Yoongi and Jimin pace around the edge of the lake, both of them watching for any sign of Reine or their brother.

They keep their distance from each other to ensure more ground is being covered as the two circle the entirety of the lake, watching the small ripples in the surface of the murky water with anxious eyes.

"She's been under a long time," Jimin says, running a hand through his unruly hair. "What if she can't find the box?"

"She'll come for air when she needs it," Yoongi reassures him as he glances at his brother for a moment before letting his gaze fall back to the water. "She's far more capable than you give her credit for."

"I know how capable she is," Jimin snaps, but immediately sends an apologetic look to his brother. "She survived being attacked by a dragon and a basilisk. She's incredible."

"I know," Yoongi says quietly, smiling to himself as he watches the surface of the lake, the rain continuing to fall lightly around them and over the body of water between the two Horsemen.

"Yoongi," Jimin says suddenly, horror in his voice as he points to the water directly in front of him.

Yoongi runs over to where Jimin is standing and his gaze matches his brother's as they see crimson liquid pooling near the surface of the lake, the red color standing out against the color of the water mixing with it.

"That's blood," Jimin says, and Yoongi immediately takes off his shoulder guard and hands it to Jimin, his sword clanking loudly in its sheath as though it's complaining of it being separated from its owner.

"I'll be right back," Yoongi says with a determined voice, his eyes hard as he stares into his brother's apprehensive gaze.

"The water will burn you!" Jimin yells frantically as Yoongi moves away from him to keep his brother from getting splashed by the water.

"I don't care," Yoongi says, diving in as Jimin yells at his brother not to, his protests going unheard as his brother disappears beneath the surface.

As soon as Yoongi is in the water, he can feel his entire body screaming in pain as he searches around frantically for any sign of Reine in the water surrounding him. As soon as he sees her feebly kicking towards the surface, blood all around her, he swims to meet her where she is and wraps his arm around her waist before kicking upwards, dragging her with him as he pulls her to the surface as fast as his body will allow in its deteriorating state.

"Grab her!" Yoongi yells as soon as the two are above the surface, and Jimin throws Yoongi's belongings to the ground as he reaches forward and pulls Reine from Yoongi's grasp. He ignores the burning pain in his hands as he pulls Reine onto the grass and gasps as he sees two large gashes, one in her right side and one in her left thigh.

Yoongi pulls himself out of the water as soon as Reine is safely out and onto the grass. He yells out in pain as his entire body burns with the contact of the water.

"What do I do?" Jimin asks himself, his eyes wide as he glances at Reine and Yoongi, both of which are writhing in pain.

"Monster in the water," Reine manages to say.

Jimin places his hands on her side, trying to slow the bleeding while Yoongi crawls over to Reine's left side, wrapping his arms around her thigh to keep pressure on the other wound the best he can while trying to ignore the pain in his own body.

"Are you two okay? Where is our brother, Reine?" Jimin asks, a frantic tone evident in his voice as his eyes keep glancing between the two laying in the grass.

"Worry about her," Yoongi says through clenched teeth, his skin nearly sizzling as he keeps a steady grip on Reine's thigh with his arms.

"Fighting," Reine says, letting her eyes close. "He's fighting the beast."

"Why couldn't we sense it?" Jimin yells at no one in particular.

"Can mask itself," Yoongi says through his clenched teeth. "Whatever it is did that to the lake to protect itself from intruders who are capable of killing it."

"What the hell kind of monster can do that?" Jimin asks, looking at Reine who is fighting to stay conscious.

"A leviathan," an unknown voice sounds from the edge of the lake and Reine manages to open her eyes to take in the stranger before her.

His skin is angry and red, like Yoongi's, but he is healing at an alarmingly fast rate; the reddened skin is quickly being replaced by tan, smooth skin instead.

His black, wavy hair hangs over his forehead, water dripping continuously onto his face that is almost instantaneously healing from the poisoned water. His black shirt is clinging to his wet skin, one long sleeve sticking to his muscular arm while his left arm is covered from shoulder to fingers in a silver metal sleeve of armor.

His legs are covered with black leather pants, a metal waist guard glittering on his hips. He takes a few steps forward, his black leather boots digging into the green grass beneath his feet. A set of golden scales, like the ones Reine saw on his box, is in his hand, but when she takes a closer look at it, she sees the scales transforming. Where there was once a set of scales, there is now a set of twin daggers, one in each hand of the stranger. One is ivory from its hilt to its blade, and the other is made from obsidian, its dark, ominous aura intimidating Reine even from a distance.

"Who is she?" he asks, pointing one of his blades at Reine.

"Someone important," Jimin snaps. "Help her. Please. She'll die."

"Why do I care?" he asks, tilting his head slightly as his dark eyes stay locked on Reine's eyes that are fighting to stay open.

"She is the only one who can free all of us," Yoongi says, his hold strong and steady as Reine's blood smears on his arms. "The only one."

The man regards his two brothers for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. Reine can't keep her eyes open any longer, her body feeling heavy as she feels herself slipping away.

She feels someone next to her, and she manages to barely open her eyes to see the man kneeling over her, the ivory knife in his hand.

"This won't hurt," he says. He gestures for Jimin to move and he does; as soon as his hands leave Reine's right side, the blood pours freely from the large bite mark. As quickly as Jimin moves away, the man stabs the ivory blade into Reine's side.

She expects to feel the pain of the blade, but instead she feels a cooling sensation - almost like the rain on her skin. She gasps lightly, and when he pulls the blade from her side, she doesn't feel the pain from the bite in her side anymore.

Quickly, Yoongi lets go of Reine's leg and the stranger moves quickly, stabbing his ivory blade into Reine's right thigh, and she feels the same sensation. She lets out a sigh, feeling the pain leaving her body as he pulls the knife from her leg.

"Taehyung," the man says and Reine opens her eyes to see him staring at her.

"What?" she asks, her voice unsteady as Jimin moves to help her sit.

"My name," he says. "Taehyung."

"Reine," she says, nodding her head to him. "Thank you."

Taehyung doesn't respond; instead, he stands and looks around, taking a deep breath and letting his eyes close as he turns his head to the rain.

"Thank you all," she says, turning to Jimin and Yoongi. She grimaces when she sees Yoongi's burned skin, and she moves to place her hands on either side of his face. "You did not have to jump in after me knowing the pain it would inevitably cause you."

"We saw blood and panicked," Yoongi says quietly, sending her another one of those timid smiles she doesn't ever expect from him. "I'm glad you're safe, Your Majesty."

"Reine," she says quietly, watching as his skin slowly turns back to its original color. "You can call me Reine."

"I need an explanation," Taehyung demands as he walks back to the three still sitting in the grass.

"Come take a walk with me," Jimin offers, sending his brother a small smile. "We have some catching up to do and these two need to rest."

Taehyung and Jimin walk off into the depths of the jungle as Reine lays back, taking deep breaths as she relishes the feeling of having oxygen in her lungs again.

"You could've died," Yoongi says, looking over at her as he sits, wincing in pain occasionally as he heals.

"I almost did, I think," she says, closing her eyes as the rain falls on her face. "I felt heavy and tired. I wanted so badly to go to sleep."

"But you didn't," Yoongi says and Reine opens her eyes to look over at him.

"I can't," she says. "I have too much at stake. I need to stay alive."

"I like you being alive," he says.

"You did not have to risk yourself like that," Reine says, staring at his healing skin. "It looks like it hurts."

"Says the woman who got bitten twice by a leviathan," he points out, shaking his head. "You're lucky that thing didn't rip you in half. I didn't realize leviathans still existed. I thought they were wiped out because of how dangerous they can be."

"It almost did," she says, gesturing to the large hole in the side of her shirt. She realizes there is a lot of skin exposed on her torso now, and she suddenly feels self-conscious that three men have now seen this much of her.

"Here," he interrupts her anxious thoughts as he hands her the leather vest she previously removed. "This should cover it."

"And this?" she asks, pointing to her exposed thigh.

"If I had a shirt on my back to give, I would," he shrugs, and she laughs as she puts her vest back on.

"Hand me my cloak, please," she says, and he hands her the bundle of fabric. She tears the bottom of it and wraps the strip around her thigh, tying it so it sits comfortably over the hole in her pants.

"There," Reine says, admiring her handiwork. She freezes when she sees Yoongi move his war-scarred hand on top of hers.

Her eyes slowly move, her gaze trailing along his scarred skin until she meets his dark eyes that are boring into her own.

"Please don't scare us like that again, Reine," he says quietly, his hand squeezing hers as it rests on her thigh. "Please don't scare me like that."

"I didn't do it on purpose," she says in an equally quiet tone, her eyes wandering to the scar on his face again.

"It was an angel," he says, and Reine frowns as she turns her attention back to his eyes. "The one who left the scar on my face. He's the Warrior Archangel; the one who is most feared amongst dark creatures like my brothers and me. I'm the Horseman of War, so we tended to clash with each other more often than he would fight with the others. He is hands on, and so am I, so it was always the two of us caught in battle. When the war came, and it was them against us in the end, he took my own sword and he slashed my face. In that moment of hesitation, I was forced into that box I was in, the only thought in my mind being that I lost."

"I sense that you do not like to lose," Reine says.

"I never lost until that day," he says. "These scars on my body... they are all reminders of who I conquered in battle. I always give them a moment - one moment - to mark their spot on my body. I carry their mark with me always, a reminder of who they were, who I am and what I do."

"What do you do?" Reine asks, her fingertip coming to trace the scar running along the length of his face.

"I live in the moment," he says, his eyes never leaving Reine's curious gaze as her fingertip leaves his skin.

Yoongi glances at Reine's lips for only a moment before he leans forward and presses his lips against hers.

Reine inhales sharply, not expecting for this to happen, but also being surprised at how much she doesn't mind it.

Her hand moves to rest on Bellamy's chest as his hand moves to tangle in her wet hair that has now fallen out of the bun she put it in this morning. Their lips press together, Reine leaning closer at the same time Yoongi pulls her closer.

The kiss lasts only a second, but when Reine pulls away, she is instantly pulled back in by Yoongi as their lips reconnect in a more heated kiss, their lips moving feverishly against each other.

Reine's heart is pounding in her chest. Every instinct she has is telling her to slap him for kissing her, but she decides to live like Yoongi this once. She decides to live in this moment with him.

This isn't something she would ever normally do as a member of the royal family. She has always been expected to be a perfect, untouchable object that the people around her blindly worship as their leader.

Here, in this moment, she is a girl in the outskirts of a kingdom she is holding away at arm's length as she struggles to figure out her identity - her identity without her family.

She knows she is going to make mistakes - maybe she is making one now - but she is tired of spending every second of every day being the girl everyone wants her to be.

She wants to take this time to figure out who she is beneath the crown.

So, she doesn't pull away from him. Instead, she moves in even closer, her hand gliding his skin to the back of his neck so she can press his lips harder against her own. Her skin is igniting, coming alive underneath his touch and it's something she's never felt before.

She remembers how she danced with him in the rain when they first got to Lamerdé and how, in that moment, she felt free.

She feels the same way at this moment.

Yoongi finally pulls away, resting his forehead against Reine's as she tries to catch her breath.

"You are incredible," he whispers, his dark eyes staring into her green ones.

"I decided to take a page out of your book and live in the moment," Reine says, sending him a shy smile as the adrenaline of the moment dwindles.

"Feel free to live in the moment with me any time you'd like," he grins and she laughs, pulling away as her hand falls back in her lap.

Yoongi sighs as he closes his eyes, leaning back as his muscles ripple beneath the exposed skin of his torso.

"Where is your sword?" Reine asks, noticing that his shoulder guard is gone and so is the weapon he holds in the sheath on his back.

Yoongi holds out his hand, not bothering to open his eyes as his shoulder guard and sword pull itself into his awaiting, outstretched hand.

"How do you do that?" she asks in awe, remembering how he summoned his sword using his hand when he was first freed from his box.

He glances over at her as he sits and re-clasps the shoulder plate onto his body. "When we were angels, we each had a power that was ours to control. When we lost our wings, we retained that power, but it became much weaker. I used to be able to move any object with my mind; now, I can only move my weapon."

Reine hums, realizing he could move the shoulder plate because his sword was sheathed inside it. "What about your brothers? What powers do they have?"

"Someone is nosy," he says, turning to smirk at her as she rolls her eyes.

"I am trusting you all with my life," she argues. "I feel I deserve to know more about the four of you."

He hums, nodding his head. "That makes sense. They can tell you about their powers, though. I much prefer talking about myself."

"Of course you do," Reine says, grateful things don't feel awkward after the impulsive kiss the two shared.

"Speaking of myself," he says, adjusting the leather plate on his right shoulder before turning his attention back to her, "I feel like I'm rubbing off on you. That was rebellious of you to do, and I never took you for the rebellious type."

"I don't know who I am anymore," she says, looking at the makeshift patch on her pants. Her fingers play with the knot. "I was always seen as the King and Queen's precious only daughter who always looked like a doll ready to be manipulated as if I were nothing more than a child's toy."

"You still are their daughter," he says, moving to sit closer to her. "You have to learn who you are without them there to guide you."

"Exactly," she says, nodding absentmindedly. "I never thought I would have to be without them so soon. I prepared myself to be the Queen, of course, but I did not realize I would be so alone. I feel so lost and unsure of everything I have ever known, and where I used to feel confidence in myself, I now question every step I take."

"Why did that suddenly change when you let me kiss you?" he asks and she shrugs.

"If I don't use this as a journey of self discovery, I fear I may return to my kingdom more lost than I have ever been."