THREE DAYS AGO

Kai-Se frowned at the book lying open on the low desk he sat behind. Even if the text was written in Rangsen-sai, it was challenging to understand. Of course, his pounding headache and the weight of his sickness pressing down on him weren't exactly helping.

Today was another one of those times he didn't listen to Chi-Sae and insisted on stumbling towards the Butterfly Palace's library. He had sent some of the court ladies into the town outside the Imperial City in hopes of procuring a shamanic book but none of them had come back. It wasn't concerning, though.Shamanic books were, after all, a forbidden commodity.

So imagine his surprise when he unearthed one inside the archives. Granted, it took him a full hour and a cart-load of dust before succeeding in pulling it out from the pile. He had checked each of the spines of the books in that pile and none save for one got within an inch closer to shamanic principles.

A sense of doom hung around Kai-Se's head as he stared at the rigid lines forming the characters of the alphabet. He could tell which words they represent but he couldn't seem to connect the dots to what's happening to him. What's more, he felt like he could get discovered any time he flipped a page or disappeared into the library to check in on this book.

It was illegal. Shamanic magic was illegal.

So, what about the magic he had been doing for the past fourteen years? As much as Kai-Se was concerned, he was channeling magic from Shaoryeong through An-Ri. Wasn't that the same thing as shamanic magic? Was that why people had always been mesmerized whenever he told stories?

Kai-Se's gut twinged, but it's not from the hunger that's been plaguing him since morning. How long has it been since he last stepped out of the Imperial Palace's walls? He missed the hectic streets, the bright full moon on a cloudless night, and well...he missed most of his life before Dansarun. Before Nao-Zai. And certainly before this sickness.

Now, he couldn't be found a foot away from his room should he collapse out of fatigue and reveal his condition to everyone. He had been doing a good job hiding it for as long as he did, but wasn't it the poetess Cui-San who had said that no secrets would stay buried? Because sooner or later, he'd keel over and possibly die. No one would be able to deny by then that the dynasty was broken, that it was cursed.

That's why Kai-Se was out here. And he had to hurry.

He glanced down at the book he was reading again. Without knowing it, his eyes had wandered towards the wide windows once more. He frowned and squinted at the pages. They talked about Shaoryeong as a place of wonder and might, of power and wisdom. It's where inspiration and ambition came from. To create meant drawing power from the realm of the spirits. It was both heaven and the afterlife. The beginning and the end.

What kind of crap was that?

Shaoryeong was a realm of magic, that's to put it simply. The mortal realm, while void of energy that humans could manipulate, housed creatures born from the magic sustaining Shaoryeong. So...why couldn't all of them draw from the spirit realm? If they were all made from magic, why had the mortal realm stuck to its magic-independent ways?

Kai-Se skimmed the rest of the page, finding not a mention of how to channel magic. With a growing frustration in his gut, he slammed the book shut. The soft-leather cover plopped lifelessly against the rest of the pages. He had no time to waste in reading theories. He had to try it out. The problem? He wasn't sure how. The book didn't elaborate more on how shamans channel energy from Shaoryeong. All it told him was that interacting with magic from another realm was possible.

He stretched out his hands and closed his eyes, attempting to follow the instructions in the books. He had been doing that for the past week, at every moment he could—be it afternoons, midnights, or early mornings. As expected, he succeeded in feeling a faint spark on his fingertips which faded within a second.

There has to be a different approach, something he has never tried before. An itch at the back of his mind, which he had been ignoring for the past few days, flared again. Of course. Who else could tell him all about Shaoryeong other than the being from it?

Despite the sadness clawing at his heart, he recalled how it felt when he summoned his magic through An-Ri. When she first taught him how to use her magic, what did she say?

Feel the air around your head. His guardian's voice played like a broken harp in his head. Reach out and ride in its currents. Then, grab hold of it and draw it towards you.

And that's what Kai-Se did. The wind in his ears was a soft hum at first. The more he concentrated, the louder it became. When it was a roaring wave in his mind, he let himself get lost in it. As he remembered, he reached inside him, feeling for that warmth, for that superior control. Despite finding none, he lashed out, slamming his senses against the roaring wind.

A loud gasp flitted out of his lips, but even that was lost in the howling that greeted him. He felt himself slumping forward as his korza, the only energy keeping him alive, joined the fray of surging waves around him. He gritted his teeth and directed his korza against the flow. Draw it towards himself. That's what An-Ri told him. Reel it in. With a groan, he made his korza wrap around the raging energy in the air, muffling it to nothing but faint hissing. Then, with his mind, he pulled.

That's when the voices speared into his mind. Thousands, if not, millions of voices rose from the back of his head and crowded over his thoughts. Kai-Se felt himself whimpering, trying to raise his hands to slap himself back to reality, but as usual, his body refused to cooperate. How in the spirits' name was he supposed to stop this? The book didn't say that. Spirits, the book didn't even say half the things An-Ri did.

He dug his teeth against his lips, clenching his jaw to press it deeper. Harder. Pain exploded in his lower lip, snaking down to his chin. With a cough, he was thrown out of the magical loop of his own doing. The force threw him sideways, making him slide off the table and slump on the mat-covered floor.

His head was splitting in two. He could no longer tell if it was from hunger, sickness, or the fact that he had just come close to casting magic even without An-Ri's help. With a pained groan, he shifted his deadweight of a body so that he lay on his side. At least, he could still move his limbs. Maybe he could crawl all the way to his room. Not a lot of people were in the hallway, right?

Kai-Se's eyes widened. People. Oh, right. The Butterfly Palace was full of them. He turned his attention towards the exit to find it had blown open. The way he reeled in his korza with the natural magic along with it must have snuffed the lanterns' fire. What else had he done?

He was about to find out. He braced his hands on the rim of the table and used the last of his strength to haul himself into a sitting position. As he was about to straighten up, a drop of something thick and red splattered against the polished wood. A curse formed in Kai-Se's lips as his other hand flew to his face. Of course, a steady stream of blood poured out of his nostrils, making it harder to breathe.

With a quick swipe, he snatched the book from the table and dashed to the dusty pile. He left it in the same place he found it before striding out of the library, his hand still clamped against the lower half of his face. The cohort of green-robed court ladies tucked their hands to their stomachs and took the time to bow to him. He paid them no mind. His room was his only goal. Hurry.

He stormed through the corridors, his boots thumping against the wooden floorboards with heavy and frantic thuds. As soon as he rounded the last corner to his room, Chi-Sae's angry face rushed towards him.

"So this is how you'll play this game, Your Grace?" she demanded, seemingly not caring about the other court ladies behind him. "You send me away to some...menial task so you could sneak off on your own? Real mature, Your Grace. Real mature."

Kai-Se ducked his head at her—something a Crown Prince shouldn't do to a court lady, even if she had climbed to the highest rank among them—and pushed past her. He couldn't delay. Couldn't get held up by an angry court lady. He could already feel the cold rising from the base of his spine, climbing up to his arms and his heart.

His room. That's all that matters. Chi-Sae could reprimand him all she wanted as long as he was inside. By the time he slid the door to his room and shut it behind him, his vision was nothing but a haze of colorful blobs. His breaths had become labored, just inhaling caused a severe squeeze against his chest. It didn't seem to have any intention of letting go.

He stumbled to his bed and before Chi-Sae could scream at him, his sickness—the one who still had no name—claimed what's left of his consciousness. The last thing he remembered was the thought running through his head. He had just cast some sort of magic inside the Imperial Palace. It couldn't have ended well.

Just how foolish was Najizaki Kai-Se? A whole lot, it would seem.

PRESENT DAY

The fingers pressed against his neck, checking his pulse, were warm against Kai-Se's cold skin. Slow seconds ticked between him and Yu-Shang, the highest physician in the Outer Court. No one bothered to speak, not even Chi-Sae who stood beside his bed. She clasped her hands in front of her, a resolute frown painting her face. Kai-Se, not having enough strength to tell her to calm down, stayed plopped on the mattress, limp as a sack of flour.

How did it end up like this? Well, after he instructed Chi-Sae to get something from the kitchens, something he knew would take a long time, he went to the library, One thing led to another, with Kai-Se drawing magic from the natural magic—not Shaoryeong...maybe—and him running out of strength just as he made it back to his room. Then, he spent the next two days hunched over a porcelain vase, hurling his guts out.

Between the fevers and the fainting spells, it was enough to confine him to his bed for at least one day and a half. After that, Chi-Sae couldn't hold her worry back anymore and called for a physician. Imagine Kai-Se's surprise, then, when the highest physician came knocking. Kai-Se had explicitly told Chi-Sae to make up a story about a court lady collapsing through the heat. That's the only reason why he let her summon a doctor. So if a high-ranking physician was here, then...

"Did the Emperor send you?" Kai-Se asked. As expected, those few words drained him of what little energy he had left.

The physician, Yu-Shang, turned his oval head from Kai-Se's neck to his face. "No, Your Grace," he said. "I came on my own."

Kai-Se knitted his eyebrows. "Why?"

"I know everything that's happening with my physicians," Yu-Shang explained as he bent down to rummage his satchel of medicinal tools propped open at his feet. Kai-Se couldn't exactly see what he's retrieving. "They've been brewing a lot of strange concoctions lately. I assume you're the one responsible for that. Am I wrong?"

"What kind of concoctions?" Kai-Se stopped fighting the headache pounding in his temples and leaned his head against the soft pillow. His eyelids threatened to close but he wrenched them open. Tired. He was so tired.

Yu-Shang produced a bottle of what could only be some sort of medicine. He hummed in thought. "Pain killers, antiemetics, untested potions to stop internal bleeding, sleeping draughts, analgesics—of all kinds and forms, too, brews to ease fatigue and muscle pain, things to fight nightmares and hallucinations. You name it."

Kai-Se was glad he wasn't looking at the physician while he spouted all that. It showed how desperate he was. "With all these requests flooding in from the Butterfly Palace, I had to check," Yu-Shang was saying as he smeared a sweet-smelling treacle on Kai-Se's wrist. It calmed most of his thoughts but did nothing to make the pain in his body fade. "I like to think I've done the right thing."

Kai-Se frowned. So, that's all it took for this man to discover there's something wrong with the Crown Prince? For all his scheming with Chi-Sae, having her blame everything on the numerous court ladies as much as she could, all it took was one observant man and a little bit of time for it to come crashing down. Who's to say no one else has followed in Yu-Shang's route and already had him pinned down?

"You did, Sir," Chi-Sae stepped forward, bending her torso in a half-bow. "What have you found?"

Yu-Shang blew a breath. Judging from how heavy it was, the news wouldn't be good. "Keep monitoring him over the evening. If he worsens, call me," he said. Then, looking at Kai-Se, he ducked his head. "Forgive me for being the bearer of this news, Your Grace, but you don't have much time left."

Chi-Sae's face crumpled into a worried, furious, and confused expression rolled into one. "What's wrong with His Grace?" she demanded, turning the physician using his shoulder. "Why aren't you telling us?"

"Because I don't know as well, beunkairi," Yu-Shang answered, his tone sharpened to a chastising edge. The fact that he referred to Chi-Sae as an equivalent term of "little lady" meant he was somehow as despondent as her. "All I know is that his korza is strained and it's showing. Something...is preventing it from regenerating."

At that, Kai-Se knitted his eyebrows and pushed himself off the bed. All at once, his exhaustion, the tightness in his limbs, and his aching chest came crashing down. As he doubled over, trying to catch his erratic breath, he managed to spit out, "What do you know about the korza?" he rasped. "Isn't that part of the shamanic text?"

Instead of dropping to his knees and begging Kai-Se to have mercy on him, Yu-Shang simply chucked the bottle back into his satchel and leveled his gaze at him. "It's hard to not believe in the shamanic text considering we live in a world full of magic," he said. "It's everywhere, even if we can't often feel it. I've seen it in action multiple times and there's no denying that it exists. In the trees, the sky. In us. So, I trained myself to sense korza. It proved useful in my career as a physician. I mean, I'm here, aren't I?"

Kai-Se's jaw slacked. Someone inside his father's court was an outlaw? How could it be? "How did you manage to survive, in the Imperial Palace, no less?"

"Your father knew," Yu-Shang revealed, resulting in more shock to ripple in Kai-Se's system. "That's why he employed me in the first place. He believed that the spiritual was always to blame if we can't explain it in a physical sense anymore. I'm not the only one who still turns to the mystical from time to time."

"So...why was shamanic magic outlawed in the Empire?" Kai-Se asked. Every word he spoke brought more and more pain in his muscles and his head but he dared not let it stop him. Not now.

Yu-Shang frowned. "I am not one to converse in politics, but if I were to give my honest opinion, it's to stop people from playing around with forces they don't fully understand and suffering the consequences for it," he said. "Shamanic magic isn't inherently bad. It's overdoing it that's harmful."

"As in all things," Kai-Se sighed and turned to his side so that he faced the physician fully. "So if half the physician court believes in korza, do you believe in Shaoryeong too? Do you believe it's not just a thing of the myths?"

Yu-Shang bobbed his head. "I have to," he said. "You are the living proof of it."

Kai-Se frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Your korza has unmistakable traces of spirit magic," Yu-Shang said. "Is there a particular reason for that?"

Maybe that's An-Ri's remnant? Maybe it's because of his failed experiment the other day? He didn't know. He wasn't sure he would like to, either. Ignoring the physician's question, he asked, "Is my sickness connected to Shaoryeong?" His voice was nothing but a quiet and lazy drawl. He couldn't fight against his growing fatigue anymore. "Is that why I'm destined to die?"

As an answer, Yu-Shang grabbed his satchel and stood up. He ducked his head at Kai-Se and when he drew up, he said, "Shaoryeong reaps what is due, Your Grace." His tone couldn't have been more ominous than that. "I'll see you when you call. Rest assured, though, that this is safe with me. I still am loyal to the dynasty which you will someday rule."

Then, with that, the physician left, leaving Kai-Se with a silent Chi-Sae. Things were never going to end well when Chi-Sae was silent.

"Do you have to ask that?" she said after a few beats of quiet.

Kai-Se didn't bother trying to see where she was. "Ask what?"

"You're not going to die, Kai-Se," she insisted. It took him a moment to realize she didn't even bother calling him by that annoying title due him. "You're not."

Kai-Se blew a breath, a shaky one at that. He needed air. Some change of scenery. He couldn't be stuck in this stuffy room with a court lady in denial of his own fate. "I'm stepping out," he said.

Chi-Sae lunged forward, attempting to stop him. "You know you can't," she warned.

As an answer, Kai-Se shook his head and gently shoved Chi-Sae back. A brief flash in her eyes told him she just remembered her place. She was a court lady and he was to be the next Emperor of this empire. So, even if her expression were drowning with worry, she ducked her head and tucked her hands inside her sleeves as he left.

"It's not up to us to dictate when it's time to go," Kai-Se said once he was by the door to his room. Being stuck in bed with nothing to do but rest all day gave him enough strength to at least not collapse until he made it to a pavilion and back. "Remember that, Chi-Sae."

And then, he was walking. Past the manicured pathways and the landscaped gardens. He just walked and walked until he inadvertently slammed against a slab of spiky lamellar. "My apologies," he muttered out of habit. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

He sidestepped and was about to continue walking when a hand closed around his wrist and stopped him in his tracks. Anger blossomed in his gut. Who was this person who dared lay a hand on him—

"Kai-Se," came a familiar voice spearing through his thoughts. It swatted away what meager anger he had on his system.

When he raised his eyes from the hand on his wrist, tracing it up all the way to an arm, a shoulder, and finally to a face, he found himself staring directly at Paekdora Nao-Zai's eyes.