Varen kept passing over sweet saliva until my mouth was starting to go numb.
A sudden worry flashed—that my body might pop {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} like an overfilled water balloon.
As a sign of surrender, I tapped Varen’s chest, then raised a hand to grab his hair.
He wouldn’t listen at all, so I tried to bite his tongue, but Varen clamped my jaw so firmly I couldn’t even close my mouth.
The obscene, sticky sound of tongues tangling rang clear. At a loss, I only stamped my feet.
“Hey!! You son of a biiitch!!!”
A thunderbolt of a voice shattered the quiet.
Varen and I both jerked, broke the kiss at the same time, and turned toward the scream.
“...Margon?”
The one-armed swordsman was charging, brandishing a tree club and thundering over the ground.
“Get away from Ceryl!!!”
Awkward as the situation was, my body—overcharged with life force—spun up its thinking gears fast.
Varen and Margon didn’t know of each other’s existence. Human and dragon—just that made them natural enemies.
And of all things, he’d walked in on me kissing Varen.
“Who is that human.”
Having his kiss interrupted clearly didn’t sit well with him; Varen’s voice brimmed with killing intent. His blue eyes even looked icy.
Two men colliding could only end one way.
I hurriedly stepped between them and lifted my palm toward Margon.
“Margon, stop! I’m fine!”
Kicking up dust, Margon skidded to a halt in front of me.
His left arm, holding the club, trembled as he panted.
“That man is doing something vile to you—!”
“Hey, it’s consensual. So calm down.”
“Consensual? What are you saying!”
Every time he shouted, his shoulder flinched like his dislocated clavicle hurt.
Judging by his reaction, there was a problem with the right clavicle. A splint would stabilize it, but he didn’t have a right arm to secure one.
“Ceryl!”
“Ow— you’re loud. I can hear you; stop screeching.”
I was thinking how to treat that.
Not getting my intent, Margon just kept yelling.
“Ceryl, draaaagon!”
A welcome voice called from behind him.
Kallen had just dismounted from Tymer and came flapping over. The instant I saw the bright smile of the girl, my heart settled.
“Kallen, you okay? Anywhere hurt?”
“Yes, I’m fine!”
Her glittering eyes bounced between me and Varen.
Come to think of it, if Margon saw, Kallen probably saw too. Not for minors.
“I was so worried. But seeing you two kissing, you both look fine!”
...Damn it. She was the one person I’d hoped wouldn’t see.
I averted my eyes, sheepish, and cleared my throat for no reason. I even rubbed my cheek with the back of my hand to cool the heat from blushing.
Watching that in disbelief, Margon all but screamed.
“Who is that half-naked human? Who is he to do something vile to you!”
I needed to correct him that he wasn’t human but a dragon.
But the words that followed stopped my mouth cold.
“Ceryl’s never even held a woman’s hand! What on earth did he do to this pure man!!”
I didn’t know anything about the original Ceryl.
Margon, who’d guarded Ceryl since childhood, had plenty of information.
There was a lot I wanted to ask. The first story, though, wasn’t welcome news.
Ceryl Aylos. Pretty face and still lifelong single, huh.
Well. In this world nobles didn’t trade on looks. Family and capability sealed marriages.
In that case, with Aylos a ruined house, he wouldn’t have sold well on the romance market either.
Mm. It was perfectly believable that at this age he’d never even held a woman’s hand.
I cupped my chin with one hand and nodded lightly.
“No wonder...”
But Kallen’s thin mutter snagged my ear.
I snapped my eyes open at her, and she shook her head.
“You really don’t understand a woman’s heart at all...”
“What?”
What is she even saying.
I frowned, and Kallen waved both hands with an awkward smile. The pity in her eyes left me with a strange feeling.
“It’s okay, Ceryl. So what if you don’t get a woman’s heart. The dragon is a man anyway.”
With my stiff head, I couldn’t parse a teenage girl’s line.
In the midst of that, Varen leaned in behind me and whispered.
“Ceryl, am I really your first?”
“......”
“I was going to hunt down every human you’ve kissed and kill them. Seems I don’t have to.”
A body packed full of a dragon’s life force shouldn’t hurt, but suddenly the nape of my neck felt tight.
I whipped around; Varen was looking down at me with a satisfied face.
“Both of you, cut the nonsense.”
I tried to put weight behind it, but judging by the mood, it didn’t really land.
I waved a hand to brush off the cloying stares stuck to me.
Then I faced Margon. He was still seething, unable to master his anger.
“Margon, let’s talk.”
There was a lot to ask him and a lot to answer.
Before that, I needed to check whether he bore the same curse as Leobin.
I was about to ask Varen to look at Margon’s state when Varen grabbed my hand first.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no.”
“You said you wouldn’t leave me. So why are you trying to talk to another male.”
Oh no. That was bad.
I’d said it to soothe him because he was so anxious, and it just laid a carpet for Varen’s separation anxiety.
I raised my palm again to halt Margon, who looked ready to lunge at Varen.
First I needed to persuade the stubborn dragon. So I lowered my voice to a whisper only he could hear behind me.
“Varen, you remember Leobin was with us, right? He guarded—”
But I stopped at a sudden, unfamiliar sensation.
To the eye, Varen looked no different from usual. Even so, something felt off.
“...Something’s wrong.”
I swept him again with confused eyes.
The face like it had been drawn by hand, the torso carved like a statue—everything was intact.
Then what was this feeling.
My gaze, tracing him bit by bit, landed on the hand gripping my wrist.
“Why are your hands so cold?”
Dragons ran hotter than humans. And Varen had suffered high fevers at all hours.
So a Varen whose body had gone cold felt alien.
I quickly lifted my free hand and pressed his forehead. Now that I looked, his already pale skin seemed blanched.
“What is this? You get fevers, but you’ve never been this cold.”
With busy hands, I checked his eyelids and the inside of his mouth. The places that flushed red with fever all had a bluish cast.
Without question, hypothermia signs. But I couldn’t place a cause.
Seeing my alarmed face, Varen caught my hand again.
“Ceryl, I’m fine.”
“Fine my ass—you’re in a bad state!”
“I really am fine. We just need to go to the Belzena Mountain Range.”
That reminded me of our final destination, which I’d briefly forgotten.
In the end, the Belzena Mountain Range. We’d stopped by the Eterna Nest to get to dragon habitat.
I nodded quickly. There was no reason—or leeway—to waste time.
“It’s not far to Belzena. But can you fly?”
I patted his shoulder with the intent of “we’re almost there, hang on.”
Varen nodded his pallid face. He opened his mouth to answer me.
“I can f—urk...”
But what came out of Varen’s mouth wasn’t words. It was thick, dark red blood.
“Kyahhh! Dragon!”
Kallen, watching from behind, let out a shrill cry and rushed over.
I, on the other hand, froze, unable to react at all.
It was Varen coughing blood, and yet it felt like my heart had been yanked out of my own mouth.
“Kh... I—I’m f—koff...”
With every word, blackish red fluid slid from Varen’s lips. He lifted a hand to stem the overflow, but it was nowhere near enough.
When he coughed, some unknown clot came up with it.
I stared, blank, at Varen turning into a blood-smeared mess in an instant. Everything I could see was scarlet, and my head went bone-white.
“C—Ceryl! What do we do! The dragon—”
Kallen fumbled through the herb bag. She yanked out a worn handkerchief and pressed it to Varen’s mouth.
The thin scrap did nothing. The moment it touched him, it soaked to the same color.
All of it felt unreal.
I’d been in this fantasy world for months, and still, the hardest thing to believe was Varen vomiting blood.
Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe it.
Slowly, my rebooted brain came back online.
“Varen, sit down slowly. Look at me.”
I caught his wobbling arms and eased him to the ground.
He sat with me and, as if lifting his lids was a struggle, raised his heavy eyelids to look at me.
He was the one living it; he’d be more frightened than me. I forced myself to act calm.
“From here, the Eterna Nest is closer. If we go back there, will you be okay?”
I spoke each word firmly and clear.
Varen’s eyes were losing focus. Still, some reason remained; he slowly shook his head.
He tried to say something, but clots kept jumping out and wouldn’t let him.
“You don’t have to answer. Then we need to go to the Belzena Mountain Range? Just move your head.”
Now even breathing seemed hard. With blood refluxing like that, of course breathing would be a labor.
Varen wrung out the last of his strength and lifted his head to me. Unlike his face gone chalk-white, the blue eyes shone brighter than ever.
