Wooyoung's talons touched the treasure and shifted a few coins from their original place. Everyone waited with a bated breath, but he didn't cause an avalanche. No curse reaped him of his soul and no maw opened in the depths to swallow him whole. He found his balance and grinned back up at them, allowing everyone to let go of a breath they hadn't realised they were holding.

"It's safe," Wooyoung called, trying to muffle his voice so it wouldn't echo too much and alert someone or something of their presence. He beckoned them to come down and Morana found herself lifted into San's arm, carrying her down on steady wings. Yunho and Yeosang had to climb the wall together with Mingi, but it wasn't too far down. Hongjoong leapt with Aodhán in his grip, and his magic slowed their fall until they found footing.

Awed by all the riches around her, Morana bent to pick up a piece of gold. It was very real and shimmered back at her.

Before she had to turn her head and ask, she noticed Hongjoong picking up some jewel to slip it into his pocket. At her gaze, he shrugged.

"I'm married to the owner of these and I know he wouldn't care if we took some."

Immediately, Morana set out to chase down her crown, but her doubts made her unsure.

Did she deserve to call herself his daughter after fighting her fate for so long? Was it just to profit for the gold but shun him otherwise?

She slowed to a stop, fiddling with timid fingers.

How could she face Seonghwa, real or in her dreams, and claim they had nothing to do with each other while also wearing his treasures? But no, he had fallen. So where all these hers now? Hers and Aodhán's?

She took so long to make up her mind that Hongjoong stalked past her and picked up the crown she had been eyeing. It was silver, bearing black gems to form into tendrils and flowers to weave around the head of the bearer elegantly. When Hongjoong pressed it on her head, Morana's eyes were big and lost on him.

"Don't worry," he mumbled when he read her mind and picked up on the reason for her hesitation. "Seonghwa loves you."

He turned his back to leave, as if he hadn't just caused another crisis in Morana's head. Would Seonghwa love her even if she hated him? Was his love so unconditional?

No, he would be a fool if so.

But after everything she heard about him and his brother...

Morana shook off her thoughts when Aodhán offered his hand to her. He had the shiny sword belted around his hips, and it was just short enough not to drag over the ground behind him. Hastily, Morana joined his side, and they assembled in their group.

Wooyoung picked up as many riches as he could carry in that short amount of time. Countless necklaces dangled around his throat, he found some earrings to clip to his skin, and his arms and fingers were heavy from the bracelets and rings lining every digit. A golden fur rested on his shoulders and he carried silver cups and weapons in his arms, but he was notably encumbered.

"Leave those," Hongjoong rolled his eyes at him, addressing the load in Wooyoung's arms.

"But I want them," he protested, just as assured Seonghwa would have given them to him.

"Pick them up when we leave," the sorcerer hissed back, and Morana caught Yeosang snickering about their fight.

The other three hadn't picked up items, but Yunho played with a thin necklace between his fingers. He pocketed it for later and Wooyoung left his new treasure full of mourning so they could make their way into the cave.

The ground was uneven, and they often kicked treasures loose that clicked and rattled on their way across the metal sea. Nothing came at them as they fumbled their way to the source of the melody.

Still, everyone kept their eyes wide open. The orcs would have carried their newfound riches away from this place. They wouldn't have left everything so untouched.

Unless they searched for something specific.

The husbands were tense. They marched steadily, but they were leery of these shimmering surroundings. The dragon was here. So near now. Hongjoong could feel it and its heat filled the nooks and crannies of its burrow.

But Morana saw no dragon. They wandered past pieces of armour and magical shields, but they saw no gargantuan winged lizard.

Was it invisible? Or did it burrow in some place nearby and this was just the treasury?

The peace didn't last. As they snuck past towering pillars through treacherous mountains of gold, their silence strained for any noise not produced by them. Barely dared breathe.

Soon, green liquid flecked the gold in unassuming splatters. Morana thought it might be mould, but Yunho crunched his nose at the sight.

"Orc blood."

Morana clutched Aodhán's hand tighter. She remembered what she was told. To go hide as soon as danger came her way and to leave with Hongjoong without fighting back.

But soon, she found herself blinded by grey wings shrouding her. Wooyoung had her climb on his back and she pressed against the small feathers covering the bone that joined his wings to his back. Her face leaned into his shoulder and Aodhán was similarly huddled away on Yunho's back.

Corpses littered the ground. More gore than the kids were supposed to see. More blood staining the gold green.

Hongjoong investigated their wounds, and he came to the only conclusion possible since no warriors preserved this place and no curse sucked the life force from the living.

"Ripped apart by the dragon. It guards its lair."

"We are impossible to overhear. And it would sense your magic. Why is it peaceful?" Yunho asked. Not that anyone here wanted the dragon to stir, but he was right. Why the orcs and not them? If the dragon only acted for the royal family and demanded trades in return for its cooperation...

"Remember that Seonghwa declared his love for us to the stars. The dragon saved us back then, no one else. We wouldn't have made it out otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if part of their pact was our safety in return for his life," Hongjoong recounted. "That would mean it leaves us alone, even now."

Mingi hung his head. Morana stretched out her arm for him, patting his shoulder to make him feel better. All their tension and stress gathered in this place.

This was what Yeosang meant. In hoping, they made themselves vulnerable and opened old wounds.

Could there ever be peace for them?

They wandered past the fallen orcs and Morana listened to Wooyoung's stumbling heartbeat as they made it past. She didn't invite any more nightmares to come her way.

Some rocks peered through the mountains of treasure. Fallen when the dragon made its way up through the ground, perhaps. The ceiling was sealed, as if the dragon had never left, and the entrance the orcs dug was far behind the group now. Morana peered at the onyx of the massive structure, wondering if it could be hammered apart to create more jewellery and weapons.

But just as she wondered how the jagged edges looked spiked like branches among the sea of gold, Wooyoung came to an abrupt stop. Everyone was looking over at the same heaps of black. At the shiny surface reflecting the hue of the treasure.

Now that Morana looked closer, that was a lot of mass, stretching far into the cave. It peered from the gold with no apparent purpose, looking too joined to be randomly fallen rocks.

And it looked almost soft despite the unyielding surface.

"Ah," Yeosang made and everyone else stared with similar shock. Mingi's hand felt for Wooyoung's wing and found Morana's hair to caress it, soothing her when he was just as clueless what was going on.

"There is our dragon," Hongjoong mumbled and Mingi also sucked in a breath, his fingers stilling on Morana's hair.

She studied whatever she was looking at, perhaps part of a tail or a leg, but she couldn't see enough. The beast was halfway buried in the treasure and asleep, not bothering with their presence.

It had killed the orcs snooping around, keeping its lair clear of enemies.

Maybe they would live?

Morana wanted to see more of the dragon, couldn't estimate its size under all that treasure in the gigantic cave, but her poor heart was so terrified in her chest that she didn't mind clinging to Wooyoung as they awkwardly shuffled past. The singing was closer than ever before, and Morana was sure it had to be that creature. That mythical beast slumbering in the earth.

She contemplated telling them so they could turn around and regard the treasure as their reward for the long journey that hadn't brought Morana any closer to her heritage and just threw up more questions.

But when everyone halted again, just barely a few metres ahead and without passing much more of the dragon's size, her eyes drew away from its slumbering form.

An enormous crystal that mismatched the rest of the cave rested near the dragon, just out of reach from the motionless claws. It was bigger than Mingi, shaped like an egg, and at first, Morana assumed it was exactly that. A dragon egg. The surface was angular, like the crystals of the walls, but formed with more purpose.

And its shine was a soft white, gleaming within itself but not submitting to the shine of the gold.

Like moonlight.

Nobody dared move. They all stared, as if the dragon had stirred and they tried to avoid detection, but the dragon was no enemy and wouldn't bother them unless disturbed.

Impatient, Morana peered over Wooyoung's shoulder, trying to guess what the big deal was. Were new dragons rarely born? Did they intend to exchange the unborn child for Seonghwa?

Or was the larger matter how the egg came into existence in the first place?

They finally moved their feet to check, but their movements were slow, dragging as if bound to heavy rocks. The egg rested halfway upright, sunken to sit in the gold like the largest of all treasures. Looking like a heart. Something was in there, some shadowy figure. The embryo, Morana guessed.

She yelped loudly when Wooyoung suddenly broke down on his knees. Morana tumbled off, too shocked to hold back her voice.

Her gaze snapped up to the dragon, but it hadn't moved.

And no one had come to catch her.

Everyone fell into a trance once more, but this time, they stood still. Lifted trembling hands to quivering lips as tears fell from their eyes. Yunho clutched Mingi's hand and that grip alone told Mingi what he had to know.

Morana looked at the egg, frustrated with the lack of answers. The shape inside was lean, too slender, and pale for a dragon. When she crawled to her feet to look at it from up close, she realised she was looking at a being just like them.

Pale, bare limbs floated as if in water. Dark hair spilled all around the slender chest of a man, too narrow in build to be anything but elven. Tall ears peered from the inky strands that seemed like a night sky, embracing the glitter of stars on sleeping features.

Morana knew this person and at the same time, she didn't. Tears brimmed in her eyes, and she didn't understand why. Didn't know why her heart ached to bad looking at this figure.

A haunted beauty with a lonely song, untouched and floating in a prison of crystal.

The realisation hit Morana like a tidal wave, and she lost her balance when her mind started spinning. The gold cushioned her fall, and she sat frozen, suddenly forgetting anything but the sight before her.

"He was here, all along," Yeosang whispered behind her and Hongjoong stepped in bravely to touch the hard surface encasing the lost elf. The dragon's greatest treasure, worth more than any item in here.

"This is why I couldn't feel his presence. Why we couldn't hear him cry for us," Hongjoong muttered and his sorrow was plain on his features, not hidden away behind any farce.

Mingi knelt behind the two kids sitting side by side, completely shut off to the world. His hands trembled when he rubbed their backs, trying to give their fragile souls some strength.

"How can we destroy this? Get him out?" Yunho asked, not backing down now that they made it so far.

But Hongjoong's eyes lowered to make more tears fall off his long lashes.

"We don't want that. That is Jongho."