possible, with the latter threatening to set Yuju with a knockout spell on her if she kept whining. Sowon had been even more direct, she just took out another tranquilizer. Umji had kept her grumbling to a minimum since then. She hated being cut off, but she also knew she wasn’t well enough to even try connecting. Even sitting up made her nauseous, much less anything more strenuous than twiddling her thumbs.

Yuju often dropped by to read to her, the low rumble of the shaman’s soothing voice working like an analgesic to ease the throbbing pain lancing through her ears and lower brain stem. The shaman wasn’t here now, apparently off hunting with SinB and Sowon to supplement their rations with fresh meat. The hideout wasn’t meant to be a permanent base, and while they had some emergency rations here, it wasn’t going to last if they were planning to stay until Umji recovered.

So when Umji finally discovered that she could open her eyes properly without feeling like her eyeballs were trying to tear themselves apart, she almost let out a whoop of victory. Or she would have, if she hadn’t opened her eyes to a somewhat tense situation playing out in front of her. Wisely, the young hacker immediately pretended she was still comatose, but kept her ears wide open. She wasn’t going to miss a second of this.

“I need your help.” That was Yerin’s voice, Umji decided. The reply that came back was almost snarky, and Umji thought that sounded about right. Eunha did grow up with SinB, and it was showing.

“Oh really? What can I possibly do for you?”

Yerin’s voice was tense. “This is about Yuju.”

Silence, and then a shuffle of fabric. “I’m listening.”

“You know what Yuju did to bring you back.” Pause. “She looks fine, but no one does a ritual like that without consequences. I need you to help me See. I don’t have the Sight, but when I came to you two that day…” Yerin trailed off, sounding uncertain.

“The blood.” Eunha’s voice was thoughtful. Umji risked cracking open one eye to check on her two unnies. At least they were on the same page whenever it came to Yuju-unnie’s safety. That was something, at least.

“There shouldn’t have been that much. A little blood spilled for a ritual is one thing, but that much implies a sacrifice. Blood magic, Eunha. You know what that means.”

“You’re asking me if she’s been marked.”

“That is exactly what I’m asking.”

“What are you going to do if she is?”

“Nothing. I don’t know? Help her to hide it? Can it be hidden? Will she be alright even?” Yerin sounded frustrated. Eunha exhaled slowly.

“But she isn’t.” Yerin made a confused noise. Eunha sighed.

“There’s nothing. When Yuju was checking on me the other day, our connection meant I could see into her too. There isn’t anything. She’s clean,too clean. I suspected blood magic too when I came back that day, I thought she died for me to come back.”

“But she didn’t.” Yerin said slowly. “But, how? Something must have died to power the sacrifice. I thought that’s how it works.”

Eunha made a small sound of agreement. “It is. Usually. I honestly don’t know that much apart from the rumours.” Suspicion coloured her tone. “You, on the other hand, know an awful lot about blood magic for a non practitioner. Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

“Hunted a few rogues in my time. One of my best friends was a mage too, learned a lot from her. The bounty’s good for blood mages, but they’re damn dangerous. Leave them to grow, and they’ll kill half a city for power.”

“And you were ready to hide it for her, if she had been marked?” Eunha sounded unconvinced. “Even knowing the risks?”

“You know damn well why I would, Eunha. And you would have too. Plus, it’s Yuju, she would hurt herself first before hurting anyone else. I trust her.” Yerin sounded tired. Eunha was silent for a moment, then she spoke up.

“You aren’t so bad. Yuju is lucky to have you by her side.” There was a tinge of envy in that. Yerin chuckled.

“You aren’t too bad yourself.” Pause. “Doesn’t mean I’m letting you have her though.”

Eunha snorted. “She isn’t yours to give. As long as she hasn’t chosen, I’m not giving up.”

Yerin sounded amused. “Fair and square then, tiny. May the best woman win.”

“Fair enough. She deserves the best. And I’m not tiny. ”

Umji peeked again and saw them shaking on it, if the death grip whitening their knuckles was any indication. The young hacker sighed internally. Yuju-unnie was going to have an interesting time ahead of her.

She only hoped that no one got hurt too badly in the process.

Sowon watched Umji like a mother hen as the girl fumbled with a tablet, the baby hacker’s brows knitted together in annoyance at having to do things the slow way. For someone used to directly interfacing with the Matrix and all things electronic, having to mess with physical controls felt like being chained to a post. It was making Umji grumpy, but she didn’t dare to use her powers.

The migraine she got from trying that the last time was an object lesson she intended to heed, at least until she made full recovery. Umji generally had good sense, but Sowon still worried, of course. The mercenary had raised Umji like a daughter, and some habits were hard to kick.

“Take it easy,” Sowon coaxed gently, and Umji grumbled under her breath, prodding at the screen like it owed her money. The hacker’s fingers flew quickly across the haptic keyboard, faster than the average user, but still unbearably slow for what she was used to. When you could change things with a thought, having to mess with commands was practically archaic.

“Got it.” The hacker jabbed at the screen triumphantly. Everyone clustered closer to take a look. They were all together for this, since they were all curious about the decrypted files Umji had retrieved from her last run. Something that nearly melted Umji’s brain had better be worth it.

The image on screen was grainy, though Umji had clearly tried to fix the resolution as best as she could. It was in first person view, with strings of numbers and letters at the corners indicating the identity of the person recording the stream.

It also looked very familiar to Sowon. This was the type of camera feed tapped from their helmets back in the war. The string of ID numbers at the bottom right felt vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite put a finger on it. It would come back to her though, if it was important enough. She just needed a little time.

The view was of a forest. A disciplined platoon of soldiers fanned out through the trees, barely visible if one did not know where to look for them. Sowon made Umji zoom in on the nearest uniform she could see, but couldn’t quite identify the unit they belonged to. Definitely ROK soldiers though, and the terrain was starting to look oddly familiar.

Sowon glanced over at Eunha, who looked a shade paler than usual. The fire mage was frowning. Their eyes met, and Sowon confirmed what she suspected.

This was filmed in Gyeongju, and if the timestamp on the upper left was to be believed, no more than a few days after Sowon’s old unit had been sent to their deaths. Sowon never knew what happened in the aftermath, what with having been knocked out for almost 30 years after the dragon broke free. The ex-soldier watched on with curiosity. She wanted to know what this Operation Snakehunt was up to.

Waiting, it seemed for now. Umji tweaked a few things, letting the images fast forward a little through the boring parts. Sowon wasn’t surprised. ‘Hurry up and wait’ was an old military tradition. Days on end of being stuck in a tree for recon missions came back to her, and Sowon was not ashamed to say that she most definitely did not miss it.

Audio crackled with a goodly amount of static as Umji adjusted the settings to clear things up. The voices were scratchy and almost indistinct, but it was enough to hear the gist of the conversation.

“...split up...cover more...bogey...gone to ground…”

Sowon strung that together easily enough. They were searching for something, and there was more than one squad roving the woods. Sowon could hazard a guess. As Eunha had mentioned before, everyone born after the Awakening knew about the dragon rising at Gyeongju just as the first burst of magic awakened in the general area, before spreading across the rest of the country.

The same thing was happening across the globe at different times, under different circumstances. The Awakening was never one big event. It was a lot more like labour pains stretched out over a couple of decades, with smaller incidents probably having gone unreported previously until the seismic changes starting shaking things up.

On hindsight, it was unfortunate that Sowon and her team was at Gyeongju when one of those shockwaves decided to surface. With or without them, the dragon would have risen somehow. It was just their misfortune to get tangled up into this whole affair. It didn’t change Sowon’s determination to make that thing pay though. Her entire squad died because of that creature. Yuna’s death was unfortunate, but the rest should have made it out. That they didn’t said a great deal.

And yes, Sowon had checked. She had her own information sources independent of Umji, and it wasn’t hard to hack into the old military records of veterans from the last war. It wasn’t exactly classified information after almost 50 years. Seeing the whole unit labelled as “Killed in Action” had been sobering. Sowon had hoped that at least one of them would have made it, despite everything.

Of course, seeing herself labelled as KIA was incredibly odd. Sowon did not feel dead in the least. Clearly, someone had tampered with the records, but she would require Umji’s expertise to narrow down the search. It did give her some tiny ounce of hope that maybe her old unit had survived and the whole thing was just a damn nightmare, but Sowon wasn’t one to live by empty dreams.

She was here now with an exact replica of her old team, and an echo of the part of her still attuned to magic whispered that these were the same lost souls she used to command, just reincarnated in new flesh. That was damning in itself. People generally don’t get reincarnated unless they were already dead. Was it fate that they were gathered again? Sowon had her suspicions, and a lot of it pointed to the dragon’s deal. What was it Eunha had asked for again?

But first things first. The recording had sped forward to where the unnamed soldier whose view they were following had split off with his own fireteam to scout the area. Sowon assessed them critically. The way they handled their weapons was more Marine than Army. A flash of recognition shot through her mind, and the ex-soldier frowned. It couldn’t be, could it?

An explosion of white light on the screen rocked the camera, and for a few seconds all was dust and dirt before the vision reoriented. The fireteam was safe though, if stunned. Something had happened in the distance, and the squad reorganized quickly to investigate it.

A subtle dread crawled through Sowon’s stomach as the view inched closer to the epicenter of the explosion. Her instincts were correct, and around her the others, namely SinB and Yerin, gasped. Eunha was stony faced. Yuju and Umji just looked morbidly curious.

The soldier whose view they were borrowing had crept onto a hillock overlooking a shallow glade, and given them a glimpse into a nightmare. Twisted forms of what should have been human lay in agonies on their way to death, warped by terrible forces that tore their shapes into unnatural angles. The rags they wore marked them as soldiers from the same unit, and wisely, their cameraman did not move, though his view was shaking just a little.

The worst of these weren’t the dead or dying. It was the ones who were turned, the ones who survived the change, splattered in the blood of a dragon. There were legends of heroes from all over the world, who bathed in the blood of dragons in order to gain the invulnerability of their skins. This was that legend made flesh, scales forcing their way out to reshape them as the poor men were twisted into something they were not, until the final result was something not unlike the lizardman Sowon had fought the other time.

And in the middle of it all, the dragon in the shape of a man, or more accurately put, wearing the flesh of man. The static from the camera only grew whenever their brave soldier tried to focus on the not-man in the middle of the carnage, as if technology couldn’t quite process the twisted energies that surrounded the creature in his stolen suit. Reptilian eyes too large for the dead man walking assessed the situation with a cold calculation, and every flash of static seemed to suggest a larger form crammed into the zombie animated by the dragon within.

It disgusted all of them. It must also have disgusted the fireteam, because someone tried to snipe the creature in the clearing despite their soldier, who was also their leader, not having given any commands. The high caliber bullet tore off a good chunk of the head, for all the good it did. It was merely borrowed flesh made ambulatory. The force that animated it was not so easily injured.

Everyone who revealed themselves died. Those who sought mercy got the chance to live as the transformed servants of the dragon. If, of course, they survived the transition. A lot of them didn’t. And throughout all this, their soldier kept watching, not revealing himself, though the suppressed fury was almost tangible in the way his vision shook and hand clenched with every new death, every new capitulation.

There were at least two others who were as level headed as their leader, by Sowon’s count. They waited until the dragon finally left, taking his minions with him. Even then, they didn’t move for a good long time after that, just to make sure the enemy didn’t double back to check.

Only a few survived the carnage. The operation, such as it was, was a failure.

“This isn’t over. For our brothers, for Yewon, I’ll fight that thing until the day I die.”

The final audio clip was the clearest line they heard before the video out. Sowon clenched her fist as Eunha looked over at her, startled. They both recognized the name mentioned, and that voice.

Kim Bo-geun was there. He had come for them. And he had seen the dragon, and pledged to fight it. What had happened to him afterwards?

Sowon had a feeling his part was far from over. Thoughts raced through her mind as she tried to piece together what she had, and still she had more questions than answers. Umji’s fingers danced across her terminal, utterly focused as she scanned the text files from the same vault she had raided the video clip from.

“These are mostly action reports and other intelligence reports in the follow-up for that operation.” Umji didn’t seem too bothered by the video, more interested in the information she could extract for their use.

“The dragon was never actually found after that, but the official announcement was that it was shot down and killed by the military. Obviously completely fabricated, considering the video,” Umji tutted disapprovingly. Sowon closed her eyes, her fists still clenched tight.

“Umji, run a check on the ID of that soldier from the video. I want to know everything that happened to him afterwards.” Sowon paused, then exhaled slowly.

“His name should be Kim Bo-geun. ROK Marines.”

SinB turned to look at her questioning. “You know him?” The gunslinger then paused, chuckling at herself. “No way, this was 50 years ago, you can’t possibly…”

“He was the brother of a friend. Yes, I knew him.”

Now everyone was staring, including Umji. Eunha looked like she didn’t expect things to turn out like that. Sowon stared evenly back at her team, daring them to challenge her.

“You don’t look a day over 25.” Yerin was the first to try and relax the atmosphere with a joke, but her eyes were thoughtful as she looked Sowon over. Yuju was inscrutable, but she didn’t look all that surprised, as if she had known all along that Sowon had been hiding something.

Umji seemed rather calm about it, but then again, she was also the only one among them who had been with Sowon for over ten years. She alone knew that Sowon hadn’t aged a single day since the first time she laid eyes on the cyber samurai. The time frame implied in this reveal came as a minor surprise, but it at least made perfect sense to the hacker. The how of it was an issue, but Umji was nothing if not patient. Besides, she wasn’t about to go around advertising that her mother figure had unlocked the secret to everlasting youth and immortality. That would be too big of a can of worms to deal with.

SinB looked stunned. Sowon didn’t blame her. Most people didn’t deal well with knowing that the person they were crushing on was some kind of immortal monster. The ex-soldier hoped that this would be the final nail in the coffin for that hopeless crush. There was no way it would work out between them. Too many years and experiences separated them, and Sowon was tired. She couldn’t deal with all these feelings all over again.

She hadn’t even had time to mourn her old friends, and it was hard to do that when their present incarnations were all alive and well in front of her. It was eating her up slowly from inside, and Eunha had been right earlier: she had no right telling her to let go when she hadn’t even given herself time to process what happened before.

Time. She needed time, but events were still pressing in. The dragon was still a threat. She could deal with how she felt about everything after the present crisis was over. She couldn’t afford to be vulnerable. She was a leader, their leader, and she couldn’t afford to fail.

The price of failure was just too high. She couldn’t lose another team again. She wouldn’t.

“I’ve been around for a long time.” Sowon’s voice was deliberately nonchalant, though Eunha looked concerned. Sowon shook her head almost imperceptibly at the fire mage. Now wasn’t the time.

“Find me that dragon, Umji. I need to know everything.” Sowon’s eyes glittered dangerously.

“I have some old scores to settle.”