“Your name is...”
Hearing Yu's voice, the princess held her breath and the entire Sky Palace froze. After a few seconds of silence, Yu was thrown out of the Sky Palace and woke up from the dream.
He threw up.
He expelled the salty sea water he had swallowed. The dark vomit that came out of Yu's mouth covered the sand of the beach and was swallowed up by the wave that washed ashore.
It embarrassed him, but he had peed himself. He could feel it, but at least his clothes were wet from the sea. That way it wouldn't be noticed that he had peed himself.
Every part of his body was covered with sand and mud. His head was itchy from the sand in his hair and the top of his hair was also muddy. Scratching his head with his muddy hands only made his hair dirtier.
He put his hands on the sand. Supported by his arms, he lifted his torso up, his lower back still touching the ground. This was as far as he could lift himself because he had difficulty controlling his legs.
Yu waited a moment and saved his strength. He strengthened his legs and was trying to stand up on his knees when a sudden wave hit him, knocking him to the sand. Yu's face was covered with sand that had turned to mud from the water.
“The woman in my dream...”
He looked for a clean place on his clothes to wipe his burning eyes, but there was none. He crawled towards the sea and dipped his hand in the water to clean his burning eyes.
“Rie...” His heart trembled as she pronounced the name. His eyes filled with tears.
He was not a person who attached meaning to his dreams, and he didn't have many dreams that he could attach meaning to. For Yu, dreams were a chance to be happy and when he had a dream he was happy and didn't think about it afterwards.
But in this world, dreams could mean something. After all, this was a fantastic universe, and it had properties that Yu could never have imagined.
“Was that a dream? I don't understand.”
His mind was not working properly, he was under the influence of the dream he had just had, and the emotions he had felt for the first time in the dream were now igniting his chest.
His breathing quickened, was a seizure coming? Tears fell from his eyes as his chest rose and fell rapidly. His heart was beating as fast as in his dream.
Another wave hit his body as he tried to straighten up, but this time it failed to knock him down. He lost his balance for a moment and landed on his elbow, but he didn't stick to the ground. The water washed away some of the sand from his body and muddied his hair some more.
“Rie, the Sky Palace, the tower, the bridge. How am I supposed to make sense of all this? Why did I have this dream in the first place? But... But it can't be a dream... I felt it.”
He bit his lip as a sharp cold stabbed his brain.
He looked up and looked at the lake. The lake was so big that from here it looked like a sea that seemed to go on forever.
“The dragon...”
He watched the sea silently for a while as the word swirled in his mind, and when he remembered what had happened...
“YURINE!”
When he remembered what had happened, lightning flashed in his mind. Where was the little girl with the cat ears? His eyes filled with more tears, his lips trembled and he looked out to sea, devastated. She was gone.
~HMMPH~
He felt hot breath hitting him. Not only did he feel it, but hot fumes surrounded his head and burned his eyes before dissipating.
The sound could not belong to a human being, even if a human being could make such a sound, he could not have such a burning breath.
He forgot to cry because of fear. When he swallowed, he felt the snot that should have come out of his nose running down his throat.
Yu slowly turned his head.
The Jade Dragon and Yu were alone together under the blue sky, above Jade Island.
“Y-you...”
The dragon opened its mouth and its breath, smelling of cooked fish, washed over Yu's face.
His whole body trembling with fear, he couldn't control his bladder and pissed himself again. Fortunately, because of the fear, he had forgotten that there was such a thing as shame.
He was having trouble breathing. He lifted a hand to his chest, his heart was pounding.
“Is this how it's going to end?” he thought. “Am I going to die like I killed Leoral?”
He opened his mouth to breathe better, but the air entering his mouth filled his stomach as well as his lungs and Yu vomited once more.
The Jade Dragon was looking at Yu, showing all its teeth.
The Dragon's head was big enough to swallow Yu in one go. There was no getting rid of it, its saw-like front teeth would easily tear Yu's body apart, and the molars at the very back of its mouth would crush Yu like a press machine.
It was enough for Yu to die, if the dragon just moved forward a little with his head and covered his mouth. He couldn't escape, he couldn't be saved. There was no way out except to wait for a miracle.
The green scales shining in the morning sun were like plate armor covering the dragon's entire body. That's why the arrows shot at it were not even enough to tickle it. Yet the animal was not completely covered in scales, on the contrary, despite the scales, it was quite hairy. Yellow feathers stretched from the top of its head to its tail.
The dragon's four legs were short for its body, making it look like a lizard with wings, but the shortness of its legs did not overshadow its fearsomeness. The claws on the feet attached to its thick, muscular legs were sharp and large enough to tear Yu apart from head to toe.
The dragon's tail was much longer than its body and stretched out beside Yu. One blow from that tail could break his bones.
But without a doubt the most majestic part of the dragon was its wings. When he spread his four wings, wide enough to dwarf hundreds of people, all his majesty was revealed.
The most frightening part of the dragon was not its fire-breathing breath, its fangs, or its claws the size of Yu's torso.
The most terrifying part of the dragon was its golden eyes, staring angrily into Yu's face.
The dragon was angry. Angry that for the first time in centuries his peace had been disturbed.
Yu could feel nothing but fear. He could not reason and analyze the past or plan for the future.
All he could think about was that he was dying and he didn't want to die. Yu Valarfin was afraid to die. How could he accept it? Yu Valarfin was a coward and had always been afraid to die, he couldn't accept death.
He spoke as tears slipped between his lips and into his mouth.
“Y-Yurine... Yurine said you're smart. Do you understand me-me-me-me-me?!”
He called out to the dragon in a pitiful tone, as if begging for understanding, but his voice was so low and shaky that even he could hardly understand it.
When the dragon, which had waited until now for Yu to wake up, opened his mouth wide, Yu saw his little tongue and the darkness behind it. When his little tongue closed the way to his stomach and opened the way to his lungs, the darkness brightened and the light of the rising flame filled Yu's eyes. He could feel the heat.
“I BEG YOU! I HAVE A DAUGHTER!”
At this point he knew that praying to any god would not help him. He could not be proud or try to fight. He did the only thing he could do to live, he prostrated himself before the dragon to beg him.
“I NEED TO GET TO HER! I BEG YOU, TAKE ME TO HER! I'LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT!”
When he shouted for dragon to hear him, the sand from where he had buried his head filled his mouth. He was afraid that if he spat it out the dragon would take it as disrespect, so he tried to keep it in his mouth, but he vomited.
...
...
...
The warmth Yu felt disappeared in an instant. The dragon had closed its mouth, but Yu, not daring to lift his head from the sand, could not see it swallowing its flames.
For Yu, time had stopped and he knew he could die in a split second. His whole life flashed before his eyes as he lived that split second as if it were an eternity.
Thanks to a few photos of his parents holding him as a baby and his older sisters, he knew who his father was, whom he had never met.
He was friends with his friends only to be friends with them, he never enjoyed their company.
Until he came into this world, the only thing he loved was his older sisters. They were the only relatives he had, the only family he believed had the same blood.
“Sister!” The word he had shouted almost a year ago rang in his ears again.
He could still feel the warmth of the hand he had held at the moment of his death in his sandy hands.
And the other warmth he felt in his hand belonged to the child he considered his daughter.
Another warmth is in the hand of that woman who gives in his heart feelings he does not know the name of.
「My heart or your hand.」
A voice echoed in his mind.
Yu couldn't recognize the echoing voice and for a moment he thought it was Rie's words, but it wasn't her voice, it was his own.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
「Get my heart or give me your hand, only then will I grant your wish.」
His own voice echoed in his mind again. On the second echo he realized that the words had not just appeared in his mind.
He lifted his sand-covered face to look at the dragon, which was close enough to him that he could feel the breath coming out of its nose.
“T-talking... Is that you?”
No voice echoed in his mind. Yu could only stare at the dragon and try to understand; was his brain showing him a dream because he was dying, or was the dragon really communicating with him?
“Maybe it's all a dream...” he thought.
The fear in his heart was still there, but he had stopped trembling because of the surprise mixed with the fear. He just stared at the dragon.
“Maybe I'm already dead and everything is just an illusion that my brain shows me at the moment of death to make me forget the pain.”
If that was so, the love of his daughter, Yurine, never existed. The feeling he felt in the Sky Palace was not real either. Yu's brow furrowed and his lips trembled at the possibility that this reality might be fake.
「You're an interesting person.」 Yu's own voice echoed in his mind again.
Yu felt as if a chest of memories he wanted to keep hidden was being forced open, but something was stopping the claws from tearing it apart.
「You...」 What he heard in his mind was his own voice, but it was too frightening for Yu to clear his throat.
In fact, the sound did not come from anywhere, yet he felt as if he could hear it with his ears.
“You are talking...” He was sure of it now. Even though the voice he heard in his mind was his own, the words belonged to the dragon. “But what do you mean, heart, hand... I don't understand...”
Even though he was still afraid to speak, he had to make a deal with the dragon, otherwise he would not be able to leave this island and in the worst case scenario he would be killed by the dragon.
「I can take you to your daughter, but in return you will either bring me my heart or give me a hand.」
The dragon was telepathizing with Yu using Yu's voice. He could understand the dragon's seriousness as he heard his own voice very serious.
“Your heart? Don't you have a heart?”
A big creature like him had to have a big, strong heart to pump blood. Even giants had two big hearts to support their bodies. The dragon had to have at least one heart too, otherwise he would not be able to live.
“A metaphor?” Yu thought. He could not believe that his heart could be ripped out.
「It existed centuries ago,」 the dragon spoke again, blowing its angry breath on Yu's face. Yu's knees trembled when he felt its breath. 「But a witch picked it up and took it to the underworld. My heart is in the underworld under the Jade Lake, so as long as I stay close to it, I can live. If I move away from the Jade Lake, I will die because I have moved away from my heart as well.」
The dragon explained it simply, but Yu knew that the heart was an organ responsible for pumping blood throughout the body. Did the dragon live without blood circulation?
「I need my heart to leave this place of imprisonment and you need me to reach your daughter. Bring me my heart and I will take you to her.」 After the dragon made his offer, Yu didn't speak until he was fully on his feet.
“My daughter... Do you know who my daughter is? Does that mean she's still alive? Or are you trying to trick me?”
He immediately realized what a bad idea it was to call the dragon a liar, but it was too late and he averted his eyes, hoping he wouldn't be angry.
「Isn't that the white-haired sword fairy in your mind, the being you see as your child? If she is still alive, it means you are alive, so she knows you are alive, and if you are still alive, she is alive. That is the nature of sword fairies. She must have escaped on one of the surviving ships. I really felt the presence of someone with a higher mana level than others down there among the humans.」
Yu raised his eyebrows and made eye contact with the dragon again. The dragon's face moved a little closer to him and he closed one eye to better see the details of its face.
“What does that mean? She's alive just like I'm alive? I don't understand. Did you see her or not?”
「A dragon's eye is sharp, but I wasn't looking in her direction. Still, I could feel the mana even when I left. Ordinary creatures don't have that much mana.」
If Yurine was alive, it would reassure Yu, but seeing and feeling were two different things, so the dragon's words didn't reassure him.
「Why do you think she's dead? If she were dead, you'd-」
“I, what?”
The dragon opened the eye it was looking at him a little, then turned its face away and looked at him with both eyes.
「Human, did you make a deal without knowing the nature of sword fairies?」
When the dragon he thought was going to kill him looked surprised and curious, Yu felt the fear in his chest lessen. He swallowed and relaxed a little, his knees no longer trembling.
“I didn't make a deal, I don't know what a deal is, I just promised, I promised to love her, to take care of her, to fulfill her dream.”
The dragon now understood why Yu was scared and had trouble believing him, but Yu couldn't understand how the death of one of them could trigger the death of the other.
“Why did you say that if I'm alive, she's alive too?”
Yu was curious too. His fear faded as the dragon hid its aggressive aura and spoke. Perhaps this was a trick the dragon was playing to get Yu to accept its offer.
「If a sword fairy and a human make a deal, the human can turn the sword fairy into a weapon. This pact is for life and if the human dies, the sword fairy dies and if the sword fairy dies, the human dies. Both the human and the sword fairy protect their pact so as not to die. This is how pacts are made with sword fairies.」
But Yurine couldn't make a deal. If she could, she would have already made a deal with her mother and probably died with her in the Sigma Tower. With her death, Yu would have died too.
“So… The only proof that she's alive is that you felt it.”
Instead of saying his answer again, the dragon blew his hot breath through his nose. Yu assumed that meant yes.
“How can I bring your heart to you?”
「There is a passage to the underworld inside this island. You can enter the underworld through it. You'll feel it when you get close to my heart because of the deal we'll make.
“What's it like there?”
「I don't know.」
If he didn't have to, Yu felt that he could get a bigger reward for this mission than transportation. He would enter an unknown land and search for a lost heart.
It didn't take a genius to realize that it was dangerous and it was unclear how long the mission would last. For every day Yu was missing, Yurine would suffer.
And if Yu died, Yurine would suffer even more. She must think he's dead now.
“My hand, why do you want my hand?”
Before thinking more about the first option, he wanted to talk about the second. What could the dragon do with a hand?
「I like the warmth you feel in it. So far none of those who have tried to get my heart back have returned. That's why I'm giving you a second choice. You choose which hand to give me, if you give me one of the two, I can take you to where your daughter is, and if your daughter is far from Jade Lake, I'll leave you on land and come back. Then it's up to you. 」
The first hand Yu looked at was his left hand. Since he was right-handed, losing it would make his life more difficult than losing his left hand.
Of course he did not want to lose his left hand. If he lost his left hand, he would never be able to use spears and arrows or play the piano.
He didn't want to think about turning back time. If he read his mind and found out that he was going to turn back time, the dragon might think he had been tricked and vomit his anger.
But he couldn't stop thinking. He was like a child who cursed God when he was little. He tried to think of flowers, but he couldn't stop the thoughts from coming to his mind.
Giving his left hand was more acceptable than giving his right hand, and when they turned back time, he would also get his hand back.
“I can give my left hand,” he thought.
The thought of giving up a part of his body so easily brought a blank expression to his face. He didn't want to give up his hand, he didn't want to lose a part of his body.
But to reach his daughter, what did a hand matter? All fathers would have done it. Yu could do it too. He would give the Dragon a hand and then go to his daughter.
「Your choice... Hand, I guess.」
It was the option that would allow him to reach Yurine as soon as possible, with the least danger and the least casualties. If he gave his left hand, he could deal with the dragon.
「You should know that this choice cannot be undone.」
If he was saying this knowing that time would be turned back, then there could have been safeguards to prevent his agreement from being broken.
Maybe Yu magically dislocated his hand when he rewound time.
But he was supposed to be with Yurine right now.
Even if he would lose a hand forever, a hand meant nothing to Yurine.
Maybe if he waited, ships would come looking for him. Yurine would try to find him, but what if the ships were afraid of the dragon and didn't want to go out on the lake again? Then he would stay on the island until a ship passed by and spotted him.
Or the dragon would get angry when Yu rejected him and kill him.
Either way, Yurine would suffer. When he was not with Yurine, he feared for her life.
Sivina and the roarons could be with her, but Yu had to be with her. First and foremost, Yu had to make sure Yurine was safe.
“Yurine, if my daughter is near the Jade Lake, you will take me to where she is. Do I understand correctly?”
He did not want to be deceived and sign a deal that would not benefit him. He had to be sure of the terms of the agreement.
「I can't get far from the lake. So I'll drop you off near Vermia.」
“First of all, I want to land at the Vermilia camp that surrounds Vermia City. Yurine must have gone there. Secondly, let me talk about getting me down; you will land, you will spread your wing and I will come down safely, so you won't do anything like throw me over you.”
He did not want to fall several hundred meters into enemy territory. He had to ensure that the Dragon would land safely wherever he wanted instead of throwing him off.
「It will be as you say.」
“Well... How will you take my hand?”
「I'll bite. 」
The fingers of his left hand trembled when he heard the answer he had already guessed.
「And nothing will ever give that hand back to you.」
As much as he wanted to believe that turning back the time was out of the question, he didn't dare to weigh it now.
“What about blood loss or inflammation?”
「Don't worry. After I bite your hand, your hand will burn, the flames will hurt, but the veins will boil and you won't get sick because you lost your hand.」
The dragon's offer was generous to Yu who is the head of the army, even if he was not the one who ordered the attack. Yu believed he had found the miracle he was looking for.
“All these terms seem fair. One last thing... After you leave me, you will not harm my friends.”
「Accept」
The dragon exhaled through its nose again. The hot breath enveloped Yu's body and the moisture mixed with the sand on his skin.
“Let me get in the water first and get cleaned up.”
He turned his back on the dragon and went into the water. He cleaned himself so that all the sand would leave his body. Yu was washing his hair for the last time with his left hand while the dragon waited patiently for Yu.
“I didn't ask how I got here.” He was thinking in his own words now. “Did the dragon bring me? Why would he do such a thing? I don't know, I guess I won't ask.”
He was both curious and unwilling to receive the answer.
He came out of the water. He still had sand in his clothes and in his hair. The sand in his hair itched badly. Still, he was cleaner than before.
“I'm ready.”
He came in front of the dragon and rolled up his sleeve. He held out his trembling left hand to the dragon. He hesitated between looking at it and not looking at it. He didn't have the courage to look.
「I am known as the Jade Dragon. I demand your left hand to fulfill your wish.」
“My name is Yu Valarfin,” he said. “I am... I am nobody in this world. I offer you my left hand to fulfill my request.”
It was a real magical pact. There was a great pressure on Yu's soul, a part of him was bound to the dragon. Before he could turn his eyes away from his hand, he saw his left hand enter a warm and moist place.
The Jade Dragon's saw-like front teeth sank into his flesh above his wrist, tore through the bone, ripped Yu's hand off and swallowed it.
As the dragon exhaled its fiery breath through its snout, the tip of Yu's arm, which had been left without a hand, began to burn. Yu fell as screaming. He was crying more than he had ever cried, screaming more than he had ever screamed.
He stuck his arm in the sand to extinguish the flames in the severed area, but this only caused him more pain.
He couldn't stop the pain. He tried to bury his hand in the sand, but the sand would not extinguish the flames. Even though the flames didn't spread to the rest of his body, the pain was strong enough to tear Yu's mind apart.
After a minute of pain it occurred to him to put his arm in the water, but even if he threw himself in, the flames did not go out.
Although the fire did not burn his whole body, he felt the pain all over his body. His cells were dying, his sanity was suffering.
He realized for a moment that it must have been more painful than an ordinary burn.
The dragon's unquenchable flame forced Yu to roll around in the water and sand for minutes before finally extinguishing itself.
Although the flame on his arm had gone out, the pain in Yu's mind was still there. He sat trembling on the floor. The pain made him forget that he had even lost his hand.
「Come.」
The Jade Dragon spread his wing in front of the trembling Yu. At the dragon's command, Yu climbed onto its back using his wing and clung tightly to the dragon's back hair. Meanwhile, Yu felt something being ripped from his mind and soul. The dragon was doing something.
“I will reach out... I will touch it,” he thought. All he could think about was touching the star.
As Yu's mind continued to fragment and merge, the dragon flapped its wings at the same time and lifted off the ground. Yu was so glued to the dragon's back that he couldn't see the island they had just been on become a small dot.