Chapter Text
The dungeon was frigid. The stone walls were thick as slabs, cooling the air into stagnation. No sunlight could travel down here, not this far beneath the earth. It was the perfect place for a dragon to come to die.
The slayer crept tentatively down winding stone spiral stairs. The cold stung at his skin, weaving itself between the layers of his protective winter clothing. Isagi’s echoing breaths were the only sounds in this motionless asylum of stone, the only indication for him to move deeper.
All around him, pure white pillars rose up from the depths. They moved out in every direction, a plane so vast and empty in its silence that it seemed to be the edge of the universe. The staircase he was on snaked down between them like a stark grey ribbon; a movement of many hands frozen in time. Frost crept up the columns and walls of the labyrinth, and each exhale formed a thin veil of white steam in front of him, echoing endlessly into the void.
Isagi’s hand was perched and ready on the hilt of his broadsword, the metal fastenings of the hilt clinking together faintly. His frame was laced with anticipation; his shoulders were baited and tense, eyes training across the vast cavern.
The further down he descended, the heavier the atmosphere got. The stillness was all-encompassing, almost deafening in an off-putting way. The cold itself was a warning.
All his research, the long nights spent out in the wilderness, the ruthless hunting and training he had undergone—all of it was in preparation for this moment. Isagi’s heart was pounding—for this was the dragon’s lair. The entire cavern was evidence—only the realm of such a beast would seem so other-worldly, an anomaly in the universe that threatened to swallow mortals whole.
Isagi glanced over the side into the abyss below. He had been on these stairs for quite a while; about an hour, he would say. Initially, the lack of railings had been daunting—one wrong step and Isagi would be hurtled down fifty fathoms to his death. The first three levels of this abandoned palace had been much, much shallower—even those royally high ceilings were nothing compared to the seemingly bottomless pit of the final floor.
However, the end was finally in sight. Peering down just far enough, Isagi could make out the smooth greenish-grey of the ground. Eagerly, he hurried down the weaving steps, being watchful of any patches of frost clinging to the stone.
When he finally stepped onto wide, smooth marble, his footsteps echoed back to him. The impact resounded out like a shockwave, met with no resistance in the stillborn air. The silence was grating on his nerves, air pressing uncomfortably behind his ribs and threatening to raise his anxiety. But Isagi controlled himself, tightening his grip on the cold metal hilt of his sword as he advanced into the endless cavern.
From the bottom, each step of his soles against the ground blended into an echoing rhythm. Fractals of ice splintering from the columns around him reflected light down from the surface, pure and filtered into bits of green and white and blue. They split the eerie darkness into something approachable, surreal and yet familiar.
As he explored deeper into the labyrinth, he was ever alert. His eyes swept his surroundings, tracing the lines of spindling columns for any sign of the dragon he was hunting for. At a glance, anyone would assume this place was long abandoned to time, but Isagi knew better. Expertly, he zeroed in on his first anomaly—there.
He approached one of the columns, running his numbing fingertips over the surface of the stone. The support was frigid, coated in a layer of frost that was thicker and more solid than it seemed; it was more like ice than frost. There, embedded in the ice, were faint but unmistakable scratch marks.
He inhaled a biting breath. These could not possibly be the dragon’s, could they? The marks were massive, perhaps as thick as his forearm. Quickly he mapped out each scratch hidden in the ice, tracing the deep valleys and thick peaks with deft, careful fingertips. Two, four, perhaps six; though some seemed older and were already filling out with new layers of ice.
Just how big was this beast?
Venturing on, Isagi tugged the fur collar of his overshirt closer to his chin, letting his own breath thaw out his nose. It was getting darker now—heavier layers of ice far above him were beginning to obscure the light. The little specks of refracted light were all but gone now, leaving what light was left dull and pale.
The temperature was dropping. He must be getting close.
He took note of the moment his footsteps sounded different—a glance down at the ground showed patches of ice creeping over the marble. Isagi took a moment to pause, retrieving a set of alternate soles from his satchel—metal soles with spikes along the rims, interchangeable and intended for slippery paths—and attached their straps to his boots before proceeding.
The gear he had obtained during his travels had been invaluable. The heavier soles required more effort to raise his feet with each step, but he did not slip.
Suddenly, a rumble erupted from the distance.
He froze, drawing his sword with a fluid motion, the metallic sound instantly swallowed. A low, unnaturally violent grating sound resounded through the cavern, and an unknown force of air hit Isagi like a windfront. The howls of air through pockets of space were deafening, freezing air tearing through even the thick fur in Isagi’s clothing and leaving raised goosebumps all over him.
Isagi gritted his teeth, bending down to let the wind pass. His heart was racing again, the pounding heat in his chest restoring blood flow all the way down to his fingertips. He knew that sound; it was burned into his brain the way a familiar face demands that you remember.
It was the dragon. And it was indeed much, much bigger than Isagi had initially assumed.
Once the wind had blown over, Isagi raised his head and hurried forward, pushing past his own lingering nerves. He was laser-focused now—his pupils shrank into black dots as he searched for a glimpse of the beast. His breath puffed around him in white clouds, stinging his skin. The ice above him almost completely shrouded the cavern, narrowing his world little by little as he went deeper and deeper into the abyss.
The ice around his feet was getting thicker now, small spikes forming around the base of columns, now almost completely covered. The cold would be paralyzing if Isagi wasn’t fueled by pure adrenaline. The spikes on his soles crunched rhythmically with each rapid step forward.
His heart nearly stopped.
Far ahead, an enormous shadow wrapped around a column before disappearing into a wall of darkness.
Isagi’s eyes were blown wide, pupils locked on the spot where that tail had slipped away. It was easily as thick as his entire body, covered completely in jet black scales that tapered into a whip-like point. His pulse had jumped to his throat, leaving him completely frozen in place once again.
If he followed that dragon, he would be going into pitch-black darkness—the absolute deepest point of the frozen cavern—completely blind, armed only with his sword and what wits were not stolen by the fight or flight response.
Gripping his sword and swallowing every last hesitation, Isagi reached into his satchel, pulled out his last remaining flare, and lit it. He raised it high above his head, breathing out slowly through his nose, eyes never leaving that spot in the shadows even as the eerie reddish light cast over his face.
The flare burned high right away, sucking in the cold, dry air. It pushed back the sheer darkness, forming a ring of bright red light around Isagi. Even the deep blue ice seemed to pull back into itself, appearing white and washed out.
But the second Isagi’s eyes flickered up, every fiber of his being froze in terror.
Towering above him, curling up in a horrifyingly massive dark silhouette, was the dragon.
It appeared as still as he was. Its body, appearing pitch black compared to the ice, was covered in armor-like scales the size of Isagi’s hand with all his fingers splayed out. The red light danced across them, revealing a deep greenish-blue sheen. Its massive body was long and slender, all bone and taut muscle, ribs pressing out around its stomach. Each limb curled into enormous claws that were every bit as big as the scrapes in the ice implied.
Patches of ice clung to its body and legs, growing thicker as they tapered up, peaking into spikes of ice lining its spine. Its wings were curled up behind it, spreading out like a halo of death, the spikes on their tips pointing inwards to its monstrous head. In the center of its forehead, a brilliant turquoise gem pulsed with light as vibrant as its eyes, embedded between its scales.
The dragon’s eyes were focused directly on Isagi, a vibrant teal narrowing into the cat-like pupils of an apex predator.
A strangled sound caught in Isagi’s throat, and all of a sudden his body went rigid. He was face-to-face with the object of his quest, the very beast he had sought to destroy all of his life—and he was completely unable to move.
His hand was trembling, fingers numb and weak around the flare he was still holding up like a target.
He caught the exact instant those pupils shrank into slits. By then, it was too late.
With a violent rumble, the dragon pounced forward. Isagi felt the burning before the cold, body thrown against the column behind him. His whole body seized with pain, and he let out a breathless shriek. The dragon’s jaws clamped around his body like a vice, breath colder and more painful than anything he had ever felt. Blood splattered across the ice in nasty red pools, rapidly crystalizing in the frigid air.
He didn’t even notice the teeth sinking into his chest until they yanked him up. The dragon lifted him like he was nothing more than a sack of cotton, shaking him so forcefully that the flare was flung from his hand. It clattered to the icy ground, still burning weakly enough to see by its reddish light. Isagi’s vision blurred as the pain and sheer cold stabbed through his body, leaving his teeth chattering.
The feeling of his sword slipping away from his grip jarred him back into his body, and he used all of his focus to grip onto it for dear life. Though he was wracked with pain, a thought resounded clearly in his head—if he did not open its mouth, he would be crushed in half by its jaws.
With an agonized shout, he raised his sword and sank the blade into the dragon’s jaw with all his strength. The metal pierced between scales, sinking in with a sickening squelch.
A monstrous shriek filled the air, and the dragon’s teeth pulled out of his chest. Isagi was flung to the ground, pain shooting through his body as he hit the ice. He gasped, chest stalling as he wheezed for air.
The dragon stumbled back a few steps, blood oozing from the corner of its mouth. Its eyes were blazing with fury, icy breath huffing from its nostrils.
Isagi managed to roll onto his side, blood pooling beneath him onto the ice. Those teeth had sunk in deep, pain fogging his brain and luring him into succumbing to the cold, but he forced himself upright onto his knees, still gripping his sword. In the next moment, the dragon’s claws collided with his already bleeding side, knocking him across the floor.
Again, he hit the ground with a gasp of pain, chest-down into a pile of shredded ice, cheek pressing against the biting ice. The dragon was advancing again, the ground shaking with devastating thuds.
Sword hand at the ready, he threw himself to the side, rolling across the icy ground and sliding narrowly past it. The dragon landed claws-first where he had laid seconds ago. As he slid away, the world slowed to a screeching halt for a second. Ears ringing, Isagi’s eyes zeroed in on the split-second opening.
As he passed, Isagi slashed the dragon’s ankle with a spurt of blood, sending it tumbling forward.
Another horrible roar of pain shook the cavern, causing the icy columns to tremble through the floor as it crashed into them. Isagi’s shoulder bumped against a cluster of icy spikes, stopping his slide. The effort made his wounds throb horribly, leaving him gasping, but his blood was alight with determination.
He may die here. But he refused to die without fighting back.
The dragon was even more livid than before, stumbling on its injured leg. It curled around the columns for a moment, eyes locked on Isagi with a predatory gleam, raising its wings high. Isagi realized with a flash of panic that it was about to take flight.
If the beast made it to the air, Isagi would be left defenseless and exposed below it. There was only one move to make, and it was extremely risky—but worth a shot.
He forced himself upright, stifling the cry of pain building up in his throat. The dragon’s jaws also crushed part of Isagi’s left arm, leaving it almost useless and extremely painful to use. He leaned heavily on his sword arm to push himself up, pushing past the pain to rush towards the dragon.
The dragon’s eyes were on him instantly, its mouth curling to bare its pale, lethal teeth, already stained with Isagi’s blood. As he dashed forward, Isagi caught its nostrils flare as it inhaled, realizing in a split second that the beast had frost breath.
He switched directions just in time to avoid it, straining himself with every step as the icy blast nicked the heels of his boots. Enormous ice spikes crystalized in its wake, leaving a curved wall behind him. As Isagi ducked behind a column, the icy breath burst into a huge mass of ice around it, curling around the curved stone as it formed. Heart pounding, Isagi raised his sword, waiting there trembling.
Running that short distance had taken a massive toll on him already—his chest was throbbing again, blood leaking even more rapidly from his wounds and soaking through his thick winter clothes. His vision was beginning to swim, black spots appearing in the corners of his vision as he gasped for air. His limbs were trembling and weak, but he fought to stay alert.
Thud. thud. thud. The ground quavered under its might. Isagi swallowed his dry throat, forcing himself to breathe. He rustled through the contents of his satchel with shaking hands, pulling out a small bottle of healing elixir. He popped the cork and downed it in one go, ignoring the harsh, bitter taste. His body screamed in protest, torso and arm still wracked with pain, but his vision slowly stabilized and the black spots disappeared. That was good enough for now.
All of a sudden the dragon’s horrible shriek split the air, and adrenaline surged through Isagi once again. The second he glanced to his left, he was suddenly face-to-face with the gaping black jaws of the beast. In the back of its throat, pale blue light was beginning to form as it prepared to freeze.
Now.
With a raw scream that was all terror and all pain, Isagi drove his sword directly up into the dragon’s mouth.
Squelch. Thick dark blood drenched him up to his chin, splattering across his eye. A torrent of frosty breath nearly blasted him backward, instantly freezing the blood into a frozen sheet over him that cracked when he moved, but no other ice formed. His aim had been perfect; the dragon’s mouth was rapidly filling with blood. What was left of Isagi’s blood washed out with it.
The dragon jolted back with an acrid screech a split second after isagi pulled the sword out. Desperately he rushed towards it while it was still stunned, narrowly avoiding being slashed by its tail. The dragon’s heavy black tongue had rolled out of its mouth now, dark blood dripping from between its teeth and staining the ice below.
The beast’s slitted pupils contracted into tiny dots, the bands of color curling around it like a hurricane. It knew Isagi was a threat, but it wasn’t afraid of him at all.
The sight sent chills straight through him.
Gritting his teeth, Isagi dashed off to the side, forcing the dragon’s attention. His heart was pounding out of his chest, head completely clear, even the pain felt trivial and far off. He felt faster than he ever had, boots sending up a spray of shredded ice.
The dragon roared, saliva and blood splattering from the furious snarl on its face. It rushed right towards him, unsteady from its wounds but with enough raw power to tear him to shreds should he make one slip up. Though his instincts screamed at him to run, Isagi stared that dragon straight down with narrowed eyes and barreled towards it.
When he was inches away from the wall of ice spikes that had formed earlier, Isagi leapt onto them. The second his boots made contact with the top of the biggest spike, he pushed off, jumping as high into the air as he could manage. With a brazen yell, he raised his sword, eyes blazing with a determination that rivaled even the dragon itself.
Again, time seemed to slow until Isagi was suspended mid-leap. He wasn’t aware of the cold that threatened to steal his breath. His injury throbbed silently somewhere far away. He could hear his own breath, ragged but steady. He could feel the rush of his blood.
In that moment, the dragon’s eyes were all-encompassing. They burned through him like hot coals, the most vibrant shade of teal he had ever seen. Its greenish-black scales shimmered in the dying red light, splattered with blood, beautiful and terrible and alive.
Isagi’s eyes narrowed on the gem in the very center of its forehead.
He drove his blade straight into it.
For an instant, the dragon’s eyes almost widened. A splintering sound resounded, and hundreds of miniscule sharp fragments erupted like a deadly spray. The gem had completely shattered into pieces.
An unearthly shriek tore from the dragon, shaking the entire cavern. Disoriented by the sheer volume, Isagi hit the ground with a punishing thud, vision blurred and head swimming. He scrambled backwards as best as he could, face stinging from where gem fragments had sliced him, staring up at the retreating beast with wide eyes.
The dragon staggered unsteadily backwards, its long body hitting the columns nearby and sending dust and ice down with the impact. Huge chunks of ice shattered across the ground not far from Isagi, and he quickly covered his head to shield himself, arms trembling slightly.
Roaring with something close to agony, the dragon stepped back onto its already injured leg and stumbled down. Its chest was trembling, tail swishing to the side in an attempt to regain its balance—
Then, with a heavy thud, collapsed onto the ground,head hitting the ice and lying still.
There was complete silence.
Isagi’s breath was trembling. His eyes were rooted on the dragon, body still wracked with adrenaline that was beginning to make him shake. For the first time since he had entered this god-forsaken cavern, his shoulders slumped with pure relief.
It was dead.
He gave a weakened cry, hunching over himself and began to laugh. His trembling hands closed into fists, shaking with laughter even as hot tears formed in his eyes.
He was alive.
He had killed it.
He had survived the dragon he had sought for years, and now it was dead.
His quest was complete.
He sat there for a moment, letting the tears streak down his face, melting the thin layer of frost clinging to the fuzz of his cheek. Now that it was over, the pain slammed back into him like a hammer—the elixir had done its job to keep him alive during the battle, but he still had gaping wounds in his torso.
With a groan, he forced himself to stand up—if he sat there in the cold for long he would freeze to death, or bleed to death—whichever came first.
On unsteady legs, he walked over to the defeated beast. He approached it warily, scanning its lengthy form for any signs of remaining life. It laid there motionless, teal eyes still open and slowly beginning to glaze over. Indeed, it was dead.
He drew close enough that he could see the skin between the scales on its face. With a trembling hand, Isagi reached out towards the creature’s head, taking a breath to brace himself.
The scales were cold. He did not know what he had expected—it was dead, and even before that, it was an ice dragon. The scales were rigid but thin, uneven but smoother than any armor Isagi had ever seen. He studied it in awe—everything he had studied relentlessly since he was a boy, now made flesh and bone before him.
The cavity where the gem had been was perfectly smooth and grey, perfectly surrounded by scales. Gently he touched it, finding the skin softer and more vulnerable, though none of the blood vessels had been damaged when the gem had shattered. Isagi had never read anything about a gem in the dragon’s forehead, but he had assumed—correctly so—that it was the beast’s weak spot.
He wondered what it had been. Perhaps he would find out, when researchers disassembled its body.
And yet, thinking of what would become of the great beast, something in him was weighed down with sadness. This creature had been alive—it had fought him with all of its strength, it could have easily ended his life multiple times during the fight. It had been terrible, it had been powerful, it had struck fear into Isagi’s heart since he was a child.
He remembered the day all too well. The day this very ice dragon had destroyed his home. An entire city of lives, of people he knew, his parents…all gone now, forever frozen in time.
This creature had caused him nothing but pain.
But seeing it here, fighting it face to face, Isagi felt nothing but respect and awe.
Suddenly, those glazed eyes began to glow. The gem hollow in its forehead erupted with a teal light, spreading like lava out through the cracks between the scales and rapidly began to overtake its body with light. The webbing of skin between its wings lit up with the flood of teal light, pushing back the darkness of the cavern and shining with an impossibly bright glow.
Isagi snapped backwards, holding up his sword with a trembling hand, panic flooding through him. What was happening?!
The light became blazing, completely filling the room and encapsulating the dragon’s corpse until it seemed to almost be light itself. Isagi was forced to shield his eyes from the brightness, falling to his knees as the room flooded with heat.
The light pulsed like a beacon of turquoise and white, and all of a sudden a clear diamond shape appeared in the light. It shone with an angelic sheen, an illusion of beauty and a forbidden power, then all of the light shrank.
Isagi watched, agape, as the light slowly began to shrink the dragon’s body. Eclipsed by light, it shrank in on itself, leaving a pool of melted ice in its wake. It grew smaller and smaller until it seemed nothing bigger than Isagi himself.
Then the shrinking stopped.
The form of light remained where the dragon’s body had been, as if it had been swallowed and compressed into the pulsing light before him. Isagi watched, spellbound, completely bewildered by what was happening.
In an instant, the light began to peel away and disappear, leaving behind the small, curled up form of a human being.
Then, the light was gone.
Isagi’s eyes widened, staring at the spot where the dragon’s body had just been. For a moment, he wondered if his eyes were deceiving him.
But no. There, lying in a pool of melted ice, was a human. It was a man, curled up as if he had been asleep for a long time. He was wrapped in smooth black cloth, covered in a curtain of his own long dark green hair that spread across the shallow pool of water like a fan. His face was obscured from view.
Chills went through Isagi’s body, completely shocked. After a long moment, he regained some of his wits and took a tentative step towards the strange figure, still trembling from pain and oncoming fatigue.
His footsteps shifted from the sharpness of metal on ice to the muted splash of water around his ankles. All of a sudden he was close enough to touch, merely a few feet away from the mysterious man.
Up close, Isagi realised he was unconscious, and in bad shape. The dark cloth, a loose set of strange clothing, was splattered with the dark ink-like blood of the dragon. His skin was pale and tinged with a strange purplish-pink undertone. His eyes were shut, hair more unruly than it seemed, strung across his face like a veil.
The thing that made Isagi’s blood run cold were his wounds. A long gash ran across the man’s snowy cheek. Blood trickled down from his lips to his chin. His leg was deeply wounded at the ankle.
But above all—barely visible on his forehead, right between his eyes, was a pale whitish diamond scar.
Isagi had made those wounds.
This man was the dragon he had slain.
Head swimming, Isagi knelt down in the water next to him, ignoring the icy sting of the water soaking through his clothes. Being careful of the wound on his face, he brushed aside the kelp-like strands of dark green hair to check the man’s pulse, but was stopped short with an exhale.
He was beautiful. Not in the conventional way of an ordinary human—he had sharp but smooth features, high cheekbones, a perfect nose and lips; clear and glassy skin that was oddly cool to the touch. His eyes were closed with sleep, long eyelashes gently curled against his skin. Though pale, there were subtle darker patches of skin around his eyes, giving them a haunted sort of beauty. He looked ethereal, like a piece of art from the ancient past, carved from living stone—-something not meant for human eyes to behold.
Isagi slowly trailed his fingers down the smooth curve of his jaw, stopping at the vein in his neck.
He had a pulse. Faint, but present. He caught the exact moment that it increased, eyes flickering up to the man’s face.
Slowly, with an initial squint, the stranger’s eyes opened, revealing a soft crystal-like teal.
They made eye contact. Neither of them spoke. Isagi’s breath was baited, forming a knot in his throat that was more painful than any of his wounds. The dragon-human’s pupils responded well to the light, shrinking for a moment before gradually enlarging, taking in Isagi’s face with the smallest flicker of curiosity.
His lips parted. His mouth was still stained with blood, a small strangled sound escaping him. The sound was barely audible, and another small trail of red spilled from his mouth with the effort to speak.
Worry suddenly flooded Isagi—he had forgotten that during the battle, he had stabbed the dragon in the mouth to disable his icy breath. He imagined how horrible this man’s throat must feel, making his stomach crawl.
“Don’t speak,” Isagi carefully urged his jaw shut, his own voice little more than a croak. The man’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment, twisting his head away from Isagi’s touch. It lolled to the side, pressing his wounded cheek into the water. He was clearly in pain.
With trembling weak hands, Isagi pulled his satchel to his lap, rummaging through it for any remaining elixirs or first aid materials. The stranger watched him, eyes disoriented and but still guarded, boring into the side of Isagi’s head with an intensity that made his cheeks heat up.
“I’m Isagi,” he offered, even though no one had asked. He spoke more out of awkwardness, something to fill the silence as he procured a roll of cloth bandages.
“I don’t….er…I’m not sure what you are or what you remember,” he added, wincing as he straightened up. “But…I’m going to try to help you. Let’s get out of this water so I can try and…and patch you up.”
The dragon-man’s eyes narrowed, and he twitched with a hiss of pain as Isagi gently lifted his upper body, but he did not fight back. As carefully as he could without injuring himself further, Isagi pulled the two of them out of the melted pool and onto a patch of mostly shredded ice—something hopefully softer and not already stained with blood from the battle.
He lapsed into silence after that,struggling to bandage the man’s wounds with his ruined arm. He could feel his head spinning still—it had been spinning since the light had erupted from the dragon corpse. He knew he didn’t have a lot of time left until he passed out, so he had to get himself and the stranger out of this freezing hole as quickly as possible.
“I don’t think it's wise to try and walk on this ankle,” Isagi murmured aloud, wrapping the man’s leg a little tighter. “But we don’t have a choice, really. I can’t carry you, but I can help you stay up…”
Another choked, raspy sound came from the stranger. He spat some blood into the slush, chest heaving with a pained breath.
Isagi winced as he sat upright again, struggling for a moment as he tried to bandage his own torso, but quickly gave up from the sharp protest in his arm. His own wounds would have to wait.
“Come on,” he urged, grimly setting his jaw as he sheathed his sword. “We can’t stay here, or we’ll freeze. The stairs are that way.”
He offered his good arm to the stranger.
Those teal eyes stared daggers into him, his breathing still labored. But slowly, definitively, he clasped his hand around Isagi’s wrist.
Somehow, they got to their feet. Isagi moved in a blur, vision swimming at the sides, but they moved towards the winding staircase unsteadily but supporting each others’ weight. The strange man was taller than Isagi but more slender, his arm weighty over Isagi’s shoulders. Despite how cold his skin was, his body still faintly radiated warmth, the only thing keeping Isagi grounded in his own body.
Going up the stairs was a nightmare. There were no railings, so one wrong step meant they would both fall to their doom. Isagi stumbled near the top, nearly losing consciousness as his ruined arm was jostled, but the stranger had gripped him with clawed, insistent fingers, pulling them both to sit on the stairs rather than lose their balance entirely.
Isagi gasped, nearly sinking back onto the cold stone stairs in front of them. The man braced them both on one arm, allowing Isagi to regain his balance, panting. He could barely see from how much his vision was swimming, the pain creeping through him and threatening to pull him under. The elixir he had taken would prevent him from dying, but it was only intended for minor injuries. It was working overtime.
“‘m sorry,” Isagi panted, words nearly unintelligible. The stranger’s fingers dug into his shoulder, and somewhere to his right he heard a low, stifled growl. The pain was jarring, but he forced himself to open his eyes again, having not even been aware they had shut. His gaze slid in the direction of the sound, meeting with frustrated teal.
“Go,” he urged the stranger. “I can’t…”
He trailed off with a gasping yelp of pain. The dragon man had yanked him up with startling force, almost dragging him up the stairs with him. The stranger’s body trembled under the weight, unsteady on his wounded leg, but his eyes blazed with something between fury and determination.
Tears pricked the corners of Isagi’s eyes for a moment, but he blinked them away. Biting down on his lip hard enough to bleed, he tugged the man a bit closer, forcing him to shift more of his weight onto Isagi.
His legs finally gave out just as they burst through the set of doors into the first normal floor of the ruined palace, collapsing onto the moonlit floor.
Isagi was still panting, every last ounce of energy completely drained from him. The stranger seemed spent too, half draped over him, forced to lie still because of the pain wracking both of them.
With weak hands, Isagi forced himself to pull out his final elixir bottle from his half-opened satchel. The dark red liquid sloshed inside the teardrop-shaped glass, tempting and mysterious. Isagi barely had the strength left to remove the cork.
It was a last resort—a strange, unmarked bottle he’d obtained from a mage a long time ago. He did not know what was in it. He didn’t entirely know what it would do. But it was worth a shot.
Beside him, the stranger shifted, gurgling a faint cry of pain. Beginning to lose his vision to the dark spots, Isagi downed his best shot at half of the bottle, then let it drop with his arm next to him.
“Drink,” he forced out.
The last thing he was aware of before he spiraled into the darkness was the weight of the bottle disappearing from his hand.