In hindsight, I was telling him too much. 

The more he knew, the more he could use against me. Against my friends and my family. Against everything I thought I stood for. He could destroy it all with a single sentence. The smallest of comments could come back to bite me. 

But I trusted him. 

I trusted him with all of it, because I need someone there if I fall.

He needs to catch me, along with everything I’m carrying on my shoulders. 

“So, what you’re telling me is,” Henry summed it all up, hot air flowing from his lips, hotter air filling the room through the window, “if you die, the current Guardians of both the Sun and the Moon will lose their supernatural abilities.”

I nodded. 

It was something Cera read in a rotting book, tucked away in the corner of the library bookshelves in the Hall of the Guardians. That same book said this among other things. I wouldn’t have been inclined to believe it, I would have been pressed to ignore it, had I not read the expansion upon the idea in the sentences that followed it. 

Once I die, the Guardians of the Sun and the Moon who were spawned to protect the Seeress of EXO — as she leads the planet and its inhabitants towards good fortune — will lose their purpose. As a result, their powers will disappear along with me. Not long after this occurs, a new set of twelve Guardians will be born, along with a new Seeress. Thus, the cycle continues on. 

It all made too much sense to dismiss it. 

Besides that, what could an old, decaying book gain from lying to me?

What could I gain from lying to Henry when I only had everything to lose?

“That’s a lot of power you just handed off to me.” He mused, palms rubbing against his panted knees where he sat before me. “The Council’s always been a fan of keeping secrets, after all.”

“Luna knew,” I revealed, because it seemed like he didn’t know.

“Did she?” He laughed at the notion, and his thoughts faired to bode better than his current mocking expression.

What did Luna have to gain from lying to me?

Built on top of a river, Dunai's climate was both hot and humid. Surrounded by sand on every side, stretching as far as the eye could see, there was little doubt anyone who wandered away from the city without guidance would perish within the week. Luckily, Zhoumi was well acquainted with the vast desert.

Oddly, Luhan couldn’t hide his unexplained distaste for the northerner. 

“Does he always frequent your room like this, your highness?” Luhan pointed towards the doorway Zhoumi had just left through. 

It had been over four days since we’d arrived in Dunai. Every day was another adventure. The first, we’d arrived so early in the morning, we caught sight of the sun’s reflection as it dawned over the horizon, the river’s surface all aglow with multiple shades and hues of blue. The second, we’d spent time in the outer ring of the city, visiting countless citizens, receiving countless smiles and enough invitations to dinner to last a lifetime. The third, we traversed the merchant’s stalls in the inner ring of the city. Unlike the Capital, not a single one asked to see the identification cards of their customers. 

Rank 3, 2, and 1: everyone had access to everything. 

Henry explained that this was due to the Council deeming Dunai too out of their way to spend time policing. The desert was too vast. The trek too tiring. In his own words, “Who cares about a city out in the middle of nowhere?”

Speaking of that very same charismatic leader whose cause quite literally sailed a thousand ships — as without the Council’s influence, trade went unrestricted between Dunai and other cities up and down the long river it sat on — he’d “cordially” invited us to his meeting with the Board’s early this morning. “Tit for Tat,” he’d said. “You’ve trusted me, so it’s time I return the favor,” he’d promised. 

And when I walked into that conference room, the mayor at the helm of hundreds of Exotians that crowded it from wall to wall, I didn’t see why I shouldn’t believe in the promises he's made me. 

The fifth day, this very day in which the sun has long since set, Zhoumi visited me as he had all nights prior. He’d visit me for an hour in which he’d sit there and I’d sit here and we’d talk. We’d talk about the Tree of Life, his village, his eyes. Despite the latter of these, believe me when I say our conversations had never gotten too personal.

I certainly wouldn’t be brave enough to venture to say we’re “friends.”

“I think you’re misunderstanding something, Luhan.” I laughed as I balanced myself on the windowsill of the small hotel room Henry’d gotten me. 

There were two beds. One for me and one for Victoria. But, I don’t think she likes me much, considering she’s come back at the wee hours of the day every night. Considering the itch I can feel spreading itself out on my back, Luhan’s footsteps signaling his steady approach towards my wobbling form, I could only wish she’d come back earlier today. 

“And you shouldn’t ask a question you already know the answer to,” I added, breathing out as I rubbed my back against the wooden frame behind me.

“I know you trust him,” Luhan began with a long inhale of air, meaning his following words would be the farthest from brief, “and I trust you in turn, your highness. I do not doubt what he says to you has meaning. That he’s knowledgeable and capable. The only thing I cannot comprehend are his intentions. Not to mention the detached manner with which he speaks of human interaction as though, well, nevermind. I’m simply worried that the person he wants you to be isn’t the person you are now, my Seeress.”

And there was something else, another emotion, that swirled within the irritated intonations of his voice.

Fear.

Fear I’d become someone I wasn’t. Fear Zhoumi would change me somehow. Fear that he’d lose the person he’d grown so proud of he couldn’t say it enough — my ego had only inflated daily since he arrived.

“If I change for anyone, Luhan,” I reached around myself, attempting to scratch that incessant itch, failing miserably, “it’d be for me, myself, and I.”

To say I was surprised to feel his fingers on my shoulder would be an understatement. Because, for whatever reason, I trusted his promise to keep to our mutually agreed upon set of rules. Yet I couldn’t even be mad at him for it. I couldn’t even manage anger.

Not when he asked so matter-of-factly, “Here?”

His previous foul mood was gone. His tone was the same as always. The pressure of his hand on my back gave me the same feeling I’d had when I touched him for the first time. Describing the sheer relief I felt as blunt fingernails raked downwards across my back is impossible. 

But, to put it simply, it felt good.

Undeniably so.

So, I let him do it. 

Up and down and up again. Up felt particularly nice, my muscles seizing up tensely whenever I felt his palm turn, dragging upwards with a kind of force I could get used to. Bending back into him, I almost fell from my pedestal on multiple occasions. Each time, I’d levitate right back up, the chance of falling too small to waste time fearing it. Practically minuscule under the moon that shone outside the window.

“You’re so simple.” Luhan laughed.

An ironic statement I couldn’t respond to as his fingers went dragging upwards again.

A small hum of agreement left me involuntarily as they scraped against my spine, hitting a knot I didn’t know existed until he prodded at it. Until he unraveled it as he pushed downwards once more.

Luhan was a kind of force I could get used to. 

To physically having at my side.

That’s honestly what I thought as I locked eyes with him. Meeting brown stained silver by the moon. The white mask that covered the lower half of his face gnawing at me. Bothering me like another itch I couldn’t scratch on my own.

Impulsivity had driven Kris out of the hotel while the moon still hung high in the sky. 

The streets were no longer as bustling as they were at the peak of the night. Now, barely a soul walked down the sand-littered roadways. Windows and doors let not a single shred of light through their wooden cracks. It was surprisingly more peaceful than he thought it would be.

In fact, this entire trip had been uneventful.

Upon leaving Sector E, their Seeress and they, as Guardians, faced criticism in small patches here and there, but it was never to the large extent the Council reported about daily every morning, noon, and night. Where was the discontent they claimed gripped the entire world? Where was there a single Exotian who didn’t give her highness the time of day? Seeing the faith the Boards had in her and her ability to disrupt the Council’s scale of uneven checks and balances firsthand just yesterday — as they all gathered to greet her — proved that Exotians need her.

Even if they only do because the Council exists in the first place.

After all, there always exists a possibility that the most impure of intentions can become anything but over time. 

Of course, the opposite is also true.

“Can I help you?” Kris asked, hands in his pockets, a frown on his face, as he stood tall and dominant.

He’d returned from his evening walk a lot earlier than he’d planned. He hadn’t expected there’d be so little to see in such a big city. He doubly hadn’t expected to come across a group of four men talking amongst themselves just mere paces from the entrance to the hotel his Seeress and his fellow Guardians now resided in. 

Perhaps he was being overprotective. 

Perhaps he was overreacting. 

But, what if he wasn’t?

The thought had him puffing up his shoulders to make them look wider. Angling his posture to make himself look taller. Putting on airs to scare away whatever intentions the men had — pure or otherwise.

All of them stared on at him in silence, rendered speechless by his sudden appearance. Whatever they were thinking about was the last thing on their minds as they began to nudge each other, whispering words Kris wasn’t able to hear, before scuttling off like mice caught out of their holes. Kris didn’t give chase, not ignorant enough to believe his own safety was irrelevant in the grander scheme of things.

Catching sight of burnt out cigarettes in the place of the suspicious group of men, Kris failed to understand this same scheme plagued by impure intentions.

He didn’t mention a word about the encounter to anyone else and, in the following days, the Seeress and her Guardians made way to the city of glass that never sleeps: Jingzi.

A/N: I fall asleep in the most un-graceful way possible (whilst looking for floss at five in the morning) and when I wake up at noon I have so many notifications the first thing I think is "Who'd I kill to get all this attention all of a sudden?" And then, oh my golden stars. 

For giving me something I can't say thank you enough for, but that I'll say anyway, thank you my old and seasoned readers. You've been around these parts for some time now yet you're still sticking around. For giving this story a chance, thank you to all my new readers, subscribers, upvoters, and commenters!

You've all given me so much energy I think I'll start running in the morning as daily exercise!...starting tomorrow.