"A prince?!" Wooyoung exclaimed again after I had finished explaining, telling the others and the generals about what I knew, about what San had told me.
His crimson eyes were ablaze with fear and humiliation which made me furrow my brows in confusion.
"How come I always end up getting on the nerves of every royal in this kingdom?" he sighed, holding his head in his hands as he tugged at the strands of pink hair in frustration.
"Is this true?" Hongjoong asked, turning to Taeyong who was still standing quietly at the end of the table.
He looked uncomfortably back and forth between us before taking a step back and keeping his eyes trained on the floor
"I'm so, so, sorry," the man in black said, bowing deeply at me without even trying to make eye contact, knowing that mine would probably be overflowing with sadness and anger.
I slumped back in my chair, numb with shocks and a deep sense of dread that gnawed at the back of my head.
"This is so much bigger than we could have ever imagined," Seongwha breathed, looking just as shocked as I felt.
Yunho put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, though it didn't look like he was doing much better himself.
"Does that mean that Daios has been planning the end of the world for the last two centuries?" Jongho asked.
"Considering The Santua Prophecy, the fall of Kankara, and the storm that came out of nowhere, rolling over the hills and valleys of the entire kingdom, covering Avalon as it just kept growing in size and strength?"
I already knew the answer to his question.
And so did everyone else, but they stayed quiet.
But the silence was telling enough.
The tent fell completely silent as realization dawned on us, and I cursed myself for being so naive as to think that I could have stopped the fates themselves with nothing more than courage and eight gemstones.
"He's like nothing I've ever seen before," Taeyong said, his voice suddenly quieter, timider than before.
"An unnatural mix of elements. The only one of his kind. The power he holds- it's divine, not something we can simply defeat. Elementals won't stand a chance against him."
"I hit him a couple of times, though," I mumbled, feeling the need to point it out despite the fact that it didn't change the situation.
"He let you, y/n," Taeyong breathed, and my heart sank even further as the words slipped past his lips.
"That's absurd!" Yunho and Jongho both exclaimed,d getting up from their chairs in frustration as they turned to the man in black with their strikingly blue eyes.
"This can't be the end," Jeongguk said.-
"There must be something, anything, that we can do. There has to be," Yunho said.
Taeyong shook his head and sighed heavily, "Only another divinity would be able to do that."
"Like a god?" Mingi asked, looking so desperate that, for a moment, I was almost convinced that he truly believed in the possibility of the words that had just slipped past his lips.
That he truly believed some higher power would step in and save us-
"No, you dumb bitch," Jongho mumbled, whacking him on the head as he rolled his eyes hopelessly.
"No," Taeyong said, "Someone like himself, with powers like his, like the prophecy predicted; something ancient and powerful."
"His storm is one of the three, an element no Avalonian is known to be born with. The second is the Ice of Aurora, and the third is the Fire of Abros; the three elements of The Santua Prophecy. Those to which the world will fall."
"The Fire of Ambros," Yeosang echoed, sounding as if he was deep in thought.
Another wave of silence washed over the red tent, and then suddenly, everyone's heads turned in my direction.
I felt my breath catch in my throat, shaking my head as I realized what they were implying.
I barely realized that I had begun laughing before I finally spoke up.
"But that's ridiculous," I said, my laugh dying down as dread once again found its place deep within me, "It can't be."
But the fifteen pairs of red, blue, brown, purple, black, golden, and green eyes were still focused intently on me as if they expected me to combust in a flame of blue fire any second.
"Guys, no," I said, more sternly this time.
"It's like the legend I told you about weeks ago," Mingi said, "And if San is a part of all of this, then it's obvious that you-"
"No," I said, repeating the same words over and over again as if it would change the situation for the better.
As if it would make all of this go away.
"Seongwha-" I said, turning to the darkness elemental next to me, my childhood friend, my oldest companion, in search of any kind of consolation or support.
But he immediately looked away, avoiding my eyes.
My heart sank at the sight.
He knew something I didn't.
I felt so overwhelmed that I was at a loss for words.
Everything had fallen so neatly into place.
The prophecy about the end of the world, about the fate of Avalon and its people, about the desire and hate that would bring it to its fall.
And the storm that would finish the job if the two opposing elements failed to do so, fire and ice destined to either defeat each other or fall to the powers of the heavens.
I pushed back my chair, unfazed by the screeching sound as it skittered back across the wooden floorboards.
"I need a moment," I breathed, running my hands through my hair as I made my way to the entrance of the tent.
"We'll take this as our cue to leave as well, then," Namjoon said, the generals following him out as they bid their goodbyes for the night, all of them sending me stunned and fearful looks on their way out.
"I'm-" Taeyong said, but his sentence was cut short as Yoongi yanked him along with him, mumbling something about Jeno, Jaemin, and Mark having had to suffer from overworking because of his actions.
The man in black stumbled after the general, trying his best to keep up before they all disappeared behind the red canvas that made up the tent.
I made a move to follow them, wanting to go back into the darkness of the night outside.
Wanting to go back to the peaceful loneliness of the forest that had been disrupted by the blonde earlier.
Wanting to be alone with my thought, with the storm of new information that was raging around inside my mind.
But as Yunho's hand grabbed my arm, I was forced to come to a halt, so close to the opening of the tent that I could practically smell the freedom that beckoned to me from the other side.
"y/n, please don't go," he said, his sad blue eyes begging me.
"I can't," I mumbled, shaking his hand off my arm as I left the group behind once again.
It had all become too much.
I couldn't even look them in the eye because of what happened to San.
What kind of leader lost one of her members only to escape unharmed from the battle where it all went wrong?
I wasn't a leader, I told myself, sniffling slightly when my thoughts were once again interrupted by the water elemental.
"y/n wait-!" Yunho called, following me out of the tent and into the cold darkness of the night outside.
I glanced back over my shoulder, my heart clenching at the sight of the steely determination in his ocean blue eyes.
"Tomorrow," he promised.
I nodded slightly, releasing a shaky breath I hadn't even realized that I had been holding.
That had been our plan yesterday as well, though.
'Tomorrow' had once held so much hope and determination only for everything so come crashing down on top of us.
"Tomorrow," I mumbled, laughing a little as the tears I had been holding back for so lung finally sprung to my eyes and began to roll down my cheeks, leaving a burning wet trail in their wake.
Tomorrow, again, I told myself, turning away from the red tent, from Yunho, and making my way back toward the forest.
I would keep fighting for every tomorrow from here on out.
We had to get San back no matter what.
I had to get him back no matter what.
I didn't get any sleep that night.
I wandered through the dark woods yet again, not knowing how much time had passed before I finally found an empty tent in the enormous camp, right by the edge of the dark forest.
It was alone, isolated, despite being surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of others just like it.
Glowing like a sea of red stars in the otherwise starless night.
I peeked my head through the opening, deeming it abandoned and perfect to serve as my hiding place for the moment.
I slumped onto a mattress on the floor, simply sitting upright for a while as I contemplated the storm of information that raged around inside my mind.
Trying to understand.
Trying to accept the fate that had been bestowed upon me.
"The Fire of Ambros," I whispered to myself, letting the name float into the silent air around me like a ghost, something unknown, something I had yet to discover the true meaning of.
Blue fire, I thought, scoffing at the thought of how flames like that would even look, contrasting everything that fire usually stood for.
I thought about Yunho's deep blue eyes, like sapphires, imagining the colour, analyzing it.
A blue hue like that symbolized integrity and power, while lighter tones were usually a sign of loyalty and peace.
"Peace," I mumbled, the word sounding foreign as it slipped past my lips.
"How ironic. If blue fire is anything but calm, then how exactly am I supposed to bring peace to the kingdom?"
Fire was one of the basic elements of the universe, along with earth, air, and water. Though later, the Avalonians found out that our world consisted of much more than that.
That was when nature, ice, darkness, and light, also stepped forward.
Fire could be comforting and bring life to even the darkest of places, yet it could also be dangerous and deadly, consuming everything in its path if not controlled.
It was a dangerous and destructive force.
It could be the means of an apocalypse.
But it could also be a source of life and prosperity, hence why my family had occupied the throne of Avalon ever since the beginning of time, since the first elementals stepped foot in the kingdom.
Flames could also punish, though, I reminded myself, remembering The Santua Prophecy once again.
Fire and Ice.
One representing desire and love, but also fury and destruction.
The other representing destruction and hatred, intolerance, and indifference.
But it was also the other way around.
I had come to realize that ice was misunderstood.
It did not symbolize hatred, but rather a form of beauty in its purest, untamed, and most raw form.
I held my hands out in front of me, humming a small melody to myself as I stared into the open palms of my hands.
Whether I wanted it or not, the prophecy had clearly foretold Daios' arrival and his plan to end the world as we knew it, to level the Kingdom of Avalon with the ground in order to establish his own domain.
That also meant that San would have a role to play in all of this, myself included.
The Fire of Ambros was a part of me, of who I was, of who I was destined to be.
"I just have to search a little harder to find it, then," I mumbled to myself, feeling a familiar tingling in my fingers as my hands began to heat up, summoning my inner fire.
But no matter how hard I tried, how long I stayed seated on that mattress alone in the tend, no matter how hard I concentrated, the flames were either yellow, orange, or red.
I felt a wave of disappointment wash over me.
And then one of jealousy as I thought about Daios and the way he was able to combine the elements in order to create his powers.
The flames flickered lazily back and forth as I stared into their golden glow, concentrating on the emotions I put into them.
The emotions that I let them feed on.
Red, red, red-
And then purple.
A/N:
If you enjoyed the story so far, please leave a vote on the little star in the corner. It would mean the world to me :)