There was beauty in hardship, but when Namjoon was a boy, it was a beauty he was blind to.

Summer in Catrinia, the capital of Sapientia, home to the leading savants and prestigious academies hailed as the finest in Kartas. He sat atop the sandstone walls of the Hassana Institute, watching as scholars from all walks of life ventured in and out of the colossal front doors. He was just a measly prince, the second heir to the throne and the prisoner of it. Nothing in his destiny foretold a future at the institute—the seers and philosophers had told him numerous times—but he always hoped, perched on his spot like a bird on a branch, the robe tied over his white tunic flowing over the wall like a burgundy waterfall.

Those scholars in their gray tunics interlaced with golden threads beneath him had access to all the knowledge in the world—from Kartas to Rem and back. Tomes, ancient scrolls, journals, and historical chronicles. Collections upon collections, infinite in their knowledge. They were born lucky. Namjoon was not.

But his people disagreed.

He could hear them—their thoughts. Every single one. Who they loved and hated, what they did and ate, when they slept and woke, and why they loathed the royal family. Oppressive. Traditional. Feudal. Failure after failure. Life was unfair. He was born to be a savant, a philosopher, someone adored by the people, not a prince despised by every infant and elder.

When he heard the slaps of sandals against the sandstone beside him, he did not look up to face his sister, ashamed of himself and miffed at his situation.

"I know you can ignore them," Aeri said in a slightly amused voice. Her virescent robes were wrapped around her petite form like a dress, matching her eyes and the emerald jewels adorning her arms and leather-strapped greaves. The scorching sun glimmered on the gold flakes in her sable hair, making it twinkle like stardust. Majestic. It was what everyone said about his sister, and they were right. Always were. "Our governess claims you have mastered your element by now."

Namjoon grunted. "How can I ignore them when their opinion matters?"

"Your curiosity makes our people fear you, Namjoon," Aeri said, but it was in good humor. She chuckled, glancing at the doors of Hassana, the enormous statues of ancient philosophers supporting the roof like columns, the chiseled bodies of the Gods in the spandrels of the archways. "What do you hear? What do they speak of? Your application to the institute?"

Namjoon flinched, averting his gaze from the passing scholars when a group of them ogled back at him. "They are talking about many things."

"But they are mainly talking about you, I suppose." When Namjoon did not answer, Aeri tucked her robes beneath her and sat, letting her tanned legs dangle over the edge. "I know you, Namjoon. Just ignore them. They will forget about it eventually."

"I don't want them to forget, though," Namjoon muttered, drawing his legs against his chest. "Why are we forced to live like royals? Why can't the people understand that we are humans, too? That we have our own desires and dreams? I don't want to be trapped on a throne for the rest of my life. I want to study under the House of Hussan. I want to attend Hassana."

If Aeri had sympathy, her face showed it, but her words did not. "It is our duty as royals to protect our people."

"I am not even the first heir to the throne."

"Still, you have responsibilities—"

"Just because I have responsibilities doesn't mean I should be an object of scorn!" Namjoon retorted, his frustration running wild. "They disdain us, always speak ill of us, and expect us to be infallible. If you heard them all day, you would feel the same. Look at what is happening to Father. He rarely leaves his chambers and takes his meals in bed. You will never understand the burden we bear."

He didn't realize he had been crying until Aeri cupped his cheek and brushed a tear away. "You are correct," Aeri whispered. "I won't understand what hearing thoughts other than your own feels like. But I do understand why you are upset and think it is for the best that you silence the voices. Now."

He held onto them a little longer—the joy of a little girl who had just received a flower from a florist, the content of an elderly lady bathing in the sunlight as she observed the world from her porch, the excitement of a student who had just discovered a groundbreaking revelation—before tuning them out until they were nothing but a buzz that fizzled into silence.

"There," Aeri said, smiling. "Isn't that better?"

She pulled him closer for a hug, but before she could wrap her arms around him, Namjoon instinctively jolted. Without realizing it, he yanked himself away. Something about touching Aeri felt wrong. He didn't know why, but something deep in his gut coiled in fear while something plain on Aeri's face crumbled into sorrow.

"What's wrong, Namjoon? Did I hurt you?"

What's wrong, Namjoon?

There was pain. In his head. Behind his eyes. A sting. An ache. Groaning, Namjoon clutched his throbbing head. The voices—the thoughts—returned in a rushing torrent, tearing down the walls he secured them in and flooding his mind. The veins in his neck were corded. Trying to stand in vain, he sank to his knees.

Your sister is here. Aeri is here.

Namjoon gasped, digging his nails into his scalp and tearing the strands of his hair from their roots. Aeri shook his shoulder and said words he could not hear, her movements slow and sluggish. The world began to tilt, and Namjoon realized he was falling over the wall's edge and straight toward the ground twenty feet below. Though he was deaf to Aeri's screams, he was sensitive to the shrieks from the voices.

All your fault, all your fault, all your fault, all your—

Namjoon woke up with a start in his bed, his night clothes sticking to his sweat-slicked skin. It was night, and it was dark. Darker than usual. Thunder boomed outside, painting the sky in a ghastly coat of white and overwhelming the sound of splattering rain. The gold embroidered curtains flapped harshly against the rails holding them in place, twisting into knots as stray raindrops puddled on the marbled floor. Along the walls, the scented candles fluttered in their sconces, surprisingly remaining lit despite the tempest.

Namjoon couldn't remember where he was—when he was. There was just silence and the cacophony of confusion thrumming in his head, similar to the voices but more incoherent. Shockingly, the voices were hushed—dead.

Something was terribly wrong. Namjoon could feel it in the storm, the air, his quiet heart. Although he did not know why, anticipation whirred in his veins, preparing him for the inevitable—for something he felt he should know. Suddenly, his door slammed open, and all the candles died at once.

"Your Highness!" a servant cried, tears streaming down her wet cheeks. "His Majesty has fallen ill."

Namjoon didn't move despite the servant's urges. Again, he felt it—anticipation. Something about the scene was familiar, but he couldn't quite grasp it as he rushed out of his chambers and into the halls. He passed family portraits of his life from a child to an older boy, vases housing plants from different regions of Kartas, and marble statues of the gods Phuella and Raliquin, until he veered into the royal hall, bumping into the servants crowded outside.

"Out of my way!" he ordered, pushing and shoving until he entered the royal chamber and beheld his sleeping father on his bed. No, not sleeping. Not sleeping. Sobs filled the air, startling Namjoon to take a shaky step forward. "Father?" he whispered, his voice shattering when Aeri and his mother wept louder, falling to their knees beside the bed. "What is wrong?"

All your fault.

Namjoon's neck twitched. His ears began to ring.

All your fault.

Whining, he stumbled, holding his head in one hand. No one seemed to notice his pain. "Quiet," he said, clenching his teeth. The sobs and wails did not stop. His pounding head did not stop. The damn voices did not stop.

This is all your fault.

"Quiet!" Namjoon yelled, raising his head in defiance, but he was suddenly facing Aeri. The royal chamber had vanished.

Namjoon was panting, a cloak hugging his body, his skin buffeted by the hail. They were hiking on a path along the edge of the Rendryn Mountains, standing near the bottomless chasm beside them, fighting to stay upright as the stormy winds tugged on their billowing cloaks. Again, the scene was familiar, but he could not remember it. His anger and pain, however, were emotions he remembered well. Very well.

"Quiet!" he repeated, though he felt more than understood why. "You don't know how much I have suffered—how much I have longed for this moment. There is nothing for me back at Catrinia but agony and torture."

There were tears in his eyes, but the cold froze them. He wasn't accustomed to such weather—living in a desert hadn't prepared him for the relentless snowstorm—but the burning fire in his heart warmed him from the inside.

"There is nothing for you out there, either, Namjoon," Aeri reasoned, slowly reaching for him as if he were a frightened animal ready to bolt. "Let's think rationally and talk back at the castle."

"No." Namjoon shook his head as he bit back a broken sob. "There is no end to it. I hear them all the time, even at Father's funeral. Deserved, they said. Finally, they said. He never did anything for us, they said. They even knew I was listening! They knew and didn't care! They killed Father, not his sickness. They pushed him to Lexitem."

"I understand—"

"No! No, you don't! You can't feel how they rip your mind apart, strip away at it until you don't know when your thoughts end and theirs begin. I don't know if they hate me or if I hate myself. I don't know if they want me to die or if I—" Namjoon inhaled a shuddering breath and turned. He couldn't bring himself to face Aeri's grief. "They believe we should follow Rem's steps and change our ways, yet they ignore the corruption bound to arise. They want us dead because of their idealist dreams. I am just leaving before they dare assassinate us in an insurrection."

Aeri's face twisted in desperation, but ever the elder sister, her voice did not waver in the slightest. "Namjoon, please. I know you can silence them. You have to learn how to disregard it."

All your fault.

"There is no end to this cycle." Namjoon stepped back and gazed out into the distance beyond the gray storm—at the dim firelights of the castle burning like tiny fireflies in a hurricane. "I can't go back."

"You have to," Aeri said, approaching him and stopping when he flinched. "Everything will be fine. Mother and the servants and your instructors can help you. You just have to let them."

"There is no helping me," he mumbled, his body slack, beaten, tired. "I"—I miss Father—"want to leave. I don't belong here. You have a throne to inherit, but I have nothing."

"You have me." When Namjoon stared blankly at her, Aeri paused. "You have me," she repeated. "Right?"

"I don't know," Namjoon replied, horrified by how honest it was. "I don't know if they or I resent you."

Even the howling winds and battering hail could not break the stunned silence that stretched on and on like the boundless white ocean between them. Namjoon was becoming listless. His eyelids were weights, and his limbs were lead. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to forget this had ever happened. He wanted to wake up from this vile nightmare.

This is no nightmare.

Swallowing, he turned on his heels, walked away, and ignored Aeri's protests.

"Namjoon!"

There is nothing for me back at Catrinia, he reminded himself. There is only death and the blight we call our people.

"Namjoon, we can fix this together!"

Lies. She only speaks in lies.

"Stop this! This isn't you!"

Namjoon fought against the storm, pushing onward like a bull dragging a wagon, his despair replenishing his depleted strength. The world smeared into gray around him, the hail cocooning him from the view of Catrinia and his sister. Nothing Aeri could say would sway him.

"Namjoon, please! Don't leave!"

He did not stop.

"I'm begging you!"

He would not stop.

"Don't leave me!"

He could not stop.

"Wake up!"

But for some reason, those words gave him pause. For some reason, those words felt like cold water rushing through the fatigue clogging his thoughts. It was Aeri who had said them, yes. But it didn't sound like her, as if it were from an Aeri of a different time, a different world.

This was not how this scene had played out before.

What am I doing? Namjoon thought, rapidly blinking as if he were finally taking in his surroundings.

"Wake up!"

He whipped around and covered his face with an arm as a barrage of ice and snow attacked him. The storm was growing faster, stronger, harder—puncturing his skin like tiny needles. "Aeri!?" Namjoon screamed, growing increasingly aware of how horribly wrong the situation felt. "What is happening? Where are we?"

"Just wake up!"

"How!?" Namjoon turned, following the direction of Aeri's voice, but the path behind him was empty. "Aeri!?" he screamed into the nothingness, bracing himself as the storm threatened to throw him over the cliff. The ground beneath his feet rumbled, the mountain itself grumbling its dissent. Aeri was nowhere near, but her voice continued to travel through the howls of the wind.

"Wake up! Please, wake up!"

What the hell is happening? Namjoon thought, searching for his sister, his previous anger and fear gone.

"Aeri!?" he shouted, but it was muted by the raging storm. As he forced his legs through the piled snow, his cloak's metal clasp finally relented to the hail's indomitable onslaught, sending his cloak flying into the gray streaks that were now the extent of his world. Taking another step forward and holding in his pained screeches as the ice scarred his bare arms, he tried probing his mind for answers to no avail. All he could do was scream the name on his tongue without knowing what would happen—what he would see—once he found her.

"Aeri!?"

There was no response.

"Aeri!? Where are you? Where are we? What is happening?"

Questions with no answers. The more Namjoon asked, the more popped into his head like flames when a torch was dropped into an oil-covered room. A ginormous fire consumed his mind, lighting every dark corner and secret, but even that could not pinpoint the answer to what was happening.

Fear was an inferno snake twisting in his blood, and reality was the shards of ice piercing his skin. Everything felt unreal—hyper-real, a parody of his life reserved for a stage, except he was an actor and the stage his cursed mind. But he could surmount it. He had many times before. All he had to do was shut the voices out.

All he had to do was find his sister.

"Aeri!" Namjoon called until he was breathless, until his lungs were empty and he had to heave in air to stay upright. "Aeri! Aer—"

He fell face-first into the snow. Something had wrapped around his ankle, tugging him back into the white mounds of ice. He coughed as he spat out mouthfuls of snow, struggling to free himself from the thing holding onto him like a vice. His entire body was on fire, freezing to temperatures even dangerous for an elemental. Chaos was everywhere—around him, within him. He was suffering. He was living. He was dying.

He was suddenly still.

The thing had let him go.

More than ever, his limbs felt too heavy to raise, to even move. He was so cold the ice felt like a welcoming blanket embracing him and warming him into numbness. He was beginning to forget what he was doing. All he wanted to do was sleep—only a little bit. A catnap. That was what he needed. Then, he could. . . continue whatever he was doing.

"Wake up!"

His sister's voice was so far away.

"Namjoon!"

His soul felt detached from his body, conscious but barely—enough to hear and feel but not move or respond. Like a semi-dream. Like a hallucination.

Something under him squirmed.

Namjoon opened his eyes, only to see white and white and more white—crystal white. Something uneven and rough was beneath him, almost like a boulder. Groaning, he pushed himself onto his hands and knees.

All your fault.

Namjoon didn't even have the strength to wince. He brushed away the snow around him, searching for what lay hidden as if compelled by a greater force—a god. His mind was pleasantly fuzzy, and though his body was frozen, he felt more than alive. Anticipation was the fuel driving him forward—his flesh, mind, and soul.

Thoughtlessly, he dug through the snow until he uncovered a woolen glove. Paralyzed by dawning fear, he stopped moving.

All your fault.

A rush of memories. A tortured gasp.

All your fault.

Namjoon retched at the sight of an unnaturally blue hand sticking out of the fluffy white snow.

All your fault.

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't—

The hand curled into a fist—

All your—

And grabbed his woolen tunic, tugging him down as another body rose to meet him face to face. His sister's dead, hollow eyes stared into him, the green subjected to a harrowing shade of light blue. Her once-lush lips were thin and chapped, and her body was nothing but a mangled set of limbs pretending to be alive.

All your fault, the voices screeched, and they were right. Always were.

Aeri's jaw cracked and popped as her mouth moved in tangent with her frost-bitten lips, struggling around the words refusing to leave her. All the while, Namjoon stared, horrified into silence.

"Wake up," Aeri whispered—so softly that Namjoon could mistake it for the gentle affirmations they had once shared as they ran through sandstone cities and basked under the scorching heat of the loving sun. Aeri cupped his cheek. "Namjoon, you're going to die. Wake up."

When Namjoon opened his eyes again, he was no longer surrounded by snow, cold, or confused. He was awake. And veiny roots were squeezing the life out of him, swallowing him deeper into the ground.

"Namjoon!" Aeri was standing outside the pit of roots, screaming at the top of her lungs. "Get out of there! You're going to die!"

That was when he truly woke up. Adrenaline pulsed through his blood as he yanked his arms free and tugged the roots off. First his face, then his neck and torso, and finally his legs. Panting through clenched teeth, he scrambled to free himself and cringed at the stickiness coating his skin—a slimy liquid as thick as honey and putrid as poison.

Tripping and flailing, he kicked his feet free and jumped out of the pool of tree roots. He came to a rolling stop a couple of feet away from Aeri. Releasing a breath of relief, Aeri fell to her knees and embraced Namjoon, who made sure not to touch her in return.

"What happened?" Namjoon asked, steadying himself. "Where are we?"

Pulling away, Aeri shook her head. "Everyone has lost their mind. The second you stepped into the forest, I told you something was wrong, but you ignored me. One moment, you were with the group, and the next, you were walking away as if in a trance."

Hazy fragments of memories surfaced, but each one was too effaced to make out. Namjoon couldn't remember anything. Above, the broad canopy stretched on for what seemed like forever. Not a single ounce of moonlight breached the thick barricade of leaves, and the tree trunks around him were so large that he would need five times his wingspan to wrap his arms around them. The forest floor was covered in a thin layer of soil and fallen foliage. And in inconspicuous corners, mushrooms glowed in various shades of yellow, complementing the fireflies floating like glittering dust around them.

The Forbidden Forest. He was in the Forbidden Forest. Looking down at his wrist, he focused on the dirt-stained bell still hanging on its tie.

"You said I walked away as if in a trance?"

Aeri nodded. "I tried to snap you out of it, but you wouldn't listen. You don't understand how worried I was when you walked into the Dire Roots. I thought you were as good as dead when you let them wrap around you." Furrowing her brow, she bit her bottom lip. "What happened to you? What did you see?"

"Memories," Namjoon replied, steeling himself as flashes of pain, tears, and grief raged through his mind. "The forest showed me memories, and I don't know why." Standing, he grunted at the strain in his muscles. Dire Roots. He was fortunate that only his muscles were slightly damaged. He was fortunate to even be in one piece. "Do you know what happened to the others?"

Aeri shook her head. "I lost them when I chased after you."

"Do you think they. . . ?" Namjoon trailed off, unable to imply the worst. From Aeri's silence, he knew the worst was what they were dealing with. "We need to find them before they get themselves killed." Shaking the bell, he tested if it still worked. A clarion ring echoed through the air. Good. This would do. "Thank you, Aeri. I owe you my life."

Aeri frowned and pursed her lips the way she would when she was withholding something she wanted to say. "Be careful."

Namjoon surveyed the forest—the dark paths, the dense brush bound to hold dangers only found in nightmares, and the ghost eyes of his people staring at him—and swallowed thickly. Clutching the bell in his hand, ignoring the protests from his body, and disregarding the eyes tracing his every move, he stepped forward.

"You know me," he said, not looking back. "I always am."