The wound healed in three days.
By the fourth day, Scarlett could walk without limping. By the fifth, the only evidence she'd been shot was a faint pink scar on her thigh that would fade to nothing within a week.
The Aether core worked miracles on flesh and bone.
But it couldn't heal what was broken inside.
Scarlett sat by the window in her room, the same position she'd occupied for hours—days, maybe. Time had lost meaning. Morning bled into afternoon, afternoon into evening, and she barely noticed the difference. Just sat there, staring out at gardens she'd once tried to enjoy, at gates she'd once tried to escape through, at a world that existed beyond her reach.
Silent.
So terribly, endlessly silent.The bodyguards didn't know what to do with her. Lin brought her favorite bubble tea—jasmine milk tea, thirty percent sugar, light ice—and set it on the table beside her. It sat untouched until the ice melted and the tea went lukewarm.
Marcus brought macarons from the patisserie, arranged them on a delicate plate like an offering. They remained there, untouched, until Mrs. Chen quietly removed them the next day.
Tao tried talking to her. Gentle conversation about the weather, about the flowers blooming in the garden, about anything that might spark some response.
Scarlett said nothing. Just kept staring out the window while tears tracked down her cheeks in silent, endless streams.
She cried without sound. Without sobs or gasps or any of the usual theatrics of grief. Just tears falling like rain, constant and quiet and infinite.
The reckless energy that had driven her to plant flowers everywhere, to swing high enough to give grown men heart attacks, to charge at Sylus with murder in her eyes—gone. The fury that had made her bite and scratch and fight—extinguished. The desperate hope that had made her run, again and again, no matter how many times she failed—dead.
All of it, dead.
Shot through the leg and bled out on the driveway along with her blood.
What was left was a shell. A beautiful, broken doll that breathed and blinked and cried but didn't really live anymore.
The bodyguards exchanged worried glances when they thought she wasn't looking. Whispered in concerned tones during their shift changes.
"She hasn't eaten in two days."
"The boss is going to lose his mind if she gets sick."
"What are we supposed to do? Force-feed her?"
"You want to be the one to tell Mr. Qin his wife is wasting away?"
Nobody wanted that job.
.
.
.
.
Sylus had become a ghost in his own mansion.
He left early in the mornings, before Scarlett woke. Spent his days handling business—enemy factions that needed eliminating, shipment routes that needed securing, territory disputes that needed his personal attention.
The bloody work of maintaining his empire.
Work that used to come easily now felt like dragging himself through broken glass.
He returned late at night, long after Scarlett had retreated to her room. The few times their paths had crossed in those first days after the shooting, she'd looked at him with those empty eyes and started sobbing. Not the angry, defiant tears from before.
Just broken, defeated weeping that cut deeper than any weapon ever could.
"Please.." she'd whispered, backing away from him like he was a monster from her nightmares. "Please don't. I can't—I can't see you. Please just go. Please."
So he'd gone.
Because what else could he do? Force his presence on her when just the sight of him made her fall apart? Make her suffer more than she already was?
He was trying to keep her safe. Trying to protect her from the dozens of enemies who would love nothing more than to get their hands on the woman with the rare healing Aether core.
The prize every crime lord in three provinces wanted to possess or destroy.
But in trying to keep her safe, he'd destroyed her anyway.
Different method. Same result.
So he threw himself into work because work didn't require him to face what he'd done. Work was simple. Clear. Kill the enemies. Secure the shipments. Maintain control through fear and force.
He was good at that. Had always been good at that.
But keeping the woman he loved from shattering completely? That was beyond even a dragon's power.
His men noticed the change. The boss who'd always been controlled, calculated, almost inhumanly patient had become unpredictable. Quicker to anger. Slower to forgive. He'd executed three men for minor infractions in the past week alone—mistakes that would normally have earned a warning, now earned a bullet.
"The boss is losing it," they whispered when they thought he couldn't hear.
"It's her. The wife. He's tearing himself for her."
"Should've just let her go."
"You want to be the one to suggest that to him?"
Silence. Nobody know that was suicidal.
.
.
.
.
.
Sylus couldn't stay away forever.
It had been a week since the shooting. A week of avoiding her, of giving her space, of hoping that distance would somehow help heal what he'd broken.
It hadn't worked.
If anything, according to Mrs. Chen's increasingly worried reports, Scarlett was getting worse. Not eating. Barely sleeping. Just sitting by that window, crying silent tears, fading away like a ghost.
He had to see her. Had to try something, anything, even if she hated him for it.
Even if seeing him made her fall apart again.
Because the alternative—letting her waste away while he hid like a coward—was unthinkable.
He stood outside her door for a long moment, gathering his courage. How pathetic. The most feared crime lord in the region, afraid to face his own wife.
He knocked softly. No answer. He used his key, opening the door slowly.
Scarlett sat in the chair by the window, exactly where she'd been every day for a week.
Still wearing the same clothes from yesterday—an oversized sweater and soft pants that hung loose on her frame. Her hair was unbrushed, falling in tangles around her shoulders. Her face was pale, eyes red-rimmed from constant crying.
She didn't turn when he entered. Didn't acknowledge his presence at all. Just kept staring out at the gardens with those empty, broken eyes.
Sylus felt something crack in his chest.
He crossed the room slowly, footsteps quiet on the carpet. When he reached her, he did something he'd never done before.
He knelt.
The great dragon, the crime lord everyone feared, knelt before his broken bride like a penitent seeking forgiveness.
He took her hands in his. So small, her hands. So soft and delicate and fragile. Like holding butterfly wings. He could feel how much weight she'd lost in just a week—her fingers were thinner, the bones more prominent.
She was wasting away. Dying slowly from the inside out.
And it was his fault.
"Scarlett," he whispered. His voice came out rough, unused. "Please. Please look at me."
She didn't move. Didn't blink. Just kept staring out the window while tears slid down her cheeks.
Sylus brought her hands to his lips, pressing gentle kisses to her knuckles.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never meant—" His voice cracked. "I never meant to break you like this."
No response. She might as well have been a statue for all the reaction he got.
He couldn't stand it anymore. Couldn't bear the silence, the emptiness, the way she looked through him instead of at him. At least when she'd been fighting him, there had been fire in her eyes. Life. Fury. Something.
This? This hollow shell? This was so much worse.
He released one of her hands to cup her face, tilting it gently toward him. Her eyes were unfocused, like she was looking at something a thousand miles away instead of the man kneeling before her.
"Come back to me," he whispered. "Hate me. Fight me. Try to kill me. Anything. Just... just come back."
Still nothing.
So he did the only thing he could think of.
The only thing he knew how to do anymore.
He kissed her.
His lips met hers softly, carefully, like she might shatter at too much pressure. No force this time. No gun to her head or hands pinning her down. Just a desperate, broken kiss from a monster who'd finally realized what he'd done.
Scarlett didn't push him away.
But she didn't kiss him back either.
She just sat there, pliant and passive, letting him take what he wanted. A doll. A beautiful, empty doll that breathed but didn't feel.
It was worse than if she'd fought him.
Worse than if she'd bitten his lip or scratched his face or screamed her hatred. At least that would have been something. Would have meant she still had fire left inside.
This? This acceptance, this surrender, this complete absence of response?
This meant he'd won.
And winning had destroyed them both.
Sylus pulled back slowly, searching her face for any sign of the woman he'd fallen in love with across lifetimes. The fierce, stubborn girl who'd planted flowers to annoy him. Who'd swung high enough to terrify his men. Who'd glared at him like she could set him on fire with her eyes alone.
But that woman was gone. Shot through the leg and bled out on his driveway. Killed by the man who claimed to love her more than life itself.
"What have I done?" he whispered, more to himself than to her. "What have I done?"
He stood slowly, his hand falling away from her face. Scarlett's head turned back to the window immediately, dismissing him as easily as if he'd never been there at all.
Sylus walked to the door on legs that felt unsteady. Stopped with his hand on the handle.
"I love you," he said quietly. Not expecting a response. Not deserving one. Just needing to say it.
"I know you don't believe me. I know you think I'm a monster. And you're right. But it's still true. I love you. I've loved you through death and resurrection and a thousand years of searching. I love you so much it's destroying us both"
Just the sound of her quiet breathing and the distant ticking of a clock.
"I'm sorry I'm not strong enough to let you go."
Then he left, closing the door with a soft click.
He made it three steps down the hallway before his vision blurred.
Sylus pressed his back against the wall, one hand coming up to cover his eyes.
His shoulders shook with silent sobs he wouldn't let escape. Tears he hadn't shed in centuries leaked through his fingers.
He was breaking. The great dragon was breaking. Cracking apart under the weight of what he'd done to the only person who'd ever mattered.
In trying to keep her, he'd lost her anyway.
In trying to protect her, he'd destroyed her.
In trying to love her, he'd killed everything that made her worth loving.
And the worst part—the part that made him want to put a bullet through his own skull—was that he still couldn't let her go. Even knowing what it was doing to her. Even seeing her fade away day by day.
Even understanding that the kindest thing would be to set her free.
He couldn't do it.
Wouldn't do it.
Because he was selfish and broken and too in love to do the right thing.
So he'd watch her waste away in her golden cage while he bled out slowly from wounds no Aether core could heal.
Two broken souls, destroying each other one day at a time.
This was love, apparently.The terrible, devastating, monstrous thing he'd spent a thousand years searching for.
And he'd finally found it.
And it was killing them both.
.
.
.
.
.
Upstairs,alone in her room, Scarlett continued to stare out the window.
She'd felt him kneel before her. Felt his lips on her hands, on her mouth. Heard his voice breaking with emotion she didn't want to acknowledge.
But she couldn't respond. Couldn't fight.
Couldn't do anything except exist in this gray space where nothing hurt quite as much as feeling would.
The wound in her leg had healed.
The wound in her soul hadn't even begun to close.
She touched her lips where he'd kissed her—soft this time, gentle, almost reverent.
So different from before. So much worse, somehow.
Because when he forced her, she could hate him cleanly. Could rage against the monster who took what he wanted.
But this broken dragon, kneeling before her with tears in his eyes, begging her to come back?
That was harder to hate.
And she needed to hate him. Needed that fury to keep her from falling apart completely. Because if she stopped hating him, if she let herself feel anything else...
She didn't know what would be left of her.
So she stared out the window and let the tears fall and built walls around her heart that even a dragon couldn't breach.
And told herself this was survival.
Even if it felt like dying.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.