I woke with the first threads of dawn. The first thing I felt was not the coldness of the stone floor, but a faint warmth still on my lips. A ghostly touch, a memory from last night. I jumped to my feet, my heart pounding for reasons completely different from the usual fear.

  Aline.

  I searched for her everywhere. In the common hall, behind the kitchens, in the muddy courtyard. She wasn't there. "Damn it," I whispered to myself as I ran through the alleys, a new feeling of cold anxiety mixing with the warmth she had left behind. "You should have picked a better time to kiss me, you fool... but it was wonderful."

  Then I stopped. Of course. There was only one place. I ran toward the alley that had become our sanctuary and looked up. She was there. A silhouette sitting on the edge of the roof, her blonde hair gleaming like a halo in the faint morning light, contemplating the dark Forest of Chains on the horizon.

  "Aline!" I shouted.

  She turned and looked down at me. A small, confident smile played on her lips. "Look, look. The roles have been reversed. Now you're the one searching for me and finding me."

  "Get me up there," I said seriously. "I want to talk to you." She looked at me with amusement. "I don't want to."

  I felt a pang of defiance. "Is it because you can't?" Her eyes narrowed slightly. "What did you say?"

  "You heard me," I said with a sarcastic smile. "The great sorceress Aline... just empty words. Just a little girl waving her hands and pretending she can do simple magic, but in reality..."

  Before I could finish my sentence, I felt the ground disappear from under me. I flew into the air, letting out a sudden cry, and she placed me forcefully on the roof beside her. She turned to me, her face looking artificially angry. "Have I now succeeded in proving my power, you arrogant horse?"

  But her fake anger quickly faded, replaced by real concern. She turned completely to face me. "An expression of love? Training? Hong Min, what does this nonsense mean? Every day I see new wounds on you!"

  I turned my face away from her and sat a little behind her, looking in the opposite direction. I couldn't face her gaze. "You don't understand anything, Aline," I said in a low voice, the words tasting bitter in my mouth. The words were coming out of my mouth, but they seemed to belong to someone else. A small part of me was screaming that all of this was wrong, but I crushed that part. The fear of losing the only thing I had ever known was stronger than any truth. "She is my mother. She is the one who raised me, who gave me a place to live. I was supposed to die the day I was born, but she saved me. She named me. Without her, I am nothing. I am useless, but she kept me."

  Silence fell for a moment, then I heard her voice tremble slightly behind me. "Then... replace her with me." I turned in shock. "What?"

  She had turned completely toward me now, and I saw tears glistening in her blue eyes. "If you can't live without her, then make me your world instead! Let's escape from here together. This place is desolate, everything in it is desolate!"

  She moved closer to me, her voice becoming a desperate whisper. "You think I'm strong, but I'm just as lonely as you are. And loneliness here kills slowly. I found something in you that makes this place bearable. If you escape without me, or if you stay here to be broken, I'll go back to my loneliness. So, this isn't just for you, it's for me too. We're saving each other."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "But I want to protect you!" the words burst out of me. "I can't live with the burden of my birth, and then add the burden of you protecting me to it! I just can't!"

  "I don't care!" she said, placing her hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at her. "And I can't live without you either! After I tried to break into your dark world with all my might, after I entered it, I can no longer get out!"

  She paused, took a deep breath, and said her final words as if they were a final oath, as if she were throwing everything she had into this last choice. "Just as you can't live with your burdens, I can't live without you. So, choose me. Prefer me over your burden. Prefer me over 'Mother'. Prefer me, and let's escape."

  I looked into her tearful eyes, and I saw my new world reflected in them. A world of glowing rooftops, free laughter, and warm kisses. A world worth fighting for.

  There was no hesitation. There was no conflict. It was a choice as simple and clear as the sunrise. "Yes," I said in a steady voice I didn't know I possessed. "Yes. Let's escape together."

  In that moment, I saw all the tension melt from her face, replaced by a wave of pure relief that made her look brighter than ever. She didn't say anything. Instead, she moved forward and hugged me tightly, burying her face in my shoulder. I hugged her back, and for the first time in my life, I felt the meaning of being a sanctuary for someone else, and not just a burden.

  We pulled away from each other, and she held my face in her warm hands and kissed me. This time, it wasn't a surprise kiss, but a deep, slow kiss, a kiss that carried within it an oath, a promise, and the beginning of everything.

  When she pulled away, she was smiling a mischievous smile. "See? I'm very persuasive when I want to be." I forced myself to let out a low laugh to hide how moved I was. "Shut up. You're just using your beauty to seduce me."

  Her smile widened, and a glint of victory appeared in her eyes. "So... you think I'm beautiful?" I felt the heat rise to my face and tensed up. "I... I didn't say that!"

  She burst into a clear, ringing laugh, the same laugh that had become my own personal anthem. "Let's go!" she said with enthusiasm, and pulled me by the hand. "Let's go to the Forest of Chains!"

  I froze. "Now?!" "Yes, now!" she said as if it were the most logical idea in the world.

  "And what about food? Water?" She looked at me as if I were speaking a strange language. "We'll find everything there. Don't worry, we'll manage."

  "What do you mean 'we'll manage'? You talk so much about impossible things!" Suddenly, I felt myself rising into the air. "Coward!" she shouted as she laughed and flew me down from the roof. She set me down gently on the ground, then landed gracefully beside me. "Let's go..."

  "Just as I thought."

  The blood in my veins froze. It was a cold, quiet, and terrifyingly familiar voice. It came from behind us.

  We turned slowly. Ikumi was standing there, her hands clasped behind her back, her face holding no expression. She was looking at us as if she were looking at two insects she had found where they shouldn't be.

  "M... Mother?" I stammered in shock. "What are you doing here?"

  She ignored me completely. Her icy eyes were fixed on Aline. And in a blurry, impossibly fast motion, she lunged forward. I saw only a flash. She slapped Aline with a force that didn't match her appearance, a violent slap that sent her flying through the air and crashing into a hut before she fell to the ground in a single heap.

  "Aline!" I screamed, and ran toward her.

  "Why?!" I screamed in Ikumi's face, hot tears beginning to fill my eyes. "Mother, why did you do this?!"

  She finally looked at me, and a cold expression of disgust crossed her face. "Why?" she repeated my word sarcastically. "This whore was going to steal my son from me. Of course I would do this."

  She pointed to Aline, who was trying to get up and moaning in pain. "And on top of that, she wanted to take you to your death? The Forest of Chains? At this weak level? Who do you think you are?"

  She laughed a short, mirthless laugh. "Good thing I came to check. Don't worry, my son," she said, as she turned back to me with a frighteningly possessive look. "You'll forget all about her after this vampire disappears."

  She took another step toward the collapsed Aline. "I have found a more suitable man for her than you. She will become a concubine."