Chương 145: 08. Crash Landin 2

"I'm going down." She delivered this with the casual tone of someone announcing a slight dinner delay, rather than describing our imminent conversion into a footnote that future historians would struggle not to laugh at while documenting. Before I could even shout Your Highness, that phrasing is doing considerable heavy lifting, her flight path completely degraded. We weren't just falling. We were descending while banking aggressively toward open ocean. It was a terrible trajectory.

Even someone with zero aerodynamic knowledge could identify the mechanics as fundamentally wrong. She was flying like something that had lost a critical argument with physics—right wing spasming erratically, massive frame listing heavily as we slid further from the coastline. The faint outlines of terrain below vanished into absolute void, and then that void became the particular quality of black that only water possesses at night. My heart sank. At this rate, we weren't going to die from impact trauma.

We were going to drown. Both of us. Together. And decades hence, some bored archivist would add a marginal note: Lord Rosa and the Fire Dragon Princess perished together at sea. The sheer stupidity of their demise contributed nothing to subsequent diplomatic relations. Just imagining that epitaph made me consider jumping preemptively.

"Your Highness!" I screamed, clinging to her scales.

"Left! Go left! There's still land over there!" No response. I shouted twice more. I even kicked the cooler plating near her neck base. It achieved nothing except nearly unseating me. She kept banking toward the water with terrifying resolve. I was about to unleash a string of curses when I realized this wasn't stubbornness. This was the primal instinct of a half-conscious, severely wounded predator. She wasn't trying to drown us.

Burdened by curse and injury, her deepest survival logic was forcing her away from human settlements and potential pursuit. It's very difficult to righteously yell at someone operating on terminal survival instincts. Difficult. Not impossible. Just as I was calculating exactly how much seawater constituted a dignified death, a darker mass condensed out of the night ahead. An island. Small, but unmistakably solid. The relief that hit me was so acute I nearly converted to any deity willing to listen.

"Your Highness! Island dead ahead!" I flattened against her neck and roared into the gap between her scales.

"Do you see it?! Right there! Fall toward that! I'm begging you, if we're going to crash, at least pick somewhere with ground!" Still nothing. I tried everything—slapping scales, shouting, yanking the mane-spikes along her neck. When all else failed, I half-drew my sword, selected a seam that looked least likely to result in immediate retaliation, and jammed the tip in hard.

"Wake up! This is not the time to play dead!" I wasn't sure if that qualified as high treason. But the alternative was debating aristocratic etiquette at the bottom of the ocean, and I was fairly certain only the fish would appreciate my excellent manners at that depth. The sharp pain finally pierced through. Ignicia's body jolted violently. The death spiral toward the waves snapped, trajectory wrenching sideways. Something behind her eyes came back online.

With a massive, agonizing effort, she forced her wings open and hauled us toward the island through sheer, brutal determination. Going back was impossible. The only remaining question was whether we could convert terminal water impact into catastrophic land crash before the distinction became academic. The beach, jagged reefs, and black treeline exploded upward with terrifying speed. I pressed flat and locked both arms around the nearest scale ridge. Then we hit. It wasn't a landing.

It was the equivalent of a burning natural disaster being hurled from altitude directly onto an island's edge. Ignicia's massive frame slammed into the beach and plowed forward in a grinding arc that threw sand, gravel, and shell fragments outward like shrapnel. The kinetic shock hit me so hard my vision went white. I was ripped from her back and launched into the air like discarded debris. Thank every god it was sand. If we'd hit reef, I wouldn't have needed to draft final words.

I slammed into the beach hard enough to drive every molecule of air from my lungs simultaneously. Before my brain could isolate which body part was radiating the most agony, consciousness simply pulled the plug. I don't know how much time passed. Maybe moments. Maybe half the night. The first thing that returned was the sound of waves—rhythmic, deeply irritating percussion against the shore. Then, beneath that, a voice calling my name. Not human. Dragon.

"Cedric." Lower than usual. Rougher. I snapped my eyes open to find a pair of enormous golden slit-pupils looming inches from my face. Ignicia was still in dragon form, sprawled across the sand, breathing heavy and labored. The puncture wound from the cursed spear remained in her flank. The fire-veins around it had dimmed to a sickly, suffocated hue, as if the internal flame was being actively smothered.

Yet despite the catastrophic damage, her eyes were hard—hard enough to suggest she was already calculating which section of that wall to revisit out of spite. I propped myself up, running quick inventory. Ribs, arms, legs. Still attached. Probably unbroken. I filed that under tonight's minor miracles. Ignicia exhaled slowly, golden eyes locked on the dark horizon as if trying to glare an absent enemy into submission.

"I was outmaneuvered," she said, voice grinding like stone.

"I didn't expect the Yanxia Empire to employ Dragon-Cursers." I rubbed my temples, clearing the ringing from my skull and working on steady breathing.

"What exactly are Dragon-Cursers?"

"Idiots who think they can enslave dragons." She answered instantly, the sheer revulsion in her tone doing most of the explanatory work. I looked at her, intending to press for details, but she frowned, seemingly taking stock of our surroundings for the first time. Waves. Sand. Dark trees. Jagged rocks. A stretch of night sky neither of us recognized. She was quiet for a moment.

"Forget the Dragon-Cursers for now," she said.

"Where exactly are we?" I looked at the ocean, then the trees, then the unhelpful sky.

"Excellent question," I said honestly.

"I'd love to know that too." If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. The sea breeze rolled in carrying salt and biting chill. I stared at her for two full seconds. No, I wasn't imagining it. She had definitely averted her gaze, and beneath the intricate fire-traced patterns running along her neck, there was a subtle but unmistakable flush of red.

Under normal circumstances, I would have immediately questioned whether the crash had damaged my perception. But given that her wound was currently weeping horrific blue-green necrotic substance and her violet blood was steadily dripping into the sand, I genuinely lacked the emotional bandwidth to process a blushing dragon.

"You're refusing?" I crouched beside the wound, studying the blue-green curse mark that looked like the absolute antithesis of good news.

"Your Highness, given your current condition, I don't think you have the luxury of being selective."

"I'm not being selective," she said, voice dropping to glacial chill.

"I'm refusing."

"What's the difference?"

"The former implies I'm willing to waste time debating you. The latter means you should shut up immediately." Perfect. Classic Ignicia. The fact that she still had energy for precise taxonomies of dismissal was, perversely, reassuring. It meant she was still several steps away from the edge. That was positive, even if the diagnostic method—can she still be specifically unpleasant? —was deeply dysfunctional. I looked back at the injury.

The cursed spear was gone—likely broken off in the crash—but the weapon had never been the real problem. The Dragon Corruption Curse left in her flesh was spreading along scale seams from the wound's center, moving with patient, purposeful progress like something that had decided it lived there now. It looked like someone had packed the wound with aggressive, self-propagating toxic moss. Just seeing it made my skin crawl.

"Fine." I drew a breath, actively suppressing the urge to shake her until she spoke sense.

"Since you recognize this curse and apparently know how to address it, let's run through the options systematically. Can't cut it out? Can't burn it? Can't leave it alone? There has to be a viable method."

"There is."

"Tell me."

"No." I closed my eyes. Outstanding. The sea breeze pressed against my back, carrying salt and deepening cold. The horizon was beginning to show pale grey. Let me summarize: stranded on an uncharted island, daylight approaching, responsible for a cursed, shape-locked Fire Dragon Princess who would rather bleed out than explain how to save her life. If this wasn't my personal nadir, I was terrified to discover what was. I opened my eyes and looked directly at her.

"Your Highness. Let me clarify something."

"What."

"I'm only employing basic courtesy right now because you're severely injured." I pointed at the festering nightmare on her flank.

"But if you insist on being stubborn, I'm going to start using crude human methods to save your life." Her golden slit-pupils contracted to razor lines.

"You wouldn't dare."

"I absolutely would," I said evenly.

"It's not like you can stand up to stop me." The instant those words left my mouth, I regretted them. The look she gave me transformed immediately—from weakened patient to high-risk creditor who had just noted the date and begun calculating interest. If she'd possessed even thirty percent mobility, I was confident I'd already be the island's first ash pile. But threats aside, a life was a life. I settled in front of her and began working through the worst ideas I could generate.

"For the record, you forced this." I raised one finger.

"Method one: I take my knife and carve the curse out manually."

"Imbecile," she replied without hesitation.

"Noted. Method two: I pour spirits directly into the wound and set it ablaze."

"If you wish to be bitten in half right now, you're welcome to try."

"Moving on. Method three—" I raised a second finger "—find medicinal plants on this island, or flush it with seawater—""Seawater will only introduce more corruption."

"Method four: bury you in sand and let the sun bake it out?"

"I am not a fish being cured."

"Method five: drag you into the shallows to drop your core temperature?"

"Are you actively trying to accelerate the necrosis?"

"Method six: make you breathe fire again and burn the curse out from inside?" She didn't even bother with words this time. She simply looked at me with an expression that clearly communicated: If you attempt that, I will use my dying breath to ensure you precede me. I let out a long, exhausted sigh.

"Your Highness, I'm genuinely trying here."

"Then stop trying."

"Not an option." I rubbed my temples.

"Right now you sound exactly like one of those noble children who knows the answer but refuses to turn in the exam paper. If I don't force the issue, the one arranging your funeral is going to be me." She made a cold, dismissive sound and tried to turn her head away. The movement pulled at her wound, and her breathing hitched—just once, just briefly. For a fraction of a second, something flickered through her eyes that I'd never expected to see there. Pain. Real, undeniable pain.

The irritation in my chest dropped into something much heavier. No. This was moving faster than I'd calculated. She wasn't just being stubborn anymore. She was running out of strength to maintain the performance. I discarded the last shreds of diplomatic courtesy and let my voice go flat.

"Fine." I leaned forward.

"Then I'm switching to increasingly offensive directions. Either you tell me the truth before I land on the most absurd hypothesis, or you can wait while I start testing the most humiliating methods directly on your royal person." Her eyes narrowed to golden slits.

"Cedric."

"I'm here."

"You should think very carefully about what you're saying."

"I have thought it through," I said.

"Because the one who's about to die is you, not me." Even I winced slightly at that. But she didn't explode. She just stared at me, breathing heavier, her tail striking the sand in agitated percussion. Even she had to know that if she held out much longer, there wouldn't be time left for pride. So I launched into round two of terrible speculation.

"Blood?" I asked.

"Do you need someone else's blood?"

"No."

"Dragon blood mixed with fire?"

"Do you want to detonate the entire island?"

"Then it's some kind of..." I frowned, excavating the most obscure corners of human folklore from my pathetically limited knowledge.

"... archaic remedy? The kind you hear in old stories. Virgin's blood, or virgin—""If you finish that sentence, I will kill you right now!" She practically roared it. The sound was weakened but still rang my ears, sending three seabirds that had just landed nearby into immediate flight. Good. Her lungs were still functional. More importantly—I'd finally stepped on the line she'd been guarding with her life. I looked at her steadily and raised an eyebrow.

"So you do know the solution."

"I never said I didn't."

"Then speak plainly."

"No."

"Your Highness."

"No."

"Ignicia." She glared at me with the full force of those golden slit-pupils—fury, humiliation, and something I would never have expected to find in the eyes of this particular dragon: hesitation. That was rarer than watching her burn down city walls. The absurdity hit me like a wave. This was the Fire Dragon Princess. The woman who had just carved a glowing scar into the Blazing Scale Wall.

And here she was, on a deserted beach, locked in a standoff with me over a curse remedy, looking for all the world like a student who refused to admit she hadn't done the homework. If I said that out loud, I would learn exactly how hot dragonfire was at point-blank range. I drew a breath and cut straight to it.

"Let me rephrase. Is the method embarrassing, agonizing, or shameful?" She didn't answer immediately. But beneath the fire-traced patterns along her scales, that subtle flush crept back.... Right. The answer was self-evident. I nearly laughed, caught it just in time—she could still take my arm off in her current condition—and kept my expression neutral.

"It's shameful, isn't it."

"Shut up."

"I see." I nodded, keeping my voice deliberately, infuriatingly calm.

"Well, at least that means I don't need to catch fish and press them against your wound, and I don't need to find some virgin—""Cedric."

"Right, not saying that word." I raised both hands.

"But you still have to tell me the actual method. Keep stalling and you won't die of shame—you'll die with your dignity completely intact, which will be very cold comfort." Her breathing hitched again. The blue-green curse mark had deepened visibly—the surrounding fire-veins that had still carried some luminescence were being choked out. She knew it. The stubborn refusal in her eyes was developing cracks. After a long moment, she ground out a single sentence.

"It can't be pulled out."

"I know that much. And?"

"The curse has to be drawn out of the fire-vein first." My pulse jumped. Finally. I shifted closer immediately.

"How?" She didn't look at me. More accurately—she was actively refusing to look at me. The Fire Dragon Princess, who normally surveyed the world from a comfortable altitude of absolute superiority, had fixed her gaze on a nearby reef with the intensity of someone conducting a very important argument with sedimentary rock. After a long pause, she forced the next words through her teeth.

"Beneath the inverse scale." I blinked.

"... Where?" She finally turned her head and fixed me with a look that could have stripped paint.

"I said, beneath the inverse scale." Every syllable was bitten off as if she intended to chew through the words and me simultaneously.

"You reach in, find the fire-vein node, and drag whatever's latched onto it toward the surface. Get it to the wound's edge. I'll burn it from there." I was quiet for two full seconds. Not because I hadn't understood. I'd understood every individual word. The problem was that assembled together, they formed instructions with some deeply uncomfortable implications.

"Your Highness," I said, choosing my words with surgical precision.

"That description makes it very difficult to maintain composure."

"If your thoughts go somewhere they shouldn't, I'll kill you before the curse does."

"That's not—" I gestured at the layered, densely overlapping scales along her neck and chest, the kind that radiated a very clear do not touch energy.

"The inverse scale. That's not the place dragons can least afford to have touched?" She went silent. Not the silence of stubbornness. The silence of someone who had just been precisely, accurately named. The sea wind moved through her mane-spikes. She held that silence for a long moment, and when she finally spoke, her voice had gone rough.

"That's why I said no." I looked at her and genuinely couldn't decide which problem to address first: the solution itself, or the fact that she had just placed her life entirely in my hands. She interpreted my silence as hesitation and immediately went on the offensive.

"What?" Her voice was low, carrying a distinct edge of wounded pride.

"Now you're the one who doesn't dare?" The moment she said that, I knew I couldn't retreat. Because she wasn't posturing anymore. She was using the last reserve of her dignity to get the words out. If I backed down now, everything that had preceded this—the escalating guesses, the absurd remedies, the near-invocation of folk medicine—would collapse into pure humiliation with no resolution. I exhaled slowly and started rolling up my sleeve.

"I dare," I said.

"But we're establishing terms. When you've recovered, you are not allowed to incinerate me for this."

"That depends entirely on how steady your hands are."

"Wonderful." I looked at the scales that continued to broadcast their very firm you are not welcome here advisory, then back at her.

"Your Highness, I want you to know that right now I'm experiencing profound nostalgia for that virgin—""Cedric."

"Understood. I'm shutting up." I moved closer, my heartbeat deciding to become notably less professional about this situation. Not for any complicated reason. Simply because I was acutely aware that the Fire Dragon Princess—the one who would sooner perform a dignified death than admit vulnerability—had just handed me access to the one place she would never, under any other circumstances, allow a human to touch.