Erza walked out of Grimveli City as the last light of day bled from the sky, the streets behind her fading into darkness while the city lights ahead began to flicker to life. The night had already claimed the horizon, painting everything in shades of deep purple and black, and the stars were beginning to appear one by one, distant witnesses to her passage.
She walked alone through the outskirts, her footsteps steady, her breath forming small clouds in the cold air, and on her dress—that beautiful white dress with golden flowering stripes that Yuuta had chosen with such care—the blood had dried to a deep, rust-colored crimson that seemed to absorb the moonlight rather than reflect it.
She kept walking.
People saw her as she passed through the outer districts. A group of teenagers leaving a convenience store froze mid-laugh when they caught sight of her, their eyes going wide, their drinks forgotten in their hands. An old woman pulling her shutters closed for the night let out a small gasp and crossed herself, muttering prayers under her breath. A young couple walking hand in hand stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, the man instinctively stepping in front of his partner, his face pale despite his bravado.
Some thought it was a costume. Some thought it was a prank, a publicity stunt, some kind of performance art for social media. Some thought it was a shoot for a movie, and looked around for cameras and lights. Some simply stared, their minds unable to process what their eyes were seeing, their feet rooted to the ground as she passed.
Erza ignored them all.
Her mind was elsewhere.
Her mind was on the basement. On the bodies. On the heart she had torn from a man's chest and found tasteless. On the drug lord who had crawled and begged and wet himself before she ended him. On the forty-five men who had died because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, serving the wrong master.
Why did I do that?
She bit her nail—a rare habit, one she had developed only since coming to this world, only since she had started living with that mortal. She caught herself doing it now, her teeth pressing into the quick, and tried to stop, but her hand wouldn't obey.
Why did I help him?
The question circled in her mind like a trapped bird, beating its wings against the walls of her consciousness. She did not involve herself in mortal affairs. She did not fight their battles. She did not spill their blood unless they crossed her directly. It was beneath her. It was not her way.
But the moment she saw Yuuta fall—the moment that man's foot connected with his side, sending him flying across the floor, sending Elena screaming, sending blood pouring from wounds that had only just begun to heal—something had broken inside her.
Not her control.
Something deeper.
Something she had not known existed until that moment.
Rage had boiled beneath her skin like molten metal. Her vision had gone red. Her hands had moved before her mind could catch up. And by the time she regained herself, the basement was already a slaughterhouse and she was standing in the middle of it, covered in blood, holding a heart that was still warm.
She had killed forty-five men.
For him.
For a mortal who would be dead in a year.
For a mortal who meant nothing.
She walked slower now, her heels clicking against the pavement in an irregular rhythm, her thoughts too loud to allow for her usual grace. Behind her, her footsteps left small red prints on the grey stone, the blood that had pooled in her heels leaking out with each step, marking her passage like a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to the horror she had left behind.
She did not fly.
She could have flown. Her wings ached to be free, to carry her above this city, above these thoughts, above the weight pressing down on her chest. But she walked instead, her feet carrying her forward without conscious direction, her mind too lost in its own labyrinth to command them otherwise.
Why did I save him?
She snapped herself out of her spiral, forcing her thoughts into order, forcing herself to find a reason that made sense.
Yes. I saved him because it is the law. Dragon prey belongs to the dragon who claims it. Whoever touches it must die. It is the way of my people. The law my family taught me. The law my elders drilled into me from the time I could understand words.
She nodded to herself, the logic settling into place, the justification taking root.
That is why I did it. Because he is my prey. Because I claimed him first. Because I have not yet decided his fate, and no one else has the right to take that from me.
The relief that flooded her was almost physical. She straightened her spine. Her steps became steadier. The red prints behind her no longer seemed like evidence of something she could not explain—they were simply the marks of a queen protecting what was hers.
Yes. That is all.
She turned her steps toward Luna City, which lay in the distance, its lights glittering like scattered jewels against the dark fabric of the night. It was farther than Grimveli—much farther—but she was not tired. She was never tired. Her wings unfurled from her back, silver scales catching the starlight, and she launched herself into the sky.
The city spread beneath her like a map, its streets laid out in neat grids, its buildings rising in clusters, its lights creating constellations that rivaled the stars above. From this height, she could not see the dirt, the poverty, the petty cruelties that humans inflicted on each other. She could only see the beauty—the way the lights reflected off the river, the way the bridges arched across the water like silver threads, the way the whole city seemed to breathe and pulse with life.
It was beautiful, she thought. For a mortal city.
She landed in front of Yuuta's apartment building at half past ten, her feet touching the pavement without a sound, her wings folding back against her shoulders.
She had told him she would be back in an hour.
It had been many hours.
Her heart began to beat faster.
She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the rhythm through her ribs, and frowned. What was this? Why was she—the Queen of Atlantis, the Dragon of the White Kingdom, the terror of a hundred battlefields—feeling nervous about returning to a cramped apartment that smelled of instant noodles and poverty?
She looked up at the third floor.
The light was on.
He had waited for her.
A small, satisfied smile curved her lips. She imagined him pacing the apartment, checking the window, wondering if she had finally abandoned him. She imagined the look on his face when she appeared in the doorway—shock, relief, and beneath it all, that pathetic, endearing hope that she was beginning to recognize in his eyes.
He probably thinks I left, she thought, her smile widening. He probably thinks he is free of me. He is probably dancing right now, celebrating his freedom.
She imagined the scene: Yuuta spinning around the tiny living room, laughing, singing, maybe even crying with relief. And then she would appear. And his face would fall. And he would look so disappointed, so devastated, so utterly crushed—
She would hit him on the head and say, "You idiot mortal. Did you think I would leave you?"
The thought made her laugh.
A real laugh.
Quiet, but real.
She found herself smiling as she climbed the stairs, her steps light, her mood lifting. He would be so surprised. So confused. So—
She reached the first floor landing.
A man was there.
Drunk, from the smell of him, slumped against the wall with a bottle in his hand. He looked up as she passed, his bleary eyes trying to focus on her face, her hair, her—
His eyes went wide.
The bottle slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His body pressed back against the wall as if trying to disappear into it, his face draining of color, his hands coming up as if to ward off a blow.
"M-M-Monster..." His voice was a whisper, a prayer, a curse. "Monster... MONSTER!"
He scrambled to his feet, knocking over a trash can in his haste, his legs tangling beneath him as he tried to run. He stumbled, fell, crawled, dragged himself toward the narrow corridor that led to his apartment, his screams echoing in the stairwell.
Erza looked down at herself.
At her dress.
At the blood that had dried to a dark, rust-red, stiff and crackling where it had pooled in the fabric's folds. At the stains that covered her from collar to hem, that had seeped through to her skin, that had dried on her hands and under her nails. At the red footprints she had left behind on the stairs, marking her passage like a trail of breadcrumbs.
She had ruined it.
The dress Yuuta bought her.
The first gift he had ever given her.
She looked at the blood on her hands, on her dress, on the stairs below her. She thought of him—of his face when she had appeared at the shopping center, of his voice when he called her "my queen," of his smile when she said she would return.
Her hand went to her chest.
Her heart was still beating fast, but now it was not warmth that filled her.
It was dread.
She touched the fabric, feeling the stiffness of dried blood, the weight of death still clinging to her. She had not thought about the dress when she killed them. She had not thought about anything except—
Him.
The kick.
The blood.
His face.
She had ruined it. The first gift she had ever received from anyone who expected nothing in return. The first thing that was truly hers in this world.
And she had ruined it.
Erza stood in the hallway, her hand pressed to her ruined dress, her chest tight, her breath shallow.
She did not know what to do.
She did not know what to feel.
Erza stood motionless between the second and third floors, her hand pressed flat against the cracked wall, her breathing shallow and uneven. The plaster beneath her palm was warm from the heat of her frustration, the deep indent of her fist still fresh, the dust still settling in the air around her. She should move. Should climb the last flight of stairs. Should open the door and walk inside and pretend that everything was normal.
But she could not.
Because he had told her, once, in the quiet dark of their apartment, that he was afraid of blood. That he had been afraid of it his whole life. And now she was covered in it—her dress, her hands, her face, her hair—all of it stained with the evidence of what she had done.
He will see me like this.
The thought rooted her to the spot.
He will be afraid.
She hit the wall again, harder this time, and the entire floor shuddered. A framed photograph fell from somewhere down the hall, glass shattering on the floor. A baby began to cry. A dog started barking.
"What is wrong with me?" The words came out low, ragged, torn from somewhere she did not know existed. "Why do I care what that human thinks? Why do I care if he is afraid? Why do I—"
She stopped.
Pressed her forehead against the cold plaster.
Let her breath come in slow, measured gasps until the shaking in her hands subsided.
It's not that I am afraid, she told herself. I am the Dragon Queen. I fear nothing. I am fear.
But she did not move.
Could not move.
Because something was wrong. Something had been wrong for weeks now, ever since that night she had appeared in his apartment and he had looked at her like she was not a monster. Like she was not something to run from. Like she was something worth protecting.
He must have cast a spell on me. The thought came suddenly, desperately, and she clung to it with both hands. Yes. That is the only explanation. Some human trick, something he did to make me care. To make me weak. To make me—
"Excuse me."
The voice was soft. Tentative. Barely more than a whisper carried on the stale air of the hallway.
Erza's head snapped toward the sound, her eyes narrowing, her body tensing.
A young woman stood in a doorway a few feet away, her apartment door open just enough for her to lean through. She was young—early twenties, perhaps, with dark hair that shifted to red at the tips, as if the color had been painted on and allowed to drip. Her face was pale, her eyes wide, her hand gripping the doorframe like she might need to pull herself back inside at any moment.
She was staring at Erza's dress.
At the blood.
At the evidence of violence still fresh on her skin.
And she was not running.
Erza studied her in silence, her eyes moving across the woman's face, cataloging every detail. The rapid pulse visible in her throat. The way her nostrils flared slightly as she breathed. The way her hands trembled on the doorframe—not with fear, Erza realized, but with something else. Something that looked almost like hunger.
The woman's lips parted. Her voice, when it came, was unsteady, but her eyes did not waver from the blood staining Erza's dress.
"Is that... is it real?"
Erza did not answer immediately. She let the silence stretch between them, let the weight of her presence fill the narrow hallway, watched the woman's face shift from curiosity to uncertainty to something that looked almost like recognition.
"You are not afraid," Erza said. It was not a question.
The woman swallowed. Her fingers tightened on the doorframe.
"I should be." Her voice was barely audible. "I know I should be. But I—" She stopped, her breath catching, her eyes dropping to the floor. "I've never been able to feel fear the way other people do. Not for things like this. Not for blood."
She looked up again, and there was something in her eyes that had not been there before—something raw, something desperate, something that had been locked away for a very long time.
"I've always wanted to know what it feels like," she whispered. "To be close to it. To touch it. I know that's wrong. I know there's something broken in me. But I can't stop wanting—"
She stopped herself, her face flushing, her hands dropping to her sides. She took a step back toward her door, toward the safety of her ordinary life, toward the pretense of being normal.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I shouldn't have—I didn't mean to—I'll just—"
"Wait."
The word stopped her mid-step.
Erza moved closer, her ruined dress trailing behind her, her heels silent on the worn carpet. The woman did not retreat. Did not look away. Her hands were shaking, but she held her ground, and that more than anything else told Erza what she needed to know.
"There is nothing broken in you," Erza said, her voice flat, matter-of-fact. "There are creatures in this world who are drawn to blood. Who need it. Who would die without it. You are not the first. You will not be the last."
The woman stared at her.
"I am not a creature," she said. "I'm just a girl who works at a bookstore and lives alone and pays her bills late and pretends to be normal every single day. I'm not—I'm nothing like—"
"You have been hiding," Erza interrupted, "from what you are. From what you want. You have spent your whole life pretending to be something you are not, and it has exhausted you."
The woman's face crumpled.
Her eyes filled with tears. Her lips pressed together to hold them back, but they fell anyway, sliding down her cheeks in tracks she had probably cried a hundred times before, alone, in the dark, where no one could see.
"You see it," she whispered. "You see it and you're not—you're not running away."
Erza did not answer.
She had seen this before, in the courts of her own world, in the faces of warriors who had been born with bloodlust in their veins and forced to hide it behind masks of civility. She had seen it in the eyes of assassins who wept after kills they could not stop wanting, in the faces of creatures who had been told their whole lives that they were monsters.
She had seen it in herself, once.
Long ago.
She looked down at her ruined dress, at the blood that had dried stiff on the fabric, at the gift Yuuta had given her, destroyed by her own hands. Then she looked back at the woman.
"I need this dress cleaned," she said. "The blood removed. The fabric restored. Can you do that?"
The woman wiped her face with the back of her hand, sniffling, trying to pull herself together. She looked at the dress—really looked at it—and for a moment, something flickered in her eyes. Not fear. Not disgust. Something almost like longing.
"I can try," she said. "I've always been good with stains. I don't know why. I just—" She shook her head. "I can try."
Erza studied her for a long moment. Then, slowly, she reached up and unclasped the brooch at her collar. The dress shifted, the weight of it suddenly heavier without the clasp holding it together.
She stepped out of it.
The fabric pooled at her feet like spilled wine, the bloodstains dark against the white, the violet embroidery barely visible beneath the red. She stood in the thin slip beneath, her arms bare, her shoulders bare, her skin pale in the dim light of the hallway. She picked up the dress and held it out.
The woman took it. Her hands were shaking, but she did not drop it. She held it against her chest, her fingers pressing into the fabric, her eyes fixed on the stains as if she were memorizing every one.
Erza crossed her arms over her chest. The slip she wore was thin, too thin for the cold of the hallway, too thin for the eyes of strangers, and the woman's borrowed clothes would not fit her properly—she was shorter, smaller, and whatever she brought would leave Erza's legs exposed, her collarbone bare, more of her uncovered than she would ever allow in front of anyone she did not trust.
But there was no other choice.
"I need clothes," she said. "Something to wear until you finish with the dress. Lend me something for now."
The woman nodded quickly, disappearing into her apartment and emerging moments later with a bundle of fabric in her arms. A sweater, dark blue, soft-looking. A pair of pants, black, too short for Erza's legs. She handed them over without a word, her eyes still fixed on the bloodied dress in her arms.
Erza pulled the sweater over her head. It was warm, at least, though the sleeves stopped well above her wrists. The pants were worse—they ended several inches above her ankles, leaving her calves bare, her legs exposed in a way that made her feel strangely vulnerable. She looked down at herself, at the borrowed clothes that did not fit, at the blood still drying on her hands and face, and felt something she could not name.
"My home is on the third floor," she said. "Apartment 305. Bring the dress there when it is clean."
"Yes, miss." The woman's voice was soft, almost reverent. She stepped back into her apartment, still holding the dress against her chest, and the door closed behind her with a soft click. The light beneath it flicked off.
Erza stood in the hallway for a long moment, alone in the silence, wearing clothes that did not fit, carrying the weight of everything she had done tonight. Then she turned and climbed the last flight of stairs.
The door to apartment 305 was familiar. Ordinary. A door she had walked through a dozen times without thinking, without hesitating, without feeling anything at all.
She stood before it now, her hand raised, her knuckles hovering inches from the wood.
She could hear them inside. Elena's voice, high and bright, asking questions about something. Yuuta's voice, lower, answering, laughing at something she had said. The normal sounds of a family going about their evening, unaware that the woman outside their door was covered in blood and wearing borrowed clothes that did not fit.
She lowered her hand.
Pressed it against her chest, over the heart that would not stop racing.
She did not understand this. Did not understand why her hands were shaking or why her breath was coming too fast or why she could not bring herself to knock on a door that had never felt like an obstacle before. She was the Dragon Queen. She had walked into palaces and temples and thrones without hesitation. She had faced armies and monsters and gods. She had killed forty-five men tonight and felt nothing.
But this door—
This door terrified her.