Something was wrong.
Corinth had been taking the wrong path for the past two hours, and it was starting to bother him. The general had ordered a manhunt for the terrorists who attacked the king, and five scouts had been deployed to search the woods. Being the leader of the group, he'd ordered them to split up to cover more ground.
His team hadn't liked the idea.
"Split up? No offense, sir, but do you know where we are?" one of his men cried out. "We're in the Red Forest, sir."
"Do you know why it's called the Red Forest, sir? It's because every time scouts and soldiers are sent here, they go missing..." another pressed.
"...and the only thing left are the leaves stained red with their blood. I know how the myth goes," Corinth replied.
"Except it's not a myth—it's fact. Reports show that only the weapons of the soldiers were found. This went on for over a year after the coup until His Majesty saw a drastic decrease in the army and stopped sending scouts. That's the only reason the bloodshed stopped. People don't go into these woods, sir," the first scout explained.
"Well, this is a direct order from the general because the royal palace was attacked," Corinth said, running his hands through his dark dreads. His sharp black eyes scanned the group, and he could see visible fear on the faces of his men. He grabbed the shoulder of the first man and sighed.
"Look, I know this place has a bad history among the townsfolk of the kingdom, but given the current situation, my hands are tied. We have no choice but to find these intruders and report back."
"But we don't even know what they look like," the scout retorted.
"But we know where they are. Based on the intel we received, we're to find a glade. Piece of cake. Besides, that was seventeen years ago. Whatever was out here is either long dead or long gone. We're fine," Corinth reassured them.
That had been two hours ago.
Now, standing alone in the unnaturally quiet woods, Corinth walked by a familiar-looking oak and glanced at the roots of the tree. There it was—an 'X' he had carved into the trunk earlier. He pressed his palms against his temples, mouth opening in a silent scream.
It now dawned on Corinth that they were, in fact, not fine.
He sat against the oak and ran his hands down his face. On his finger sat a metal ring—too large, never quite gripping properly, always threatening to slip off. His lifeline. Corinth stared at it for a long moment, the familiar tingle of Adva running down his spine. It seemed to calm him.
"Alright, Corinth. Think," he muttered. "You've been walking in circles for the past two hours. You split your men up and left them vulnerable despite their warnings. That was a bad call—but they were strong. There's a chance they're in the same loop, but that's fine. You just have to find them before the enemy does. You can still fix this."
He twisted the ring absently. "Two of my men went together, in that direction," he pointed west. "If I can find them, our combined effort should be enough to locate the others."
He exhaled slowly. "Good. I have a plan. Now I just need to execute it."
Rising to his feet, he set off westward into the thick forest once more, determined to find his men. One thing he'd noticed while traversing these woods—the unnatural quiet. No birds. No insects. Nothing.
That's why the buzzing startled him.
An iridescent fruit fly hovered above him, buzzing softly—then he saw it. In the blink of an eye, the insect changed. Its entire anatomy shifted, twisted into something larger. The sight was jarring, disturbing even. What had been a luminous fruit fly was now a large, yellow cicada.
Shock filled Corinth. His mind raced. Blessings. The intruders they'd been hunting—this was one of them. His men were right. Something was definitely wrong with this forest. As he remained immobilized from shock, there it came: a loud droning noise. The cicada droned three times in quick succession—bzzt, bzzt, bzzt—before circling back. That seemed enough to jolt him back to reality. He backed away from the loud insect and ran.
He got a few feet away before he realized the noise was still very close.
The cicada was following him.
It was then he properly viewed the insect as a threat.
He pulled out a knife from his boot and began swinging at it, but the bug just hovered out of reach. He glanced at a stone nearby and threw it at the cicada, but it promptly dodged. To his left, he saw a long stick.
"Perfect," he muttered.
He bent to pick up the branch but stopped halfway. In the trees, just now, a faint rustle escaped. Corinth squinted, studying the green canopy. The cicada began hovering in front of him, as if trying to distract him, but he waved it away. He took a step closer and saw the cold glint of metal staring back at him.
Whoosh!
The arrow tore through the air and into the ground. Keira watched in shock as the man she had just shot at disappeared right in front of her. Corinth reappeared a few feet beside the spot where the arrow landed, unscathed but terrified. Luckily for him, he had managed to flick his metal ring before the arrow tore through his heart. The metal ring reappeared on his finger as he curled his hand into a fist in fury.
"Who are you and what have you done to my men?" Corinth yelled at Keira, staring intently at the tree she was perched on.
"They're dead," Keira replied, pulling another arrow. "And you'll be meeting them soon."
Reo shifted back to her original form and yelled as she landed, "Oh my God, Keira, take the shot!"
But it was too late.
Corinth let his ring fall, and the arrow missed him once again. He reappeared almost immediately and flung his ring up into the air, dodging yet another arrow. He appeared in the sky, fifty feet up, and threw his ring forward.
"No, no, no, no, no. He's getting away. He can't get away, Reo!" Keira yelled, jumping off the tree and chasing after the disappearing scout.
"This is all your fault," Reo said, turning into a bald eagle and taking to the skies.
"We'll worry about that later. That scout must not escape," Keira yelled, nocking another arrow.
Hearing the screech of an eagle, Corinth looked back to see Reo hot on his heels. Reo pushed harder, wings beating against exhaustion, every fibre in her body screaming for rest. The bird tried to cover the distance, but it was impossible. One was racing through the air while the other repeatedly defied the concept of space and distance. Below, Keira sprinted through the trees, eyes locked on his trajectory. She stopped, planted her feet, drew, and fired upward.
Corinth glanced at the ground—it seemed he had left Keira in the dust. As he drew his hand back to throw his ring again, he jerked abruptly to the side.
An arrow had lodged itself into his abdomen. He clutched his side as he fell toward the ground.
"Gotcha," Keira muttered under her breath.
But the scout wasn't finished just yet. After pulling the arrow out, he wrapped one hand around his stomach and threw the ring with the other. He spat blood down to the forest floor and was about to toss the ring again. It was then he allowed himself the luxury of looking back, and his heart nearly stopped at what he saw.
Reo was close behind—too close. As she reached a wing to grab Corinth, her body gave out. Her form altered once more, only this time, it felt wrong. The shift came involuntarily—a forced jerk as her Adva depleted.
She was crashing.
The girl shifted back to human form mid-air and plummeted. On the ground below, Keira stood with her arrow primed and ready to fire. She watched Reo's transformation falter, watched her fall—and hesitated.
That single second of doubt was all Corinth needed. His ring tore through the air, and he vanished into the sky.
"No, you can't go," Keira cried out and fired, but the arrow met nothing—Corinth was long gone.
Keira sprinted forward and caught Reo mid-air, steadying her before she could hit the ground.
"Why did you crash so soon?!" Keira snapped, still gripping her sister's arm. "The scout got away because of you!"
Reo jabbed a finger at her. "Me?! I've been an animal for the past half hour! You're the one who hesitated! Why couldn't you just take the shot?!"
"How was I supposed to know he was a blessed one?" Keira threw her hands up.
"Oh, come on. That's not an excuse—blessed ones are everywhere. You should've known!"
"Oh my God, we're so screwed." Keira dropped to her knees, voice cracking. "What will we tell the others? What will we tell Kahito?"
Reo sank down beside her, head in her hands. "He's not going to like this."
*********
His eyes fluttered open as Yakuso awoke. Confusion hit him first as he felt soft grass beneath him. The orange evening sky seemed to ground his thoughts. He turned to the side as he saw Hunda sitting beside him as he lay. She opened her eyes and stared at him. He could swear he saw pity in her eyes.
"Kahito!" she called out. "He's awake."
Kahito popped out from behind the house, a deadpan expression on his face.
Hunda turned to Yakuso and sighed. "Well, you're in trouble. I'm going to go see what Mi Lai's cooking. Try not to move too much. You're stable but barely healed."
She got up and turned to the entrance of the house as Kahito approached Yakuso.
"Look, Kahito, I know it was reckless of me—" Yakuso began, but Kahito interrupted him.
"What was it like?" Kahito calmly asked, taking a seat beside Yakuso. "Getting to finally see the man who killed your parents. What was it like?"
"I-it was... I don't know. I just got so angry, like him just being there made me so angry," Yakuso replied.
"That seems understandable. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he seemed weak. Really weak. I mean, he was already weakened when we got there, and due to the burnt palace, we can thank you for that—but for a man Garuba repeatedly warned us about, he severely disappointed me."
"Ha! Look at my arms, Kahito. In the one moment where he actually got serious, he shattered my arms. He never took the fight seriously. Something tells me no one has played with that nut job in a long time because he was so thrilled to fight. He was just dragging out the fight till his soldiers arrived. At least that's what he told me," Yakuso said, shifting his arms to get comfortable as he lay on the ground.
"Hmm. I thought that could be a possibility. I mean, he did chuck stones at us when he got tired of fighting. Good thing Hunda got there in time." Kahito sighed. "Look, I'm just glad you're alive."
Yakuso opened his mouth in surprise. "You mean you're not going to scold me into oblivion?"
"Don't get me wrong. What you did was so inherently reckless you don't even deserve this kind of outcome. You endangered all our lives, nearly got yourself killed, and revealed our existence to the enemy—but I can't say your actions were totally illogical. You were hurt and acted on your emotions. You're only human. I just wish you'd taken your anger out on the actual attacker," Kahito replied.
Yakuso tilted his head back in confusion. "What do you mean by that?"
"Yujo killed Garuba. Not Prismix," Kahito winced as he told Yakuso, like it physically hurt him to relay that information to his brother.
"H-ha, you're joking, right? This is the punishment for my recklessness, right? A cruel joke?" Yakuso chuckled, frantically trying to make sense of what he just heard.
Kahito collected himself and turned to Yakuso, his expression deadpan once more. "I'm not joking, Yakuso. Yujo is Garuba's murderer, not Prismix."
Yakuso lay his head back down. His mouth twisted and his nose wrinkled, terror written all over his face as he let out a deafening cry.
The door to the house flung open as Hunda emerged, hands up in a battle stance. She looked over to Kahito and Yakuso, concerned.
"What happened?" Mi Lai asked, appearing behind her.
Yakuso slowly turned his head to look at them, tears streaming down his face. "Is it true that Yujo killed Garuba?"
Hunda put her hands down, and her expression softened.
Mi Lai stepped forward. "N-no, it was no—"
"Stop, Mi Lai," Hunda sighed, cutting him off. "Just... stop."
Yakuso turned to Kahito, painfully raising his arm to grab his brother's shoulder. "But why?"
"I don't know why, Yakuso. I've thought hard about it, but I don't know why," Kahito muttered. He had a distant look in his eyes as his brother broke down beside him while Hunda and Mi Lai moved to comfort him.
Suddenly, Hunda stood up, staring intently toward the trees.
Kahito glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"
"Someone's coming."
Kahito rose immediately, his hands glowing faintly, ready to attack. Mi Lai rose too, looking into the distance. In the woods ahead, the grass rustled. Two figures emerged from the shadows.
Reo and Keira.
They looked distraught, with their heads hanging low. There was no life to their movements.
Kahito frowned as they approached. "What happened?"
But Mi Lai already knew. Terrified, he asked, "They got away, didn't they?"
He watched in horror as Reo nodded her head, confirming his fears.
"I knew it!" he cried. "I knew it! I warned you guys, but you swept it under the rug again. Now, the scouts know our location, blessings, faces, and maybe even our names."
"Oh, get out! If we didn't act fast, they would have found us either way. The scout that escaped was actually headed the right way," Keira argued.
"But that's why I suggested we run away from here," Mi Lai retorted.
"We couldn't move Yakuso at the time," Hunda chipped in.
"That and the operation would have gone more smoothly if the scout wasn't a blessed one. Did you know what his blessing was, Mi Lai?" Keira asked, getting in Mi Lai's face. "He could teleport. Yeah, that's right, Mi Lai. We were chasing a person who blipped to and fro in space. How do you expect me to catch that, Mi Lai? I'm an archer, not a goddamn magician," Keira sneered.
"W-w-w-el-ll..." Mi Lai stuttered as he stepped back from Keira.
"'W-w-w-el-ll.' Next time, don't run your mouth if you don't know what happened!" Keira mocked.
"That's enough, Keira," Kahito said, stepping between Keira and Mi Lai. "He's right. You did promise that none of the scouts would escape."
"Well, he wouldn't have escaped if Reo here didn't crash," she said.
Reo scoffed. "I crashed because you thought you had enough time to answer his question. I was compensating for your bad call. If you had just taken the shot, we wouldn't be in this mess."
"Taken what shot?" Yakuso asked again.
"While you were out cold, Prismix sent scouts to sniff us out," Reo sighed, turning to Yakuso. "We had a plan to take them out and we would have succeeded but somebody just had to hesitate at the last scout."
"Well, I wouldn't have hesitated if you hadn't crashed," Keira hissed.
"And I wouldn't have—"
"Isn't that enough?" Hunda cut in dryly.
Reo muttered something under her breath and sat next to Yakuso, while Keira went to drop her bow at the entrance.
"So, what do we do now?" Mi Lai asked, turning to Kahito.
"I'm going to find Yujo," Yakuso muttered, seething with rage. "And I'm going to kill him."
Kahito took a deep breath in and sighed. "The time for that will come but for now, we bury Garuba and then we set off to..." He paused and scanned around, looking at his siblings one by one. Their expectant eyes holding on to his every word. "...the City of The Seven."
*********
Gensis was impatient. Too much had happened in so little time today, and it was making him very irritable. His soldiers could feel it too as they surrounded him. His fuse was shorter today, and nerves were on edge. He sat outside the barracks in the castle bailey, awaiting the return of the scouts he had sent earlier. So imagine his relief when a metal ring landed in front of him and out of nowhere appeared Corinth, leader of the scouts.
"Captain Corinth, you're bleeding. I would take it that the mission did not go well," Gensis said as he beckoned to his soldiers to help the wounded captain.
"I lost all the men who followed me and barely escaped with my life, but I wouldn't call it a total failure," Corinth replied as two soldiers helped him up. "I didn't find their hideout, but I have two names and a face. Keira and Reo. I can remember Reo's face. She's a blessed one while Keira isn't. I think she can turn into animals."
"You couldn't find their hideout? Why is that? Were you ambushed?" Gensis pressed.
"The forest. It kept leading me wrong. Like I was walking in a loop. It was in that state of vulnerability that the two girls found an opportunity to attack me and, I would assume, my men," Corinth answered.
"Blessed ones in the Red Forest." Gensis' expression darkened. "Just as the king feared."
He began stroking his goatee as he considered the information that the captain had just relayed to him. "It's too late to enter the forest and go after them because we might encounter the same fate. Very well. We set off tomorrow," he decided, rising to go to his quarters.
"General!" Corinth called out.
Gensis paused and nodded for the captain to continue.
"I would like to join the chase, if it's okay with you," Corinth requested.
"No, Captain. You're wounded. Stay back," Gensis replied, gesturing to Corinth's bleeding side.
"I wish to avenge my fallen men. I know the voice of the one who killed them. I'll collect healing supplies for the trip. If I don't do this, my soul will never rest," Corinth pleaded. "Please."
Gensis sighed and stroked his beard again. After a while, he came to a conclusion. "Very well, Captain. We set off at dawn. I'll be expecting you."
"Thank you, my lord," Corinth said, bowing his head.
"My pleasure. You two, escort Captain Corinth to the doctors," Gensis ordered, heading to his quarters once more.
Once the general departed, Corinth's expression changed. Anger was written all over his face as the soldiers beside him helped him to the doctors.
"Just wait, terrorists. You will pay for taking the lives of my men."