Chapter Text
“What do you mean there’s been no word? He’s a prince with red hair. How could nobody have seen him?”
“Every spy in every village has said the same thing. Nobody has said anything about Prince Jeongin. Most people don’t even know that he’s missing.”
Minho let out a groan as he leaned back in his chair. He looked over at all of the meeting’s attendants. As anxious as he was to find his brother, he wasn’t in the mood to have the same conversation he’s had for the past two days. He lifts a hand, and the council members get up and leave, leaving Minho alone with his four friends.
Eric shuts the door and walks back to the table, looking towards the twins standing at the front of the room. “So you guys don’t have any magic or anything that can at least give us a clue?”
Felix and Chaewon shake their heads. “As long as we’re outside of our home, no,” Felix explains.
“We can barely do anything right now. Tracking and locating is hard enough to do even when we’re at full power,” Chaewon adds.
“Can’t I just—“ Minho begins, before being interrupted by Hyunjin.
“No, you may not go look for him on your own,” Hyunjin says. “The answer is no now, just like the millions of other times you asked us and your parents.”
“Jeongin could be in trouble or hurt or lost and all we’re doing is wasting time when I could be searching for him.”
“Okay, fine, let’s say you go look for him. Where do you start?” Chaewon asks, walking up to Minho. “Trick question. You don’t know. You pick somewhere random, you get lost, you find some trouble, and now there are two missing princes. Let’s say we find Jeongin. Which one of us do you pick to explain to him that his brother is the one missing now?”
Minho is silent as he and Chaewon stare back at each other, neither one of them dare breaking eye contact. He could see her pointed ears twitching out of the corner of his eyes. He would never say it out loud, but there was something about her and her brother that intimidated him. It wasn’t that they were scary, especially since the two were quite the opposite, but something about their fae blood gave them a presence that couldn’t be ignored, especially when they got serious. Every elegant feature of their faces was sculpted to perfection, making any human want to both stare and look away.
The silence finally broke when Eric spoke up. He placed a hand on Minho’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “We’re going to find him, but we can’t have you running off on your own.”
“Okay, okay,” Minho says. “Anything else I need to worry about?”
“Harvests are still poor,” Hyunjin says. “If this goes on, the king and queen said we might need to begin rationing.”
“Rationing? It’s that bad?” Minho asks. “How do you know this and I don’t?”
“I’m pretty I'm sure not supposed to know about it,” Hyunjin explains. “Jeongin and I accidentally overheard your parents talking about it a few days ago.”
“But,” Felix interjects. “This isn’t your problem right now. You told your parents you’d focus on Jeongin. Don’t stress about other things right now.”
“Go get some rest,” Chaewon says. “We can talk more tomorrow.”
Minho nods. “Alright. Have a good night everyone.”
At the door, he turns back to look at his friends one last time before leaving, taking note of the concerned looks the four of them shared between each other.
If there was anyone who had the right to worry over him, or even speak to him as Chaewon had, it was those four. After all, Minho and Jeongin had basically grown up with them.
Hyunjin was the first one he met, due to his parents high ranking within the Kingdom of Levanter. He, Jeongin, and Hyunjin spent so long being put in a room together while their parents worked, it was only natural for Hyunjin to become their first closest friend and confidant.
Eric was the next person to enter his life. His parents were hired as the king and queen’s personal pages, meaning that they had to move into the castle with their young son. They all went a month without speaking to each other, at least until Jeongin took it upon himself to corner Eric by the stables. Minho still doesn’t know what happened that day. All he knows is that Jeongin and Eric ended up in the infirmary, it took a week to find the missing horse, and he gained another friend.
As for Felix and Chaewon, they were his biggest mystery, even after ten years. His first meeting with them when he was twelve years old still felt like a dream.
In the middle of the night, he awoke to banging on his door. He opened it to find Eric and a pink-haired stranger looking at him worriedly, with a pink-haired girl with her arms slung around their shoulders, barely conscious.
After putting Chaewon to rest in his bed and calling Jeongin next door, he got his explanation. During one of Eric’s night walks, which he had just learned exists, he stumbled across Felix carrying Chaewon out of the forest by the castle. All it took was Felix whispering a desperate plea for help to get Eric to bring them to his room.
He wasn’t one to pry into someone’s life, which is where Jeongin came in handy. Felix told them about his and his sister’s home in the Ninth Realm, and how the two had to escape one day, for reasons still unknown to everyone else to this day. All they had with them was the clothes on their backs and a matching set of rapiers. After days of travelling, they ended up in the forest and were attacked by wolves, leading to his twin sister getting hurt protecting him. After that, Eric found them.
The next morning, Minho woke up in Jeongin’s bed and headed over to his room to greet his new guests, only to have a flaming rapier inches from his face. Turns out Felix was still asleep and Chaewon thought they got kidnapped.
The rest of the story was simpler than one would think. The two siblings were allowed to stay in the castle to recuperate. What was supposed to be a two week stay ended up being permanent after discovering their skill with their magic swords. Minho insisted they remain as his personal guards, and the fire and ice swordsmen have been by his side since.
Minho entered his room and flopped down on his bed, taking a deep breath.
It may have been two days, but there were absolutely zero leads on Jeongin. No one knew if he was kidnapped or got lost or even just left on his own. All Minho knew was that one day he woke up, didn’t find Jeongin in his bed, the castle, the market, or the village, and nearly passed out from the stress of having to explain to his parents what happened.
“Mrow.”
Minho sat up to see his three cats hop onto his bed and crawl up onto his lap.
“You guys won’t go missing, right?” Minho whispered to them, gathering them in his arms. “You guys need to stay here in the castle. I want your uncle to see you all as soon as he can once he comes home.”
They reply by licking Minho’s hand, causing him to laugh. He gently pets them all with his other hand, giving them a little scratch. “Don’t tell Jeongin, but he actually loves you all very much. He just likes to tease me by teasing all of you. Do you remember when he stole Chaewon’s rapier?”
Minho felt the hand the cats were licking get more wet, but he ignored it as he continued talking. “He accidentally burned his hand, so he grabbed Felix’s rapier hoping that the ice would help, but he ended up getting frostbite. He was holding onto you guys as Eric bandaged his hand, so of course he loves you. Once he gets back, I’m sure he will hold onto you guys just as tightly.”
He looked down at his hand, coming to a realization. His cats stopped licking his hand a long time ago. The wetness on his hand was the tears streaming down his face.
“Please come back,” he whispered into the air. “I want to hold onto you too.”
He fell asleep in his day clothes, curled up with his three cats, and dried tears on his face.
Minho woke up to two cats standing on his face and one cat scratching at his door.
“What? What are you doing?” Minho said, lifting his cats off his face. “Dori, stop scratching the door.”
He got up from his bed to grab her, but stopped where he was once he heard the clattering next door.
“Jeongin?” he thought to himself.
He grabbed his sword by his nightstand and unsheathed it. He quietly left his room and shut the door behind him, carefully making his way over to Jeongin’s room. Slowly, he opened the door about an inch and peeked inside. His heart stopped when he saw the open window and the culprit rummaging through one of the drawers. For a brief moment, he had hope, but that hope was washed away the more he looked at the person in the room.
They were much shorter than Jeongin and had a lithe figure, but the giveaway was the shaggy, blonde hair. This was a complete stranger who thought they could get away with sneaking in and robbing his brother. Minho stepped into the room, sword raised and ready to strike the thief down. Just as he brought his sword down, the thief whirled around and blocked the attack with a dagger Minho didn’t even know he had on him.
“I can explain,” the thief said, giving Minho an awkward smile.
“Not interested,” Minho growls.
He strikes again, only for the thief to dodge out of the way and grab Minho’s wrist.
“I—”
“No.”
Minho kicks at the thief and strikes again and again, determined to take down the stranger. The thief continued to dodge and block, not even getting a full word out before Minho attacks again. He finally catches the thief off balance as he sweeps his leg underneath his, knocking him to the ground and causing his dagger to fall out of his hand.
Minho points his sword under the thief’s throat, panting heavily. “You caught me in a very bad mood, so give me one good reason why I shouldn’t run you through right now.”
“I know where your brother is!”
Minho’s sword clatters to the ground. “Excuse me?”
“Okay, I don’t know where he is exactly, but I know where to find someone who does know. I’m Han Jisung by the way.” The thief stands and extends a hand to Minho, who only stares back stunned.
“Wait, am I supposed to bow?” Jisung asks. “I don’t know where we stand etiquette wise since you just tried to kill me and—”
“Just stay still, and stay silent,” Minho finally breaths out. He walks over to Jeongin’s bed and reaches under it. He pulls out a small glass bottle filled with a shiny, purple mist. He opens it and dumps out the contents. Jisung and Minho watch as the mist flies out the door.
“Was that fae magic?” Jisung asks in awe.
“Don’t worry about it.”
A minute passes before Felix, Chaewon, and Eric burst into the room, all pointing their weapons.
“Why did you set off Jeongin’s alert?” Chaewon asks. “Who’s that?”
Jisung takes a step forward and does a dramatic bow. “My name is Jisung. Pleasure to meet you all.”
“So you bow to them and not me?” Minho asks.
“You hate it when people bow,” Felix points out.
“Shh!” Minho picks up both the sword and dagger before walking up to the group. “He said he knows how to find Jeongin.”
“You know where Jeongin is?” Eric asks, lowering his axe.
“I know how to find someone who does,” Jisung says. “Can the rest of you lower your sharp things or…?”
“No,” both Minho and Chaewon say.
Jisung shrugs. “Well in that case.” He holds his hand out towards Minho. The dagger in his hand shakes before flying into Jisung’s open hand. “Your little soldiers aren’t the only ones who can get enchanted weapons.”
“How…” Felix whispers.
“It’s a long story,” Jisung begins, grabbing the chair from Jeongin’s desk and taking a seat. “My line of work involves having a lot of connections. One of my most valuable ones is a friend named Jacob. The guy knows everyone. He connected me to a tavern owner named Changbin a while ago, and when I hung out with him two days ago, he told me that he spoke to Jeongin three days ago.”
“A day before he disappeared,” Eric says.
“What happened was that Jeongin was out in the village that day and befriended Changbin. Changbin was talking about his own life and Chan was brought up.”
“Bang Chan!?” Chaewon suddenly shrieked.
“Isn’t he a blacksmith?” Eric asks. He looked over at the twins, who have gone pale at the mention of Chan.
“He lives in the Ninth Realm. He’s a faerie too,” Felix explains. “What is he doing here?”
“Beats me, but that’s your answer to this,” Jisung says, pointing to his dagger. “I’m his favourite customer.”
“What does this have to do with Jeongin?” Minho says, growing irritated.
“Chan being a blacksmith led them to talk about enchanted weapons, which led to them talking about the Ninth Realm, which led to Changbin talking about Kim Seungmin.”
“Why are there so many people involved?” Eric whispers to himself.
“Who is Seungmin?” Felix asks.
“He’s a witch that Changbin knows. He’s apparently a big deal in the magic world since he can freely walk in and out of the Ninth Realm.”
“Bullshit,” Chaewon interrupts. “Once you’re in, you can’t leave and vice versa. Queen Vivi would never let this happen. She has only blessed other faes to leave for a few hours, and only when it was urgent. They always came back.”
“Well you can take it up with Seungmin, since meeting him is the key to finding Jeongin.” Jisung looks over at Minho’s anxious face before continuing. “Seungmin told Changbin who told Jeongin about how the Ninth Realm has something powerful that can bring life to nature. Jeongin was really interested in it and kept asking questions. At one point, he asked where he could find Seungmin. I figured since the harvests here have been bad…” Jisung trailed off, letting the others connect the dots.
“Jeongin and Hyunjin heard about the rationing plan the day before,” Eric says. “You don’t think he would leave to find Seungmin and the Ninth Realm and not tell us, do you?”
“I never let him do anything,” Minho whispers, putting his head in his hand. “Anytime he wanted an ounce of responsibility, I said no. Of course he wouldn’t tell me, he didn’t trust me.”
“Minho, he trusts you,” Felix says, clutching onto his shoulders. “He probably just wanted to prove himself to you.”
“He shouldn’t have to,” Minho whispers. He looked to Jisung once more, who seemed very interested in the ground. Minho composed himself enough to poke Jisung with his sword. “So, why were you rummaging through my brother’s things.”
“My original plan was to find the note with the directions Changbin gave the prince and just anonymously give it to you.” Jisung gestures to the room. “You can see how that went.”
“So if you’re not a thief, then what’s your line of work, and why are you helping me?”
“First off, I’m an assassin— DON’T.” Jisung lifts his hands towards Chaewon and Felix, who lifted their swords. “I only take jobs that deal with bad people. Second, knowing that the prince is probably in some sort of danger all alone doesn’t sit well with me.”
Eric pipes up. “An assassin with morals. Cute.”
“He gets it,” Jisung says, lifting his hand up for a high five, smiling when Eric agrees.
Chaewon smacks Eric’s arm and turns to Jisung. “Can you…” She covers her ears with her hands.
“Oh! Okay!” Jisung covers his ears with his hands, allowing the four to have some semblance of privacy.
“So?” Chaewon asks. “What’s the plan?”
“We find this Changbin guy, get Seungmin’s location, and get Jeongin, duh,” Minho says.
“So you’re trusting Jisung?” Felix asks. “The guy seems genuine, but he also broke in.”
“To help us,” Eric interjects. “Besides, if he’s lying, we’ll find out when we explain everything to Changbin. Speaking of.”
Eric looks over at Jisung, who still had his ears covered. Eric walked over and removed his hands. “How do we find Changbin?”
“I’ll just take you to his tavern when we all head out,” Jisung replies.
“‘We?’” Minho repeats. “What makes you think you’re coming with us?”
“You’re not the only one who needs to find Seungmin. Besides, it would be nice to have an extra knife in a fight.”
“I kicked your ass.”
“I was defending myself. If I was actually fighting then you wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
“With you and that kitchen knife?”
“We get it!” Eric interrupts. “The sun is going to rise soon. Let’s pack up, pick up Hyunjin, and head into the village.”
“Eric, can you tell your parents to tell mine that we’re getting Jeongin?” Minho asks.
Eric raises an eyebrow. “Why won’t you tell them yourself?”
“They’ll have a much harder time letting me go if they see me face to face.”
“Sounds like a little prince that we know,” Felix says. “Now we know where he gets it from.”
“Can we just pack please,” Minho groans.
The others file out of Jeongin’s room, leaving Minho alone with Jisung.
Minho slowly walks up to Jisung, keeping eye contact with him as he lifts his sword under his chin once again. Jisung could only stare in stunned silence.
“I’ll be nice and let you tag along,” he says in a low voice. “But if I see one slip up, one misstep, one wrong move that screws over the others and my baby brother.” Minho puts more pressure on the sword. “You’re going to wish I killed you in this room. It would be a much kinder fate than the things I’m thinking of right now.”
Jisung slowly nods, feeling his heart race and face heat up. “Okay,” he whispers.
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, Your Majesty.”
Minho takes a step back and removes the sword. “Good, now come on. I need to pack and you can’t be left alone.”