“Minji, you must hurry!” Jongdae urged her, propping her up from behind, “There is not the time!”

Minji screamed, the bullets of sweat rolling down her face, joining her marks in the movement. She was too consumed in the pain she was forced to endure until she pushed again. She couldn’t say anything at all. The weight of another child birth, the creatures dying, and the empire falling once more crashed down as a boulder on top of her and she couldn’t focus at all.

  “My King, she is slipping out of consciousness!” a Warrant nurse at the other end of Minji started roughly hitting Minji’s knee, “My Queen, you mustn’t faint!”

Jongdae did his best through the power of his fingertips against Minji’s arms to try allieviating the pain. The worst was inevitable and the birthing of another child so badly needed to wait, but this time, the newborn was a stubborn one.

  “Stay with me,” Jongdae spoke into her ear, his power trying to keep his wife awake, “Do not fall. You must birth him, Minji. You must.”

Minji shook her head, too consumed in incoherence. Her focus was shot and her body went numb. She panicked on the inside but her body grew more and more languid. Now was not the time to bear a child or even have one at all.

  “Your Highness!” someone barged into the room.

  “Jongdae pulled his face away from Minji and shouted, “What?!”

  “Half the empire is ash!”

Jongdae’s anxiety roughened up on him and his throat started closing up out of fear. He was King. He had orders to give and an empire to protect. He had to make choices.

He had to make them now.

He urgently gripped on to Minji and pulled his mouth back to her ear in desperate attempt to birth the newborn, “My wife, I know you are ridden of rest, but you must make haste. You know as much as I do what we must do. And first thing, we need to hastily welcome HaYi’s sibling.”

Jongdae pressed his body against her back to prop his hands on Minji’s bloomed stomach. He had to force his power in to keep the baby moving no matter how much pain Minji was brought. The child was the first thing he needed to check off the list of duties.

  “No, no, no!” Minji refused and pushed Jongdae away the best she could, “Jongdae, it hurts!”

Jongdae said nothing and forced himself to stay put despite Minji’s strength towering over his own. If Minji didn’t give birth now, she could have serious health conditions added to the list of issues to everyone’s lives. He had to keep Minji from anymore harm, even if it was his own child.

  “The child is going to be birthed, Minji,” he told her, “Push, now! I know it is difficult, but push!”

Minji cried ample amounts of tears from her strain. She didn’t have any strength in her to be able to push the child out, but it was her duty to make sure everyone was safe. Hold my arms, she silently begged, I cannot support myself and I need my hands.

Jongdae hastily grabbed on to her arms, the same power pulsing from his fingertips as she weakly tried to position herself more upright and just barely nodded to the nurse.

  “One . . .” the nurse looked back to her focus as she counted the next number, holding on to Minji’s knees, “. . . Three!”

Minji pushed with her entire being, straining herself upwards with a strangled high pitch noise in the pit of crawling up. She was going to be sick but she had to keep it down. She couldn’t make matters worse.

She pushed herself over her limits, screams mixed with her pain as she could feel her child moving out. It wasn’t at all relieving, but surely wasn’t anticipated.

  “Jongdae,” she breathed out at a break, her head rolling back, “I cannot.”

Jongdae wasn’t going to have her quitting or stopping now, as cruel as it seemed. His power pulsed into her body harder, trying to force out the child.

Minji screamed again and took initative to push once more. As much as she didn’t want Jongdae to do that, she had no other choice. The nurse encouraged Minji to keep going because she could see the child, readying her hands to the baby as Minji gave the hardest push of her life.

Minji’s marks burned the most as they whipped around her, being the unnecessary alarm to tell her pain was inevitable. She cried and cried as she pushed through the heavy weight of pain and heat until she heard the little cry from the other end.

The nurse pulled the baby from Minji and shakily smiled, “It is a boy, my Queen.”

  “Boy,” Minji breathed, her head lolling sideways, “Kyungsoo, Jongdae. . .”

Jongdae smiled and embraced Minji fully, “Saddened it is not a Yoona?”

The Queen fiercly shook her head, hearing the terror from outside and trying to stand up, “Forget it all. Nurse, secure HaYi and Kyungsoo into the safe chambers wherever you seek one.” Minji forced herself on to her on her feet and held on to Jongdae for support, “We have an empire to tend to.

  “No objection,” she silenced Jongdae before he protested, “Heal me along our way, we must asses damage as we go.”

The nurse hastily made way out of the room and shouted orders for someone to secure a safety chamber for her as she fetched for HaYi while the Royals rushed to the balcony, seeing half the empire was to the ground and the other half was burning—including their own building.

Minji made no effort to hold herself back despite the pain and exhaustion she was enduring. She forced Jongdae to hold on to her back before she forced her wings out and set into the air.

She swooped down into the roads of their home, seeing the horrors of the past. The creatures were fighting each other, injuring each other, and many lay still on the streets or among the houses.

  “What causes this once more?” Minji shouted out as her vision flashed into white, speeding through the road and breaking up fights as she went, “A reoccurance?”

  “It is not the humans. There are still none found here,” Jongdae looked around, “The creatures broke harmony.”

  “Our own?” Minji’s face fell, “We have caused our own demise?”

Jongdae assessed all around, “The Politics have ruined us. The opposing sides will no longer come to terms.”

Minji quit her flight and landed to her feet, falling to her knees as she looked around, watching houses engulf in the frightful flames made by her own creatures. Bodies of many kinds lay still and ages seemed to range from the elderly to the young . . .

  “The children,” Minji snapped her head up, “The children must be the first priority.”

Jongdae tried helping his wife to her feet, “Attempt to, we shall. But I have my doubts no one around here will seem to help our wants.”

  “We will do it ourselves,” Minji forced Jongdae off her as she stood, trying to run even though she was in immense pain, “We will always do it ourselves.”

  “And there she goes, trying to be such a noble to us!”

Jongdae caught Minji’s wrist, forcefully halting her as the mob of creatures in front of her crowded her way.

They were covered in soot and injuries and Minji forced away her white vision. She breathed out shakily, trying to look at each face in the crowd, trying to understand them, “What is it that ails you, my creatures?”

  “My creatures,” the same voice scoffed, the voice leading to a woman in the front, “We have not been your creatures since the true King had offered his life to us! You ail us! You both ail us! You do nothing for us and you even did not stop all of this from happening!”

The mob of people behind the woman shouted in hostility, some of them even changing to their true forms from their anger.

Minji stepped further back from them, “I have already recognized I am not my brother, but please, it is not a reason to destroy your own home or your fellow creatures!”

  “They are swines!” a man spat, “These fellow creatures do not see eye-to-eye with us! They are the enemy! They do not seek a better future, but to destroy it!”

  “We certainly do not!”

Both Royals turned around to see another mob, despair and battle written all over them. Minji wanted to press forward to them and give so much concern, but Jongdae held her back.

Let them speak. You do not know if they want you to intervene.

  “Having the Royals has been a permanent tradition since before the beginning of time! Do you love to shame our past elders? Do you press towards eternally commiting this sin? Why must you be ignorant?!” a man screamed at the other side, “Royals have dedicated their lives to us!”

A man from the other side pushed people away and spoke, “They have brought us this destruction! This divide of our creatures! If there was a correction to the past ruling of Minji, we would not face this demise!”

  “It is not her fault for mistakes she may have made!” an elderly man from the side supporting the Royals shouted, “We all make these mistakes and we start anew and retry! You all aim to destroy retrying and bury all who oppose you!”

The crowds intensified and Minji grew absolutely terrified of her own creatures. Her failure of ruling caused this divide of her creatures and she was facing the price. She was truly not made to rule. Daesung would be disappointed . . .

  “I give . . .” she looked towards both crowds, “I give you all my apologies and regrets. But I do not aim to destroy our home! I do not aim to reach the epidemic of before! We shall not divide, we must come together!”

The woman of one side snarled and took a few steps forward, “Like I said before! Trying to be such a noble to us! You are nothing but a flightless bird! You may have the blood of a ruler, but you do not have any power to rule at all!”

Minji cringed, “Yes, I realize. But it is still the matter of coming together to decide what to rewrite of our traditions.”

  “My Queen, do not fall for them,” her followers chorused, one speaking up specifically, “They will not come to agreement. They want to kill.”

  “No—!”

  “Sounds absolutely right,” the other side agreed, “Rid of the problem sounds perfectly right! Rid of the Queen! Kill the Queen!”

Minji, Jongdae pulled on her arm, we have to move away.

Our creatures! She protested.

We mustn’t risk our lives no matter how much we should! We have children, Minji!

Jongdae looked to the crowd that was on their side. Specifically, he looked at his brother in the front, Lay, with no words spoken but passed between each other.

  “Go,” Lay ordered.

Jongdae held on to Minji by her back, “Fly, Minji, fly!”

She took delay, not wanting to move from her spot, but she thought of HaYi and Kyungsoo. Jongdae was right, she couldn’t risk their lives right now.

She went up into the air, fleeing from the battle that started as she jumped. The sounds of violence shadowed her ears and she began to cry. This was wrong; all so very wrong. How could she fix this now?

The sky was filled with gray smoke and she couldn’t fly too high because of it. It was her duty to, but she refused to look at what her land had become of for the past minutes she spent in the middle of a dispute. It was already horrifying enough just to think of it.

She flew past her balcony and through the hallways, trying to sense the nurse of her children and tracked her down. She caught on to HaYi’s scent almost immediately and went down flights of stairs to find her children.

Creatures were rushing around and it wasn’t only out of panic of the building burning. Fights broke out between creatures; seemingly the creatures opposing the Royals had broken into their home to bring more chaos. The walls were scratched up or had missing peices with red content along them. The floors were torn, even until it was a true hole to the next hallway.

HaYi’s scent grew so strong that Minji stopped flittering past halls, seeing in the empty main hall to the entrance the still nurse on the floor. HaYi held a bundle in her arms as she cried for the nurse to wake up, sometimes trying to hit her, but the nurse wouldn’t move.

Minji landed to her feet and snatched up HaYi and Kyungsoo, trying to calm down HaYi from her hysteria as Jongdae examined over the nurse, “We should not have left, Jongdae!” Minji cried, “Jia is gone! HaYi will never forget what her eyes have seen!”

HaYi cried for her parents hysterically, “Not breathing! Ceased breathing!”

Both Minji and Jongdae snapped their heads to the bundle in HaYi’s arms. Minji froze, but Jongdae immediately took Kyungsoo and started looking over him.

  “Jongdae?” Minji breathed out with fear in her voice. She held HaYi’s head to her shoulder to hide her away from what she may witness.

Jongdae unwrapped Kyungsoo, but held up a part of the blanket to keep Minji from seeing. His mouth screwed up and he covered his face with one hand, a cry escaping him that Minji never witnessed.

  “Jongdae?!” she shouted now, pressing forward.

Jongdae wiped his face and let down the blanket, revealing the pale skin of the baby that was extremely thin enough to see the viens throughout his body. The gasp and cry emitted from Minji hadn’t stopped Jongdae from pressing his hands to the baby, giving all hope his power would redeem Kyungsoo’s life.

  “We were thrown against the wall by another nurse,” HaYi cried into Minji’s neck, “Jia fell on top of the baby! The baby stopped crying! The nurse came to look at us and I ceased breathing! She thought we were dead!” she clutched on to Minji, “I grabbed the baby from under Jia all I could! I could not make him breathe!”

Minji shushed HaYi hastily and tried calming her in the best she could without her own hysteria making everything worse. Jongdae was concentrating hard, shaking his head as nothing was happening. He shouted at himself, cursed into the air, and openly asked the Royal ancestors for help.

  “Bestow thy power of life given upon me, and receive my life upon you.” He began chanting over and over.

There wasn’t much time as the walls of the building began to engulf in flame. Minji realized this and started rushing Jongdae, “Jongdae, we must finish this elsewhere!”

  “He has a pulse, Minji!”

Minji wanted to say they still needed to move, but she kept still. She was hoping Kyungsoo would revive in a short amount of time.

Jongdae spent a few more seconds chanting before he bundled up Kyungsoo and held him in his arms as he got up, “He has life. Not plentiful, but enough for recovery. We must leave, now!”

  “HaYi, fly!” Minji told her child, “You must fly!”

Without a word, HaYi’s small wings grew from her back and she took off from her mother as Jongdae settled behind with the baby.

All of them set off through the hall and out a window on the side of the building. They were going to set off far away, but a shout stopped Minji.

  “Your Majesties!” the man cried.

Minji looked down at one of the elderly men that vouched for her earlier and made way to him, “What is it?”

  “They will follow you,” he took her shoulders, disregarding what disrespect it would normally be, “Only you. You are of blood of the Royals; they want you dead!”

  “Yes, I am well aware!” Minji retorted, “What do you propose I do?” she grabbed on to his hands, “What do I do?”

  “Jongdae must take the children,” he spoke gravely, “It is of worst timing, seeing the newborn in his arms, but he must. You both must flee, but not to the same place! They will come after you, my Queen, and seek him afterwards. He must take the children; he is the one who can keep them safe!”

Minji gripped him harder, “Where do I go?!”

  “Find Daesung,” the hope shone in his eyes, “You and I both know he still lives. If he becomes deceased, you do as well.” He sadly remarked, “Find him—as it may be the only hope we have to saving our harmony!”

Minji looked at her daughter. HaYi fully grasped the situation with tears in her eyes but told her mother, “Mommy, I believe in him.”

Too young to be so understanding, Minji thought, taking HaYi from the air and keeping her to her body.

  “I am not parting with you,” Jongdae stubbornly input, “I will not.”

Minji forced Jongdae off her back and looked at Kyungsoo. She needed to feed him; he needed her warmth. Kyungsoo and HaYi needed their mother for the rest of their lives. She did not want to subject to this plan . . . but it seemed the only way. It was the only way to keep them safe.

  “I will not have my children die,” Minji looked at Jongdae firecly, “By my order, Jongdae, you will keep them safe.”

Jongdae’s voice caught in his throat. Not once had Minji ever given him a command unless it was playful. This meant absolutely too much that he wasn’t allowed to refuse, “Minji . . .”

  “We have to do it, it seems,” Minji shook her head, “I will not be the reason for any of your deaths. I will go find Daesung.”

  “We built a safety bunker far from here,” the elder said, “I apologize for never telling you of this action, your Majesties, but it was for the sole purpose if the other side ever threw a rebellion. Daesung ordered me to keep you all safe.”

Minji let go of HaYi, resulting in flying, and hugged the elder, “Of no worries. I always knew there was a reason Daesung spoke to you so much.”

  “I am always honored,” the elder returned the favor, “And I do not wish for you to leave, but none of us can fly, or so we know of. Our sources of wings have either us or have punctured flight. . .”

Minji shook her head, “I must go,” she agreed, “As much as I do not want to, I must.”

Minji took HaYi again, fixing the girl’s hair, “You will be a brave soul, HaYi. You must look out for Kyungsoo, you understand me? You have the power to do anything, so you use it for good. This is not goodbye, HaYi. I will return.”

  “Kyungsoo,” she said her brother’s name.

  “Good,” Minji smiled, “I love you.”

HaYi started crying again, “I love you, too . . .”

Minji walked up to Jongdae and kissed Kyungsoo’s forehead, “I am sorry, Kyungsoo . . .”

  “I do not agree with this,” Jongdae shook his head, “I cannot.”

   “I do so anyway,” Minji’s face fell, her hand pulling to his face, “I will return, I promise. I will have my brother alongside me.”

   “They need you,” Jongdae argued.

Minji kissed him, “They need you, too.”

Minji put HaYi in Jongdae’s other arm and faced the elder once more, “I will seek my brother and return.”

The elder nodded, “You may lose connection to Jongdae’s thoughts in the borders of the Land of Graveyards,” he referred back to their first empire, “Be prepared.”

  “I am.” Minji said. She wanted to rest so badly, but truly, she was ready.

Minji looked back to her family with a small smile before outstretching her wings and flying away; refraining from being far up to gain the sight of the hostile creatures. She passed the flat lands quickly before she entered into the forests that stretched for miles.

Minji was hoping she’d find Daesung immediately to return and restore order. To reunite and create harmony once more.

But to get there, she first had to find the ocean in the west and cross it to find the Land of Graveyards.