The spell wore off by the time they reached the town. Unsurprisingly, it hadn’t exactly made it wear off faster. 

Jinsoul remained silent as Jungeun spoke to the different people about the person who’d been attacked. Rather than charming, she seemed purely kind. She stayed vague, but reassured that there’d be a search of the surroundings for the person responsible. 

It was damage control, ensuring that the humans wouldn’t questioning why someone who’d been hurt had suddenly recovered. 

 Jinsoul could already feel the sense of wrong in the air. She knew it came from the edges of the town. 

And then they were going there. The feeling grew. Was this what she’d now feel because of the new magic? 

“He’ll live,” Jungeun muttered. It didn’t sound as if she was talking to Jinsoul. 

She walked directly to a very small house. It was more of a shack. 

Jungeun knocked. “I can help with what happened,” she called softly. 

Silence. Jinsoul could hear two people in the house. One’s breath was hurried, scared. The other’s seemed frustrated. They came to the door. 

“What do you want for it?” Their voice was harsh. 

“Nothing.” Jungeun looked straight at the door, but her expression was already gentle. 

Another long pause. 

The door opened a fraction. “No one does anything for nothing.” The woman was relatively tall, her face lined with worry. It didn’t match her aggressive tone. 

“I don’t lose anything helping you.” 

It seemed like the exactly wrong thing to say. 

But the woman only scoffed and opened the door further. 

“How can a deer do this?” she asked, her voice now shaky. “He’s freezing. He’s not—not,” her tougher facade faded, “he cried in his sleep.” 

“It’s a poison,” Jungeun told her. “And I’ll make it go away.” 

“He keeps talking about its eyes. They were red?” 

Jinsoul saw Jungeun flinch, but the woman hadn’t. 

“It was glowing,” the woman muttered. “Is that possible?”

“Yes,” Jungeun said. 

“And you can help?”

She nodded. 

“Then do it,” the woman said. “Please.” 

Jungeun immediately went to the far side of the room. The sense of unease was strongest there. It almost felt like evil. If that was a feeling. 

Jinsoul still followed. It smelled of stew. She spotted an untouched bowl of food on the ground. It also smelled of raw meat. She saw a slab of it on a tiny table. As well as the skin of whatever animal it had once been. 

“Who’re you?” The woman was almost in her way, completely unaware that Jinsoul was so much stronger than she was. Her focus was only on protecting the one who’d been attacked. 

“No one important,” Jinsoul said. “She’s the one helping.” 

The woman nodded.

Jungeun was kneeling beside a boy. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty. He was pale and shivering. Jinsoul could feel the tears still welling up in his eyes. 

She looked closer and saw the darkness. It was focused on his leg, but it looked as if a part of it was drifting upwards. It had reached his abdomen. 

“He’ll be alright,” Jungeun said, pulling away the blanket. Even that movement was full with care. 

The leg had been wrapped in cloth. When Jungeun took it away, there was no cut. The skin was dark grey. That colour was crawling up. It was in his blood, but it didn’t flow along with it. 

Jinsoul was suddenly amazed that the human hadn’t been in hysterics. Seeing something so unnatural should’ve been something to completely terrify.

They watched as Jungeun’s skin began to glow. Jinsoul watched her put a hand to the boy’s leg. The darkness there shrank away. 

And then it snapped towards Jungeun’s hand. Black soundless trailed up her arm. Jungeun had winced. 

Several minutes passed. The woman kept asking questions as Jungeun quietly reassured her. 

Colour returned to the boy’s face. His heart rate has evened our, as had his breathing. 

Jungeun’s heartbeat had quickened, but her breathing was slow. Controlled.

Then she pulled her hands away. She looked tired, but that faded too. Hidden away. 

“Why isn’t he waking up?” The woman moved closer, eyes half full of awe, half full of worry. “Isn’t he—“

“He needs rest,” Jinsoul told her. “His body was fighting the poison the moment it got it. His mind was working against whatever nightmare he had.” She tried to make herself sound as reassuring as Jungeun had. “He’s just exhausted.” 

The woman nodded. Then she looked back to the boy. He had to be her son, or a younger brother. Jinsoul couldn’t quite tell. 

“He’ll never go into the forest again,” she murmured. 

“He will,” Jungeun said. She smiled slightly, but this time, Jinsoul saw the strain behind it. “Someone else may come here in the next days. They’ll make sure you’re both alright.” 

A fairy to wipe both their memories. Was that fair? 

Wrong question, she thought. Of course it wasn’t fair. It also wasn’t fair that humans were mortal, while they weren’t. It wasn’t fair that the majority had no magic, or that they healed so much slower. An elf could be stabbed in the stomach and survive with a spell, but it took a human a genuine miracle to survive. And even then, they didn’t live long after. 

Jinsoul always wished she could do more for the mortals, but she’d never been allowed to do much. Everything to hide their existence m. Everything she was allowed to do was hidden beneath layers of bandages and ointments, or done while the mortal was unconscious. 

But even then, Jinsoul’s elders had stopped her from helping people she could’ve easily saved. 

“We can go,” Jungeun whispered then, breaking Jinsoul from her thoughts. 

Even though the strange feeling had faded, she was glad to leave. 

“Thank you,” the woman said. 

Jinsoul watched several emotions try to form in Jungeun’s eyes. There was something closed off, something pained, and then a subdued kindness. 

“Don’t thank me,” she finally said. “Just keep safe. For the next weeks, don’t go into the forest alone. Not even the two of you.”

Then she left. Abruptly.

Jinsoul smiled at the woman once, before she made to leave as well. 

“Did she forget that?” 

She looked to where the woman was pointing. A small brown pouch lay where Jungeun had sat. 

She picked it up, surprised at its weight. Inside were several pieces of bronze, iron and copper. It was nothing less than a fortune 

Jinsoul nearly said yes, but something stopped her. Jungeun had been genuinely worried for the boy. 

“This is yours,” she gave it to her, “stay safe.” She left before the woman could see what was in there. 

But she still heard her call after them. She made sure the door closed. 

Jungeun was waiting, looking down at her hands. Then she put them down, the furrow in her brow smoothing away. 

“I think that’s enough time with civilisation,” she said. “We can either camp or try looking for spirits.” She started walking quickly. 

“You can do that after that?” Jinsoul waved at the house. 

“I still have enough. And I’ll get more.” She nodded to the sky. “It works very fast.” 

“Did you leave that money?” 

“He was out hunting.” Jungeun fidgeted with the knife at her waist. The axe and sword had been hidden by a spell. 

“How’d you know that?”

“They call that poaching here. He was out at night, scared of being caught. They like that. It’s like a beacon for them.” She shrugged. She didn’t explain how she’d known. 

But Jinsoul remembered the stew, as well as the bloodied animal remains. 

The money was meant to keep them out of the forest. To let them buy from the actual venders. 

They walked on in silence. Jinsoul didn’t ask her anything else. Jungeun didn’t fill the silence either. 

_____

Hunting for the spirits ended up being relatively easy. Jungeun had left it to Jinsoul to track them, a not so subtle way of making her practice. 

And then they’d found them. One bird and one goat. The bird was black, like a crow, but it looked like a dove. The goat was a deep blue. 

“I’ll take the bird?” Jungeun’s eye was already white. A thin blade had appeared in her hands. The air around her had warmed. 

Jinsoul felt a sharp tug in her head as she summoned the moonlight. It was a formless clump. She broke it in half to have a sharp edge. 

The spirits had spotted them, but they hadn’t attacked yet. Were they waiting? Jinsoul didn’t like that. It meant they could plan. 

Then a thin spurt of flames tore into the air. It shot between the spirits, alive with moonlight. A mixture of the two? 

The spirits leapt apart. Then they ran for Jungeun and Jinsoul. 

Jungeun was already moving, light trailing behind her as she ran. 

Jinsoul tore her eyes away, dodging the goat when it leapt towards her. It’d gone for her neck. 

She was careful not to touch it. She focused instead on the moonlight in her hands, trying to make them longer. It didn’t work. 

The spirit returned. She rolled away, driving her arm back. She felt a rush of cold along her fingers. The sharp screech that followed made her wince. 

The spirit was glaring at her with silver eyes. She felt the pain and anger streaming off of it in waves. Then she watched as the eyes turned a warm brown. Its blue coat turned sky blue. 

The sense of cold faded. Only Jinsoul’s hand felt freezing. 

“Put that in your other hand,” Jungeun said. The bird, now green, stood atop her shoulder. Its head brushed her cheek now and then in a strangely affectionate manner. 

Jinsoul put the other piece of moonlight in her hand. It soothed the cold, but immediately began to crumble. There were grey and black strands going through it. Then they faded, but the light had broken. 

“It’s destroyed by the darkness?” 

“They destroy each other,” Jungeun replied. “I don’t know how, but a lot of it just depends on how much, or how strong the light is, and the other way round.” Her eye turned red again, but was still bright. Her skin had also lost the light. Something was different. Was it the way she carried herself? Or the look in her eyes?

Jinsoul straightened, unnerved by the way the goat watched her. Its pain had seemed so real. The calm and open gaze was uncannily real as well. 

“Why were there two?” Jinsoul asked. “Aren’t they usually alone?” 

She shook her head. “Pairs are pretty common. They even stay together after they’re turned.”

“And if only one is?” 

“They still find each other,” Jungeun said. “One ends up turning the other.”

It was oddly poetic. 

“The same happens to Astra, right?”

Her brow knitted together. “What?” 

They kept walking. Jinsoul didn’t ask where they were going. 

Instead, she asked, “aren’t they connected like that as well?” 

After a moment, Jungeun nodded. “I don’t see it as often as I thought I would. It’s mostly a private thing.” She chuckled once, but it sounded forced. “Unless you count the seers.”

“They can see that too?” Jinsoul felt a surge of irritation. Yet another breach into a person’s life, but instead of your future, thoughts, or feelings, it was the person whose soul was bound to yours. 

Another nod. “As far as I know, no one else can, not even the bonded people. Apparently, it’s pretty clear if you are.” 

“Then how do they find out?” She frowned. “Do they just tell you?” 

“Some people ask. Sometimes they announce it.” The way Jungeun explained it, didn’t seem like she had in the beginning. It wasn’t as casual. 

“Announce it?” Jinsoul repeated, feeling slightly sick. “I thought it was supposed to be private.”

“Private, yes, but sacred too.” Jungeun looked confused at her own words. “Like the ceremony before a wedding, or however the mortals do that.”

“And do you think it’s sacred?” It was a weighted question. She knew that, but she wanted to know what sort of answer she’d get. 

“The bond itself,” she trailed off, pursing her lips. “From what I’ve seen, yeah.” 

“But?” 

Jungeun laughed, but it was empty. “Being bound to me isn’t something I’d wish on anyone.” She peered at her. “And with the way the bond’s supposed to be, you can feel what they do. Sometimes you even see their dreams.”

Jinsoul watched as a new expression formed. There was something like regret, but also vaguely hopeless. She didn’t hide it either. What had changed? She looked into the light then. There was still a shadow of fear. It seemed to have been laced all across her arm, some of it in the top part of her chest. Shouldn’t that have been gone by now? 

“No,” Jungeun looked back to the forest, “I’m glad there’s no one.” 

The words hung in the air. 

“You asked.” Jinsoul didn’t know what to make of that either. 

She didn’t reply. 

Jinsoul didn’t ask anything else. She was surprised that Jungeun had even said as much as she had. Even more surprised that it’d been honest. 

But it also struck her that Jungeun had given away more than just that. Whatever dreams she had, she didn’t want anyone else to see them. 

_____

Author's Note 

A shorter chapter, I know, but I wanted to get this out before the weekend. I've got an exam on Friday, but a part of this has been sitting in a document for a week already. I just wanted to finish it up. Also, I've been in a really great mood since the comeback. The entire album has been perfect for my writing, plus Why Not, despite taking a few listens to get used to, never fails to lift my spirits. I'm so happy the girls are back. 

We got into the topic of bonds a tad, but if you're new to this world and I didn't explain it properly, being bonded basically means you're soulmates. Some people can literally see if two people are tied together by the moon and being connected doesn't exactly push those people together, but there're experiences unique to being bonded. As said in the chapter, you can see their dreams, sometimes feel their pain, or even what they're feeling emotionally. It's a bit of a complicated subject, but you really don't need to know it well to understand this story. 

I hope you enjoyed! I always take time with developing the relationships, even if they're far from romantic at first. It's what feels most natural to me when writing. 

Would love to know your thoughts! 

Hope you're all doing well, see you next chapter.