“Yes.”
She laughed. “Oh Koary, you’re such a riot!”
“I meant it, mistress. There is no need to be like this. You are a royal. You have dignity. You can be better.” She wasn’tactually a royal, not of the true blood, but her family was the next closest thing and that’s all we had.
“Better?” Saldrea said, her laughter cutting off abruptly. “There is nobetter, I’m the best!” Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to help that stupid nymph?”
“I don’t, I want to help you.” I did, I truly did. I could serve the crown as more than just a guard. I could be a teacher, an instructor. I could show Saldrea a righteous path befitting a true royal.
“You help me by doing what I tell you,” she spat. “I can still trust you, can’t I, Koar?” Her face twisted with suspicion and fury. “I can’t take another betrayal right now. I already need a new bodyguard.” She turned to Neyalim. “Remind me to make that titan prince, Bayn, my new guard. That should show him his place.” She turned back to me. “As for you…” Her eyes flashed with madness.
I realized my mistake. I should have waited. She was too worked up after Vyns’ supposed betrayal. If I’d brought this up later, I might have been able to sway her, but right now she was in a state, and no logic could reach her. Trying to talk to her now, like this… was asking for punishment.
I summoned my earth to reinforce my body and bolstered my spirit.
Saldrea slapped me. Even with my enhancements I still staggered a step, head turned. This was the power of the elves. This was why even dragon-kind hadn’t been able to stand against them. They were brutes in pretty bodies, and with their powers of binding and creation they were nigh unstoppable.
“On your knees,” Saldrea hissed. She never had liked looking up at me.
I knelt.
“Defenses down, I want this to hurt.” Her eyes danced with mania.
I sighed heavily and lowered my enhancements… though not all the way.
“Yes, mistress,” I whispered.
She drew out a small knife that she always kept on her. The blade was only a few inches long, but it was dwarven-forged steel. She whispered an incantation, moving her hand over it, probably reinforcing it more.
“If I didn’t need you to be alert and aware of danger, I’d take an eye or an ear,” she said with deathly calm, eyes roaming my face. Then she suddenly smiled, a vicious thing with no mirth in it.
“Instead, I’ll just carve my mark on you, so everyone will know you’re mine.”
Fuck.
She brought the knife to my chin, digging it in and cutting up along my jaw, a jagged line as she giggled.
The pain was intense, but bearable. I was a dragon. It would take more than this to break me.
Saldrea drew the knife up to my cheek and smiled as she carved — what I guessed was — her house seal onto my flesh: a leaf with a chain around it.
When done, she slapped me on my bloody cheek. With my defenses lowered, the hit sent me to the cobbled path.
She knelt next to me, thumb digging into my wounded cheek.
“I’m binding this onto you,” she whispered. “It will never fully heal, always painful. It will weep and bleed and ooze puss and forever remind you who you serve.”
Her power seared into my skin. I gritted through it.
And when she finished, she rose and smiled down at me like I was a puppy.
“Isn’t he cute, girls?” she cooed.
“Ugly as sin, but that’s nothing new,” Hana said with a laugh.
“You’re one sick fuck,” Golana said.
Saldrea spun and slapped her so hard — the dwarven woman completely unprepared — Golana spun a full turn before collapsing.
