I arch my brow but oblige. It’s all I can do to keep a smile off my face. Does he truly see me as no threat, but is worried about my dragons? I control their every move.
“Slowly, slowly,” he coos.
“What game are you playing, Imperial?” I demand, tilting my head.
“We can work out our cultural differences when we’ve both survived becoming dragon bait.” He lunges the last bit of distance between us and wraps his sticky fingers around my forearm. He yanks me to the side, and I feel my eyes widen slightly with surprise. I reach for my ax, but all he does is give me his back. The perfect place for me to sink my ax into it.
I hesitate.
I blame it on the fact that I must bring him to my clan for the ritual to be completed otherwise I’ll have to hunt someone else down, but something nags at me that I hesitate for a different reason.
Drekki snarls, lowering himself down as he glares at the Imperial who would dare to touch his mistress. The trees are grown too close together for his massive form to fit through, but they cannot stop his tail which shoots out and slams into the Imperial’s legs which go flying out from underneath him.
He drops hard, his head colliding with a root that protrudes from the snow with a loud crack before he goes utterly limp.
I pull my lip in between my teeth as I lean over him.
Is that it?
It was easier than I thought it would be, but then I wasn’t expecting too much of a resistance. Not against my dragons.
I tilt my head as I fully take in the boy who will be my first kill.The one who threw himself between a dragon and me… I shake that thought out of my head.
I have no idea why he acted in such a manner, but he is clearly working an angle. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that no one is selfless in this world. No matter how innocent their appearance, they cannot be trusted.
He is not at all what I was expecting. For one, he is young, not battle hardened or scarred. He is fair to look at, but certainly no warrior despite the golden breastplate that glints in the sun. He seems more like a scholar than anything with fine features and an arm that looks as if it is better equipped for wielding a pen than a sword.
He does not give the impression of a ruthless imperial soldier, who will cut down men, women, and children without a moment’s hesitation simply because their commanding officer said so. He does not look like the kind of man who would impale Nelgatan warriors and leave them to die, suffering alone for days before they finally succumb to their wounds. The monsters who would deny us our proper burials so that we cannot join our ancestors but instead leave our corpses to rot in the snow like those of the gods.
He looks like a boy. An inexperienced boy who has no idea the true horrors the world might hold.
Do I truly have any right to kill him when his only crime is thinking that a scholar like himself has any right stepping foot in my world?
I’m glad that no one is here to witness my hesitation save for my dragons. It would be counted an irreparable weakness if others knew that I stood over the unconscious form of my enemy and considered letting him go.
This boy is an imperial, that much is evident from his chiseled features, angled nose, and softly curling dark hair. His people have been at war with mine for decades. My father died by imperial hands, and now this Imperial will die by my hands.
And so, the cycle of killing continues, a life for a life. It never ends, the call for blood is never satisfied, and in order to survive, I must be the killer.
Because if not… then I’m nothing more than a weak prey, waiting to be picked off by those who are stronger than me. People who wouldn’t balk at the thought of killing this imperial boy lying here in the snow; his eyes closed softly as if he is only resting, the only sign of his distress the trickle of blood escaping his temple where he struck the tree.
I sigh heavily, giving myself a slight shake as I force myself to take some steps forward. I move quickly so I do not give myself any more time to try to talk myself out of this.
Returning home empty handed is not an option. Failures are weak, and the weak do not survive. If I am to do what so many people have failed to do and survive, then I must drive every last weakness out of myself before they can culminate into my demise.
Gritting my teeth, I step around the boy, forcing my eyes not to dwell on his handsome features. Instead, I nudge him with the toe of my thick fur boots, trying to ascertain that he is truly unconscious. He does not stir. I kneel, keeping my hand braced on my ax. “The dragons are going to get us!” I hiss.
No response. I nibble on the end of my lip but then I shrug. I move around him, sliding my hands under his arms. I grunt as I struggle to lift him up. Imperial is heavier than he looks. I stumble back, his legs dragging him through the snow. His head lolls to the side as we go. I struggle to get a perch on his strangely smooth breastplate, there are a few grooves of some sort of pattern with an eagle in flight stamped across the front, but they aren’t nearly deep enough for me to dig my fingers into.
Finally, I make it through the trees, by now my limbs are shaking slightly and I drop the lanky boy. He rolls to the side, leaving a streak of red in the snow from the wound in his arm. I sigh heavily as I drop to my knees, unwinding an extra bit of material that had been wrapped around my arm and tucked into my glove for extra warmth. Never mind that this boy will be dead by the next dawn… I can’t very well have him going and bleeding outnow.
I need him alive for the ritual, so I can strike him down myself. My stomach sloshes, and I focus on breathing through my nose as I lean over the boy, wrapping the bit of cloth around his wound. It’s sloppy work, but I’m certainly no healer. I pause, staring at my hand as it rests on his arm just near where his face is. My skin looks so pale next to his despite the fact that he is the one who has been bleeding. He is now unconscious and I am perfectly hale and hardy. My hair, hanging in thick tangled locks, nearly as pale as the snow itself and a stark contrast to his dark curly hair which more closely resembles the bark on the trees or coal than anything else.
I suppose it’s easy to hate the Imperials when they look and dress and act so differently from us, or perhaps we Nelgatans are just a hateful people because we certainly have no qualms killing each other either.
But whatever our quarrels with other clans, the Imperials are our greatest enemy.
The ground trembles behind me, followed by a sharp snarl and I look over my shoulder to see that Worm has finally landed. He snaps at his brother, before making his way to me, his tail swaying back and forth and upsetting the snow. He leans his snout down, sniffing the Imperial boy before lifting his head to look at me, expectantly.
