kingdom falling | gyuricky

thirty seven.

In any case, his complicated history with his weapon aside, he'd never really had the strongest grasp on the special technique. It was odd that all of a sudden he had it in him to use it twice, and for so long, without collapsing immediately after.

He heard the sound of footsteps on the paved stones of the courtyard outside his room, and he peeked out of the slightly-ajar door to see who it was.

"Ricky!" he called, stepping out once he recognized him. "Is everything okay? I..." He recalled suddenly that Ricky had told him not to come near, the last time they'd seen each other, and on second thought he stopped in his tracks, wondering if the sentiment still stood.

Ricky gave him a gentle smile. The blood had been washed out of his hair and he was wearing a clean set of robes; he looked so perfectly composed that Gyuvin wouldn't have known he'd just been in battle if he hadn't been there to see it for himself. "Everything's fine, please don't worry. I'm sorry for scaring you earlier. You shouldn't have seen that."

"What do you mean shouldn't have seen that?" Gyuvin asked, incredulous. "I thought you were going to die in front of me, you know. What did Yookyung-sunbae do for you to recover so fast?"

Ricky retreated to his spot under his willow tree and Gyuvin knew not to follow, choosing just to sit down in the doorway of his room. "He just gave me some medicine, and let me rest a while," Ricky answered. "He's familiar with my condition, so he knew what to do. Honestly, it wasn't the first time and it won't be the last, either."

"Won't be the last?" Gyuvin asked. "What is your condition, actually? I've never seen anyone bleed from their eyes before. That was terrifying..."

Ricky smiled, that smile Gyuvin knew he gave when he was trying to politely sidestep something. "It's rare, so I don't think anyone else in the cultivation world would have it. Either way, I think knowing about it would burden you more, and I don't want that."

"Not knowing how to keep you safe burdens me even more..." Gyuvin answered, a little sulkily, but he didn't intend push any further.

"I'm tough, you know?" Ricky said lightheartedly. "I don't need other people to worry about me."

"I know you are, Rank 2 Ricky Shen," Gyuvin retorted, laughing. He hadn't looked at the ranking board in a while since he didn't care at all about it, but that was the last placing he remembered.

"You're one to talk, Rank 1 Kim Gyuvin," Ricky returned. "I wonder if they ever found out what was suppressing everyone's spiritual power..."

Gyuvin recounted to Ricky the entire sequence of events, from Han Seungho pointing out to the Mushan Temple monks that he still had his spiritual power, to the destruction of the very last willow that had lifted the suppression array. Ricky listened intently without interrupting, his eyebrows furrowed with concern.

"So that willow that we found growing near our bamboo grove was part of the array?" he asked finally. "How long had it been growing there without anyone even paying attention to it?"

"On hindsight, it was weird that it grew so fast," Gyuvin said. "It only took a few weeks for it to grow from a sapling to a giant tree. We should have noticed something was off about that."

Ricky shook his head. "Why would we suspect anything? The Peak grounds are so heavily warded that we can't even pass through the gates without the entry tassel. The only two options are that either someone managed to break or bypass the wards, or it was someone from the Peak who set up the array in the first place."

"Speaking of broken wards," Gyuvin interjected. "The demons. The wards protecting the Peak must have been broken at some point before the siege began, because the demons wouldn't have been able to get in otherwise."