Against Yeosang's expectations that they would operate at night, Mingi told them to move on the day of their departure in the early afternoon. When Yeosang had curiously queried him about it, the tall man with the wild red hair that was held back by a pair of goggles grinned at him reassuringly.

"It's for safety. The descend itself is difficult to execute during the night, but we will lodge in my house until the morning so we can go early. With the curfew in place so piercingly, we wouldn't want to have a run-in with the Spheres. It will be fine."

Yeosang wove through the cramped alleys of Zey behind the tall man. Like his personal shadow, Jongho was always behind him and kept an eye on their surroundings. One time, when a drunk woman nearly tumbled into Yeosang, he had yanked her away before she could do as much as graze his arm. With a threatening hiss to her face, Jongho shooed her off. In the grimy streets, Yeosang had never seen her again after she stalked off on wobbly heels.

Mingi's house was buried in the ground connected to a long tunnel that led to the surface level. Yeosang didn't need to ask to understand why proceeding from there made the most sense.

He barely slept that night. Even when Jongho called him out around midnight to stop tossing and turning and use his time wisely and sleep, Yeosang found no peace. Nightmares plagued his mind in the few hours that he slumbered. Nightmares about a man surrounded by wires and machines, with glassy, evil eyes.

When Mingi shook him away in the morning, Yeosang was exhausted, and his lids were heavy with tiredness. Jongho shook his head about him and told him to wash up before they left.

After all, the fear would wake Yeosang right back up.

Yeosang liked to think he wasn't afraid of heights. If asked, he would reply that it was merely this canyon that had his fingers tremble and knees weaken. Nervously, he stayed far inside the dependable room while Mingi and Jongho prepared their gear. They had also given some items to Yeosang. Spiked shoes, fingerless gloves, and two axes that he could hook into the stone to stabilise his weight.

They wouldn't rely on ropes attached to the house, and that fact frightened Yeosang more than anything else. If one of them fell, only jagged cliffs and darkness would greet them.

It was nearly scary with how much ease Jongho and Mingi perceived it. While Yeosang sat palely in the background with Bricky on his shoulder and fiddled with his thumbs, those two discussed their trip like today's dinner. It was the Zey expertise, Yeosang supposed. His stomach was no help with how it cramped into anxious knots to the point of aches.

When Mingi ultimately motioned Yeosang to come over, the man swallowed harshly. He knew that this mission had developed from his ideas and that only he and his attempts to succeed Seonghwa were to blame that he stepped up to a deadly canyon right at this moment, but now the second thoughts caught up with him. Was the danger of a painful death worth it?

Yeosang didn't even know what Seonghwa searched for. Was there anything for them to find outside of ragged cliffs and risks wherever they looked?

No, Yeosang didn't want to doubt Seonghwa. His brother's legacy was Yeosang's sole purpose of life right now, and return home wasn't possible anymore.

Thus, he stepped to the other two bravely. Jongho waited for them in the open door, and Yeosang saw something akin to respect show in his eyes when their gazes crossed.

"Don't worry too much. We are nearby all the time, and we can take breaks on our descend." With a smile, Mingi made sure that Yeosang's belt with axes sat correctly and also knelt to tighten the straps on his shoes that held the spikes there. Yeosang furiously blushed at having the tall man in such a position in front of him.

"I-I don't know if the two of you care much, but the Chasm isn't just a canyon, actually. Geographically speaking, it's a gorge, since the walls are steep and don't narrow further downward." The random fact from his lessons came out of the blue and eased everyone's tension when the two men snickered at Yeosang. Mingi got up onto his feet once Yeosang was clear.

"That's good news; then we hopefully won't get stuck!" Mingi meant to say it as a joke, but Yeosang's blood still drained from his face at the thought of getting caught between two narrow stone walls with no way out.

"Don't scare him, Mingi."

Mingi's boisterous laughter pleased Yeosang's spirit, but it didn't calm his body.

With a sigh, Jongho beckoned Yeosang closer. Once he neared, the other man lowered his muffled voice so that they wouldn't get detected by any possible loiterers up above on the cliff.

"See, it's just like last time. You grab onto the edges and pull yourself over. Your feet come before your hands. Always have a steady stance before you let go. If you panic or feel like there is no other way to hold on-" Jongho leaned towards the cliff right next to Mingi's door. With one forceful kick, his foot met the wall and the metal tip embedded itself deeply in the gritstone. He could put his weight on it without problems.

"You try this. But don't overdo it. Those knives aren't super sharp, and they might slide off and hurt your bones if you aren't careful."

Not very reassured, Yeosang regarded Jongho's gadgets. They wrapped snugly around his arm and leg like pieces of ancient armour and enhanced his every movement. Yeosang doubted he was strong enough to dig his foot into the wall.

Yet, he nodded out of the need to prove his abilities to keep up with them. Jongho copied the gesture. When he lowered his head to show Yeosang the first few steps, dark hair fanned over his forehead and fell into his eyes like a curtain that hid his identity. With his mask on, his face disappeared from sight nearly completely. Mysterious, just like everything about him.

Jongho smoothly slid down the wall without a single indication of instability or hesitation. As if he was born on those steep cliff walls, he lowered his body into the gaping abyss that awaited them below. Within a few minutes, he had disappeared far enough that Yeosang could only make out his head as a moving dot in the distance.

The little sunlight that streamed into the canyon from the light of day alleviated Yeosang, just as Mingi had predicted. The field of open air to their left was several hundred metres away from the point they were going down on. Yet, the noises of airships and the ocean sloshing down there trickled on Yeosang's ears anyway.

Mingi gave him a little smile that tried to muster as much comfort as possible for the situation.

"Try to climb diagonally from him, so that no loose stones rain down on his head."

Yeosang managed no more but a little noise in agreement. Only then he reached out his shaking fingers to grasp onto the stone wall.

The gritstone here made it relatively easy to find a hold. Compared to other stones or cliffs eroded over time by water masses, this wall had many opportunities and little edges to grasp. The stone was brittle, so Yeosang double-checked every single one of them he put his weight on. Only slowly, he inched from Mingi's safe threshold and clung to the wall. His arms were in an unnatural position to his body to continue on properly, so he adjusted them before he commerced his slow descend. Soon, he lost sight of Mingi who hurried around to meet his last preparations.

By the time all of them hung on the wall, they formed a diagonal line. Jongho was far left and the furthest down, Yeosang followed more towards the middle, and Mingi held some distance to him on the right, but he was in earshot.

After the first few minutes of climbing, Yeosang calmed considerably. He found his balance and stopped shivering after some more breathing exercises. Quite proud of himself, he put his full attention on the act itself rather than his stray thoughts about falling to his death or getting stuck in between two walls.

Yeosang considered his movements to be quite slow, but he never lost sight of Jongho's head, and Mingi also didn't spur him to hurry.

But then again, where would they hurry? There was no certain goal to arrive at, and no time limit set in stone.

Bricky fluttered around them, dipping down into the gorge to greet Jongho with a trill, emerging to the windy seaside, and sometimes disappearing further back into the tight canyon that only narrowed further landward. When both sides had broken apart during that earthquake so many years ago, its scar had split the cliff open several kilometres long.

Yeosang wondered how deep it was. Surely, the bottom must meet the ocean and be filled with water, right? There, at last, would be the end of their journey.

Once they were a few dozen metres away from Mingi's secret door, the red-haired man picked up their conversation again. His casual voice rumbled forebodingly in the depths.

"Tell me about you. Jongho had so many questions about you that he never got an answer for. I'm not as polite as him, I will ask."

With a snicker, Yeosang lowered his foot onto another terrace. As he glanced down to verify that he didn't kick any stones down on Jongho with that movement, he met the man's gaze. Jongho had halted in his ministrations and took a little break while they came closer. Owlish, he blinked up at Yeosang. The boy focused back on the task at hand.

"There isn't much to know about me. I wouldn't know what kind of questions Jongho accumulated in his mind."

The rough stone under his fingertips had ingrained its feeling into his mind so much already, that he would probably have dreams about it. It was so real, so much more sturdy and materialistic than the books and their knowledge in Asora. Despite it being the normal ground that they all walked on, Yeosang saw it with different eyes now that he was enclosed by it. The ground could be scary.

"May I be honest with you? I think the most intriguing one is the theory about you princes. As Seonghwa's brother, aren't you a prince?"

Yeosang faltered in his movements. By now, Jongho was in earshot, too, and something in Yeosang whispered at him to keep his mouth closed. He didn't want Jongho to hear about this.

Yet, since they were his loyal friends that had helped him escape from the palace and protected his life at the current moment, Yeosang found it only fair to speak. It would be improper to leave their minds as fifteen puzzles.

"In theory, I would be. Not in reality, though. I might be Seonghwa's brother by blood, but I am not considered a noble in the royal household. They only keep me around because my father is the king."

Yeosang stared at the wall in front of him. At its little nooks and crannies, at the holes in it, and the seldom vegetation or insect that darted over it.

"I'm a misbegotten child. My mother is not the same person as Seonghwa's mother, the queen."

Mingi gave an understanding hum.

"I see. Then the reason why you don't want to be called a prince is just that?"

"Correct. Even after Seonghwa's death, I would never be considered one of status." The words tasted bitter in Yeosang's mouth. Jongho climbed somewhere to his left, keeping his mouth shut.

"I am just a boy in some chamber whose existence nobody recollects. It would be all kinds of wrong to call me a prince."

While glad to get this mystery off his chest, Yeosang's mood had dampened. Out of all subjects, this was the first one that Mingi had to investigate.

The man was quick to make it up to him with a few clever poised ones. He questioned him about his book, and about Jongho's help with it. He knew how to get Yeosang to ramble without getting lost in distressing memories again.

After what Yeosang presumed to be half an hour of climbing, Jongho called for a break. Side by side, Mingi and Yeosang stuck to the wall and talked while the other man hammered nails into the cliff so that he could fasten a hammock on it. They all piled into it once he was finished to share some luncheons and drinks.

And even if Yeosang got squished between the two men far more tightly than he was used to, he didn't mind their closeness much. Rather, he enjoyed it to have people around him.

The loneliness lifted off him like a nightmare in the morning.