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“Hello, immortal person, I’m back!”
Yun cringed as Mizari stepped into what had once been a storeroom, now a makeshift dungeon. He was the only one unchained: Kouren had allowed him enough freedom to treat Jae-ha and Kija’s wounds. That meant he was the only one who could go to Zeno’s side. But there was nothing he could do to stop what he knew was going to happen, not even time to rush forward and take Zeno’s hand as Mizari raised his sword. “Show me again!”
“No, don’t!” Yun’s cry, echoed by the other three dragons, did nothing to halt Mizari’s blade as it sliced Zeno’s neck clean through. His head fell limp to the ground, his body jerked forward against the chains, and a scream echoed through the room. Blood gushed forth from Zeno’s neck, pooling on the dusty stone floor; blood dripped down, sticky against Yun’s cheek from the spray. Somewhere behind Yun, Kija let out a choked sob.
“Won’t you get up?” Mizari nudged Zeno’s head with a foot, and before he knew what he was doing, Yun dove forward, taking Zeno’s head into his arms.
“Don’t touch him!” Blood pounded in his ears, blood soaked through his tunic.
“What are you worried about, boy? He’s someone who can’t die!” Mizari pointed his sword at Yun as if to say you, on the other hand… Yun ignored it. Kouren must have given orders—in all his visits, Mizari had only ever hurt Zeno.
Before, in the Kai Empire, Zeno had begun healing even from this right away. But his healing was slower here; his body still chained to that post, unable to move. Yun took a step towards it, his friend’s head cradled in his arms. At the very least, he could—
Mizari stepped in front of Zeno’s body, blocking Yun’s path. “I wonder how long we can keep him in two pieces,” he mused. Then he crouched down, peering into Zeno’s eyes. “Hey, immortal person, won’t you say something? If you can scream, can’t you talk?”
Yun didn’t want to know the answer to that question. But Mizari answered it for him, spinning back around and driving his sword once more through Zeno’s heart. Zeno let out a fresh cry of pain. “Yun, just—” Jae-ha began. He didn’t finish. What could Yun do? If he kept holding onto Zeno, the dragon wouldn’t be able to heal, but if he let go, Mizari would only do something more horrible—and Yun’s own mind kept trying to escape, to take refuge in scientific aloofness, to ask how is that possible, his lungs are over there—
Yun stumbled backwards, eyes casting around the room for anything he could do, anything at all. And then he saw it. In his haste to continue his games, Mizari had left the door to the dungeon cracked open. “I’m sorry, Zeno,” he whispered. Then he ran.
He didn’t know what he was doing. Not escape, surely, not with Zeno like this, not with the other dragons still in chains. Didn’t know what he was doing until he ran past the guards at the door and all the way to the mansion’s main room and saw Princess Kouren, standing calmly at a window, gazing outside as twilight fell over the town below.
“Kouren!”
She turned. Then a heavy hand on Yun’s shoulder stopped him in his tracks. Zeno’s severed head tumbled out of his grasp, hitting the floor with a hollow, heart-wrenching thud. It marked a bloody trail as it rolled across the floor and came to a stop at Kouren’s feet. She blanched, and Yun recalled Princess Tao’s story.
“You did this!” Yun shouted at her. Kouren narrowed her eyes, recovering her composure almost immediately. “Please,” said Yun, tears streaming down his face. “Please make him stop hurting him! We surrendered! There’s no reason for this!” From the floor, Zeno’s eyes flickered between Yun and Kouren, the fear in them plainly visible behind his blood-matted hair, the grimace on his face reminding Yun that back in that dungeon, Mizari was still—
“I have no pity to spare for anyone from Kouka. Especially not for a monster who can’t even die.”
“No one deserves to be tortured for no reason! Whether they’re from Kouka, or Xing, or anywhere else!”
“Tell that to your countrymen seventeen years ago!” Kouren strode across the room towards Yun, staring down at him. He held her gaze unflinching. “You’re young,” she said, finally. “You don’t remember the war, you weren’t even alive when Yu-hon—”
“You think I don’t know what Yu-hon was like? The man who raised me had just as much reason to hate Yu-hon as you do, and he’s the kindest, gentlest person I know. So if you’re someone who condones senseless violence and lets the man who tried to kill her sister do as he pleases, you don’t get to blame Yu-hon for that! That’s the kind of person you are, all right? Is that who you want to be?”
“Enough! Neguro, take him back. I see now it was a mistake to leave this one unchained. And take…that…away as well.”
The man holding Yun in place shoved him forward, reaching down to unceremoniously grab a handful of yellow hair, then turned and escorted Yun out of the room.
“Don’t cry, lad. It’ll be all right.” Neguro shuddered at the sound of Zeno’s bodiless voice. But all Yun’s words had amounted to nothing, and it wasn’t all right at all.
“Yun!” Kija’s worried cry welcomed him back, but Yun only had eyes for Zeno, his chained, headless body draped in shreds of bloody cloth.
“You brought them back! Neguro-senpai, let’s put him back together!”
“Get out, Mizari.”
“But—”
“Out.”
“Please,” said Yun as Mizari filed dejectedly out of the room. “At least let me—”
Neguro loosened his grip on Yun’s shoulder and let him take Zeno’s head. Probably he wanted nothing to do with Zeno’s monstrous power. Yun rushed forward and refused to look away as Zeno’s flesh and bone reached out and knit back together. “I’m sorry!” he cried. “I panicked, and all I did in the end was prolong—”
“Don’t scare Zeno like that, lad! Not when Zeno can’t protect you!”
“You idiot! I was trying to protect you!”
“You know you don’t need to do that, lad.”
“I—” Words wouldn’t come. Of course he knew that Zeno wouldn’t ever die, that no matter what, the only record of his pain would be in the tattered clothing that Yun knew he’d always do his best to mend regardless of what he’d promised. And today he couldn’t even do that much. He unwrapped his shawl, draping it over Zeno’s blood-soaked shoulders as Neguro pulled him away.
Yun offered no resistance as Neguro shackled him to a fifth pillar. Looked away from Jae-ha’s choked voice of protest. But in the hours that followed, Mizari didn’t return. And then—just after dawn, Shin-ah told them—Neguro returned once more. “Her Highness trusts you know better than to try to escape,” he said, unlocking their shackles one by one.
“There, there, Zeno said it would be all right,” Zeno said as Yun rushed once more to his side, as the other dragons joined them in their embrace. “You did good, lad.”