Archive of Our Own

Becoming a knight had been Yeonjun’s dream since he was a kid. He didn’t come from much– a common family, two shoemaker parents that lived on the outskirts of a tiny village many miles from the nearest castle. He didn’t have anything knightly on his résumé, either, unless saving the neighbor’s daughter from getting hit by a runaway horse and cart counted. He was going to have to do better if he wanted the royal family to hire him.

He’d read the books in Taehyun’s library, though, and heard the stories from the singing bard that occasionally came through town. Knights who had single-handedly won battles to save the kingdom, knights who rescued princesses in far-off lands and came home heroes. Yeonjun knew that it was his destiny.

“Destiny seems like a strong word,” Beomgyu interrupted dryly. “You’re not even a fortune teller. What do you know about destiny?”

“You don’t have to have magic to be a knight. Kai told me all the knights he’s met on his travels have no magic at all. If they have magic, they’re paladins, not knights, and I don’t much feel like joining the Holy Order.”

“Kai’s a bard, he’s probably never met a knight in his life.”

“What makes you say that?” Yeonjun asked, putting his drink down on the counter and crossing his arms with a frown. His glass was nearly empty, but the woman that ran the tavern didn’t bother to refill it. She knew he didn’t have the money to pay for a second.

Beomgyu put his drink down, too. His parents were merchants, which meant that he made much better money than Yeonjun. The second his empty glass hit the counter, the woman filled it to the brim with amber liquid. Like the good friend he was, Beomgyu dumped half of his drink into Yeonjun’s cup.

“Bards are basically just professional liars,” Beomgyu said. “They exaggerate and twist the story to get you interested, that’s how they get your money. You think Kai gets the best room at the inn every time he comes because he’s rich? No, he’s just a really smooth talker.”

Yeonjun humphed. “What about the books, then? You think those are all lies, too?”

Beomgyu shrugged. “Maybe not all of them, but still. Being a knight is dangerous, it’s not all the guts and glory the stories make it seem like. You’re probably better off just learning how to make shoes.”

“I already know how to make shoes,” Yeonjun grumbled. “And yet here I am, relying on you for a pitiful half-drink.”

“Boutique shoes, then,” Beomgyu replied, draining his glass. “Fancy boots for men and jeweled heels for the ladies. Maybe then the royal family will actually hire you.”

Yeonjun sat and thought about that for a while, swirling around the foamy liquid in his cup. “I think Taehyun would be supportive of my dream.”

“Taehyun could actually slay a dragon and save a princess, though.”

“See! So I could do it, then.”

“He made a blood sacrifice to a demon lord in exchange for his power,” Beomgyu pointed out. “It’s not like he bought dragon-slaying as a skill at my parents’ shop for fifty percent off.”

Yeonjun pouted down at the slightly sticky counter in front of them. “But if I make a blood oath then I wouldn’t be a knight, I’d be a– I don’t even know. A really evil wizard?”

“He’s not evil. Besides, the word is warlock.”

“He’s gotta be at least a little bit evil,” Yeonjun said. “Come on. The whole blood-sacrifice-to-a-demon-lord thing? Even your capitalist ass has gotta admit that’s a little off.”

“You know why he did it,” Beomgyu replied. “Not even my capitalist ass would risk getting turned into a demon’s slave for all eternity just for that kind of power.”

“I wonder what he said to that demon to avoid the whole enslaving thing,” Yeonjun mused.

Beomgyu let out a low chuckle. “If you think you’re good enough to outsmart a demon lord, I promise you’re wrong. Don’t even think about it.”

There was quiet between them for a moment as Yeonjun listened to the rowdy conversations of the other patrons around them. There was a band in the corner playing traditional folk music, and a handsome man surrounded by three giggling women near the fireplace. Yeonjun sighed. “We’re getting off-topic. I just need to know where the nearest dragon-guarded tower is, and I can go from there.”

Beomgyu waved off the woman who owned the tavern before speaking, dropping a couple of coins onto the counter and standing up. Yeonjun did the same, though his pile of coins was admittedly a lot smaller than Beomgyu’s. “You can ask Kai the next time he’s in town, but don’t be surprised when whatever he tells you is a lie.”

As it turned out, Yeonjun didn’t have to wait long. He heard the sound of Kai’s guitar floating in through his open bedroom window less than a week later, and nearly fell out of bed in his excitement. He shoved his own pair of worn-out shoes on and rushed out the door still in his pajamas.

“Kai!”

Kai turned around, smiling. His cream-colored shirt was pristine, laced up at the front of his chest and at the ends of his sleeves in neat little bows. His trousers looked clean, too. Only his black boots looked to be in a bit of disrepair, which Yeonjun considered to be a given considering how much he walked from town to town. He usually cleaned and repaired Kai’s shoes whenever he came to visit.

“Yeonjun hyung! It’s good to see you.” Kai paused his playing to sling his guitar over his shoulder and give Yeonjun a hug.

“You’re here early,” Yeonjun said. “Hardly anyone else is up yet.”

“Figured I’d give you all a nice wake-up call,” Kai replied, grinning from ear to ear. “Gotta be better than the roosters, right? At least I can stay on-key.”

“Come on, I’ll start breakfast. I’ve got a couple questions to ask you,” Yeonjun said, pointing in the direction of his house. “And don’t worry. I can re-sole those for you, they’re looking real beat.”

Kai sat at the table while Yeonjun cooked. He could hear his parents walking around in the upstairs bedroom, probably preparing for another day at the shop. Kai was talking animatedly, using his hands to act things out on the tabletop as he described some of the things he’d seen. Apparently he’d encountered a mob of bandits on his journey to the sea, and had narrowly escaped with his life and his guitar by talking everyone into getting blackout drunk while Kai only pretended to sip from a flask. Beomgyu was right– Kai was a smooth talker.

Once breakfast was over, they went into the back room of the shop. Yeonjun’s dad waved as they passed, and Kai gave him another wide grin and waved back. Yeonjun gestured for Kai to sit down and take off his shoes.

Kai was still talking as he did so, having not broken his stream of chatter once the entire time. He was now talking about a mermaid he’d met when he agreed to help out on a fishing boat for a couple of days at sea. Mermaids were a common sight at the South Sea, but Yeonjun had only ever read about them in books. Apparently they were fascinated by the sound of Kai’s guitar, since mermaids typically preferred percussive instruments underwater.

Finally, once Yeonjun had already taken the soles off of both boots and was busy sizing up new ones, Kai stopped for a breath. “Wait, you said you wanted to ask me some questions?”

“Yes,” Yeonjun replied, setting the boots upside-down to try to size the soles. “I want to be a knight, so I was wondering if you’ve heard of any princesses around here that might need rescuing.”

There was a long pause. “You want to be a knight?”

“Yes,” Yeonjun said again, turning around at Kai’s tone. “Why, does that surprise you?”

Kai’s head was tilted curiously, and he looked Yeonjun up and down. “I don’t know, I just didn’t think you were the type to be interested in princesses all that much. Do you even work out?”

Yeonjun frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, you kinda have to be buff to be a knight. You know, throwing delicate maidens over your shoulder and hauling ass out of a tower and all that stuff. Is that really what you’re into?”

“It’s not that I’m into it, it’s just the fastest way to get the royal family to hire me,” Yeonjun answered, going back to working on Kai’s shoes. “Besides, I’m plenty strong even if I don’t necessarily look it.”

Kai made a skeptical noise. “What about sword fights? Archery? Jousting? Duels? Can you do any of those things?”

“I have a wooden sword that I practiced with all the time as a kid. I’m pretty good at that, I’d say.”

“Have you ever ridden a horse?”

“The family down the street let me ride their donkey once.”

“Did it bite you?”

“Yeah, of course it bit me, it’s a donkey. What’s your point?”

Kai sighed. “Look, hyung, I get it. You’re bored, you want to try new things and see the world, but being a knight is tough. They get killed all the time, and you… Well, I’d really hate to be like yeah, in fact I do know about a fair maiden locked in a tower guarded by a dragon forty miles east of here only to have you run out there and get yourself barbecued. Why don’t you just come hang out with me for a little while? I can take you to see cool stuff.”

Yeonjun dropped the hammer he was using to sole the shoes. “Forty miles east?”

Kai swore under his breath. “Me and my fat mouth. Hyung, it’s not that I don’t think you can do it, I just think there might be better ways to try to go about this. You could enlist in the army for a little while, get some training there–“

“No, that’s perfect. I’ve been saving up, I’m sure I can buy a weapon out of the pawn shop and get this done. Then I’ll be on my way to the castle in no time.”

“Hyung!” The volume of Kai’s voice startled Yeonjun a little, but he looked desperate. “I’m telling you, it’s a bad idea. This dragon, it– there’s something wrong with it. It’s smarter than normal dragons, and they say it crawled from the pits of Hell itself. There’s a reason that princess is still in that tower.”

“Oh.” Yeonjun went back to the boots until he realized something. “Wait a second, I know a guy who negotiated with a demon lord himself and won. I bet he could outsmart that dragon.”

“Are you talking about Kang Taehyun?” Kai asked.

Yeonjun turned around again. “You know him too?”

“Duh. I know everyone.”

“Right. Well, I’ll just ask Taehyun for advice on how to defeat the dragon, and then I’ll have that princess outta there. Piece of cake.”

Kai rubbed his face with his hands, letting out a huff, and then flopped back against the rickety chair he was sitting in. “At least let me guide you there. I’ve never been, but I’ll be able to navigate a lot better than someone who’s hardly ever left this town in their life.”

“Hey! That’s not true, I went to the next town over with my dad a couple of times to sell shoes at the market.”

“Doesn’t count,” Kai sniffed. “Next town is barely a mile over. We’ll be in uncharted territory, far off the roads and into the mountains. It’s not going to be a fun journey.”

“That’s okay,” Yeonjun said cheerfully. He trimmed the last of the excess leather sticking out of the sides of the boots and buffed them up a little so they were shining before handing them to Kai. “All of this will be totally worth it when I’m holding a knight’s sword up at the castle.”

Beomgyu caught sight of them as they were making their way through town from the front window of his parents’ shop in the plaza. It was prime real estate, because Beomgyu’s family had been in this town for practically its entire existence. The second they made eye contact through the window, Beomgyu ran out to greet Yeonjun and Kai.

Kai was still singing, his honey-silk voice echoing through the square. People were dropping coins into his open pouch as they passed, and every girl he smiled at blushed furiously. Talented and charming– Yeonjun really needed to up his game. Beomgyu at least had “cute and rich” on his list of assets, at least according to the other kids at the schoolhouse they’d attended. Yeonjun, on the other hand, was pretty much a nobody.

Just for right now, he reminded himself. Soon he’d be a knight, the first from his tiny rural town to do so. Then everyone would remember him.

Taehyun’s door opened for them before they even had the chance to knock, and then immediately slammed shut behind them. It was always weirdly dark in here, especially considering that the sun had long since risen, but Taehyun could see in the dark. Yeonjun was bumping into furniture and swearing as they tried to make their way upstairs to where they knew Taehyun would be in the attic.

“Hi, Beomgyu hyung,” Taehyun said, eyes not even moving up from the book he was reading. Apparently he didn’t feel the need to acknowledge anyone else, because he didn’t continue.

“Right, uh, hi Taehyun,” Yeonjun said, feeling a little unsettled. Taehyun’s presence had a way of doing that, but he’d grown used to it after years of friendship. At least, Yeonjun liked to think of it as friendship. Taehyun seemed to be rather indifferent.

“Say hi to Sakura noona.”

“Right, right, of course,” Yeonjun replied quickly, turning towards the bed in the corner and bowing deeply. There was a beautiful girl lying in it, silent and still as a statue. That was why Taehyun had taken the deal with the demon lord, and why he spent most of his time in this attic. His older sister had fallen ill years ago, and never got better. Taehyun was on an everlasting quest to see his sister again. His power had managed to keep her alive this long, but she was asleep. Yeonjun barely remembered what she was like outside of a few hazy memories from the schoolhouse.

“Taehyun, we have a question,” Yeonjun said. “Or– uhh, I guess I have a question. You know how I want to be a knight?”

“Yes,” Taehyun answered, turning the page of his book. The entire attic was lined with bookshelves, a piece of red ribbon sticking out of every volume that Taehyun had read. There were thousands of red tabs in here.

“Right, well– wait, I never told you that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Uhh… okay. Great, well, I guess you’re up to speed. Anyways, Kai told me that there’s a tower forty miles east of here guarded by a dragon, but it’s not like a normal dragon,” Yeonjun explained. “He said it’s… smarter? That it came from Hell, or something. And since you did the– you know, the whole thing with the demon lord, I was wondering if you might have any insights?”

Finally, Taehyun looked up from his book. He closed it and set it on the tiny table next to him, staring straight at Yeonjun now. Yeonjun shifted where he stood. Taehyun’s eyes glowed like lamps in the dark, the mark of the demon’s magic that flowed through his veins.

“There are no dragons in Hell,” he said finally. “Kai must’ve been exaggerating.”

“No, I swear it’s true!” Kai piped up, speaking for the first time since they’d entered the house. “They say that everyone who encounters it never returns. Even the most experienced dragon-slayers can’t kill it, and it has magic of its own. Have you ever even heard of that? A dragon with magic?”

Taehyun was quiet for a while. He seemed to be thinking long and hard about something, and in the meantime Beomgyu had gone to give his own greeting to Sakura in the bed in the corner. He seemed to be talking to her in hushed tones, though of course she showed no signs of being able to hear. Maybe that was how Beomgyu had earned Taehyun’s favor so quickly; his sister was the only family he had left, and therefore the most precious thing in his life. Beomgyu and Taehyun had been friends in school, too, if Yeonjun remembered correctly, long before Sakura had fallen ill and Taehyun had taken the deal with a demon.

“Are you really planning to go?” Taehyun asked, startling Yeonjun. It had been so long since he’d said anything that Yeonjun was starting to wonder if he’d forgotten to respond entirely.

“Yes, as soon as possible. I can’t let this opportunity go if I want to be a knight, someone else might rescue the princess before I do,” Yeonjun answered.

To Yeonjun’s immense surprise, Taehyun stood up. “Then I’ll go with you. If there truly is a dragon with magic, I need to see it myself.”

“What?” Beomgyu exclaimed, turning away from Sakura. “You think this is okay? You want to go on this– this pointless expedition straight into death? What the hell, Taehyun?”

“Knowledge at all costs,” Taehyun said. “If there is any magic there at all that may be of use to me, I have to have it. I’ve spent six fruitless years in this attic studying, it’s time for me to see it all myself.”

There seemed to be some sort of silent stand-off between the two, Beomgyu’s silhouette framed by the sparse light filtering in through the lace curtains behind him. Finally, his shoulders slumped.

“Alright. Well, if you three idiots are going, then I’m going too. At least I’ll be able to come back and tell everyone what happened to you guys so they’re not all stuck wondering.”

“I doubt anyone would wonder what happened to me,” Taehyun said pragmatically. “The only person who knows me in this town is the bookseller.”

“And me,” Beomgyu replied emphatically. “And Yeonjun hyung. And Kai. And your sister, who’s still relying on you. Are you seriously going to leave her here, all alone?”

“She needs no food nor water to sustain her, and anyone who enters this house without my permission faces a fate on par with death,” Taehyun answered. “She will continue to live no matter what happens to me.”

“Unbelievable,” Beomgyu said dryly. “Yeonjun hyung, when Taehyun carries you through this fight with the dragon, I expect a big drawing of his face to be pinned on top of your résumé.”

Yeonjun had packed everything that he thought might be of use into a bag that he was currently hiding under his bed. He was planning to sneak out at dawn, before his parents woke up. The four of them had agreed to meet at the shed behind Yeonjun’s house, since it was the furthest out of town and therefore they were less likely to be spotted by any nosy neighbors.

As he looked up at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom, he was forced to reckon with the fact that there was a serious chance that he might never see this house again. He’d already put a note under his pillow for his parents, but would that be enough? Surely they would understand. Yeonjun couldn’t stay in this tiny town forever; becoming a knight was the singular dream he’d been working towards since he was barely five years old.

A breeze lifted the curtain. It was late summer, verging on fall, so the breeze was welcome to take some of the stiflingly humid air out with it. Crickets chirped outside the window. 

He couldn’t be thinking this way, he reminded himself. He was going to come home. He was going to come home a hero.

Yeonjun’s eyes opened just as the sun was starting to crest over the mountains. Deep orange light was infiltrating the purple sky, stained bright colors like the hands of the painter who lived two streets away. Yeonjun got out of bed as quietly as possible and put on his shoes.

He double-checked his bag one last time. He’d packed as much food as he could reasonably carry, having stopped at the market yesterday. He also had a big flask for water, a blanket to sleep on, and a hat to keep the sun from burning his face. Last but not least, he had the good chisel and hammer from the shop downstairs in his belt. He just prayed his parents wouldn’t be too angry when they found out that he’d taken them, but he needed tools that he actually knew how to use that could double as weapons. It wasn’t much, so he was hoping to find something better along the way.

With one last look around at his nearly-empty bedroom, Yeonjun grabbed the windowsill and jumped out.

It was a short drop to the ground, and he took the route through his mother’s vegetable garden to get to the shed. As expected, he was the first one there. There was nothing for him to do but wait.

Taehyun quite literally materialized out of nothing beside him, nearly making him scream as loudly as the roosters. His bag dropped to the ground, supplies spilling out everywhere. Yeonjun stooped down to pick everything up.

“Good morning to you, too, I guess,” Yeonjun grumbled. “Where’s your bag? You planning to sleep on the ground and eat air for dinner?”

Taehyun waved his hand. The shadow of the shed on the ground in front of them started to waver, and he reached in to pull out a fresh apple. He started to crunch on it leisurely, eyeing Yeonjun with the ghost of a smirk on his face.

“Yeah, yeah, alright. Not all of us can outsmart demon lords, some of us have to do this the plebeian way. Did you even pay for that, or did you just steal it directly from the fruit seller’s stall?”

“Technically any branches that cross onto public land can be considered public property,” Taehyun replied. “So it’s not stealing.”

“You ever met Beomgyu’s parents? I bet they would love you,” Yeonjun told him. “Mildly-but-not-really circumventing the law for your own gain. Seriously, we’re all lucky that we’re not stuck as your capitalist underlings.”

“I’m not here for money,” Taehyun said firmly.

There was a scraping noise from the other side of the fence, and then Kai hopped over. He had his usual bag on his back, as well as his guitar strapped over his shoulder. Yeonjun pointed. “You planning on singing the dragon to sleep, or something?”

“Never disregard the merits of a peaceful solution,” Kai said loftily. “You know what they say, hyung. When you have a hammer, every single problem starts to look like a nail.” He glanced pointedly at the hammer in Yeonjun’s belt.

Yeonjun gave him a thumbs down and booed him as quietly as he possibly could so as not to wake his parents. Kai acted like it was lavish applause, bowing and putting a hand over his ample chest like he was being praised by an audience of thousands. Just then, Beomgyu leaped the fence in one graceful movement.

“You fuckers ready to go?”

“I am so happy to see you this morning, Beomgyu hyung,” Kai said, turning up the sweetness until his voice was practically dripping with sugar. “I have to say, that jacket and that hat make you look dashingly handsome. You have the air of an adventurer about you.”

“You have the air of someone who’s about to get told to shut up forty times today about you,” Beomgyu retorted, though there was no malice to his voice. “Glad to see that Kai’s his usual self. Taehyun, pleasure as always. No second thoughts about this stupid plan of yours yet, Yeonjun hyung?”

“None at all,” Yeonjun replied breezily. “Now that we’re all here, let’s get a move on. We don’t want my mom to come find us while she’s checking on her precious potatoes.”

Kai was right. Walking was terrible. It was tedious, and boring. They passed virtually nothing of interest, except for the time Beomgyu almost fell into a ditch and broke his ankle after Kai jokingly threw his hat off of the path. Yeonjun chortled for a good bit about that, but even the fun of teasing Beomgyu wore off eventually.

“Can’t you just magic us all there?” Yeonjun asked Taehyun.

Taehyun snorted. “That’s a stupid question. I can’t teleport to a place I’ve never been to.”

“Oh, sorry. Never had a deal with a demon lord before, I don’t quite understand the details,” Yeonjun replied sarcastically. That got a small smile out of Taehyun, at least. Yeonjun mentally high-fived himself.

“You can fly, though,” Beomgyu said. “Why are you walking when you could just float? Wouldn’t that be less tiring?”

“Magic still comes at a price. Besides, the plebeians are walking. I thought I’d give it a try.”

It looked like there were other reasons that Taehyun was walking instead of floating over all of their heads like a grumpy little raincloud. Beomgyu was staying close enough to him that their hands were brushing every now and then, and Yeonjun squinted back at them suspiciously. Kai, leading the group, was playing his guitar and humming to himself seeming none the wiser.

Yeonjun tripped over a rock in the path because he was too busy staring at Beomgyu and Taehyun, but neither of them said anything about it. That was especially odd for Beomgyu, who would usually be foaming at the mouth for a chance at revenge for the earlier teasing. It seemed that he and Taehyun were having some sort of serious, quiet conversation at the back of the group.

Before he could ask what was going on, Yeonjun bumped into Kai’s back. Kai had stopped dead right in the middle of the road, guitar now silent. There was smoke up ahead.

“Is that a town?” Yeonjun asked excitedly, ready to finally be able to rest after a long day of walking.

“No, and be quiet, hyung,” Kai whispered. “We’re still four miles from anything. That’s not a good sign.”

Kai dragged them off the road until they were in the ditch, all four of them laying flat on their stomachs. They could hear voices getting closer. They all sounded like men, except for the crying of someone that was clearly a woman or a child.

It took several minutes, but finally the party came into view. There were six men dragging a young girl between them, probably no older than sixteen. Yeonjun gritted his teeth when he spotted blood at her hairline. She was still struggling against her captors, but they were probably twice her size. None of them seemed to notice Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Taehyun, and Kai just meters away.

“We have to help her,” Yeonjun whispered. Kai’s eyes went wide, and he shook his head. Beomgyu looked hesitant, too, and Taehyun was as expressionless as always.

“What do you mean no?” Yeonjun hissed. “She’s clearly been captured! We have to rescue her!”

“We’re already on the fast track to dying horrible deaths, we don’t need to succeed before we even get there. Whatever happens to her, it’s not our problem.” Beomgyu looked uncomfortable as he said it, though, like he didn’t really believe what he was saying.

“Those dudes have weapons, we don’t,” Kai said under his breath. “If we try that, we’re done. It’s not that I don’t want to save her, it’s just that I don’t think there’s any possibility we can.”

Yeonjun jerked his thumb in Taehyun’s direction. His lamp-like eyes blinked slowly, but otherwise he didn’t respond. Beomgyu scoffed.

“Taehyunnie’s strong, but he’s not taking out all six of those goons without help. The rest of us have to pitch in.”

“I got a hammer,” Yeonjun said, pulling it out of his belt.

“A hammer. That guy right there has a battle axe.”

“Kai can hit people with his guitar!”

“Absolutely not,” Kai whispered. “I need that to make a living, I can’t have it cracked in half over some bozo’s head.”

“Well what did you bring?” Yeonjun asked Beomgyu. The group of guys dragging the girl between them was getting further in the distance.

Beomgyu opened his bag. Inside it was full of gold– jewelry, coins, cups, all jingling around loosely. “I figured we needed some funding for this stupid trip.”

“You’re a thief,” Yeonjun realized. “Holy shit. You’re totally a little robber baron. How long exactly have you been taking stuff from your parents’ shop?”

“Can we focus on the task at hand?”

Yeonjun startled a little at the sound of Taehyun’s voice. It was the first time he’d spoken in a while. Yeonjun thought about it. “… Any chance you think we could buy her back for ransom?”

“The contents of this bag are worth more than your house. You willing to sell my parents your house in return for that girl?”

Yeonjun swore under his breath. Finally, Taehyun moved. He was crawling on his elbows and knees along the ditch next to the road in the same direction that the men had gone. Yeonjun scrambled after him.

They eventually caught up, the group of men having stopped because the girl had passed out. One of them was still hoisting her off the ground by the arm, but she was limp. She didn’t even react when one of the men poked her none too gently in the stomach with the end of his bat. Yeonjun winced.

Taehyun made eye contact with Beomgyu. Beomgyu nodded, pointing Kai in the direction of the girl. Yeonjun gestured to himself, and Beomgyu rolled his eyes. He mouthed something that Yeonjun didn’t catch.

Taehyun stood up and raised his hands in the shape of a leaping tiger. Suddenly, a gigantic tiger leaped from the underbrush just off the road. It snarled ferociously at the six men. There was an uproar as they scrambled backwards, the tiger continuing to growl. It was easily taller than any of them, with fangs as long as Yeonjun’s forearm.

Beomgyu slipped out of the ditch with the stealth of a practiced thief, slipping a dagger from a sheath and using it to slit the owner’s throat. He fell like a doll tossed aside in a temper tantrum, blood spraying everywhere.

Yeonjun launched into action as well. The second the man with the battle axe raised it to strike at the giant tiger, Yeonjun swung his hammer. It didn’t knock him clean out, but it was enough for Yeonjun to wrestle the battle axe from his grip. He didn’t even think before sinking it straight into the man’s chest, and he, too, fell.

There was a roar of rage, but not from the giant tiger. Another man, the one with the bat, was coming straight at Yeonjun. The bat was gigantic and covered in spikes, designed for brutality rather than efficiency of killing. Adrenaline thundered through Yeonjun’s veins. He wrenched the double-sided axe from the dead man’s chest and raised it just in time to stop the bat mid-swing.

Now it was a test of strength, but this man was easily twice Yeonjun’s size. His eyes were bloodshot, face twisted in a grimace of rage, and Yeonjun could smell his terrible breath from this distance. He did what he had to do.

He brought his knee right up into his adversary’s crotch.

The man collapsed, shrieking, but now Yeonjun had two uselessly conjoined weapons and no time to try to separate them. There was a flash, and the bat disappeared. Taehyun gave him a tiny salute from just off the road.

Efficiency over brutality. Yeonjun brought the axe down in one swift, clean movement.

There was blood everywhere, and Yeonjun nearly gagged at the sharp, metallic taste of it on the air. Beomgyu had managed to get himself a spear, and Yeonjun watched as he launched it with shocking precision into the back of a fleeing opponent.

“Watch out!”

Yeonjun turned around. The girl was standing on her own two feet, clearly lucid, and Yeonjun understood. She’d been faking it. Kai had been knocked onto his back by a much larger man, who was standing with a sword over his head ready for the kill.

He stopped. In odd, jerky movements, he turned the sword around so that it was facing himself. Just off the road, Taehyun was miming the motions like he was controlling a puppet. He made a clean stabbing movement towards his own abdomen.

Kai rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the falling body. Yeonjun looked around; the tiger had vanished. It was a spell, he realized. One of Taehyun’s tricks. He counted bodies; one, two, three, four, five if he counted the one that had tried to flee. Where was the sixth?

“Don’t worry,” the girl said, as if she could read Yeonjun’s mind. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Yeonjun looked down to where she was pointing. There was a worm wriggling around frantically on the ground, writhing in the blood of its comrades. She brought her heeled boot down on it and twisted her ankle around to make sure it was really dead.

“You have magic too?” Yeonjun blurted, shocked. “How did they capture you?”

She shook her head. “Not magic, a spell. One spell given to me by my parents before they sent me off.”

“The smoke?” Beomgyu asked shortly.

Her expression dropped. “My carriage. They slaughtered my horse and my coachman and left it all to burn when they realized there was nothing inside.”

“How come you’re still alive, then?” Yeonjun turned around to look at Kai after he spoke. The younger had his head tilted.

“Have you ever heard of Kim’s House of Curios?” She asked.

Yeonjun hadn’t, but evidently everyone else had. Kai’s mouth fell open, and he heard Beomgyu take in a sharp breath. Taehyun didn’t react, but his eyes were trained on the girl with laser focus.

“You’re the Kim daughter. Heir to the masters of Kim’s House of Curios.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. Despite the blood on her shoes and the bottom of her dress, she bent her knees in a slight curtsy. “Kim Chaewon, at your service.”

“That’s why they attacked your carriage, then,” Beomgyu said, sounding resigned. “Barbarians like these lot were probably hoping you were transporting goods.”

“I think so, too,” Chaewon replied. “I had nothing but the spell and this necklace for protection.” She held it out by the chain. It didn’t look like much to Yeonjun, just a crystal carved in the shape of a young woman. It might have some value at market, but it didn’t look particularly magical.

Taehyun, on the other hand, shrank away. Chaewon smiled again and put the necklace back in her pocket. “Not to worry, warlock. I won’t invoke the goddess’s protection against you. You all have done me a great service today.”

She curtsied again. She seemed to be well-bred, highly mannered even in times of distress. She was definitely tougher than she looked, though, if the blood on her shoes was any indication. She didn’t appear bothered in the slightest by the slaughter around her.

“Is there anything I can offer you in return?” She asked. “I’m sure my parents would be willing to gift my valiant saviors a few things from the shop in payment. Adventurers like yourselves should probably be carrying stronger weapons than a hammer.”

“Actually, we’re headed to Celestia tonight. We might as well stop while we’re there,” Kai answered, before Yeonjun could open his mouth to defend his choice of weapon. “I’m sure it would be really appreciated, Miss Kim.”

They stayed the night at an inn in Celestia. Beomgyu had seemed hesitant to part with the number of coins it took to purchase two rooms for the night, but in the end Kai sweet-talked the owner into letting them have two rooms for the price of one. As harmless as he looked, Yeonjun really needed to stop underestimating Kai.

They visited Kim’s House of Curios the next morning. Chaewon was waiting outside before the store opened, keys in hand, and led them inside. Immediately, Yeonjun was overwhelmed by it all.

The building was massive, multiple stories tall, with a curved wooden staircase leading upward. Every wall was lined with shelves all stuffed to the brim with different objects. Some were floating, others moving of their own accord. A porcelain bird painted in gold and bright colors was singing to itself in a cage near the window, and Yeonjun spotted a book on a lectern that was flipping pages and re-writing itself as it went.

“Take your time, look around,” Chaewon said politely. “The shop doesn’t open for business for another hour.”

Beomgyu beelined towards a set of gloves in a glass case, while Kai started to meander off towards the various musical instruments on display on the second floor. Taehyun rose into the air and made a slow circle of the room, examining different things as he went.

Chaewon had mentioned weapons, so Yeonjun figured he should take her advice. He went to the wall of swords.

“You good at swordplay?” She asked, heels clicking on the tiled floor.

“Oh– uhh, kind of,” Yeonjun replied. “I had a wooden sword when I was a kid, and I used to play-fight with the other kids at school. I’m trying to become a knight.”

“A knight!” Chaewon exclaimed, looking delighted. Yeonjun was a little bewildered at her enthusiasm. “I have the perfect thing. This sword came from a former knight for the royal family, one of the king’s most trusted servants. He was the bodyguard for the crown prince before his disappearance.”

“Disappearance?” News of the royal family rarely reached Yeonjun’s hometown, outside of Kai’s infrequent visits to the village. Yeonjun wasn’t aware that there had been a crown prince at all.

“Oh yes, years ago,” Chaewon said, her expression solemn. “The prince was no more than a boy, I believe. A witch visited the castle, seeking an audience with the king, but he turned her away. That night, the prince vanished from his bed and was never seen again.”

“That’s very sad,” Yeonjun responded, distracted. He’d pulled the sword off the wall and was now testing the weight of it in his hand, taking a few practice jabs at the air. It was heavier than what he was used to, but perfectly balanced. It was clear that whoever had made this was a master craftsman.

“Sad indeed,” Chaewon said. “That sword was pawned to us by the knight, who resigned from his post after failing to protect the crown prince. I don’t know where he is now, but he never came back for it. That was many years ago.”

Yeonjun straightened up. “Wait a second. This is a pawn shop?”

“Of sorts,” Chaewon replied, smiling serenely. Her shoulder-length hair was braided back at the sides, and she had a pretty, heart-shaped face. All traces of the helpless girl they’d encountered yesterday were gone. “I also like to think of it as a museum. There are thousands of things here, thousands of stories to be told in every object.”

Yeonjun lifted the sword again. “Can I…?”

“Yes, take it. It’s yours. What’s a good knight without his sword?”

Her words made Yeonjun’s chest feel warm. He was no knight yet, but they’d already managed to survive a pack of barbarians and rescue Chaewon. Hopefully with the help of Kim’s House of Curios, they’d be able to to defeat the dragon and Yeonjun would return home victorious.

After a short time, they gathered back in the entrance area. Beomgyu had a black cloak fastened over his shoulders, the hood draping down his back. Kai had a flute of some kind, carved from bamboo and decorated with intricate patterns. Taehyun had only a single glass bottle.

“If there’s anything else we can do for you, please let me know,” Chaewon said, as they were leaving.

“You’ve been too kind already,” Kai gushed. “I can’t wait to try this. I mean, I’ve played the sogeum before, but it’s been so long.”

“Be careful with that,” Taehyun said. “There’s magic imbued in the wood.”

“I know, I know. You’re no fun, Taehyun, you know that?”

Yeonjun stopped and bowed deeply to Chaewon, and she returned with a curtsey and a wave before the doors closed and she was out of sight.

“Told you,” Yeonjun said, grinning. “Worth it. So worth it.”

“You’re not the one who almost died by barbarian,” Kai grumbled.

“I’ll admit it was a good choice, in the end,” Beomgyu said begrudgingly. “But you didn’t know who she was. If she was a nobody, we’d be shit outta luck right now.”

“If she was a nobody, they wouldn’t have bothered dragging her along kicking and screaming,” Yeonjun retorted. “Worth it.”

Taehyun sighed, which immediately stopped the argument in its tracks. “Shall we keep going, or shall we continue to stand in the middle of the street looking like fools until the princess wanders home herself?”

“Keep going,” Yeonjun said. “Kai, lead the way, my good man.”

“My good man? Hyung, that stupid sword is getting to your head. If you start talking like an insufferable know-it-all I’m going to steal it in your sleep and throw it in the river.”

“Alright, alright,” Yeonjun said quickly. “Don’t toss this in the river, please. I’ll admit it now– it was going to be really difficult to try to slay the dragon with a hammer.”

The following days were much less glamorous. It was a lot of camping in the woods, searching for scrap wood to make a fire so that they could have something warm to eat and gathering up enough leaves that they weren’t just sleeping on the dirt. Kai seemed perfectly content with it. Good at it, even. Yeonjun probably should’ve expected that after so many years on the road.

Beomgyu was faring less well. Two nights on the ground meant that he was constantly complaining about his back, and the nonstop walking was making his feet sore. Yeonjun could relate. Taehyun, on the other hand, floated over their heads and slept mid-air with his arms crossed over his body like a vampire. Yeonjun wasn’t sure if that was part of the whole deal-with-a-demon-lord thing or if Taehyun was just weird.

On the fourth day of walking, they happened upon a forest. They were technically in a forest already, but this part felt different. The trees were older, darker, branches gnarled and twisted like they’d been bent against their will. It was colder all of a sudden. Yeonjun suppressed a shiver.

“This is not good,” Taehyun said. Everyone stopped, because if Taehyun was saying something like that then it was probably pretty serious.

“What do you mean not good?” Yeonjun asked.

“Feels… bad.”

“Very helpful.”

“Hang on.” Kai pulled out the flute he’d been given at Kim’s House of Curios, the one he’d been fiddling with occasionally as they walked but never actually played. He brought it to his lips and let out a short tune.

There was a rustling in the branches overhead. Yeonjun drew his sword, but it was just a raven. It landed on the ground in front of Kai and stared at him with beady black eyes.

“What’s he doing?” Beomgyu asked.

“Talking to it,” Taehyun answered. “That’s what the flute is for. It can summon animals, speak to them, even control them if he plays it correctly.”

Yeonjun actually shivered this time. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Kai, but he’d seen what Taehyun had been able to force that man to do to himself when they were rescuing Chaewon. The idea of being out of control of his own body like that was terrifying.

“He says there’s a banshee here,” Kai announced.

“Told you it was bad,” Taehyun muttered. “We should all plug our ears with something.”

“But then we won’t be able to hear her coming,” Beomgyu said, nibbling on his bottom lip. “She might catch us off-guard.”

“Do we have to go this way?” Yeonjun said. “Kai, can you ask the bird?”

There was another short series of trills from the flute. For someone who said he hadn’t touched a sogeum in years, Kai was really very good. Melodies flowed from his fingers as easily as water down a brook.

“He said the woods go for miles. A detour would take us several days, and there’s the chance we could get lost out here.”

Yeonjun sighed. “And you’re one hundred percent sure this is the correct direction?”

Kai nodded.

“In we go, then. Does anyone have anything we can put in our ears? Cotton, or something?”

Taehyun waved his hand. The shadow of a nearby tree that stretched over the ground in front of them started to wobble like a bridge in an earthquake. He reached in and pulled out a teddy bear, felted fur clearly well-worn and well-loved. Beomgyu started to whine immediately.

“Taehyun! Come on, couldn’t you have taken someone else’s? Why did it have to be mine?”

“I’ve never been in Yeonjun hyung’s bedroom, and I’m not even sure if Kai has a house,” Taehyun replied. Taehyun had been in Beomgyu’s bedroom? Yeonjun wasn’t even aware that he left the house unless it was to go buy more books. On second thought, Yeonjun decided he didn’t want to know.

Taehyun crouched down on the ground with the teddy bear in hand and put his palm out. Grumbling, Beomgyu produced a familiar-looking dagger from inside his cloak.

Yeonjun grimaced. “No chance that’s the dagger you stole off that dead barbarian, is it?”

“Finders keepers, losers weepers,” Beomgyu said brusquely. Taehyun used the razor-sharp blade to make a neat slice at the seam in the teddy bear’s back, pulling out a handful of stuffing and then putting the teddy bear back into the shadow of the tree where it came from.

“Put this in your ears once we enter that section of the forest,” Taehyun instructed. “It won’t block out the noise completely, but Kai should be able to counter. Yes?”

Kai nodded. Yeonjun scrunched his nose. “Counter? How?”

“Banshees kill you by screaming at a certain frequency that resonates in your ears and can basically shatter your skull. That’s how they get to your brain, which is the main source of sustenance for them. By playing a note that clashes with that frequency, Kai can cancel out the effects,” Taehyun said. It sounded like he was reciting from a textbook, which Yeonjun figured he probably was. “It’ll still definitely hurt, but it won’t kill you.”

“We’re not even at the dragon part yet and we’re still gonna die.” Beomgyu sounded resigned rather than annoyed by this point. 

“Nah, come on, Gyu. Optimism! We basically defeated a pack of barbarians with our bare hands.”

“And a healthy dose of Taehyun’s demon magic.”

“… That too.”

Kai led the way into the woods, flute still aloft. It was much colder here, and there was a strange fog at the forest floor that swirled around their feet as they walked. Yeonjun stuffed a thumbprint-sized chunk of cotton into his ears, packing it in as best as he could so that it would block out as much noise as possible.

With the cotton muffling everything, it was eerily silent. He couldn’t even hear the leaves crunching beneath his feet anymore, and the strange shadows being cast by the trees were playing tricks on his eyes. At any second he was expecting a ghoulish face to pop out of the mist. There were goosebumps on his arms, and he saw Beomgyu pull the black cloak more tightly around himself.

There were long, jagged claw marks in the bark of one of the trees that they passed. Yeonjun gulped. There was a weird smell, too, kind of sweet until they got closer and the smell got stronger. It was something rotting, something recent, and he had to fight the urge to gag. Kai’s face had gone white. He pointed.

There was a slumped figure on the ground ahead. It was fairly small so Yeonjun assumed it must’ve been a woman, but there was no other way to tell. What was left of her head was just a bloody stump. There were flies thick in the air around her.

Beomgyu covered Kai’s eyes and carefully led their group around the fallen body. Yeonjun had to stop looking, too, because the small meal of potato and birds’ eggs that Beomgyu had found in a nest earlier that morning was turning in his stomach. They now had proof that a banshee lived in these woods, just as the raven had said.

Nobody was speaking. There wasn’t much point in it seeing as everyone had their ears plugged anyway, and more noise might just attract the banshee. All Yeonjun had to go off of was facial expressions, and it was clear that everyone was terrified. Even Taehyun looked uneasy.

They kept walking for what must’ve been an hour uninterrupted. The longer it was quiet, the worse Yeonjun’s nerves got. Kai motioned for everyone to stop so that he could check his compass.

When he pulled it out of his pocket, the needle was spinning wildly with no direction. Occasionally it would pause, just to continue spinning again. There was magic in these woods. Yeonjun could almost smell it, like the scent before a storm.

A shadow darted between the trees in his peripheral. His head shot up, squinting, and Kai shoved the compass back in his pocket. He had the flute at his lips within seconds, and Taehyun raised his hands.

He used his fingers to create the motion of a person walking, and a young man appeared in the mist. The apparition started to walk in the direction where Yeonjun had seen the shadow, weaving between the trees.

A creature jumped out in front of him. She was deathly pale, stringy dark hair falling over her shoulders, clothed in a shredded black dress. Her nails were long and pointed, stained with blood at the beds like she’d fed recently. The spot where her eyes should be were just hollow black pits. She opened her massive, ghastly mouth, and screamed.

Taehyun’s illusion spell disappeared. Yeonjun clapped his hands over his ears; it was the most hideous sound he’d ever heard in his life. The scream reverberated around the woods, bouncing off the trees in a screeching chorus. Kai’s own piercing whistle broke through the cacophony.

It was equally as loud, which was also painful on Yeonjun’s ears, but it alleviated the headache that had immediately settled in his skull the moment the banshee started to scream. He drew his sword.

The motion caught her attention. She darted between the trees so quickly that Yeonjun could barely follow, and he held the sword in front of him in a defensive stance. He, Beomgyu, and Taehyun were all standing with their backs to Kai to protect him.

The banshee launched herself down from a nearby branch, clawed hands extended forwards. She was screaming again, but Kai’s return whistle was faster this time. Yeonjun brought his sword down right as her hand reached the front of his shirt.

The sword sliced clean through the limb at her forearm. It dropped to the ground at his feet, still reaching out for him but unmoving. She shrieked and retreated. There was no blood on the blade at all, and suddenly Yeonjun understood. She had no blood to lose because she was already dead.

That was going to make her much harder to kill. She was sprinting between the trees again at supernatural speed, clearly trying to throw them off. The loss of a limb didn’t seem to hamper her, although she would have a lot more trouble trying to shred them with only one hand.

Taehyun tapped Yeonjun on the shoulder. He motioned to the sword, and then to his legs, and then to the spot where the banshee’s hand was laying on the ground. Yeonjun nodded.

Taehyun disappeared. That left just Yeonjun and Beomgyu to defend Kai, who was still valiantly countering scream after scream that emanated from the woods with his magical flute. Yeonjun had no idea where Taehyun had disappeared to, but he was too busy scanning their surroundings for any sign of the banshee to find out.

She emerged again, this time sprinting in dizzying circles around their little trio. Yeonjun kept waiting, waiting for an opening, but there was no way to catch her. She was too fast.

Beomgyu stuck his foot out. She tripped, falling flat on the ground, and Yeonjun whirled around. He immediately sliced her legs off at the knee. She screamed, but it didn’t matter. Kai was there with the flute.

“Move!”

Taehyun’s voice boomed through the forest, and they scattered. There was a groaning sound, and then a crash. When the dust cleared, Taehyun was standing behind the stump of a fallen tree with a two-handed battle axe.

The banshee had been crushed beneath the trunk. What was left of her legs were still wiggling around frantically, her one remaining hand clawing at the dirt, but she couldn’t scream anymore. Her lungs could no longer draw air with the trunk of a tree smashing her into the ground.

Taehyun pulled the cotton from his ears. Yeonjun did the same, stuffing it into his pocket. “I wouldn’t even bother trying to actually kill her. Chances are she’d regenerate, anyway. Better to just trap her and leave her there.”

“Is that the battle axe from that barbarian we killed?”

Taehyun shrugged. “Reduce, reuse, recycle.”

Behind him, Yeonjun heard a hiss of pain. Beomgyu was sitting, the leg of his trousers pulled up, and Kai was examining his leg. There were three long gashes on his calf.

Yeonjun was shoved out of the way by Taehyun, who was at Beomgyu’s side immediately. Kai backed off, retreating to stand next to Yeonjun with the flute under his arm. There was blood on his hands– Beomgyu’s blood. Yeonjun suddenly felt a wave of guilt flood his body. If he hadn’t made them all come on this trip, Beomgyu wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

Taehyun was pulling things out of the void, different potions and creams that Yeonjun didn’t recognize. Was he pulling them straight off the shelf of the apothecary in town, or were those in his house? Yeonjun didn’t know. Beomgyu was groaning in pain, face scrunched up.

It was an agonizing ten minutes– probably more agonizing for Beomgyu, in hindsight, before Taehyun stood up. He’d bandaged Beomgyu’s entire calf, and the look on his face was cold. He was furious.

“Alright. We have three days to find whoever summoned that,” he said, jabbing his finger in the banshee’s direction, “from the dead. Or Beomgyu hyung will be as dead as she is.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Taehyun said flatly. “It’s necromancer magic. Once it gets into the bloodstream, it’s deadly unless you can kill the wizard first.”

“How are we going to do that?” Kai asked, voice high with fear. “I mean, we’re in the middle of the woods. We have no idea who put that banshee here, or why. We have no way of finding them.”

“Oh, I’ll find them,” Taehyun responded. “This time, it’s personal.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon walking after Taehyun, who was setting a brutal pace through the forest. He appeared to be following some sort of invisible trail, having taken a piece of the banshee’s hair and burned it in some ritual-slash-spell that Yeonjun didn’t understand. He had Beomgyu floating next to him– apparently increasing blood circulation with exercise would only hasten the effects of the spell. Beomgyu didn’t seem to be in any pain. In fact, he was doing flips and rolls mid-air around the trees.

Taehyun only stopped when it was so dark that Kai tripped over a tree root and almost twisted his ankle. Aside from the initial banshee problem, the woods didn’t seem to be dangerous. Creepy? Definitely, especially now that the sky was colored deep purple with twilight, but not dangerous.

They set up camp in a little copse of trees. The only thing that seemed off was that the forest was devoid of animals; when Kai whistled, nothing came. Aside from the wind, everything was silent.

Yeonjun borrowed the axe from Taehyun’s mystical storage void to fell another tree, and they got a small fire going. The chill was noticeable here, with Beomgyu and Taehyun huddled together on one side of the fire and Yeonjun and Kai on the other. Kai didn’t seem as affected by it as Yeonjun was. The years on the road had made him tougher than Yeonjun had first considered, and he was glad that Kai had agreed to come along as their guide.

They fell asleep on top of Kai’s jacket with Yeonjun’s blanket to cover them, the fire crackling and dying out slowly. Yeonjun’s eye closed with the impression of the embers burned into the back of his lids.

Yeonjun woke right at dawn. Taehyun was already up, packing what little they had, but he was letting Beomgyu sleep. Kai was still knocked out with his head on Yeonjun’s bag.

“Kai,” Yeonjun whispered. “Time to go.”

Kai sat up right away, head twisting around like he was looking for danger, but he saw Yeonjun and smiled brightly. “Oh. Good morning, hyung.”

“Morning. Taehyun’s already on the move, I think he’s going to bring Beomgyu even if he has to take him there sleeping.”

Kai got up and fished a couple rolls of bread out of his bag for breakfast. They were stale, having been taken from the inn in Celestia days ago, but Yeonjun was glad to have anything in his stomach. He’d been hopeful that Kai might at least be able to summon them a rabbit or something to eat, but considering they hadn’t seen a single animal since they’d set foot in these woods he thought it a futile effort.

Taehyun refused food, pocketing his portion for Beomgyu. He lifted him into the air with a single raised finger, still curled on his side and deep in sleep. Beomgyu didn’t stir at the fact that he was now floating four feet off the ground whatsoever.

Everything was quiet between them until Beomgyu woke in the late morning. He yawned and stretched, nearly bonking his arm on a tree, expression groggy. “Where are we?” He mumbled.

“Same woods,” Yeonjun answered. “Taehyun’s chasing down that necromancer. I guess we’re on a side quest now.”

“Actually, I don’t think we are,” Kai said, brow furrowing. “This is exactly the way to the princess’s tower, or so people say.”

Yeonjun stopped. Taehyun paused, too, Beomgyu coming to a halt beside him. “Wait. Are you sure?”

“I… think so,” Kai replied. “I mean, since no one has lived to tell the tale, it’s a little hard to say for sure.”

“The dragon has magic,” Yeonjun realized, snapping his fingers. “I bet that dragon is actually the necromancer in disguise.”

“Why?” Beomgyu said, from his spot near Taehyun’s shoulder. “I mean, to what end? A necromancer powerful enough to shape-shift into a dragon probably has better things to do than to spend all day guarding some random princess in a tower.”

“It’s possible,” Taehyun said slowly. “Unlikely. It would require an incredible level of power to be able to pull off a spell like that, particularly on a living being, but it’s possible.”

“On a living being?” Kai repeated.

“Yes. Much easier to imbue objects with magic rather than living beings, especially for shapeshifting since there’s always the risk that you won’t be able to transform back. Plus, that magic– it’s complicated. I’ve never done it,” Taehyun said.

“Well, either way, we have no choice but to slay the dragon,” Yeonjun interjected. Beomgyu and Kai both nodded, but Taehyun hesitated for a moment before turning around to continue their everlasting trek into the forest.

By the time they stopped for lunch, Beomgyu was starting to show signs of pain. His face was pale and sweaty, and when Taehyun went to change the bandages on his leg there were black lines tracing their way up towards his knee. Taehyun gritted his teeth but didn’t say anything about it. That was how Yeonjun knew it was serious.

The trees were starting to thin out here, the ground sloping down to a ravine. Taehyun kept marching straight on down the hill, steps not faltering despite how steep it was. Yeonjun was having to do a weird side-step to keep from sliding to the bottom of the ravine on his ass.

It seemed to be an old, dry riverbed. There was a cliff on the other side, reaching high into the cloudy sky. Taehyun turned right and followed the old river without hesitation.

“Is this right?” Yeonjun whispered to Kai. “Are we still on our way to the princess’s tower?”

Kai gulped. “Yeah. If there’s a dragon and a necromancer, we’re so dead.”

“We’re probably dead anyways. Well, I am, of course,” Beomgyu said, sounding much too cheerful. “Hey Taehyun, maybe you could make me like Sakura noona. I could just chill in your house for the rest of forever, never have to work again. That sounds nice.”

“No,” Taehyun said stiffly. He didn’t elaborate on the statement.

The ravine led to another cliff. There was a tiny crevice, just about as wide as Taehyun’s shoulders, cutting into the rock. Taehyun set Beomgyu on the ground.

“Are you okay to walk?” Taehyun asked.

Beomgyu tested his weight on his leg. “I can. Doubt it’ll be much fun, but neither will dying fiery death by necromancer-slash-dragon.”

Beomgyu put the hood of his cloak up over his head. Instantly, he disappeared.

Yeonjun glanced around. “Where’d you send him?” He asked Taehyun, confused.

“Nowhere, I’m still here,” Beomgyu said, pulling the hood of the cloak down again. “Magic. That’s why I took this from Kim’s House of Curios.”

“With permission, yes?”

Beomgyu rolled his eyes. “Of course. That girl saw me wearing it out, didn’t she?”

Yeonjun couldn’t really argue that one. Beomgyu gave him a mock salute and put the hood up again, blinking out of existence. Yeonjun assumed he was going into the crevice in the rock wall, but couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t even hear any footsteps.

“Should we really be sending him in there by himself?” Kai asked nervously, fingers playing a silent melody on the flute. “He’s not even armed.”

“He won’t need it,” Taehyun said. “That cloak has stronger magic than even any of my detection spells could uncover.”

Kai blinked, eyes wide with amazement. “So he could sneak into your house without getting murdered?”

“Yes,” Taehyun answered. “But I prefer not to think of it as murder. More like… punishment via swift execution.”

Yeonjun grimaced. “Sounds messy.”

“It is,” Taehyun said. He didn’t elaborate on that statement, which Yeonjun was actually kind of glad for.

They waited for an awfully long time. A dry breeze passed through the ravine, tree branches rustling far, far over their heads. The sheer cliff face ahead of them was so steep that nothing grew there. Yeonjun couldn’t hear anything coming out of the narrow passageway that Beomgyu had gone into. How long should they wait before going in to rescue him? Surely Taehyun would have a plan.

Kai was starting to get impatient, Yeonjun could tell. He kept twirling and flipping the flute between his fingers, foot tapping the dusty ground rhythmically. Yeonjun cleared his throat. Taehyun was waiting silently, glowing eyes watching the gap in the cliffside with concentrated intensity.

“How are we going to know when we need to go in there and rescue him?” Yeonjun finally asked.

Taehyun shook his head. “We won’t. Be patient.”

Yeonjun was trying to be patient, but it felt like he’d swallowed a live snake. Beomgyu had already been gone for what felt like hours but was probably in actuality about ten minutes. Kai was right, though; he was injured, with no weapon but the dagger he’d taken from the barbarians. If he ran into trouble he’d probably be worse than dead.

There was a tiny disturbance in the dirt near Yeonjun’s feet. Beomgyu removed his hood. Yeonjun felt a rush of relief, and Kai sighed. “Damn, why does it look like I just interrupted a funeral?” Beomgyu asked, looking nonplussed.

“They thought you were going to die,” Taehyun answered plainly.

“Oh. Well, good news. Not dead. Can’t see much in there even with this, but it smells fuckin’ terrible. Whatever that dragon has been eating, I do not want to know what it was.” Beomgyu pulled a candle out from under his cloak. It looked like a regular candle to Yeonjun, but there were runes engraved in the silver holder.

“Did you steal that from the Kims?” Yeonjun asked suspiciously.

“Yup. Sorry to that girl, but we need it more than she does.”

Yeonjun opened his mouth to chastise Beomgyu, but Taehyun cut him off. “No magical barriers? Any sign of magic at all?”

“There’s light,” Beomgyu answered. “I can see the tower. It glows all by itself, and there’s grass and flowers around it. That doesn’t seem like something that should be possible deep inside a cliff, but it doesn’t exactly seem dangerous, either.”

“No dragon?” Kai asked.

Beomgyu shook his head. “Not that I saw. Maybe it only appears when you actually try to climb the tower, or something. But man, I’m telling you. It stinks bad in there.”

“Hopefully the princess has gone nose blind to it,” Yeonjun said, shuddering. “Let’s go. The sooner we get this done, the better.”

Yeonjun drew his sword and went in first. The light filtering in from the entrance to the passageway quickly started to die out, and Taehyun pointed his finger over Yeonjun’s shoulder. A ball of light, like a miniature sun, started to float in front of him and guide the way. Yeonjun gave him a silent thumbs-up.

His foot hit something, and it clattered away with a metallic sound. He bent down to investigate, the ball of light going with him. It was a helmet– clearly a knight’s helmet, rusty and aged. Yeonjun swallowed. He was listening for any sign that they might have alerted something, but the sound echoed through the passage and dissipated into silence.

He kept going. Kai was clutching onto the strap of his bag with one hand, Taehyun just behind him to protect Beomgyu. No one was saying anything. For a while, Yeonjun couldn’t see anything but the endless rock walls of the narrow path they were following.

Then, the stench hit him. It was putrid, so foul he could taste it when he opened his mouth. He covered his nose with his hand and kept walking. It smelled like something long-dead mixed with something fresher. Evidently the princess was a hot commodity, and the dragon-slash-maybe-necromancer was very good at its job.

Eventually, Yeonjun started to see a glow up ahead. Taehyun extinguished the ball of light; they didn’t need it, because what looked like a ray of sunlight was falling over a giant tower. The air around it sparkled, and there was fresh green grass. Yeonjun could even see daisies. It was picture-perfect, except for the smell.

“We’re here,” he whispered, trying to breathe in as little as possible. “Now what?”

“I guess we approach the tower,” Taehyun answered. “Slowly.”

Yeonjun did as Taehyun said. The space had opened up from a narrow passage into a massive cave, but there was still a fair bit of distance between them and the tower that was shrouded in darkness. Yeonjun nearly tripped on a slight slope up that quickly turned steeper.

“Don’t fall,” he whispered. “Step there. Yep, good job.” He did as best he could to guide Kai and Beomgyu in the darkness, though Taehyun didn’t seem to need it. He was staring suspiciously at the tower ahead, eyes narrowed.

The small hill started to slope down again, and Yeonjun hopped down. He turned around to help Kai do the same, and then lifted Beomgyu neatly at the waist to avoid further injuring his leg. Taehyun neatly sidestepped them in favor of examining the tower.

“Is it just me or is it weirdly hot all of a sudden?” Kai asked.

Yeonjun shook his head. “No, you’re right. It’s really warm in here.”

There was an unseasonably warm wind passing over them, ruffling Yeonjun’s hair as it went. If he listened really closely, he could almost hear it in a predictable rhythm. In, out. In, out.

He snatched the magical candle from Beomgyu’s inner pocket. The second it was in his hand, he could see everything. The cave was completely illuminated, including the sleeping dragon directly in front of them.

He gulped. He put his arm up for Beomgyu and Kai, backing away slowly. The slope that they had just climbed was the back of the dragon.

“What? What is it?” Kai hissed. Yeonjun shushed him quickly. He accidentally backed into Taehyun, who didn’t move. Kai snatched the candle from Yeonjun, casting the cave into darkness once again.

Kai opened his mouth to scream, but Yeonjun clapped a hand over his mouth. Taehyun finally turned around just in time to see one gigantic red eye blink open.

“Run!” Yeonjun yelled. There was no use for subtlety anymore. Taehyun pointed his hand up and shot a blazing ball of light into the ceiling of the cave, lighting up the entire cavern.

Temporarily blinded, the dragon roared. It blasted fire right at the spot where Taehyun was standing, but he’d disappeared from sight with Beomgyu on his arm. They reappeared on the other side of the cave, far out of its reach.

The dragon rounded on Yeonjun next. It shot fire just as he ducked behind a massive stalagmite, the heat searing on his skin even though the fire couldn’t touch him. The dragon roared again, the sound ear-splitting as it echoed through the cave.

Yeonjun heard the shrill notes of Kai’s flute. Whatever song he was playing was extremely dissonant and unpleasant to listen to, and it seemed to be affecting the dragon because it started to stumble. It let out a weak shrieking sound, falling into another stalactite hanging from the ceiling and sending it crashing down.

“We’re going for the princess,” Taehyun whispered into Yeonjun’s ear, nearly startling him so badly he fell. Beomgyu caught him and held him upright. “Keep the dragon distracted.”

Yeonjun nodded. Kai’s tune was effective, but the dragon was starting to recover. It turned in Kai’s direction, and he dropped to the floor. A stream of fire passed over him.

Yeonjun’s foot crunched on something. It was a skeleton, bones picked clean of any flesh. It evidently used to be another knight, because there was a rusty sword and shield nearby. Yeonjun bent down to pick up the shield.

Stepping into the dragon’s view for just a moment, Yeonjun hurled the brittle shield at the dragon as hard as he could like a gigantic frisbee. It nailed the dragon right in the nose, exploding against the armor-like scales in a shower of rust and metal shards. It didn’t do much damage, but it gave Kai the time he needed to escape. Yeonjun saw him take cover behind a boulder.

The dragon opened its wings and roared. Its wingspan was almost as long as the cave itself, wing tip nearly touching the princess’s tower in the distance. Yeonjun was frozen with fear, sword drawn but useless against a beast of this size. Maybe he should’ve listened to Beomgyu while he could.

Another shrill whistle filled the cave. Kai’s flute was making the dragon weak, and Yeonjun needed to use the opening. He sprinted forward, dodging rocks and more old skeletons, sword lifted high in the air. He brought it down as hard as he could.

The blowback knocked him on his rear. The dragon’s scales were tough, but his sword had managed to do some damage. There was blood leaking slowly from a slash wound near its shoulder, and it shrieked. Yeonjun covered his ears. He ducked and rolled when the dragon stomped down, barely managing to escape being crushed to death. Then, another giant clawed hand appeared in his vision.

Instead of crushing him, the dragon grabbed him and hefted him into the air. Yeonjun accidentally dropped his sword in his shock, struggling and writhing in the creature’s grip, but it was no use. There was nothing he could do against the monster’s massive claws now wrapped around his waist.

The dragon lifted him until he was at eye-level. Expecting to be crispy-fried instantly, he squeezed his eyes shut. Nothing came except more of Kai’s whistling. It seemed to be giving the dragon a nasty headache, because its pupils kept changing sizes from slits to massive black holes in its skull.

A flash caught Yeonjun’s attention. There was something hanging from its neck. Some sort of chain was dangling down near the dragon’s throat, a pendant hanging from it. Yeonjun remembered what Taehyun had said back in the forest, and the necklace that Kim Chaewon had.

Much easier to imbue objects with magic rather than living beings.

The dragon stumbled, dropping Yeonjun. He bent his knees and rolled, wincing in pain as the rock beneath him dug scratches into his skin. When he looked around, he realized that Kai had taken his sword and stabbed it into the dragon’s foot. It seemed like it was pinned to the ground.

It turned on Kai with a terrifying hiss. The sword fell from its foot like it was no more than a toothpick, and Kai scrambled away. He’d abandoned his guitar somewhere, nothing but him and his wooden flute against this massive beast. Yeonjun needed to think.

The dragon’s tail lashed through the air. If Yeonjun could get underneath it in time, he could grab his sword and hopefully save Kai. He just needed to time it correctly so he didn’t get knocked over by the tail. Praying that Kai’s distraction would last, he waited for an opening. The dragon lifted a massive hand to obliterate the stalagmite that Kai was hiding behind, reducing it to dust.

There. Yeonjun sprinted and slid under the dragon’s backside, snatching up his fallen sword. He could hear intermittent notes from Kai’s flute, but he kept getting interrupted by the sound of crumbling rock as the dragon smashed through boulders and stalagmites with ease. Yeonjun could see the pendant dangling over his head.

He made eye contact with Kai. Kai played one long, piercing whistle, the dragon falling to its knees like a wounded horse. Yeonjun swung his sword as hard as he could.

There was a flash. He’d done it; the necklace fell to the cave floor with a tiny tinkling sound. In the dragon’s place was a young man, on his knees. Yeonjun lifted his sword again, and the man held his arms over his head like it might protect him from the blow. Where was his magic? Why wasn’t he cursing Yeonjun?

Yeonjun recognized the crest embroidered on his sleeve just before the sword came down. The blade stopped mid-air, the young man flinching away with a whimper. Yeonjun stared.

“Hyung! What are you doing!?”

Yeonjun held up his arm to stop Kai. There was blood on Kai’s lip and dirt smudged across his nose. His clothing was filthy, but he looked otherwise unharmed. Yeonjun pointed to the crest on the young man’s jacket. Kai’s eyes went wide.

“You’re the missing prince,” Kai realized.

The man put his arms down. He was really quite handsome, soft features and gentle, round eyes that were nothing like the slitted pupils of the dragon. He looked terrified.

“P-please don’t kill me,” he stuttered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was just listening to her. She told me I couldn’t let anyone near the tower, she said–“

“Who is she?” Yeonjun interrupted, a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“The witch,” the prince answered, voice shaking. There was still blood leaking from the wound near his shoulder, staining his navy-blue jacket almost black.

“What witch?” Yeonjun demanded.

The prince pointed to the tower. “Her. She’s not a princess, she’s been luring knights here to build her undead army.”

Yeonjun swore. “Beomgyu and Taehyun just went in there,” he told Kai. “We have to go save them, now. You, uh– Your Highness. What’s your name?”

“Soobin,” the prince answered. He was holding a hand over his injured shoulder in a pitiful attempt to stop the bleeding.

“Soobin. Does this thing work on anyone that puts it on?” Yeonjun bent down to pick up the fallen necklace off the ground. The metal pendant on it was artfully shaped into a curled-up dragon.

“Yes,” Soobin said. “But it’s– it’s difficult. When you’re that big, I mean. It would take you time to get used to being that size, you might hurt your friends instead.”

“Gotta try,” Yeonjun replied grimly. “You ready, Kai? I think you might just be able to tie this thing around my neck and make it work–“

“Wait.” Soobin put his hand up, palm stained with blood. “Let me do it.”

Yeonjun stared at him. “Uh, no offense, but I just stabbed you. Why do you want to help us?”

“She’s kept me here practically my whole life,” Soobin said, expression determined. “If this is my chance to get out, then I’m taking it. I can’t put on that necklace, though. She’s enchanted it so that I can’t touch it at all. You’ll have to help me.”

Yeonjun looked at Kai. If Soobin was lying, putting the necklace back on him would almost certainly result in their deaths. On the other hand, Beomgyu and Taehyun were probably fighting for their lives right now. Yeonjun probably wouldn’t be much use as a dragon, seeing as he’d never been twenty feet tall before. They really needed Soobin’s help.

The light above them flickered and then went out. Time was up. Feeling around in the darkness as best he could, Yeonjun found Soobin’s neck and tied the broken chain around him once more.

There was a flash. Yeonjun looked up to see the same red, slitted eyes once more. Soobin let out a gentle rumbling noise, and Yeonjun panicked for a moment when he felt claws around his waist. Then, Soobin dropped him onto his back. Yeonjun heard Kai yelp before he landed just behind Yeonjun.

There was another rumbling grunt, and then Soobin launched himself into the air. Yeonjun clung onto the row of scales between Soobin’s wings for dear life, Kai wailing behind him. Once they were in the air, though, it was even easier than riding a horse. Soobin was headed straight for the top of the tower.

Yeonjun looked down. It looked like the cave floor was alive, hundreds of moving figures on the pristine grass. They were climbing up the tower, an undead army in varying states of decay, rising to the aid of their master. His stomach dropped. There was no possible way that Beomgyu and Taehyun could’ve survived this sort of onslaught.

Kai pulled his arms back from the death grip around Yeonjun’s waist and brought the flute to his lips. Soobin reached out with his back legs to tear the entire roof off of the tower, shingles flying everywhere and exposing the room inside.

Taehyun was shooting spells left and right, miniature explosions blasting through undead soldiers like they were children’s toys, but for every soldier he destroyed another took its place. Beomgyu was standing at his back with the two-handed axe to defend him. Sitting on the four-poster bed and giggling was a beautiful woman with golden hair.

When the roof came down, Taehyun raised a bubble to protect himself and Beomgyu. That was the chance that Soobin needed; fire rained down upon the room from above, reducing the undead soldiers to ash. He scooped up Beomgyu and Taehyun in his claws right as Yeonjun slid down from his back.

He landed in a crouch, sword in hand. Kai was playing his flute at a frantic pace. The undead soldiers crawling up the tower froze. There was fire everywhere Yeonjun looked, the smoke making him cough.

The princess emerged from the flames. Her dress was burnt, beautiful countenance twisted with rage until it was something ugly. Her perfect exterior melted away to reveal a terrifying creature.

She was taller now, towering over Yeonjun, with skin paler than marble and entirely black eyes. She had no hair, only a smooth white skull. It contrasted horrifically with her black robes to create an almost skeletal appearance. She pointed a bony finger in Yeonjun’s direction.

“You. Turning my perfect pet against me,” she said coldly.

“He’s not a pet,” Yeonjun shot back, sword raised defensively. “He’s a prince.”

“He’s a monster,” she spat. She pointed around. “You think all of these knights died of their own accord? No. He killed them himself.”

“Because you made him,” Yeonjun said bravely. “Soobin is a good person, and you made him do this. He’s not the monster here.”

She laughed derisively. Her voice was high, grating on Yeonjun’s ears. “How can you claim to know him? I raised him since he was a boy, gave him more power than he could ever dream of–“

“He doesn’t want it,” Yeonjun interrupted. “He wants to be free.”

“You stupid boy! Power is freedom. When you have unlimited power, you can do whatever you want. No one can stop you.”

“You’re wrong.” Yeonjun adjusted his stance, sword clutched in his grip. “I’m going to stop you because I have to.”

He flew backwards so quickly he could barely determine what had happened until he was slammed into the wall. The breath left his lungs in a whoosh, and he gasped for air. The smoke was making him wheeze and cough. Suddenly, there was a cold hand around his throat.

He swung his sword wildly, but it was no use. The blade passed through her body as if she were made of nothing more than the smoke around them. She laughed right in his face.

“There is no magic, no weapon that can defeat me, boy. That sword won’t help you here.” Her grip around his neck was tightening, and he could feel the energy draining from his body. She was doing something to him, using her magic to pull the life from his body.

There was a resounding roar. A set of claws snatched her away from Yeonjun, throwing her across the room. She landed in a heap of black robes, but recovered quickly just to be smacked down again. Soobin’s tail slammed her through the floor of the tower, and she disappeared from view.

“Soobin,” Yeonjun called, coughing. “Soobin!”

The dragon made a concerned whining sound, carefully landing on the remains of the roof to poke his nose down through the hole. He seemed to be trying to communicate something; he kept making little grunting and huffing noises that Yeonjun couldn’t understand. He took Yeonjun’s sword between his teeth.

“I’m sorry, Soobin, I don’t–“

There was a blast from beneath them. The witch had reappeared, shooting up through the floor as if she’d been launched by a cannon. She made direct impact with the dragon’s head, knocking him from the roof and out of view. There was a resounding crash from outside the tower.

“Soobin!” Yeonjun cried. He ran to the edge of the room to peer over the broken wall. Soobin was laying in a curled position on his side, wings wrapped around his body. He wasn’t moving. Yeonjun’s heart felt like it had been torn from his chest.

The witch grabbed him by the back of the neck. There was a searing pain as she did so, her magic coursing through his veins and taking his life with it. He had no weapons, and Soobin was gone. He did the only thing he could think to do.

He grabbed her arms and flipped her. She was tall, but still smaller than him. She landed on her back, black eyes narrowed in fury, and Yeonjun reached for his belt.

No magic, no weapon. Yeonjun had something else. He pulled the chisel from his belt and plunged it into her chest.

She screamed. It was almost as bad as banshee, and Yeonjun felt like his head was going to explode. He dragged the hammer from its spot on his belt as well, slamming it into the chisel and driving it further into her chest. The clang of metal on metal combined with her screams was ear-splitting, and the smoke was starting to make Yeonjun woozy.

He dropped to the ground. The witch had stopped moving, her screams dying out, but Yeonjun’s vision was blurring. Taehyun’s face appeared in front of his eyes, and then everything went dark.

He woke up slowly. He could hear voices, and the rustle of wind through leaves. It smelled nice here, like dirt and grass. Yeonjun opened his eyes.

“He’s awake!” A familiar voice said. “Taehyunnie, he’s awake.”

It was Kai. Taehyun’s face appeared again, Yeonjun squinting up at him to try to keep the sun out of his eyes. His limbs felt like they were filled with sand. He dragged himself into a sitting position, looking around.

They’d made some sort of camp. It look like the same woods they’d come through to get here, the late afternoon sun blazing through the treetops. Beomgyu was hanging a wet jacket up to dry, and when he ran over to crouch at Yeonjun’s side there was no limp in his step at all.

“You’re okay?” Yeonjun asked.

Beomgyu scoffed. “Why are you asking me that, dumbass? You’re the one who almost joined the legion of the undead two hours ago.”

“Has it seriously only been two hours? My head is killing me,” Yeonjun groaned. Taehyun chuckled.

“That would be the witch’s magic for you. You might also just be hungry. Want a steak?”

Yeonjun’s stomach rolled. “Please tell me you didn’t take that from the cave. I don’t know what kind of steak that is, but I don’t want–“

“It’s venison,” a smooth voice said shyly. “I cooked it myself.”

Yeonjun looked up. Soobin was tall, even taller than him, and dressed only in his white undershirt and black trousers. His hair was wet, like he’d just recently bathed. There was a bandage wrapped around his arm.

“Oh.” Yeonjun’s brain had suddenly stopped working. Was that the witch’s magic again? He wasn’t sure.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Kai said. “I still have some of those rolls from earlier, even if they’re stale. C’mon, hyung, some food will do you good. Dragons are really good cooks, you know. Medium-rare.”

Yeonjun sort of stared around confusedly as everyone went back to what they were doing. Kai fetched Yeonjun his dinner, and Soobin sat down on the ground next to him. Yeonjun had never sat next to royalty before.

“Soo– uh, Your Highness. Thanks for saving me, and all that. I mean, without you, we’d all be toast right now. I really appreciate–“

Soobin hugged him. Yeonjun froze up for a long moment before managing to put his arms around Soobin’s waist in an awkward, loose hold. Soobin didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. When he pulled back, he was smiling.

“No need to call me that. Just Soobin is fine. You’re my rescuer, after all.”

“I didn’t really do that much, actually, it was mostly you,” Yeonjun said. “I mean, like I said, I’d be super dead if you hadn’t come back for me.”

“And I’d have never found the courage to stand up to her if you hadn’t come for me,” Soobin replied, still smiling. He had dimples, and it was making Yeonjun’s stomach flip weirdly. That witch magic must’ve been really powerful.

He ate while Soobin sat next to him and watched. They didn’t have any utensils outside of the dagger Beomgyu had stolen from the barbarian, so Yeonjun was eating the venison steak with his hands. The royal manners in Soobin were probably cringing at him right now, but he didn’t say anything. He seemed content to sit in silence.

“So… uh. What’s your plan now that you’re free?” Yeonjun asked.

“Oh!” Soobin’s eyes went wide, and then he frowned. “Hmm, I guess I really hadn’t thought about it much. I guess I’ll go back to the castle and see my parents…?”

“That seems like a good idea. I’ve heard they’re still looking for you.”

“Ah.” Soobin looked down at his leather boots with a somber expression on his face. “I do feel bad for them. It’s been twelve years, they won’t even recognize me anymore. What if they don’t believe me?”

Yeonjun bumped him with his shoulder gently. “You’re their son. They’ll know when they see you.”

“Yeah. I’m still nervous, I guess.” Soobin looked at Yeonjun again, the setting sun warming his face. “So what made you decide to come looking for me?”

“Well, see, originally I wanted to be a knight, but I’m just a shoemaker’s kid from a town no one’s ever heard of. So I convinced my friends to go on this crazy awesome adventure–“

“Terrible,” Taehyun cut in flatly. “Don’t let him lie to you, it’s been objectively terrible most of the way.”

Soobin giggled, and Yeonjun’s stomach flipped again. “Yeah, uh, anyways. We originally thought we were on a quest to rescue the princess, but then Beomgyu got injured by a banshee, and Taehyun went all no one hurts my boyfriend on my watch–“

“How did you know?” Beomgyu asked, sounding shocked. He straightened up from where he was re-organizing his bag with his brows pinched together.

Yeonjun whipped around. “No way. Please tell me you’re joking right now. I was joking, I was making a joke.”

“Oh my God,” Kai gasped, pointing between Beomgyu and Taehyun. “Oh, this is going to be such good gossip when we get back to your town. Holy shit, I’ve just struck gold.” Beomgyu grimaced, but Taehyun didn’t look bothered by the reveal in the slightest.

“And?” Soobin asked quietly, bumping his shoulder into Yeonjun’s. Yeonjun forced himself to re-focus.

“And then he started tracking down this necromancer. We realized that the princess and the necromancer we were tracking down were actually in the same place,” Yeonjun explained. “So I thought it was you. I thought you were actually the necromancer shape-shifted into a dragon, when– you know. In reality it was her all along.”

“Well, thanks for not killing me,” Soobin chuckled.

“Thanks for not killing me,” Yeonjun replied. “I was so sure I was about to get cooked when you picked me up.”

For some reason, Soobin flushed bright red. “Yeah, sorry about that. I, uhh– just wanted to take a look at you. Most of the time when knights came they were in armor and all that, right? Helmets, and stuff.”

“So you were checking out my face?”

Soobin got even redder, smacking Yeonjun’s arm. “Not checking out! Just– you know. Looking. I hadn’t really seen anyone but her in a really long time.”

Yeonjun hummed. “Well, you’ll get to see everything now. There’s a whole world out there.”

“Not really,” Soobin replied. “Once I go back to the palace, it’ll be royal duties and training to hold the crown again. I doubt I’ll be able to see much of anything.”

“Well, it’s not like they’ll really be able to stop a dragon if he wants to have a night out on the town.”

Soobin burst into giggles again. His squeaky laugh was like sweet music to Yeonjun’s ears, and he couldn’t help but smile. Soobin was actually really adorable, for someone who was part-time dragon.

They decided to stay the night rather than travel through the darkness, since Yeonjun was still feeling pretty worn out and Soobin was still recovering from being stabbed. Yeonjun had apologized for it numerous times already, but Soobin wouldn’t hear any of it. Yeonjun watched him from across their small campfire in silence.

It was as cold as it was the first night, but at least Yeonjun had Kai to keep him warm. Soobin looked like he was shivering despite his jacket, huddled beneath it with his legs still sticking out. In a split-second decision, he stood up. He took off his jacket and went to lay it over Soobin’s legs.

“Hyung,” Soobin whispered, shiny eyes peeking out from over the collar of his jacket and catching the firelight. “Won’t you be cold?”

“Nah,” Yeonjun whispered back. “Kai’s like a furnace with pecs.”

Soobin smiled and snuggled into his jacket further. Yeonjun went back to his spot next to Kai with a funny feeling in his chest.

Travel was a lot more convenient with a dragon. In the morning, once everyone was awake, Yeonjun tied the broken necklace around Soobin’s neck and closed his eyes for the flash. A massive dragon now filled the clearing. He strapped their bags on in-between Soobin’s wings, and then climbed on. He pulled Kai up next, while Beomgyu and Taehyun floated gracefully up onto Soobin’s back.

“How come he gets to fly, and the rest of us have to deal with Soobin’s poky elbows?” Yeonjun complained.

“Boyfriend privileges,” Beomgyu said proudly, putting his arms around Taehyun’s waist and snuggling into his shoulder. Taehyun was doing his best to remain expressionless, but Yeonjun could tell he was pleased.

The take-off was always the worst part. Soobin used his substantial legs to launch himself into the sky, and they rocketed upwards so quickly that it felt like Yeonjun had left his stomach on the ground. It was cold up here, with the wind whipping around them, but once they reached a reasonable altitude Soobin just put his wings out to cruise. The view of the forest was magnificent.

“Bet it feels good to fly for real, huh Soobin?” Yeonjun shouted over the wind. “Better than being trapped in that cave!”

Soobin turned around to look at him, slitted eyes blinking slowly and contentedly. Yeonjun reached out to pat the top of his head. There were horns pointed back towards him, shining black obsidian that ended in two sharp points. His scarlet scales shone in the sun. He really was beautiful, considering that he was technically a man-eating beast right now.

They’d been flying for a few hours now, the seemingly-unending forest passing beneath them. Soobin didn’t seem to need much direction, and Yeonjun figured Kai would tell them if they were going the wrong way. It looked like he was dozing off behind Yeonjun. Despite the chill of the wind at this height, the sunshine and Soobin’s body heat made it warm and comfortable.

Suddenly, Soobin flipped over in a mid-air barrel roll. Yeonjun clutched onto his horns, and Taehyun kept Beomgyu firmly seated. Kai, however, was thrown. Soobin folded his wings in a steep dive before snatching Kai up in his claws again. Kai looked terrified, but otherwise unharmed.

“Soobin!” Yeonjun scolded. “What was that for!?”

The dragon let out something close to a laugh, smoke coming out of his nostrils. He tossed Kai back into his spot behind Yeonjun, the younger boy landing with a little oof.

“You should know better than to fall asleep, even during a long journey,” Taehyun said calmly. “Your guard should always be up.”

“Oh, don’t be such a wet rag, Taehyun,” Beomgyu said, squeezing him. “Soobin was just trying to have a good time. Right, Soobin?”

The dragon did another barrel roll. Kai managed to hold on this time, grabbing Yeonjun’s shoulders like he might die if he didn’t. To be fair to Kai, it was a reasonable assumption, Yeonjun thought. The dragon let out another rumbling laugh and kept flying.

Soon enough, they reached the road. They had to fly higher now, the risk of being spotted much bigger here than it was in the unpopulated woods. It wasn’t that Yeonjun necessarily thought they would be in danger, just that they might cause a fright to the people below if they happened to spot a dragon overhead.

“Almost home,” Yeonjun called, turning around so that his voice wasn’t carried away by the wind. “Aren’t you guys glad you decided to come with?”

“Aside from the time I almost died by barbarian, yeah,” Kai replied. “I’ll have awesome stories to tell now.”

“Aside from the time I almost died by banshee, yeah,” Beomgyu said next. “At least I got this cool cloak, and the candle.”

“Aside from the time you all almost died, yes,” Taehyun said.

“That was pretty much the whole time,” Yeonjun pointed out.

“Yes.” Taehyun reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Yeonjun stared. It was the tiny glass bottle that he’d been given at Kim’s House of Curios, only it wasn’t empty anymore. Inside was a strange whitish fog. “And I got this. The necromancer’s magic.”

“Uhh…” Yeonjun said slowly. “Do I even want to know what you stole that for?”

For the first time in a long time, Taehyun smiled. “Sakura noona. No matter how her body is feeling, now she can be herself again.”

That was a good thing, Yeonjun supposed. It wasn’t technically raising the dead since Sakura was in more of a long-term coma. Still, the idea made him feel a little weird. As long as Taehyun was satisfied, then he supposed it didn’t matter. Sakura would finally be herself again, and Taehyun wouldn’t be alone.

They finally made it to the village by sundown. Yeonjun directed Soobin to land in his back garden, careful not to crush any of his mother’s precious vegetables. Once they were on the ground, he untied all of their bags from Soobin’s back. There was a flash as he took off the necklace. Soobin was human again, and clearly tired. Yeonjun felt bad for him.

“C’mon, you can stay with me tonight,” Yeonjun said quietly. “Might make my parents flip out less if I actually come back with a princess– uh, well, prince. Either way, you’re royalty. Technically I succeeded.”

“I’m going to stay with Beomgyu hyung,” Kai whispered. “See you later, guys.”

“Wait, you are!?”

“I am now,” Kai informed a stunned-looking Beomgyu. “You can live without Taehyunnie for one night. Besides, he’s going to have a lot to tell his sister about.”

“Well, I guess that’s fine. Soobin, will you say goodbye before you head off to the palace?” Beomgyu asked.

Soobin nodded. “Of course. I’m so grateful to you guys, really.”

“No worries. I think we all got something good out of this.” Beomgyu’s words sounded surprisingly genuine and warm for someone that Yeonjun rarely ever saw behave seriously. With that, he took Kai and led him out of Yeonjun’s back garden. Taehyun lifted his hand in a small wave and then disappeared.

Yeonjun took a deep breath. “Okay, well, you’re about to meet my parents. Make sure that royal crest is really visible, okay? I took the good hammer and chisel to kill the witch with, so my life might still be in danger.”

Soobin chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you, this time.”

Yeonjun felt his face flush. He was glad that it was dark enough to hide his face as he brought Soobin into the house.

Yeonjun woke up the next morning with Soobin sleeping next to him. The windows were open to let the air in, gentle breeze lifting the curtains. Soobin was sleeping soundly. Yeonjun stared at his face. He certainly looked like royalty, or at least what Yeonjun had imagined that royalty would look like when he read all those books as a kid. Even in Yeonjun’s plain clothes that were a little too small on him, Soobin was handsome.

He was sleeping on top of Yeonjun’s arm. He’d lost all feeling in it a long time ago, but Yeonjun couldn’t bear to wake him. He was content to let Soobin sleep, anyway. It would be another long journey to the palace and he needed the rest.

Yeonjun watched his eyelashes flutter in his sleep, plump lips parted ever so slightly. There was a soft flush on his cheeks from the rising sun that was quickly warming the room. If Yeonjun was honest with himself, Soobin was probably the prettiest person he’d ever seen.

He started to stir, and Yeonjun quickly looked away. Soobin’s eyes opened slowly, and he smiled. Those dimples were just so cute. Yeonjun gulped.

“Good morning, hyung.”

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Yeonjun replied. “You feel rested?”

“Yeah,” Soobin said. “How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough that I have absolutely no feeling in my arm whatsoever.” Soobin looked down, realized he was laying on Yeonjun’s arm, and practically fell out of bed. The sound of Yeonjun’s laughter filled the room.

Yeonjun’s parents didn’t seem to know what to do with Soobin. At first they seemed suspicious of him, but the gold thread used to embroider the royal crest onto his torn jacket was more expensive than any his parents had ever seen before. Now, Yeonjun’s mother was making as lavish of a breakfast spread as possible while his father went to open up the shop.

“You’re getting the royal treatment,” Yeonjun told him, over a plate of eggs and bread. “Usually the first thing that happens when I wake up is someone shouts for me to go get some water from the well.”

Soobin put a piece of bread in his mouth. It was so full that his words came out muffled. “I don’t know. I don’t feel very royal anymore. I lived in a cave for twelve years, eating barbecued knights for every meal. I don’t know how to behave like royalty anymore.”

“You’ll get used to it again,” Yeonjun assured him. “The missing crown prince returns! You’ll be all anyone in the kingdom is talking about for months.”

Soobin ignored the fork and knife set out for him in favor of scooping the scrambled eggs into his mouth with his hands. It was a very messy-looking affair, and Yeonjun burst into laughter. Soobin looked up. There was egg on his face.

“What?”

“You’re supposed to use the utensils, Soobin,” Yeonjun said, still laughing. “Here, let me show you. You’re gonna have to re-learn a lot of manners if you want to make it at the palace.”

By noon, they had a plan to get Soobin back to the castle. Even with the witch dead, the necklace still jumped across the room like a loose frog any time Soobin tried to touch it. Yeonjun had arranged to accompany him on the journey, and would be able to remove the necklace for him before they reached the palace so that they didn’t alarm anyone. He had a bag packed and ready to go. They’d agreed to meet at Taehyun’s house to say their goodbyes.

“Taehyun, open up!” Yeonjun shouted at the open window of the attic. “I don’t want Soobin to get guillotined!”

The door flew open. It wasn’t Taehyun, but Sakura. She was standing there smiling.

“Oh my God,” Yeonjun breathed. “Sakura noona. You’re alive.”

“I hear I have you to thank,” she said warmly. “Taehyunnie would never give up on me, but he said you’re the reason he got the spell that finally worked.”

“No, really, it’s– Taehyun’s a genius. He’s the reason we even made it there in the first place,” Yeonjun insisted. Just then, Taehyun appeared from Yeonjun’s shadow and startled him.

“Hmm. Not sure how I feel about you saying nice things about me,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Yeonjun protested. “I say nice things about you all the time! Noona, he’s lying, I swear.”

Sakura laughed. It was good to see her awake and talking rather than the motionless figure in the corner of the attic that took up most of Yeonjun’s memories. Soobin was sort of shuffling around awkwardly, at least until Beomgyu and Kai showed up.

“He’s never staying in my house again,” Beomgyu said, looking greyer than Yeonjun had ever seen him. “He does nothing but talk. All night, he was talking and telling stories and I haven’t had a wink of sleep.”

“I’m a blessing, actually,” Kai chirped. He was twirling the flute between his fingers, guitar strapped to his back.

“You leaving today, too?” Yeonjun asked, pointing at his bag.

“Yup,” Kai said. “Heading to the next town over. I bet they’ll be dying to hear all about our grand adventures!”

“I’m sure they will,” Beomgyu said sarcastically. Yeonjun stepped on his toe, and Beomgyu swore under his breath. Kai still looked perfectly cheerful.

“Well, it was great to meet you all,” Soobin finally said. “I really appreciate everything you guys did for me. Because of you, I get to go home.”

“Don’t forget about us when you’re a big fancy prince, okay?” Kai replied. “I’m gonna need someone to back me up when everyone says I’m lying. Actually, you wanna sign a letter saying I’m telling the truth, or something? That might work.”

Yeonjun cut in before the chattering could get off the rails too much. “We’ll send a letter when we get there, Kai. We should get going, though. It’s going to get dark before we make it to the palace, and I don’t really want to sleep in the woods again.”

There were hugs and goodbyes all around. Kai waved as he headed off in the opposite direction, and Yeonjun and Soobin went off in the same direction the very first time they’d gone to rescue the princess in the first place. It was funny to look back on, now. They’d really had no idea what they were getting into.

Soobin was looking down at his feet as they walked through the village. Word that the missing crown prince had arrived to the town had already spread like wildfire, probably no thanks to Kai. Soobin seemed nervous with all eyes on him.

“Hey,” Yeonjun said softly, linking his arm with Soobin’s. “It’s okay. You’re going home.”

“I don’t know where home is anymore,” Soobin admitted. “I haven’t lived in that palace for twelve years. Everyone there will know me, but I won’t remember them. I’ll be alone again.”

“Well hey. Every prince needs a knight, right?” Yeonjun said, smiling. “Maybe they’ll let me sign on as your personal bodyguard after I put in a couple of years.”

Soobin looked up at him. “Are you really going to leave them all behind to become a knight?”

Yeonjun shrugged. “It’s been my dream since I was a kid.”

“But how will this town get their shoes?”

“They’ll figure it out,” Yeonjun said. “They have each other. If I can make you feel a little less alone, then I’d rather be with you.”

Soobin flushed prettily. To be fair, it was hot out and he was still wearing his torn jacket, but he walked a little closer to Yeonjun and kept his head down. Yeonjun could hear the whispering of the villagers as they passed.

Once they were in Yeonjun’s back garden, Yeonjun pulled the necklace from his pocket. He stepped close, nearly chest to chest with Soobin, and put his arms around his neck to tie the broken chain. He heard Soobin’s breath catch.

Yeonjun’s fingers paused. He tried to gauge Soobin’s expression, but he was just sort of staring at Yeonjun’s face. Yeonjun’s heartbeat was suddenly rabbit-fast. Why was Soobin looking at him like that?

The moment passed, and Yeonjun cleared his throat a little before tying the necklace up. There was a flash, and Soobin was a dragon once more. Yeonjun hoisted his bag more securely on his back before climbing up between his wings.

Soobin launched himself into the sky. Yeonjun let out a whoop of joy, feeling the wind rush through his hair, and clutched onto Soobin’s horns tightly. “Let’s take you home, Soobin.”

They arrived at the capital city a few hours after night had fallen. There were still so many lights on in the city that it looked like a patchwork of stars beneath them, a quilt of lights spreading out over the land. Soobin started his descent far outside the city. They’d have to walk, but it would be good for Yeonjun to stretch his legs anyway.

They landed in the pitch-dark. All Yeonjun could see was Soobin’s glowing red eyes, pupils round now to take in their surroundings. He bent his head all the way down until his chin was touching the ground so that Yeonjun could take off the necklace.

“You’re gonna have to gimme a second, Soobin, it’s too dark,” Yeonjun told him. “I’m just going to get a lantern going.”

He dug around in his bag until he found the lantern he’d brought and the box of matches. With a quick strike, the empty field they were standing in lit up. Taehyun had enchanted this lantern to burn extra bright. Yeonjun reached up around Soobin’s gigantic head to untie the necklace, feeling hot breath ruffle his hair.

There was a flash. Soobin was himself, and Yeonjun still had his arms around his neck. He went to quickly pull away, but Soobin caught his wrist. Yeonjun froze. Soobin’s hand was soft and warm, long fingers easily engulfing Yeonjun’s entire wrist.

“E-everything okay?” He asked, trying to ignore the way that Soobin’s eyes were darting over his face. He looked like he was searching for something in Yeonjun’s expression.

“You know, in all the stories, they say that the princess falls in love with her rescuer,” Soobin murmured. “It’s a fairy tale, right? Love at first sight.”

“Yeah.” Yeonjun swallowed. It was long past dark, but the night was still humid. He could feel his palms sweating.

“I know I’m no princess,” Soobin said quietly. “But do you think you could fall in love with me anyway?”

Yeonjun’s mouth fell open. It was impossible. He was a shoemaker’s son, a nobody from a village that wasn’t even on any maps, so far beneath Soobin that he might as well not be in his sights. Soobin was looking at him now, though. Soobin was staring at him like it might be the last time he ever got to see Yeonjun’s face. The lamplight was flickering in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Yeonjun whispered. “Maybe love at first sight isn’t just for fairy tales.”

Soobin pulled him in by the waist. Yeonjun wrapped his arms more securely around Soobin’s neck as their lips met, and suddenly it didn’t matter that Yeonjun was a shoemaker and Soobin was a prince. Soobin kissed him so sweetly that it felt like true love. It felt better than any book he’d ever read, any of the fantastical stories that Kai had ever told. 

This was real.

“My people!” The king cried, voice echoing over the plaza. “I am overjoyed to announce the return of my son, Crown Prince Choi Soobin. I also wish to present to you the brave knight that rescued him, Sir Choi Yeonjun.”

There were wild cheers from the crowd below. They were standing on the palace balcony facing the square, and the king stepped back so that Soobin could greet the people. The roar of the crowd was practically deafening, and there was music. Confetti rained down from above as Soobin stepped forward.

At the last second, he grabbed Yeonjun’s arm. Suddenly Yeonjun was there with him, standing at Soobin’s side as he greeted his future kingdom. He had put on a brave face, and was waving down at the people below. Yeonjun subtly reached around to pat his butt.

“Smile, baby. You look terrified.”

“I am,” Soobin said out of the corner of his mouth. “I’m afraid I’m going to pee these very fancy pants.”

Yeonjun laughed. He waved down at the crowd, too, and the cheers grew even louder. “No need to be scared. They don’t even know you’re part-time dragon yet.”