Erenian has lived a very long time and gone by many names.
Atanaro, Fenrirrah, Erenian, Gil-Galad... Behind every name lies a life that has ended, and a heart afraid to love again.
Eight years ago, he waited for someone at a lighthouse. He waited for the ring that person held, and for the confession that had yet to be spoken.
Then he fell into the sea and died once.
Eight years later, they met again in the woods where they'd first met. The person stood before him, their gaze somehow purer than it had been at their first meeting, yet as unfamiliar as if they were looking at a stranger.
“Have we met before?”
“No.”
He was lying again.
But that person's body still remembered him. Their heart raced, their gaze followed him of its own accord, and they awkwardly apologized to a strange boy from the enemy camp.
They didn't know that the wretched boy standing before them was the very person they thought they'd lost forever.
There was much more they didn't know.
They didn't know that six dragons, asleep for ten thousand years, were awakening. They didn't know that only three years remained on the execution order's countdown. They didn't know that the land beneath their feet was about to be devoured by purifying light, or that their elders were plotting a world-shaking counterattack.
They only knew that whenever they saw the boy called Erenian, something in their heart ached faintly.
And Erenian had no intention of saying a thing.
All he wanted was to marry this person once everything was over, have several children, and use up all the false names he'd ever gone by, one by one.
So that all those lies could become the truest love.
Theme: It's all right to be afraid, but don't let fear stop you
