Twenty

The smell was worse than it’d ever been. Jungeun’s eyes burned with tears. Everywhere she looked, she saw ruin. All of it because of her. 

Flames still at their corpses. She extinguished them all. 

Jungeun vomited. She slipped on the ground. Her hands sank into ash. 

She retched, each breath in between filled her senses with the death around her. 

It was so quiet. It’d been so loud before. She almost missed the sounds. Their absence meant it was over. 

And she was left with this. 

She heard shouts in the distance. “She’s here!” 

Jungeun kept her eyes on the ground. The ground was black and grey. She didn’t look to where it was red. 

“Hey,” it was Reyna, “you did it.” Hands went to her arms, before moving away immediately, followed by a small hiss of pain. 

The words sounded wrong. So wrong. 

Jungeun looked up. She saw that Reyna was smiling. It was exactly the one she loved seeing. It should’ve been reassuring. 

It made her feel sick instead. 

She pushed her away. She saw the hurt in Reyna's eyes. She ignored it. 

“Are you hurt?” Pollux asked. He was looking around at what she’d done. 

Jungeun was starting to feel the stab wound in her back. Her leg had been torn into as well. The pain was still faint. 

“Jungeun?” It was her father. He was Daran to everyone else, the closest thing they had to some sort of general. He was at her side in the next moment. “Are you alright?” 

The laugh that left her was shrill. “Alright?” she repeated. “I’m alive.” She looked to her side and immediately regretted it. Someone lay with their eyes open, jaw slack. Her blade had sunk deep into their back. She felt another wave of nausea. She moved away from them and bent over. 

“We should get you out of here.” His hand slowly went to her arm. 

Jungeun backed away. “I’ll burn you.” Her skin was still covered in the heat of the flames. She'd already burned Reyna. 

He stayed where he was. Jungeun didn’t know how to read that look. 

“We have to leave before they come,” Reyna said. 

And then they’d see their dead. Centuries of life ended in less than an hour. They'd know exactly who'd done it too. What if she let them find her? 

Jungeun coughed. Her eyes burned even more. “What did you mean I did it?” 

They all looked at her, the confusion clear on her faces. 

“This’s what you wanted?” She saw another corpse turned unrecognisable by the flames. “What I’ve been training for?” The next one made her want to throw up again. 

“They lost their chance at life,” her father said slowly. “No one died unfairly.” 

“They begged me to stop,” Jungeun snapped. “They begged me to spare them and I did that.” She pointed to the one whose skin was entirely marred. “They watched me kill the others and some tried to run.” She looked to the one whose body still held her sword. “I dragged them back.” 

“This isn’t the first time you’ve killed,” Pollux said slowly. “This isn’t even the second—“ 

“I slaughtered them!” Jungeun screamed. “You told me not to let anyone live and I gave you that. You told me to fight for my life, but I didn’t have to. It was easy.” She wanted to summon her fire again. She wanted to engulf something with it. 

“Jungeun,” her father came closer, slowly, “breathe.” He was looking from her arms to her eyes. 

She looked down only to see her arms were coated in fire. 

She absorbed them. 

Then arms went around her, pulling her close, ignoring the heat from her skin. 

Jungeun sank into them. 

“It’s okay,” her father said. “You’ve fought them. It’s finished now.” 

She broke down then. Her father’s arms tightened around her as she sobbed. 

______

Life felt different in the mountains. It was colder, for one, and each breath felt like it was a chore to take in. For Jungeun, it was easy to start shivering. She also wasn't wearing what she usually did. She couldn't fight with it. 

Other than the cold, Jungeun loved it. The world seemed changed by the height, stretching out far below her. Instead of being dwarfed by stone and great swathes of trees, Jungeun just felt peace. 

It was quiet here, the only sounds being faint echoed voices and the wind. The sound of the air drowned out most other things here. There was a river in the distance too. She’d finally washed away the blood too. It’d stained her clothes, breaking through the enchantments they cast to keep them clean, but she was free of it. 

It was exactly what Jungeun needed after today. She wished she could spend all her time out here. 

But she needed to get back, as much as she didn’t want to. 

They’d been offered to stay with the Warsa, but that was a risk in and of itself. They’d just stayed long enough to eat something. There were a few people there that Jungeun couldn’t risk seeing her. 

And Reyna wasn’t quite universally liked there either. 

They were just two now. Reyna was setting up the tent and Jungeun had spotted a spirit pair. 

Both trailed behind her now. A yellow turtle and a blue fish. They weren’t quite in an aquatic area, but there was a large lake nearby. 

Then again, she wasn’t quite as sure if turtles lingered in those areas as well. She didn’t know much at all about flora and fauna. 

“It’s still weird seeing you like that,” Reyna smiled when she saw her, “a good weird.” 

The turtle was gone, but the fish still floated in the air beside her. The ‘water’ around it was a pale blue. 

“I’ll start with the runes,” Jungeun said. 

Reyna nodded, a hint of hurt flickered in her expression. There was still one or two more things Reyna had been sent out for. She'd asked Jungeun to join her. It was still hard to say no to her. 

It was quiet again. Jungeun brushed aside the guilt she felt then and got started on the runes. The magic for that didn’t hurt. The fish had gone now as well. 

“Since when do you heal people?” 

She should’ve known this question would come. 

“Today,” Jungeun admitted. She could still feel that ache in her mind. That wasn’t supposed to happen with magic. At least not with someone who’d used magic for as long as immortals usually did. 

“Did something happen?” 

Jungeun frowned and looked up. “What do you mean?”

“You never wait for injuries to get healed, let alone heal them yourself.” She chuckled. “We almost let someone bleed out because we were in a rush.” 

Right, that’d happened too. “It’s a mistake I keep making. And the infections that come after are always nasty.”

“You went after a coven with a nice infection on your arm.” 

Jungeun nodded. “And I felt terrible before, during, and after.” 

Reyna’s brow rose. “But you always forced yourself through that.” Her eyes went over Jungeun’s frame. “You did that today too.” She was talking about broken ribs and the gash along her side. 

Jungeun just shrugged. 

“Hey,” she walked over, “don’t act like this’s nothing, because it isn't.”

“I’m not.” Jungeun finished with the runes. 

Reyna was looking at her, expectant. She wanted an answer to that first question. 

“We had time,” Jungeun said. “And I didn’t need them resenting us the whole way back and after too.” 

She raised a brow. “Really? So the Astra got you to see that?” 

She frowned then. “I mean if we had time with the rest, I’d have let them get healed.”

Reyna gave her a look. “But you never would’ve done the healing, let alone for an entire group.” 

“And?” Jungeun went over to the tent and lit the fire. She sat down, lifting her hands to her head. It was pounding. She’d really done too much. 

It’d need practice to stop that pain, but she wasn’t planning on devoting that time to it. She didn’t need a pain like this. She wondered if healing magic felt like that in the beginning. Maybe there was a reason for it. 

Reyna knelt down in front of her, holding her gaze. “Eun, I saw you use that spell once in a year, if even that.” 

“Don’t make this more than it was.” She shook her head. “I helped them in two ways. That’s all.” 

Reyna put a hand on her knee. “It’s a little more than that.” 

Jungeun looked at her. “Reyna,” she started. 

“I know,” she nodded, “but this—you.” She smiled. “That was incredible.”

Jungeun chuckled. “You should see how the rest do it.” She thought of how Nuala had the capacity to work day and night. She thought of Jinsoul and how she’d merged the two types of magic. She was on her way to combining it with the light too. 

“You just started,” Reyna countered. “Not exactly a fair comparison.” 

“I’m just doing that if there’s no healer.” 

Her brow furrowed. 

“I’m not learning another magic,” Jungeun told her. “And if we’d have actually been at risk tonight, me healing them would’ve just been temporary. It drains me too.” She didn’t say that that was exactly what she’d wanted today. “But,” she patted her hand, “it’ll be good to start taking healers with you. Might be hard to get them to accept that, but it’ll help.” 

“Or more of us try learning it,” Reyna said. “Show me the rune I should make?” She pointed at Jungeun’s side. 

Jungeun frowned. “Really?”

She nodded. “Have to start somewhere.”

Jungeun traced the rune lightly in the ground, letting moonlight seep into the grooves. She held back the magic that wanted to use that rune. 

“You look different,” Reyna started to make it, “I think your hair actually glows now.” 

“Might just be because I’m using the light,” she replied, letting out a small sigh as the magic settled into her ribs. The spell didn’t compare to other healers, just like Jungeun’s had been sub-par, but it worked. “Don’t use it too much.” She took her hand, stopping it from drawing the rune again. “It’ll hurt more than my ribs do.” 

She looked away from Reyna and let go of her hand.

“You should cover that too.” She was looking at the cut on Jungeun. 

“We don’t have any bandages.” Jungeun grabbed a waterskin and drank. 

Reyna gave her a look. “You can summon a cloth from light. Use that here too.” 

So Jungeun did. She tried to ignore how Reyna watched her. The silence wasn’t as comfortable as before. It felt as if it was waiting for something. 

“I know I say this every time,” Reyna said softly, “but I missed you.” 

There it was. Jungeun focused on placing the moonlight over the gash. It was smooth, made by a sword of metal instead of earth or ice. She counted herself lucky for that. 

“How’s the new Astran?” 

Jungeun almost asked her how she knew that, but the news had probably travelled quickly. Despite the Astra trying their best to remain separate, many elves still knew a lot about them. “She wouldn’t want to hear you calling her that.” 

“She’s Arcsan, isn’t she?” 

She just nodded. “She learned a lot. Haseul’s been training her.” 

Reyna looked up at that name. “Haseul's got time for that?” There was an edge to her voice, one Jungeun didn’t take long to decipher.

“She made time.” 

Something in her expression faltered. “Impressive.” 

Jungeun couldn’t ignore the guilt then. There'd been a time when she'd been jealous of Haseul. That'd been before Jungeun had actually started feeling at home with the Astra. Things had changed even more after that. 

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, but it wasn’t comfortable either. 

She turned her attention back to the mountains behind them. Even though it was cold, even though the air was so much thinner here, she’d learned how to better live with it. The moonlight helped and having her magic heat her skin made everything a lot more bearable. She wouldn’t weaken that fast either. Still, if it got a lot worse, she'd probably get sick. 

Jungeun could still feel Reyna’s eyes on her. The last time Jungeun had visited, they hadn’t had a falling out at all, but things were still strained. 

“Hey,” Jungeun met her eyes, “how are you?” 

“Good.” Reyna nodded, a small smile on her face. “Thought today’d go a lot worse than it did.” Her gaze turned thoughtful. “I knew they’d send someone, but they didn’t tell me it’d be you.” Her smile grew. 

Jungeun wasn’t sure whether to keep looking or look away. “You fared a lot better than me,” she chuckled, “I think I’m losing my touch.” Then she glanced at the periphery of their little camp. “The runes will all be fine for spirits, but I’m not sure about the rest. Do you think we’ll need a watch?” 

Reyna bit her lip. “You’ll probably have an easier time there, won’t you?” She glanced up at the night sky. “This’s your element, isn’t it?” 

Jungeun could only nod. She wished Reyna could just tell her she was tired and they’d leave it at that. She didn’t want to sleep tonight. Her dreams were too vivid right after a fight. 

And even though Reyna knew enough about them, she’d barely seen it happen. 

Then lips met hers and two hands gently cradled her face. 

Jungeun kissed her back. Reyna still tasted like lemons. She'd missed that. If this was what she could have for the next weeks, she wouldn't regret agreeing to help Reyna. 

The ache in her mind faded. 

Reyna pulled away. “I missed you.” 

Jungeun laughed. “You already said that.” She put her hands lightly on her waist. 

“I always mean it.” She moved in again. 

Jungeun let herself focus only on Reyna. It was easy. Familiar. It let her not need to think about today. 

And it was a reason for her not to sleep tonight. 

______

Weeks passed and Jinsoul was slowly growing used to the schedules of the other Astra. She kept training with Haseul, going on patrol with Sooyoung and the rest, while having meals with the entire group. 

“You healed dolphins?” Chaewon frowned at her. “Dolphins?”

Jinsoul gave her a look. “Those’re incredible creatures and we can learn to speak with them.” 

Sooyoung raised a brow. “So you’ve got friends?” she asked. “That’re dolphins.”

“Whales and fish too?” Hyejoo laughed.

Jinsoul nodded. 

Her eyes widened. “I was joking.” 

“And I’m serious!” Jinsoul said. “They make great company.” 

All of them were looking at her as if she’d grown tentacles for a head. That'd happened to her once. 

“So if you get fed up with us,” Haseul was fighting a smile, “you’ll complain to the fish and the dolphins?”

“There’re no dolphins nearby,” Jinsoul replied. “And what makes you think I haven’t already told them about you?”

Chaewon squinted at her. “You tell them our real names too?” 

“Names have no meaning for them.” 

“Right,” Hyejoo nodded, “that makes a lot of sense.” 

Jinsoul took hold of the water in Hyejoo’s waterskin and tossed it at her face. 

She screeched, before launching herself over the fire, tackling her. 

Jinsoul lost almost immediately and threw up her hands. “I surrender!” 

Hyejoo smirked. “You just don’t want a broken nose.” She got off her. 

Jinsoul pulled the water off of Hyejoo and into a ball. Then she put it back into the waterskin. 

“Is it very different to the light?” Yeojin asked. “Controlling that.”

Jinsoul shrugged. “It’s a hard comparison if it’s like moving one of my arms.” She looked between them. “Isn’t it like that for you with the light?” 

Yeojin nodded. “But does it feel different? Like how the light feels warm, you're manipulating something that’s not just coming from the moon, or yourself, but outside of it.” A pause. “Or is it a part of you?”

She was taken aback by the question. She hadn’t really talked much with Yeojin and she’d always thought the girl was more interested in the politics of the elves than their magic. 

“Both,” Jinsoul said. “Most of the time, it feels almost as if I’m submerged in water again. That’s when I’m the strongest.” 

“The worst place to fight Jungeun is a volcano,” Sooyoung said then. “She can’t control it, but the heat of it makes her stronger.” 

Jinsoul looked at her. There was something about the way she said it, as if she wanted to make a point. 

“You know she’s done what we did with the vampires,” Sooyoung trailed off, her gaze distant. Then it refocused. “Probably since she was in her second decade, maybe a bit earlier.”

Not just vampires. “Why’re you telling me that?” Jinsoul asked. “I know how long she’s been fighting. I know what she’s done. I know what it’s cost.” 

Immediately, there was a shift. Jinsoul regretted being a part of it, but Sooyoung had brought it up as well. Why she’d done that, Jinsoul wasn’t sure. 

Right now at least, she’d just fixed Jinsoul with an unreadable gaze. That in itself was almost a challenge, as if encouraging her to say something against Jungeun. 

“Not just to the people she killed,” Sooyoung said pointedly. “Do you know what it cost her?” 

“Years of guilt,” Jinsoul said. “And she’s accepted what it’s cost. She accepts the pain people will want to bring on her, but she’s not ready to die. Knowing the details of what she’s done,” she frowned, “I don’t know what that’s supposed to change about that.”

They all looked at her. Jinsoul knew exactly that what she’d said hadn’t been what they’d wanted to hear. Maybe not the wrong thing, but definitely not the right one either. 

She braced herself for the moment the silence would be broken. 

It came sooner than she’d thought. 

“You know what,” Haseul sighed, “she’s going to hate it when she finds out, but I need to say it.” She fixed Jinsoul with an apologetic, but irritated look. 

“I’m being unfair,” Jinsoul said. She forced herself to hold her gaze. 

“At least she’s aware,” Sooyoung muttered. 

“All of you’ve made it obvious you think I’m being unreasonable,” she sighed, “but you can’t expect me to see her the way you do. She’s your friend. I knew people who saw her as the enemy.” 

“But what has she been to you?” Haseul leaned forward. “She’s tried to help you avoid every pitfall she’d gone through. And that isn’t even counting the fact that you have it easier than she did.” 

Jinsoul couldn’t say anything to that. 

“And yes,” Haseul grimaced, “I know she made it harder for herself. I know she made the choice to keep doing what she was doing. I know she’s done terrible things.” Her eyes hardened. “And I also know we’re all biased. I know we’re all someone’s ally, and we’re all someone else’s enemy.” She didn’t look away from Jinsoul. “And in an ideal world, we should know the difference.”

“I’m not treating her like my enemy.” 

Sooyoung snorted. “Just because you healed her, doesn’t mean you don’t hate her.”

Jinsoul whipped her head around to look at her. “I could’ve gone ahead and never seen her again,” she shot back, “I could’ve told her the names of everyone I’d either healed or watched die.” 

Her expression softened. “She already remembers their faces.”

“It’s not about remembering.” Jinsoul couldn’t bring herself to hold her gaze. “It’s,” she faltered. She barely knew how to finish that. 

“What else do you expect her to do?” Chaewon asked. “She can’t apologise to their family, she can’t tell them the reasons why, so what’s she supposed to do?” 

“You don’t keep killing.”

“As if it’s that easy,” Haseul muttered. “You really have no—“ she stopped. 

“What?” Jinsoul raised her brow. 

“It’s not my place to say.”

“Right,” Jinsoul nodded, “just how it’s not my place to judge someone for the violence they caused.” 

Sooyoung’s expression soured. As did a few others. Jiwoo looked sad. 

“That’s not fair either,” Jinsoul fought a scowl, “I’ve listened to her. I’ve tried to understand and all I’m seeing is that Jungeun's the only one who sees both sides of this.” She met Jiwoo’s eyes then. The one who’d told her to try. “And all I really learned is that she’s ready to die the moment someone’s strong enough to kill her.” Just saying it aloud sounded morbid. Wrong.  

She didn’t miss how they flinched. Some of the fight in their eyes faded too. They knew that too. 

“I don’t hate her,” she sent a pointed look Sooyoung’s way, “but I’m never going to just ignore what she’s done.”

“We’re not—”

“Have you ever wanted revenge for a loved one’s death?” Jinsoul asked. 

Immediately, several people reacted. Hyejoo took Chaewon’s hand, the latter’s eyes having fallen to the ground, while Sooyoung’s jaw tightened. Haseul continued to hold her gaze, but there was an admission there. 

“And did you get it?” 

“What’s your point?” Chaewon asked, an edge to her voice. 

“For how many people is Jungeun the one they want for their revenge?” Jinsoul remembered how that elf had tried to attack Jungeun, despite probably knowing the fire elf was much stronger than she was. 

You humiliated us. 

“I don’t think a lot of people could fault you for avenging someone else,” Jinsoul continued. “Just like few on the other side will fault others for hating Jungeun, thinking she’s just a monster, because none of them, including me, know her like you do. You see the things she’s done differently.” She shook her head. “But you can’t tell me to do the same, not when I don’t know her like you do and not when I know some of the people she's hurt a lot more than I do any of you.” 

The rest were quiet. Jinsoul looked back at the fire. The colours there reminded her of that same person. 

“And what happens when you know her more?” Jiwoo asked. “You have to know some people who’ve killed people. Did you acknowledge those things too?” Her brow rose. “Look past them, or just accept them?”

“I accepted that they’d happened,” Jinsoul said. “But that never meant I accepted the acts themselves.” 

“This’s going nowhere.” Sooyoung pushed herself to her feet. She gave Jinsoul another unreadable look. “I don’t care what you think about her. I just don’t want you rubbing it in her face, reminding her that she can’t change what she’s done.” She turned away, but not before muttering, “she already does that enough.” 

______

“What’d they offer you?” Jungeun asked, taking a long drink from the cask. It was a mixture of a sweet wine and something else. They’d warmed it for her, adding a bit of chocolate to the rim. She couldn’t help but feel content. 

Reyna and her had returned to a celebration. They’d been congratulated for three contracts they'd fulfilled, but mostly the rescue of the fairies. Jungeun had been dragged away by some old friends to help them orchestrate some explosions in the sky. After the feast, she’d been sent to the pavilion right in the centre of the clearing. This’d been one of their more permanent settlements. They usually left it for a few years if they’d angered a particularly vengeful group, but they could come back to it. 

This current stay had been for more than fifty years now. 

Jungeun was slowly getting into the comfort of it all. And now they were talking about more political matters. Nothing she really liked. 

“Nothing concrete at the time,” Pollux said. “But we ended up agreeing that they’d send some mentals and emotionals.”

She nodded once, before taking another sip. “Are things bad again?” She braced herself for news of another minor war brewing. 

Her mother shook her head. “They just accumulated,” Thea said. 

Jungeun nodded again. Fear had accumulated in their people again. Mostly their warriors. The emotional fairies could help with that. The terrors just got worse, building into breakdowns if they were confronted with a vampire, fire, or even a storm. The fairies didn’t take those fears away completely, because there was apparently a rule against that. They could push the fear further into someone’s emotions, burying it. If Jungeun had understood it right, they could lock the emotions away. 

“What about the mentals?” Jungeun asked. 

“We had a bad run-in,” Pollux grimaced, “we’ve got three we put to sleep.” 

Meaning, they couldn’t even handle being awake. There weren’t many, but some mental fae took too much pleasure in messing around with the mind. They could drive someone completely mad within a second if they weren’t fighting it. What’d probably happened here is that the fairies had flooded their minds with past fears. 

Jungeun had gone through that a few times now. She’d been put to sleep once. 

Sometimes the damage was irreversible. Jungeun just hoped that wasn’t the case here. 

“Do we know when they’re coming?” Reyna leaned forward slightly. She glanced her way. 

Jungeun stiffened. Even with the weeks spent together, Reyna hadn't addressed this once. Now she was getting a little too close to it. 

“A week,” Thea replied. “They’re taking responsibility for what happened. They don’t know how long they’ll have to negotiate.” 

Jungeun frowned. “They won’t know it was us?” She’d left her mark on the rest. She wasn’t the only one with fire magic, but she was the first person a lot thought of when they saw the burns. 

“Oh they’ll know,” Itsumi said. “But it wasn’t our fault the fairies got overpowered.” 

Again, she just nodded. She still didn’t understand how the fae managed their relations. They had trials that usually ended with banishment instead of imprisonment or executions. Mental and emotional fae were employed, while the rest debated the merit of that person’s life. 

Sometimes, Jungeun suspected it might’ve been the fairer way of handling things, but the idea still terrified her. She didn’t think it was right to subject people to that sort of scrutiny. 

Then again, the elves’ idea of justice tended to lean to just pushing someone deep into the mountain settlements, or killing them. Jungeun’s people leaned more towards that. The Astra usually did that, but primarily with vampires. 

Jungeun pushed the thoughts from her mind. As always, the more she thought about it, the more complicated it became. That was the kind of thing Haseul was good at making sense of. Said elf had tried to tell Jungeun the differences, and why the various groups stuck to their types of justice. 

She’d ended up stopping her in favour of cooking dinner. 

“How long’re you staying?” Reyna asked suddenly. It wasn't just going to be so they'd have more time together. They'd already had that. 

Jungeun tried to stamp down her irritation at that. It didn’t work. “I’m not.”

Everyone looked surprised except her mother. She was grateful she’d not expected that. That also meant her father hadn’t either. 

“Did you have another job?” Pollux frowned. 

Jungeun shook her head. “I just have to get back,” she said. “Got goods I owe.” 

“But you,” Reyna started. 

She cut her off. “If you thought I’d stay long enough for them to come, you were wrong.” 

She winced. 

Jungeun regretted what she’d said, but not enough to take it back. 

“But after that fight,” Pollux said, “didn’t the emotionals help you?” 

Reyna had told him about it. She wondered who else had heard the details. 

“Only thing I got was a little burst of energy,” Jungeun told him. “That’s all I need from one of them.” She pushed to her feet. “I need to go,” she said. “Before the weather actually gets bad.” She’d already felt the cold strengthen on the way back. 

“You’re not sleeping again.” Reyna stood with her. Hurt flickered across her gaze with the words. "They can help you with the dreams." 

“They’re not getting in my head,” Jungeun said sharply. 

“You can’t just leave now.” Pollux was looking to her mother. As if that’d make a difference. 

“She can,” Tea said, holding his gaze. “It’s not her work she’s getting repaid for.” She stood and walked over to her. “Let’s see your father before you leave.” She held the door for her. 

Jungeun almost laughed at the shift. She said a quick farewell to the rest, looking away the second she met Reyna’s gaze. 

Then they were out of there. It was just the early evening, but people were already looking tired. Jungeun still thought it was strange when she was back here. She’d be alert when few others were and more comfortable in the dark than any of them. 

“You already said some of it, but how is the new Astran really?” Her mother squeezed her arm.

Jungeun was relieved they weren’t talking about what’d just happened. Her mother could read a room better than she ever could. She was always grateful when Thea also avoided those same subjects. At least until it became necessary to address it. She still had some time until then. 

Still, she felt guilty for brushing the others off. She knew it was meant well, but she’d grown tired of telling them the same things. She didn’t need the fairies. 

“She’s fitting in a lot better than I did,” Jungeun said. “I still don’t know what she’s gonna do there.” 

“You really think she’ll go back to healing?” 

She shrugged. “There’s a reason she stuck with it.” And it wasn’t like mine, she added silently. Jinsoul had found what she did best, as well as what she loved to do. Then she’d stuck to it. 

“Does she respect the Astra enough to want to help them?” Thea peered down at her. “Or is she the type to start resenting them?” 

“I think she already does,” Jungeun chuckled, “but I’m hoping that got a little less now.” 

Her mother smiled slightly. “Is that why this visit is shorter?” 

“Maybe,” she said. “She’s hard to read.” That felt like an understatement. She’d avoided saying a few things, opting instead to just tell people that Jinsoul was finding her place. There wasn’t a need to keep confidential about it, not when the news had spread this fast. 

But Jungeun was confident Jinsoul would hate every piece of information that seeped into the ears of others. Luckily, people didn’t eavesdrop here as much as they did among the Astra. Most were too intoxicated to care. 

They were just in front of her parents' home now. It was relatively big compared to the rest, but had a sloped ceiling that took away from the space. Jungeun hadn’t spent much time in it. It usually felt too cramped with three people. 

“And what’s she like with you?” Thea asked. 

Jungeun didn’t respond immediately. That question was almost too targeted. 

“I think I knew more about this Jinsoul than you did,” she continued. “She probably didn’t take it very well when she realised you were the other Astra like her.” 

Jungeun pushed the door open. “She wouldn’t want you to compare us much,” she said. “I’ll leave it at that.” She went to retrieve her things. Her father was sharpening her axe. “You don’t need to do that.” She took it from him, before gathering up the dagger and the sword. They’d also been sharpened, cleaned, and the hilts had been replaced. 

Daran huffed out a laugh. “You’ve been using it the most,” he said. “And the body needs replacing. It’s charred.”

She just shook her head. “I just have to get Yeri to renew the enchantment.” She shouldered the knapsack, before retrieving the bag of goods she'd be getting to Yeri. 

“What set you off?” her father asked, glancing once at Thea. 

Jungeun grimaced. “The fairies.”

His mouth pressed into a line then. He nodded. 

Jungeun felt a twinge of guilt. He’d also have been for her staying. 

“But you’re alright?” Thea asked. “Reyna said you started healing?” 

Jungeun sighed. “I didn’t start anything. One of the fairies said draining my magic would help, so I did that.” She hugged her mother. 

When she pulled away and turned to her father, he was holding a slip of curled paper. It was practically translucent. Sent by a witch. 

“You don’t have to take it,” he said. “But they wanted you to see it first.” 

Jungeun almost told him to pass it to Reyna. Then her curiosity gets the best of her. 

She’s a little underwhelmed when she sees what they’re sending her after. 

“They’ll come here when it’s done,” Daran explained. “They’ll want to see you after.”

Jungeun raised a brow. “Poorly planned assassination?” 

“We asked about them,” Thea said. “You haven’t gotten anyone they know, or even the people they’ve already worked with.” 

It was rare, but that happened too. Jungeun was almost thankful. 

“Then they’ve heard of me?” Jungeun suggested. “Or they’ll try to do something heroic for our world.” 

Thea’s mouth turned downwards. “They won’t.” 

Jungeun didn’t tell her that she’d met a few like that, hoping to get themselves into a fairy or elf’s good graces. They treated it like there was a bounty on her head. 

“I’ll do it,” she said instead. “We’ll see what happens.” She pocketed the message. It’d be such an easy thing. Maybe they didn’t even want it to be a challenge. “But I’m meeting them two towns over.” 

“Alone?” It didn’t take much to see the protests forming in her father’s head. 

“We’ll see,” Jungeun told him. Probably, she said in her head. 

She bid her parents goodbye, before quickly leaving the camp. As much as she loved some of the others there, it’d gotten a lot easier to leave. 

______

“Alone again?” 

Jinsoul looked up to see Sooyoung raising a brow. 

“You too?” It was weird seeing her without at least Jiwoo or Chaewon. She also felt slightly intimidated. Sooyoung hadn’t been very different with her since that last ‘discussion’ about the fire elf, but she hadn’t been very welcoming either. 

“I met someone in town.” Sooyoung sat down. “The others went for a hunt.” 

“Met someone?” 

She smiled slightly. “For the start of the night.” 

Jinsoul cringed. “I didn’t need to know that.” 

“You asked!” Sooyoung laughed. “Come on, you’re old enough for that.” 

Jinsoul threw a ball of moonlight at her. 

It hovered in the air just in front of her face. Sooyoung grinned. “You’re getting better.” 

“Thanks to Haseul,” she said. “She makes it all sound so easy.” She thought of their most recent training session. It'd been like normal. Haseul wasn't resentful either. “And then it is.”

She nodded. “She’s good at that too.” 

“But how?” Jinsoul asked. “It’s different than how we learn our natural magic. It’s a different kind of intuition. How’d she figure it out?” 

“She taught Yeojin and some others,” Sooyoung shrugged, “and then learned a lot while teaching Jungeun.” 

“Does she have to take on so much?” 

She shook her head. “Look at me, I don’t do half the things she does, but I’m older.” 

Jinsoul looked for the flicker of guilt or shame, but she never saw it. There was only respect for the person they were talking about. 

Why would Haseul be the one to take on those responsibilities? She didn’t do those things in full view of everyone. Half the time Jinsoul barely knew where she was going until a few days after. The elders didn’t seem to celebrate it much, but they tended to pull her into a lot of discussions at the same time. 

Jinsoul wasn’t sure if she was crossing the line with her next question. “Did you want to be an elder?” 

“I was born into it.” 

“And that means you have to become one?” 

“Haseul’s one of those people who wants this, and actually does it well,” Sooyoung replied. “And sometimes someone who doesn’t want it can do their job well.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s not often, but that happens too.” 

Jinsoul nodded.

Sooyoung peered over at her. “Did you want to be a healer?” 

She took the time to think about her reply. She had the time for it. Sooyoung also didn’t seem the type to hold something like that over her head. “I was both those people,” she said. “When it started, when I realised how I could help, I loved it.” 

“And then you realised it was a life-long duty.” 

“I didn’t mind that,” Jinsoul admitted. “Just like we sometimes have to realise we live extremely long lives, I knew I’d have to heal someone at least once every week, most of the time every day.” She leaned back, glancing up at the sky once. The river of stars could be seen just above them. “But I didn’t want to be the one who couldn’t save someone.” 

“You didn’t want to fail,” Sooyoung said. 

Jinsoul nearly said she was wrong, but she’d had that discussion before. She'd ended up losing it too. For years, she'd been torn between blaming herself and letting herself be free of blame. Neither reaction was the right one. “I didn't," she nodded, "and explaining how an immortal dies is like trying to describe how light has a shadow.” She thought of how many times she’d seen that now. “Because it exists, it happens, but it always sounds impossible.” 

She just nodded. The understanding there made her realise that Sooyoung knew this better than she thought. Either through personal loss or having to be the one to say those words too. Or both. 

Jinsoul didn’t ask. She knew Sooyoung wouldn’t tell her. She also knew that Sooyoung had been one of the people to avenge a loved one. 

“Did that change?” Sooyoung asked. “Did you go back to wanting to keep doing it?” 

“I think always wanted to,” Jinsoul said. “But the worst days made me stop for a few years.” She ignored the faint flickers of pain. “And then I went back to it.” 

The other elf was looking into the fire. “Let me guess, you don’t want to go back to it now, but you think you will.” 

“I know I will,” Jinsoul admitted. “But not yet.” 

“Then don’t,” she said. “Nuala didn’t have to be a healer. She had to be an elder, but she chose to be responsible for every single person here.” A pause. “But later, after she’d fought for us, and after she’d spent a few years learning from the mortals. Old medicine, but she kept one or two things.” 

Jinsoul was almost relieved to hear that. The Astra were still like most in that they dismissed less ‘severe’ things, either colds or infection. But at least Nuala had had the experience of treating those things seriously, if not fully, then at least she’d seen it. Some people got detached from that. 

“Do they know why you were in town,” Jinsoul started, “Jiwoo and the other two?"

Sooyoung looked at her for a long moment. “Yeah, why?” She sounded a bit defensive. 

“Just asking,” she raised her hands, “someone I knew always made excuses. They were making rounds through the mortal villages.” She grimaced just thinking about it. “Imagine my surprise when I went to an inn and I heard the end of it.” 

“Were they someone you knew?” Sooyoung asked. “Or,” she trailed off. 

Jinsoul laughed. “One time, but after what I heard, never again.” 

She was smiling, but her mind was somewhere else. “You wanna ask me about something, right?” 

“Am I easy to read?”

Sooyoung smirked. “Yes.” 

She held her gaze. “Is there something going on between you and Jiwoo?” 

Her eyes closed off. 

Jinsoul didn’t need to know any more than that. “You don’t have to tell—“ 

“It’s complicated,” Sooyoung cut her off. “I don’t even get it.” The mask thawed and doubt showed through. 

“On whose side?” she asked, wondering why she’d actually tell her the truth. 

“Both.” She pulled her knees up to her chest.  

And their group was still so close knit. Jiwoo and Sooyoung seemed to be in agreement most of they time. Sooyoung listened to Jiwoo as much as the latter did to her. Even in the midst of a fight, one of them usually ended up looking out for the other. 

“I’m guessing you never talked about it.” 

Sooyoung scoffed. “What do you think?” 

“You never got close to it,” Jinsoul replied. She decided then she’d leave it at that. 

She winced, before nodding once. “I guess I’m easy to read then too.” 

Jinsoul was torn between asking her what the real reason was, but with how Sooyoung was staring at the ground, she probably didn’t want to keep talking about it. If she was completely honest, Jinsoul didn’t want to either. 

“You know," Sooyoung said, drawing out the word, "Jiwoo was a lot more accepting when Jungeun came."

And now they were going back to that. Jinsoul didn’t hide her sigh. 

 “I still feel like when I think about it, but,” she chuckled, “you probably know what my view of her was, huh?”

Jinsoul just nodded. 

“The whole elder thing,” Sooyoung was looking at the sky now, “it got me into a lot of meetings in the world, to trials too.” Then she smiled and met Jinsoul’s eyes. “By the way, I’m telling you this, because I’ve seen actual monsters. They don’t listen to the people they’ve wronged, let alone try to spare their lives. They don’t mourn the people they’ve had to kill, just because they tried their luck on her again.” The smile faded. “And even the people who aren’t evil, the ones I had to negotiate with, or people in this camp.” She glanced at the trees, her voice dropping slightly in volume. “I haven’t seen someone hang onto their mistakes as much as she does.”

“I don’t think that’s a good thing,” Jinsoul said. She thought of the times she’d seen that pained expression on Jungeun’s face. “I think it’s one of the reasons she ends up liking the people who try to kill her more than she does herself.” She had no idea if that was the right way to say that or not. 

“You think she hates herself?” she asked. “I thought that too. We all did at some point.” 

So what changed? Jinsoul didn’t ask that. In the back of her mind, she was torn between thinking that Sooyoung’s view of Jungeun might’ve been different to hers, but she wasn’t sure if that was true either. The others were so defensive of Jungeun, maybe because they still felt ashamed of how they’d acted before? Maybe because now they thought they’d come to the ‘right conclusion’. 

“There’re definitely days where she does,” Sooyoung said. “But I think it was worse in the beginning.” Once again, her expression grew sour. “I’ll never say this around her, because she’d kill me, but her people are a few prayers away from being zealots.”

“How so?” She knew they gave the sky more sentience than others, while also attributing fate to certain aspects of the world, including the stars, as well as parts of nature. Even though it was frightening, Jinsoul had seen that the seers were reliable with most of their warnings and predictions. 

“Well,” her dark red eyes bore into the ground, “they’re not that bad, but a few of them are only now seeing that not every prediction they get has to be a guarantee.” She sighed, before shaking head. 

“We’ll leave it at that?” Jinsoul asked. Haseul, Sooyoung, and Jiwoo seemed to have a lot to say about Jungeun. They usually ended up saying a lot in the beginning, before realising they’d given too much away. Then they started feeling guilty for revealing too much about her. 

That in itself said a lot. They respected Jungeun and they’d accepted her completely as one of their own, but there was still a fair amount they either disagreed with, or just felt bad for. They knew Jungeun wasn’t in the best of places now and that a lot of it had to do with her past. They just let themselves put more value in the present than they did the future. 

And they still wanted Jinsoul to do the same. 

______

Author's Note 

Jungeun and Jinsoul's stories will come together again soon. I'd planned for it to be in this chapter, but there were a few other things I needed to devote some more time to. I also wanted to give you a bit of a better idea of Jungeun's people before the Astra. It's definitely not complete, but it's a 'snippet'. 

I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! Sometimes I brush over certain passages of time, mostly because I'm still trying to keep this story at an acceptable length, but also because those bits of the story aren't actually relevant to the main plot. 

Jinsoul's character has turned out to be harder to write at certain parts, mostly because I both agree with her and don't in some other areas. Jungeun's is a mixed bag, because a lot of the time I can write her more easily than others, but there are some moments where her mindset is extremely difficult to pinpoint. 

Regardless, I'd love to know your thoughts! I wish you happy holidays if you celebrate and hope you're healthy! 

See you next chapter.