He only had time to widen his eyes in shock.

The sword pierced through the air separating him and Zhi-Xen, the woman aiming for his neck. To kill. Once and for all. He felt his hands tightening around Kai-Se, his mind already playing the horrors of being skewered to death. Expected it, even. This was Zhi-Xen. He's not going to get through this in one piece.

A beat passed. Two. No pain.

That's...

Nao-Zai opened his eyes. What greeted him was the familiar forest the bamboo grove just gave way to. Was this...the afterlife? He whipped to his left, his boots making the dried leaves underneath them crunch and crackle. The air smelled fresh, cold—characteristic of the night he had just been found under. Leaves rustled with every breeze, the same way as the mortal realm. And Kai-Se...

A gasp tore from his throat as he still felt a solid weight of a body against his shoulder. He glanced to his left to find the prince still slung over it like a used rag or something. Did he...did he bring Kai-Se to the afterlife with him? What about bringing the prince's korza back? What's going to happen to that task?

Nao-Zai had failed, didn't he?

"Hurry along now. I can't maintain this spell for much longer," a new voice said somewhere to his right. His head swiveled towards the source to find a...person striding towards him.

Nao-Zai knitted his eyebrows. Who...?

The person shook their head and pressed their fingers against their temples. "Ah, what am I thinking?" they said. "I'm Shin-Ki. Nice to meet you. Blah blah blah. Now, we must go. The spell won't last long."

Spell? Nao-Zai looked around him once more. This wasn't the afterlife, then, and this person wasn't his guide? Huh. At this point, he didn't really know what was real and what's part of his imagination anymore. So, he bobbed his head and stalked after the person who called themself Shin-Ki. It did sound like the name of the shaman Chi-Sae told him he was supposed to meet, so maybe he was on the right path. Maybe.

He looked around, expecting to see Zhi-Xen and her black-clad goons searching around for him, but all he saw were the endless line of trees and the dark shadows of the undergrowth dancing in the darkness of the night. And now that he's looking—really looking—it occurred to him that the scenery was a little bit brighter, even though the moon was out and the night had just turned deep. What was this place?

"Would you mind explaining what is going on?" Nao-Zai called to the person striding through the uneven forest floor in nothing but a pair of straw slippers. It was hard to tell if they were male or female just from the loose, gray, ankle-length fenhai they wore. An orange robe was knotted against one shoulder, leaving the other free. A necklace, with large, wooden beads, dangled from their neck, giving way to the round pendant the size of Nao-Zai's palm. Feathers of different colors and sizes hung in odd intervals from the beads and the pendant's sides, giving it some sort of an ancient feel.

Shin-Ki hummed, lazily glancing over their shoulder at Nao-Zai's question. Having a full view of their face, it confused him even more. Thin lips, narrow eyes, and a skin so pale and smooth it reminded him of the aunties he saw whenever he visited his mother's hometown—it was a mix of features of both sexes. Their hair, pale blond and what should have not existed in this part of the world, was bobbed in line with their shoulders. The straight, flat locks swished along with every swivel of Shin-Ki's head.

"There is a lot of that, it seems," they said, tapping a finger against their chin. Even their voice was not something Nao-Zai had ever heard before. It was both deep yet airy, subtle yet firm, dark yet bright. "We're going deeper into the forest while my illusion distracts the scary woman and her minions. You and I, along with the Crown Prince, will be going to Trahn-gwok-tan to get a good night's rest and some tea."

Tea...that's the last thing in Nao-Zai's mind at the moment. Trahn-gwok-tan? Was that the temple? Did temples even have names, like palaces? How did this person know Kai-Se was a Crown Prince? Was this even the same Empire? Also, what exactly was an illusion and how in Mirchaek was Zhi-Xen and the others were distracted? And why couldn't Nao-Zai see them?

Despite all the questions swirling in his head, the only thing that came out was, "What are you?"

Shin-Ki paused, just flat out stopped in his tracks to whip towards Nao-Zai. "I'm a shaman," they gestured to their outfit like they expected it to have done its work for them ages ago. Then, they turned away and resumed walking, forcing Nao-Zai to do the same. "I know you meant some other thing, but let's leave it at that."

Nao-Zai bobbed his head even when he's certain the shaman wouldn't be able to see it with their back turned. "You mentioned illusions and spells," he craned his neck to the sky. Everything looked eerily similar to the forest where Zhi-Xen had almost killed him. "Isn't that...magic?"

"Is the moon out at night and the sun in the morning? Yes, it's magic," the shaman replied without missing a beat in both his speech and steps. "Do you have more stupid questions I'm sure the answers you can find for yourself instead of asking me?"

Nao-Zai wanted to roll his eyes but resisted the urge. This shaman was just rude. Might be bubbly enough, but rude. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. "Aren't you supposed to be in Chaebeon?"

"We are in Chaebeon," Shin-Ki waved their hand in the air along with the context of their conversation. "You passed the borders yesterday. I know because I'm watching."

Nao-Zai frowned. He didn't appreciate being told there were other people seeing him from corners he's not aware of. "How?" he said. "And where do the borders start? Since Cheokjin?"

"Somewhere beyond that, yes," the shaman said, stepping over a colony of pink-capped mushrooms growing out of a fallen log. Their robes brushed the mushy heads with a silent rustle. "And I was keeping track of your progress using magic. What else am I supposed to use?"

"Is magic your solution to everything?" Nao-Zai blurted.

Shin-Ki gave him a flat look. "I'm a shaman, djang-di," they said. "Let's leave it at that."

Okay. Fine. That's the second time they said it. Maybe they're expecting him to finally get the drift and shut up. Well, shut up, he would. It's not like he was curious about that. Or anything.

Instead, he adjusted his grip on Kai-Se's limp body. He peeled the prince off his shoulder and brought him back into his arms, resting the prince's head somewhere against the crook of his neck.

"Are we walking all the way to the Temple?" Nao-Zai squinted at the horizon, noting the way the branches twist and shield his view of what lay ahead. There wasn't anything man-made in the distance, much less temples with fancy names.

Shin-Ki rolled their shoulders. "Unless you want to have your korza jumbled up in a transport spell, then yes, we are walking," they said. "I can't have you hurling your dinner all over the rugs. I just finished washing them this morning."

Nao-Zai pursed his lips. "Why didn't you just get me from the Hanreikisan?" he asked. "If you were watching me, why haven't you just come out to Dangrao? Why do you need me to tromp around forests and towns?"

"Unlike you, Imperial midgets, I have a life," Shin-Ki said. "I would have exposed myself and Trahn-gwok-tan if I made for Dangrao. It's too dangerous for me to be away for too long. The best I can do is to watch between the borders of Dangrao and Chaebeon. That's how I helped the Najizaki clan cross to Hankuure. They're safe so long as they are in this part of town."

Huh. So Shin-Ki was involved with all of this as well? That made things a lot easier for the both of them because it meant they both knew what was going on. "Do you know what's wrong with Kai-Se, then?" Nao-Zai asked, finally driving the conversation home.

Shin-Ki made a noise that was somewhere between a cough and a laugh. "I'm the one who treated him way back when," he said. "He was...a complicated case."

Nao-Zai swerved around a thick trunk coming up his way. Its gray-white bark didn't fly by his notice but the impression didn't stay in his mind for long. It was just another tree in a sea of them. His hand pressed Kai-Se's head closer to his neck to avoid it crashing against one. "How complicated are we talking about?" he prodded.

The shaman didn't appear to want to talk, judging from the heavy sigh they heaved. "Kai-Se has more blood from Shaoryeong than he does of the mortal kind," they said. "Shaoryeong reaps what is due. It's simply calling him back."

He didn't like the sound of that. In fact, hearing Kai-Se having some sort of an anomaly didn't sit well with him. What did that make the prince, then? Was he a spirit? A human? Something? "Was that connected to how he was able to open a gate to it back in Dansarun?" he asked.

With that question, Shin-Ki whipped towards him so fast he almost collided with the shaman. "Do tell me all about that," they said, the glint in their eyes resembling the stars shining above them. "I have felt the fluctuations in the natural energies but I've never been able to figure that one out."

Nao-Zai licked his chapped lips—he badly needed water—and launched into his version of the events in Dansarun. Them running together towards the palace's exit, the gods showing up and taunting Kai-Se before threatening to kill him, Kai-Se tearing the necklace that once contained An-Ri's presence from his neck and throwing it to the ground. He recalled the huge maw in the sky, sucking the gods inside it as the temperature dropped several degrees colder. There had been a heavy presence in the air back then, like a huge quilt smothering him until he ran out of breath. Then, Kai-Se screamed in defiance and the gate shut itself, like a tear in a sheet of fabric repairing on its own.

By the time he finished, Shin-Ki's frown and the creases between his eyebrows had deepened into trenches on his face. "Gates?" they mused among themself, not really caring about Nao-Zai at this point. "That's an advanced form of ryeong-sen. No wonder it undid every safeguard I put."

"Safeguard?" Nao-Zai asked. None of the stuff the shaman had just started spouting made any sense, but he could at least ask about the last word he heard.

Shin-Ki bobbed their head. They traced random patterns in the air with two or three fingers flexing, curling, or straightening in a mesmerizing dance. It's like how Kai-Se once manipulated sheets of paper to fold into hundreds of different shapes in a span of minutes. Magic. It couldn't have been anything else.

"When the Emperor came to me a long time ago, bearing a half-dead child with nothing but traces of Shaoryeong inside him, I had bound his korza into his mortal body. That way, he wouldn't need to rely on An-Ri to stay alive." Shin-Ki answered. "When he performed the gate rituals—without much training, too—, it strained his korza greatly and the binds I did to it unraveled. That's why he was back to where we started."

Shin-Ki stopped in front of a random rock mired with dark red algae. "That's also the reason why he found it easier to open the gate than closing it," they explained. Nao-Zai had stopped understanding around the mention of An-Ri, the ancestral spirit who once protected Kai-Se, and hasn't been able to catch up since. This whole magic business was beyond what he had been taught to believe was plausible, anyway.

"Kai-Se was an interesting case, so I owe the Emperor a favor for bringing him to me then and now," they continued. Their fingers were still flicking here and there, the movements turning more fractic by the second. "And when I learned of how he was born, that's when I knew for certain I had stumbled into a treasure trove. That's why I agreed to help and why you are here."

With that, a certain swish of energy washed over Nao-Zai. When his eyes landed on where he had felt it last, his jaw dropped. A huge temple with at least three stories stood on a hilltop. It hadn't been there before. It didn't take him too long to conclude that Shin-Ki must have used one of their magical tricks to pull the low-lying clouds and the thick fog rising from the forest floor to obscure the building. But seeing it in action...it's amazing.

"Djang-di, are you just planning to stand there until they catch up?" a faint voice jarred him back to the present. His gaze landed on Shin-Ki's form, already a small figure on the stone steps carved on the side of the hill. Oops.

He shook his head and dashed towards the first step. It seemed sturdy enough to hold him and Kai-Se's weight. Soon, he followed Shin-Ki up the path curving towards the peak, where the temple stood. It was designed like the palaces of the Imperial City, just more...cubical and focused less on showing splendor. Dark blue shingles covered the roofs, tapering into curved tips cast in gold. The pillars and walls were painted brick-red and off-white, strips criss-crossing around windows and pillars.

The smell of flowers was thick in the air as they went higher. Various colors swirled in Nao-Zai's periphery as trees and bushes decorating the untouched part of the hill passed them by. When Nao-Zai stepped off the highest stair, he breathed a sigh of relief to find even ground. His soles slapped against worn stone as he followed Shin-Ki who stalked towards what must have been the temple's front doors.

The hinges whined softly as the shaman pulled the red doors open. Inside, the dark and musty interior greeted Nao-Zai. He did his best to hide his cough when a blast of dust assaulted his skin and his nose. Shin-Ki, appearing to not notice or care, strode past the door frame with a plaque bearing the temple's name, which was indeed Trahn-gwok-tan. Not wanting to be left alone on the hilltop and be snapped on by the shaman, Nao-Zai ducked his head at nothing to show some smidge of respect and made after Shin-Ki.

Together, their footsteps thumped and scratched against the polished wood serving as the floorboards. It was just like any of the palaces and mansions Nao-Zai had been through. The only difference was when Shin-Ki snapped their fingers, the lanterns slotted against tall, red pillars and some on the walls flared to life. Of course, because of magic. Again.

Just as Nao-Zai was becoming to the orange blare of the ambience, Shin-Ki stopped in front of a sliding door uncharacteristic of the paper-paned doors they had passed by on the way. The wood rumbled with deep thuds as it gave way against the shaman's yank. Nao-Zai dared a peek and was greeted with more shadows. From the silhouettes presenting themselves against the light from the corridor, he made out strange statues glinting gold, tapestries hanging from the ceiling, and racks upon racks filled with various contraptions.

"Get in here," Shin-Ki jerked his chin at Nao-Zai. Their tone suggested impatience, like they couldn't wait to get this over with. "Set that boy down."

Nao-Zai glanced at the darkness before striding inside as the shaman had instructed. He spied a thin mattress by Shin-Ki's feet so he gently placed Kai-Se there. Before he even stepped back and straightened, the shaman snapped their fingers once more and a thousand, if not, millions of wax candles blazed in a flash.

"Now, we start to work," Shin-Ki sighed as they dropped to their knees and passed a hand over Kai-Se's head. The prince, as usual, remained unmoving. The shaman's eyes rolled to the back of their head, their lips moving in some kind of prayer or something.

Nao-Zai dropped to his knees as well, taking the spot opposite the shaman. "I was told his korza or whatever is trapped in Shaoryeong," he said. Shin-Ki's eyes snapped open. Their gaze, ever so dark and sharp, landed on him. "What can we do to bring him back? To...bind it back into the mortal realm?"

"Are you sure that's what he wanted?" Shin-Ki asked, their tone quiet and somewhat gentle.

He blinked. "What?"

Shin-Ki jerked their chin to Kai-Se's form. "Bringing him back to the mortal realm would require three things—a gate, a well of pure magic, and...an anchor," they said, albeit with an odd choice of a place to pause and hesitate. "I can induce the gate and harness enough magic to gather his korza, but we need an anchor."

Nao-Zai bit his lip. If he got the context of anchors correctly, it just meant they needed something to make sure Kai-Se's life force wouldn't get drawn back to Shaoryeong like what's happening now. Something grounded fully on the mortal realm. A leash. A barrier.

"Where would we find one?" Nao-Zai met the shaman's eyes.

Shin-Ki sighed. "That's why I asked if this is what Kai-Se wanted," they said. "You are going to be the anchor. Your korza is purely of this realm and you don't appear to be becoming anything else in the far future. Between the two of us, you're the likely candidate."

Nao-Zai averted his gaze just as quickly. Should he do it? He didn't even know what Kai-Se was to him and he was to Kai-Se. Were they merely friends? More than that? They didn't even get to clear that up since they're both caught up in their own issues. But if it meant saving Kai-Se, if it meant bringing him back to his family and his empire, then he'd do it. Whatever it entailed. Whatever being an anchor to someone meant.

Besides, if he could be so honest just this once, he couldn't really stand losing someone like Kai-Se. Life without him would just be...dull.

With that, he raised his head and leveled his gaze at Shin-Ki. "Let's do it," he said. "I'll be the anchor."

"Keep in mind that it's no easy task," Shin-Ki bobbed their head, making their locks move along with the motion. "For someone who might even want to stay in Shaoryeong such as Kai-Se, it might prove to be dangerous. Fatal, even. Are you certain?"

Nao-Zai glanced at Kai-Se's face. With his eyes closed and his chest still, the sight never failed to send a slight pang in Nao-Zai's chest. He'd give anything to see Kai-Se smile and laugh again. Without a care for the world, even if it would be miles away from him.

But was coming back what Kai-Se wanted? Did he run to Shaoryeong to escape? To keep everyone safe? Would bringing him back cause more harm than good?

He was a soldier whose life was made to be given away to other people. Since he was a child, he was taught to not want, to not have an opinion about anything. He was only ever supposed to follow. Selfishness was a sin. A soldier couldn't be blinded by their desires, by the way they wanted the world to turn out.

But looking at Kai-Se, Nao-Zai wanted to be more than just a soldier. He saw himself as someone beyond following orders and being under a higher authority. With Kai-Se, he was just Nao-Zai, a man with no truth to his name. Ordinary. Without merit. And it was a kind of freedom he hadn't experienced elsewhere. Not with his family full of rigid politics and strong visions of his future. Certainly not in the Yomaura fortress and inside the Imperial City.

Nao-Zai gritted his teeth. "Start the ritual," he said to Shin-Ki with a brief nod. "To the afterlife with it all."

Because now that Kai-Se's life was on the line, Nao-Zai figured he'd start becoming less of what he had known all his life.

He'd allow himself to be selfish. Just this once.