Note: this chapter is long and includes a lot of violence. There is the scene that starts "Gowon could feel their presence" that ends at "All of it ached", starts again at "Hyejoo had only ever fought spirits or run from them.". It all stops at "Jiwoo was beside her then". 

______

“You’re like her,” the witch said. 

Vivi hadn’t really expected to be right with the path they’d been following. She’d almost been completely certain that Chaewon had been here, but she hadn’t really expected her to have gone so close to a follower of Alluin’s. Let alone meet with them.

And, Vivi told herself, you don’t know her well enough. She didn’t know if this was normal behaviour from Chaewon, but from what she could gather by Yeojin’s persisting confusion, it wasn’t. Still, neither of them knew what the reason was behind this. She could only hope the witch could tell them something useful. 

“Was she hurt?” Yeojin asked. 

Vivi tried not to look surprised at that. Luckily, neither were looking her way. 

“No.” She looked at the vase she’d been painting. “But she doesn’t look the way either of you do. Her skin’s practically grey and her hair is too.” She lifted a brow. “I know that isn’t normal, not even with her sort of magic.” 

Yeojin looked Vivi’s way now, a question in her eyes. The anger in them hadn’t faded, but there was more worry there than anything else. Vivi still wasn’t sure if they’d made a mistake leaving Haseul or not. She could only hope. Even if the moon wasn’t sentient, maybe it could show the seers the right paths.

Or at least enough so that they’d know what paths to change. It was all she could hope for. They also needed whatever answers they could get now. 

“What did she want from you then?” Vivi asked. “Information?” 

“Sort of?” The witch frowned. “She wanted me to pass information on. Then she only really asked me if I knew who she was.”

“And did you?” Yeojin’s eyes had narrowed. 

The witch flinched, but shook her head. 

“Did you do as she asked?” Vivi tried to keep her voice gentle. She could see the fear in the witch’s eyes. She’d tried to hide it, but it kept coming back.

A nod was her response. 

“What was it?” Yeojin was frowning now. “What did she want you to say?”

“That she was looking for his followers,” the witch replied. “And that someone would be in danger.”

“And were they?” Vivi asked. Was Chaewon trying to distract him? A diversion like that could easily be ruined if he had other witches to consult, which he did. 

Then the witch nodded. “One is dead,” she said quietly. “I know who it was and I don’t think she’s badly hurt, but she might be.” Her eyes sunk to the ground. “I don’t know what she’s doing now.” The guilt was there. Vivi was almost surprised. Where the witch’s loyalty lay was clear enough when they found her. Vivi knew enough about mortals to know when they were planning to do something or betraying another’s trust. The light just helped her read them a bit better. There hadn’t been a hint of deception. 

“Do you know where she is now?”

“There’s something blocking me,” she shook her head, “I don’t know what it is, but the only thing I could do was look for the one she’d gone after.” 

“Is there anyone else outside of the camp?” Yeojin leaned forward. “We could go after them. Might get there before her too.” 

Vivi realised then Alluin could do the same thing. He could send someone out too. What if he used the blood elf, or even one of the emotional fae. They’d act as the bait before Chaewon even realised who she was following.

Bait.

And then she felt the cold take over her. 

“Do you know where Alluin is?” Vivi asked. 

The witch jumped. Maybe her tone had been too sharp, but they needed to know now. 

“I can’t look for him either,” she said.

“And if you knew her name?” Yeojin asked. “Would that help? Could we find her that way?” 

It was a risk to give Chaewon’s name, especially if she and the others hadn’t given their real names. 

Then again, what Chaewon was trying to do was even worse of a risk.

“No,” the witch shook her head, “I know his name, but I can’t find him. It would be the same with her.”

Vivi frowned. “How do you know that?” 

“Her magic,” the witch’s brow furrowed, “it’s similar.” 

Neither of them said anything. 

“Can’t you feel it?” The witch looked between them. “The light you have is different to the one she used here. The darkness I’ve seen with the other girl, the one who went to him after your people—hers is different to the one you’re looking for.” 

So she’d also met Hyejoo. She didn’t speak with resentment either.

“Different how?” Yeojin asked. She looked like she knew the answer. Vivi didn’t. 

“Less hate,” the witch said. Her hand drifted to her wrist. It was where they’d wrapped a coil of darkness around it. “I know enough of what that feels like to know she didn’t have as much.”

“And the one who’d been one of us?” Yeojin asked. “The one with black eyes.”

“More fear,” the witch said. “There’s fear in the others, but she had the most.” 

That Chaewon’s magic was similar to Alluin’s was bewildering enough. What she was doing now was even worse, but she could understand it. Vivi wondered how many more were like Chaewon and Haseul. Jungeun and Heejin were likely candidates. She just had to hope they wouldn’t have the opportunity. 

“Is there anyone who he’s always with?” Yeojin asked. The confusion was gone from her eyes. 

Vivi nearly asked her then what that meant. Had Yeojin also realised what Chaewon was planning? Did she want to go after Alluin directly? 

Vivi held her tongue. She’d ask later. 

“I,” the witch faltered. 

Vivi could practically feel the fear around her. 

“The blood elf,” she said. “I could try to find her.” Her lip trembled. 

“But?” Vivi tried to keep her voice gentle. 

“He could sense that.” She was shaking. “Someone else could sense it too.” 

“If we find him first, you might not have to worry about that anymore.” Yeojin’s voice was also softer, but the implication felt like a slap to the face. 

Vivi knew the others were coming. They’d sent word, but there were those who’d have known of Chaewon’s absence and followed immediately. 

There was the chance they’d all have to face Alluin, someone they knew so little about. He’d made others follow him, fear him, or both. 

“Don’t underestimate him,” the witch said then. “And don’t believe for a second that you can do much as two.” Her eyes shuttered. “I know you’ve fought elves and fairies for far longer than I’ve lived, but my family has been working for him.” She shook her head again. “And we aren’t even close to who else he’s been able to bring under his control.”

Vivi knew of many who tried to get witches to be loyal to them. They’d learned of at least five witches who had ties to Alluin before Haseul had left them. She just hoped they were more afraid than they were loyal to him. 

“Do you think it’s worth tracking the blood elf?” Vivi asked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yeojin lift an eyebrow her way. Vivi wondered if even giving the witch a choice was the right decision, but she was also the one who could just as easily send a warning Alluin’s way too. There’d been a risk coming here in the first place and they’d taken it. This wasn’t stretching their luck. Not yet. 

“Honestly,” the witch looked like she was between tears and something close to laughter, “no.” She went back to the table then where she’d been, gingerly moving away the vase. “But it’ll be worth it for you and your people, won’t it?” Her voice was shaky. In the next moment, she was making preparations to scry. 

If the witch’s family had been involved with Alluin, Vivi wondered if they had always resented him or started with only loyalty. How much did they know about why Alluin hated their people so much? How much did they know about the Astra, the other elves, the fae? 

“I’m scared for her,” Yeojin said, this time in crosesh. 

Again, Vivi tried not to show her surprise at that. It made sense, because they’d all known each other their entire lives. Even with her anger, Vivi knew that Yeojin wouldn’t stop caring completely. 

“Me too.” Vivi watched the witch’s eyes glaze over in the trance. 

“How can she even try doing any of that alone?” Yeojin’s hands were in fists. “Does she have a death wish?” Then her eyes widened. “Does she?”

Vivi’s heart sank. “No,” she said, but a part of her doubted it. “She’s trying to do what she can. She gave some of her light to Has—her. Maybe she knew something happened through that.” 

Again, Vivi hoped to the moon that they’d have enough time. She needed Haseul to survive, to come away from this, her mind spared. She needed that for all of them. 

“We need to find her,” Yeojin said.

And Haseul? Vivi wanted to ask. They had no way of knowing what had happened to her, but she was still alive. She had to be. Even if there was the slightest chance that she wasn’t, she had to believe that Haseul was alive. 

And if Alluin was going after Chaewon, that had to mean Haseul would still be in the camp. 

The rest would have to find her and free her. 

Chaewon needed their help, maybe even more than Haseul did. 

Vivi swallowed the fear that rose up then. 

Then Yeojin held out a hand. Her eyes didn’t hold any anger. 

Vivi took it and squeezed it. 

The corner of Yeojin’s lip tugged up. It wasn’t a smile, but it was something. 

Vivi did the same. It was all either of them could do. They just had to hope they could all do more later. 

_____

Haseul could feel him coming closer. Her mind seemed to react, still threaded with the darkness he’d given her. It pulled her towards Alluin and Haseul wanted to run. She almost pressed against the bars of darkness to escape it, but recoiled when her arm brushed against it. 

“You saw her before you left.” Alluin was in front of her now. 

Haseul cringed away from the hate and anger that surged now. She didn’t want to feel it anymore. There’d been so much of that in her life. There was even more now. 

She grit her teeth. “Who?” 

“The one with both,” he said. “The one who betrayed her first.”

Haseul felt a spike in the anger then. She hoped Chaewon hadn’t followed. She didn’t even want to think about what he would do to her if he caught her. 

“She gave you the light to protect your mind, didn’t she?” Alluin asked. “Did you even consider I’d be able to destroy it?”

Haseul didn’t respond. It only made her even more scared for Chaewon. What if he tried to take her light away? Or destroy it directly? He’d be able to do it. Could he do it to other Astra? Haseul had no idea.

Then the bars thickened, reinforced by more shadows. Just looking at them made more memories fill her mind. 

Haseul fought a sob and forced herself to look into Alluin’s eyes. 

“It was stopping him from seeing all of your memories,” he continued, nodding to the side. “But once it was gone, he could see everything.” He narrowed his eyes. “And I believe it would have also stopped your mind from being completely overruled.” 

Haseul didn’t know why he wanted to know. Was he planning to take the mental fairy? Did he want the same for himself? 

But that didn’t make any sense when the fairy couldn’t read Alluin’s mind anyway. 

Said fairy was silent. Haseul couldn’t feel his presence in her mind either. The one relief from the horrors in her mind was that the fairy was just as disturbed. He didn’t want to look into her mind when there was the threat of reliving a memory with her. 

“Did you know that already?” Alluin asked. “Or was it simply another one of your leaps in judgement?” 

Haseul almost laughed. “Is now really the time to mock me?” She winced in the next moment when the darkness pulsed around her. 

Stop testing him, the fairy said in her head. He can make it worse. 

Haseul didn’t reply to that. The fairy left her mind soon after. 

“I didn’t know,” Haseul said. “But I had a good enough idea when the other mental fairy you threw her way couldn’t stop her from putting a knife—” She choked on a scream when the darkness in her head sharpened. 

“You expect me to believe she did it alone?” Alluin asked. 

“Yes,” Haseul said. “Didn’t you see the memory?” She remembered then that few in the camp knew of Hanna’s fate. 

And you’ll say nothing of it, the mental fairy said then. Had he stayed in her head? I can hear your most superficial of thoughts.

And why can’t I say we spared Hanna’s life?

No response. 

Alluin had been silent then as well. 

“She was supposed to be one of the weakest among you,” Alluin said. “The easiest of targets.” He looked more confused than anything else. 

Haseul frowned. “Who told you that?” Hyejoo might have been angry, but had she really said such a thing about Chaewon? Haseul couldn’t believe it, not even with the anger.

“No longer important.” Alluin straightened then. “You didn’t even see what really happened, so you have no way of knowing if she worked alone or not.” 

“Why does it matter?” Haseul asked. Was Alluin going after her? Had Chaewon actually followed? 

Alluin hadn’t said anything, but Haseul still felt a new layer of ice settling over her. It was her own fear and not the one Alluin had forced into the cage surrounding her. 

Chaewon would’ve felt how the light had been destroyed. Even if they had barely spoken in the last years, those years hadn’t changed Chaewon enough that she wouldn’t follow. 

And Alluin knew that. He had witches who would scry to track who they could. He would know her real name, because even if Hyejoo had said nothing, the mental fae would have known it. 

“Don’t,” Haseul started. “Please—” A coil of darkness was around in the next moment. It pulled her down to the ground. Haseul closed her eyes, hoping that whatever light she still had would be safe. She saw more memories again. She saw the day Hyejoo had been banished again. She heard her screams as the light had burned her skin. 

“How much light does she still have?” Alluin asked. 

The darkness left , but the screams still rung in her ears. 

“I don’t,” Haseul’s voice was shaking, “I don’t k–know.” She didn’t want to think of how she looked. How weak she was here, at the mercy of the shadows. 

“She gave you a lot of it.” Alluin was closer now. 

Haseul backed away. Even if the bars started to dig into her back, that pain was better than being any closer to him. 

“Did she seem weaker afterwards?” 

Haseul shook her head. “I don’t know.” She felt a surge of guilt. Why hadn’t she looked? Chaewon hadn’t looked as if she’d lost a lot giving it to her, but she also had both the light and the darkness. What if giving Haseul all of that light had let more of the darkness take over?

But was it even a bad thing? With how the two were warring in her, what if it was better if one side was stronger than the other? Haseul just didn’t know what would happen to Chaewon if she had only darkness. She didn’t know if she’d survive it the way Hyejoo and the others had. 

Alluin raised a hand and the bars grew a bit thinner. The press of the shadows around her lessened. Haseul’s eyes pricked with tears from the relief. More tears came and she couldn’t even hold them back. It was humiliating. 

“Put her to sleep,” Alluin said. 

Haseul forced herself to rise. She forced herself to look past the bars and at the fairy. 

Don’t, she wanted to say. You know what I dream of. 

The fairy only shook his head. I will try to make it dreamless. 

Your kind can’t do that, Haseul said. You can only see thoughts. 

I said I would try. 

“I don’t hate you,” Alluin said. He knew what she was afraid of. Her own mind was able to keep away some of the memories from surfacing, pushing some away even when her mind failed. 

Haseul could feel the presence of the mental fae return to her head fully. She could feel the slow pull into a slumber. She tried to push it away. There was only a spike of pain in her head as a result. Not from the fairy, but her own mind. 

“What you’ve tried to do,” Alluin continued, “it would’ve been admirable in another time.” 

Haseul still hadn’t completely fallen into a slumber. She wondered why she hadn’t been dragged down completely yet. “What is it this time?” 

“Foolish.” 

And then the darkness took her again. The nightmares returned. 

_____

Jiwoo looked to the light. It was all she could do as they ran. The other two would look for whatever threats were around them, while she looked to what awaited them. 

The only comfort she did have was that their paths were still bright. At least they were for now. 

The rest of their paths—the way they all grew dark and she couldn’t see anything else—all of it terrified her. She could only see the darkness in the near future and how it enveloped their paths. She tried to look past it, but her head felt like it wanted to split open when she did. Would Yerim be able to see it or was it even worse for her? 

Jiwoo wished everyone would’ve waited. She wished they’d have all gone together. She wished the moon would’ve known when the others would’ve left, but it hadn’t. She’d only realised that Chaewon was gone when she’d seen that she was already on the path that took her away from them. 

She wished she could’ve stopped Haseul. How could anything justify running into Alluin’s hands directly? How could Jiwoo not have realised that was what she’d do?

Jiwoo thought of Jinsoul then who was only a few metres away. Her path was bound with Jungeun’s. Sooyoung’s was the same with her own. Jiwoo wasn’t sure if either was a good thing. 

The red owl spirit was still with them, flying low through the trees rather than above them. It was odd that she’d accompanied them and not disappeared off somewhere else. Again, she wasn’t sure if it was a good sign. 

She wondered what could have happened if she’d known Haseul was going sooner. What if she’d have been able to go in a larger group? What if they’d have been ready for the moment Alluin had reached her? 

Then there was Heejin, whose anger hadn’t risen at all this entire time. Her path kept changing between theirs and going to Hyunjin’s. Jiwoo didn’t know which would be the better path. 

The vision hadn’t left her head. It could have also been because she couldn’t forget it. 

She couldn’t properly see Chaewon’s path either. She didn’t know if it ended or if it continued. It wasn’t coming back. The other paths weren’t either. What if there were other fates she hadn’t seen? What if they couldn’t change this one? 

A hand slipped into hers, pulling her from the future and slightly to the side as they ran. She nearly lost her balanced and she narrowly passed by the tree. She’d have broken through it at the speed they were going, but it would’ve most likely broken something, very likely her nose. 

Sooyoung didn’t let go. Jiwoo could feel the worry. It joined with hers, making for a horrible combination, but it was also a reminder that she wasn’t the only one terrified of what would come. 

Jiwoo squeezed her hand. 

“We’ll make it okay,” Sooyoung muttered. “We’ll bring them back. All of them.” 

_____

“You can’t break through that,” someone said. The fairy. “But maybe pass it through the bars.” 

“Will you tell him?” another asked. The accent was also fae. “That I—”

“He wasn’t going to let her starve.”

“Then why didn’t you feed her already?” The newcomer’s voice was a bit sharper. 

“Do you think she can eat in that state?” the fairy asked, still hushed. “The darkness surrounds her and she’s still being plagued by her memories, she—she’s awake.” 

Haseul fought to open her eyes. It was day. She knew as much from how the world blinded her even when her eyes were closed. At least it helped to distract her from some of the memories. 

When she did, there was someone outside of her cage with eyes as dark a blue as the evening sky. 

“Are you hungry?” the woman asked. Her accent was fae, but her eyes sparkled as an elf’s would. 

Haseul tried to find her voice. She couldn’t. Something else was welling up in . Her eyes started to burn. She saw then the memory of being trapped behind rock, made weak by the lack of light, food, and the stone bindings they’d put on her. 

“I’m Zelena,” she said. She held up a piece of bread. 

“You’re—” Haseul coughed. Tears were making their way down her face. “I’m not hungry.” Being tied down the way she was felt humiliating enough. She’d not be fed through the bars. 

“She’s lying.” The fairy again. 

“And does it matter?” Haseul snapped. She coughed again. She was starting to shake. She’d break into sobs if she couldn’t control herself. 

She felt the pain of past injuries. They joined that of her current wounds. 

The anger came faster than it should have. 

“A meal won’t make me tell you anything you don’t know.” Haseul’s voice trembled. She tried to swallow the lump in . “Not when you can just pick through my mind.” 

When she looked to the fairy in question, he looked away, ashamed. In spite of herself, she felt guilty.

Zelena was also looking at him. “He didn’t break her.” She was frowning. 

Haseul suddenly felt a rush of terror. Had Alluin just sent Zelena to make all of this worse before he finally had her killed? Give her one bit of kindness before they put her through a pain worse than those memories?

“No!” the fairy said, his voice too loud. 

Haseul flinched, feeling then how the darkness around her tried to come a bit closer. 

“She’s not doing anything, but giving you food,” he was kneeling in front of the bars then as well, “we already know all that we need to.”

Haseul’s heart sank. They would never let her go.

The fairy’s grey eyes looked away from hers then. He was looking at the bars. “I don’t know about that.” 

Haseul scoffed. “What a shame.”

“You said that before too,” he said quietly. “You thought it at least.”

Zelena was still frowning. “Now’s not the time.” She shook her head. “But you should still eat.” She held up the bread roll. “And I can put this on the floor or just give it to you, because I can’t take off those restraints.” She waved a hand to the ground. There were pieces of fruit along with slices of different vegetables. “You won’t be eating out of my hand either.” A piece of cucumber rose into the air and drifted through the bars. It hovered in front of her. “Better or worse?” 

Haseul stared at it. “So you can control plants?” She’d never seen Yerim do that. Either she hadn’t tried or just preferred actually picking up her food. 

She nodded. “It’s hardly the most useful application of my magic, but it might come into use now.” She sat back, comfortable. Was she planning to stay here?

Haseul looked at it. It was slowly turning around in the air. For a brief moment, she wondered if it was poisoned. 

Then she ate it. She chewed slowly, savouring the flavour. There was another memory, one where she’d been driven to the edge of a river by a water-wielding fae. She’d dragged them in with her when they’d tried to drown her. She’d stabbed their chest, puncturing both their lungs. 

Zelena kept bringing up the food to eat. The fruit did wonders for the dryness in . 

And then she remembered that day and more shame came over her. She’d fed Hyejoo through the bars. How had it been for her? She’d never even stopped to think of how it’d have felt for her in that moment. 

Haseul felt the tears well up in her eyes again. She tried to keep them back, but they fell anyway. 

Zelena lifted a small cup then. Was it iron? “Water?” 

“Can you control metal too?” 

She just put her hand through the bars. 

Haseul watched as Zelena grimaced and flinched, but she still held the cup to Haseul’s mouth. How would the darkness feel to those not tied to the light? Worse? Or better, because it wasn’t completely opposed to their being? Haseul nearly asked. 

She drank what she could, before pulling away. “You don’t have to do that again,” she said. “It’ll stay with you if you aren’t careful.” 

“He always takes it away,” Zelena replied. 

“Like those blades he gives you?” She wondered if she was even in any position to ask, but there wasn’t much reason why she couldn’t. They didn’t need anything else from her. She’d just have to see what that meant.

“For some.” She nodded. “Not everyone accepts them.” 

Haseul frowned. “Too afraid to wield it?”

Zelena looked at her for a long moment. “We know what those blades do as well.” 

Just the thought brought the faces of the dead to her mind. 

She saw the mental fairy flinch. 

“And you let it happen,” Haseul said, knowing her voice was growing harsher, but she let it. Neither of them could do worse to her. Not even the one who could reach into her head. “They lose their minds, before their body follows.” Was she going too far again? What would happen if the grass came to meet her, reaching around as well?

She wouldn’t do that.

Haseul winced. “Stay out of my head.”

The fairy just shook his head. 

“You were staying out of it before.” Haseul fought the urge to kick the cage. She didn’t want to touch it. “What are you trying to know now? See if I’d still try to fight?” She didn’t think she’d be able to call on the light if she tried. 

“You shouldn’t be the only one pulled back into your past.” His voice was quiet. “I can’t stop what you see, but I can be there with you.” 

Haseul couldn’t say anything to that. 

And then she was seeing more. She flinched when her mind showed her an interrogation. She looked to the sky then, hoping the brightness of the blue would drown out some of it. It didn’t. 

“You came here with two others,” Zelena said. She was lifting a piece of melon now. 

She braced herself for the question of where they were. Luckily enough, she didn’t know.

“Why did you let them come?” Zelena asked. “I know why you sent them away, but why were they there in the first place?” She lifted a brow. “As skilled a fighter as Viian is, I don’t think you needed either of them.”

Haseul was torn between asking her how she knew Vivi’s name, but also why knowing any of this mattered. 

“I’m only half of each as well,” Zelena said with a small smile. “But I was there long enough to have had a few encounters of my own with her clan.” 

Was this where she admitted a hatred for Vivi? 

“I did ask him how she’d been treated at your camp.” She nodded at the fairy. “Actually how each of them had been treated.” A few seconds passed. “All better than the way I was.”

Haseul tried to wrack her mind for when she’d have heard of her or seen her. It was difficult sifting through the memories the darkness wanted her to see and the rest. “What does that—did you come to the Astra as well?” She couldn’t sense the light, but she also felt no presence from her as she would have from the others. Had this just been another secret they’d kept?

Zelena shook her head. “I was never a part of the Astra,” she said. “But I’m half of each as Viian is. I know how it can be worse.” 

“And that’s why you left?” Haseul asked. She would’ve asked more, but a part of her knew it would be better not to. 

“They tossed me out,” Zelena replied. 

She didn’t know what she was supposed to say to that. “When?”

“Long enough ago.” There wasn’t a flicker of sadness or resentment in her eyes. Only acceptance.

“And you’ve been with him for that long?” 

Zelena shook her head. “Spent a lot of time alone, some more in the mountains, even a bit at the sea for the crops I could grow them.” She looked between the food and Haseul. “Want more?” 

Haseul shook her head. “How did you find him?”

“He found me,” Zelena said. “Found most of us actually.” 

“Through the witches?” Haseul thought of the families he had influence over. Not fully, but enough that they would help those he sent to them with little hesitation. It was mostly the fear of facing his wrath that they complied. 

“Some,” she nodded, “others he was just able to find. I still don’t know how and I’ve come with him too.” A pause came as a pensive look appeared in her eyes. Then she shook her head. 

“Can’t tell me?” Haseul asked. 

“I don’t know which part of his magic it would be,” Zelena held her gaze, “some of you can identify people with more light than others, or see the type they hold. He can do the same with the darkness.”

“But that isn’t the only thing, is it?” Haseul tried to move so that her legs weren’t so close to the bars. The cold was crawling up her feet again. “He can follow paths, can’t he? He can see them?”

There must have been some variation to it. How else would he have known that Hyunjin’s magic would have turned? Why else would Chaewon have been a target? As deep as his anger went, Haseul doubted he would’ve targeted her simply because of what she’d done. There were others he would’ve had to have targeted sooner. 

“Right,” Zelena pursed her lips, “you have some who can see your fates.”

“Possible fates,” Haseul shot back. Then she forced her tone to soften. “The future can change.”

“Do your people know that or are you one of the few who are enlightened.” 

“I’ve learned it from them,” Haseul said. “Even if many don’t always remember that.”

Zelena only looked at her then. Her eyes seemed to hold a response, but Haseul couldn’t read it. Was that the point? 

And then she looked to the mental fairy then. Haseul knew then she was telling him something. 

She was ashamed at the spike of fear she felt when she saw the mental fairy nod. 

“Someone else is dead,” Zelena said then. “That’s why he isn’t here.” 

“Someone else?” Haseul repeated. 

She gave her a look. “Several of our own have been murdered,” she said. Oddly enough, there wasn’t as much anger as Haseul had expected. Some, but not an overwhelming amount. “Another was just sent back to the camp with both light and darkness with him.” A pause. “That would be her work wouldn’t it?” 

Haseul didn’t know if she should’ve been relieved or terrified. Had Chaewon actually gone after someone or had she been found by another? She’d killed them as she had the one before too. 

And Alluin was gone. He’d asked her about Chaewon, about her strength, because he wanted to go after her. 

Haseul felt a tremor run through her at the thought. No matter how strong Chaewon was, how quick she could be to find a solution, there wouldn’t be one if Alluin was after her. Had this been the goal? Sending some of his followers after her only to weaken her? Had that been the point of this? 

What if he’d expected this? What if he’d wanted Haseul to come out this far? What if he’d wanted them divided and Chaewon alone? 

Her eyes were burning again. Was it her fault? 

“You don’t know that.” The mental fairy was in front of the bars now. So don’t act as though it were your fault when you don’t know. 

“What’s it matter to you?” Haseul snapped. “You’ve seen everything else. You know what else I’m at fault for.” 

“Might be best not to say those things out loud,” Zelena said. “There’re people listening.”

“And they were listening before.” Haseul hadn’t seen anyone else. She was hidden away. She wondered if the way the trees and bushes were arranged was Zelena’s doing. 

It is. 

Haseul didn’t even feel any irritation then. She laughed instead. 

Both looked at her with wide eyes then. 

“I thought I’d be dead sooner,” Haseul admitted. “But now I’m being fed and talked to by you two.” She laughed again, but felt how her eyes started to burn. She wanted to force them down. She didn’t want to lose the control she’d regained over herself again. Not now. At least not yet. 

“Was the feeding terrible?” Zelena’s brow had furrowed. Was she concerned?

“On the scale of what he was doing to being free,” Haseul paused, “it wasn’t that bad.” 

Zelena looked at her again, but instead of that odd inquiring look in her eyes, there was surprise. 

“Was it meant to be worse?” Haseul asked. 

Her brow furrowed. Then it smoothed over. “There are other ways of breaking your resolve. You know that.” 

“Was that meant to sound so sinister?” Haseul couldn’t see any trace of malice in Zelena’s eyes, but the words themselves alluded to a past more violent than she’d think. 

With a growing feeling of guilt, Haseul thought of Vivi then. She could still see the look in her and Yeojin’s eyes when they’d realised she was leaving them. 

Please stay. 

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push that memory away. Even if he’d have already seen it, she didn’t want that memory soured by the rest that wanted to haunt her. 

“It wasn’t meant to,” Zelena said then. She almost looked like she wanted to say more. 

Haseul nearly asked her it. She wanted to ask her about Vivi. There’d been respect in her voice when she’d talked about her. 

“I’m sorry for all that’s happened to you,” Zelena continued. “It’s not fair that you should be subjected to the wrath of something that you had no part of.” 

Haseul shook her head. “I don’t have to be.” She saw again those she’d killed in the caves. 

“Not the same,” the fairy said then. “Stop thinking as if it was.” 

She nearly told him he didn’t know, but she realised then he’d seen her mind. Even then he didn’t—

I do understand, the fairy’s voice was almost too loud in her head, don’t think that I just read thoughts without knowing their meaning. His eyes were surprisingly genuine as they looked through the bars. 

Haseul felt a flicker of guilt then.

She saw Zelena look his way then. There was very clearly a question there. 

The fairy’s eyes fell then and he nodded once.  

Others are coming from your camp, the mental fairy said. The witches have seen it. 

Haseul had known it would happen. She’d counted on it too. 

But it meant coming to face the people here. 

The fairy said nothing, but in his eyes, she saw that he knew. What he thought of that, she had no idea. 

Zelena then nodded once more. 

Haseul felt the moment her presence reached her mind. 

She saw the moment Zelena felt it too. She saw her wince. 

There are innocent people here, Zelena said in her mind. Do they know that?

Some will, Haseul replied. And if the others meet them, more will. 

Her brow furrowed. Her eyes flickered to the mental fairy again. So you really decided which people here should be spared? 

I tried to find out who would fight to survive and who would attack for their hatred, Haseul said. For his hate. 

Zelena then leaned away from the cage again. The presence in Haseul’s mind left then. One of them at least. 

She didn’t say anything else. Her blue eyes were just fixed somewhere else, almost glazed over. It was actually an expression Haseul recognised from some of the fae she knew. She’d seen it in Vivi’s eyes a few times as well. 

That couldn’t be said aloud, the fairy said. 

Haseul frowned at him. Then she realised it. There was so little chance that they could escape bloodshed. She was certain they wouldn’t be able to, but it didn’t have to be a massacre. There could be survivors. 

Show them, she tried to make her thoughts a bit louder, show them there’s people they should spare. She wondered if the darkness could feel her growing desperation. It felt like it was getting closer to her. You don’t have to turn on anyone. All of those who don’t want to fight, run. They won’t chase after you. The one you think is the cruelest would be the first to let you go. 

The fairy looked at her for a long moment. 

Haseul felt that same uneasy fear from before. Was she saying the wrong thing? She couldn’t hide anything from him, but she could admit to things. Especially now. 

I believe you. His voice was neither distant nor too loud. We both do. 

And then Zelena got to her feet, before walking away. The fairy moved away from the cage. He was the guard. 

The presence in her mind faded to something she could almost ignore. 

Haseul laid back down, bringing her knees up to her chest. She didn’t want to be anywhere near the bars, but any way she lay, she could feel the cold. The darkness was in her mind, in her heart, and it wouldn’t leave. She wondered if it would only get stronger like it had with the rest. She didn’t even know if it was starting to change her like it had the rest. She’d never had so much at once. 

She set her head down, almost glad that it was day. Even if she didn’t like the light of the sun as she did the moon, there was still light. 

And she didn’t want to close her eyes.

_____

Heejin knew they were getting closer when Jinsoul’s steps got even faster. It didn’t take long to realise why that was. She just wished it hadn’t dawned on her now of all times. Her bond should’ve been obvious for a long time. 

“Have you seen where Chaewon is?” Jinsoul called then. 

“No,” Jiwoo said. “I don’t know where she is yet.” 

“And Alluin?” Heejin asked. 

“I can’t see past the shadows.”

Heejin watched how, even while running, Sooyoung still looked back, the worry apparent in her eyes, before she looked away. 

She wondered then how much she had missed in both their lives since Hyejoo's banishment. She’d never realised that Jiwoo was a seer for most of their lives. She’d never seen the way Sooyoung looked at her with a mixture of concern and something else. She should've noticed that beforehand. 

“And Haseul?” Jinsoul’s voice was a bit more hesitant, but loud enough to be carried as they wove through the trees. “Do you know if she’s alright?”

“I know she’s alive.” Jiwoo’s expression was unreadable. Heejin had also missed that. “And I saw flickers of where the rest were.”

“Jungeun will find her,” Jinsoul said. 

There was silence as they ran save for the distant calls of birds. It was strange to be here when the sun was rising. The red owl was still flying with them. It still flew past the trees, oddly mobile for its size. The encroaching daylight wasn’t scaring it off either. Heejin had seen the colour of its eyes. 

“Haseul gave Jungeun something so she could find her,” Jinsoul continued. “And I can,” she faltered. 

Jiwoo started to slow then, but Jinsoul kept running, almost faster than she had moments before. 

“I know where we’ll find the others,” Jinsoul said. Her voice was strained. 

Heejin only had to think of the moment they’d found her in the forest. The look in her eyes had been painful to see. She’d looked lost. 

Heejin hadn’t known why Haseul, Vivi, and Yeojin had suddenly left. She hadn’t known anything until the uproar in the camp and the messages had started to be sent out. Now she realised that Haseul had tried to keep most of them away from whatever she’d been planning. Why both Vivi and Yeojin had been with her, she still didn’t know. 

Had Haseul known who would come after her? She couldn’t have known what would’ve happened with Yerim and the others. Heejin was almost certain she hadn’t known about Yerim being a seer. 

She would’ve known about Jiwoo though and the chance that she’d have seen something. Haseul had also made sure that Jungeun would’ve had a way to find her. 

Heejin just wasn’t sure if Haseul had done all of that with the intention of truly coming back, or simply one to ensure that Jungeun would’ve been able to find Vivi and Yeojin again. 

There was a sharp cry then. The source was in front of them. 

The pale blue spirit had taken the shape of a tiger. Another one had taken the form of a hawk. It was dark green, currently with its talons dug into the tiger’s eyes. Dark blue had started to seep into the tiger’s head, while the light was slowly crawling up the hawk’s legs.

Heejin immediately summoned a blade of moonlight. She tried to see the light of the tiger only to see that it was the one that burned them . The darkness of the hawk was filled with something that Heejin recognised from the sadness Dahyun had showed them. The tiger had attacked first. 

There was another coming right for them too. The partner to the tiger. A lizard in bright green.

They all came to a stop. Sooyoung and Jiwoo both bore weapons of light. 

Jinsoul had drawn water out from one of the waterskins she had with her. 

“I’ll distract it,” Heejin said, before running off to the right. 

The lizard fixed its gaze on her with bright silver eyes. Then it leapt for her. 

She batted it away with her sword, feeling how some of the poisoned light tried to make its way down the blade. 

It came at her again. Heejin dodged this time. She saw how Jinsoul had wrapped the water around the tiger’s throat. 

Heejin rolled as the lizard tried again, but its claws caught her leg. She bit down on a cry as the fire began to curl around her leg. 

And then Sooyoung was there. In a long arc, she struck it with her blade. Heejin saw it dig into its side, before Jiwoo was there with a club, pushing it away yet again. 

Heejin heard a cry then, only to see Jinsoul dive out of the way as the tiger snapped at her. 

The lizard was being pinned down by Sooyoung. She was doing everything she could to avoid getting struck by its claws. 

Heejin scrambled over to where Jinsoul was. She summoned what she hoped would be a strong coil of light. She threw it, forcing it to curl around the tiger’s back leg. She pulled, hearing a horrible sound as the limb was forced into the wrong position. Heejin realised then that the spirits were far more like their animal counterparts than they’d thought. Even if they had no bones, they could still hurt them. 

The tiger was dragging its leg behind it, but it stilled moved quickly. It lunged again for Jinsoul. She was clutching her shoulder, her left eye glowing too brightly. She was going to dodge, but too slowly. 

Heejin reached for the light of the tiger, feeling a violent revulsion as she started to pull on its light. 

And then a mass of red struck the tiger, knocking Jinsoul to the ground as well. 

Heejin ran over and pulled Jinsoul away from the scuffle. The dark green hawk was nowhere to be seen. 

But a red owl had taken its place, its talons digging into the tiger’s neck. It was larger than a normal owl. It’d pinned the tiger to the ground. 

Jinsoul was walking back. The water materialised into a spear. It sank into the tiger’s side, where its heart would be, not just passing through. 

The tiger roared and its paw struck the owl this time. There was a screech as it was launched off to the side. 

Heejin watched then as the hawk returned. Its now bright green claws sank into the tiger’s throat. 

She made the coil of light into a dagger and threw it. It sank into the tiger’s eye. Another roar. 

Jinsoul then drove her own spear of light into the tiger’s head. 

The beast’s form grew limp. 

The hawk then separated from it. The places where its claws had been on the tiger now leaked light. It was an odd sight, as if the tiger’s blood were bright and falling up into the air. 

Heejin went straight to Jinsoul’s side. There was a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Water had already gone to the wound, now without the light. 

“I’m fine,” Jinsoul said, waving her off.

"Let me see it," Heejin said. 

Jinsoul just shook her head. “The others,” she started. 

“Also fine,” Sooyoung was there now, “we had help as well.” 

Heejin looked only to see another dark spirit. This one had a dark red coat and it looked like a bird from its head and strangely shaped wings. It had bright eyes, peach coloured. 

“A penguin?” Heejin stared at it. 

“Yes.” Jiwoo was smiling, but she was also holding her side. It was glowing. Like the wound on Sooyoung’s leg. 

Heejin started to go to them. She hadn’t felt worried for either of them in ages. She felt guilty that it was only coming now. 

“Look,” Jinsoul said then. 

Heejin followed her gaze. The owl was by the hawk now. The hawk’s dark green wing was now on the owl’s side. 

They all watched as the owl’s feathers, which had been a strange mix of pink and red, turned back to red or even darker than that. The darkness spread to its feet and a part of its wings. The owl didn’t give any signs that it was hurt by it. 

And then there was a weird sound. It had come from the penguin. 

Heejin ly to see it raising its weird flat wings to Jiwoo’s side. It was pointing at it. 

Jiwoo was staring at the bird. 

“I think she wants to help you?” Sooyoung said, lifting a brow. 

Jiwoo lifted her hand from her side. 

The penguin waddled over and held its wing to the wound. 

Jiwoo stiffened, but she also didn’t look like it hurt. 

The dark red wing slowly paled, but then darkened again. 

Once the bird was finished, it moved over to Sooyoung. It looked at her, almost expectant. 

Sooyoung lifted her leg and it did the same. 

Heejin almost expected that to be it, but the penguin turned to her too. She realised then that the colour of its eyes were the same as Jiwoo’s. 

“You have one too?” Heejin asked as the spirit healed her wound as well. It was almost surreal.  

“I thought I didn’t,” Jiwoo said. “She disappeared a long time ago.” She looked at the penguin. “I knew she’d been turned, but I didn’t know she’d been like this.” 

Heejin looked to Jinsoul only to see that the owl was by her side as well, also with its wing on her shoulder. It was so oddly endearing to see. She thought of the cat spirit then. She’d saved Hyunjin before. The burgundy penguin had even healed Heejin. It made so little sense, but maybe it was because she didn’t know much at all about it. 

“We have to keep going,” Jinsoul said. The owl was currently nuzzling its head into her hand. There was so much affection in the gesture that Heejin wondered if anything they’d learned about spirits had ever been true. Them simply being driven by the instinct of staying bright or dark. They’d never even known about benevolent dark spirits until Hyejoo’s banishment.

They did. The penguin spirit didn’t stay with them, neither did the hawk, but the owl did. The body of the tiger remained behind them. Would it be eaten by scavenging spirits? She had no idea. 

As they ran, they came across other spirits, but they were all dark. Why the first had been bright but these were all dark made little sense. There were more spirits with more darkness than normal. That made sense, being closer to Alluin’s camp. 

Heejin could only wonder how Yerim, Hyunjin, and Hyejoo had come through here. Had they needed to fight the dark spirits with Jungeun there, or had they all been able to pass? And what of the bright spirits? Had they attacked?

Were any of them hurt?

Heejin didn’t know. She ignored the sour taste that left in . 

It was going into night now. She hated how much time this was taking. 

Heejin drew on the moonlight. It started to get rid of the fatigue. They’d be able to last on the light alone for long enough. 

They’d even been near a river along the way so Jinsoul had been able to both gather more water and get her own strength back. 

They hadn’t come across a spirit yet. It was almost too quiet. 

“I can see her,” Jiwoo said, her voice filled with relief. Then her eyes glazed over. “I know where she’s going.” Worry was filling her eyes. “But he’s going after her.” 

Heejin felt cold then. What would happen if he found her? 

“Hyejoo’s there too,” Jiwoo turned in a direction, “we have to go.” Then she paused. “You two,” she paused, looking between Heejin and Jinsoul, “you can keep going ahead.”

Heejin realised then what she meant. Hyunjin was going to the camp. Yerim and Jungeun were there too. 

Heejin looked to Jinsoul, whose eyes were on the direction they’d been going before. Something too close to pain was appearing in her eyes. 

If Jinsoul would go alone, whatever spirits were there on the way would attack, or Alluin’s followers. 

But what if Chaewon needed them? They’d need more than one, let alone two, to have a chance against Alluin. 

“I’m going with you,” Jinsoul said. “They need us more.”

Sooyoung's brow furrowed. "Are you—”

“Alluin is there,” she said then, “he isn’t in the camp.” She looked away and to where else they were supposed to go. “And we don’t know who else he’s brought with him.” 

Jiwoo’s gaze went to Heejin then. She could see she wanted to ask her, but Heejin knew she didn’t know if she could. 

“I’m coming with you too,” Heejin said. Hyunjin had Yerim there too. Jungeun as well. It would have to be enough. 

Just as she hoped they would be enough for Chaewon and Hyejoo. 

Jiwoo stiffened then. “Get down!” she yelled. 

Heejin grabbed Jinsoul’s arm and pulled them both down to the ground. 

Fire filled the air. It was wild, barely controlled. Not Jungeun. 

The sound of earth breaking filled the air. Then Heejin saw the stone rising, before it shot to the side. She looked up only to see the fire wielder dive out of the way. 

She pushed herself up as well. She brought another blade into her hand, sending another through the air. She made it curve in the air. 

There was a cry of pain when it landed. 

Then rock shot through the air, streams of it wrapping around the fire-wielder. Fire spewed from them. Heejin brought up the moonlight in a wide shield.

“There’s another,” someone else shouted. 

Heejin looked only to see Vivi standing there. Yeojin was already going somewhere. She followed after her, a long blade in her hand.  

There was a metallic taste in the air. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.

“Get back!” Heejin summoned another coil and made it wrap around Yeojin, pulling her back.

There was the flash of lightning through the air. 

Yeojin threw a dagger through the air then, adding another to it as well. 

They heard a cry of pain then. 

Heejin pushed past Yeojin. 

And then something struck her chest, blasting her back. 

Her chest felt numb. She’d bitten the inside of her cheek too. 

Heejin heard that same person scream then. 

And then Yeojin was standing above her. There was a gash on the side of her face. Some of the skin looked burnt. 

“Yeojin,” she started, reaching up for it. 

“It’s nothing.” Yeojin started to pull her up. 

Heejin groaned as it tugged on her chest. Had she gotten more hurt than she’d thought? 

“Jinsoul?” Yeojin called, starting to wave her over. 

“I’m fine,” Heejin muttered. She tried to sit up, but Yeojin pushed her back down. “There’s not a hole, right?”

“No,” Yeojin started, “but it doesn’t look good.”

“Doesn’t feel good either.” She forced herself to sit up, pushing Yeojin’s hands away. “But I’ll be fine.” She looked down to see that the fabric had been burned. Where the skin did show through, it was either bloody or charred. “Oh.”

“Stay still.” Jinsoul was there. There was a burn across her cheek and down her neck. 

The water went to Heejin’s chest, this time light held within it. It hardened the moment Jinsoul drew the rune. 

Heejin still felt dazed. She looked around, only to see Sooyoung propping one of the bodies against a tree. She was talking to Jiwoo about something. There was guilt in her eyes. 

“Drink this.” 

Something was held to her lips. Heejin drank it. Then she started to move. 

Jinsoul held her shoulder. “Wait a second.”

Heejin shook her head. “We need to keep moving.” She looked to Yeojin. “You’re hurt?” There were bruises on her face and arms. She spotted a blood stain—several—on her clothes. “What happened?” She took Yeojin’s hand, squeezing it. 

Yeojin squeezed back, almost harder. “She left us,” she whispered. She was trembling.

Heejin looked to Jinsoul, wondering if she’d heard that. 

Jinsoul put an arm around Yeojin, pulling her to her side. “What do you mean she left you?”

“She was always going to leave.” Yeojin’s eyes squeezed shut then. “She planned it—she wanted to get captured.” 

“What?” Sooyoung had straightened. “Why?” Something flickered in her eyes. 

Heejin realised it then. She’d never forget that day. Haseul, Jungeun, and Sooyoung had come back, with Haseul’s completely closed off to the rest of them. Heejin had never seen her try to hide something so much. She’d also never seen Haseul look the way she’d had when she’d come to the tent to sleep. Her exhaustion had given her away. 

The way that time in the caves had affected her, it was enough to think that Haseul would never let herself be captured again, let alone go willingly. 

“It was why she’d gone,” Vivi said. She looked as shaken as Yeojin did, but her voice was steady. “She made us go back.” 

“But why,” Sooyoung started, before shaking her head. “We were going to find Chaewon,” she said. “There's people who’ve gone to the camp.” A pause as she looked between the two. “Or you can go back.” 

Heejin watched the fire return to Yeojin’s eyes. It wasn’t an anger directed at Sooyoung this time. 

“We’re not going back,” Yeojin said. “But we’re looking for Chaewon too. Alluin is following—” Then she looked at Jiwoo. “You already know, don’t you?” 

“He’s not alone,” Vivi added. “The blood elf is with him.” 

Heejin forced herself to stand. She felt sick. Hyejoo and Chaewon alone, facing both Alluin and the blood wielder.

“Chaewon made a witch send word back to Alluin that she was hunting his followers and then she killed one of them.” Vivi shook her head. “She wanted to draw him out.” 

Jinsoul was steadying her. Heejin knew she was close to telling her to sit back down, but none of them could. Not now. 

“We need to go,” Heejin said. She drew on more light from the moon, letting it settle around her chest. 

They started running again. 

“Not all of them want to fight,” Vivi said as they ran. “Not all of them want to kill us.” 

“I know,” Sooyoung said, her voice almost smothered by the night. “One of them’s dead.” A few seconds passed. “I killed him.” 

_____

Getting to the camp was easy. Hyunjin had half expected the ground to swallow them whole. 

Except they’d only had to fight some spirits and had one encounter with a follower. 

Hyunjin had seen her first. It was the first time she’d used the darkness against a person. It’d felt almost too easy, even though she’d used the light with the same ease. 

Jungeun had dealt the final blow. 

That had been the first time Hyunjin had seen the darkness that came from death directly. She’d watched it go from the body to Jungeun directly. She hadn’t flinched, even though the darkness had sunk into her directly. It was different than the one that had been in that house of the mortal, but it still made Hyunjin’s chest twist. 

She wondered if Jungeun knew of it. All she knew was that Jungeun didn’t want either of them killing if she was there. 

A part of Hyunjin wanted to tell her that it was inevitable. 

Except now there weren't many dispersed around the camp. Only some were actually sitting with each other. It was as if they were strangers. 

Hyunjin concentrated on her head. No one was trying to get in. There wasn’t any creeping emotion, or even a change in the air around them. Had no one noticed them? Yerim and Hyunjin had wrapped the air around them in the shadows that hung in the camp. They’d done the same for Jungeun, but not as much. Even if she was stronger now, Hyunjin didn’t want to risk her being any more vulnerable to the darkness than them. 

Watching the camp now, Hyunjin realised something else. They were afraid. These followers didn’t have the same bloodlust she’d seen with the ones who’d attacked them. Instead they had a similar fear to the one Hyunjin felt now. It would be day in a few hours and they were all wide awake. 

Jungeun carved a rune into the ground, gesturing for them to do the same. It was a fae rune to go unnoticed. Only one way to do it, with others involving elixirs or verbal spells. Only those trained and especially alert could notice it. Hyunjin had spent years learning to recognise it, but if you weren’t expecting the illusion or you were even the slightest bit distracted, you’d be fooled. The fear of those in the camp now would likely be enough to distract them. She hoped so. 

Then Jungeun was moving, her footsteps light even though the illusion would silence them. 

Hyunjin and Yerim followed. Yerim’s eyes were set on the ground. Somehow the pain was less here. Maybe because Alluin wasn't here. She was watching their paths. Hyunjin just had to make sure she didn’t miss something in their present. She also needed to watch out for any signs that Yerim would start down another path to save them. She couldn’t let her do that alone again. 

She listened to the conversations within the camp. Some were in fae, one or two in crosesh. She even heard arcesh. It sounded almost normal, talking about those not in the camp and when they’d come back. 

“She wasn’t a part of it, or?” one was saying. “She’s too young.” 

“I think he thought she’d done enough in that time?” Another sounded confused. “Zelena spent a right time talking to her. Shouldn’t have given away so much.” 

“But he won't let her go,” the first replied. “Doesn't really matter what she knows. We learned more than she did of us.” 

“Is that a good thing?” The second’s voice had grown softer. Hyunjin recognised the edges of guilt there. “Did you really want to know that she could still talk to her captors like that after what he did to her?”

Hyunjin froze. What had happened? 

A hand closed around hers. It was cool, but not freezing. 

Yerim pulled her along, her gaze focused on the present again.

Hyunjin almost felt ashamed that Yerim was the one who was holding it together more than she was. She wasn’t surprised though. A part of her felt proud too. She just wished that they wouldn’t have to be here for her to see that. 

Jungeun had stopped. The look in her eyes was painful to look at, so Hyunjin followed her gaze, dreading what she’d see.

Hyunjin’s heart broke when she saw her. 

Bars surrounded her, almost completely obscuring her from view, but not enough. They could all see her curled in on herself, as if not wanting to be anywhere near the darkness around her. 

Hyunjin moved first. The closer she got, the more she saw. There were coils of darkness around Haseul’s neck, arms, and legs. Blood had matted her clothes, but it was dry. 

Hyunjin knew she couldn’t say anything. She could feel what was in that darkness. She could feel guilt that was both Haseul’s and someone else’s. She could feel the fear that was almost completely hers. The rest was anger. It wasn’t Haseul’s. 

She closed her eyes, but could still see a form bound behind them. The bindings were either light or darkness. She’d seen both. Hyejoo first. Now Haseul.

“I’ll kill him.”

She opened her eyes again to see that Yerim was shaking, staring at the cage. 

Hyunjin pulled on the darkness, taking all of it, from the bars to the restraints on Haseul. There were other emotions there. Hyunjin winced as she felt the rage and hatred within it, creating fresh wounds. She hoped the light she had would soothe them. 

Haseul didn’t move. Jungeun was drawing the next rune for illusions. This time to hide Haseul. 

“Seul?” She fell to her knees. “It’s just me, Hyunjin.” She reached out, gently squeezing her shoulder. 

Haseul’s skin was threaded with grey. Her hair was streaked with it too. 

And when she opened her eyes, one of them lacked all colour, now grey. The other was a silvery green. Both were flecked with darkness if she looked long enough.

“H-Hyun?” Haseul’s lips trembled. “You’re here?” Terror took over her expression. “You can’t be here. I—they’ll—“ Her eyes were filling with tears. 

“He’s not here,” Hyunjin told her. “I promise.” She didn’t say where Hyejoo was. “We have to go.”

“Don’t kill the mental fairy,” Haseul said, eyes wide, frantic. “He’s loyal because he knows A-Alluin’s pain. We need to make sure the rest are too.” She looked around. “He could tell you which, he,” she broke off, “how did you get here?” Confusion, doubt, and then worry. 

Hyunjin took her hands and pulled her up. Her skin was cold. “I’ll tell you everything once we’re gone.” 

“I’m not finished here,” she shook her head, “we need to know who we can spare—w-what their plans are.” 

Hyunjin pulled her up further. She put a little bit of light into her hands. If Haseul felt as cold as she was, she’d need it. 

Haseul looked at her skin. “Light?” Tears slipped from her eyes. It hurt to see. 

She nodded. “Some of it’s back.” She started to pull her away. The darkness had seeped into the ground below Haseul too. It clung to the air. 

Jungeun was there too, taking one of Haseul’s other hands. 

“Eun,” Haseul breathed, “you’re here.” More tears fell. “It’s not safe.” 

Jungeun let out a short laugh, but Hyunjin could feel the anger building in her. She hid it well. “You should talk.” 

“It isn’t safe, I—” Haseul started. “There’s too few here.” She looked around. “But they’re—they can’t—” She was trembling again. “You need to go,” she said then. “Put me back in the cage.”

Hyunjin tightened her grip on her hand. “We’re not leaving you here.” I'm not putting you back there. 

“You have to.” Haseul pulled away from them both. She stumbled then, her hand cradling her side. “They’ll be coming. They’ll k-know what you did.” Her eyes were wild as they looked around. “Go.” 

“We’re not going without you,” Yerim said. She was looking around too, but her eyes focused then on Haseul. “We need you.” 

Haseul’s head then whipped around, her eyes filled with terror. “You can’t fight them,” she said. “Not now.”

When else? Hyunjin wanted to ask. She couldn’t. Not when Haseul was so afraid. She wasn't thinking clearly. 

“He has people at his beck and call,” Haseul hissed. “The witches, the fae—they’ll come.” She closed her eyes. “They’re not even all here.” And then she sank back to the ground. “Go,” she said. “I can’t be the reason you get hurt too.” 

Hyunjin knelt down as well. “We need to go,” she said. “We have to get you somewhere safe.” She reached for her hand again.

“And if they send people after us?” Haseul asked, her eyes narrowing. “We’ll be outnumbered.” She ripped her arm away. “You’re all here because of me. I’m not letting you die.” She glared at her. The darkness within her was still there. 

Hyunjin started to reach for it, but felt an immediate revulsion in that moment. There was anger, but she could feel something else. Bloodlust.

Haseul shook her head. “Don’t try to take it,” she whispered. “Not when it’s mine too. He just brought it out.”  

Hyunjin could feel the terror that still hung onto her. There was so much guilt too. She was right. It was almost all hers. So much of the anger and fear too. 

And the darkness had woven itself into her mind. Hyunjin didn’t even know what would happen if she tried to take it. 

Then she heard shouts. She felt something in the air. Like a forceful wind. The illusions were gone.

“We were going to wait until you ran,” a voice said. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “But you took too long.” 

“Run,” Haseul said. There were fresh tears in her eyes, but she’d pushed herself to her feet. She looked both angry and terrified at the same time. “Please.”

Hyunjin only caught a glimpse of who’d surrounded them when fire filled the air.

She heard screaming. Not from anyone beside her.

Haseul stiffened. Hyunjin watched as Yerim’s hand lifted. She heard the ground collapsing. 

Then she saw movement and summoned a shield behind all of them. It was both of light and darkness. She heard the shattering of something. Ice. 

Haseul hadn’t moved. 

Hyunjin forced the shield into pieces and scattered them, curving some when the most observant tried to evade it. 

Then two was coming closer. They were hesitant. One was an elf. The other looked human. 

Hyunjin summoned a blade, raising it in front of her. 

The elf lifted her own. She didn’t have any elemental magic. 

Haseul was still frozen. 

Hyunjin let the edge of the blade shoot forward. 

The elf dove to the side, but Hyunjin sent a dagger after her. It sank into her chest and into her lungs. 

“Haseul, run,” Hyunjin cried out, before looking if anyone else was there. She looked back to her and almost immediately regretted it.

Haseul hadn’t moved, but she’d summoned a blade. She stared at it. The look in her eyes was nothing Hyunjin could face now. 

Jungeun shouted out something. 

Hyunjin pulled them both down to the ground. She threw a block of moonlight at the human then, knocking them down. 

Fire crossed the air again. Hyunjin felt the heat on her face, before it was gone. 

Then she saw the ones burning. She heard their screams. She could feel their fear surrounding her. Hyunjin almost covered her ears. 

The last one standing was brought down by Jungeun. She didn’t stab him. She only hit him across the head. He crumpled to the ground. 

And then Haseul was curling in on herself again. Her eyes were closed. Tears streamed down her face. She was still holding the blade.  

“I can’t do it,” she whispered. 

Hyunjin didn’t know if she was supposed to reach out to her. 

“I’m sorry.” The blade of light fell from her hand. She sank further into herself. 

Seeing Haseul cry felt like a slap to the face. Hyunjin had hardly ever seen her shed a tear, let alone break down. 

“I can’t fight.”

_____

Yerim watched as Jungeun knelt beside Haseul. 

“You have to go,” Haseul said. Again. She kept saying it. Her eyes couldn’t focus on any of them. “You have to—”

“I told you,” Jungeun’s voice was firm, “we’re leaving together.” 

Hyunjin was going to the ones still alive. Despite their burns, they hadn’t lashed out. Not most of them. 

The only one who had was now unconscious. 

“You came here, Chaewon is—you’re all here because of me,” Haseul whispered. Her eyes went somewhere and then glazed over. Almost the way a seer’s did, but Haseul’s eyes filled with grief and guilt. It was all too familiar, something Yerim had seen years ago. “I-I keep—”

“Look at me,” Jungeun said. She looked pained, but she was trying to hide that. She knew what Haseul was seeing. 

Yerim looked away.

“So an ambush,” Hyunjin said to one of the ones who was the least injured. Before she’d started speaking to them, she’d kept looking over at Haseul, as if she’d fall apart at any moment. 

“We thought it would only be the fire elf,” one said. “That’s what he told us.” He frowned. “Did he lie?” 

“I don’t know,” Hyunjin said. Her voice was surprisingly gentle. “But are there more in your camp?” 

“They’re not here,” he said. “They’re out there.” 

“How many?” 

He hesitated, eyes flickering around. 

“Could they be near here as well?” Yerim asked. “A second attack?” 

“There are still two who can control emotions and three who see into the mind,” the fairy said then. “I don’t know how many other elves might be around. I only know some tried to run.” His gaze fell. 

Yerim saw the grief and shame rise. 

“Deserters,” Yerim said. “They were killed.”

He flinched, but nodded. “After Hanna and Maven were—” He shook his head. 

“She’s with the Warsa,” Hyunjin said then. “Maven is dead.”

Confusion flickered in their eyes, but they didn’t have the time to properly explain that. Alluin had lied to them, but he’d also known that Hanna had gone somewhere else too. He’d wanted to stop that from happening here. 

“And now you can leave,” Yerim said instead. “He won’t come after you.” She didn’t say that Alluin would likely be dead. She would make sure he could never pursue them.

It only took the thought of him, or one look at Haseul, for her hatred of Alluin to strengthen. She wanted to kill him. She could even see the darkness strengthen around her when the thought came. It wanted to feed her bloodlust. Would it feed on it too?

She looked to Haseul and Jungeun again, only to see that Haseul had stood up. She hadn’t even picked up the blade she’d summoned. 

“Can I try to take it away?” Yerim asked. She wasn’t sure if it was better to stay where she was or go closer to her. “What he did to you?”

Haseul looked at her with two-coloured eyes. She looked so frail, but Yerim clung to the hope that there was still strength within that fragility. 

The darkness must have gotten stronger in the time Haseul had been there. That could do more than her own emotions could. It had happened to Jungeun. 

“He brought back my memories,” Haseul said. “No one can take them.” She looked away. “And I don’t want them too.”

“But the fear,” Hyunjin was beside Yerim now, “we can take some of that.” 

The others were going. An elf carried the fairy who they’d had to knock unconscious. If they listened, they’d go to the Warsa. If they wanted to go someplace else, the rest of them couldn’t stop them either. Even if they them later, they couldn't do anything. All they'd be able to do was fight back. 

Even then, Yerim could see their paths shifting to the mountains. She felt a small wave of relief.

“No,” Haseul shook her head, “you shouldn’t have any of it.”

“Then I’ll give it back to you after,” Hyunjin said, an edge creeping into her voice. “You can’t hold a weapon and you won’t run.” Something in her expression gave way to something close to desperation. “So if you're going to fight, I need to take some.” 

Haseul wasn’t hiding the emotions that crossed her face. Yerim saw frustration, guilt, desperation, and then shame. 

“I’m sorry.” Haseul’s jaw was clenched. “You can try to take it,” she said. “I don’t know if you can. I don’t know if you should.”

“I have to try,” Hyunjin said. She went over to her, lifting her hands to either side of her head. “If it hurts, you have to tell me.” 

Haseul only closed her eyes. 

Hyunjin’s eyes glazed over. Her brow furrowed. 

Yerim watched as the darkness in Haseul’s heart started to part with it. The one that Alluin had placed there. The same happened in her head. 

Hyunjin winced. 

Yerim put a hand on her shoulder and took a part as well. She felt Haseul's guilt, as well as the fear that had paralysed Haseul today. 

“Half,” Hyunjin muttered. 

She took more than half. Hyunjin had the light now. She didn’t know if that made her more or less vulnerable to the darkness. She wouldn’t risk her being more at risk of something. 

“That’s enough.” Haseul pulled Hyunjin’s hands from her head. She opened her eyes. Still the grey and even darker green. “Thank you.” She met both their eyes. 

Yerim watched as she tried to smile, but it faltered almost immediately. She tried to ignore how much it hurt to see. 

They all watched as Haseul held out her hand and the blade on the ground flew into it. They watched as she looked at it. All of them saw the disgust flash in her eyes and how she swallowed once. 

Yerim could feel how much she wanted to let it go, but Haseul’s knuckles were white as she gripped it even harder. The tremors in her hands were starting again. 

“You won’t have to hold it again after today,” Jungeun said. “For as long as you need to.” Then she drew out the axe at her waist. “Or take this. It’s a weapon you won’t have to take back when it’s over.”

Haseul absorbed the blade in the next moment. She took the axe. Her eyes were only on the edge of the blade. Yerim wished she could just tell her she didn’t have to fight, but they couldn’t risk not having her there. They couldn’t risk her being on her own, or even join her to escape now, not when the rest needed them too. All of them. 

And Haseul knew that. It was why she was even holding a weapon in the first place. It was why she wasn't going to run.

“We’re not leaving your side,” Hyunjin said. “Even if we’re not beside you, we’re there.”

"I know." Haseul nodded once. “So am I.”

_____

Gowon could feel their presence. They were so much closer than they should’ve been. 

She kept running, chanting the illusion spells under her breath. She needed to make sure her trail was hidden. She had to keep running, going only in one direction. Away from the Astra and away from the Haseul. It was the only way this could work.

Except they were faster than she was. 

Spirits kept intercepting. All dark spirits, all enraged. They’d slowed her down. 

That was how he’d catch her. 

She nearly sobbed when the next spirit came. It was a leopard. 

She batted it out of the way with a staff of moonlight. Holding it almost burned her skin. 

She sharpened the point when it leapt in next. She struck it in the chest, but the spirit kept coming. 

Gowon fought a scream when it’s teeth sank into her arm. There was anger, followed by the pain of the bite itself. And then the creature howled, it’s head quickly turning from dark red to light bronze. 

She kicked it away from her and kept running. 

And then she realised Alluin was getting further away. He was going back. 

Gowon started to run in that direction. She needed his attention on her. The longer this went on, the more spirits there were. She couldn’t fight them all, so she pushed herself, letting the light she still had coat her as she ran. It was more painful than the wounds she’d suffered. Her skin burned as much as it ached. 

She looked to the sky. It was getting closer to day, but the moon was still there. 

It was difficult to take in the light, but she pulled on it still. She needed it even if it had started to burn her.

The distance to Alluin was less now. Had someone else intercepted him or was he waiting? Which was better? How much did he underestimate her? How much was he only pretending to do so?

Did it matter if she got the time she needed? The time Haseul needed? 

Gowon felt the moment she came too close. It must’ve only been a few kilometres, but she could feel the darkness. She could feel the sheer force of Alluin’s magic too, along with the anger and the hate it held. 

She felt it close around her in the next moment. It didn’t trap her, but she felt its pull. Memories threatened to take over her mind. She knew they’d be those same she’d felt before, but there were other memories that could join them now. 

Gowon brought more light into her mind. There was the lightest of tugs on her chest. She didn’t know if it was pain or simply a sign that she needed more light. 

And then she felt her own shadow wrap around her legs. She fell to the ground. The darkness crawled over her legs.

Gowon forced her shadow to let go, before getting to her feet. She was cold. Colder than normal. 

Alluin was getting closer. Should she try and lure him away further? Would he realise what she was trying to do?

Or did she stay where she was and face him that way? Where would she have the better chance?

It scared her that she didn’t know the answer. She didn't know what to do. 

The darkness was closing in on her, but when she blinked, she couldn’t see it in the air. All she could see were the shadows below her, but she felt the rest around her. Alluin wasn’t trying to take hold of her again, but she knew he could do it if he wanted to. 

She’d known he was stronger than her, but she hadn’t realised she’d be so outmatched. All she could hope for was that the light she had was enough. She needed to hope that she could buy the rest enough time. 

And then her body grew stiff. She couldn’t move. The panic she’d been putting off came full force. Any comfort the light or the dark had given her vanished. 

The blood-wielder. She should’ve seen them. They were shrouded in darkness, but one that only came from the way they’d used their magic. From why they used their magic. 

Gowon was forced to her knees. Her muscles stretched painfully as they resisted, so she let herself go with the movement. She’d lost control of her body anyway. She couldn’t fight this. 

At least she still had her mind. She’d need it. 

She looked up, only to see a tall man with dark eyes just like Hyejoo’s. Somehow, they were bright, despite the darkness he had being even colder. 

Gowon had expected someone who’d look more like herself, all colour taken from them, worn down by the magic they held. 

And yet Alluin looked strong, empowered by the dark more than Astra were by light.  

Gowon felt her own fear surge. Hyejoo had been right. She really didn’t stand a chance. Not weakened by both the dark and the light, still nursing the rest of her wounds. 

All she could do was hope he wouldn’t kill her right then and there, or make the blood elf beside him crush her from the inside out. As much as it terrified her, she almost needed them to take their time. No matter what that meant. 

The elf beside Alluin had dark grey-red eyes, as if the metallic edge of blood was fighting to show itself even on her face. 

“Where is the fight?” the blood elf asked. “You had it when you killed the rest.” The bite in her voice was clear. The grief in her eyes wasn’t forced. Gowon could feel it. 

Gowon didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure if she could. 

“They underestimated her,” Alluin said. “As did I.” He sounded oddly kind. It didn’t even make him scarier, but it confused her. She couldn’t even feel more anger come from him. 

Gowon found her voice. “So you thought the two of you had to come?” 

“An emotional fae might’ve been better,” Alluin said. “But they have another duty.” His fingers twitched. 

Gowon felt the shadows start to dig into her skin. They weren’t piercing yet, but a harsh pressure. She watched as some drew away from the ground, curling around her legs. She wondered if he’d try to drag her below the earth, her blood holding her in place. 

“Why was I your target?” Gowon asked. 

The blood elf almost looked insulted. Gowon felt a strange pull on her limbs. It was just short of painful. 

“You’ve wanted me dead,” Gowon continued. “But you sent Torrin first, before you sent the vampire.” 

“But you still defeated both,” Alluin replied. “So did the order really matter?” 

“If you’d have sent the vampire first, she would’ve weakened me and Torrin could've done more.” She frowned. “Did you really mental fairy to be just fodder.” 

The grip on her blood turned painful then. 

Gowon only half regretted what she said. Neither Alluin nor the blood elf seemed to be the ones who would kill her quickly. Otherwise she would’ve already been dead. Would making them angrier help? Make this last longer?

Alluin lifted a hand then. Some of the pain left her body. 

“You’re right,” Alluin said. “I sent Torrin to see if you would accept my offer.” 

Gowon forced herself to hold his gaze. She remembered the way Torrin had said those words. How he’d truly believed that she would accept. 

It made her angry. She could feel the shadows come even closer to her. 

She saw Alluin’s brow lift. 

“Your offer meant taking her memories,” Gowon hissed. “You offered me her forgiveness when it meant forgetting what I’d done.” 

Alluin nodded then. “Forgetting won’t take away what you did to her.” 

She froze.

“I saw what happened,” he said. “He let me see through his own eyes and ears what was happening.” 

The memory of what she had done came to her mind then. She remembered how she’d brought the knife down again and again. She remembered his screams. She remembered how he'd fallen silent and how she hadn't stopped. Her mind had stillbeen filled with his pleas for her to stop.

She heard them now too. 

Alluin didn’t look as angry as the blood elf beside him. She wondered why. These were his followers. What point had there been to sending those people? He’d been seeing through the fairy’s eyes too. 

“Others have taken that chance,” Alluin continued. “Let the memories of friends and families be taken to fix the wrongs of their past.”

“And most of the fae would never accept that,” Gowon retorted. “You just found the few who don’t believe in their rules to help you.” 

He narrowed his eyes. “And,” he began, “why is it bad?”

For a moment, she couldn’t believe her ears. Of all people to ask her that, why would it be him? Of all people, he was supposed to be the one who’d hate such a thing the most. Did he have to hear what she believed first?

"Only cowards take that chance," Gowon said. "And those who don't care that they're taking a a part of their life away, denying them any chance of facing those memories themselves."

Alluin didn’t seem to react. Instead he looked to the blood elf. 

The pain disappeared then. The hold on her limbs was still there. She couldn’t move, but it didn’t hurt anymore. 

“You’re right.” Alluin’s voice was quiet. Too quiet. 

Gowon couldn’t stop the spike in her own fear then. 

“I have offered it to people and they’ve taken it,” he said. ”I let it happen, because so often, those sins aren’t as great as the ones I would never let be forgotten.”

It made no sense. Gowon bit her tongue. She wouldn’t say anything to that. Not when he seemed almost calm. She couldn’t even see if he was truly calm or simply held the calm that came before anger. 

“But that offer was to see if you would go so far to try and erase your mistakes.” Alluin was quite then. 

“If I’d said yes,” Gowon began, “you would’ve killed me?”

Alluin just nodded.

She felt the fear tighten around her heart. It would’ve been that easy. 

“The vampire wasn’t to kill you,” Alluin said. “I wanted to see how much strength you still had.” 

Still had. Gowon tried to ignore the implications of that.

“Haven’t you wondered why you lost your strength the way you did?” he asked. “From what I’ve understood, you used to be one of their more exceptional fighters. When you actually did.”

Gowon didn’t say anything. She wanted to know where he was going with this. 

The grip on her limbs hadn’t grown weaker, but it hadn’t grown stronger either. The darkness was still there too, but she’d almost grown used to it. Far more than the hold on her blood at least. 

“The light never leaves you,” he said. “It's destroyed.” 

“I know that,” Gowon replied. “I’ve felt how there’s less each year.”

“But you still take in more light,” Alluin looked to the moon then, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, “because you still have the connection to the moon.” A pause. “How much does that hurt?” 

She looked between him and the blood elf. While her face was impassive, she was confused. Had she expected them to kill her immediately? Or had he just not told her what he was planning?

“I’ll ask again.” The shadows grew sharper where they held her legs. “How painful is it to have the light you take in be continuously destroyed?”

“I’ve grown used to it,” Gowon bit out. She would’ve been shaking had she not been held in place. 

“But it got worse when you started using the shadows, didn’t it?”

Gowon felt the cold strengthen again. “How do you know that?”

The corner of his lip tugged up. “I saw it then. You used the shadows and the light against Torrin, but it hurt you. I see it now too. The shadows are what you could control, but you don’t call on them.” 

“I can’t control them,” Gowon said.

“Because it would hurt you further,” Alluin said. “Did you ever think that when you nearly called on the shadows further, but didn’t, was because of the light?” Then he lifted his hand and the shadows forced Gowon to stand. “Or was it because you were afraid that you’d lose the light completely?”

Gowon felt how the darkness cut into her skin then. She looked down to see fresh blood joining the other stains in her clothes. It was darker than before. 

She saw Hyejoo’s face then, covered in blood filled the darkness. 

“You have less light than you do darkness,” Alluin’s voice was calm, “that’s because you still cling to what you have left.” 

“This is taking too much time,” the blood elf whispered. 

Gowon felt her heart start to beat faster. It wasn’t the work of the blood elf. With how stiff she’d made her blood vessels, her heart was pumping even harder against it.

And she was afraid. She didn’t want to die. 

Alluin shook his head. He didn’t look at the other elf. Then his hand slowly closed into a fist. 

The darkness was around her again. It didn’t grow sharp, it only dissolved into her skin, filling her with a sense of cold, as well as one of rage. 

She felt it try to drive its way to her heart. She pushed against it. It burned to reach for it, but she kept it away.

“Shaerra.” Alluin nodded. 

The cold was joined with a violent pain. Gowon couldn’t move, but she felt how her blood began to prick at the inside of her skin. 

What left her was a strangled scream. She lost her grip on the darkness. 

It surged straight towards her heart then. 

The pain she felt was worse than anything the blood elf could inflict on her. 

Gowon shrieked, wishing she could move, but she couldn’t. 

She saw the moon then. The light hurt her eyes.

She called on it in the next moment, hoping it would still come.

It did. It burned. Even more now.

“Don’t,” Alluin started. 

Gowon pulled on more, feeling how the darkness receded. It burned her, but it was better than the pain of the light being destroyed. 

She took more. 

And then there was a blow across her face. Not by any magic, but a hand. 

She felt something wrap around . Darkness. It pierced the edges of her neck. 

Gowon brought the light to meet it, feeling something twist in her chest as a result. 

The darkness began to shatter. It reformed just as quickly, but it didn’t hurt. 

She looked for the darkness of the blood elf then, for the cruelty, for her hatred. It was easy to find. 

Gowon first took hold of it, hearing the gasp of the blood elf. She felt the grip on her blood loosen. She drove light into the shadow. She heard her scream.

“Stop.” Another blow to Gowon’s side. She realised then she could move.

Gowon scrambled away, feeling how the shadows started to gather around her again, but slower. She wondered if she’d hurt him. 

And then all of it wrapped around her, feeling more like a slab of stone than anything of shadow. Her body was held in place again. She felt a pressure within her chest. A pull on the blood around her lungs. 

“We need to kill her now,” the blood elf, Shaerra, hissed. “She won’t turn.” 

Turn?

Gowon nearly asked what that meant. 

“Let her go.” The shadows withdrew. No, they were pulled away. 

Gowon knew that voice. 

“You’d betray us again?” the blood elf hissed. The grip she had on Gowon tightened, pulling on her limbs too harshly.

There was a gasp. This time from the blood elf, whose legs were trembling. 

The pressure on her blood finally left. Gowon felt the exhaustion of all her muscles then from being held in place for so long. How was she supposed to run? 

“Why are you here?” Alluin asked. Shock had filled his eyes. 

It was a question Gowon wanted to ask. Hyejoo was supposed to be with the rest. She was supposed to find Haseul. She was supposed to have gone back to them.

“Le—“ Gowon’s voice trembled. She didn’t know if it was because of the pain or the fear. “Leave.” 

Hyejoo didn’t look her way. She was looking at the others. Gowon could feel her anger. It wasn’t like the one Alluin held, but it was strong. 

Now that the darkness wasn’t surrounding her anymore, Gowon could feel exactly where the cold was the strongest. In her chest, but not in the centre. Instead, it was at the edges of it. Where the darkness Alluin had tried to give her had destroyed what was there. There wasn’t anything she could fill those parts with. Not light, nor darkness.

Holes. 

_____

“I know what she did to you,” Alluin said. “I can see how that affected you. Both of you.”

Gowon tried to push herself up. Why were both holding back? Why wasn’t Shaerra trying to take control of her blood again? 

She looked up only to see that Shaerra was on the ground, looking at her legs. Shards of darkness had sunk into them. 

Gowon watched as those pieces were pushed out, but no blood seeped out with it. She’d sealed the wounds with her own blood. 

“And killing her would solve any of that?” Hyejoo’s voice was steady. 

Gowon managed to get herself to her feet, but she didn’t stand too close to Hyejoo. What if the light she’d taken could burn her? What if Gowon’s grasp on it failed when the pain got too strong? 

“I wasn’t going to kill her,” Alluin said. 

“Don’t lie to me,” Hyejoo hissed. “You were trying to destroy her light.” 

“Destroying the light doesn’t kill,” he replied. His voice was calm again, but Gowon could see something else in his eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was hurt or something else. “You’ve seen it with the others.”

Yerim had been attacked by the bright spirit, poisoned by its light, but also attacked by the dark spirits. Hyunjin had taken the darkness from the house of a mortal who had died, before being attacked by a bright spirit as well. What did that have to do with her?

Alluin couldn’t control bright spirits, but he could destroy the light she still had left. 

“I can control both,” Gowon said. Her voice was hoarse. “It’s not the same as the other two. You don’t know what could happen.” 

Alluin shook his head. “You’re meant not to have the light. I can see it.”

“You have the sight?” Gowon asked. 

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Hyejoo said then. “The future can change.” Her eyes met Gowon’s. “Your magic doesn’t have to.” 

“And yet it’s killing her,” Alluin said. “Your seers may say that your future is dark, but they would’ve seen that for a time now. I can see when your fate truly darkens and I see that now.” 

Hyejoo’s hand reached for Gowon then. 

She stepped back. “The light,” she said, looking at the threads that still clung to her skin. “It could burn you.” 

Hyejoo looked at her again. “Go,” she whispered. 

Gowon didn’t move. 

“Your bond broke because one of you had the light, the other only darkness.” Alluin paused. “What would happen if your magic changed to be the same?”

Gowon nearly asked him what he meant. Could that even be true?

They’d had the bond before. Hyejoo had had the light then, even if she hadn't been able to control it. 

But even if it was true, restoring the bond would bring them nothing. 

Gowon looked to Hyejoo then only to see her eyes were glassy. 

“How do you know that?” Hyejoo asked. “How do you know the bond would be restored?” 

No, she thought. He’s lying. 

“It broke because your magic changed,” Alluin said. “What’s to say it couldn’t be mended?”

“It can’t be,” Gowon said. “I felt how it broke. I can see it now.”

“So can I,” Hyejoo said. “And it looks better than when I last saw it.” 

Gowon shook her head. This was only leverage. “It’s not worth it.” What was he offering in return? That they turn away from the rest? 

“It won’t hurt anymore.” Hyejoo met her gaze. “Don’t you want that?”

Gowon almost told her she’d felt a worse pain than any broken bond tonight. “I can live with it.” She had lived with it.

Hyejoo frowned. “You don’t have to.” The furrow in her brow was one Gowon knew well. Well enough to know that they couldn’t keep talking about this now. 

“It doesn’t matter what it would bring,” Gowon said then. “Not when you’d still invade our home.” She made herself meet Alluin’s gaze. “Where’s Haseul?” Standing was starting to hurt more. It was as if everywhere her blood ran, she was sore.

“You know where,” Alluin said sharply. “You gave her that light to be able to find her.”

“To protect her,” Gowon said. “But you took that away.”

Hyejoo had looked her way. She was still confused, but hopefully thinking less of Alluin’s offer. Gowon wished again that she’d just gone to find Haseul. There would’ve been enough time for that. 

“We needed to know if she’d be a danger,” he replied, as though it were simple. “The others would have been uneasy had we not known her intentions.”

“What did you do to her?” Hyejoo asked then. Her eyes were searching the air. She was looking into the shadows. “I can sense her fear.” There was both worry and something close to anger in her voice. 

Gowon fought the urge to reach out to her. 

Alluin was shaking his head. “She’s safe now.” 

“For how long?” Hyejoo snapped. “You want to attack and she wouldn’t let you come near the others.” Then fear flashed across her eyes. “What did you do?” 

“She’s alright,” Alluin said. It sounded like he was trying to placate her. “Her life is filled with things she’d tried to forget. You of all—“

“My life is filled with years I want to forget.” Hyejoo’s voice had risen to a shout. The shadows around them materialised in the air. One set shot towards Alluin but they stopped. Had he stopped them?

Gowon felt a sharp pain in her chest. 

“Calm down.” Shaerra lifted one hand. 

Gowon flinched. Immediately, she felt ashamed of her fear. 

“There are other ways to keep your people safe,” Hyejoo said, quieter now. “She never did anything to you. She never did anything to me. She helped me.” 

“And the one beside you?” Alluin asked.

“Doesn’t deserve what you would’ve done to her.” 

It wasn’t a pain she felt in that moment, but rather a pressure. Then it began to pull, but she didn’t know where. 

“And what happens to the rest?” Hyejoo asked. “You’d let us go.” The shadows were surrounding her arms then, forming coils. “But attack them?” 

“They’re the ones who you,” Alluin snapped. The calm from before was gone. “All off them let you be paraded like an animal.” 

“And all of them hate that day,” Hyejoo said. “Just as much as I do.” Her eyes met Gowon’s once. Then the shadows were surrounding Chaewon like a shield. Not Hyejoo. 

Gowon heard Shaerra cry out, while Alluin yelled something in the same moment. It was in fae. 

Darkness surrounded them all. 

Gowon could only sense the presences of those held within it. She looked for the blood elf. 

She took a piece of the darkness, the cold settling into her veins again. She threaded it with her light and drove it through the shadows. 

There was a cry of pain again.

And Gowon felt the slow grip return to her blood. 

In the next moment, the darkness disappeared. Alluin was gone. So was Hyejoo. 

Gowon felt a hand close around . She forced the light into her skin again. 

“Fool,” Shaerra whispered. She was bleeding from her shoulder. “Had he not wanted to spare you, you would’ve been dead before you knew we were there.”

The pressure was back on her blood. Gowon felt it start to press down into her arms, sharpening as it did. It didn’t feel as forceful. 

Gowon smiled. 

She saw Shaerra’s eyes fill with confusion. 

Gowon summoned a blade of darkness. She drove it into Shaerra’s stomach, forcing the darkness to dissipate. She grabbed her wrist and forced light into there. 

Shaerra let go, grasping at her stomach. Her breath was already laboured. 

Gowon felt her arm bend back in the next moment. She screamed when it broke. 

Shaerra lifted a hand. 

Gowon felt the start of the tug on the blood within her chest. In her heart. 

She was too weak. Too slow. The light was working. 

Gowon reached again for her shadow and forced it upwards, driving the shards of it through the blood elf’s body. 

She looked to where Hyejoo was, only to see her in the distance, running. Alluin’s figure was wrapped in darkness as well.

She was leading him away from them. 

Then Gowon felt something sink into her leg. It was a shard of red laced with black. 

Shaerra was above her then, tears and hatred in her eyes.  Blood dripped from her neck, but it was sealing. The other wounds would be too.  

Gowon felt those droplets solidify. They slowly dug into her skin. She couldn’t move.

She tried to summon the light again, but the pain that shot through her limbs made her cry out. 

Darkness. She reached for the one she held within herself again. It didn’t hurt. 

She pushed it out, from her arms, from her mind, from her heart. 

A twisted scream left Shaerra then as darkness left Gowon’s body and stabbed into her. 

She used the moment to push her off. She saw the way that the blood flow was already stopping, pushing out some of the shards of darkness already. 

Not even a blade to the heart could kill a blood elf. 

Gowon took hold of the shadows again. It was easier to take Shaerra’s shadow this time. 

She felt the press on her neck in the next moment. 

She wrenched the shadows off to the side, feeling the pressure spike on her neck, before it disappeared. 

Gowon still collapsed, heaving out cough after cough. There was blood with the first few. She had to hope it would heal, or at least not get worse. 

She looked up, recoiling when she saw the elf’s body, the head severed from it. The blood hadn’t stopped this time. 

Gowon looked away and to where Hyejoo had gone. She could sense her darkness, but also Alluin's. 

She tried to push herself up, using the arm that hadn’t been broken. She stumbled on the leg Shaerra had stabbed. 

How could she even hope to help Hyejoo now? She couldn’t save her as she had. All she could do was hope her presence could be a good enough distraction. 

Gowon tried to call on the light again. Pain shot through her head, but it still came. She wrapped it around her leg, sighing when the pain in the leg faded. She made it go to her arm. The pain wasn't as bad as what she'd felt from Shaerra and Alluin. 

She started to follow, pushing herself to a jog. She wondered how much more damage that was doing to her leg. Jinsoul would be furious. 

Gowon might have smiled, had there not been an equally large chance that the rest were here too, also in danger. 

She started running, forcing more light to go to her injuries. As she ran, she called on even more, taking what she could from the moon. Something in her chest had gotten even colder. All of it ached. 

_____

There were too many paths intersecting at once, all tied together by a darkness that still brought memories and foreign flashes of violence to her. She'd had a moment where she could see better in the camp, but now Yerim couldn’t see the paths without the nightmares threatening to overwhelm her. 

She just lead them down the only one she could stand to look at. Her own. She just had to hope it was the right one. It was morning now. Had Chaewon and Hyejoo been with them, safe, they would've waited for night to fall again. They couldn't now. 

Haseul was just behind her, Hyunjin at her side. Jungeun was beside Yerim. 

She had tried to look at their paths before, but they were still too unclear. The same had been for all of them. She hated it. 

Already, flames danced across Jungeun’s arms. She was ready to strike in the first moment they saw someone. 

Yerim was glad to have Jungeun by her side. She just hoped Jinsoul was alright. They should've never gone in separate groups. Yerim wondered if it would have made a difference if they’d waited. She wondered if it might have been worse. What if someone had Haseul while Alluin was away from camp?

They found signs of the fighting almost too quickly. 

There was blood on the trees, a gash through the trunk, and a deep gouge in the ground. 

Then Yerim saw the body. A metre away was the head. 

“The blood elf,” Haseul said, her voice hushed. “She’s dead?”

“Both darkness and light,” Hyunjin muttered. “Hyejoo," a pause, "and Chaewon?" 

Yerim looked away from the body. The blood on the ground wasn't all red. How badly hurt was Chaewon? Was Hyejoo alright?

“What matters is she’s gone,” Jungeun said. She kept walking. 

Yerim could watch the fear and how it kept being pushed down. She wanted to tell her she could be afraid. Yerim was terrified, but she didn’t need Jungeun being more worried than she was. 

And she needed to focus on the fairies. She’d need to find the emotional fae. Jungeun would be their target, but Chaewon and Haseul would be just as vulnerable to their magic, maybe even more. 

What would she do? She couldn’t kill them. Jungeun had told her who both were, but if they tried to hurt any of them, Yerim didn’t know what she’d do. She couldn’t know. She didn’t trust her anger either. 

And then the fire on Jungeun’s arms vanished. 

They found them in silence. Jiwoo stood there, eyes closed, with Sooyoung at her side. Vivi and Yeojin were there too. 

Jinsoul and Heejin were watching off to the side. 

Both of their eyes were already on them, but only one of them moved. 

“Hyun.” Heejin had taken a step forward, but not more. Her eyes flicked to Jinsoul.

Yerim fought the urge to look Jungeun’s way. Seeing Jinsoul’s expression was enough. 

“You’re alright,” Haseul breathed then. She immediately went to Yeojin and pulled her into her arms. 

“You’re alive.” Yeojin’s voice was shaky. 

Yerim saw Vivi standing off to the side, probably having been looking out for others. The relief was painted across her face. 

Haseul pulled away from Yeojin and Yerim saw both pain and doubt seep into the darkness still surrounding her. 

“I’m sorry,” Haseul said. “I’m sorry you’re here, I’m sorry you had—“

“But we’re here,” Vivi said, her voice gentle. She went over to her, hand going to the arm holding the blade and squeezing it. She didn’t say anything, but Yerim knew Vivi well enough to know that her eyes held those words. 

She looked away and to Jungeun who was talking quietly to Sooyoung now. 

“Some of us should go back,” Sooyoung was saying. “It’s too dangerous.”

“The camp was practically empty,” Jungeun said. “Either the rest managed to get out of it or he’s planning an ambush.” She waved a hand to the side. “What do you think?” An edge had crept into her voice, along with ribbons of anger across the air. Was it still the anger from seeing Haseul in the state she'd been in?

“We’ll need everyone,” Vivi said then. “The emotional fae are still here. They’ll come.”

Yerim saw the fear close around Jinsoul. 

“I can’t see anything,” Jiwoo grit her teeth, “not even in our paths.” 

“I’ll look,” Yerim said. 

“Not after what happened last time,” Hyunjin lifted a hand, “don’t.”

“You can’t—“ Yerim started. 

“We can find them another way,” Jungeun looked over at her, “we will.” 

“I—“

“What happens when you look?” Jinsoul asked. 

Yerim met her eyes only to see worry. “I just can’t look at it without seeing what caused it.” She shook her head. “But I can—“ She stopped when Jinsoul shook her head. 

“If something happens here, you can’t have even more in your mind,” Jinsoul said. “You can’t give them more to use against you.” She held her gaze. “Because they will.” 

Yerim wished her mind wouldn’t go immediately to Jungeun. Or Haseul. What about Sooyoung? Hyunjin? 

Then she saw the fear surrounding Jinsoul, how it was meant for the rest of them. How so much of it reached around the bond between her and Jungeun. She could be a target too. They could all be.

“We just have to try following the trail,” Hyunjin said. “We have to get closer and maybe we’ll know where they are better.” She started walking in one direction. Carefully, looking around them rather than running head first. They couldn’t risk an ambush when they were split apart. 

“Jungeun.” Jinsoul’s voice was barely a whisper. 

She saw Jungeun turn in the next moment. In her eyes was both the determination that settled in before a fight and doubt, but then her gaze softened. 

Yerim went a little bit further away from both of them. 

“I’m—“ Jungeun started. 

“I shouldn’t have said what I did,” Jinsoul said. It was in arcesh. Most would understand, but Yerim didn’t think that was what mattered. “It wasn’t fair.” 

“Doesn’t change what I did.” Jungeun’s voice was quiet, but she spoke arcesh as well. Her accent still hadn’t faded in it, even after all these years spent around Jinsoul. “I left you.”

Jinsoul was quiet. Yerim waited. 

“I’m sorry,” Jungeun said. “I should’ve told you, gone with you, I—”

“It’s okay,” Jinsoul broke her off. “I did tell you to stay, remember?” There was the weakest of laughs. “And I should’ve known you wouldn’t do that,” she added. “It wasn’t fair.” A few seconds passed. “I wasn’t fair.”

"I wasn't either."

There was silence then. Yerim risked looking back. 

Jungeun’s eyes were on Jinsoul’s, while the latter’s were on the ground. Both looked worried, confused, but also oddly relieved too. Yerim could see the bond between them. She’d wished for years since first seeing it that she could tell them. That had faded the more she’d seen them both remain apart. It’d disappeared completely when she’d realised how they'd both see the bond. What it would mean for both of them. 

She just hoped there’d be a way for things to be better after this. It had to.

The air darkened in that moment. Yerim felt the rage fill the air and stay there.

“There,” Hyunjin was running now, “I see them.” 

Yerim couldn’t. 

_____

Hyejoo had only ever fought spirits or run from them. She’d never had to run from and fight a person. 

She’d never fought someone like Alluin either. This wasn't like when he'd trained her either. 

It was exhausting. She needed to draw on the shadows each time she had a second of relief. There was a moment where she was afraid she was taking too much. 

And then it started again. 

Alluin struck her in the side, but with a blunt form of the darkness. She crashed into a tree. She forced herself back up, looking in the darkness for where it was worst aside from Alluin. She ran for there, erecting several walls behind her. She pushed herself to run faster. Her lungs were burning. 

“Where are you running?” Alluin called. 

She felt something wrap around her body then, yanking her back. 

Hyejoo hit the ground hard. It knocked the wind out from her. 

She threw several shards of darkness his way. All of them were deflected, but not sent back her way. 

“I’ll ask again,” Alluin said. “Where are you going?”

She tried to get up again, only to be pulled back down by her own shadow. 

“Back to your camp,” Hyejoo hissed. She made the grip of her shadow relax, enveloped them all in the shadows, before taking off again. The only advantage she had was that she ran faster. In everything else, he was stronger. 

She kept sending blades of the darkness back, as many as she could. 

She heard one hiss of pain, but that was all. 

Hyejoo held back a sob. How could she get free from him? Could she even escape?

She pushed herself harder. She took her shadow and absorbed it. It hurt. She felt oddly weightless. 

She looked for his and pushed it back. She heard his feet scrape across the ground. She didn’t look back. 

Hyejoo kept running. Her heart beat too fast. She’d never had to run for her life like this, not from someone else. 

And then she saw someone. People. She saw their light. Too far away. 

Hyejoo kept running. 

And then something sank into her leg, pinning it to the ground. 

She screamed. 

She tried to pull the darkness from her leg. She absorbed some of it, but it burned. It wasn’t supposed to burn.

“You don’t understand,” Alluin was there, “I wasn’t going to kill Haseul. I wasn’t going to kill Chaewon. I wouldn’t have even had to target the fire elf.” He was getting closer. “But all of them saw what happened to you, they know what happened before, and yet they would still protect the ones responsible.” 

The spear was yanked from her leg, before it sank into her other one, just below her knee. 

Hyejoo tried not to scream.

“They abandoned you and you went back to them,” Alluin hissed. “You went back and helped them.” The spear twisted.

Hyejoo cried out now. She in several breaths, blinking away the tears. “You hurt everyone who was innocent.” 

He yanked her up, turning her around. His eyes were almost wild with anger. “Innocent?” he repeated. “None are innocent. You‘d protect Haseul, you'd protect the fire elf, and more when all of them have killed, and relished in it.” 

“So have you,” Hyejoo hissed. “So have I, and almost everyone else in your camp.” She brought up Alluin’s shadow in a short blade. It dug into his side. She’d been aiming for his heart. “No one is innocent, but the ones you’d send the rest after, they never even knew you existed.” 

He narrowed his eyes. 

Hyejoo felt something stir in her chest. She saw the pieces of the bond then. She felt how it was pulled on, but not in the way she’d been used to. It twisted. 

“I would’ve given you what you lost,” Alluin said. “You could’ve had some semblance of your life before back.”

“I’d had it.” 

He blinked. “What?” 

And then the pain in her chest was gone. 

She saw Alluin’s brow furrow. She saw the moment he turned and how he lifted his arm. 

It was too late. 

He roared in pain, turning off to the side. A blade coated in light protruded from his back. It twisted. 

Hyejoo saw Chaewon there in the next moment. Her eyes were so much brighter than they’d been before.

And then Alluin caught her by the throat. Immediately darkness began to weave its way into Chaewon’s skin. 

Hyejoo took the moment to push what he’d sunk into her leg out and into his. 

He dropped Chaewon. The skin on his hand was red. 

Hyejoo managed to push herself up. She forced the shadows into her legs. It soothed the worst of the pain. 

Chaewon was steadying her then, before pulling her along with her. Hyejoo only saw a glow out of the corner of her eye. When she looked back, she saw the light wrap around Alluin. He screamed. 

Chaewon let go of her, stepping away. Her hands were still outstretched, but one arm was bent at an odd angle.

Then she was clutching her chest. Hyejoo couldn’t see anything, but she felt the same echoes of the pain she felt. 

She felt the presence in her mind. She hardly realised when she lost the control of her limbs. Her mind. 

Chaewon was shaking, trying to stand. She was fighting to raise both blades. It still had Alluin’s blood on it. 

Hyejoo saw them then. The fae. 

She could only watch as Alluin straightened. 

Cold filled her. Her heart felt like ice. It hurt. 

All she could do was watch as the shadows on the ground coalesced and rose up Chaewon’s legs, piercing into them. 

Chaewon screamed. 

Hyejoo tried to move. She tried to take the darkness away, but there was a sharp pain in her mind. 

Let me go, she begged silently. Please. 

No response. It wasn’t Kijung. It was the other one. 

Hyejoo watched as Alluin nodded. 

A fairy came forward. His hair was pitch black, but his eyes were swirling red. He held a black dagger. It wasn't just grief, but held darkness. 

“L–” Hyejoo tried to speak, but she could barely open . “D-don’t.”

Lydel didn’t even look her way. He looked to Alluin instead. 

“Do it.” 

Hyejoo screamed, but it came out strangled. She tried to reach for the shadows again. There was so much anger. Her chest was burning. She could see the bond that stretched out to Chaewon. She tried to urge it forward. Would that even do anything? 

Instead, it pushed back towards Hyejoo. It got shorter, whatever parts of it that were silver darkened to black shards. Her heart felt even colder. There was so much pain. 

Chaewon met her eyes. She shook her head. 

And then she watched as the fairy pushed the blade into her chest. In the distance, she heard a howl. Was it the wind? Screaming filled her ears, including her own. 

She heard the mental fairy cry out. Hyejoo felt the pressure leave her mind for a moment. She the shadows at the one who’d held her. 

They drove into her mind. The fairy’s eyes turned black in the next moment. She didn’t stop screaming. 

“Get the others,” Alluin shouted. 

The others started to run. A wall dirt rose into the air as they did. Chaewon crumpled to the ground. 

Hyejoo reached for Lydel’s shadow. She’d make it tear him apart.

In the corner of her eye, a flicker of darkness appeared. She threw herself to the ground, rolling away from the blade’s descent. 

She reached for it and tore it from Alluin’s grasp. She lunged for him. 

Alluin lifted his hands and the space was flooded with darkness again. 

It pushed her down. 

“I’m sorry, Hyejoo.” He was getting further away. 

Hyejoo tried to get up. It only dug into her back, threatening to sink further. It would kill her. 

She forced all of the darkness around her to solidify. She pushed it up with her back. Agony shot through her body. Once she was on her feet, she made it shatter. 

She ran, pushing away what she could as she ran. Her legs wanted to collapse beneath her, but she forced more darkness around them. Alluin's shadows threatened to overwhelm her. 

Then the darkness vanished. All she could see were trees, the morning sky, and sunlight seeping through the branches. 

Hyejoo turned away from it. Then she saw her. 

Chaewon lay on the ground. She wasn’t moving. She didn’t even know if she was breathing. All she could see was the darkness that surrounded her. All she could feel was the cold from that darkness. It weighed the air down like a stone. 

Hyejoo felt something snap around her heart. Whatever it was, it didn’t break, but it felt hollow. 

“Chae?” She tried to move towards her, but her legs gave out. 

Her chest was still so cold. She couldn’t see the bond. 

Hyejoo tried to move. There was another spike of pain in her mind. 

And then she couldn’t see anything. All she could feel was the emptiness within her chest. A hole. 

_____

There was a ripple in the darkness then, one that held hate and rage. There was a distant shout. She heard Jungeun hiss then. 

“What’s happening?” Jungeun barked. “What was that?” 

“What?” Sooyoung turned around, frowning. 

“I felt it too,” Hyunjin said. 

The darkness faded. How had Jungeun felt it? 

Yerim looked to Haseul only to see her gripping the sword, a tremble in her hands. The fear didn’t show in her eyes. 

“I know where they are,” Hyunjin muttered. She started to run. 

They followed. 

Yerim tried to find what she was seeing, but could only see the darkness from before, the one that kept her sight at bay. 

“Watch out for more,” Jungeun said. “I don’t like what I heard. Sounded like a call to others.” Her voice was strained. 

That was when Jiwoo screamed. She would've fallen had it not been for Sooyoung. The fear was hardly hidden in the shadows now. From all of them. 

“What is it?” Sooyoung’s voice was trembling. 

“It’s happening.” Jiwoo sounded half in shock, half close to sobs. “Chae—” She then seized up, her eyes glazing over fully. Sooyoung stiffened. 

Yerim felt a sickening cold sink in. She knew that feeling. 

And then she saw it. A fleeting vision, but she knew exactly what she saw. Chaewon’s eyes darkening as the blade sank into her back. It was a blade of darkness. 

When it cleared, she saw that the air had darkened again. Jinsoul was pulling her along as they ran. Both Jiwoo and Sooyoung were getting farther away.

Yerim forced herself to look further into the paths this time. Flashes of the memories greeted her, including the vision again. She felt the fear closing around her heart, but then she saw the path the two were taking. It crossed Alluin’s. 

Then she forced herself to look away from the future. She had to ignore the other memories that still clung to her. She pulled her arm away from Jinsoul and broke into a sprint. 

She heard people calling after her. She was going too fast. She kept running. 

Yerim saw the darkness then. It was tangible this time. It took the light from where Yerim was now. She could feel the anger even from where she was. 

She looked for Chaewon’s path. She couldn’t find it. Only Hyejoo’s. 

And then she heard a scream. Jiwoo. 

Yerim ran harder. 

The darkness in the distance disappeared, leaving only daylight.

She saw Jiwoo and Sooyoung’s retreating figures. They were still going to where Alluin’s path would meet theirs. 

Yerim followed. 

The most painful sound filled the air then. It wasn’t a cry and it wasn’t a scream, but she knew it was Sooyoung.

The air felt heavy. Yerim could feel the rage, fear, and hate all in one. It wasn’t just from one person

And there was pain. 

She saw them. 

Sooyoung was holding someone, shaking, but she was quiet now. Jiwoo was trying to wake the other figure. Both had dark hair. One was filled with anger and grief. The other fear, grief, and—

Yerim stumbled. She realised who Sooyoung was holding. She saw the blood still damp from her back, but the dagger was nowhere to be seen. Beyond the darkness surrounding her were only wisps of light. It was as if they were being dragged away, out of sight. 

“Is she,” Yerim faltered. The pain in Sooyoung’s face was too much. 

“She’s breathing.” Sooyoung’s voice was hoarse. “She’s alive, but—” She faltered. “There’s so much.” 

Yerim heard the rest coming then. She heard the sharp intakes in breath from some and the silence in others.  

When she looked away from Chaewon, she saw the sheer amount of horror in Haseul’s eyes. She could feel the guilt start to settle. 

“Heal her,” Sooyoung said then. “Please, I—please heal her.” She slowly put Chaewon’s body on the ground. Her eyes were still pained, but they were hardening. 

Yerim looked back to Chaewon. Her eyes were open, but held no colour. They stared up at the trees. Empty. 

Sooyoung had turned Hyejoo around now, listening for her breath. 

“She’s alive,” Yerim said. “She’s alive.” Her voice wasn’t shaking. It should’ve been. 

“We could give her light?” Yeojin’s eyes were glassy, but she was holding her tears back. There was the smallest bit of hope in her eyes. 

Jiwoo just shook her head. “Nothing,” she whispered. “She’s lost.” Her hand went over Chaewon’s chest, coming away with black blood on her fingers. There were only small traces of red in it. 

“Lost?” Yeojin repeated. “What—”

“It means she's gone,” Sooyoung snapped, voice breaking. She reached for Chaewon, gathering her again in her arms. The grief was settling into the air around her, starting to replace the fear. “Chae,” the name was barely a breath, “please.” 

Jinsoul was moving. “Let me stop the bleeding.” The words came out without a tremor. “Yerim,” she called. “Hyejoo’s legs.”

Yerim only realised she hadn’t moved when she stepped forward. The darkness around Hyejoo was sharper now. Yerim felt how Hyejoo had when the blade had pierced Chaewon’s chest, she felt her grief and how her rage had started to form. She walked over and started to carve the runes into the ground. 

“Why does she still have light?” Haseul asked. Guilt and grief surrounded her. “Why is it still there?” 

“I don’t know,” Jinsoul said. “But both were—are a part of her. They’re not warring now.” 

Yerim almost asked her how she knew that, but there was a new voice then. 

“You’re right.” The voice was almost familiar.

Haseul was moving in the next moment, blade raised. The shadows moved too and then dragged her down. A choked sob left Haseul as she clutched her head again, sinking back into herself.

Jungeun hadn’t moved. There was no fire around her. Not even now that they could see the rest. Yerim counted ten. 

Jinsoul gasped, looking up. Her eyes were filling with dread. 

Yerim looked back only to see Jungeun was shaking now. Her eyes were filling with swirls of orange and yellow, but the red was still there. The air was growing warmer. 

“All of you,” Jungeun whispered, "get back.” 

Next Yerim saw the darkness circle around Jungeun. It was threaded with red. 

She tried to look for the source, but she couldn’t see it. 

And then she felt a cloud come over her mind. There was a presence in it. She couldn’t move. 

No, she just couldn’t move her body. She could look for the shadows still and pull on them. She forced them into her mind. Hyejoo had said they couldn’t read her mind as easily that way. They could still try to control her, but not fully. 

There was still hope. 

“Don’t do this,” Jinsoul said. “Please.” Her eyes were filling with tears. 

“You would call us monsters,” Alluin said slowly. “And still let her live among you?”

The grip on her mind tightened then and Yerim saw flashing memories of fire. She heard screams and smelled burnt flesh. She watched as bodies fell, broken by flames. 

“Stop.” A sharp voice broke through all of it. Then there was a strangled cry. 

Yerim’s vision cleared. She saw Jinsoul holding a hand to her chest, gasping. Her eyes were squeezed shut. 

Shadows had collected around both their minds. Red was in the light. It was going to Jinsoul. 

And then fire entered the air. Yerim watched as they shot to where Alluin stood, but were smothered by darkness. They had caught on the mental fae. There was a scream and the hold on Yerim’s mind vanished. 

Jungeun was finally moving, flames surrounding her. They into the air, wild.

Yerim made to stand, but a hand pushed her back down. She summoned a blade, but Hyunjin was there. 

“Wake her,” she said through gritted teeth. “Anger.” She gave her a piece of darkness filled with rage. Hyunjin’s. 

And then she was going to the rest. More of Alluin’s followers were here. Where had they come from? 

She carved a healing rune into the ground by Hyejoo’s legs. She needed to stand on them. 

“Yerim!” It was Jiwoo. 

She only saw the figure coming her way before it crumbled to dust, a stake of light falling to the ground. She didn’t look to see if Jiwoo had found the next one. 

Yerim put the darkness in Hyejoo’s hand along with her own anger. She watched as they immediately sank into her skin. 

Hyejoo gasped. Her eyes shot open. One of them was grey. 

Out of the corner of her eyes, Yerim saw someone coming closer. She let the ground collapse and sent the shadows after them. She only heard them scream before the shadows surrounded them. 

Hyejoo had fallen down with her, now clutching her legs with gritted teeth. Darkness curled around them both. 

“You’re here?” She looked up at her, getting up. She was unsteady on her feet, but she managed. 

Yerim started to bring the ground up, but Hyejoo grabbed her arm. 

“Jungeun?” 

“Here,” Yerim nodded, “we all are.” 

“You need to get her away.” Hyejoo looked to the rim of the hole. They could see light, lightning, and fire above. “Now.”

Yerim wanted to ask why when a sick feeling came over her. It was coloured by rage, but joined by grief. 

She made the earth take them up. 

_____

Jinsoul watched the rest charge Alluin and his people.. She could still feel the presence in her mind, but it wasn’t holding her back yet. Would it when she tried something else? 

It didn’t matter. She cast another healing rune for Chaewon, her head stinging from the magic. She could feel a burning heat in her chest. She’d tried to pull on it, but she couldn’t. 

Jungeun’s flames were coursing through the air. Uncontrolled. They seeped away from her skin, but it didn't look like she was controlling them. They poured out from her, not just her arms, but her legs and shoulder too. Those who even drew close to her shrieked in pain, without even touching her. 

Jinsoul dove to the side when a blade was sent her way. She pulled the water from the waterskin and it struck them across the throat. She pushed them away so they wouldn’t fall onto Chaewon. 

She forced the water to strike the next one advancing on Haseul. She was fighting with tears in her eyes. 

They dodged it. Jinsoul was on them in the next moment, stabbing them in the heart with a blade of light. 

There was a surge in the heat in her chest.

Jinsoul looked back immediately. 

Jungeun was engulfed by fire and so was another. She had her sword drawn and blocked whatever blow they’d sent. 

Jinsoul felt the fire in her chest disappear. 

There was a scream. It wasn’t Jungeun’s. Fire filled the air. 

When it cleared, Jungeun stood there, eyes still swirling with the fire. Her hand was on her chest.

Jinsoul scrambled over to her. She barely managed to block a blow aimed for her head.

There was a cry of pain. Jungeun’s. 

Jinsoul brought the water from around them up and it tore into the fairy above her. 

She was caught between the burning pain and nothing at all. She reached for the rest anyway. 

She kicked the dying fairy off of her. 

Jungeun had sunk to her knees. Jinsoul could barely see her, but her eyes shone through the orange. Red was streaked through her skin, like something had cut just below the skin.

Jinsoul tried to reach for the anger again. What if she could take some?

And then there was a sharp impact on her chest, pushing her back. She landed on the ground, hard. A length of moonlight fell to the earth. It too held streams of red.

“Stay back.” Jungeun’s voice came through the violence still there. The fire left the air completely. Fire was starting to travel up her hands. Flames kept appearing, before they were stifled again. “GO!” Fire left , digging into the ground. It struck a vampire, making him crumble, just as Jiwoo leapt out of the way of the flames.

Jinsoul could feel the hot air on her face. 

She closed her eyes and reached for the bond. She could feel the rage that had already reached it. It wasn’t even close to all of it, but maybe it would be enough. 

Jinsoul pulled on it, ignoring how started to burn her mind. The corner of her vision turned red. 

The heat left the air. 

The anger went straight to her heart, burning it. She tried to bring moonlight to it, but didn’t stop. She saw memories she already knew, but others she’d never seen before. There was a moment she recognised, but only from the other side, one where Jungeun had burned another’s skin and her own, blinded by grief and rage. She saw even more. Felt even more, going from pure anger to a scarily calm rage. 

There was a burst of fire in the world behind those memories. 

And then Jungeun was there in front of her. Jinsoul felt the burning start to subside. 

“Let me have it,” Jinsoul whispered, trying to blink away the other memories.

Jungeun was shaking her head. “You can’t.” Her eyes kept looking to the rest and Jinsoul saw the brief flash of orange and knew Jungeun was trying to fight from where they were. 

“That’s why,” Jinsoul said. “Just let me take what I can. You need to be able to fight.” She’d only be sending her back to the violence, but they needed Jungeun there. She couldn’t be incapacitated like this. Jinsoul could. 

Jungeun’s eyes were brighter than they had ever been. She could see her answer already.

“Please, Jungeun.” She reached for her hands, feeling how the skin stung to touch. She tightened her grip. “Let me take it.” She started to pull on the anger more. 

Jungeun was just looking at her. There were tears in her eyes from the anger. From the pain. 

Jinsoul had an idea of what that felt like. She would know more now. 

She closed her eyes and took even more. Fire filled her chest, stretching from there to the rest of her body and enveloping her mind. The rage seared into her thoughts, trying to drive them all away. It was close to agony, but she didn't scream.

“Hyunjin!” Jungeun’s voice was sharp, but not shaky.

Jinsoul only registered the tight squeeze of her hands before they were let go. 

She couldn’t see past the memories, each one tinged with scarlet. Every flash of what she saw held a scream, pain or both. Each held fire. 

The fire went through her entire body. She could feel it all across her arms. It was almost as if the anger had leaked into her blood. 

“Get up,” Hyunjin was saying, “please.”

Jinsoul let herself be pulled up. Moving hurt, but Hyunjin’s skin was cool. She kept hearing screams. Who was hurt? 

She felt something cold start to reach her head. She needed more. 

Jinsoul tried to see past the violence in her mind. 

“We have to go,” Hyunjin said, pulling her back. 

“No,” Jinsoul shook her head, “I can’t leave.” 

“You can’t take anymore.” 

There was a surge of light then. Jinsoul’s vision cleared only to see a wall of light. Seeing it helped. 

“I'm not going to take anymore," Jinsoul said. She was at her limit. Any more and she’d be completely overwhelmed by the anger. She reached out for the light and took it. The coolness to it nearly made her sob. 

She summoned a blade of moonlight and the water that hung in the air, made vapour by the fire. 

“You don’t have to protect me.” Jinsoul pulled herself from Hyunjin’s grasp and went back. She saw Jungeun fighting on the edge. The glow in her eyes was still there, but the flames were more controlled. Maybe they’d have time. 

Jinsoul saw someone going for Vivi's exposed flank and threw the water, sharpening it. It shot through their heart.

_____

Hyunjin leapt out of the way from a blast of lightning. She should’ve blocked it, but it was too late. 

She stumbled to her feet, lifting her blade before the next could come down on her. They were strong and she felt something dig into her shoulder. She grit her teeth and forced the shadows into them. 

The elf screamed, pure terror in her voice. 

Hyunjin slit and pushed her back. She lifted a wall of darkness when the next lightning bolt was sent her way. Alluin had gotten more lightning-wielders than he had fire. Had that been to stop Jungeun from getting more of an advantage? 

It hadn’t meant anything, not with how Jungeun was encircling those around her in flames. 

Hyunjin saw Jinsoul narrowly evade a bolt of rock. Another stone-wielder? 

She looked for Vivi only to see her fighting with Yeojin, two elves and three vampires surrounding them. 

Hyunjin threw a dagger past Jinsoul’s head. It landed in the shoulder of a fairy. He cried out. 

Jinsoul’s hand struck his chest and Hyunjin saw the tip of moonlight protrude from his back, covered in blood. 

She felt the darkness in the air surge again. It dug into her shadow, dragging her down. Hyunjin tried to fight it, but the grip was too strong. It was Alluin.

Then it slackened and Hyunjin forced herself back to her feet. 

She saw Alluin first, then Hyejoo. She was using a normal sword and she was evading his blows, but unsteady on her feet. 

Hyunjin summoned a blade of moonlight. 

Then something tackled into her side. She felt her ribs break. 

Fingers pressed into her side, crushing the skin and muscle there and she screamed, pushing her hand forward. She heard a sickening crunch, but the vampire didn’t move off of her. She tried to summon the darkness, feeling it come to her, but slower. 

And then dust fell on her. The pain in her side lessened, but was still so close to agony. 

Heejin was there. The dagger of light in her hands. 

The relief was overshadowed by the realisation that they were all here. The people she cared about most were all fighting. Except one who lay on the ground, lost. 

“We need to help Hyejoo,” Hyunjin said, pushing herself back up. Her side protesting any movement. She forced the darkness to cover it, numbing some of the pain. “I will. You need to go to Jinsoul.” She’d only felt some of the rage she’d taken in. If Alluin gave her more. If the emotional fae tried to give her or Jungeun more—

“Okay.” Heejin nodded. With one look her way and a small nod, she was going in the next moment. 

Hyunjin made her way to where Alluin was. She killed the two who tried to stop her. She didn’t know if they were fairies, elves, or even witches. She didn’t look back.

She reached for Alluin’s shadow now and tore it up through the ground. It flew out of her grasp almost immediately. 

Then Hyunjin felt fear pierce her mind. She tried to pull the darkness into it, but it didn’t help.

“Not her,” Alluin snarled. 

Hyunjin felt her own legs give out under her, pulled by her shadow. Something wrapped around her foot and she tried to kick it away. She didn't make any contact with anything. 

The fear left her mind. She saw then that her own shadow was around her leg, crawling up. Other parts of the darkness joined it.

She pushed it away and leapt to the side when the next blow came at her, this time from Alluin himself. 

She got to her feet and blocked the next blow, staggering under its weight. 

Hyejoo was clutching her leg, trying to get up. Her foot was at an odd angle. 

“You should’ve joined me,” Alluin hissed. 

Hyunjin felt something dig into her injured side and stumbled. She batted the shadows there away, but they went to her shoulder instead, pressing down. She could feel ice start to seep within her blood. 

“I would’ve you,” Hyunjin spat. She threw two sharp stakes of light, with a fraction of a second in between. One was destroyed and the other dug itself into his stomach. 

He let out a sharp cry. The blade shattered as well, but blood still seeped from the wound. 

Hyunjin felt the darkness surge then. Then something impaled itself in her own chest. She only heard Hyejoo scream as she fell back. 

She pulled it out and tried to stop the bleeding with the shadows. 

She watched as Hyejoo leapt at Alluin, blades within the shadows all launching themselves at him. Most were deflected. 

“Do it,” Alluin was shouting, “now!” He tossed Hyejoo to the side.

All Hyunjin saw was the next wave of darkness. It was tinged with red this time, coiling in the air, almost as though ropes were being forged from it. 

The anger made the heaviness in her chest worse. She tried to keep her eyes open, but the darkness was clouding her vision. It wasn’t taking her. It was only making her tired. 

And then the anger surged. Hyunjin gasped, feeling it twist in her chest. 

She heard shouting. Then a scream. It reached through the rest of the noise straight to her ears.

_____

Yerim saw the anger before she felt it. It was so much stronger than the last time. It was nothing she could reach out to, like smoke against the pale blue sky above.

It was red.

She tried to yell a warning, but no one heard it. She started running, trying to pull on it, but she couldn’t. 

She watched Jungeun’s anger moving to meet the rest. 

In the same moment, Yerim felt something else change. It was a feeling she knew well enough. It terrified her.

Jungeun turned, confusion appearing in her eyes, before they widened.

Yerim watched them fill with pain.

Jungeun let out a twisted whine, holding her hands to her head. 

”Stop.” She’d closed her eyes. “Stop!”

“More!” Alluin shouted.

There was another surge of heat in the air.

And then Jungeun was screaming. It pierced Yerim’s mind more than the anger had. 

There was fire, but it went into the sky. Yerim saw red seep into the darkness around them. The emotion was fusing with the shadows.

When she breathed in, she coughed on the smoke.

It burned to be near. The anger that went into the darkness was one she could control too. She drove darkness and earth into the elf’s heart.

When she looked to Jungeun, fire rippled in the air around her, appearing and disappearing.

Then the fire left the air completely. Something red was around her neck. Jungeun clawed at it, nails scraping at her own skin. 

Where was the fairy? This could only be the work of one.

She tried to look for the light they’d hold, for the anger that would come from them.

And then the bolt of lighting struck her side. Her body spasmed as she fell again.

She lifted the earth around her to block the next blow but it never came. Haseul was there, the blade of moonlight bloody.

Jungeun was still screaming. 

Behind her, Hyejoo was again facing Alluin, but he hadn’t used the darkness to swallow any of them. Instead he fought with a blade now.

And then Heejin called something out. She was running in the next moment. “Jinsoul, no!”

Yerim looked only to see Jinsoul evading the attacks of another. Heejin was running after her.

Jinsoul rammed a blade of water into the elf’s neck, before letting him drop. She was running to Jungeun in the next moment. Rage was already around her. It wasn’t all hers. More was going to her. Its path was the bond she shared with Jungeun. 

Yerim tried to get up, but her chest felt like it was tearing apart.

There was too much screaming. Jungeun’s voice was almost intelligible, but Yerim knew she was still telling them to go. The air was on fire.

Another fairy was trying to reach Jinsoul, the desire to kill already starting to curl around them. 

Yerim tore them away from her and drove that darkness deep into their heart. Their eyes filled with black in the next moment. Gone.

When she looked up, she saw the fire rip from Jungeun. She felt it all across her front and screamed, bringing up the dirt to smother the flames. She heard the screams of others.

When the dirt fell, she saw how many held their hands to where they’d been burned. It wasn’t just Alluin and his people. Jinsoul was already trying to get up, though the side of her clothes were on fire, the skin beneath red. Heejin was on the ground, gasping, as was Haseul. Hyejoo was smothering the fire that had caught on her arms. Fires raged in the forest. They stretched out several hundred metres all around them.

Jungeun was frozen where she stood. There was a body beside her, half of it burned—melted. 

There was a distant sound, almost a rumble. Yerim could feel something coming along the ground, but she didn’t know what. 

Jungeun’s eyes went between all of them, the anger warring with the terror now there. Horror was joining it. 

And then the fighting of the rest resumed. There were far less than before. Hyunjin hadn’t moved. Yerim realised she was bleeding. Hyejoo was trying again and again to get an opening with Alluin, but he batted her away the closer she got.

Others were standing on the side, eyes locked onto Jungeun. They looked scared. They weren’t attacking. 

The ripples in the earth were stronger now. Yerim nearly looked to see what it was, but she couldn’t. Not when Jungeun was like this. 

“Get back,” Jungeun hissed. She was looking at Jinsoul. Her skin was still lined by anger and fire, the edges of it travelling across her hands, now held there. “Don’t take anything else.” The words were ragged. Then the red beneath her skin surged. That on her face seemed to break through. Its glow ran even deeper than the light.

Jinsoul was getting to her feet, while the rest scrambled away. Her hands tensed at her side, almost as if she was holding something invisible. The ground around Jungeun glowed red like coal. The air seemed to shake around her, as if waiting to burst into flame again. 

Whatever was coming was closer now. 

The burns along Yerim’s chest stung, but they weren’t bad. She could still move. 

There, a voice said. We’ve only— There was a stab of pain in her mind. 

Yerim heard someone else yell out in pain. 

She looked for the source only to see a fairy stumbling over themselves, their hands to their neck. There was a wreath of grey around it. Another beside him had a knife in her back. She had blue hair streaked with silver. 

When she looked past them, she saw the fairy, eyes as red as Jungeun’s and full of hate. He’d been closer than she’d thought, shrouded by illusion. Now no longer. 

And then Yerim felt the trees bend under a force she’d rarely ever felt. 

Water shot through the air and ran across the ground. It came to Yerim’s waist. It was freezing. She was swept away with it, submerged for a second, before she forced a tree to catch her. For a moment, the forest seemed to be flooded. Everyone struggled to reach the surface again. 

Jinsoul was there, hands raised. The anger had almost completely surrounded her too. Yerim recognised Jungeun’s, Alluin’s, and Jinsoul’s within it. 

And then some of the water fell away, already flowing away.

Not all of it. 

Yerim watched the fairy be engulfed by water, dragged down into its currents almost immediately. 

Jinsoul’s eyes burned a vivid blue, her eyes filled with an anger Yerim had never seen in her before. She could feel how the shadows moved towards her. Eager.

She could see Alluin’s eyes drift to the spectacle. He was covered in water too, but had got up. Hyejoo landed a blow to the side of his head. 

“Jinsoul!” Jungeun’s voice was torn between a sob and a scream. “Stop!”

Jinsoul didn’t react.

Something was thrown in her way. It was engulfed in flames in the next moment, before going in the opposite direction.

An elf screamed as they tried to take out what’d embedded itself in their chest. They burned their hands while doing it. They fell like a stone in the next moment.

Jinsoul’s expression had twisted into something unfamiliar as she watched the water push the fairy down each time he tried to swim to the surface. 

And then something broke away from the water. It struck Jinsoul in the front. She stumbled back. Then shadows wrapped around her, pushing her down. Yerim felt how they started to go into her. 

The whirlpool collapsed, the fairy with it. He coughed, wheezing with each breath he tried to in.

Yerim lifted her hands. 

A branch wrapped around him. She made it toss him into a tree. He slid across the now muddy ground. He didn’t move. 

Jungeun was running to where Jinsoul lay. She slipped on the mud. Her eyes were still caught between the rage that’d been inflicted on her and worry. She'd stopped burning.

Yerim watched as some of those who’d been too afraid started to move. They’d been swept away by the water Jinsoul had brought. Had it been from the river? 

She forced the mud up in a wall, driving a stake of it into the one whose shadows were tinged with murder. 

Then she went to Jinsoul as well. She already started to pull away the shadows. 

Hyejoo had been joined by Jiwoo and Sooyoung. Alluin was dancing away from their blows. Two of his followers were there too, engaging with Jiwoo and Sooyoung. 

“Don’t,” Jinsoul’s voice was a rasp, “you don’t—” She coughed. Her hair was darkening at its roots, while the rest was caked with mud. Her eyes were open, looking between Yerim and Jungeun. "No more." 

Yerim took more. She wasn't sure if Jinsoul was talking to her or Jungeun.

Jungeun was holding her hands. They were bloody, but glowing now. 

Yerim could see how the light flowed towards Jinsoul. Some was destroyed by the darkness still there, but the rest stayed. 

She kept taking more of the darkness. Her head ached. 

“I can take some of it,” Jungeun said. The tendrils of darkness were already rising up her arms. The anger was going back through the bond and back to her. 

“No,” Jinsoul murmured, starting to get up.

“There’s too much,” Jungeun snapped. Her eyes were already dimming from the wildfire that’d been in her eyes before. 

“I’m taking it,” Yerim said. 

“You can’t take all of it,” Jungeun shook her her. “I can take the rest.” 

“No.” Jinsoul pushed her hands away, before wincing.

“Let me,” Jungeun whispered. 

“Go,” Jinsoul was looking at Yerim, but almost as if she wasn't seeing her fully, “help them.” 

She looked up only to see Sooyoung pinned down by one. They were clawing at her face. There was a blade of darkness lodged in Sooyoung’s leg. 

Yerim reached out and pulled it away, along with the shadows that had been there. The elf tried to grab for it, but Sooyoung’s arms reached forward. The elf’s head was wrenched to the side and there was a crack. She collapsed. 

Yerim didn’t want to, but she left both Jungeun and Jinsoul. She looked for any other presences in the forest, but didn’t find any save for the five who had still remained separate from the fight. Yeojin was facing one down, while Haseul and Vivi fought another, but Yerim ran past her. She just needed to hope she could handle them. 

There was something sent her way. Arrows? She didn’t see who had shot them.

They all sank into the ground in front of her. She hadn’t done anything. There was another nearby, no one she recognised. She looked at the arrows, her hand outstretched. Had she helped her?

Yerim kept running. 

To her left Heejin was dragging Hyunjin away from Alluin and the others. The others still left alive ignored them.

They were just watching, from the dead bodies of their own to where Jinsoul and Jungeun were. What if something happened now and Yerim had left them?

But she couldn’t sense anything from them except fear. 

Yerim ran to where Hyejoo was with Alluin. She went past Jiwoo who was evading the blows sent her way. Sooyoung would join her. 

She brought the trees down on him, made the ground swallow his legs down to his knees. 

Hyejoo struck him across the chest, her blade digging into his ribs. 

He roared.

Hyejoo screamed as the darkness was piercing her legs, opening the wounds that should have been healing. 

Yerim pulled them back. 

She felt something pull from the ground and pushed it down again. She ran off to the side, pulling the trees down even more. 

A branch sank into Alluin’s arm, but the rest were blocked by the darkness rising in a shield. 

Yerim threw more darkness, more mud formed into sharp sheets, and she tried to curve them around as much as she could. Anything he wouldn’t expect. 

Hyejoo was doing the same. She was trying to get up, but kept falling down or slipping on the mud.

Yerim brought the ground around Hyejoo up, before one of Alluin’s own projectiles could strike her. 

Then something caught on her foot, pulling her back as she tried to move again. Something twisted and she bit back a cry. Her shadow wrenched her back and she hit the mud. 

Fire was again cutting through the air then, but far more controlled.

She heard Alluin’s screams as they surrounded him. His hold on Yerim’s shadow was gone. 

And then Jungeun hissed. 

Yerim pushed herself up. 

Jungeun was gripping the darkness that had come around her neck and chest, trying to rip it off. 

Yerim tore it away, before she ran back towards Alluin. 

He’d broken from the ground, part of his shirt burnt away. A long dark blade appeared in his hands. 

Yerim took one from the mud and one from the shadows. She leapt at him, batting away the first blow and sending the other for his heart. A pillar from the shadows rose up to block it. 

She backed away before he could send his blade on her. Then she dove to the side when the next one came. 

The next impact was her face. She was knocked to the side, ear ringing. 

And then she heard something, followed by a sharp gasp. 

She looked up to see a gaping wound in his side, followed by light wrapping itself around his wrists. 

Alluin was shoved down. Haseul behind him, her own weapon covered in his dark blood. There was just as much anger in her eyes as there was fear. 

There was no pull on their shadows. Yerim watched for the others, if they’d make for an attack now. They didn’t move. 

“Want to take me prisoner?” Alluin coughed. A piece of darkness protruded from his chest then, through his lung just beside his heart. It was his own darkness. He closed his eyes. “I’ll never go.”

“What did you do do Chaewon?” Hyejoo had managed to get to her feet. “She had the darkness. She should’ve survived.” 

“She would have, if—” Alluin started, coughing again. “If she—she’d let me help.”

“You killed her,” Hyejoo hissed. She was holding her sword to his neck. “She’s gone.” Her voice broke. 

“I’m s-sorry,” Alluin said. He opened his eyes. Even compared to before, they were dim. Had they had light before like Hyejoo’s had? “I didn’t,” he took a deep breath, “I didn’t want you to–to be alone as well.”

The blade slid across his throat then and blood seeped from the wound. Hyejoo drew it back and sank it into his heart. 

They watched as all light left his eyes. 

A sob left Hyejoo then. She’d moved away from his body, holding her hands to her face. 

Jiwoo was beside her then, her arm and temple were bleeding the most, but she was alive. 

Hyejoo sank into her side, shaking. 

Sooyoung was there too. She reached for Hyejoo’s hand. Hyejoo took it, holding it tightly. 

Haseul still stood, black blood still dripping from her axe.

Heejin was to the side, beside Hyunjin. She was on the ground. 

Yerim went over. Walking hurt. No one from Alluin’s people left alive had moved from where they were. They didn’t even look like they were waiting for anything. They looked like they’d given up. 

Heejin was bleeding from too many places to count, but alive. Her eyes were teary. Hyunjin’s eyes were closed, but she was breathing. 

Yerim closed her eyes. She was able to look through to her path. It was there.

“She’ll be okay,” Yerim said. “I know she will.” 

Heejin nodded. “The darkness didn’t take her,” her voice trembled, “not like—“ Her eyes drifted off to the side. 

Yerim knelt down beside Hyunjin and pulled some of the shadows over her chest. It hurt her  head. She drew the healing rune. No pain.

“You’re hurt too,” Heejin said. “Let me do—“ 

“The others will need you more,” Yerim replied. “And we don’t know if there’s anyone else out there.”

“Anyone else?” Heejin repeated. She looked around.

Yerim did as well. 

This part of the forest was half flooded and half charred. There was ash and blood in the water. Some of it had collected around the bodies there too, all of them soaked completely by the water Jinsoul had brought. 

Jinsoul. 

Yerim went straight to the two of them. 

Jungeun’s hands were over Jinsoul’s heart. She was still taking back the anger. Darkness came with it. Jinsoul was unconscious. 

“Stop,” Yerim pushed her hands away, “both of you take the anger in too easily.”

“There’s too much there,” Jungeun was shaking, “it’s too much.” Her eyes were bright red, the fire swirling in them still. 

Yerim looked again, only to see that while bright, there was still a part of Jinsoul’s path that wavered. 

She started to take in more darkness. Anything that she could draw on. 

She could see that Jungeun was still taking what she could. It flowed through the bond too. 

Jinsoul’s path was slowly starting to brighten. 

“Thank you,” Jungeun said quietly, voice still shaky. Hoarse too. 

Yerim looked at her. “For what?” She had to do what she was doing now. She wouldn't—

“Stopping her—us,” Jungeun looked to the side, “from killing him.” 

She saw the emotional fae, still unconscious. Jungeun’s screams were still fresh in her mind. So were Jinsoul’s. What if one of them had been driven mad? 

What if Jinsoul had been lost now?

Yerim pushed it from her mind. She took more from the darkness. 

“Give her your light,” Yerim said. It works better, she thought. Jungeun needed to know about the bond by now, but Yerim wouldn’t say it aloud. Not now. 

She looked to where the others were. Vivi was speaking in a hushed voice with another. One of Alluin’s people. They spoke fae and Sooyoung was watching, both confusion and some sort of relief there. There were two others talking to Haseul. She'd managed to look stable, but Yerim could still see her fear. One of the people she spoke to was tending to a fairy with a wound in her back. She had blue and grey hair. An emotional fairy. Another one, but there were no emotions going from her. None that Yerim could feel. That meant no anger. 

Yerim looked away from her. Yeojin was talking to the rest. She was nursing her arm, but other than a cut here or there, she looked alright. Her voice was calm and her expression kind. The others looked confused, as if expecting something worse. 

Yerim couldn’t see a path that stretched towards the camp. They all seemed to go in different directions, none ending in more violence. At least for now. 

She wondered how much she was supposed to believe that. Yes, they weren’t attacking now but they had before.

The thought struck her like a slap then. How many had they killed? How many had she killed?

And how many hadn’t truly wanted to be here? How many had been like those they’d sent away earlier? How many had been like Hanna and not Maven? 

“Yerim.” A still warm hand went over hers. “Just for a little while longer,” Jungeun said. “Until we know we’re all,” her gaze faltered, “safe.”

Yerim realised then Jungeun was looking at the burns. Her clothes and skin were muddied, but the charred edges were clear. There were burns on the side of Jinsoul’s face too. 

“I—“ Jungeun started. Her eyes were swimming with guilt and something else that was familiar. Yerim hated seeing it. 

“Don’t.” She looked to the emotional fairy’s limp form. “It was him.” She tried to ignore the urge she had to wake him. She didn’t even know what she’d do. She didn’t want to know. 

Jinsoul’s path was stable again. Yerim still listened for her heart. It was pounding quickly, but not faintly. That was a good sign. 

Yerim had Jungeun give her some more light. It would be enough. Even if the shadows had reached Jinsoul’s hair, they had left her skin. 

It had to be enough. 

_____

Hyejoo couldn’t be near Alluin’s corpse for any longer. The grief she felt for his death paired with the relief that he was finally gone and the guilt that she’d killed him. 

She couldn’t stand looking at him any longer.

With Sooyoung and Jiwoo on either side, she managed to stand. The pain in her legs was back and she didn’t want to numb it. It didn’t matter if the two practically carried her away. They were safe. 

She turned them around and her eyes immediately went to a body among the rest. 

Everything that had happened before she’d fallen unconscious was back, relived in moments rather than minutes. She saw the moment again when Chaewon’s eyes had stopped seeing. When the blade had struck her. 

Not a body, she thought. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t gone. 

Sooyoung drew in a sharp breath. Hyejoo could feel her grief return full force. She’d only shoved it down. They both had. 

“I couldn’t protect her,” Hyejoo said. “I’m sorry.”

“You couldn’t have changed it,” Sooyoung said. They were slowly going over to her. Would the mud have gotten into her wound? Would it get infected? 

Hyejoo found herself wishing she’d see that mixture of annoyance and humour flash in Chaewon's eyes again, along with a chastising remark on how they should’ve just put something over the wound. 

“He wanted me to join him,” Hyejoo muttered. “Before it all happened. He asked us both.” She grit her teeth. “She would be alive—awake if we’d gone along with it.” It might’ve even bought them time. 

“You don’t know if he would’ve let her live,” Jiwoo was shaking her head, “he wanted all those who’d betrayed him—who’d betrayed you—gone.” 

That included them. Hyejoo tried to ignore how that would have torn her apart. They were all here. 

“Not her,” Hyejoo started, her eyes burning again, “he wouldn’t have—” Then they were right beside her. Chaewon was still staring up at the trees, part of her face covered in mud. Hyejoo would have fallen had the other two not been there to catch her, but they faltered too. 

All three of them sank down beside her. Hyejoo reached out and wiped away the water and dirt on her face. Chaewon didn’t even flinch. 

The pain in the centre of her chest was there. It was as if a part of the bond had been torn out of her. She could feel its absence almost as much as she could her grief. 

“Chae,” Hyejoo took her hand, “can you hear me?” 

Chaewon didn’t move. 

“Wake up,” she said, squeezing her hand tightly. “Give her light.” She looked to the other two. They didn’t look at her as if she was being delusional. 

Jiwoo’s hands started to glow. That had to mean something that she was trying. Didn’t it?

“Over her heart.” Her own voice cracked. “I’ll keep it clear.” She wrenched the darkness away, leaving only what was Chaewon’s. It hurt to try. 

Her heart was beating only faintly. 

“Wake up,” Hyejoo whispered, “wake up.” 

The light flowed into Chaewon. The edges of it were almost immediately destroyed. 

She didn’t even stir. Her heartbeat didn’t strengthen. The light that was still there didn’t even move. There was less than there had been before. Had it left her or been destroyed?

“More.” Hyejoo took away the darkness in her head, slowly siphoning it away. Each surge of the darkness cut at something in her. It was coloured by grief and rage. 

Sooyoung’s hand came next. It trembled. 

“You’re not gone,” Hyejoo whispered, “you’re coming back.” 

A burst of light went through. It was followed by several pulses more of it. Did Sooyoung even have that much still? 

“Not too much,” Hyejoo told her. “Alternate.” 

Sooyoung gave one last bit of light before Jiwoo came back. 

It went on. Hyejoo didn’t see who else was there, but she knew the others were there. 

She just took more darkness. 

“Please,” she told her, “wake up. We’ll—I—” she broke off. Something had closed around . “Just wake up.” She pulled on more. 

“Hyejoo,” Yerim was at her side, “you’re taking too much.” 

“I’m not,” she hissed. “This doesn’t hurt me.” 

“Yes it does,” she gripped her shoulder, “just like it hurt her.” She tried to pull her back. “She doesn’t have a path.” 

“Don’t say that,” Jiwoo shot back. “Paths change. We know that.” Her eyes started to glow more. They flickered. 

“Jiwoo stop.” It was Heejin. She pulled her away. 

“Let go!” Jiwoo thrashed around. “Get off of me.” 

Heejin didn’t.

“Sooyoung.” Haseul’s voice. “You know what this is.” She was crying. "I'm sorry, but—”

“Stop,” Sooyoung‘s voice was thick, “this’s different.” There was a long moment where it sounded like she couldn’t speak at all. “It’s,” she stammered, “Hyejoo?” 

She tore her eyes away from Chaewon’s motionless form. She met a desperate gaze. 

“Is this different?” Sooyoung asked. There were flickers of hope. She needed it to be different. 

Hyejoo felt cold. She could feel the dull presence that was Chaewon, but the light she’d taken wasn’t staying with her. It was fading. Chaewon’s own magic wasn’t letting it stay. It was fighting it, trying to drive it away from her. 

But that meant she was still there. It had to. 

“I don’t know.” Hyejoo shook her head. “But it has to be.” She looked to Yerim, hating how there wasn’t even a trace of hope there. “Her path will change.” 

She started to take the darkness Chaewon still had. 

“Hyejoo,” Haseul was at her side, “you know this isn’t like what she had.” She made her look up. The look in her eyes was firm, but Hyejoo could see every single crack. It was what Alluin had done to her. “It’s not even what he did, but what he gave her was corrupted.” The actual words still hung in the air.

She’s gone. 

"It's my fault," Haseul's voice broke, "blame me. Don't keep doing this because you think you failed her. You didn't. I did." 

Hyejoo looked down. She could still see something, even if broken. As she traced her fingers along it, the rest was visible. It led to the ground. 

No. It led to Chaewon, winding around her heart as well. Another was thinly connected to her head. 

"It wasn't your fault." Hyejoo shook her head. “And she isn’t gone.” She took more of the darkness. There was a flare of pain. She grit her teeth. 

Someone wrenched her back.

Hyejoo tried to pull away. Then another set of arms took hold of her. 

“Let go of me!” she shouted. 

“Stop,” Yerim said in her ear. “You’re not going to save her by killing yourself.” 

Hyejoo tried to force herself out, but Yerim was using a strength she hadn’t expected. “It’s not killing me. It can’t.” 

“Light almost killed me,” she hissed. “This could kill you.” 

“It’s killing her!” Hyejoo screamed. 

Yerim’s grip fell slack. 

Hyejoo tore herself from her arms. She went to her side again. 

Chaewon’s skin was still cold. There were lines of darkness all across her face, flowing into her eyes. Into her mind. 

“Chae,” Hyejoo whispered, “we need you to wake up.” She didn’t take any more. “Please”

Chaewon didn’t respond. Of course she didn’t. 

She could barely hear her breathing. 

But she was still there. Hyejoo knew that well enough. If they were bound, then that was what was now tied around her heart. It had to be. 

What could she do to help her now? There had to be a way to get her back. 

“You can’t take anymore,” Jiwoo said slowly. She looked like she'd given up too much. Or was that from the fight?

“I know that,” she retorted. She looked down at her hands, then back to Chaewon. The light wasn’t helping. Not really. 

“Wait,” Yerim started then, her brow furrowed, “give her some of your own magic.” 

Hyejoo looked up. “Alluin’s darkness is more like mine than hers is.” She shook her head. “I might hurt her—”

“No,” she shook her head, “you’re bound. It could help her more than any other magic can.” 

“But the light—” What if she destroyed it?

“This could be her last chance,” Yerim said sharply, before her voice softened. “So try.”

Hyejoo started to give her her own darkness. It went to where it was supposed to. It didn’t war with the rest. 

It felt strange. It hurt. 

But there was also a sense of something else. Something lighter. 

Hyejoo kept giving her what she had. She drew on the shadows to replace what she was giving away. 

Chaewon didn’t stir then either. Hyejoo tried to look for something else, some other sign that she was getting better. There had to be. 

Hyejoo gave more, focusing it on Chaewon’s heart. None of the light that was still there shied away. It wasn’t destroyed either. It didn’t move at all. Would pushing the light through the bond help?

That alone filled her mind with memories from before, when they’d first talked, when Chaewon had given her a weapon of her own light, when they’d truly started to join the others. She remembered Chaewon’s smile, something she’d missed more than she’d ever thought. 

She remembered Chaewon shaking her head, telling her not to intervene. 

She saw in her mind again what had happened after that. 

“You can’t be gone,” Hyejoo whispered. “You can’t.” 

“Hyejoo,” Yerim started. 

“Stop.” She shook her head. “I can feel the bond. She’s still here.” 

“You’ve already given her so much,” Hyunjin said. She was weak on her feet, but standing still. She was cradling her chest. It was a small wonder Jinsoul hadn’t forced her to lie down already. 

Where was she?

Hyejoo looked up only to see her a few metres away in Jungeun’s arms. She was alive, but unconscious. The darkness was still there. It wasn’t the kind that would hurt, but it shouldn’t have been there. 

Jinsoul’s hair had also darkened from its pale gold to a dark grey.

What had happened? 

“It’s day,” Haseul was now on Chaewon’s other side, “you’re already weaker and she won’t get any light from the moon now either. If you want to save her, you’ll wait and let yourself regain your strength.” Her eyes were firm, but Hyejoo could still see the edges of weakness there. Normally, she would’ve been able to hide that. “I’m not telling you to give up,” Haseul said. “I’m telling you to rest.” 

“And if she goes even further?” 

“Her emotions are still her own,” a new voice said. “They’re still working as you’d want.” The fairy’s eyes were a dark blue and so was her hair, but with streaks of grey. Etera. The other emotional fae.

“And her thoughts are there, perhaps only in memory now, but they are hers.” It was Kijung. The mental fae. 

“You stayed?” Hyejoo asked. “You fought?” They had had barely a sliver of murder between either of them. Had they still tried to fight them? 

“I heard you in my mind,” Yerim said. “What were you doing?” Then her eyes flicked to Etera. 

“The fire elf,” Etera began, “was supposed to be our target.” She looked to the other one, still unconscious. “But it was too much.” She looked somewhere else. Where Jinsoul was. “We went too far.” 

“It was both of you.” Yerim’s eyes had narrowed and Hyejoo could feel the desire to get her revenge. She nearly reached out to her to stop any thoughts she’d have. 

“At first.” Etera nodded, her eyes turning an even darker blue. “And then there was so much pain, for both of them. It would’ve meant so much agony for all of you.” 

“You hadn’t known that before?” Yerim asked. Her voice was cold. So unlike what it should have been. 

Etera nodded. The shame was apparent in her eyes. “I hadn’t known you. Not truly.” She looked between all of them. “And then I’d seen how all of you felt for all the rest. That there was so little hate in you, even for him. Until,” she trailed off. Her eyes fell to Chaewon. She was close enough that they could see threads of black in the fairy’s eyes. The colour of grief. “I should have never let it come as far as it had.” 

“But you did.” 

“And then I tried to stop him.” She shook her head. “Lydel knew.” 

Yerim’s eyes went to the fairy’s shoulder then. 

“Why would you turn on him?” Hyejoo asked. “You know better than any of us his pain.” 

“I know that none of you caused it,” Etera said. “And that you,” she held Hyejoo’s gaze, “wouldn’t have wanted them dead for what they did.” 

Hyejoo would’ve looked away before, hoping that what Etera had said wasn’t true. Now she knew it was. She was relieved that it was. 

“And you think she’ll live?” Hyejoo looked to Chaewon. She didn’t take anymore, but she did reach for her hand. Her skin was cold. Colder even then Hyejoo’s. 

“There is still hope,” Etera replied. 

That told her nothing. Hyejoo almost said just that, but she didn’t want to snap. Not now. 

Instead she stood, ignoring how her legs started to buckle under her and how they all looked at her. She wished she could say something—anything that would bring some comfort to the pain in Jiwoo and Sooyoung’s eyes. 

Hyejoo turned away from Chaewon’s body and to where Jinsoul was. Jungeun was sat by her side, her emotions so clear in her face. Guilt and worry were the most prominent. Like the rest, dirt and blood covered her skin. Her hair was matted with it too, but her eyes still glowed so brightly. Abnormally so, still strengthened by anger. 

She managed to walk over. She summoned a length of darkness to support her. It didn’t matter how weak she looked now. The pain was just below unbearable. It didn’t matter. 

“She’ll be alright,” Hyejoo said slowly. She tried to ignore the burns she could see across Jinsoul’s skin here and there. 

Jungeun looked up. The look in her eyes was almost painful to see. Hyejoo nearly regretted walking over, but she needed to. 

“I can take more.”

“You took enough from Chaewon,” Jungeun said. “Yerim said she’ll be fine. You said it too.” 

“But you still don’t think so?”

“I,” Jungeun started. Then she shook her head. “She’ll be fine.” 

“Jungeun.” Hyejoo sat beside her, almost welcoming the cold of the mud even if it was partially dried. “You can tell me.” 

Jungeun was shivering. “It’s cold,” her hand was at her chest, “is she cold?” Her other hand was wrapped around Jinsoul’s. 

Hyejoo waited. 

“It hurts,” Jungeun said. “It’s so cold, I can feel—“ She faltered. “It's more than before and I–I can’t feel something, here,” she waved to the space in front of her, “can she feel that—not feel it?” 

“Yes,” Hyejoo nodded, “for so long I hadn’t felt the bond, until I’d come back. Then I felt all of it.” 

Jungeun was looking at her, the confusion clear in her eyes. 

“You can feel her pain like it’s yours,” she said. “And I can take what I can, but you need to give her light.” 

Jungeun only nodded. 

Hyejoo put a hand to the wound on Jinsoul’s side, feeling the darkness that was still there. She pulled. It came so much more easily than the darkness in Chaewon. It was like the shadows. 

She nodded once. 

The light started to flow into Jinsoul. It was almost a wonder Jungeun had enough. 

Then again, her weapons weren’t always light. 

“What about—” She already looked like she felt guilty for not asking sooner.

“We’re waiting for night,” Hyejoo said. “When the moon’s out again.” 

Jungeun nodded once. Her other hand went to her shoulder. “But you can still,” she hesitated, “feel her?”

Hyejoo nodded. A part of her felt relieved that Jungeun wasn’t looking at her with grief in her eyes. Among the anger there was pain, guilt, but also hope. Not much, but something. 

At least she believed in it. 

She looked to the side. The others who’d stopped fighting were on the ground, slowly sinking down into it. Yeojin watched them. She still looked so strong, as though the battle hadn’t drained her completely. 

Then she saw him again. His body. 

She looked down to see the black blood already dried on her hands. His. 

“I killed him,” Hyejoo whispered. 

Jungeun looked up. She didn’t say anything. No you had to or don’t blame yourself. 

“I just wanted him gone,” she said. “Shouldn’t I have—”

“Knocked him out?” Jungeun lifted a brow. “What would’ve happened when he woke up?” She didn’t continue that line of thought. She didn’t need to. 

There was nothing to interrogate him about. He wouldn’t have known how to save Chaewon, not when he’d put her there after they’d denied his offer. There was no one else they were trying to fin. 

“What about the spirits?” Hyejoo asked. “He was the reason for them.”

“Do you think he would’ve taken the darkness away?” Her voice was steadier now. 

Hyejoo just shook her head. 

“I know he apologised,” Jungeun said. “I believed him.” She barked out a laugh. “Wanted us all dead, but I believed him.” 

“He said he could mend the bond.” Hyejoo looked at the fragments. It was so much fainter than it had been before. Still in countless pieces, but the parts that had been silver before were a dull grey, almost black now. “He would’ve spared her.” Then she shook her head. “But still tried to kill the rest of you.” 

“How would he have done that?” Jungeun asked. “Do you know?” 

“He said—” Hyejoo closed her eyes, trying to remember. The memories of Chaewon before still tried to take over, both before her banishment and after. It hurt to push them away, but she had to. 

You’re not meant to have the light. 

“He said the bond broke when our magic was different,” Hyejoo said. “He was going to try and change her?” 

Jungeun frowned. “How?”

She shook her head. “She didn’t believe it,” she said, remembering the hurt she’d felt then, “I–I don’t think she wanted it.” 

“But it was her magic?” It was Vivi. She was limping. “He wanted to change hers, not yours?”

“He wouldn’t have been able to give me light,” Hyejoo said. “And he wouldn’t have wanted to either.” 

Vivi looked back to where Chaewon lay. Jiwoo and Sooyoung hadn’t left her side. 

“But she has light,” Vivi muttered then in fae. They could still understand it. “Why wasn’t it destroyed?” 

Destroying the light doesn’t kill. 

Hyejoo stared at Vivi. What was she trying to say? Was she even saying anything?

“What does it do to you?” Vivi asked then. “When you,” she trailed off. 

When you kill someone, Hyejoo finished in her head. The darkness came when you wanted to kill, it surged towards you when you did. For most the magic itself was hardly as noticeable as the scars it left on the mind. Not all. 

Torrin, the vampire, Serana, and then Shaerra. The first two were deliberate. 

Hyejoo got up then. Vivi caught her before she could fall again. She tried to push down the tears that came as the pain returned even stronger. 

“I don’t know if this will work,” Vivi said softly. “I don’t want—”

“We have to try,” Hyejoo said. “I can’t—I,” she gently pulled away from Vivi, “I can’t lose her.” She sank to her knees and went over to Chaewon again. She was still barely breathing. She was still staring into nothing. 

Hyejoo reached out for the darkness around her heart. She pushed it to the side, letting the light that was there gather. 

“What’re you doing?” Yerim asked. 

“Take the light back.” Hyejoo tried to see where the light that was only Chaewon’s was. She could feel it. “Take everything you gave her.” 

Sooyoung looked at her, bewildered. Then her skin started to glow. 

Hyejoo watched the light leave Chaewon. The others took it back too. 

All that was left was the light that could calm or numb. It was still threaded with grey. Chaewon’s. 

Hyejoo reached for it. 

“Wait,” Jiwoo was staring at the space between her and Chaewon. “What are you trying to do?” 

“What he was going to do,” Hyejoo said. “To spare her.”

I didn't want you to be alone as well. 

She took the light. It burned to the touch. She pulled it through the bond. It didn't burn when she did that.

“Don’t,” Hyunjin was moving, but too slowly, “I can take it.” 

Hyejoo shook her head. Someone’s own light could only be given or destroyed by shadow. It couldn’t be moved like this and she wouldn’t destroy it while Chaewon still held it. 

She tried to make her own shadows envelope it. 

“Let me take it,” Jiwoo was saying, “it could hurt you.”

It was hurting her. It burned, but it took away some of the pain. She felt a warmth even through the heat. She could see her own face smiling back at her, eyes still filled with light. She also saw how it had left them. She saw how she had looked in the cage, burnt by the light. 

Hyejoo felt something leave her then. The light stayed. 

And then she heard something. It almost sounded like a sigh. 

There was a heartbeat, slowly growing in strength. 

She heard someone else saying something, but she couldn’t hear it. 

Something was burning in the centre of her chest. 

It shot up to her eyes and she felt blinded. She squeezed them shut. Were her eyes burning from the inside?

“Hyejoo?” Jiwoo’s voice, quickly filling with worry. 

And then all else around her was gone. This time with the darkness, she saw streaks of grey, white, and pale green. 

_____

Author's Note

It has been quite a while since I've updated anything. Life got very busy these past few months and if you saw on Twitter, I was making a bit of progress here and there, but overall very little. I'm finally not as busy and it took a while to get back to writing this. Especially a chapter like this one specifically as the to the story (can't believe we got here finally), which broke my heart several times and had me nearly ripping my hair out.

This was probably one of the hardest chapters I've ever had to write in terms of my emotions, my motivation, and the story itself. Bringing all twelve together in this way and having it (hopefully) make sense was so difficult and I'm still not sure if I managed it. I'm happy with how this turned out, sort of, but I really hope it wasn't an absolute mess to read structurally (story-wise that's another matter). I didn't quite touch upon all of them as much as I might've wanted to, but that's what the aftermath is for. That's what's coming in the chapter (or more) after this and I hope you'll be looking forward to those. 

I've really missed writing and chatting/discussing with you in the comments! Do let me know what you think and, like the chapter before, you may definitely scream at me. If you felt any of the feelings I did while writing, I'm really sorry. 

Really hope you've all been doing well! Thank you for still reading this story in spite of the wait. I'll try to make sure the next chapter comes sooner. 

See you all next chapter!

Twitter: @hblake44

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