PROLOGUE; 14 years ago

“Who is that, Hyosung?”

The little girl pointed at the small picture of a smiling woman with crimson hair. She was beautiful, the little girl thought, as she traced the woman's features with her eyes.

“Hmm?” Hyosung – who had been drifting away in her own reveries as the little girl sitting in her lap had been flipping through the book containing the small, hand painted portraits – leaned her chin on the little girl’s shoulder to peer down at the book in her small hands. “That’s the Crimson Thorn. Or, well, was.”

Blinking slowly, the little girl processed the older woman’s words before pursing her lips in befuddlement. “’Was’?”

“She died a very long time ago.”

The little girl cocked her head, her head still unable to really grasp the concept of ‘death’ and therefore not really understanding how sad the blunt statement really was. “I see... but you've lived for a really long time too, haven't you? Did you know her?”

Hyosung nodded slowly, her nose scrunched up in thought. “I have, but no, I didn't know her. I saw her sometimes here, in the Main Castle, when I was as small as you are right now, but I never got to speak with or get to know her before she passed away.”

“Was she strong? Did she have amaaazing powers?”

“Yes, she was very talented. She was so famous that even humans knew of her. They were very terrified of her, you see, because not even armies with hundreds of men could touch her her, let alone come near her.”

The little girl frowned. “But then why did she die? She was beautiful. And aren't we immortal?”

“Jieun, just because we live for a very, very long time without aging does not mean we're immortal. No one is incapable of dying,” Hyosung replied, her voice carefully measured as she tried to explain the tragic fate of the woman in the picture as succinctly as possible. She didn’t want to scare the small child, after all. “Crimson Thorn went mad, because she became obsessed with her gifts – which were fire and regeneration – and then one day she snapped. She burned down a whole village and killed a lot of people, and then when her powers ran out, she burned herself, too.”

The little girl, whose name was Jieun, looked at Hyosung in consternation, her eyes wide. “She burned herself? But if she had the power of fire then the fire should’ve been unable to hurt her!”

“Don’t you remember what I told you yesterday?” Hyosung raised an eyebrow teasingly, before returning to the serious subject that they were discussing. “We’re only immune to our powers as long as we haven’t used up all of our energy. Otherwise they will turn against us and hurt us, too, because the only reason that we can use them is because we give them energy. Our gifts are like parasites, in a way; as long as we give them energy they leave us alone and do as we want, but the moment we run out of that energy they will betray and destroy us.”

Jieun gasped in distress, completely ignoring Hyosung’s playful jibe. “What!? So if I used up all my energy like Kimseun Thorn, then my flames would kill me?”

“Crimson Thorn, Jieun, mind your pronunciation,” Hyosung scolded lightly, before she hugged Jieun reassuringly to her chest, carefully picking her next words. The little girl was only nine years old, after all. Hyosung really regretted telling her about the Crimson Thorn; that woman’s tale was not one for small children to hear, and especially not before they were going to bed. “Yes, they would. But you’re not crazy like Crimson Thorn, are you? You’re a very smart little girl, Jieun, a lot smarter than that woman. You’d know when to stop using your powers before they began damaging you. And if you for some reason wouldn’t, then I’ll come and stop you before it's too late.”

“You will?”

“Yes.”

Jieun’s eyes were impossibly big as she searched Hyosung’s face for any signs that the older woman was lying, but when she found none, a warm smile replaced the earlier expression of horror.

“Thank you, Hyosung!” she said, twisting around to glue herself to Hyosung’s torso in a tight hug. “Then I promise that I will rescue you, too!”

Hyosung, who had not been expecting to hear that, chuckled amusedly and ruffled Jieun’s brown, wavy hair. “Really?”

Jieun nodded enthusiastically with her face still pressed against Hyosung’s chest, her voice muffled as she started speaking again. “Of course! I’ll definitely save you, so don’t worry!”

“That’s very kind of you, Jieunnie. I feel a lot safer now.”

Releasing her hold of the other woman and leaning back, Jieun beamed at Hyosung. “No worries!”

A moment of silence then lapsed between them, both busy with mulling over the serious conversation that they’d just had despite Hyosung's efforts to lighten it up, until Hyosung decided that she'd had enough of it and broke the silence.

“Well, it’s time for you to sleep now, Jieun! Don’t forget that you have to get up earlier tomorrow for your grammar test!”

“Ack! Hyosung, whyyy? I want to stay up late, like you do!” Jieun whined, a pout quickly forming on her face, but despite her complaints she didn't make any real protests when Hyosung shifted Jieun from her lap to the soft mattress of Jieun's bed on which they’d been sitting on.

“Not until you’ve grown up and become a true Ascended!” Hyosung grinned cheerfully, rising from the bed to tuck the still pouting Jieun in. “So until then, be a good girl and listen to big sister Hyosungie when she tells you it’s time to sleep, okay?”

“… Okay,” Jieun finally relented, because even though she didn’t want to admit it, she was very tired – exhausted, to be precise – so even if Hyosung had allowed her to stay up as late as her Jieun would still have fallen asleep in a matter of minutes. “Will you sing me the lullaby tonight as well?”

Pressing a soft kiss to the child who – despite not sharing the same blood – had become like a little sister to her on the forehead, Hyosung smiled. “Of course I will, Jieun. Now sleep well, and dream nice dreams.”

And then Hyosung sang, and as always the song was so heartbreakingly beautiful that Jieun forgot about the woman with the bloodred hair in favor of focusing on Hyosung's singing.

It was really too bad that Jieun forgot to ask about the Crimson Thorn's name before she fell asleep that evening.

: : : : : :

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hiya, guys!! Thank you so much for subscribing, I hope I won't make ya'll disappointed! ;) so, this was the prologue. I tried to explain a little bit about the Ascended and their powers, but I'm not sure how well I managed to do it, so I'll explain it here in this Author's Note;

Okay, so first of all: This story does not take place in our world! It takes place in a different world where magic and crazy stuff exists, so don't expect any modern computers or whatnot in this fiction! :)

There are two kinds of people in this magical fantasy world that I've created, the humans and the Ascended.

The humans are just like us; ordinary people living their lives in a somewhat medieval society .

The Ascended, however, are very different. They age and grow as normal people do up until they turn twenty, and then their bodies kinda slow down the whole aging process. So, in short, it takes around 100 human years for an Ascended to age 1 year in appearance. The Ascended are also gifted with special powers, such as fire (as in Jieun's case), water, air, earth etc. Those powers were the ones Hyosung talked about when she called them "parasites" in this.

The humans and the Ascended are in an on-going war with each other, and though it wasn't mentioned in this prologue, it will be a lot more prominent in the future chapters since Jieun is a part of the Ascended's army and will fight against the humans.

The humans have - in order to fight the armies of the almost superhuman Ascended - created a order/army of their own, and it's called the Swords. But we'll get into that later ;)

Did that explain it a little better? Or is everything still very confusing? If so, don't hesitate to message me and ask questions or give me advice how to better explain everything! :)

Also, I'll edit this tomorrow since I'm too tired to do it right now.

A thousand hugs to all of you guys! <3

Elysionista

11/7 2013