“You’re expected to keep quiet,” Tira snaps as she swings up onto Worm’s saddle.
The corner of his mouth quirks up. “Guess I’m going to have to disappoint in at least one respect.” He holds up two fingers. “Two. If you’re also expecting me to be some dangerous enemy that you need tobindto keep captive.”
“Can we gag him?” Tira asks from her dragon as she steps up beside me.
To be fair, I’d rather spend an entire day conversing with this captive than just one minute in the Werma’s company. But it seems as if I shall have to suffer both today. I don’t know what he is trying to accomplish, but I can see the thinly veiled cunning behind his eyes. This is a man who isn’t prepared to die. He doesn’t know what we are planning to do with him. Indeed, I don’t even know what to do or how I want this to turn out.
Part of me wants to just let him loose like a too small fish I caught in my nets.
The other part… well, she is frustrated that a man I tried to kill still breathes. After all, how hard could it be to kill one imperial captive? A bloodlust I never realized I had demands to be satisfied.
But mostly, I just want to get to the bottom of what he is, and what he has done to me.
He seems just as much in the dark as I am. Even if he could offer up a solution to his survival and my Valknut, I would not believe any answer that he gives. The Werma, for all her issues at least I can trust to be honest.
Sometimes brutally so.
I can’t rely on her for much else, but at least she is true to her visions. She believes it her sacred duty to deliver her pronouncements impartially, and I know that she is no charlatan because I also experience visions of the future, proving that such a thing is possible. If I inhaled shrooms all day like she does, who knows then I could be just like her.
I’d rather die, first.
Marcello moves up to Drekki, eying his scaly side warily. Finally, his eyes meet mine. “I could use a hand up if you would be so kind, Laduga.”
I exhale slowly, but lean to the side, holding my arm out. I suppose it’s only fair. Mounting a dragon is hard enough, especially your first time. But mounting a dragon while your hands are bound would likely be impossible.
Marcello’s two hands grasp my proffered one. His palms aren’t calloused like I thought they would be, and his fingers aren’t scarred. He does have a bump on his middle finger like a scholar would, and it causes me to pause and wonder why this young man is a warrior at all. He doesn’t seem to be suited for it.
After all, I still remember how he tried to protect me, his enemy, from my own dragons.
That’s not the kind of trait I’d expect from a brutish imperial soldier. And then there is the matter of fact that he seems to be trying to some cunning to free himself, not brute strength.
He has the hands of a scholar, the tongue of a leader, and yet the armor of a common imperial scout.
Who is this Marcello?
And why did trying to kill him cause a mark of death to appear on my wrist?
I start as I realize that I have been holding his hand for too long. Just sitting here, leaning over the side of my dragon. He is looking at me with a questioning gaze. I straighten, yanking him toward me. He steps up onto Worm’s hind leg and swings his legs over, situating himself onto the saddle behind me. I don’t much care for how warm he is pressed up against me, but I suppose his proximity cannot be helped.
I go to pull my hand away, but he keeps his fingers wrapped around them. I stiffen, but he only brushes at the sensitive skin of the inside of my wrist. Just visible above the hardened leather of my gauntlet are the sharp curves of the Valknut.
“Did you really not have this mark before the uh… well, before you tried to kill me?”
I yank my hand out of his and turn around. “No, I didn’t,” I reply coldly.
“I wonder what it means,” he muses.
It is foolish of him to wonder, a Valknut only ever means one thing.
Death.
The question is,why is it imprinted on my skin?
And how is the Imperial connected to its appearance?
Only the Werma will be able to tell us, and so to the Werma we must go. Whether I want to or not.
“You’d better hold on, Imperial,” I say over my shoulder.
