“Paper Scraps”
Post-Canon, Angst, Hurt/Comfort...ish?, Reconciliation, Discussion of Suicidal Ideation, Ghosts, Implied Sangyu, Mo Xuanyu Gets To Be Mourned, Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang Are Going Through It
Series Link on Ao3
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"To what do I owe the surprise visit?'' Nie Huaisang asks, and his voice is so devoid of emotion that Wei Wuxian has to bite back a shudder, suddenly very much aware that he is treading in completely new and potentially dangerous territory.
Nie-xiong is as dead as his beloved elder brother, and the Headshaker was nothing more than a mask. All that's left now is Nie-zongzhu, whom he knows nothing about and threatened the last time they actually spoke to each other in person.
Still, he sucks up his nerve and plasters on one of his usual careless smiles. "We need to talk, you and I. Just you and I."
"Wei Ying-"
He holds up a hand to cut off Lan Zhan's protest. "How about it?"
"And what, exactly, do you think there is for us to discuss, Wei-xiansheng? Have I not been behaving well enough for your liking?"
Ouch.
"Okay, I deserved that," Wei Wuxian says as he waves off his defensive husband and friend a second time, suddenly wishing he'd just snuck out and come alone.
Then again, that probably wouldn't have gone well either, judging by the wary looks he keeps getting from the handful of Nie disciples who linger defensively near their sect leader.
Okay... okay. No more trying to joke around. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, then straightens his back. "I'm here about Mo Xuanyu."
Nie Huaisang’s face betrays nothing, but the fan in his hand snaps shut with enough force that it's audible throughout the room. “Everyone, please escort our other two guests to the main gardens so that we may speak privately.”
“Zongzhu-” one massive bear of a man starts to protest.
At the same time Lan Zhan moves in front of Wei Wuxian to growl “We are not going anywhere,” and the tension in the room ratchets sharply to hair-on-end levels as the situation threatens to turn into a standoff.
Wei Wuxian pinches the bridge of his nose to stave off a building headache, then reaches out in an attempt to tug his husband back. “Lan Zhan. I’m the one who requested a one-on-one meeting, remember? Literally just now?”
“He cannot be truste-”
“Wei-gongzi, he might-”
“Enough,” Nie Huaisang snaps, the unexpected whip-crack of his voice making them all, a few disciples included, jump. “Let me remind all three of you that you came here and none of you are required to stay. In fact, today would be much improved if you didn’t.”
“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian hisses.
Lan Zhan doesn’t budge, hand still tight on the hilt of Bichen. “If you harm Wei Ying-”
“Yes, yes, you and the Ghost General will cut me open and hang me with my own entrails just to start with,” Nie Huaisang replies irritably, giving a dismissive wave of the closed fan. “I’m well aware.”
Judging by the startled and utterly appalled looks that cross Lan Zhan and Wen Ning’s faces, that had decidedly not been on the list of options of what they might potentially do. But the descriptive suggestion does work to knock them off guard, and Wei Wuxian bites his tongue hard to keep his expression neutral as the two of them are herded out without any more fuss after Nie Huaisang makes a short gesture to his disciples. “You did that on purpose.”
Nie Huaisang turns without responding to the jibe at all and walks off towards another door.
Ouch again.
He trots after the other man and falls into step beside him as they enter a hallway that’s clearly not for public use. Part of him wants to ask where they’re going, if just to break the uncomfortable silence, but he keeps his mouth shut.
They finally stop at a door that, when Nie Huaisang slides it open, leads to a tiny garden so deep in the sect's keep that the back wall of it is cut into the mountain itself.
And in that little carved out cave, shielded from wind and rain and snow, sits a funeral tablet on a table shrine.
Wei Wuxian involuntarily sucks a sharp breath through his teeth at the sight of it, his hand coming up to clutch at his chest. Guilt wells up hot and stinging and bitter in his stomach, then higher into his throat. Dizzy, he sways on his feet and is only vaguely aware of the hands that catch him.
Once his resurrection had been revealed, everyone simply accepted him as “Wei Wuxian”, not “Wei-Wuxian-In-Mo-Xuanyu’s-Body”, seemingly having just... forgotten that the face he has now once belonged to someone else. He had grown so settled into this body that until the dreams had begun, he had barely given Mo Xuanyu a second thought.
But right at this moment, staring at the name carved into that tablet, held up by the one person left who had remembered- had loved the original owner of this body enough to memorialize him, he has never felt more like an invader in it.
His vision, gone fuzzy from the sickening torrent of emotion, slowly begins to come back into focus and, for just a moment, he is staring through Mo Xuanyu’s eyes into the worried expression of Nie-xiong before the lingering memory clears to the more neutral face of Nie-zongzhu.
He is on the ground, his head in the man’s lap, and the sudden urge to cry hits him hard. “Do you hate me?” he asks without meaning to, voice coming out plaintive and half-strangled by his effort to hold back the tears.
“You were the one who decided there was nothing left between us worth salvaging.”
“I did. And it was stupid. But that’s not what I mean, and you know it. Do you hate me for having this face?”
There is a pause, then a quiet sigh. “No, I don’t.”
“Why?”
“If it wasn’t you, it would be someone else. Or something else. Yu-er was…”
Nie Huaisang turns his head away, expression softening into a complicated mix sadness and pain, and Wei Wuxian finds himself thinking that while ‘his’ Nie-xiong might be dead, Mo Xuanyu’s Nie-xiong might still exist somewhere deep under the protective layers of Nie-zongzhu.
He swallows hard, then makes himself sit up and looks again at the tablet and its small offerings.
“Determined,” he says quietly, finishing the sentence. A tiny wet laugh bubbles out of his throat. “I thought… I really did believe that you had forced him into it,” he continues, and in the edge of his vision, he sees Nie Huaisang flinch at the accusation. “But no. No. He... really was determined to see it out to the end.”
“How do you-”
“Ah.” He scratches his cheek, then scoots to face the other man. “That’s actually the reason I needed to talk to you. I’ve been seeing- fuck, dreaming his memories, I guess… though they were more like nightmares, considering what was in them-”
“Wait,” Nie Huaisang says, holding up a hand. “When did this start?”
“Mmh. Just a little over ten months ago, I think? Or maybe closer to eleven. The first one was of your visit right after his mother died.”
Nie Huaisang goes slightly pale at that, though whether it’s from the admission of the length of time or the contents of the memory, Wei Wuxian can’t tell.
He gets an answer when Nie Huaisang gets up and rushes to the table, returning with something carefully cradled in his hands.
It’s a spirit pouch.
His hands are shaking as he holds them out to accept the tiny burden, and he’s vaguely aware that he’s gaping like a fish. “Huaisang…” he chokes out when he finally manages to find his voice again, but that’s as far as he gets.
“I… have studied a lot of ways of finding and contacting the dead,” Nie Huaisang says, and Wei Wuxian nods along numbly because that makes a ridiculous amount of sense, given the circumstances. “I know what the ritual notes said, but seeing that there was still something left of Da-ge after everything that had been done to him…”
He reaches out and touches the pouch and Wei Wuxian finds himself thinking of a gentle hand ruffling his (but not his) hair.
“I’m just sorry it took me two years to get up the nerve to go looking.”
But you went, Wei Wuxian thinks. You went.
He’d never even considered it. It had never crossed his mind at all.
“Eleven months ago, right?” he asks, voice still a little squeaky.
“Mm-hmm. I should have written to you about this long before now, but it seemed like every time I’d prepared myself to send the letter, something would happen that would remind me that… well.”
That we’re not friends anymore.
That you want nothing to do with me.
Wei Wuxian closes his eyes and rests his hands in his lap, still holding the pouch as if it’s made of porcelain instead of cloth. “I probably wouldn’t have read it,” he confesses quietly. “Or I would have, but I wouldn’t have believed you. I would have thought it was a ruse, a setup-” A tiny, wounded laugh escapes his mouth and he tilts his head back to stare up at the sky. “Maybe that’s why I started having the dreams. His way of telling me I’m an idiot.”
“A little drastic on his part if it was.”
“Can’t say it wasn’t necessary.” The pouch gives a jangling, discordant little hum when he pets it, the fracturing of the soul within vastly different from what he’d felt from Xiao Xingchen. The pieces feel smaller and fewer, yet heavier. “Oh,” he murmurs when he realizes why.
“Oh?”
“The array was designed to consume the resentment of the caster based on negative memories of the person or persons they wanted to curse. That’s why the memories of you and the flashes of his mother were so vivid when the rest of them weren’t. That’s why you were able to find these pieces. He really did see you two as the only bright spots in his life, so those memories were spared.”
Nie Huaisang makes a choked noise in the back of his throat, and when Wei Wuxian turns his head, the other man is looking away in a clear attempt to hide his expression. “He was wrong.”
“A year ago, I would have agreed,” Wei Wuxian mumbles. “After everything he showed me, though… I don’t think he was. I get it.”
He takes a deep breath. He has never talked about this, not with Lan Zhan, not with Wen Ning, and certainly not with Jiang Cheng, even if they are taking tentative baby steps towards being less awkward around each other. He’s not sure he should be talking about it with Nie Huaisang either, but-
“I know what it’s like, just wanting everything to end. Deciding the whole world can go to hell. Maybe I didn’t intend for the backlash from breaking the seal to kill me, but I sure didn’t fucking care what it would do to me one way or another. Nothing and nobody could have saved me by that point. You couldn’t have saved him even if you’d dragged him home with you like Lan Zhan wanted to do to me.”
“Wei Wuxian-”
He ignores the little flutter in his chest that they’ve at least moved back to an address that feels less precarious than the icy ‘Wei-xiansheng’. “Let me finish, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So... So... Ah, fuck,” he mutters, gently shifting the pouch so he can scratch the back of his neck, trying to catch the lost trail of thought. “You know… I never questioned the clothing I woke up in when I was resurrected. As brutal and nasty as the Mo family were and as disgusting as that little shack was, it should have come off as weird that I was wearing such nice robes.”
There is a quiet sniffle, and Wei Wuxian pretends not to see Nie Huaisang wipe wet eyes with the edge of a sleeve as he continues talking. “He appreciated those. Appreciated that you tried to take care of him.”
He raises the pouch to eye level, and it gives another little crackly hum. “And clearly he still appreciates your efforts, considering his method of dragging me here to make me apologize for thinking the worst of your relationship. So, I’m sorry for that.”
Nie Huaisang gives a watery little chuckle and swipes at his eyes again. “Accepted. Is he… Is he alright? I only know how to contact souls, I don’t know anything about tending to them.”
“Honestly… I’m not sure what can be done,” Wei Wuxian admits as he begins another examination. “There’s really so little of him left, I don’t know what will happen if a purification ritual is attempted. He seems to be more stable as he is than Xiao Xingchen was, but there’s no guarantee he’ll stay like that. Still, I owe it to him to find some way to help him out, so I’ll do what I can.”
“If it would be easier for you to take him back to the Cloud Recesses for study, then… then you should,” Nie Huaisang says, and Wei Wuxian is a little bit impressed that he was able to make the offer despite how much it must have hurt.
“I think he’d be much happier staying here,” he says, then tentatively adds, “But that would mean visits, plural, and while I’m definitely going to have a very long talk with them about all this, I doubt I’ll be able to come without either Lan Zhan or Wen Ning… probably both at first.”
Nie Huaisang rubs his temples with his fingertips, his expression cycling through a complicated series of emotions too quickly for Wei Wuxian to follow, then he sighs. “We’ll figure something out,” he says as he reaches out and takes back the pouch.
Wei Wuxian can’t help smiling at the tender way he cradles it against his chest as he gets up to approach the funeral tablet and put it back in place. “Yeah. We’ll figure something out.”
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red dawn. 04 | jeon jungkook.
The fall of the Baegyum Dynasty was imminent. Sangyu and his Insurgents from the Clans of the Mountains, known enemies of the royal family, have attacked the Sacred City of Ilsan, once the capital of an empire, now was reduced to ashes. And you have only one mission: to protect with your life the princess and heir to a broken realm. In your way to the neighboring kingdom in search of protection, you find yourselves in Yerin Woodland, territory of werewolves —ancient enemies of the Baegyum Dynasty who would gladly kill an Ilsan priestess like you.
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jeon jungkook × reader.
wordcount: 9.8k.
warnings: angst, isolation, mentions of sickness, swearing, a lot of worlbuilding, background stories are finally solved (but some loosen ends are left), Jimin is the bestest boy, mentions of death, and descriptions of minor injuries and scars, flashback (written in italics). Nothing really serious though.
taglist: @wooya1224
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previous / next
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You have lost count of the days you have been locked down in absolute darkness.
When Namjoon asked you to say goodbye to the comforts of the Pack House guest room, you didn't expect the move to your new chambers –as Hoseok insisted to refer to them when they tossed you to the darkness– to be so brutal. But you were a prisoner, after all, an enemy. You shouldn't have expected anything different.
However, you were almost completely sure that you had been in isolation for at least a week. You could figure it out because you had counted the times Jimin had entered the cell to feed you and to wash you. Twice a day. For six days.
He always carried the Cornerstone around his neck, and seemed terrified of the very idea of doing so. Or maybe he was scared of you and your potentially violent reaction. At first you didn't understand why did he bear with the jewel, but after a couple of days, you were able to put two and two together to find the answer. They wanted you alive, and healthy enough not to have to worry about you too much, so they exposed you for short periods of time to the influence of the Cornerstone, to keep your source of energy stable. You had to admit that they were pretty smart, at least one of them. You couldn't help but wonder whether who had come up with that idea was Namjoon or Jin. The second option made your heart ache a little.
Aish, get over it, you fool. No one here gives a fuck about you.
Anyways, even if you wanted to take the jewel from Jimin every time he showed up with it, it was literally impossible. Your hands had been chained to the wall and your ankles to the ground, although the shackles and chains left you enough room to change your position and lie down, but not to stand up. It hurt like hell. Not the fact that you could barely move, but being apart from your dear Cornerstone. It was getting harder and harder for you to recover from the fatigue and semi-unconscious state you were in every time Jimin left, taking the medallion with him. Your body craved to touch the jewel again. And you hadn't done it for almost two weeks.
You also had no idea what the cell really looked like, not even its accurate size. Hoseok had unceremoniously thrown you inside on the day of the transferring, chained your limbs at lightning speed and then left, slamming the door behind him. Since then, you have been living in blackness. Your eyes had gotten used to the dark, and you could make out the contours of your own hands; your legs; your dress; the chains. But two feet beyond your nose? Nothing but darkness.
It was exasperating for the first couple of days. You would yell at the walls, scream to the top of your lungs until your throat was sore. Whatever it took to lure their attention to you and maybe try to persuade them to go back to the Pack House. But no one more than JImin came to check on you. After the third day, you stopped talking.
“I'll try to get you out of here somehow,” Jimin assured you on the seventh day, as he shoved a spoonful of cold soup into your mouth. “I'll have you returned to Pack House. Jin will find an excuse for it. There, it will be easier for you to deal with the Alphas, and you will be able to rest better.”
You didn't answer. You haven't opened your mouth for days, the last time you talked with someone was to Namjoon. You hadn't seen Jungkook since the night of the blue moon, and as far as you knew, both the pack and the leaders were going through a difficult time. Your presence had done nothing but bring discord to Yerin's werewolves, and you were paying for it.
You knew Jimin's efforts would be in vain. You were one hundred percent sure that what the alphas wanted was to wear you down psychologically, to exhaust you, to make you vulnerable. They wanted to reduce the strength you had shown to mere ashes, and attack you with their questions when you could not defend yourself. That's why you were there, in the isolation cell. They wanted to take away your sanity, which was beginning to slip through your fingers. Sometimes you found yourself rocking back and forth while hugging your knees, humming a song that the Sumas used to sing to the Novices during stormy nights.
Jimin didn't visit you again after that. In his place, a woman a little younger than you, with the glacier blue eyes of the Betas —she was probably a Hippei— began to take care of you. She, unlike the other young man, did not even glance at you.
The white sky stretched above you as far as the eye could see. You put a hand over your eyes to protect them from the unbearable brightness that the sun –a pale ball hidden in the clouds– reflected on the snow. A few meters ahead of you, the Patriarch approached the wooden pyre holding a torch.
Your thick black clothes, covering any skin that might be exposed, kept you warm in that frigid morning. The veil covered your face and the tears you let slide down your puffy cheeks.
The corpses of your Sumas and Sororis were placed next to each others on the pyre, wrapped in white funerary shrouds –a symbol of chastity characteristic of priestesses, but in which some reddish stains could be spotted. Their wounds were still bleeding. Their purity was spoiled.
That was what the Patriarch had regretted the most, if he regretted anything. The loss of purity. You clenched your fists inside the sleeves of your robe. The Patriarch had always cared about you, or so it seemed; he loved you, cared for you, protected you, or so it seemed. The only thing he had truly mourned after the massacre had been the loss of Ecclesia personnel, the destruction of the High Temple and propably the fact that there was only a five-year-old girl left as the sole pretender to carry the Cornerstone.
And worst of all: the High Priestess had also died, and Ilsan, already sullied and humiliated, was officially left unprotected.
There was no emotion whatsoever in the Patriarch's gaze as he dropped the torch on the pyre, previously doused with holy sandalwood oil brought from the Bolheim Woods, at the southern end of the Rowan Empire. The wood caught fire quickly, engulfing the bodies of what you considered your sisters and burning them to ashes as if they had never existed.
Only members of the higher echelons of the Ecclesia and the Royal Family had the right to be cremated upon death. The flames and smoke with the soul of the deceased rising towards the sky, where the Moon Goddess would receive them in the so-called Heaven, in the astral world.
The common people had to make do with being buried in the small and modest family mausoleums on the Acropolis of Ilsan. Their graves full of offerings during the blue moon nights, to ensure their transit to the astral world.
“Don't cry, child,” the Patriarch told you, as he returned to stand by your side, “don't cry now. The Empress is watching.”
You hadn't realized, but your little body was shaking in the erratic spasms typical of deep weeping. You repressed them as best you could, stretching your back and sticking your arms to your sides. To your right, in the distance, you made out the stoic figure of Empress Yuran, with her husband and consort at her right hand. She was looking at you sideways, with her head straight ahead. Hieratic, impassible. She was an intimidating woman ad nauseam, but never under her reign had anyone called her cruel, or tyrannical. She was, according to folk sayings, the best ruler of the Rowan Empire since Soojun the Just, almost three hundred years ago. Under her gaze, you remained as impassive as you achieved at your tender age of five. You didn't get it at the time, but she was evaluating you, wondering how the hell you were going to survive the Junction. Because there was no other option; Ilsan needed a High Priestess, and you were the only living being in the entire Empire who could even come close to the required characteristics to be one. She felt sorry for you. You were condemned to carry the Cornerstone for life, which would make you truly dependent on the jewel, as was the case with all priestesses. Or you would die trying to connect with it, being too young to even make an attempt. Whatever your destiny was, it sucked.
The funeral rites ended and Empress Yuran was the first to leave the esplanade in front of the walls where the rituals of this type were carried out. The dead were never to mix with the living, and that was why funerals were never held within the Sacred City.
Queen and consort returned to the safety of the walls, escorted by a dozen elite guards who never lowered their spears. The city was still bleeding from the attack; everyone was afraid.
The werewolves could return at any moment.
The crowd that had gathered near the gates of Ilsan to watch the funeral also dispersed as silently as they had arrived. The Patriarch put a hand on your shoulder and pulled you back to the city. You should immediately begin to prepare yourself for the Junction ceremony.
“Abeoji, can I stay a little longer? I want to– I want to say goodbye to my sisters.” You murmured, in a quiet voice.
The man, whom you and your fellows called Father, looked at you with a sigh. He seemed to assess it for a moment, perhaps thinking you were just a weak and disoriented child. Finally nodded, taking pity on you.
“I'll wait for you inside, Novice. Do not delay.”
You looked over your shoulder at the Patriarch until he disappeared inside the walls and you shuffled your way to the pyre. Luckily, the wooden structure had collapsed covering the bodies of the girls, so that all you could see was a pile of smoldering charcoal and bits of blackened white cloth from the shrouds.
You stared at the burning pile of wood for a few moments that could well have been hours. Time had lost all notion the last two days since the attack, you remembered everything as a whirlwind of blurred images. The trauma was too strong for your innocent existence, your mind protecting you from your own memories, erasing them, blocking them, distorting them.
The pyre towered over you, a few feet. You were so absorbed and lost in your thoughts that you did not hear the wood of the upper levels of the pyre creak under its own weight. The structure collapsed totally and it would have buried you next to your Sumas and Sororis if it hadn't been because someone or something pushed you out of the way with such force that it sent you sideways to the ground and made you slide over the snow.
Dazed, you looked up at the pyre and discovered a small creature writhing under the smoking wood, making pitiful groans of pain. You stayed frozen in place, hugging yourself. It was a wolf. A cub. And despite being one, its size close to that of an adult guard dog revealed what you feared the most.
It was not an ordinary wolf. It was a werewolf. A male.
You were tempted to just leave it there and run. The idea of letting it die as they had killed your sisters reassured you and probably, if you had been older and more aware of what was going on around you, you would have had. But you were just a little girl, there was still no trace of evil in you.
You got up laboriousy and ran to the pyre. You pushed away the burned logs with your bare hands, burning your palms and fingers in the process. But you didn't care. Mustering strength from where you didn't know you had it, you took a hold of the pup's front legs and dragged it off the smoldering pile of coal.
You both collapsed on the snow, next to each other. You on your back, trying to catch your breath. The puppy was lying next to you, on its side, breathing heavily. When you sat up and gathered the courage to look directly at it, yellowy bright eyes returned the gesture. Its gaze, like a pair of gleaming topazes, reassured you almost instantly. You didn't know why or how, but suddenly you weren't afraid of it anymore. You knew it wasn't dangerous, you just knew that it had saved your life.
“Thank you,” you murmured, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips.
The pup wagged its tail a little, almost reflexively, and when it tried to move, a howl of pain escaped its mouth. You grimaced, scanning its body with concern. And you saw them, three burns on its ribs. You reached out a hand to touch them, but a growl behind you stopped you.
You saw the pup's ears stick to its head, as if it was afraid. You didn't turn around immediately, but you felt a warm breath on the back of your neck that made you shiver from head to toe. Could you ask for help? What if you screamed?
You turned around, your eyes filling with tears of sheer terror. You then faced another wolf, another male, this one completely black and with red eyes fixed on yours like daggers. It was not an adult, in fact, it looked like he had only just passed cub status, but it was significantly bigger than the one who had just saved you.
You didn't know it at the time, but you were facing a potential Alpha, you were before the possible heir to the position of leader.
The werewolf bowed its head, not taking its eyes off yours, bristling the furs on its back and growling deep from its throat. On instinct, you backed off, leaning on your hands to put distance. Your abrupt movement triggered a warning bark, which you answered with a sob, as you closed your eyes tightly, waiting for the bite that would put an end to your miserable existence.
The gray cub howled quietly, with a weak, submissive bark, and crawled up to its fellow's front legs –belly flat to the ground, ears pressed back to head and tail between trembling paws. The black wolf looked down with another warning bark. The little one insisted, rubbing its head against the black wolf's chest. The animal growled slightly, and after giving you a withering look, it tugged at the hide of fur at the base of the pup's neck to bring it to its feet.
They both turned around to walk away, and the gray cub turned to look at you one last time, fixing its yellow eyes on yours. Eyes that you already knew.
You woke up suddenly, coughing, choking on your own spit. You turned painfully onto your side to try to ease your cough, while you put a hand to your chest. Your heart was beating at full speed, so hard you could feel it in your ears and temples. The fever still raised your body temperature above what is was considered normal. Your whole body ached, so you fell back onto the cot in the cell. It was uncomfortable and so cold your jaw ached from chattering teeth (and not just from the fever), but at least it was dry and clean. You closed your eyes, trying to reconcile the light, poor sleep, full of nightmares that you had used all that time to keep your sanity in place. But you couldn't sleep, you didn't even know if it was daytime. Gathering all the energy you could, you turned around on your cot, thus facing the cell door. Although you couldn't see it, being in absolute darkness, you knew it was there.
And as if it had attracted divine providence, not ten seconds passed before the hinges squeaked loudly. As the door opened inwards, a triangle of warm light illuminated the floor, reaching your figure, which was languishing in the middle of the cell. The amount of light that hit your eyes suddenly hurt, but you didn't have the strength to cover your face.
You let out a pitiful moan, as you closed your eyes, squeezing your lids to protect them.
“Luna?”
Jimin's sweet voice reached your ears as if he was far away. You raised your face with an effort, perhaps checking if it really was he who was there or if it was just the bitter result of another of your hallucinations. But there he was, with his silver hair and crystalline eyes. He hung the oil lamp he was carrying with one hand from an iron hook on the wall and knelt beside you without thinking.
“For Moon's sake,” he whispered, concern leaking from every pore of his skin as he realized that your condition hadn't improved at all. “Come on Luna, can you hear me? Can you talk?”
Could you do it? At that point, you doubted it. You hadn't spoken for so many days...
“Jimin,” your voice came hoarse, guttural, it didn't sound like yours, “I'm cold.”
The young man let out a sigh of relief when he heard you and placed a steaming bowl, which he carried in his other hand and smelled of corn soup, next to him. You almost burst into tears when your stomach churned with fury. Jimin didn't seem to notice, because he took off his cloak of fur to carefully wrap you in it, pulling you up a little to lean against his chest.
“Thanks.”
Jimin caressed your hair with one hand while the other held you steadily against his frame. His soothing manners were enough to calm you down, in tandem with the effect of the Cornerstone which lingered on his chest, right next to your head. You made an effort to try not to take it off; because you knew he would stop you at all costs. You had lost that battle a long time ago. The fever began to subside little by little, you stopped shaking and returned again to the world of lucidity.
And when you raised your head to look into his eyes, you found two yellow orbs, the distinctive color of Omega's eyes, looking at you tenderly. They were warm and reassuring eyes, eyes you had seen before –under the white sky and the smoke of a pyre. You opened your mouth without realizing, looking at Jimin as if you were seeing him for the first time. He saw your puzzled expression and slightly frowned.
“What´s wrong?”
But you didn't answer, and before you could think twice, your fingers flew nimbly to the hem of his shirt. He jumped on the spot at the feeling of your cold fingers against the smooth skin of his abdomen, but he didn't have time to stop you. When you lifted his clothes to reveal his torso, you saw them. Three old scars that looked like scraps of foreign skin sewn onto his own. Burns.
“It was you,” you murmured, just a trickle of voice, running your fingers gently over the marks, “you were the pup that saved me that day. You remember, right? Did you know from the beginning? How?”
Jimin grinned at you, resting a hand on yours ever so slightly. Your fingers were longer than his, but still seemed small in comparison.
“Yes, I knew it from the moment you tripped on me on the night of the blue moon,” he replied, gently pulling your fingers away from his skin to put his shirt back on, “but you terrified me so much that I didn't dare tell you, so I just tried to help you as much as I could.”
“Why did you stop coming?” You asked after a while, pulling away to see his face, he seemed embarrassed. “And why have you come now?”
The hand that had been stroking your head tucked an unruly hair behind your ear, before settling on your cheek. He did the same with his other hand. You instinctively leaned into his touch. You had never felt the need for physical contact with another person before and you had come to avoid it, as a result of the education you had received, but at that moment, the least thing you wanted was for Jimin to leave your side.
“When I told them they couldn't leave you here, they decided it wasn't a good idea for me to take care of you,” he explained, speaking in a whisper that reverberated through the room, “and they prohibited me to come for good.”
You pursed your lips. You had imagined something like this from the moment that Hippei girl appeared at the door with your food and a stern look in her face.
“But today it was the exception, Luna. I come to warn you to prepare,” his voice had suddenly turned serious, making you focus entirely on what he had to say to you, “the reason I'm here instead of Yumi is that the Hippei have found an Insurgent inside out borders, near the clearing. He seemed to be keeping an eye on the pack. They needed the help of every warrior they could to escort him to the cells on the north side of the clearing.”
Your eyes got so wide that they seemed to pop out of their sockets. So it had finally happened. Sangyu had set his sights on Yerin's pack, perhaps already suspicious that you and Hana were there. A feeling of heaviness settled in your stomach, closed in a painful knot that took your breath away. The fence of Sangyu was closing in, threatening to imprison you and the princess in it.
“We have to go,” you said immediately, clutching Jimin's clothes with clenched fingers, “Hana and I. We have to leave as soon as possible. If Sangyu finally finds out that-
“I'm afraid we can't let that happen, sweetheart.”
You and Jimin turned around suddenly, as you hadn't heard Namjoon arrive. He was standing under the threshold of the cell door, holding his own oil lamp with that indolent attitude that made you respect and detest him in equal measure. Next to him was Jungkook. You gulped when you saw him. He was pale, his wavy black hair wrapped in a messy half bun, bangs framing the bags under his eyes. He had a sickly look uncharacteristic of an Alpha. Your heart constricted in your chest without you being able to control it.
“Alfa Kim, Alpha Jeon, I– I just wanted–
“Never mind, Jimin, we'll talk about this later,” Jungkook interrupted, with a calm and almost soft voice that you hadn't heard him use with anyone before.
The Omega lowered his head in submission as the other two entered the cell and you almost let out a whine of distress when he finally broke away from you and you found yourself wrapped in cold again. He clenched his jaw, but made no move to come back to you.
You involuntarily flinched when the alphas found themselves in front of you, towering over your weak frame and blocking the light that filtered through the door. You were in a position of such obvious inferiority that you even felt ashamed and you scolded yourself internally for not showing the strength that you used to show before your enemies.
Until then, no person had been born beyond the Empress and the Patriarch who had ever made you feel intimidated. And yet there you were, like a lost lamb waiting for the bite of a hungry wolf.
How ironic.
And yet, even if you had been raised to be a leader, a saint, a reference, you no longer had the strength for it. Not after everything that had happened in the past few days. But you should still consider them enemies, right? Not for nothing had they kept you locked up in a cell for over a week like a criminal.
You were still enemies. You had to keep that in mind.
Jungkook let out a tired sigh and squatted next to you to be at your level, resting his forearms on his knees. Namjoon remained as he was. The youngest looked at you from head to toe and you held his gaze when his eyes fell on yours. The red glow of alphas flashed through his irises, but somehow you knew it wasn't a threat of any kind. Not that time. The heat Jimin had managed to instill in you with his previous closeness, that had begun to dissipate, again tingled in the tips of your fingers, dissolving the knot which had settled in your stomach after hearing the news of the Hippei.
“You look better than I expected,” he commented simply, as he stood up again, “how do you feel?”
You cocked your head to the side. Better than I expected? Is it that he was aware of your precarious state of health? Was he even interested? You shook your head, looking away.
“I've been better,” you answered quietly, looking at the Cornerstone on Jimin's chest, “but the medallion makes me feel good.”
When your stomach roared, demanding something to digest, you let out a fake cough to try to hide it. But Jimin reached out to pick up the bowl of soup and handed it to you with a warm half smile that you returned. You went to take it with both hands, but instinctively stopped, glancing warily at the two alphas.
Were you asking them for permission to eat? Oh, for Moon's sake. You were the High Priestess, under normal conditions, they would have to ask permission even to breathe in your presence.
But you were starting to get used to being treated like the beast they thought you were. Namjoon raised an eyebrow and nodded without thinking for more than a second. He might be the closest thing to a cruel leader to you, but cruelty was certainly not one of his facets. Jungkook did not even think about it and nodded twice, his face, although with the usual seriousness, had lost any trace of hatred that could be reflected in him when he looked at you before.
“Eat, it's still warm.”
You obeyed without being told twice, reaching for the bowl of soup to bring the edge to your mouth and take a sip. The chains on your hands clinked loudly and the tasty, warm broth tasted like glory.
The alphas let you taste a couple more sips before clearing their throats, you looked up, the bowl halfway to your mouth. You waited, somewhat anxious. Did you already do something wrong?
“We still have a few things to talk about, priestess,” Namjoon stated calmly, leaning his back against the cell wall, “you can eat though, no one is stopping you.”
You nodded slowly. Since when did they address you in such a... normal way? There was resentment, tension, they were probably waiting for you to make a mistake, but there was no hatred. Or at least you couldn't tell if it was anymore. That only increased your distrust, even though that was just the opposite of what they wanted.
“We know that Ilsan was attacked by Sangyu and his Insurgents, and considering the circumstances in which we found you, it didn't took us a lot of time to put two and two together and conclude that Hana is the princess.”
Jungkook´s words made you snap your head towards him, both surprised and terrified. You hadn't been able to prevent them from discovering who you were because of the Cornerstone, which acted as if you wore a sign taped to your back announcing that you were the High Priestess of Ilsan, but you hoped that Hana's identity would go unnoticed by the wolves. Since when did they know? What had they done with her? Is that why they wouldn't let you see her? Because they had already turned her in to the Insurgents?
“Hana– Hana no– where is she? What have you done with her?” you stammered, instinctively leaning forward.
The bowl of soup spilled over the floor next to you and the shackles around your wrists bit into your skin. Jimin flinched, startled, and the Alphas rose slightly in place, gaining the height they had lost by leaning comfortably against the wall.
“Hana is fine, I promise,” Jimin interjected in a low voice, “we have no interest in harming either of you.”
You looked away from the Alphas towards Jimin. You looked into each other's eyes. He was telling the truth, you were sure. You could trust him, couldn't you? He had tried to help you as much as possible, hadn't he? You were in the same boat since the day you saved each other's lives, right?
Jimin was not an enemy. And yet a voice in the back of your brain you identified as your conscience told you that they still saw you for what you were: a monster that had once killed eight members of their pack with a blink of an eye. Saving Jimin's life when he was a pup didn't atone for your later sins.
“What Jimin says is true,” Namjoon confirmed, after giving the Omega a warning look, as if reminding him of his place, “we don't want to hurt the girl. Neither you, priestess, no matter how difficult you have made it for us. We just want you to answer a few questions.”
“Luna,” Jimin spoke, deliberately ignoring Namjoon's silent order to stay out of the conversation, “call her by the title she deserves, Alpha Kim. She is Luna of Ilsan.”
You immediately tensed. You might not have a clue what it was like to belong to the hierarchy of a werewolf pack, no matter how much you had studied about them in your youth, but what you did know is that probably interrupting an Alpha like that was considered enormously disrespectful.
Jimin had his gaze fixed on the tiles on the floor and his fists clenched on either side of his body. He had defied his superiors in front of a prisoner –technically, you still were– for you, and you felt the worst person in the world for even doubting him. You cleared your throat, trying to draw the attention of Namjoon and Jungkook, who were preparing to throw poor Omega the reprimand of his life, back to you.
“I suppose you have a slightly different concept of harm than I do,” you said, letting out a bit of your latent resentment, “if you don't consider hurting me the fact of keeping me locked up in an isolation cell for how long, a week? two?”
Namjoon half smiled. Ever so slightly. It almost seemed that you had imagined it, that it was the result of the trick of light and shadow that the oil lamps projected on your faces.
“After checking that you weren't going to speak even if we paid you for it, we had no choice but to attack you in another way,” Jungkook explained, frowning, “I don't know if someone has ever told you, Luna,” you mentally cursed yourself when you found yourself rising your chest with pride hearing him call you by your title, “but you're too stubborn for your own good.”
You almost let out a laugh. So that was it. They didn't know how to make you collaborate, so they decided to use isolation to force you to bend. You felt something like a huge weight being lifted off you shoulders as you had firmly believed that Hana would be used to force you to speak.
I guess threatening children is not very ethical among werewolves either.
And it was true, any of the members of the pack would eat their own claws rather than harm a cub.
“What do you want from me?” You asked then, sitting back on your ankles, arranging Jimin's cloak around your shoulders, “I told you from the first moment that it would have been better if you let us go as soon as you saw us.”
“Why did you come here in the first place?” Jungkook asked then, “You knew perfectly well that Yerin is hostile territory for both you and the princess, especially for the High Priestess, and yet you crossed the borders.”
You didn't hesitate before answering. You were going to tell them the truth and nothing but the truth, there was no point trying to lie to them now.
“We were heading to the eastern kingdom, to Ghaleen, I thought I could put Hana to safety there, but we had no food, no water, and no place to rest. We would never get to Ghaleen alive by following the Steppe Path and the Insurgents were chasing us, so– so I decided that we should at least try to get through Yerin, I thought we could cross the forest without anyone noticing.”
A heavy silence swallowed up the echo of your last words. The three werewolves were quiet, assessing your speech.
“So it wasn't deliberate?” Namjoon asked, a hand on his chin in a thoughtful demeanor.
You frowned.
“I don't think I understand what are you getting at, Alpha Kim.”
“What I want to know, priest- Luna, is if you intended to lure the Insurgents into the pack,” he explained, with a dead serious expression, “if you intended to trigger a direct confrontation between us.”
You raised your eyebrows. The truth is that if you had known before that your plan of going unnoticed wasn't going to work, it would have been an ingenious plan B to consider. But it was the tone of his voice, the hidden intentions behind his words, the thing that made your blood boil.
“Are you implying that it was all a sham to attack you?” You asked dryly, unable to believe what you were hearing. “Don't give yourself so much importance, Alpha Kim. I didn't care about werewolf affairs until you took us prisoners. The problems you have with Sangyu and his people are your business, not mine. In case you don't remember, the Insurgents who were chasing us were trying to hunt us down, and one of them would have killed me if it hadn't been for Hoseok.”
Your argument didn't seem to impress them, in fact, they seemed to expect it, because they didn't even look at each other. Namjoon's eyes were narrowed suspiciously, transforming them into two narrower slits than normal in which he occasionally glowed a reddish gleam.
“Funny you mention it, Luna,” Jungkook replied, in a deep, dark voice that made you want to back off. You forced yourself to hold him in the gaze, “Hoseok himself told us the same thing while you were unconscious. One of those soldiers tried to stop the one who was going to kill you. Why would he do something like that if they didn't want you alive? Wasn't their goal to get rid of you?”
You opened your mouth to speak, increasingly furious, but Jungkook raised a hand to stop you and continued.
“You knew that this is our territory and that we would soon encounter the scandal you were creating. I guess Sangyu wouldn't mind sacrificing a couple of soldiers if it would get us to save you and take you with us. It would have been very convenient for him to have a spy within the pack, don't you think?” The accusation came to you like a vase of cold water and your fingers and toes felt numb, “Someone who knew the leaders, the doctors, who could describe the position of the town. Someone who could wipe us all out with a simple wave of the hand, someone who could get us out of the way without even going into a declared war.”
“Jungkook!” Jimin exclaimed, horrified by the direction the conversation was taking and forgetting that he was speaking to his Alpha, “You can't be serious right now!”
“Hush, Omega,” the aforementioned growled, shooting him a dangerous, blood-red look, “if you don't know how to shut up when you must, then leave the cell. I will not repeat myself again.”
Jimin closed his mouth as if it had been sealed with wax. Again, silence. Your heart beat furiously against your ribs and blood was pumping at your temples. They had tried to lower your guard with their civilized manner to catch you by surprise. At that moment you thought you saw something dangerously similar to hatred in their voices again. And you were enraged at yourself for being so naive as to believe that there could be something like a ceasefire between you and them.
It was true that a soldier had tried to stop his commander when he raised his ax to send your head in a gift box to Sangyu, but you had forgotten it until that moment. Somehow, deep down, you knew that werewolves had every reason to think you were nothing more than an ally of Sangyu pretending to be a martyr. You knew that, from their point of view, all evidence they had pointed to you as a spy for the enemy.
Yerin Woodland was what separated the Rowan Empire from Ghaleen. If Sangyu seized the border crossing, he would have an open door to the rich coastal territories of the East –new kingdoms to conquer in his quest to control the known world.
However, you suddenly understood, there was something missing, something vital to carry out his plan of conquest: you and your Cornerstone. With you and your power at his mercy, all kingdoms would fall without resistance.
You gulped. All the anger that had surfaced over Jungkook and Namjoon's accusations faded like morning mists. Of course Sangyu wanted you alive, but not to spy on werewolves, as they expected. He wanted you as a weapon of war. Your epiphany brought tears to your eyes –for the first time since you were the bearer of the Cornerstone–, because then everything made sense, everything that happened that cursed night in the Sacred City fit together.
Until then, you had thought that only death awaited you if you fell into the hands of Sangyu, but no, something much worse was prepared for you if that happened —the death of thousands more people. That had been the missing piece in the puzzle. Your stomach clenched.
“Sangyu wants me alive,” you said at the end, making Jimin stiffen on the spot, looking at you terrified, perhaps wondering if you were nothing more than a traitor after all, “but not to spy on you. He needs me to bring down the people of Ilsan ... and everyone else. What Sangyu wants is the Cornerstone,” the three werewolves looked at the jewel as if they had forgotten its existence so far, “and to have it, he needs someone who knows how to control it.”
And then, Namjoon and Jungkook exchanged one of those cryptic looks that only they understood. You were getting used to the pack members being able to communicate like that, and it no longer surprised you that you couldn't predict what was going to happen next if it depended on them. They seemed to assess your answer.
“No, I didn't do it on purpose,” you repeated, trying to convince them of what reality had been, “my initial plan was to cross the forest without anyone discovering us. Not even you. Believe it or not, I wish Yerin's pack no harm. I wanted nothing to do with you.”
Neither of them looked at you, but they remained mired in their silent conversation for a few seconds. You came to think that they had not even heard you and went to try again, but Jungkook spoke interrupting you.
“Alright, Luna,” Jungkook agreed, looking back at you, “but there's still something wrong. If you are not Sangyu's ally, how did he get into Ilsan? It was an impregnable citadel, so there had to be someone from within to help him attack the Empire.”
You narrowed your eyes. Ilsan was not impregnable. Indeed, it never had been. Although the archives of the Ecclesia often boasted of it; although the architects who had founded the city almost a thousand years ago under the orders of Hyejin, the First Saint, had baptized the citadel as Ilsan, which meant "unbeatable" in the ancient dialect of Rowan. Ilsan had a fissure. You knew the answer to Namjoon's question better than you would like to, but if anyone should know better than you, it was them.
“I thought you would know,” you said, perhaps in a tone too bitter and defiant for the inferior situation you were in, “it was the werewolves who first entered the Sacred City to shed blood.”
The Ilsan Temple massacre in which all your sisters but you had perished was still there, forming an abyss that seemed to always draw a border of enmity between you and the werewolves.
Namjoon clenched his jaw, so did Jungkook. That reminded you of the night you met them, when you realized how similar their gestures were and you thought you were seeing double. Only those who have spent years together reach that level of complicity, that of sharing customs, hobbies, gestures. How long had they been sharing responsibilities together? How many problems would they have faced having only each other for support? You felt something like envy. You have never had a friend. The closest thing you had to a friend was Hana and maybe some of the Praetorii boys —royal guards whose job was to keep you and the princess save and sound. And although you had always been surrounded by people who venerated you as a saint, who worshiped you as the Moon Effigy of the Ilsan Temple was worshiped, you had never felt accompanied.
“I didn't explain it to you when I went to see you because I thought you wouldn't understand,” Namjoon replied, holding back his rage with a mask of indifference, “I didn't think you could understand how things work in a pack of werewolves, and it is more an more clear to me that you will continue to do so.”
He didn't see Jungkook's puzzled expression after his partner's words, nor the questioning look he gave him. He did not seem to be aware of his visit to your room prior to your transfer to the isolation cell. You didn´t see it either, you were too busy savoring the superiority with which Namjoon spoke to you, which stirred anger again in your gut, you crossed your arms with a tug of the chains. Your legs were starting to go numb from being in the same position on the frozen floor for so long.
“Enlighten me then, Alpha Kim,” you muttered, holding back your rage as best as you could, “I'll try to follow the thread of your speech.”
“I'll make it short for you, priestess. There is a Sacred Law in werewolf packs,” he began after giving you a cynical glance, “that dictates how our world and hierarchy must function. Violation of this Sacred Law is punishable by expulsion and those expelled become Rogue –wolves without a pack, pariahs. They are usually loners, but have apparently started to form groups. They attacked Ilsan that day, Yerin's pack had nothing to do with it.”
You were silent. You knew the Sacred Law, not its meaning nor its applications, but you had read about its existence in the books of the library of the Temple of Ilsan. However, you haven't heard of those Rogues in your life. You stirred, uncomfortable. That didn't convince you.
“Why would some banished werewolves attack Ilsan?” You asked, tilting your head skeptically.
Jungkook tensed in his place and you glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. Namjoon also looked at him and went silent, letting him decide what to say and what not to say.
“The Rogues are exiled wolves, but they once belonged to the southern pack: the Jeon pack,” the youngest began, with a grim expression on his face that made you realize that it was a sensitive subject that he had trouble talking about, “they had some... radical ideas about humans and wanted to unite our pack to the cause of Sangyu to end the Baegyum dynasty. That is why they were banished.”
You tried to hide your bewilderment as well as you could. You tried not to believe it, but it made sense, in the end. If what those Rogue wanted was to end the Rowan Empire, attacking the Ecclesia in such a brutal way was the perfect way to do it. Besides, why would the packs attack the of Ilsan humans when they had coexisted in relative peace for centuries?
“They allied with Sangyu and attacked us,” Jungkook continued, after giving you a few seconds to comprehend what he was explaining, “they decimated us in a matter of hours. They also attacked the northern pack, which Namjoon´s father was the Alpha of. We concluded that if we united the two packs we would be stronger, but we were still licking our wounds when we heard the news of the massacre in Ilsan. We had nothing to do with the attack, Luna.”
The three werewolves looked at you expectantly, waiting for your reaction. But how were you supposed to react? You didn't want to believe it, because it just hurt your pride too much to have to admit that you had been wrong all along. Everything you had believed, everything you had been made to believe about that day. It was all a lie. You wanted to cry, to scream, to wake up and see that it had all been a nightmare. Everything you thought was safe was nothing more than smoke, an illusion. A lie. You lowered your gaze. You wanted to tell them you didn't believe it, that they were making it up to confuse you. But the other part of you of you, much bigger, felt bad and wanted to apologize. Deep down, you knew you had been hating the wrong people your whole life, you had no reason for it. You had punished the wrong person and your hands were stained with innocent blood.
The words stuck in your throat, forming a painful lump. The stinging of tears you had never shed in your eyes made you lower your head even more so that the werewolves would not see them. You already knew the truth, you had just understood it, there was only one person who could have helped Sangyu to enter Ilsan the night of the fall of the Baegyum and the Rogues fifteen years ago, the day of the massacre of the Temple of the Sacred City.
There was only one common link, someone who knew the city like the back of their hand, someone who had enough power to pull the necessary strings within the citadel without raising suspicions. There was only one person that Sangyu could have bribed with more wealth and power than they already had.
The Patriarch of Ilsan. The fissure of the Sacred City. You discovered his betrayal the night of your escape, when he barged into your shared chambers with Hana escorted by eight Insurgents, proclaiming that the emperors were dead, the Empire had fallen and you were sworn to Sanyu. You should have killed him right then, like you did with all of his guards. But you weren't able to do it, why? You didn't know, you hated him, but you couldn't. Perhaps you refused to accept that he had just thrown you and Hana to the lions.
And now that you knew his betrayal went beyond the fall of the Baegyum, you couldn't feel anything but impotence. He had assisted in the slaughter, he had let the wolves into Ilsan. He had killed your Sumas and Sororis. He had always been the enemy, he had been on the opposite side for years and you had not been able to tell.
The guilt you felt when you realized why only you had survived the massacre was such that it ripped the air out of your lungs. The Patriarch couldn't control the Cornerstone without a priestess and he wanted you as the bearer of the medallion at all costs, perhaps because you were only a girl, because he could mold and create you at his will, because he could make you believe that following Sangyu It was the right thing to do.
“It was the Patriarch,” you finally spoke, in a hoarse voice, charged with a poison you didn't know you had inside, “it was him. From the beginning he was a traitor, he has been on the side of the enemy from the beginning. He let the Rogues and Sangyu into Ilsan.”
You stopped, biting your lower lip. Your voice had dropped considerably in pitch to no more than a shaky whisper. You didn't want to cry, but you couldn't think of anything other than the buzzing in your head and the dull ache in your chest. So you continued, because you no longer had anything to lose.
“He made me do it,” you murmured so softly that you doubted they could even hear you, but they did, and they gave you their full attention, “that day, he forced me to kill the werewolves, I didn't want to. I hated them, I hated all of you with all my soul, but I didn't want to kill anyone.”
The three of them looked at you gravely. You knew that shaky apology would never fix what had happened, nor would it make them despise you less. But you wanted them to know, you wanted them to know that you weren't a murderer. You wanted them to know that you had had no choice.
“Now that we know the whole truth, Luna, there's no reason for any more hostilities,” Namjoon spoke then, after letting out a sigh.
He waited for you to look up to continue speaking. You didn't see it for sure, perhaps because it was too dark, but the sight of the tears creating furrows on your dusty face, made Jungkook avert his gaze.
“Yerin's pack will never forget what you did, but we, as leaders, acknowledge and appreciate your apologies,” he continued, “and we hope that you will accept ours on behalf of our kind, even if what those savages did is unforgivable.”
They were right. There would be no forgiveness or mercy for those who had done that, but you didn't blame the wolves of Yerin. Not anymore. Now you knew the truth there was only one culprit for you, the one whose face you would remember every night before sleeping until you avenged your Sumas and Sororis with your own hands. You wiped your tears angrily, swearing that that would be the first and last time you ever cried.
“Indeed, there will be no forgiveness,” you finally said, regaining the composure you had lost with the initial shock, “but it is not the werewolves who should beg for it, but the Patriarch: he is the true culprit of everything. He will die for his sins, you have my word.”
Even though you knew that you should feel disoriented, lost and devastated by the revelations you just discovered, the only thing you could think about was the anger that was building up inside you, the pain that had been caused you, the betrayal and the lies that you had been subject to all your life.
And you were fucking furious.
“This morning we found an Insurgent on our side of the border,” Jungkook spoke then, crossing his arms over his chest, “he told us that Sangyu was sending him and that you were in search and capture, and that if we found and handed you over, we wouldn't be harmed in the war.”
You lifted your head, wide-eyed. You glanced at Jimin, whose jaw was so clenched he could snap a tooth. He had tried to warn you of what was coming sneaking into the cell, but he hadn't had enough time. You cleared your throat, connecting the dots.
“Is that why you suspected me? Is that the reason why you thought it would be the perfect way for me to get back to Sangyu and tell him everything I saw here?” Jungkook's silence was worth a thousand words to you, and you let out a bitter smile. “I'm sorry to destroy the theory, but I think the only thing that he wants from me is the Cornerstone,” you hesitated for a moment before continue talking, but you did it anyway. “Are you going to hand me over? I won't resist if that's what you want, nor will I tell anything about what I have seen here, but you have to promise me that you will save Hana. She is the hope of the Rowan Empire, the last one. She is the only way to regain peace.”
The werewolves evaluated you with their gaze, perhaps considering the idea of doing so. It made sense, after all, Sangyu had promised them that they would be out of the war if they cooperated. Going straight against Jungkook's desires —although he would never admit that— the idea of surrendering you had haunted Namjoon's head in a tempting way, especially when that same morning, the Gerousia had unanimously agreed to do so, although keeping the Cornerstone, of course. But they couldn't, not until they checked one last thing.
“I spoke with Jin at length about that jewel,” Namjoon calmly avoided your question, glancing at the medallion, “and he explained to me why you depend so much on it, but I was unaware that you were needed alive to use it. Wouldn't it be enough for them... to kill you and get the Cornerstone themselves?”
That didn't surprise you, anyway. By that time in the conversation, you were sure they had come to see you to verify that you were not a spy and if handing you over to Sangyu was safe for them. Keeping the Cornerstone would be a way to make sure Sangyu wouldn't use it against them, as well as to kill you after all (you wouldn't survive long without the medallion).
“I see you have considered the idea of doing so, Alpha Kim,” you commented, still maintaining your smile. Namjoon narrowed his eyes, trying to hide a sarcastic smirk, “but I'm afraid it would have been useless. Only a chosen one from the Moon can become a Novice and attempt to overcome the Junction in order to control the Cornerstone.” You cocked your head, gently tugging at the neck of your white dress to reveal your collarbone, where a birthmark similar to a bite adorned your pale skin. “The chosen ones are born with this, it is the way in which the Ecclesia locates us.”
The three werewolves leaned forward under the light of the oil lamps to get a better look at the mark you were referring to. The Alphas frowned and Jimin opened his mouth in the shape of a small O, surprised.
“I think Jin didn't mention it before,” Namjoon commented, puzzled, “And you say that's what allows you to control the Cornerstone? What if you were killed?”
“No. This is what points me out as a candidate to control the medallion, it is the Junction ceremony which decides if I am suitable or not. And no other living thing in the world can do it, whether I am alive or dead. After the slaughter of Ilsan I was left as the sole candidate, no one but me could do it, and no more chosen ones were recruited.”
Again, Jungkook and Namjoon looked at you for a long, long time. You were starting to get used to it, to being looked at like an expensive and rare work of art is looked at: assessing the risks of keeping you and the benefits of missing the opportunity to do so. And what would you do? Would you join them if they asked you to? Would you side with them if they promised that Hana would be safe?
“Many nobles loyal to the Baegyum dynasty have been exiled to the southern city-states, and some of them have gone to Ghaleen,” Namjoon finished, this time managing to surprise you.
How could they know? In the same way that they found out about the Ilsan massacre that day? You were going to ask, but you didn't have time.
“They all await the return of Princess Hana as rightful empress and are willing to help in a rebellion if necessary,” he continued, as he inched toward you until he was only a foot away. He crouched down in front of your figure still huddled on the floor and wrapped in Jimin's cloak, “Sangyu won't stop until he's in control of the known world, and for that he needs you alive and Hana dead. I propose a deal.”
Your eyes locked on his. Never before have both of you been so close physically. He smelled of pine and old parchment. You narrowed your eyes, evaluating his expression. He was serious. There was no trace of the usual condescending sneer with which he used to address you. You nodded.
“You tell me.”
Namjoon grinned at you ever so slightly.
“We will protect you and the princess and make contact with the nobles, as well as the rest of the packs of the Empire. You will stop being a prisoner, Luna, but you have to promise one thing in return: you will fight with us in this rebellion, until the end. You will put your power and the Cornerstone in our favor and never the other way around. Have I been clear?”
You will stop being a prisoner. You took a sharp breath. They had just promised you freedom, at the price of binding you to them to put your gift at their service. That was what everyone wanted, your Cornerstone. For better or worse, you were nothing more than the bearer of the most powerful item in the world. You always had been, and you would never be anything else. It infuriated you that they thought of you as a mere transaction, an object to be used for their own benefit, but what other choice did you have? In some way that still puzzled you, the werewolves kept in contact with some loyal Baegyum nobles and had enough resources and strength to protect the princess and keep her hidden. You knew Hana would be safer there than anywhere else, even with you.
Seeing your hesitation, Jungkook intervened, taking a step forward.
“Think well of all your options and decide, Luna. You don't have a very bright future awaiting you with any of the others.”
You pursed your lips. He was right. If you refused, you were sure that you would be handed over to Sangyu without the Cornerstone. That would kill you in two possible ways: either beheaded by the ax of some inveterate Insurgent or by being separated from the medallion. If you accepted and betrayed them, they would kill you themselves, because you should not forget that the Cornerstone had no effect on the Alphas (a fact they seemed to continue to ignore and a fact you decided to keep hiding).
You only had one option left. Accept and collaborate in the rebellion, which could only cope with Sangyu if they had you among their ranks. That was your safe conduct to dignified treatment. They needed you to win the upcoming war, and you needed them to survive.
You looked up to meet Namjoon's slanted eyes so close to yours that you could see yourself reflected in them. The reddish glow surrounding his pupils no longer scared you. If you were going to stay, you would not do it under their rules, you also had a few things to demand.
“Okay,” you said at the end.
Jimin let out a sigh of relief as he threw his fist into the air in victory. Jungkook crossed his arms with a triumphant smile that wrinkled his nose. You also earned another dazzling smile from Namjoon, who wore the expression of someone who closes an advantageous deal.
You couldn't help but imitate him, but for very different reasons, just because the satisfaction you were going to feel when you saw him erase that smile from his face with your next words.
“But I also have my conditions,” you continued, raising your chained hands slightly, “first of all: no more shackles.”
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