Sehun knew something was wrong the moment a cloud of black smoke appeared in front of him, in the middle of Hazel’s living room.

  “Gillian! Gillian!”

  The girl in the middle of the fading smoke cried out, her violet eyes darting around the cottage – until they locked with Sehun’s shocked, widened ones.

  “Sehun – “ Andrea cried with relief and a bit of panic, the last syllable of his name turning into a choked-out sob.

  “What – ?"

  “Get Gillian now!”

  He then realized why she was on the floor, her hands all covered in blood. Three things froze him on spot: One, they had just magically appeared; two, a tan-skinned boy he thought he would never meet again was staring at him with the same amount of shock; and three, Lucas, unconscious in Andrea’s arms, was so sickly-white in a pool of red he could've put a white tile to shame.

  But Sehun only froze for less than a second.

  “Yixing!”

**

  “Is he going to be alright?!”

  Sehun stood firm in front of the closed door with his arms folded, trying not to wince. “Girly – “

  “Is Luke going to be alright – “ As Andrea tried to slip by his left side, as quick as lightning, Sehun grabbed her wrists before her hands could touch the doorknob and pulled her – not quite gently – into his arms.

  “Sshh...” He didn’t let go, even after she stopped struggling (and hitting the sides of his body) and broke down into tears. “He’ll be fine, it was just a shot in the shoulder; besides, Yixing is the best healer ever known.”

  “B-but he w-wasn’t m-moving!” Andrea cried into his shirt, thankful for it muffling her hiccups and ugly tears. “He l-looked s-so… so de – “

  “Andrea.” Sehun pushed her away, holding her by the shoulders to look straight into her eyes. “Do not say that word; he is not going to. I promise you that. So stop it.”

  “It’s all my fault.” As if his words had flown through her left ear and went out the right, Andrea started shaking, her hands on . “It’s all my fault Luke is hurt…”

  “Hey – “

  “I shouldn’t have been stopped by Kai! I shouldn’t have talked to Kai and Baekhyun – “

  Is that what happened? She got… distracted?

  “YOU!” Just the moment Orion and Gillian walked in, Andrea spun toward the tan-skinned, nervous-looking boy in a long, black cloak, startling everyone. She stomped right up to him, her finger pointing straight at his chest. “Why did you have to stop me from escaping?” She accused, new tears streaming down her face. “What was so important for you to ask, to hold up my time and plan – “

  “Andrea, I didn’t know – “

  “WHY DID YOU HAVE TO RUIN EVERYTHING, KIM JONGIN?! Why did you and Baek just have to show up in front of me and ruin the plan, my heart, everything… why… why was I so stupid to ruin everything… it’s all my fault…”

  Kai stepped forward, reaching for her. “I’m sorry, Andrea, I didn’t know – “

  “Don’t you dare touch her.”

  Kai’s hand froze, his eyes adverting to behind Andrea. They found a pair of dark, brown pools, with hostility and coldness flashing inside. Kai stood up a little straighter, still not believing his eyes. It had been years, but… the boy’s familiar vibe of arrogance was something he never would have forgotten. “S… are you… Sehun?” He didn’t try to hide his longing for one of his best friends he hadn’t seen for seven years. It would be a lie to say that he didn’t miss him. “You’re Sehun, aren’t you? I'm – “

  Emotion flashed across Sehun’s face, but only for a second. “Kim Jongin.” His voice was so cold it sent shivers up Andrea’s spine. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  “Here?” For the first time since he had arrived, Kai took in his surroundings and the scary, judging looks from the other people in the room. “Where is ‘here’?”

  “The Stargazer village,” Andrea replied, wiping the last tears from her eyes. “The place where banned Stargazers fled to, where – “

  “Andrea,” Sehun warned her. “You can’t tell an outsider all our secrets – “

  “He’s not an outsider!” She whirled around. “You saw it, too, didn’t you? The black smoke that brought me and Lucas and Kai here? It was him, Sehun. That was him. He… he’s a Stargazer, too.” Andrea whirled around again, locking gaze with Kai. “Aren’t you?”

  For some reason, his face paled. “I… I think so…”

  “What? Are you… not?”

  “No, no!” Kai shook his head. “I must be. It’s just… I’ve guessed that fact for so long, and now you just said it out loud, confirming what I couldn’t bring myself to confirm… I had kept this secret to myself for so long.”

  “'So long’?” Gillian walked up to Kai. “I’ve known you for years, Kai, but I never knew you – “

  “I hid my special ability well, G. And I didn’t know you were one, too.”

  He smiled. “I guess that makes us two.”

  “It all happened about a year ago,” Kai started to explain. “I started having these weird feelings as if I could, when putting some effort in, move around… differently. At first I would feel restricted; like I had been hiding in a small box for too long and was finally released. Then, with a sudden twitch of my body – like a spasm of my limbs – I would find myself stumbling onto different ground in a moment of unbalance; a place miles away from where I had just been standing a second ago.

  “It horrified me. One second I was on my bed, visualizing myself at the borders of the Forbidden Woods; the next, I was actually there? With nothing but a lingering trace of some kind of strange, black smoke around me? No sane person – no normal human would believe me. I didn’t even tell Baek.

  “But I understood, although I wished, at that time, didn’t. I had been in contact with and seen magic before, so even though I had no one to confide my newfound secret ability to, I… I knew what I was.

  “I’m a Stargazer. A ‘magic-beholder’, a part of the people I once helped banish out this realm.”

  The whole living room was quiet – the different breathing paces of everyone were clearly to be heard.

  And Sehun decided to break that. “Still; you shouldn’t be here.”

  “Sehun,” Andrea said exasperatedly, “didn’t you hear? He’s a Stargazer, too – “

  “So what?” He shot back. “That doesn’t mean he can barge into our village with his magical black smoke and stay – “

  “He saved my life. And Lucas’.”

  “No one thought you would get into trouble, girly.”

  “And what if you did?” Andrea took a step forward toward him. “Would you come to our rescue? Oh, wait, I forgot that you don’t even have the guts to step your precious little foot into the Southern Commonwealth.”

  The moment those words slipped out of , she regretted letting them do so, and her regret doubled when she saw the look on Sehun’s face, although he tried to wipe it away as quickly as he could. But no emotion had failed to be caught by Andrea’s eyes ever since she regained her Mark and senses heightened.

  “That’s not fair.” Sehun’s jaw tightened.

  “’That’s not fair’? Why don’t you think about how everything in my life, in just a matter of days, has turned upside down without giving me a chance to say no or even catch a breath, and then tell me what’s not fair?” Andrea was on the brink of yelling, every thought, every feeling she had tried to suppress flowing out under all the frustration and worrying, in the form of tears. “Did you think I wanted this, to lose everything I had once been familiar with for years in just days, with nothing in return but just more responsibility on my shoulders? Every person in this village, every child, every adult, every Stargazer is depending on me, while I’m just a seventeen-year-old girl who can’t even properly deal with a heartbreak over a prince! So shut up about things not being fair when the only unfair thing to you is that not everyone listens to you bossing people around like a spoiled child!”

  Without another word, Andrea dashed out of the cottage.

***

  For the first time in his life, Byun Baekhyun had never felt so lost.

  What just happened?

  He had felt so happy to see her during the banquet; it was as if her appearance was a life-saver for a drowning him. He had thought she was here because… she missed him.

  What happened?

  When she had seen him, even though it lasted for less than a second, he saw the look in her eyes – the look that was all he needed to know.

  Love. Longing, yearning and aching to love him again. Andrea loved him – still loved him, but something was holding her back.

  Of course he knew what it was: the engagement. Wasn’t all his misery because of that one contract, of binding two lives together? Princess Celeste had the looks, the body, the wealth, and a kind personality.

  But to Baekhyun, she wasn’t Andrea.

  What?

  So many questions were swirling in his mind. What had Andrea been doing in the palace? Why had she been talking to Kai? How did an unnatural quake occur when she had shouted, when she had tried to stay away from him – which pained him all over again? Why had she looked so guilty when the guards found out there was a robbery of the king, and fled with that blue-eyed friend of hers?

  She was the thief.

  Baekhyun didn’t want to believe it, but he knew what he had seen. He had run with Kai to the back balcony and witnessed Andrea and Lucas running, with Royal Guards and arrows chasing them from behind. He had been horrified when he saw that arrow fly just one inch above her beautiful head – he had even screamed for them to stop shooting, but his voice ended up being drowned by the shouts of the guards – and everything next had passed like a blur across his eyes.

  Suddenly, Kai was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had run off to order the guards to cease fire?

  Suddenly, Andrea’s friend got shot in the shoulder, and was rolling on the grass like a ball children kick in their backyards.

  Baekhyun would never forget the sound of Andrea’s blood-curdling scream.

  Suddenly, an arrow and bow appeared in her hands, and she released the arrow.

  ‘Stop, stop, stop…” Baekhyun kept chanting in his mind, paralyzed.

  Suddenly, a black smoke appeared and blocked his sight of the girl he loved, and will only ever.

  Suddenly, she was gone.

  It was still hard for him to accept what had happened, because… magic. It was magic. Somehow, Andrea had gotten herself involved with magic – and if his guess was right, the peculiar black smoke was a Stargazer.

  Something was going on, something that involved her and Stargazers. And for both things it piped up Baekhyun’s complete concern and interest, and maybe even desire to know.

  It was about Andrea, for goodness sake.

  Maybe that was why, after not being able to find Kai, he mounted his horse and had only one destination in mind.

***

  “Don’t tell me Luhan told you were I was,” Andrea groaned.

  “Luhan’s not invincible, girly. He can read minds better than anyone else, but he can’t know where people are every single second.” Without asking, Sehun hopped onto the roof next to her from the last step of the ladder. He didn’t sit down, though. “I guessed that you would come up here, actually. You’re Chanyeol’s sister and… he likes going up whenever he’s upset or wants to be alone.”

  “Finally you’ve got one thing right. I want to be alone.”

  Instead of throwing back a snappy remark, Sehun remained silent. “I’m sorry,” he finally said a moment later.

  Andrea was so startled she turned and lifted her head up, squinting her eyes in the bright moonlight. “Excuse me?”

  “I will only say that once. And you are excused.”

  “Did you just apologize? I thought Oh Sehun never does that.”

  He glared at her, but it only lasted for a second. Sighing, he said, “I just… I was just so worried about you, alright?” He raked his fingers through his hair, scowling. “The moment your bow and arrows disappeared from the living room, I started to panic. I thought something had happened; and when you ‘poofed’ into the room, I knew I was right. I was just so relieved you were alright, and snapped at you…”

  “It’s my fault, too.” Andrea played with a strand of hay that had somehow ended up on the roof. “Luke getting shot just made me tense and… sent my whole body into a frenzy, like a panic attack. It was the first time I was on the brink of dying! So I snapped on you,  too, and… I’m sorry, too.” She smiled. “But it’s alright now. Kai saved us.”

  Sehun scoffed. “’Kai’, huh?

  Andrea watched as he plopped himself down, next to her. “Why do you hate Kai so much? I thought you two used to be… friends.”

  He pretended to focus on the imaginary dirt on his pants. “I don’t… I don’t hate him, girly.”

  “So you’re just infinitely pissed off at him and can’t stop staring him daggers.”

  “I guess you could say that.” Sehun sighed again, his shoulders dropping. “I’m angry at him for having not listening to me seven years ago. I’m angry that he had always put Baekhyun’s words before anyone else’s – and vice versa – that they should just marry each other.” He rolled his eyes. “So when you brought Jongin into the living room, that’s when I realized, that underneath all the anger, I actually… miss him. And Baekhyun. And Kyungsoo. I miss them all so badly because we used to be like brothers – unbreakable, inseparable. And then I was angry at myself wanting to blame him for putting Chanyeol in his current state, and…

  “I just don’t know, Andrea. I feel so confused of what I feel now that I’m so frustrated, and when I’m frustrated I’m – “

  “The typical Sehun?”

  “Angry.” He knocked her forehead slightly. “I hate feeling angry.”

  “Well – “

  “Andrea?” Kai’s voice from below cut off her sentence. “My apologies if I have interrupted.”

  “You’re not even sorry,” Sehun shot back down, as Kai’s head appeared in Andrea’s sight. His skin looked pale from the upper view, in the pearl-white moonlight, and when he sighed, it reminded her of a reflection on a pool of water, and it being disrupted into ripples with a touch.

  “But I honestly do not know what I should do in there – “

  “Be a good-looking statue.”

  “– and you are required in there, Andrea. Or should I say, Princess Sabrina?”

  The last part was a whisper, but Andrea still caught it. “Kai,” she creased her eyebrows, “how much do you know – “

  He shook his head. “I will ask you later of it, and so can you ask me. Right now, you are needed downstairs.”

  As Andrea gave Sehun one last look that meant ‘I forgive you for making me cry’ and hopped down the roof in a swift, graceful jump, Kai reached out as if to grab Sehun when he also jumped down. The whiter male immediately dodged it.

  “Sehun – “

  “Not right now, Jongin.” Sehun might’ve missed him, but he still wasn’t ready to talk to the brother he missed so badly. “We have more important things at stake.”

  “But – “

  “Later, Kai.” Sehun waved him off and followed Andrea into the cottage, leaving Kai no choice but to sigh again and step in behind him, his arms at his sides.

  At least he said ‘we.’

**

  Orion’s mouth was in a very tight line when Andrea walked in, so tight she wondered if it could be broken with just a poke.

  The look in his eyes stopped her from really trying to do so.

  And after a tumble of words out of his mouth, letting Andrea know that Orion was actually afraid to touch the Heritage Tree lying peacefully on the table, because he feared it was protected and might set his hand on fire if he touched it (he denied thinking so, but the fear in his eyes was clear), she concluded that Orion was a very unpredictable person.

  “I ran with it against my skin,” Andrea said as she smirked and let her fingers make contact with the Heritage Tree. “See? You are welcome to touch it without getting your hand burned off.”

  Orion looked tempted, but he shook his head.

  “It might be the most appropriate for you to be the one to unroll it,” Gillian suggested, “since you and Mr. Miller had risked your lives for it, for the powerful names on this 'piece of parchment.'”

  He didn’t need to ask; Andrea’s fingers were already twitching with curiosity. The roll, as she had failed to notice before, looked considerably long. When she had taken it from Kang Dae’s drawer, it was already in the shape of a yellow-rimmed roll with a red, silk ribbon around, the whole thing pulsing with great power.

  Andrea hadn’t realized she and all the others around her were holding their breaths as she untied the ribbon, and started unrolling the Heritage Tree as power pulsed into her fingers like little tingles of lightning –

  “Guys, you won’t b – uh, am I interrupting something?”

  Five pairs of eyes fixated on Jongdae, the one who had skidded into the room and interrupted their moment of tension and nerves.

  “Chen,” Sehun said as he rolled his eyes, and Andrea noticed that his right hand had reflexively flown to the blade on his waist belt. “No, you are always welcome to barge into a room with your signature high-pitched voice.”

  “Wonderful,” Chen replied, oblivious to Sehun’s remark. “Because I have found something in the pile of books stolen from the library in the castle months ago, that might not be of any importance – “

  “Kim Jongdae, I swear to the stars – “

  “Or of absolute importance, I just don’t know how.”

  To reassure a sudden impatient Sehun, Andrea put her hand on his arm. “It’s alright,” she said. “Tell us what you have found, Chen.”

  “It’s about us,” Chen started as Andrea continued to unroll, with the others watching her but also listening. “Stargazers. And I assume Gillian doesn’t know of this, for he’s never told us.”

  Gillian grunted, but as if something was on his mind, he didn’t do anything else.

  “Everyone in this universe, hundreds of years ago, had some kind of special ability,” Chen started reading off the ancient-looking book in his hands, the pages cackling as he turned them. “Ability to control any of the five elements – fire, air, water, earth, metal –, teleport, telepath, heal, possess enormous strength, control minds, create illusion… you name it. Any power you can think of, at least one person had that ability. Some even could possess more than one at a time.

  “However, as years passed by, some off-springs of these people – in this book the parents are called ‘The Originals’ – showed no more powers than their parents – even none anymore.

  “After years of observation, a theory appeared: once one has reached the age of nineteen, but has not yet shown any sign of possessing a special ability, he or she would then forever be nothing more than a mundane, normal person – even if there really were powers within his or her body. You had to trigger your powers before you turn nineteen, otherwise you would lose them forever.

  “Then years went on and on, kingdoms were built and generation after generation thrived, and eventually, there were two kinds of people – those who had lost their special abilities and those who were referred to as ‘Stargazers’, a name given because as werewolves worship and live by the moon, Stargazers believe that their powers are bestowed by the stars above, as each star represents a different power. At nights they would lift their heads up to pray, as if gazing at the stars…”

  At a moment she hadn’t noticed, Andrea’s attention had turned from the names on the Heritage Tree – all linked together and stretched out like an enormous, magnificent tree and its branches – to Chen’s words.

  “So everyone has the potential of being a Stargazer?” She asked, as she read past another dozen of beautiful names. Eloy, Leila, Kristiana, Lamarei, Eileen, Stephanie, Kael…

  “To be exact, everyone is a Stargazer,” Gillian replied. “It is merely the matter of having your abilities within released.”

  “And there’s more,” Chen added. “It says here, that it is very rare for one to possess more than three abilities at a time. So, during the setting up of civilizations before the population of mundane humans was greater than that of Stargazers, if you had two powers, you and your family would instantly be of a noble one; if you had three, you would be a royal, for it only – by a reason no one knows – passes down by blood. With every new generation in each family, the number of abilities each child possesses only remains the same or decreases, but never increases.”

  A thought occurred to Andrea, as she suddenly remembered what Baekhyun and Kai had once told her. “So the Parks, the Byuns, the Kims and the Dos… they all are – “

  Before she could finish her thought, her eyes caught something on the Heritage Tree, making her fingers froze. “Stars!” She gasped, her eyes widening and breath hitching in . She stumbled back with unbelief written all over her face, and her hand flew to . “That… that isn’t possible…”

  Gasps erupted. “What is it?!” Sehun was the first to grab her to prevent her from falling down. “Andrea, what – “

  “N-n-n-name,” she sputtered, clutching onto his sleeve as if for dear life. “Baek’s name is on there.”

[A/N] This was so long because it's so not pulse-pumping becoz it had no action becoz I'm picking up pace becoz I can't wait for the next action becoz I'm not even making sense right now after finishing this exam that I'm gonna have to take again three weeks later becoz thank you all for waiting so long hope I didn't disappoint you all becoz Baek is gonna appear again becoz I NEED ICE CREAM.

P.S. All those names have meanings in either Greek or Gaelic or Latin hehe <3 Beautiful, right? >__________O

THANK YOU ALL FOR READING THIS STORY OF MINE THAT HAD STARTED WITH AN ARCHERY LESSON I TOOK ;_; YOU GUYS MEAN SO MUCH TO ME <3 And where did you new subbies suddenly come from OMG <3<3<3