"The ravenous fire that crackled in your souls was one and the same, stoked by repressed fear and the overwhelming desire to survive in a world that only valued material power."
In their desperate battle to survive the harsh aristocracy, the desire...
Hyunjin stood before the small flames of the stone burner in his room. The leather-bound book was tightly clutched in his hands as he watched the blazes rise, swaying like dancers in a joyous ball. Their flickering light created eerie shadows that cackled against the bleakness of walls, taunting.
You told him to do with the book what he willed, and he was doing the best thing he could think of. Burn it. Lose it. Forget it.
It was the only way to kill the voices that reemerged after years of lurking mutely in his head. Voices which murmured and spoke and screamed at him to indulge in his magic. To disobey his mother. Unknowingly, you had incited them by giving him the book.
He had to destroy it before it destroyed him.
Hyunjin held the book over the fire, readying to drop it in as his hand shook unreasonably. He had burnt many things before, many magical blunders in the form of innocent flowers. This was no different. It shouldn't have been.
Yet, the voices in his head grew increasingly shrill when a rogue flame licked the edge of the book, darkening the leather slightly. All he had to do was let go, but his fingers were stiff.
Hyunjin wanted to fight them, peel them off one by one until the book dropped, but he couldn't. The heat on his skin was merciless, unbearable. Soon enough, gruesome blisters would mar the smooth surface.
He pulled his hand away with a hiss.
He couldn't do it.
He couldn't burn the book.
Like an ever-resonating bell, the voices in his head rejoiced, pounding against the desolate chamber of his thoughts. This was the closest he had ever been to his magic, and he had overestimated his strength to turn his back on it.
Eying the burnt corner of the book, Hyunjin tried to convince himself, if not tonight, then tomorrow.
Maybe then, the voices would quieten.
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