He did not say anything. He did not need to. He held it out to her, and his eyes were on her face, and his smile was the same smile he had worn when she laughed in his apartment, when she let him wash her hair, when she danced with him in a hall full of strangers.
She took the ring.
Her fingers closed around it. Her hand closed around his. She held his bleeding hand, his broken hand, his hand that had searched all night for something she had given up on finding. She held it, and she did not let go.
A tear slipped down her cheek. She did not try to stop it. She was the Dragon Queen, and she had not cried in centuries, but she was crying now, and she did not care who saw. He had searched all night. He had bled into the grass. He had destroyed himself for a piece of jewelry he did not understand, for a ring she had not even told him the meaning of, and now he was standing in front of her, smiling, holding it out like it was nothing.
He reached up with his free hand and wiped the tear from her cheek with his thumb. His hand was rough, torn, stained with dirt and blood, but his touch was gentle.
"Didn't I say I would find it for you?" he said.
"Stupid," she whispered. More tears fell. She could not stop them. She did not want to stop them.
She took his hand in both of hers and closed her eyes. The healing spell came easily, naturally, the way it always did when she was not thinking, when she was not holding back, when she was not afraid of what it meant to give him something he had not asked for. Her magic flowed into him, warm and bright, and she felt his wounds close, his strength return, his body repair itself under her hands.
His fingers flexed. His palm smoothed. The blood that had been flowing, that had been staining the grass, that had been marking every inch of ground between the palace and where they stood, stopped. His breathing steadied. His color returned. He stood taller, straighter, more himself.
He looked up at the sky. The sun was fully risen now, the clouds scattered, the light warm on his face. He was smiling.
She looked down at her palm. The ring lay there, small and bright, the gem catching the light, the silver bands twisted together. Her mother's ring. The ring she had thought she would never see again. She closed her hand around it, pressed it against her chest, held it there like something precious, something she would never let go of again.
And then she heard it.
Click.
Her eyes went wide. She opened her hand slowly, not wanting to believe what she had heard, not wanting to see what she was afraid to see.
The ring had separated. Where there had been one ring, there were now two—two bands, twisted together for centuries, finally parted. She stared at them, confused, trying to understand what had happened. Had she used too much force? Had the fall from the rocket damaged it? Had the night in the field, the heat, the cold, the long hours of waiting, finally broken what had been whole for so long?
One of the rings slipped from her palm. It fell through the air, silver and bright, catching the morning light like a star falling to earth. Her hand shot out to catch it, but she was too slow, too far, too late.
Yuuta's hand moved.
He caught it. Mid-air, without thinking, without looking, his fingers closed around the falling ring and held it. He turned to her, smiling, holding it out.
"Woah," he said. "That was close. You have to be more careful with these things, my queen."
He opened his hand to give it to her.
The world stopped.
The ring was on his finger.
It had happened when he reached for it, when his hand had closed around the falling silver, when his fingers had wrapped around it without thought, without intent, without any of the things that should accompany such a moment. The ring had found his finger, had settled there, had become part of him. It was on his ring finger. The finger that, in every world, in every culture, in every language, meant one thing.
Erza's face went dark.
Her eyes went cold. Her hands dropped to her sides. Her voice, when it came, was the voice she used when she was about to destroy something.
"Remove it," she said. "Now."
She slid the other ring onto her own finger—her ring, her mother's ring, the ring that had been waiting for her since she was a child. It fit perfectly, the way it always had, the way it always would. She reached for his hand, grabbed his finger, and pulled.
He screamed.
"Stop! It hurts!"
She pulled harder. The ring did not move. It was stuck, fused to his skin, as if it had always been there, as if it had been waiting for him. She pulled again, and he screamed again, and the ring did not move.
"Remove it, you idiot!" she shouted. "How dare you steal my ring!"
"I didn't steal it!" His voice was high, desperate, the voice of a man who was watching his finger being slowly removed from his hand. "I was the one who found it! I was the one who gave it to you! Remember?!"
She stopped pulling. She took a breath. She looked at his finger, at the ring that was now part of him, at the thing that had happened while she was not watching, while she was not paying attention, while she was letting herself feel something she had no right to feel.
"There is no choice," she said. Her voice was cold. Ruthless. The voice of a queen who had made a decision.
Yuuta's voice cracked. "What do you mean, no choice? What do we have to do?"
She looked at him. Her face was cold. Her eyes were hard. Her voice was the voice of a queen passing judgment.
"I have to cut off your finger."
Yuuta's face went white.
"No."
"Give me your hand."
"NO."
"It is just one finger. I can heal it. You will barely feel anything after."
"NO! NO, NO, NO!" He clutched his hand to his chest, cradling it like a wounded animal. "I love my fingers! I need my fingers! I cook with my fingers! I hold Elena with my fingers! I can't live without my fingers!"
Erza's eye twitched. "Do not test my patience. It is not as if I cannot heal it. Just endure a little pain. It will be over quickly."
"YOU ARE SO CRUEL!" Yuuta backed away from her, still clutching his hand. "THIS IS HOW YOU TREAT YOUR SAVIOR?!"
She lunged. Grabbed his head. Twisted.
"SAVIOR?!" Her voice rose, cracking with fury. "MY ASS! THIS IS HAPPENING BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPIDITY! YOU IDIOT! YOU FUCKING DUMBASS!"
"OW! OW! LET GO! MY QUEEN! HAVE MERCY!"
The guards who had been watching from a distance, who had been helping him stand and offering their shoulders for support, who had been professional and composed through the long night, were no longer professional.
They were laughing.
They had their hands over their mouths, their shoulders shaking, their eyes bright with the particular joy of people who had witnessed something they would remember for the rest of their lives.
Yuuta heard them. His face went red, the color spreading from his cheeks to his ears to the back of his neck. "This is not funny! She is threatening to cut off my finger!"
"It is a little funny," one of the guards said, and then had to turn away as Erza's eyes snapped toward him.
The laughter stopped.
The guards found sudden interest in the sky, the grass, the distant mountains—anything that was not the silver-haired woman who was glaring at them.
Erza released Yuuta's head.
She looked at his hand, at the ring that would not come off, at her own hand, at the ring that was now on her finger, warm and pulsing with a light that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her.
She was confused.
The ring had been in her family for generations, had been passed down from mother to daughter, had been worn by queens who had ruled before her and queens who would rule after. It had never done anything unexpected.
It had never done anything she did not understand.
The memory rose before she could stop it, surfacing from the depths where she had buried it, playing itself out behind her eyes like something she was watching from far away.
"Mama," little Erza said, her voice small and worried, her tiny claws tracing the ring on her mother's finger. "What if I lose it? What if it falls off? What if I cannot find it?"
Her mother's voice was warm, patient, the voice of someone who had been asked the same question many times and always gave the same answer. "Do not worry, little one. This ring has its own soul. Once it is separated, once it finds the one it belongs to, it will attach to your finger and to your mate's for the rest of your life. Until death parts you. It will never leave you. It will never be lost."
The memory faded.
The field returned.
The morning light was warm on her face, and the guards were still pretending not to laugh, and Yuuta was still holding his hand like a wounded animal, and the ring was still on his finger, glowing faintly, as if it had found exactly where it wanted to be.
She pressed her hand to her head.
No, she thought.
No, this cannot be true.
How can it be stuck to a mortal? The ring had never been separated since its creation.
Not once.
Not in all the centuries it had been passed down from queen to queen.
And now, in her era, in her time, it had chosen someone. And the one it had chosen was not a dragon. Not even an ancient beast.
Not even a warrior worthy of standing beside her.
She had thought she would be alone forever.
She had accepted it, made peace with it, built a kingdom and a life and an identity around the certainty that she would never find someone worthy of the ring. And now the ring had chosen the most pathetic, the most useless, the weakest human she had ever met. It had to be a mistake. It had to be.
She looked at Yuuta.
He was not looking at her.
He was grinning at the guards, trying to shush them, his face still red. He was laughing now too, embarrassed but laughing, the sound of it carrying across the field like something she had never heard before.
She looked at her hand.
At the ring on her finger.
At the ring on his.
They were connected now, bound together, tied by something older than either of them. Her heart was beating faster than it should. Her face was warm. Her thoughts were scattered, unsteady, refusing to settle.
It must be a mistake, she told herself. Yes. That is it. The ring made a mistake. He slept in my bed. He touched my skin. The ring sensed that and confused it for something else. That is the only explanation.
She took a breath. Held it. Let it go.
She nodded to herself, convinced.
Well, she thought, it looks like I will have to wait a year to get my ring back.
She coughed.
The sound was small, deliberate, the kind of cough that was meant to break a moment, to end a conversation, to remind everyone in earshot that she was still there and still in charge. The guards stopped laughing. Yuuta stopped making faces. They all turned to look at her.
Yuuta was still on his knees, his hand held out, the ring still glowing. "Yes, my queen?" He looked up at her, his face still red, his eyes still tired, his smile still there despite everything. "I almost forgot about the ring. So what do we do? There has to be another way, right? Without cutting off my finger?"
Erza stared at him. At his hopeful face. At his stupid smile. At the ring that had chosen him for reasons she could not fathom. She sighed.
"Well," she said, "it looks like I will have to wait for your death to get my ring back."
Yuuta blinked. "My death? How is my death connected to this?"
She sighed again, longer this time, the sigh of someone who had given up on explaining things to a creature who would never understand. She had read enough stories to know that the main characters in novels were often idiots. She had not realized she would have to live with one.
"The ring is connected to your soul, you idiot," she said. "Unless you die, it will not come off."
She paused. A smile crept across her face, cold and sharp. "So I suppose I will have to kill you now. No matter what."
Yuuta looked at his finger. At the ring that was now bound to his soul. At the woman who was smiling at him like she had just found an excuse to do what she had been planning to do all along. He should have been afraid. He should have been terrified. He had just been told that the only way to remove the ring was to die.
He sighed.
"Well," he said, "it looks like there is no helping it."
Erza stared at him. She had expected panic. She had expected begging. She had expected him to try to run, to argue, to do any of the things that humans did when they were told they were going to die. She had not expected him to simply accept it.
"We will talk about this later," she said, her voice softer now, the coldness fading. She looked at him—at his red face, his bleeding hands, his exhausted eyes. He had been awake all night. He had been searching for her ring. He had not slept, had not eaten, had not stopped even when his body began to break.
"For now," she said, "you need to rest."
Yuuta looked at her. At her cold face, her tired eyes, the ring that was now on her finger, glowing in the morning light.
He smiled.
"Yes, my queen."
The smile was something she never understood. It was not nervous. Not joking. Not the smile of someone trying to hide his fear or pretend to be brave.
It was warm.
It was tired.
It was the smile of someone who had found something he did not know he was looking for.
She looked at his face. At his smile. At the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, the way his shoulders relaxed, the way he stood there like he had nowhere else to be and no one else he wanted to be with.
And then—
Her own voice echoed in her ears.
Not her voice now. Her voice then. Small. Trembling. The voice of a child who did not understand the world yet, who was still learning what it meant to be a queen, what it meant to be a daughter, what it meant to be alone.
"Mama?"
The memory came without warning.
She was small again. Sitting on her mother's lap in the great hall of the palace, the fire crackling in the hearth, the shadows dancing on the walls. Her mother's arms were around her, warm and safe, the only place in the world where she had ever felt truly protected.
"Mama, do I have to marry a dragon? Like you did?"
Her mother had laughed. Not the cold laugh she used in court, not the sharp laugh she used to silence her enemies. A real laugh. Soft. Warm. The laugh of a woman who still remembered what it was like to be young.
She had cupped Erza's tiny face in her hands. Her fingers were warm. Her eyes were bright. Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, like she was sharing a secret that no one else was allowed to hear.
"No need, my daughter. If you find someone—no matter what they are—who truly loves you, then follow your heart. Because in the end, love is love."
She paused.
Her smile faded.
The memory faded.
Erza stood in the garden, the morning light growing brighter around her, the birds beginning to sing in the trees. Her mother's voice still echoed in her ears, soft and sad and full of something she had never understood.
Don't end up like Mama.
She pressed her hands to her head.
"Stop it." Her voice was low. Desperate. "Stop it, stop it, stop it."
This fucking dragon curse. It would not let her have peace. It pulled at her memories, dragged them to the surface, forced her to see things she had buried years ago. Her mother's face. Her mother's words. Her mother's warning.
She did not want to see it.
She did not want to remember.
She wanted to be cold. Wanted to be hard. Wanted to be the queen who ruled without feeling, who conquered without hesitation, who never let anyone see the cracks in her armor.
But the cracks were there.
She had thought she was immune.
She had ruled for centuries without it touching her, without it reaching her, without it finding the cracks in her armor.
But she was weak now.
She had been weak since the ring fell. Since she saw the empty grass, the torn earth, the blood on his hands. Since she stood at the window and watched him crawl through the field, destroying himself for something he did not understand.
The curse had found the crack.
And now it would not let her go.
"What's wrong?"
Yuuta's voice cut through the noise. She looked up. He was standing in front of her, his arms folded, his head tilted, his face full of concern.
She hated that face.
She hated the way he looked at her, like she was something worth worrying about. Like she was something more than a queen who had threatened to kill him a hundred times and meant it every single time.
"Erza? Are you okay?"
The concern in his voice made her want to scream.
"Are you okay?" she mimicked, her voice sharp and cruel. "What do you think, mortal? Do I look okay? Does anything about this situation look okay to you?"
She looked at him with rage.
And then—
She hit him.
Her fist connected with his head, hard enough to make him stumble, hard enough to make him yelp.
"This is all YOUR fault!" Her voice rose, cracking with fury. "I am having bad memories again and again because of YOU!"
"WHAT MEMORY? WHOSE MEMORY?" Yuuta clutched his shoulder, his face twisted in pain. "I didn't do anything!"
"YOU EXIST!" She pulled his hair. "YOU BREATHE! YOU LOOK AT ME WITH THOSE STUPID EYES!"
"THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!"
"NOTHING MAKES SENSE!" She hit him again. "EVER SINCE YOU APPEARED, NOTHING MAKES SENSE!"
"WHAT DID I DO, ERZA—" He ducked. Missed her next swing. "—ERZA, STOP—"
"DON'T TELL ME TO STOP!"
She chased him across the garden. He ran. His legs were tired, his body was broken, but he ran anyway, because she was hitting him and she was not stopping and he did not know how to make her stop.
She grabbed his hair.
She pulled.
He yelped.
"You FUCKING MORTAL!"
"WHAT DID I DO?!"
"EVERYTHING!"
She pulled his hair again. He screamed.
"ERZAAAA!"
To Be Continue...