Warning: character death

“Are you ready?” Luhan asked gently. But there was something else in his voice and a hardness in his eyes.

Xiumin nodded and braced himself. He wasn't really sure what he was expecting and he wanted to close his eyes, but instead, he stared into Luhan's bottomless orbs. They were bright, like stars, and he was drowning in them.

The Siren reached over to Xiumin and the collar, the jade and the gold, before his hand slid down, stopping at the sternum. He pressed onto the space between two ribs, careful and experimental. Xiumin felt removed, as if he was watching the scene from above, seeing Suho's corpse lying abandoned in the corner while the two of them stood, intimately close. Luhan pressed a little harder, the halo of light around him pulsed, and his fingers were inside the human's chest.

Xiumin gasped at the feeling of Luhan's cool fingers curled around his heart and tore his gaze away to stare at the hand protruding from his chest. He didn't feel any pain, just the presence of magic as it coated his heart.

The Siren moved closer, leaning in and Xiumin would have shivered if he could. "Do you know what you are doing?" Luhan asked.

Xiumin looked up with much effort. Luhan's voice was different, but he couldn't place how. In fact, the Siren's entire stature seemed to have changed. Xiumin was too dazed to speak; the magic was holding him in place.

"You thought -- you think -- that this is a great sacrifice, correct?" Luhan went on, a sneer beginning to form. "That you are doing a favor for the world? That you are a martyr?" His laughter rang clear in Xiumin's muffled mind, like a blade cutting through mercilessly.

"You are a sacrifice, and you will die either way, but for something much more different. Well," Luhan paused, cocking his head, "not really that different. But I thought you should die knowing the truth. My true nature, as you would call it."

Xiumin tried to move back and immediately, his mind screamed in pain. For a second, before the magic recovered and numbed him once again, he felt what he was supposed to feel -- his body being torn open, a hand pushing away the veins and arteries, holding onto his heart that was still beating nervously. He wanted to scream, to scream at the Siren to let go of his heart, to hurry up with the painful explanation, for lying to him. The suspension, the confusion, the magic were all too much.

“You can't back away now, my dear Xiumin.” Luhan smiled and he looked so much like his father. "I will still become Emperor, thanks to you. And thanks to you, the Sirens will learn their place, the humans will stay in their place and the universe will kneel before me! I will punish them all for patronizing me, belittling me. Who is superior now? I will give them a taste of what I have been through. They will bleed. Yes! The empire will run crimson red and I will bask in the glory!"

This wasn't real. This crazed Luhan, eyes bright with fanatic glee, couldn't be real. Xiumin shut his eyes, wanting this to be another of those nightmares, but a stabbing pain forced him back into reality.

"Open your eyes and look at me, my dear," Luhan whispered in his ears. The Siren gave the heart a squeeze and it made Xiumin want to double over, but he was frozen again. "You shouldn't blame yourself too much though for falling so nicely into my plan. You were so vulnerable and ready to believe anything, but I still had to influence your thoughts. You had more doubts than I expected."

Xiumin gaped and all of the thoughts and odd feelings that he had experienced dawned on him. Everything, all of those tender touches, gentle kisses, whispered promises, the sunrises . . . they were all lies? An illusion?

His heart ached on its own accord and he wanted to cry.

"Maybe you are still wondering if I love you, for some reprieve, but let me tell you something," Luhan continued. But Xiumin didn't want to listen. But he desperately needed to know.

"Love is weak and human, and I am neither."

With each utterance, as those words fell from Luhan's lps, a bit of Xiumin's world ended.

It was all over.

He couldn't fight against these creatures. He was too weak. He was nothing.

There never was any hope.

He should have surrendered long ago, before it began, like he had been advised to. He had thought he was special, but there never was any chance.

He surrendered.

Something pricked in the corner of his eyes and he blinked slowly, while Luhan watched on with interest. "He was right," the Siren said in awe. "The only way to harvest your tears is to break your heart. You are so different, but still so predictable."

The tears that Xiumin had tried so hard to keep in, the tears that had caused all this unnecessary pain, spilled from his eyes. Everything that he had done and held on to was just so laughable. Everything he did that he had thought was strong and brave, was just another calculated step in this scheme, this grand game.

He sobbed internally at how pathetic he was.

The tears silently rolled down his cheeks and crystallized.

Luhan stared at them in almost genuine amazement, his hand seemingly forgotten in Xiumin's chest. "Tears of grief. They are the purest I've seen. No cracks, no cloudiness, no blemishes. Just pure, pure sadness. Beautiful."

And despite everything, they were. The crystal drops remainded suspended above ground and glittered like little jewels. The most sought-affter treasures, shining with light from Luhan's halo, reflecting the miseries of this hell.

"Thank you, Xiumin, for giving me so much," Luhan finally said, and Xiumin didn't know what was real, what to belive.

He fet weak, small, shriveled, peering out from a corner in the dry husk of his body. He had completely lost all feeling and the world flickered and dimmed until only Luhan remained. Only Luhan existed, only Luhan mattered.

Without warning, the Siren yanked his hand out, Xiumin's heart still beating and living in his palm. The human was pulled forward before falling back, but a wave of magic held him upright for now. Looking at the heart as if in disbelief, Luhan began nursing a melody. The wordless song spiraled out and s down his arms and around the heart. The incantation blanketed him with tingling magic, and the heart began to hover, unsteadily at first before it stabled.

When the song cresendoed to the , there was a great flash of light, an explosion of power. It burned white hot like anger, like betrayal. Luhan stared forward unblinkingly in a trance, and Xiumin closed his eyes for the last time.

The light diminished and the song was gone as if all life had been suffocated, and an eerie silence resettled inside the chamber. Luhan brought his hand to his chest, feeling the twin heartbeats with a satisfied smile.

Raising his arms with a flourish, he proclaimed, "Bow down to me, for I am Emperor!"

His voice echoed and a tremor pulsed through the Empire, a shockwave of power.

Xiumin's body collapsed and dissolved into foam.