Cold wind hit Kai's skin—yet it wasn't wind.
It was memory, raw and living.
The world formed around them in pieces—stone pillars, red banners soaked in dusk light, the scent of iron and dragonfire lingering like an old bruise. Ren inhaled sharply beside him, hand instinctively reaching for Kai's.
They stood inside a grand throne hall.
But the throne was empty.
And atop the ascending steps sat a young man in dark imperial robes—long black hair tied with a crimson cord, eyes sharp as a blade wet with stormlight.
Auren.
Not the abandoned prince.
Not the boy thrown into a cage.
But the Emperor he had become—cold, composed, terrifyingly beautiful.
His mere presence swallowed the entire room.
The air trembled—and a deep growl echoed from the shadows behind the pillars. A low, ancient vibration that rattled the bones of the hall.
A dragon.
No—him.
Zephyxion.
He stepped into the light, humanoid form sharp-edged and breathtaking—silver hair flowing like moonlit water, pupils thin and dangerous, power curled under his skin like coiled lightning. He was taller now, broader, unmistakably no longer the fragile hatchling who once curled at Auren's bedside.
Kai's heart ached.
Ren whispered beside him, voice shaking, "T-That's… him… That's me."
But they weren't themselves here.
They were only witnesses—trapped in the drifting lantern-light of memory.
The scene moved.
Zephyxion knelt before Auren, head bowed low.
And even without words, the atmosphere was already suffocating—charged, heavy, trembling between worship and hunger.
Auren rose slowly, each step echoing across the hall like a verdict.
His hand lifted Zephyxion's chin.
The dragon did not dare flinch.
Auren's voice was soft.
Too soft.
The kind of softness that came right before destruction.
"Raise your head."
Zephyxion obeyed.
Auren's eyes were unreadable, dark as a closed gate.
"You said yesterday," Auren murmured, "that once I became Emperor… you would leave."
Zephyxion's breath caught. A flicker of fear—no, resolve—passed through his silver irises.
"…Yes," he whispered.
Auren's fingers tightened slightly on his jaw.
"Why?"
Zephyxion swallowed. He never lied. Bound by blood. Bound by fate.
"…Because my thoughts toward you…"
He hesitated, voice cracking ever so slightly.
"…are no longer pure."
Auren's expression did not change.
But something sharp flickered behind those eyes.
Zephyxion continued, trembling now, "Master… I was born from your blood. My devotion is fixed. My life is yours. But my heart… my heart has started thinking things a servant should never think."
Silence.
Zephyxion lowered his gaze.
"I fear myself. I fear what I have become. When I kill for you, I do not feel guilt anymore. I only feel… closer to you."
Auren's breath hitched—so quiet even memory almost missed it.
Zephyxion whispered, "Let me leave, my lord. Before I lose myself more."
And there it was.
Forbidden truth between master and servant.
Between human and dragon.
Between destiny and desire.
Ren flinched beside Kai as if stabbed.
Kai's nails dug into his palm.
Auren exhaled slowly—neither anger nor softness.
Just a cold, decisive line of breath.
"…No."
Zephyxion froze.
Auren leaned closer, voice low and dangerous.
"Do you think you can leave me?"
Zephyxion's throat tightened.
"M-Master—"
"Stand."
Zephyxion stood. He was taller, stronger—yet his shoulders curved inward as if he were the smaller one.
Auren looked up at him, expression unreadable.
"Follow me."
He walked toward the inner corridor.
Zephyxion hesitated only half a heartbeat—then followed.
Kai and Ren were pulled along by the current of memory.
---
It was a private chamber—doors reinforced with thick spells, stone walls laced with binding runes. The moment Zephyxion entered, the lock clicked behind him.
Auren stood with his back facing him.
"You wish to leave," he said quietly. "So I will keep you somewhere you cannot."
Zephyxion's breath stuttered. "Auren—please—"
Auren turned.
One look was enough—Zephyxion immediately stepped back.
Auren approached slowly.
Each step rang like a chain around Zephyxion's heart.
"You are my dragon," Auren murmured. "My blade. My shadow. My sin."
He reached out, brushing Zephyxion's cheek with a touch too gentle.
"Where do you think you can go without me?"
Zephyxion squeezed his eyes shut.
"Please… don't say such things. I— I can't control how I feel anymore."
Auren's thumb traced his lower lip—slow, deliberate, possessive.
"That," he whispered, "is exactly why you cannot leave."
Zephyxion trembled, breath shivering against Auren's fingertips.
Auren's hand slid to the back of Zephyxion's neck, pulling him down until their foreheads touched.
Zephyxion choked softly.
"This bond doesn't allow love, my lord…" he whispered.
"And yet every time you call my name, I—"
Auren didn't let him finish.
Their lips almost touched—barely, painfully, deliberately not enough.
Auren's voice was low and cruelly tender.
"Then suffer for me."
Zephyxion's knees buckled.
The scene blurred—time folding, the days bleeding into nights, nights sinking into years.
Five years inside that sealed room.
---
Shadows shifted like seasons.
Some nights, Auren pressed Zephyxion against the wall, breath hot against his throat, voice trembling with possession.
"Look only at me."
Some nights, Zephyxion held Auren's shaking body, forced to soothe emotions Auren couldn't express to anyone else.
Some nights, Auren dragged him close by the wrist, foreheads pressed together, breaths tangled—almost kissing, never crossing the line.
Some nights, Zephyxion's voice broke as Auren whispered against his ear:
"You're mine. Mine. Don't ever think of leaving me."
Hands gripping, bodies pressed close, breath mingling—intimate but never shown, always implied, a punishment wrapped in longing.
Zephyxion's heart burned.
Auren's heartbeat trembled.
Walls stained with unspoken desire.
The world outside forgot the dragon existed.
But Auren never forgot him.
And every time Auren came to him—whether furious, trembling, or wounded—Zephyxion surrendered.
Because the bond commanded it.
Because his heart betrayed him.
Because he loved the man he could never touch fully.
Kai felt tears sliding down his cheeks.
Ren silently squeezed his hand, eyes wide with pain.
---
The corridor outside Auren's chamber was unusually quiet that evening. Court had ended early, ministers scattering like frightened insects after witnessing another execution carried out in his name. The palace torches flickered as he walked, casting long shadows that bent and twisted over the marble—shadows that always reminded him of him.
When Auren pushed open the door to his private chamber, the faintest scent of iron reached him first.
Then the world stopped.
Zephyxion was kneeling on the cold floor, head bowed, silver hair spilling like moonlight over trembling shoulders. And from his chest—exactly where the heart pulsed beneath skin too pale—Auren saw the familiar glint of steel.
The dagger he himself had given Zephyxion the day the dragon first took human form.
Auren felt his breath leave him.
"Zephyxion," he whispered, but the sound cracked apart like a broken blade.
A drop of blood fell. Another. Then another—slow, delicate, almost beautiful, like red petals falling from a dying flower.
Zephyxion lifted his head. His eyes—those dragon eyes, always too honest—softened when they met Auren's.
"This bond… master…" he said softly, voice thin and frayed. "It will never let me love you."
The words sliced deeper than any weapon.
Zephyxion's fingers tightened around the dagger's hilt.
"And you…" A whisper, soaked with sorrow. "…you will never understand love. Not in this life."
Auren took a step forward, but the dragon pushed the blade deeper with a quiet, resigned exhale.
Blood spilled from between his fingers, running down his arm in trembling lines. His shoulders shook, breath hitching—but he smiled. A small, fleeting thing. A final freedom.
"But before the bond takes the last of me… before I forget who I am… let me leave this world by my own choice."
Auren moved—too slow, too late.
The sound of a body collapsing echoed through the room, dull and final. Auren caught him before he hit the floor. Zephyxion's weight pressed against him, warm yet fading, head falling against Auren's collarbone.
His breath trembled once… twice… then steadied only enough to speak one last time.
"…Please…" His voice was a fragile thread. "…try to love yourself… Auren… my dear master..."
Silence.
Auren stared down at him. His arms tightened, but his face—nothing moved. No grief. No rage. A perfect mask carved from cold stone.
But then—
Auren felt it.
Inside his chest, something pulled taut—then tore.
The blood bond snapped.
Auren's fingers spasmed around Zephyxion's body. His throat opened in a raw, broken sound that tore out of him like an animal being ripped apart.
"Don't leave me."
His voice broke again.
"DON'T LEAVE ME!"
He pressed Zephyxion closer, as if proximity could force life back into him. As if his heartbeat could restart another's. As if the warmth leaking out of that body could be stopped by will alone.
The room blurred.
The air twisted. Wind thundered against the walls. Lantern flames bent backward. The ground beneath him shuddered.
Auren's vision split—light flashing like shards of memory ripping through darkness.
A temple drowning in moonlight.
A white-feathered gate.
A battlefield soaked with divine blood.
Harutsuki.
His past life surged up: the divine trial he failed, the sin that chased him, the forbidden bond he swore he would rewrite. And Seiryūen—his dragon, dying in his arms just as Zephyxion was now. The taste of desperation, the agony that drove him to storm the heavens themselves.
The memory swallowed him whole—
Then vanished.
Leaving only Auren on the floor, clutching a body that no longer breathed, the cold weight of a dead dragon prince settling into the hollow of his arms.
And somewhere beyond the memory crystal, Ren and Kai silently cried, feeling every fracture that scene carved through the soul.
---
The memory threw them out.
Kai gasped—Ren grabbed him before he fell, trembling violently.
Their tears fell at the same time.
Not loud.
Just quiet drops sliding onto their joined hands.
Neither spoke.
There was nothing to say.
Between them, the air was thick—almost sacred.
Auren's pain.
Zephyxion's longing.
Their forbidden bond.
Their desperate end.
All of it lived inside their hearts now.
Ren whispered first—barely audible.
"…So this is who we were."
Kai's breath shook.
"…And this is what we lost."
The room fell silent again.
Long, deep, aching.
Like the final heartbeat of a memory that never wanted to return.