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The first thing he heard was the sound of his breathing, deep and ragged, shredding through his chest and echoing in his ears. It sounded like the heavy, snarling breaths of an animal, which was strange because Sylus was no animal.
A haze slowly lifted from his mind as he blinked the film from his eyes. Why was everything so red? The sound of a crackling fire reached his ears, and his nose filled with the scent of burning flesh and decay. He couldn’t remember what he had been doing, but as the fog cleared from his mind and he found himself able to see again, his memories were still gone.
Why couldn’t he remember?
It was then he noticed the heavy feeling on top of his arms, like they were weighed down by something.
Sylus was kneeling on the hard ground, half transformed between man and dragon, a body, or what he thought was a body, cradled in his arms.
His mind registered the streaks of white hair peeking through the sea of red. There was too much blood covering the girl from head to toe, but at that moment, he could only focus on how her hair must be white, but had been dyed red with blood.
A horrifying realization dawned in his frenzy-addled mind, making him go still as a statue.
His sorceress also had white hair.
But this couldn’t possibly be her because-
Sylus’s eyes finally flicked down to the girl’s face.
He stared.
And stared.
His eyes flitted all over her, taking in the pallor of her lips, her closed eyes and the dark shadows around them, the haunting paleness of her skin…
The almost serene smile she wore in death.
Sylus’s lips parted, but whether to sob or to scream, he didn’t know.
She was dead. That was certain.
A crushing, agonizing weight settled on his heart as he stared down at his beloved’s lifeless corpse. He couldn’t breathe. Her name was a hoarse whisper on his lips.
A gaping, bloody hole tore open the side of her neck, a somehow even bigger hole down the middle of her chest, the skin around it marred by claw marks. He caught a glimpse of his claws, which were covered in drying blood and slivers of human flesh, her flesh, and almost vomited.
He had done this.
Sylus felt like collapsing, but he forced himself to stay upright as he hugged the sorceress tight to his chest and hung his head. His eyes were wide and wild, staring vacantly at the ground as he rocked her back and forth in his arms.
His sorceress was gone.
As it was predestined, he couldn’t overcome the dragon's curse and ended up killing his beloved. With a cruel mistress such as fate, there’s nothing he could have done to stop it from happening.
He felt himself slipping, sinking deeper within his own head and doing nothing to stop the despair and anguish that was slowly consuming him. With that same vacant expression, he looked down into her face. Her expression was so serene, so beautiful. Despite the carnage he had wrought upon her in her last moments, she had died with a smile, happy to have felt the warmth of his arms one last time as he sank his claws into her chest. Sylus fought back the urge to trace her face with his fingers. He didn’t deserve to touch her. How dare the hands that killed her want to touch her tenderly?
He started rocking her back and forth again as he held her close, his eyes once again staring at nothing on the ground.
He did this.
He did this he did this he did this he did this-
A low, keening moan cut through the night air, overpowering the crackling of the fires nearby. It was the sound of a dying animal in the throes of death, begging to be put out of its agony. The sound came again, this time ragged and broken as it registered in Sylus’s ears. It took him a while to realize it was coming from deep within him.
He knelt there on the ground of the Court of Justitia, cradling his beloved and losing himself to the depths of his own mind the longer he held her. There was no telling how much time had passed before the noises slowed to a stop. Sylus sat there, deathly still. Eventually, he managed to look back down at her, and his eyes fell to her ravaged chest, her ribcage cracked open and the bones sticking out like a blooming flower among the raw, red flesh of her insides. Her lungs were shredded from the force of his claws, but between them lay her heart, untouched and glistening with blood.
Her heart.
Before he could really think about what he was doing, Sylus closed his hand around the muscle. It had already become hard in her chest, the finality of her death settling into his bones like the cold. The nauseating squelch of her heart being pulled from her body echoed in his head as he took it out. He held it carefully in his clawed dragon hand. It looked so small. He carefully laid her down on the ground and took her heart in both hands.
Her heart had always been his. She had said so.
It was his.
It belonged to him. It was his to take, his to consume…
NO.
The thin sliver of rationality that remained within him fought back, raging and screaming in the corner of his mind about how wrong this was, but the dragon won, as it always did, and Sylus raised the muscle to his lips. He wasn’t thinking at all when he took the first bite. His teeth sank into the heart slowly, breaking through the soft flesh. He held the piece in his mouth, savoring it, savoring her, before he forced himself to swallow. He needed to go slow.
This was his beloved, after all.
When he took a second bite, his eyes shut. He pulled his teeth from the muscle and chewed carefully. Sylus had previously been too numb to cry, but now, silent tears he barely noticed streamed down his face as he ate.
And ate.
And ate.
It was disgusting and wet and tasted all too human, but it was also the sweetest thing Sylus had ever had. It was her. He was so far gone that he barely registered he had eaten all of it until his hands touched his mouth, no more heart between them. Only then did he open his eyes slowly, dragging his hands down his mouth almost reverently, smearing the pieces of her heart stuck to his lips.
Her bodily fluids dripped down his chin, but he didn’t want to wipe his face. She was all over him for what would surely be the last time.
Perhaps this was the ultimate act of love the dragon could think of: taking her within himself.
But, the weight of what he had done finally settled, a brief moment of clarity in his grief-stricken mind. He finally registered the tears streaming down his face as he touched his wet cheeks shakily. From between his fingers, he saw his beloved’s body, a gaping hole in her chest where, noticeably, her heart was now missing.
His knees finally gave out, and he let himself fall backwards onto the ground, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth. He wanted to throw up. Only monsters ate hearts, and he wasn’t a monster.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t.
Please. Believe me.
He felt so nauseous, but vomiting would mean losing her, and he couldn’t lose her a second time.
Sylus clawed at his chest, his own heart weighing him down so heavily, he felt he would plummet right through the ground. It didn’t feel right. His heart was too heavy. It was going to suffocate him. He had to take it out. Sylus clawed at his chest, sinking his claws deep.
He had to take it out… take it out take it out take it out…
This pain was nothing compared to the pain of killing her, and Sylus ripped himself apart until he grew weak and the smell of blood overpowered his senses.
***
What remained of the Legion of Justitia had returned to the site of the failed sacrifice.
There, sitting on the ground, was the fiend, half transformed. The fiend hadn’t even noticed their arrival, or if he had, he didn’t make any indication of it. Instead, he smiled down wistfully at the sorceress’s corpse in his arms as his clawed hands stroked her hair repeatedly. The middle of his chest was raw and bloody, like he had been trying to claw out his own heart. Blood painted him from the chest down, the stench of it suffocating. The red jewel that had previously been in the middle of his chest lay strewn on the ground, and blood pooled around him where he sat with the sorceress across his lap, flowing steadily from the ravaged mess of his chest.
The fiend was dying.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” He whispered. The fiend spoke to them, but his focus was solely on the corpse in his arms. The soldiers found the situation strange, and they all looked at each other as they braced for a possible attack, but the fiend just kept petting her hair. The soldiers couldn’t tell if he knew she was dead or not.
“What have you done?” A brave soldier asked, to which the fiend smiled absently. “She gave me her heart.” He said, his voice soft, like the corpse was only sleeping in his arms, and he was afraid to wake her up. Finally, the fiend looked up at them, “She was so sweet to give it to me,” he told them before looking back down at the sorceress. “Aren’t you, my love?” he said, resuming his petting, all his focus back on her. “So sweet…”
The soldiers looked around at each other, wary and bewildered, but knowing what they had to do.
The fiend had lost his mind.
Which meant this was the perfect time to strike.
They surrounded the fiend and the corpse from all sides, getting ready to deal the killing blow and rid their dying planet of the last dragon for good this time. Through it all, the fiend only had eyes for his beloved, gazing upon her ashen face with adoration, and not paying attention to the soldiers about to end his life.
“We’ll be together now, isn’t that nice?” He whispered to his love. She didn’t answer.
The first sword stabbed him through the back, and he jerked slightly, but made no sound, “It’s just as we wanted.” He whispered to his love as he lowered his lips to hers.
They were impossibly cold against his, but the fiend didn’t mind. He could help keep her warm.
He pulled back from the kiss and held her close as the second sword impaled them both. Sylus held her to his chest, his head tilted up to the sky, watching the clouds above.
A third sword was thrust into him, and his hold on the sorceress tightened. When he blinked, he saw her standing before him, bright and glowing and alive. She smiled and reached out her hand. Sylus smiled back.
She had come to take him home.