When I turned my head, two people were standing there, panting for breath.
“Aylos, are you awake?”
It was Kallen Rossein and Brinel.
With her—someone who had treated Ordin’s wounds alongside us—one dark corner of my memory lit up like a lamp. Ordin replaced the Leobin that had been filling my head.
I swung my legs—steady again by now—and got down from the bed.
“Where is Ordin?”
Please, let it not be too late.
I wished for it desperately, but Brinel’s face crumpled with grief. Avoiding my eyes with a lonely look, she forced out a single sentence.
“Ordin is waiting for you.”
***
With Brinel guiding me, I headed for Ordin’s bedroom. My impatience sped my steps down the corridor.
After passing through several ant-tunnel passages, I arrived to find Varen Dravergh waiting for me.
The moment I saw him, conflicting emotions crashed together. Relief loosened my chest, and at the same time anxiety set my heart pounding like a drum.
“Ceryl, are you all right?”
If Varen had been crying, I would have run to him and soothed him without thinking.
But he wore a desolate expression, like someone with no expectation and no hope left. Even then, he still asked if I was all right, and it made the bridge of my nose sting.
I walked to him slowly. Then I took one of his hands—hanging limp at his side—and clasped it in both of mine.
“What about you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Father is waiting for you.”
Varen spoke in a voice damp with tears, completely at odds with his face.
When I squeezed the hand I was holding, he looked at me and forced a smile.
“Ceryl... I should have believed you. I was careless.”
At those words, a hot breath leaked out from deep in my gut.
Varen blamed himself, and guilt choked me, too.
“...Who was it?”
“Kaldrok. The one who guarded Father at his side his entire life.”
A closest aide killing a king in the chaos of war—something that probably happens at least once in most history books.
I just hadn’t expected it to repeat even in dragon history.
My shoulders sagged as I bowed my head.
That day, I should have held on without losing consciousness, no matter what. I should have warned them—told them not to let any dragon approach Ordin.
In despair, I rubbed at my burning eyes with no restraint. The one whose father was dying was Varen, so I tried to endure, no matter what, so I wouldn’t cry in front of him.
But Varen noticed anyway and reached out. He lightly brushed my heated eyelids, then kissed my sweat-soaked forehead.
“Ceryl, it isn’t your fault. It was an inescapable fate.”
At his calm voice, I had to clench my teeth.
How much pain had Varen suffered alone until he could accept his father’s death with this kind of composure?
When I realized I had left Varen alone all this time while I was tormented by nightmares, my chest throbbed. I wanted to cling to him and say I was sorry, but looking at Varen forcing a smile, I couldn’t do that either.
I managed to lift the corners of my stiff mouth into something like a smile.
“Ordin is waiting for me?”
“Yes. He says he has many things he wants to ask you. I’ll stay outside, so go talk with him.”
As soon as Varen finished speaking, the heavy door slid open.
I gave Varen’s hand one last hard squeeze, then let go. And I forced my feet to move, even though they refused to part from him.
Leaving Varen outside the door, I stepped into Ordin’s room alone. It was broad and brilliant, fitting for the bedroom of the dragon king.
It was a space dazzling enough to steal my breath, but I went straight to the bed. Ordin lay there as if dead.
A soft white quilt covered his body. When I lifted it slightly, I saw Ordin’s left chest stained black.
A dense darkness was visible, piercing through Dravergh clothing and swallowing Ordin’s heart.
‘Ceryl, you’re awake now.’
Then Ordin’s voice echoed inside my head. His body was dying, but his mind must still have been intact—his voice was gentle and warm, no different from usual.
I gave a bitter smile and sat in the chair prepared beside the bed.
“Are you all right, Ordin?”
‘Mm. I can still hold on for now. Not for long, though.’
The playful tone made a hollow laugh burst out of me. I shook my head, but the laughter quickly died away.
Just as Varen had said, the future Dravergh saw did not change. Even if Ordin’s death was a fate that could not be avoided, there was still something I couldn’t understand.
“Ordin, couldn’t you read Kaldrok’s thoughts?”
‘No. I already knew.’
His light answer only made it harder to understand.
No matter how benevolent Ordin was as a king, why would he keep someone at his side who planned to kill him?
I stared at Ordin with confused eyes. His thin breathing sounded as if it might snap at any moment, and it kept tightening my chest.
“You knew, and yet why—.”
‘The human king took Kaldrok’s child. He said he’d return the child if Kaldrok succeeded in killing me, so there was nothing else to do.’
“...Ah.”
A low sigh slipped out of me.
Dragons were undeniably strong—so strong humans couldn’t be compared to them. And yet there was a reason humans could still pressure dragons.
Humans were cruel, and dragons were far too innocent.
‘If it meant getting the child back, I would have done anything, too.’
Ordin understood better than anyone the heart of a parent whose child had been taken by humans.
He had scoured the world for Varen, aching for twenty years.
For a moment, I thought of Kaldrok.
He had been a reliable dragon—quiet, huge, steady. I couldn’t begin to measure what kind of conflict and sorrow had lived inside his silence.
How could I blame a parent whose child was held hostage?
When I lost my words and closed my mouth, Ordin continued in a low voice.
‘Kaldrok struggled until the very end, choosing between me and his child. That alone proves his loyalty.’
“...But he chose his child in the end.”
‘Oh, you can’t blame Kaldrok. If there’s blame, it’s mine. I should have met the human king myself and negotiated.’
“You’ve met the human king before?”
‘I’ve never had dealings with the human king. That’s why I couldn’t move rashly. I had to be cautious. I couldn’t be sure whether he truly wanted my death.’
What the human king wanted from dragons.
With gloomy eyes, I flicked a glance at Ordin’s upper body. I couldn’t bring myself to face Dravergh’s heart, blackened and rotting away.
Ordin’s eyes were closed, but he seemed to sense my gaze.
‘You know what the human king wants, don’t you?’
“...Dravergh’s heart.”
‘Mm, I thought so. I wondered why he ordered Kaldrok to bring him my corpse. I was thinking, what would he do with a dead body?’
“.......”
‘Tsk, tsk. But he failed to obtain my corpse, so Kaldrok’s bargain has fallen through. What should we do about his child?’
At his excessive kindness, all I could do was shake my head. Then I took hold of Ordin’s hand as it cooled.
“Isn’t there any way to treat this? Belgard—”
‘I’ve already received enough of Belgard’s power. Stop bothering her.’
Of course. If Ordin had been attacked, Neira would never have stayed still.
The air around us sank with the weight in my chest. I rolled my eyes, searching for a method anyway.
The human king had told Kaldrok to bring Ordin’s corpse. Not a living body—he meant to obtain at least a dead heart.
If that was the case, then maybe....
‘Don’t think useless thoughts, Ceryl. We can’t bring Dravergh’s heart to the human king just to save my life.’
“.......”
‘If we’re going to offer it to humans, then perhaps the last loyalty Kaldrok showed was ensuring my heart would rot away.’
I bit down hard on my lip.
No matter how I turned it over in my head, I couldn’t find a way to save Ordin and still keep the dragon race safe from humans.
Humans and dragons.
With those two words filling my mind, I suddenly felt confused about the beings in this world.
Some humans commit slaughter easily [N O V E L I G H T] to gain power. And some humans devote their lives after death to protect their lord.
Some dragons betray their lord to save their child, and some dragons are betrayed—yet still blame their own foolishness.
Since coming to this world, it had been one overwhelming thing after another.
Maybe that was why even thinking about what was right, or whose fault it was, had become overwhelming.
‘Ceryl, since you’re human, answer on behalf of humans.’
Ordin, who had been speaking comfortably, fell silent for once.
I heard the sound of a dry swallow, and then a tense question followed.
‘Will humans return Kaldrok’s child?’
At that question, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Maybe I wanted to look away.
The king of this world—someone I had never even seen—was beyond common sense and trampled ethics. He was the kind of person who proved just how cruel humans could be.
So if I dared to guess as a fellow human, I couldn’t give an optimistic answer.
Even so, there was no need to hand despair to Ordin while he blamed himself. I delivered only a carefully selected truth.
“The child will be safe. Don’t worry too much.”
A dragon held hostage was a card even the human king would find too valuable to throw away. And Kaldrok was blinded—so desperate to save the child that he had even betrayed Ordin.
The human king might dangle bait Kaldrok could never abandon and use him again and again. At the very least, he wouldn’t kill the child for a while—so in that time, somehow....
‘He won’t release the child until Kaldrok’s usefulness runs out.’
