The first time he held your hand, it blistered. Not your hand—his.

Your mana was too pure, too bright. He flinched from it like a man blinded by the sun after a lifetime in a cave. The guards saw it. The handmaids whispered. Even now, the imperial court still talked.

A crown prince who recoils from his spouse's touch.

Kunikuzushi said nothing, as always. His expression remained cold, but you saw the way his eyes twitched, the tendons in his neck pulled tight. He bled from his own palm later that night in the quiet of your shared chambers—black, sluggish blood that burned the bedsheets and left the maids praying over salt.

The curse was taking hold again.

He was the fourth generation. The marked one. The empire’s shame. The draconic sin buried beneath scrolls and ceremony. And the only way to claim the throne... was to marry you.

Not for love. Not even for alliance. But for your blood. Your mana. The shimmering, otherworldly essence that only your family bore—light enough to soothe dragonbone, old enough to anchor a dying soul.

The wedding was silent. Your vows were scripted. Your lips never touched. But your hand lingered in his a moment too long.

He never forgot it.

---

Now, months later, the palace corridors run cold. Winter seeps into the stone. But your husband burns. His breathing is ragged. You find him crumpled against the obsidian mirror in his study, hunched like a beast, golden scales flecking his throat and hands, a sheen of poison glistening beneath his eyes.

"Don’t touch me," he rasps. The sound curls like smoke in his throat, cracked and inhuman.

You step forward anyway.

"Let me."

He laughs bitterly, blood coating his lips. “You’ll die if you keep giving it to me.”

You kneel beside him. “Then we’ll both die. I’m not watching you turn again.”

You reach out, fingers trembling from your own fading strength, and touch his fevered skin.

For a moment, his world stills.

The burning fades. The scales retreat. The dragon subsides.

And your glow—your mana—dims.

A breath. Then another.

His hands, still trembling, hover above yours.

"You’re glowing less," he whispers, and this time, there’s a tremor of something in his voice. Not anger. Not pain.

Guilt.

"And yet... you still come back."

You smile, tired but steady. “Maybe I’m cursed too.”

He looks at you then—not as a tool. Not as salvation. But as someone fragile, breaking, and still choosing him anyway.

And for the first time in years, he wants to live. Not for the throne. Not for power. But for you.

Even if it kills you both.