A Lily of the Valley ~ Alchemy of Souls

-Chapter Sixteen-

Dark mountains rise against the sunset streaking across the sky. The scene is ominous, but strangely beautiful.

Seo Yul feels at peace here.

His fingertips reach out, groping nothing—and then find their way to the rough bark of a nearby tree. The lines in the bark are deep, worn and weathered. This tree has been old for a long time.

What is it? What is it that brings him to this forest? His dreams are of startling variety lately. It scared him? Why had he sent himself here in his sleep? In the sky, the moon suddenly rises. But it's different. It's cold, with a blue-ish tint.

It's the ice stone, he thought. Why was it here?

Behind him, a long scarlet thread shied away from the moon, as if it was afraid of it. It twisted around itself, trying to wrap around Yul.

He struggled against it, but it was too strong. It crushed the life out of him. And yet, as he stared at the distant moon and his vision darkened and blurred, he could not regret anything.

The thread around him was strangely comforting.

He would die loving his killer.

Yul did not wake up sweating, or thrashing. Although it had been disorienting to slowly die in his dream, he was not alarmed in the least. He had been expecting worse.

Could it be that his growing affection for Aera blinded him to the dangers of getting too close to her?

He heard her stir next to him. Of course she had slept next to him on the floor again. He was eager to learn about her talk with Jang Uk, but last night she had refused to say anything.

He looked over at her, alarmed to see that her face was stained with tears of the previous night. She quickly turned away, covering her face.

"Good morning. The maidservant will get your food—and I'll meet you out in the training area so we can talk."

"We're not talking," she said firmly, refusing to look into his eyes. "I'm not talking about anything. I could just leave, you know."

"And you'd be killed," Yul stated, grabbing her shoulder and turning her back around. He winced at the sudden rush of dull pain crushing his chest.

"Better me than—" she started, before shutting her mouth and ripping her shoulder from his grip.

"Then who? What did Jang Uk tell you, Aera?" Yul pleaded, stepping in front of her and blocking her path to the door. "Please just tell me and we can figure it out."

"We can't. We can't figure it out. We're both destined for death, Yul. We've been chosen by an unbreakable thread. And we may as well wait out the death sentence."

Yul stepped back, struck by the force of her words. Suddenly the room was stuffy. Her puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks stuck out like an ugly scar in his vision. He barely even registered the sound of the door slamming behind him.