Please get me out of this BL novel...I'm straight!
Chapter 193: ’The Village is Dying’

Chapter 193: ’The Village is Dying’

The moment they stepped past the village’s crumbling gate, Florian felt it.

The air shifted.

Not just cold—no, that would have been merciful. This was something else. A weight, thick and suffocating, curling around his lungs and pressing into his skin like unseen fingers clawing at his very being. Each breath dragged heavier than the last, as though the atmosphere itself sought to hold him in place, to drown him in the silence.

The village was dying.

No—not dying. It was already dead.

The houses were little more than rotting husks, slumped like forgotten corpses left to decay. Roofs had caved in, the skeletal remains of wooden beams jutting out like shattered ribs toward the sky. Doors hung from their hinges, some missing entirely, leaving gaping black maws where entrances once stood.

The cobbled streets had crumbled into uneven dirt, buried beneath debris and the remains of a past long abandoned.

And yet—

They were awake.

Before dawn.

Before the sun could cast its first light over the ruins.

Shadowed figures drifted between the wreckage, their movements sluggish, like marionettes with frayed strings. Hollowed eyes, blackened by the void of hunger and time, flickered toward them. Florian felt their gazes, their unspoken words pressing in on him, their empty stares watching. Skin stretched too tightly over brittle bones. Sunken cheeks. Lips split and bloodless.

No one spoke.

But he could hear it.

The whispers that slithered through the streets, brushing against his ears like dry leaves caught in the wind.

’They see us.’

His fingers twitched, instinctively pulling his cloak tighter around himself. Beneath the thick fabric, nestled against his shoulder, Azure stirred. A quiet growl rumbled from the little dragon, low and sharp, vibrating against Florian’s skin. Claws dug into his shoulder, tiny but unyielding.

The tension coiled in the air, seeping through the cracks of broken walls, curling in the breathless murmurs of the villagers.

"Outsiders..."

"They don’t belong here."

"They shouldn’t have come."

"What do they want?"

Florian swallowed against the tightness in his throat, his heartbeat pounding in his ears like a warning drum.

He stole a glance at Heinz.

Unfazed.

Unmoved.

The king walked as though the weight of the village did not touch him, as if the shattered remains of these people were nothing more than dust beneath his feet. His hood cast a deep shadow over his face, but Florian could see it—the utter absence of reaction. He had felt Heinz’s moment of surprise when they first entered, when they had realized the villagers were moving before dawn.

But now?

Nothing.

No tension. No wariness. No flicker of empathy.

As if this was just another place.

As if these people did not matter.

Florian’s stomach twisted, but he said nothing. Not yet.

Then—

Something hit him.

A sudden force slammed into his side. His footing slipped. The world lurched—

A hand latched onto his arm. Tight. Unyielding.

"Watch where you’re going, bastard."

The voice was raw, rasping with something ugly, something festering.

Florian gasped, his breath catching. The grip on him was like iron, unnaturally strong despite the frailness of the figure before him.

A man—if he could still be called that—stood before him, a specter of what he must have once been. His face was sharp with starvation, his skin pulled taut over hollowed cheeks, his frame so thin it seemed he might shatter if the wind blew too hard.

But his eyes burned.

Not with fear. Not with desperation.

With rage.

Florian parted his lips, searching for words that refused to come. The man’s fingers dug deeper into his sleeve, nails pressing into the fabric, his grip trembling with the force of his anger.

"We don’t have anything to give," the man spat. "Go back to wherever you came from."

Then—

A hiss.

Sharp, furious.

A sound that sliced through the dead air like a blade.

The man flinched.

Beneath the cloak, Florian felt the heat radiating from Azure’s small body, his scales rising in tension. The tiny dragon was seething, his anger rolling off him in waves. If he weren’t hidden, Florian had no doubt those razor-sharp teeth would already be bared.

"Azure," Florian whispered. His fingers pressed lightly against the creature’s side.

’Calm down.’

It wasn’t okay. None of this was okay.

The man hadn’t let go.

Before Florian could react—

Heinz moved.

Fluid. Effortless. Cold.

A single step. A shift of black fabric. And then—

He was between them.

A quiet, unyielding wall of darkness.

He didn’t speak at first. Didn’t raise a hand.

He didn’t have to.

His presence alone was enough.

The weight of him settled into the space like a blade pressing against bare skin. The air thinned, grew sharp, laced with an unspoken warning that slithered through the cracks of silence.

And then, in a voice colder than the night air, Heinz spoke.

"Let go."

The man did not move. His fingers remained locked around Florian’s sleeve, trembling with anger, with something deeper. Something raw.

Florian swallowed hard. ’He’s not going to let go.’

The pressure on his arm was growing tighter, the man’s nails were hurting Florian. There was desperation in his grip, not just fury—something unspoken, something Florian wasn’t sure he wanted to understand.

The silence stretched thin, stretched tight, pressing into the spaces between them like a held breath. The man’s jaw clenched, his hollowed eyes narrowing.

Then—Heinz shifted.

Not much. Just the slightest narrowing of his gaze, the briefest flicker of something unreadable in his expression. A shift so small, so effortless, and yet—

It was enough.

The man’s grip loosened, fingers falling away like brittle leaves in the wind.

But he did not step back.

His body remained taut, as though strung together with fraying wire. His lips parted, his breath shallow, eyes darting between them with something Florian could only describe as worn-down hope. A hope that had been broken too many times to survive.

"Go," the man rasped, his voice thick with something Florian couldn’t quite name. "Like I said, there’s nothing for you here. We have nothing to give. Leave."

Heinz did not move.

"We’re passing through," he said simply.

A sharp, breathless laugh tore from the man’s throat. It was not amusement.

"Passing through," he echoed, the words dripping with disbelief. His gaze flicked over Heinz, over Florian, over the shadowed figures lurking just beyond them. "No one comes here to just pass through."

Florian felt the shift before he even realized it.

Heinz’s fingers, curling around his wrist.

Light. But firm.

And then—Florian was pulled back.

His breath hitched. ’What?’

He stumbled slightly, caught off guard—not by the movement, but by the sheer fact that Heinz had done it at all.

Heinz—who had never been one for unnecessary gestures. Who always walked ahead, expecting others to follow. Who never so much as hesitated to use someone as a shield if it suited him.

And yet, in that moment, Heinz had pulled Florian behind him.

A wall between him and the man.

The realization was jarring, unexpected, and yet—before Florian could fully process it, Heinz took a step forward.

The man stiffened.

"Then leave us be," Heinz said, his voice low, calm, yet laced with quiet authority. "You have no reason to interfere."

The man’s lips parted, his breath ragged, but he did not step aside.

And then—Florian felt it.

The shift.

The air stirred, thickened.

A prickle of unease crawled up his spine.

He looked up—eyes darting past Heinz’s shoulder.

The villagers.

They were moving.

Slowly, silently, slipping from the shadows, from the broken doorways and crumbling alleyways. Their hollow stares locked onto them, their faces unreadable, their steps eerily soundless against the cracked earth.

Florian’s pulse pounded in his ears. ’Oh, shit.’

Azure stirred beneath his cloak, pressing sharply against his neck. The little dragon knew. A low, warning growl vibrated through his tiny body, sharp claws digging into Florian’s skin.

The man did not turn to look, but he did not have to. He could feel them too. The weight of them. The way they loomed closer, drawn by something unseen.

And Heinz—

Florian caught it.

The way his shoulders tensed. The slight shift in his stance.

A flicker of something just beneath the surface.

Magic.

’No, no, no—’

Florian’s breath hitched. ’If he does anything—if he uses magic on them—’

This wouldn’t end well.

Azure’s growl deepened, a soft hiss leaving his throat. The tiny dragon was coiled tight, ready to lash out if needed.

Florian clenched his jaw. He had to stop this before it escalated. Before Heinz did something reckless. Before the villagers—who were already half-dead—became something worse.

He just had to figure out how.