Chapter 189

“What…?”

“I said I want you alive! Not a handful of ashes!”

Elise spun around, stumbling down the stairs two at a time. The dragon’s aura had shifted—too sharply, too fast. She’d thought that if she handed over the Founder’s relics, she might anchor his attention to them, restrain him for even a moment. She had been wrong.

Andrei’s golden eyes had lost all focus, burning with a feverish light that felt like staring into a furnace.

I have to get out now!

The only way out of the tomb was the same as how she had entered: by offering royal blood to the barrier. Which meant that once she crossed that threshold, Sameshita would be trapped inside. The seal required the twin heirs’ blood to open from within—hers and Andrei’s together.

Yes, he was a dragon, capable of crushing mountains with his strength, but even madness had limits. He would never desecrate Gallian’s tomb. That much, she was sure of. If she could just leave—just get far enough—she would be safe.

But as she reached for the pendant at her throat, the red crystal glinting like a drop of frozen blood, Andrei’s face suddenly filled her vision.

Elise almost screamed.

“Our wager, remember?” he said.

Andrei’s body floated before her, suspended in midair like a ghost. His lips curled back, showing teeth, while his limbs hung limp, a puppet dangling from invisible strings.

The dragon was speaking through Andrei’s throat.

“You remember the promise, don’t you? You said if you died, I could cut you open and take the child myself. I’ve kept my end of the deal. Now it’s your turn.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs, so violently it hurt. Elise clutched the pendant with trembling fingers, glaring up at him. What did he mean to do?

“I’ll make it painless,” the dragon said gently, almost tenderly, as though offering mercy.

“You never believed you could survive the birth, did you? So let me help you. I’ll take the baby myself. It’ll be over quickly.”

His hand extended toward her belly. Instantly, the chains of her magical restraint flared to life, wrapping around him. But Sameshita only smiled, and with a lazy twist of his fingers, the bindings shattered like glass. Of course—they had been his own work. Breaking them was child’s play.

“I’ll heal you afterward,” he crooned. “Not a single scar. It will only hurt for a moment. Think of it as… cleansing what’s festering inside you.”

Elise went white. Ah. She had misjudged him completely.

He doesn’t mean to kill me and take the baby. He means to kill the baby—and keep me alive.

Terror turned to fury, searing away the numbness that had gripped her. Now she understood why Cherry had been trembling inside her, why every motion had felt like a cry. The unborn child had felt it—the dragon’s killing intent slicing straight toward them. What infant wouldn’t be terrified?

“Stay with me, Elizabeth,” the dragon whispered, voice gone soft, coaxing. His touch grazed her cheek—almost tender, almost loving.

“Yes… this is what love truly is. Not dust. Not words carved into stone.”

“…You’re utterly insane.”

Elise’s mouth twisted into a smile of pure contempt. The dragon tilted his head.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your love,” she said. “Your obsession. For all your power, for all your vaunted pride as the Light Dragon—you’re nothing but a coward.”

He wanted both twins, both halves of the soul he believed once belonged to his lost pupil. But that greed, that desperate hunger, could solve nothing. Neither his love nor his guilt could be redeemed through possession.

The twins were not reincarnations of the Founder. They had never been. That was only what the dragon wanted to believe—a fragile illusion to console his own ruin. Elise almost pitied him for it.

“Your love,” she said, her voice steady now, “is a pitiful thing. You run from the one you claim to love, too frightened to face his truth. Tell me—what are you so afraid of? That you’ll see what he truly felt for you?”

The dragon said nothing. His expression froze.

“Then keep running,” Elise whispered. “Run for eternity, if you must. Nothing will ever go the way you want it to.”

With that, she tore the pendant from her neck. The small crystal, no larger than a fingernail, throbbed with crimson light. Inside it, a single drop of Rezette’s blood churned like a restless tide, pulsing faster, harder. The coordinates embedded within the spell began to shift and flare.

She met the dragon’s eyes, her own blazing with defiance.

“Lay a finger on Andrei’s body,” she warned, “and you will never be forgiven by the Founder—even in death!”

The blood-crystal flared, sensing the invocation.

Andrei.

At the utterance of his name, light poured through the spell structure. A vast magic circle unfurled across the air, its radiant lines forming sigils the size of pillars. The brilliance was blinding.

Without hesitation, Elise leapt into it.

The once-still, sanctified air of the tomb ignited. Heat burst against her cheek.

A deafening roar—the collapse of stone, the crash of fire—tore through her skull. Elise flinched, instinctively clenching her eyes shut, but the flash behind her lids forced them open again.

She was no longer underground.

Riosa Castle.

Elise froze, disoriented.

Why… why here?

She’d expected the teleportation sigil to carry her to the allied encampment. Instead, it had brought her back to the ruins of Riosa—back to hell.

Is he here?

The castle had changed beyond recognition. What had once been stone and steel now dripped and flowed like molten lava. Walls sagged, blackened and half-melted. The very air quivered with heat.

The stench of smoke clawed at her throat. She coughed, choking—then felt a hand seize her from behind, dragging her out of the haze.

She fell forward into a broad, hard chest. Strong arms closed around her.

Tears sprang to her eyes the instant she recognized him.

“R-Rezette…”

Even surrounded by fire and ruin, she felt safe at last. She lifted her head weakly, searching his face.

Rezette’s eyes were bloodshot, the whites veined red from strain. His jaw trembled; his hand on her cheek was cold as death. He must have searched through the inferno for her, heedless of the flames. His cloak was charred black, his armor scorched beyond repair.

He drew her closer, fingers shaking as though verifying she was real. His breathing came ragged, shallow, as if he’d forgotten how to breathe.

Elise remembered how he had once asked her to speak more often, just so he could hear her voice. Gathering what strength she had left, she forced the words out.

“Sameshita… he said he would claim the price of our bargain. Right now.”

At her whisper, a strangled breath escaped above her head. Rezette’s whole body went taut.

“He might break free,” Elise continued faintly. “He might destroy the tomb and come after us again. We have to draw another teleportation circle before—”

She never finished. The air around them twisted, the very space rippling.

The remnants of her earlier teleport spell flared to life, lines of light racing across the ground.

A massive circle took shape before them, its inner rings filling with intricate runes.

The dragon was coming. She could feel it—a monstrous surge of magic bearing down on them.

The moment his golden eyes tore through the fabric of the spell, claws of pure force slashed toward them. The air screamed.

Then a blast—black, dense as meteoric iron—collided with the circle, detonating with a shattering crack.

The dragon, moments from crossing the threshold, was hurled backward into the collapsing portal.

Rezette thrust Elise behind him, his kick slicing through the disordered spellwork. The recoil shook the world. Light fractured, space bent; the impact left Elise stunned, ears ringing.

“Where do you think you’re going,” Rezette growled, voice low and broken, “you worthless vermin—”

The spell shattered like glass. A final echoing crack rippled outward as the dragon’s magic disintegrated into smoke.

What lingered in the air was Rezette’s power—vast, furious, barely leashed. It tore apart the remnants of Sameshita’s presence until nothing was left.

Elise stared up at him, dazed. His pupils were constricted, almost gone, the teal of his irises drowned in light.

We have to leave.

Her hands moved automatically, sketching the sigil anew. This time the magic that rose around them was gentler—soft, springlike, wrapping them in warmth. Rezette’s aura, not Sameshita’s.

Coordinates… we need coordinates…

The carrier falcon had already delivered the safe location to the outer provinces. The teleportation field stabilized beneath their feet, weaving itself like a net of light.

A third flash consumed the world. Elise shut her eyes tight.

***

For a while, there was nothing—no heat, no sound.

Then, slowly, she felt wind. Cool wind, brushing her cheek.

Elise opened her eyes. Her head rested against a chest rising and falling in heavy, uneven breaths.

“…Dear gods.”

Rezette’s voice cracked like something breaking. Realizing she was awake, he murmured a prayer that trembled on every syllable. His lips moved ceaselessly against her skin—forehead, cheeks, eyelids—as if reassuring himself she was real.

He was shaking. His body, once blazing with heat, was now ice-cold.

“Damn it,” he whispered hoarsely. “I thought—I thought I’d lost you.”

The sound was raw, almost animal. Elise pressed her face against his, fighting the pull of unconsciousness.

Sameshita hadn’t made it through the spell. He would have been dragged back to the tomb, trapped again behind its barriers. The fact that he hadn’t appeared yet proved it.

He wouldn’t destroy the Founder’s resting place. That left him only one thing to do—turn to the records Elise had unearthed and search for meaning there. Whatever he chose afterward was no longer her concern.

She lifted her head with effort. Far away, on the horizon, Riosa Castle burned. It glowed like a vast candle flame, golden and crimson against the dark.

How long ago had it been since she had burned her knights there, offered the barbarians as sacrifice? It felt like another lifetime. Elise couldn’t look away. The fire was beautiful. For a moment, she even forgot the pain twisting in her abdomen.

Then she remembered the date. Her lips parted.

“Today…” she murmured. “It’s my birthday.”

She smiled faintly, wistfully. “I wish I could have blown out candles with Andrei.”

The thought of leaving the child behind in the capital with the dragon stung her heart. But she had done everything she could.

I did my best. There was nothing more I could have done.

Her body relaxed, tension ebbing away at last. A small, broken laugh escaped her lips—half relief, half exhaustion.

Rezette tightened his hold on her, clutching her as though she were the last living thing in the world.

She trembled in his arms, laughter mingling with a sound like weeping.

He, on the other hand, was still lost somewhere between nightmare and waking. Only moments ago he had been in hell, surrounded by fire and ruin, certain she had vanished forever.

The fear still lived behind his eyes—black, endless, and burning.