the third path [4/4]

[hojichadust]

one | two | three | four

They were shaken. Kyungsoo was doing his best to keep a straight face, but in reality he was as unsettled as Jongin looked. He felt chilled, a sombre weight constricting his rib cage. The bustle of people around him was no longer a comfort. He wanted to retreat to their inn and sink into his thoughts as soon as possible.

Jongin was too distracted to efficiently make his way through the crowds of patrons, so Kyungsoo continued to lead him along, tugging on his wrist. It had gotten even busier since they’d walked in. The floors were wet and sticky with spilled beer, and the sheer number of bodies packed into the establishment had pushed the temperature up five degrees. Kyungsoo feel sweat breaking out along his neck and back.

As they moved along the front wall, nearly at the doors now, a man stumbled into Kyungsoo’s path. The swordsman stopped, barely avoiding knocking into him. “Excuse me,” he said, already trying to weave around him.

The man didn’t move. “By the Gods,” he breathed, his glassy eyes trying to focus on Kyungsoo’s face. “Kieran. Kieran the Mild. It’s you, isn’t it?”

It took everything, every ounce of his self-control, for Kyungsoo not to freeze in his spot. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to flee. Instead, he schooled his expression into one of polite confusion.

“I’m sorry, come again?” Kyungsoo said.

“It’s you, right? I’ve got it right, haven’t I?” The man stumbled a little in his spot with a hiccup, reeking of vodka and vomit. “I’d know your face anywhere. You were in Ostia, when that group of bandits made off with three of our daughters. Gods, I never thought…to see you here, alive…”

Kyungsoo didn’t recognize this man’s face, but he remembered. The three girls, none of them older than fifteen, crowded in a wooden cage where the bandits had made camp not twenty miles from the village. Mothers, fathers, family members in tears as they raced to embrace their daughters and sisters. The alderman offering him all the gold they could scrounge, and then a meal when Kyungsoo refused the money. It had been years ago. But he remembered.

At that moment, Jongin stepped forward, a frown on his face as Kyungsoo stood with paralyzed vocal cords. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” Jongin said. “The Order of the White Oaks apprehended Sir Kieran several days ago. He’s on his way to the capital now for trial.”

“And I’m afraid your information’s out of date,” the man fired back. “The bloke they found wasn’t Sir Kieran. Just some merchant trying to pawn off Sir Kieran’s armour to some wayward nobles. They realized they had the wrong man the second he was in the capital’s gates.” He burst out in laughter suddenly. “As if the man’s own city wouldn’t recognize him.”

Jongin looked at Kyungsoo, his eyes slowly taking on a hue of uncertainty, and that was what snapped Kyungsoo back into motion.

To the surprise of both the other men, he began to laugh.

“My, I’d be hard-pressed to say I’m not flattered,” Kyungsoo said, smiling companionably. “I’ve heard a great many a tale about Sir Kieran’s handsome visage. Though I suppose nowadays a comparison would do me less than good, eh?”

The man floundered, obviously taken aback. Kyungsoo gave him a hearty clap on the shoulder. “I’d dare say that made my night!” he declared. “Wait until my sister hears this. Jongin, you heard the man, right? I’ll need you to testify for me that I didn’t fib this up.”

“I-yes, of course,” Jongin said, equally confused.

“What?” the man nearly shouted, stumbling again in his spot. “That can’t be right. I swear I’d remember your face if it-”

“Mind your step,” Kyungsoo said suddenly, and, in a quick and subtle movement, took hold of the man by his upper arms and swung him about, with just enough momentum to send him stumbling and crashing into two other patrons. His flailing arms knocked into theirs and caused their beer to spill, before he went sprawling to the ground on his ass. A volley of angry yells instantly overtook the din, drawing the attention of the immediate crowd.

Kyungsoo grabbed hold of Jongin’s hand and pulled him out of the tavern.

Jongin didn’t say a word the entire way back to the inn. Not a single one. Kyungsoo almost didn’t notice, too focused on his racing heartbeat that wouldn’t calm down, the heightened anxiety that hurried his steps through the nooks and alleys of the city. He did his best to keep off the main roads. When they reached the inn Kyungsoo led them inside though a side entrance, and tugged Jongin along impatiently, up two flights of stairs and down the hall to their shared room for the night.

It was only with the door shut behind them that Kyungsoo finally let go of his hand, sucking in a deep, much needed breath. In the quiet stillness of the room, he became aware of himself. A subtle tremor had come over his hands, his tunic done up far too tightly across his chest, almost making it impossible to breathe. He reached up and tried to undo the fastenings, his fingers fumbling slightly.

“He wasn’t lying, was he?”

Kyungsoo turned. Jongin was still standing near the doorway, posture stiff. His eyes were narrowed and accusing.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” Jongin said. “You’re Kieran the Mild.”

Kyungsoo looked away. He shut his eyes tightly. “Yes.”

There was a long silence to follow. If he moves, Kyungsoo thought, if he moves, what do I do? Do I let him go? Do I kill him? The thought turned his stomach. It was the smart thing to do. He knew that. But when it came down to it, he didn’t know if he could, anymore.

“How…” Jongin’s voice was hoarse, filled with a million questions. Anger. Confusion. Betrayal. “Your name…?”

“Kyungsoo is my real name. It always has been. But the king rewards you with a knight’s name when you join the Round Table. It was then that I became Kieran the Mild. Not many people know this. It’s why I’ve been able to use my name so freely.”

“Then it’s true? What people are saying?”

Kyungsoo said nothing.

“Why did you desert them?” Jongin asked.

“That’s…it’s not easy to explain,” Kyungsoo responded. “Listen to me, Jongin. There are more important things at hand. There is a favor I must request of you.”

Jongin let out a sharp bark of a laugh. “A favor?” he said in disbelief. “You lie to me, over and over again, you endanger me simply by being in the company of a crown fugitive, and you expect me to do you a favor?”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo said, his gaze heavy. “Tomorrow I want you to go home.”

“You what?”

“Please, this isn’t easy for me. I’m…I’m asking as someone who cares about what happens to you. I know how much this means to you. Your family and your name is important to you. Doing right by Joonmyun is important to you. I know that. And I know you’re planning to try and find that damned thing, I can see it in your face. But I can’t protect you from something like this. This is beyond us. You heard that girl, you were there in that tavern with me.”

“Do you really expect me to still pay you and let you-”

“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Kyungsoo cut in sharply. “The reward doesn’t matter anymore. No amount of gold is worth just leaving you to head straight into death like this, or worse. Would you stand here and pretend that you didn’t see that woman’s face? That you didn’t hear how that devil twisted her words and wishes against her?”

“I must be losing my head,” Jongin said, taking a step forward. His dark eyes were fiery with anger. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be hearing this right now. After all this time, after everything we’ve been through, everything I’ve had to leave behind, suddenly you care? You, who reacted with offense when you found out that I hadn’t told you the full truth about my cousin? Who are you to ask anything of me?”

“Jongin-”

“No, you listen to me. I don’t know a damn thing about you! I have no idea what else you’ve lied about, whether anything you’ve ever said to me had any truth in it! Now you say you care about what happens to me? That you want me to go home because you’re afraid for my life? Who the fuck do you think you are? What exactly are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to do the right thing!” Kyungsoo exploded.

The words shocked them both, the cry electric with such emotion that Jongin was stunned straight out of his rage. Kyungsoo couldn’t help but step back, fear taking over his features. He hadn’t intended to sound so desperate, so vulnerable. They stared at each other, the silence vibrating with the echo of Kyungsoo’s outburst.

“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo said roughly, voice faltering. “I-I shouldn’t have said-forgive me, I’ll just-“

“Wait, wait, slow down.” Jongin reached out just as Kyungsoo was about to flee past him and run out the door. Without warning he pulled Kyungsoo into his chest and held him tightly. Kyungsoo froze up, but he didn’t move, his heart thundering.

“Slow down,” Jongin said again. “Just-don’t run away from me, okay?”

Kyungsoo shuddered, and with that his body went slack, barely keeping it together in Jongin’s embrace. He closed his eyes tightly. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t…I never wanted to hurt you, I never wanted…”

“I know, I know. It’s okay, Kyungsoo. I hear you. It’s okay…”

Kyungsoo didn’t know how it happened. One minute Jongin was holding him, and Kyungsoo held him back, their hands running over each other’s backs and arms with an urgency Kyungsoo couldn’t place; and then, suddenly, Kyungsoo’s mouth was on his. Jongin’s lips were soft and feverish, and Kyungsoo kissed him hard and deep, taking everything Jongin had to offer. A helpless noise escaped Jongin’s throat as the other crushed him to his chest, his blood thrumming with the need for closeness.

They pulled back panting, now stunned silent for completely different reasons. Every part of Kyungsoo’s body felt hot with want. Jongin’s cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were glassy. He gripped at Kyungsoo’s shoulders.

“Do that again,” he breathed pleadingly.

Kyungsoo did.

The window was opened a bit, in order to let a cool breeze into the room, but they kept the blinds pulled shut; they already had enough to be worried about without someone spotting them in the building across. The candles flickered gently with each passing hush of the night wind. The warm scent of flesh and sweat slowly mellowed out, and the original perfume of cedarwood began to pervade the room again.

Jongin kept stroking Kyungsoo’s forehead, his cheeks, his jaw, his neck. His eyes were full of quiet contemplation. “This isn’t why you ran, is it?” he asked.

He hadn’t motioned between them, but Kyungsoo knew what he meant. He closed his eyes as a thumb swept over his brow bone. “No,” he breathed out.

Jongin waited.

“There’s a code that knights have to follow when they take up the oath. A chivalric code of honor. One of the commandments states that if our enemies plead for mercy, then we must grant it, regardless of crime or circumstance. That never used to be a problem, but...I came across a farm while on patrol, a couple months ago. A group of bandits had raided the place, looking for food I guess, or maybe they thought the farmer had some riches hidden on his land. I don’t know anymore. But they’d slaughtered all of the livestock, killed the farmer at his kitchen table, and then they’d thrown his daughter into the haystack just outside. They were taking turns…and they were…”

A cold shiver came over him against his will. “The fourth one, after I’d cut down his three companions, began to beg for his life as he knelt bleeding before me. But something had come over me, seeing what they did to that girl. I’d never been so angry, so full of bloodthirst. Here was this man, a murderer, a thief, a rapist, a man who’d probably never granted any of his victims mercy, and I was to spare him? I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t bear to let him go. So, I killed him too.”

Kyungsoo took a deep breath. “I’ll never forget the way that girl cried.”

Jongin said nothing at first. He found Kyungsoo’s hand and brought it up to his lips, kissing his fingers gently, and Kyungsoo let the tenseness seep from his body.

“As soon as I’d done it I knew there was no going back. So I ran,” Kyungsoo said. “My original crime was desertion, but I think the girl…she may have gone to give a witness testimony, maybe hoping they’d pardon me for saving her. I noticed one day the notices about me were suddenly much more urgent-sounding, and the price on my head had gone up. At that point…well.”

“I understand,” Jongin murmured. He offered his other hand, and Kyungsoo took it readily. “I’m sor-”

“Stop. Don’t apologize anymore. You’ve done enough of that already.”

“No, I mean…that’s not what I’m…”

“You’re sorry because you’re still going to contact that beast?”

Jongin looked away guiltily. Kyungsoo sighed.

“I know. I know I can’t stop you. There’s probably nothing in my power that could make you stop no matter how much I wanted it. So I’ll retract my original request. I want a week instead.”

“A week? For what?”

“For you,” Kyungsoo said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us once we go through with this. Don’t tell me I don’t have to do this with you if I don’t want to, because I won’t leave you to face that thing alone. So I want a week first. Give me a week to have you to myself, before you do this. Please.”

Jongin flushed, a soft red hue that dusted over his glistening bronze cheekbones. Kyungsoo reached out and touched a finger to it, wanting to feel how hot his skin was.

“Okay,” Jongin said softly.

Relief swept over Kyungsoo like high tide. He pulled Jongin close and kissed his face gently, and he felt Jongin’s body relax into his chest with a content sigh, his breath hot and wet over his bare collarbones.

“Please don’t burn the tunic,” Jongin mumbled into his skin. “I like it.”

“We can talk that one over later.”

They left Londerrtain in the early hours of the morning, before the sun could breach the uneven horizon of mountains in the distance, leaving few witnesses to see them depart. They travelled carefully and cautiously, favouring uneven or difficult terrain over the main open roads. Provisions had been stocked up on before their leave, and so the need to use an inn for the night no longer harried over their heads. They camped in the forests, ate their dried meat and fruits and nuts, and they rolled out their sleeping bags and huddled close before the fading embers of their campfires. More often than not, Jongin would snuggle close as they lay down and wrap Kyungsoo’s body up with his long limbs. Kyungsoo was grateful for the body warmth, and for the warmth it sparked in his chest, too. He wondered, fleetingly, if Jongin would hold him like this every night from now on.

The journey back was longer than it took to set out, but they made it, eventually. Six days in total. Jongin apparently thought that the trip counted for the week Kyungsoo had asked for, and was surprised to hear that Kyungsoo thought differently on the matter, but his arguments quickly fell short when Kyungsoo succeeded in pushing him onto his bed and started littering his neck with love bites.

“You said a week,” Jongin stuttered out, gasping as Kyungsoo sucked a mark at the junction of his shoulder, greedy hands already slipping up underneath his shirt.

“You call living like outlaws and shitting in the bushes a good time? I meant a proper week. With you, like this. So don’t think you can escape from me until seven more days from now.”

Maybe Jongin had something else to say, but then Kyungsoo was parting his lips with a skillful tongue, and all that came out of Jongin’s mouth was a moan.

Yixing gave Kyungsoo an earful, not that it was unexpected. From the head injury that Jongin still bore a small piece of gauze over, to the fact that Jongin was never five feet from Kyungsoo and without unadulterated adoration in his eyes, there were a lot of things that Kyungsoo had fucked up. There was little Kyungsoo could do to defend himself.

“I knew I should’ve talked him out of it,” Yixing fumed, as Kyungsoo stood awkwardly to one side of the stables, already having been rejected in his offer to help him pack his saddle bags. The game master was to be away for a few days, at the nearest town in search of new breeches and some timber. “As if siphoning extra gold out of him wasn’t enough. To think that you would take advantage of-”

“I am not taking advantage of him,” Kyungsoo snapped, a flicker of anger licking up his chest. “But you wouldn’t believe me even if I said I cared about him.”

“No, I wouldn’t. Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t like you. You’re hiding something, and that really gets on my nerves.”

“My sharing or not sharing my personal life is none of your business. And I don’t have any secrets with Jongin anymore. I’ve told him everything.”

“Yes, you have, and he’s been extremely adamant about not giving you away to me. Which means that whatever you’re up to, it’s not good news. He’s protecting you, of all things. Have you even given any thought to him? To the fact that his cousin and mother have died, that he’s in charge of this place all alone, that he barely has any idea what he’s doing? What will you do when you leave and he begs with you not to go?”

“For your information,” Kyungsoo said, the blood rushing to his head now, “I haven’t given any thought to leaving. I don’t know what I’m planning to do come a week, a month from now. But that’s something that will be decided between Jongin and myself. Regardless of how much you detest having me here.”

“Suit yourself,” Yixing spat, climbing up onto his horse. “But if you hurt him, or put him in any danger, I swear I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

With that he spurred his horse hard, sending the colt straight into a gallop and out of the stable doors. Kyungsoo watched him go, a headache already settling in behind his eyeballs.

“It wouldn’t take much,” Kyungsoo murmured, even though Yixing was gone. “That I can assure you.”

After that things became blissfully quiet. Kyungsoo found that he felt less constrained when moving around the estate, and was glad of it, for poor Irene had been left the sole caretaker of both the house and its master. He set himself to trailing after her for the first couple of days, leaping at the first opportunity when it looked as though she was struggling with heavy objects or needed a hand folding laundry. Irene kept giving him a suspicious side-eye at first, but it gradually subsided with time.

He found himself wandering into Jongin’s study after helping with putting things away in cupboards too high for Irene’s reach. The lord had been busy meanwhile responding to letters of condolences from the extended relatives and family friends. Kyungsoo chose not to call for his attention, seeing his back curved with concentration over the writing desk, and unceremoniously flopped onto Jongin’s soft downy sheets.

“I hope you didn’t track mud in again,” Jongin said without looking up.

“If I said I did, would you be convinced to join me in the bathtub again like you did yesterday?”

“Don’t be so vulgar,” Jongin said. Kyungsoo didn’t have to look over to know that Jongin was blushing. “Give me a moment. I’ve almost finished.”

Kyungsoo waited obediently. He piled all of the pillows on top of one another, in order to create a backrest, and sank blissfully against them, now sitting upright and able to watch Jongin’s back. The handsome line of his broad shoulders showed faintly in the loose shirt he was wearing, and Kyungsoo allowed his eyes to trail over them.

Eventually Jongin stretched and heaved a sigh, putting his pen down on the desk.

“Jongin?”

“Mm?”

“What do you plan to do when you summon that demon?”

Jongin turned in his chair to look at him, one arm resting over the back of it. He pressed his lips together, concern filling his features. “I...I don’t know. I mean, I want answers. That’s the most important thing to me. But I’ve asked myself if I can handle walking away with just that much. A part of me still boils with anger at what he’s done to my family.”

“You can’t fight it,” Kyungsoo said frankly. “Neither can I.”

“I know.”

“Listen, Jongin. Maybe this doesn’t mean anything coming from me, we’ve barely known each other a month. But you’ve done more than a mother or cousin could ever ask for. Sometimes these things aren’t about exacting revenge. You aren’t a bad person if you decide to end things here and let it be. You’ve proven time again that you’d go to the ends of the earth and stare the devil in the face in order to do the right thing, and that’s more that can be said for a lot of people who have lost someone dear to them. It’s courageous and it’s admirable, and...would you stop staring at me like that?” Kyungsoo stammered, feeling his neck heat up.

“Can’t help it,” Jongin said, smiling faintly. “Kyungsoo, can I kiss you?”

“You don’t have to ask me,” Kyungsoo said, and was shocked to see the way Jongin’s face lit up with grateful affection, as if Kyungsoo had just given him the whole world and the skies to accompany it. It provoked an intense desire in him, the determination to keep giving himself to Jongin like this, and as Jongin joined him on the mountain of pillows and opened his arms to hold him Kyungsoo felt at ease, for the first time in months. Maybe, he was finally getting somewhere. Maybe he was finally doing something right.

For a while, Kyungsoo was content.

He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing anymore.

Maybe he’d been petting Fergus in his room, crouching down to rub the little beast’s belly as he rolled over at Kyungsoo’s feet and whined for attention. Maybe he’d been taking a stroll through the gardens behind Jongin’s mansion, with Jongin walking next to him, his voice shy and happy. Maybe he’d been reading a book in the main room, with Jongin’s head on his lap, warm and steady; or maybe he’d dropped the book when Jongin’s fingers had mischievously crept along his inner thigh. He didn’t know. He didn’t remember anymore.

But he remembered the scream.

It was short, and partly muffled, barely a scream at all; but it was filled with terror. Kyungsoo remembered running, dropping whatever it was he’d been doing, blindly bolting to the front of the mansion where the sound had originated.

Fifteen feet ahead of him, a hunched figure among the overgrown rose bushes, was Irene kneeling on the cobblestone path and cradling something in her arms. Her back was turned to him, making it difficult to see what it was, but as Kyungsoo approached Irene turned her fear-stricken face towards him, and her body shifted, showing that it was Yixing. He was deathly pale and covered in cold sweat, body limp and head rolling in her lap. His horse was grazing near the estate gates, its entire left shoulder soaked in bright red blood.

“Christ…” Jongin, next to him, both of them kneeling in front of Irene now. “Oh Gods, oh, fuck…”

The wound wasn’t deep, but it was messy, and had grazed a major artery. Kyungsoo took one look after ripping the blood-soaked cotton of his shirt away and knew it was over. He’d been bleeding out for far too long.

Yixing’s pupils shook as they focused on Kyungsoo’s face, his eyes already clouding over, but the rage in them was palpable. “You whoreson,” Yixing hissed, with his last, few dying breaths. “You goddamn fucking son of a bitch.”

And in that moment, Kyungsoo knew.

“You don’t have to go alone,” Jongin said desperately, trying to catch Kyungsoo’s arms as the other struggled to saddle his horse. “Please, don’t do this on your own, I want to go with you-”

“Listen, the one they’re after isn’t you. So far nobody who’s seen me knows who you are and we have to keep it that way. The less you’re seen with me the better. If we’re lucky I can cut them off from here and divert them somewhere else, and then they’ll be too distracted with me to remember I was ever travelling with anyone. You don’t deserve to run away like this. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“That’s not the point!” Jongin’s eyes began to fill with tears. It hurt Kyungsoo to force himself to look away. “I don’t want you to leave like this. What if they catch up to you? What if I never see you again?”

“You will,” Kyungsoo said firmly. “I promise you’ll see me again. I’m going to come back. I don’t know how, but I will fix this. So promise me you won’t do anything reckless while I’m away. Promise me, Jongin.”

“I-I promise.”

They reached for each other at the same time, sweeping each other in a bone-crushing hug. A single sob left Jongin’s mouth at the contact, one that almost wasn’t heard with the collision of their bodies, and then he swallowed the rest down. Kyungsoo buried his face in Jongin’s neck and inhaled deeply.

“Don’t die,” Jongin said, his voice watery.

“I won’t. I’m not done with you yet.”

Discretion was now the last thing on his mind. He made sure his face was perfectly visible as he cantered through the village, not stopping or looking away from the road ahead while shouts of alarm and recognition floated up from all sides. Kyungsoo suspected one of the villagers had given them away, and the news was of the exact sort to spread among the peasants like wildfire. The more witnesses to see him flee, the better.

He sped into a full-fledged gallop as soon as he was on the main road, turning opposite of the direction from which Yixing had come. He didn’t realize it, too focused on putting as much distance between him and the village as possible, but the line of his jaw tightened. He could still see in his mind’s eye the loathing that had filled Yixing’s eyes even as he was dying. He’d been right all along. Kyungsoo never should have lingered here.

He rode at full speed for a long time. Persimmon’s coat began to glisten with sweat, the only sign of exhaustion the mare showed. Kyungsoo looked up, saw that the daylight was beginning to go out of the sky, streaking the world around him in orange and blood-red.

“Just a little longer,” Kyungsoo said into Persimmon’s ear, and heard the mare snort in response.

Up ahead the road forked off, showing a side path that led to a sparsely wooded area, the trees thin and brittle with some kind of sickness. Kyungsoo veered on to it, then slowed Persimmon to a trot, hoping that they were at least partially obscured from sight. There was no wind in the air, the trees and grasses stock-still around them. It unsettled the swordsman. No natural landscape would ever stand so inanimate. It was as if the place was suffocated by some invisible barrier, cutting it off from the rest of the world.

Persimmon began to toss her head and make short whinnying noises, irritated with exhaustion.

“Hush,” Kyungsoo said, distracted.

It was hard to tell now where he was or how far he had travelled. These woods were unfamiliar to him, having never taken this road before. Up ahead, the edge of the tree line was slowly drawing close. Beyond it Kyungsoo could make out a three-way crossroad in the center of large, endless fields, marked only a massive oak tree looming overhead of it, easily two hundred years old. In comparison to the woods that they were about to leave, the vast open face seemed too exposing. Kyungsoo hesitated, finally drawing his reigns short as he nearly breached the edge of the forest.

If it weren’t for that, he might not have heard the sound of hooves thundering in the distance.

The sheer frequency and overlap immediately told Kyungsoo that it was more than just three or four riders. Panic shot through him like an arrow. He leapt off his horse and began to pull Persimmon off the road by the bridle. “Come on, come on,” Kyungsoo urged, and Persimmon flicked her ears, responding to the anxiety in his master’s voice.

The procession was drawing closer now. Kyungsoo realized he wasn’t going to get them both deep enough into the brush in time. In a split-second decision he turned and whipped the mare’s thigh with his leather-gloved hand. “Go!” he snapped.

Persimmon snorted once before bolting off further into the forest.

Kyungsoo dropped to the ground and submerged himself into a nearby viburnum bush, hoping that there was enough shadow cast over him now that the sun had set below the horizon. Every muscle in his body tensed up, hardly daring to breathe for fear of being detected. He could feel the sweat dripping down his neck, his heart hammering mercilessly inside of his throat. He waited.

Through the branches of the viburnum, Kyungsoo saw a squadron of nearly thirty men cantering past, their procession speedy and orderly as they breached the road from which Kyungsoo had just come. At the front of the battalion their leader bore the flag of the White Oaks, and the rest all bore torches behind him, their silver armour shining maliciously in the fire light. They were moving fast, but Kyungsoo saw, without difficulty, that every last one of them was armed.

The swordsman watched, frozen, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. There was no way, no discernible reason whatsoever, that the King should send thirty men to retrieve him. More than thirty, in fact, for there was the squadron that had attacked Yixing to be accounted for as well. At this point Kyungsoo was forced to take into consideration that there be even more numbers he wasn’t aware of, meaning…

Realization struck him like a blow to the chest, knocking the air out of him. The sound of soldiers’ horses galloping away deeper into the woods had barely drifted out of earshot before he stumbled out of the bush with weak legs, running out onto the road beyond the edge of the forest.

Those soldiers weren’t coming for Kyungsoo. This wasn’t an arrest anymore.

“Persimmon!” Kyungsoo shouted. He let out a piercing whistle, over and over again. “Fuck-Persimmon! Persimmon!”

There was no response. His horse was somewhere Kyungsoo’s voice couldn’t reach him. Now there was no way he could get back to Hawick in time. Kyungsoo’s knees buckled for a moment, and it registered that he was beginning to hyperventilate. He stopped for a moment to force several deep breaths, bent over, eyes clenched tightly shut.

Images flashed through his mind. He thought of the villagers of Hawick, with their houses of wood and straw and thatched mud, the children in stained dresses playing by the fields of hollyhock. He thought of Yixing’s body, covered with a blanket and abandoned in the straw of the stables, for whom there had been no time to bury. He thought of Jongin, alone with Irene in his home, both of them unarmed and utterly defenceless. Jongin with his bandaged head, Jongin with his long gentle fingers intertwined with his, Jongin with his heartbreaking and beautiful untainted smile.

“Fuck,” Kyungsoo hissed, the urge to scream crippling him. “For Gods’ sake, please…”

“Haven’t you lived long enough to know the gods can’t hear you?”

Kyungsoo immediately shot upright, one hand on the hilt of his sword. For the first time, he realized that he was standing beneath the oak tree, right in the center of the open crossroads. At first glance he saw no one, but he already knew, deep in his mind, that the sound had not come from behind him.

He looked up.

Luhan grinned down at him, his feet swinging back and forth as his legs dangled from the branch he sat upon, about twenty feet off the ground. He was dressed the same as the day Kyungsoo had first seen him. Behind him, through the foliage of the oak, the clouds began to disperse, and a full moon slowly appeared in the night sky, illuminating everything in a pale white light. The hilt of Kyungsoo’s sword began to glisten.

“Of course, that’s still taking into account the idea that the gods exist at all,” Luhan continued. “Although I can confirm for you that that’s far from the case. Sorry if I burst any bubbles.”

The air had changed. There was a deep, hollowing aura that vibrated around the boy in the tree, and it chilled Kyungsoo to the very core of his body. There was nothing natural about it. The pieces slowly began to fall together in Kyungsoo’s head.

“It’s you,” Kyungsoo said, his voice steadier than he felt. “Isn’t it?”

Luhan smiled, then hoisted himself off the branch and hopped to the ground. The drop should have been enough to stagger him at the very least, more likely to sprain his ankles; but when he landed, his feet touched the ground softly, with no impact whatsoever. He may as well have been sitting an inch from the ground.

“Good deductions,” Luhan said amicably, his tone light and lilting, as if seeing a close friend again after a very long time. “I knew you were a smart one when I first saw you. I must say I was very intrigued at first to see you let our young lord gallivant you across the country like a loyal hunting dog. You seemed so certain that the late Joonmyun had been up to no good.”

“I can’t say I’m pleased my suspicions were correct,” Kyungsoo said. He could feel his body beginning to tremble, and he clenched his fists, doing his best to suppress it. “So what are you, exactly? You can shape shift, it seems. The description Johanna gave of the man who helped her doesn’t match your appearance. And you can grant wishes, albeit not very efficiently.”

“You don’t think so?” Luhan said, almost genuinely surprised. “I thought I did a fair job interpreting their demands. Johanna asked that Hendrik see her for who she truly was, and so he did. Our friend Joonmyun, who had to meet such a gruesome and untimely end, asked that he alone by all circumstance be the groom that would marry his beloved. And I should certainly say he was the groom by all circumstance. What’s better than to have a family fortune fall into your lap, or for your competition to magically disappear?”

“Don’t take me for an idiot,” Kyungsoo said, bristling. “You purposely twist their words on them. None of them would have reached out to you for help had they known of the consequences.”

“Well, it’s hardly my fault if they dove in with their heads in their arses. Isn’t it always ‘Be careful what you wish for’? But I digress. I meant to talk about you.”

“And what exactly do you want from me?”

“Why, I wanted to thank you. I was very flattered to see that you and Lord Jongin had taken such a…personal interest in me. And of course, I didn’t forget to thank Jongin as well.”

“You mean with all those soldiers riding in to burn Hawick to the ground?” Kyungsoo said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, no, that wasn’t me. I just slipped the villagers a clue here and there that their young lord was accommodating a very high-profile fugitive in his home. Gave them a bit of room to come to their own conclusions. Although I never prompted them to ask for such numbers. The Church of the White Oaks decided on their own that all of Hawick was guilty for hiding such a criminal. Really a shame. They were just beginning to prosper as a community.”

“So is that why you’re here talking to me, then? Because you knew that things were about to get hot down there?”

“Oh, very much the opposite. I thought I’d swing by to warn you of the danger you’d left dear Jongin in. But it seems you were already aware of such, so I suppose I don’t serve much use here anymore, do I?”

For a long moment, a heavy silence hung between them, broken only by a slight breeze that whistled through the oak’s branches. Slowly, Kyungsoo removed his hands from his sword. They dropped to his sides lifelessly.

“I think we both know,” Kyungsoo said, “that you’re lying.”

Luhan grinned wickedly, and with his back to the moon his face twisted grotesquely in the shadows cast over his features. “Oh, you are a bright one, aren’t you?”

“Stop patronizing me, and get to the point. How does this work?”

“Oh, it’s very simple. You want to save Jongin and his little anthill of peasants from being gutted horrifically by the White Oaks. I can provide said solution. All you have to do is agree to it. No papers, no blood oaths, none of that arid drivel. Just you, me, and my word.”

Luhan smiled. The bottom half of his face relaxed, but there was an unmistakable glint in his eyes, an unnatural glow that sent a hard chill down Kyungsoo’s spine. “Time is running out, Kyungsoo of Brodich. A choice must be made. Do we have a deal? Will you save our dear Jongin from his inexorable end?”

The wind was soft and warm on Kyungsoo’s ears. The fields of grain were rustling in gentle waves around them, a vast, endless silence sweeping through the tips of the stalks. No one was around for miles now. They were utterly alone on the edge of the world.

Luhan stood across from him patiently, waiting. To think, Kyungsoo thought, just a month ago, devils didn’t exist. Jongin’s face floated through his mind again, smiling, loving. He turned his face to the sky one last time.

“Alright,” Kyungsoo said. “We have a deal.”

end.