I stomped out of the woods and headed towards the two knights. My eyes glanced over at Cassia, but she was still holding T’laanga’s body. The waves of grief from her were more painful than my own wounds. Even if she somehow forgave me, I knew that the dreams of happiness and fairy tales she’d adored were truly dead.

  That, more than anything, was why I’d make the people who’d kidnapped Magnus pay. I didn’t know everything, but more than likely they were the ones responsible for T’laanga’s mortal wound. If the old man associated with someone like Avery, he was undoubtedly a vile fiend.

  The knight who had landed in the pine needles was kneeling by the one impaled on a branch when I arrived. He was trying to render the other man some kind of aid, but the armor they both wore was getting in the way. Crumpled metal kept catching on the tree branch.

  “Raban! Raban!” the younger knight called out. I vaguely remembered his name was Kenneth. “Please! Stay with me! Help will be here shortly!” He was shouting to try and keep Raban awake, but his efforts to free his companion from the branch could prove fatal.

  Edith had educated me on a few common injuries and their treatments, while we traveled from Greenreimse to the Redstone Hills. With stab wounds, it was important to leave the offending item inside of the body until the victim was in a trained healer’s care. Sir Kenneth was trying to pull the other knight off of the branch.

  I rumbled loudly, catching both men’s attention. Kenneth gasped, scrambling away from me until he bumped up against the fallen log. His shoulder seemed completely healed from when I’d stabbed him with an icicle, but he was roughed up all the same. Getting smashed with a dragon’s tail and thrown like a doll would do that. If he’d been unarmored, he’d be dead.

  “The Old Man!” I hissed down at them, spreading my wings to block out the sun. “With the Bandit! Where did they go?!” Tears rolled down Sir Kenneth’s eyes. His hand searched the earth around him before it landed on the hilt of a sword. The blade was snapped in half, but he pointed it at me all the same.

  “Stay back beast!” he cried. “In the name of Baron Reimse, you will kill no one else this day!”

  I’d only killed one man today, but I wasn’t beyond killing two more. They wouldn’t put up much of a fight like this. Unfortunately, I still needed information from them. My claws lashed out, swatting the broken sword out of Kenneth’s hand. It tumbled away into the undergrowth.

  “THE CHILD!” I roared at them, slamming them with my Intent. “Where did they take the child?!” The rage inside of me boiled outwards, my wounds closing as I burned the Vitae I’d gained from both T’laanga and Third.

  “The kid? The hells you mean?” Raban spat at me. He managed to pull his head up to stare into my eyes. “What about the damn kid? You mean the goatherd’s apprentice, right?”

  My amber orbs locked onto him and my head dipped low. I brought my snout within inches of Raban’s face and growled. “Tell. Me. Where. Did. The. Old. Man. Take. Him.”

  I had to bite out each word, resisting the urge to clamp my teeth down on the knight’s head.

  “The Wizard went and scarpered eh?” Raban said with a dark chuckle, pain lacing his voice. “Ran off with the kid and the Bard… Bandit… Ahhh shite.” Raban closed his eyes. “I knew I recognized the bastard! That was Howard bloody Avery!”

  “W-what?” Sir Kenneth gasped from nearby. I could give him the tiniest amount of credit. He’d not fled in terror and stayed by his comrade’s side. “You mean like the Viscount’s Villain? The Baron told me he’d probably froze to death in the mountains!”

  “Cleary- HYEK-” Raban started to say before he coughed up some blood. “Clearly not. Bastards like him always weasel their way out of trouble, at least til they're hanging from a noose.” Raban’s eyes focused on me. “You’re saying he stole the kid?”

  I nodded slowly, still ready to kill him on the spot.

  “That’s my fault then,” Raban hissed. “Not Kenneth’s. I was told the man’s name and shown a drawing of his face. Not recognizing him is my failure, to the Baron and the realm.” He gritted his teeth. “Spare Kenneth.”

  “I will consider it,” I growled. “The Old Man.”

  “Mortimer. He called himself Archmage Mortimer Sahir,” Raban choked out. “If it weren’t a pack of lies. But men like him… they’re too insane to bother with lying. I should have trusted my gut. Another failure.” He was breathing shallow now, trying to hold on. “Said he worked for the Colleges. The Qaetil… Aelnas.”

  Raban’s eyes were getting cloudy. He seemed to know far more than Sir Kenneth did, at least about the things which mattered to me. I wasn’t ready for him to die yet.

  A sliver of my magic forced its way into Raban’s body. The flow of blood from his flesh reversed. After a couple of moments, most of it was back inside of him. With great care, I reached around Raban’s back and pinched the branch impaling him between my claws. It gave a soft crack as I snipped it off from the tree trunk.

  Raban promptly collapsed onto his arse in the dirt, no longer held aloft.

  “The Mage has stolen what is Mine and murdered someone dear to those close to me,” I growled at the knights. “In exchange for your lives, you will tell me everything I want to know.”

  Sir Kenneth looked like he was going to object, but Sir Raban weakly reached over and smacked him.

  “Shut yer mouth kid,” he said grimly. “When the bloody dragon offers you a deal to keep living, you take it. There’s no honor in dying like an idiot.”

  “I am going to carry you,” I ordered them both. “One in each foot, to a healer. If you struggle, I will drop you.” Neither man chose to make a fuss about it. With some difficulty, Sir Kenneth helped Sir Raban onto his feet. The young man supported his elder, placing his shoulder under the other’s armpit.

  I turned and walked back over towards Cassia. She still had not moved.

  “We need to leave,” I told her as softly as I could. The anger was still simmering inside of me. My Cassia’s emotions could only be described as desolate. Her heart was a cold pit of ashes. When she didn’t move, I spoke again. “Either you need to ride on my back, or I’ll have to carry you.”

  Still no response.

  Bitterness welled up inside of me, but I tamped it back down for now. Forgiveness or condemnation could wait. With each moment, Magnus’s kidnappers were getting further away.

  Collecting all four humans in my claws took work. I scooped Cassia and T’laanga’s body up in my forelimbs. T’laanga was dead, but he deserved to be buried rather than left to the scavengers. To pick up Sir Kenneth and Sir Raban, I had to take to the air and loop back around. I extended my claws as I swooped downwards, catching one man in either foot.

  Carrying four humans came perilously close to bringing me to the ground. I had to burn even more of my recently acquired magic to force myself up into the air. For all the battle with Third had cost me, it had shown me just what was possible if I learned more about how to use my magic.

  I’d need every bit of magic I could get, if I was going to kill an Archmage.

  When I located Edith, she was halfway back to the village at the gorge. The goblins known as Sparrows and ‘Angry’ were carrying the meat they’d harvested, between them. She spotted me as I sailed down towards her. The concern on her face was obvious. She looked exhausted and already knew something was wrong. It only grew into dismay as she saw who and what I was carrying.

  Like it or not, the two knights were dumped unceremoniously in the dirt. I tried to be gentle, but there was no way for me to land with them held in my back feet. A moment later I settled onto the ground. Cassia stood out of my grasp, but didn’t look at me.

  Edith rushed over to T’laanga’s side, reaching out for him even as I laid his body on the rocky soil.

  “Sanguine! He’s hurt! You can’t just-” Edith started to say, before she finally recognized T’laanga’s true condition. Her friend and mentor was dead. A choked sob clogged her throat and tears filled her eyes. Her slender fingers pressed against the outside of the terrible wound in his torso. I could sense her using a small amount of magic to inspect the injury. She looked sharply back up at me.

  “His magic, what did you do?!” She demanded. “It’s all gone! Even if he just died. He’d… He’d have something!”

  Her accusation hurt just as bad as my Cassia’s feelings of betrayal. Edith knew what I’d had to do in the cave at the bandit camp. She could recognize the signs here as well.

  “Magnus,” I replied. I tried with everything I had, to convey just what had happened. “A mage. He betrayed T’laanga, stole Magnus, and escaped.” Edith stared up at me, my body still covered in wounds despite my attempts to heal. I saw the grief and betrayal in her eyes. After a long moment, she seemed to come to a decision.

  “Beasty,” she whispered softly. “If I ever find out ye are lying to me, I swear on all the Hells that I will see ye brought to justice.” She glanced at the knights. “What about these two sorry sacks of shite? Are they working with the wizard?”

  “N-no, my lady!” Sir Kenneth said. He’d finally pulled himself up off the ground and was trying to help Sir Raban. “Not- not for- We’d never kidnap a child! We met the mage and- and your… sadly deceased friend during our travels. The black dragon attacked us as we spoke. We- the wizard and your friend, drove it off. I asked them to help us slay it, for the good of the Barony.”

  Raban was in a bad way. The bit of magic I’d worked on him was beginning to wear off.

  “Black dragon?” Edith asked in disbelief. “There’s another bloody dragon flying around and attacking people?” She glanced up at me, clearly still furious with me.

  “We fought it as well,” I rumbled softly. “It tried to kill me and Cassia as we hunted. We are lucky to have survived. The others arrived after…” Edith was deadly serious right now. If I lied to her again, any bond to her would be severed. “... after we brought my sibling to the ground. It was hunting me.”

  If that meant I was ultimately responsible for all the suffering today, then so be it.

  The revelation that the black dragon was my brother rocked those present, save Cassia. Both of the knights stared at me in wide eyed shock. The goblins, likewise, seemed terrified that there was another flying monster in the area. Edith simply stared at me.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Did you kill it?” Edith asked me simply.

  “It also escaped,” I responded, my anger rising back to the top of my mind. “Badly injured. My wing was torn. Cassia called for me, with T’laanga barely alive. He told me of the wizard’s betrayal. I raced to catch them, but the old man used a… magic mirror.” I was uninformed on how such things worked. “He broke it and they vanished. It… broke the air around them. I tried to force my way through, but I could not.”

  “That’s heretical!” Sir Kenneth gasped. “Using such devices is banned by divine law!”

  “So is murder and kidnapping,” Edith hissed. “But I don’t see you in a fit about either of those.” She moved over to Raban, who was barely conscious. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t tell the both of you to take a hike.”

  “The boy! On our honor!” Sir Kenneth pleaded. “We did not know the Wizard’s foul schemes, but we will swear to help you rescue him! Where the mage went, the Colleges, it will be difficult for even a dragon to break inside.”

  ‘That… is probably true,’ I considered. ‘If there are other wizards at this ‘College’, rescuing Magnus will be difficult. We will need as much help as we can get.’ I looked at the battered and broken knights. ‘Not that these two will be of much use, presently.’

  “Edith…,” I rumbled softly. “We will need them.”

  “Oh so when you need these scally-wags, it’s fine!” Edith shot back at me. “But when it was my friend, my mentor, there was nothing you could do?!” The raw pain in her voice as she rounded on me hit me in the gut. A low sound of anguish came out of my throat. Edith stopped, holding up one quivering finger.

  “Why? Why is it always the people that I love?” She asked me sorrowfully. “Why does everyone I care about have to die?” She was barely holding back from breaking down. “All my life it’s been like this. I hoped. I truly believed that… that here it could be better. But it’s not. This world is just… too cruel.”

  Edith reached up and pulled her broach out of her hair. For a moment, she looked like she was going to cast it into the dirt. At the last second she reconsidered. Her knuckles were white from how hard she held onto it.

  “Please,” she gasped. “Please, Sanguine. If there’s any good in yer heart at all. Save him. Save my boy!” Edith looked back at me, tears pouring down her face. “He’s mine! Not yers! MINE! I don’t care whose blood runs in his veins!” She choked, her whole body shaking.

  “I need ye. I need ye to save him. I’ll never ask ye for anything ever again.”

  If I could have split the world open for Edith, I would have there and then. I’d have reached through time and space and snatched all the people she’d lost into my grasp. Anything to never see her cry like that ever again.

  “I swear,” I told my Edith. “I swear on everything that is Mine, that I will rescue Magnus and bring him home to you.”

  Edith gasped as the Intent in my words washed over her. It reached out far from our position, over the Hills and the Cloudshear Mountains beyond. All the way, as far as it took, to reach where Magnus was. For just a moment, the world resonated with my Oath. The moment faded, but the connection remained.

  When Edith opened her palm, the broach shined brightly. I had pushed all of T’laanga’s magic left in my body into it.

  “He was your mentor,” I told her softly. “He was bad with words. Worse than me. But I know that he thought of you as something more than a friend. When he swore to protect Magnus, he did so with the intent to protect his Family.” The tattered remnants of T’laanga’s dying intent lingered in my mind. “If he had been better with words, he’d have called Magnus ‘grandson’.”

  That seemed to break what willpower Edith had left. She dropped to her knees and wailed. Her sobs echoed across the hills. There was nothing I could do to heal the wound in her heart or the loss she’d experienced.

  But if one day I grew powerful enough, I would challenge Death itself and drag T’laanga back across the Abyss; to make him tell Edith exactly what she meant to him.

  I had to inject another sliver of magic into Raban to keep him from dying, until Edith had recovered.

  “Cassia, I need you to walk back to the village with the gobs and the young shite there,” Edith told Cassia as she dried her eyes. “The old shite’s about to keel over and we’ve wasted too much time. I… I also need ye to carry T’laanga for me.”

  Cassia nodded to Edith, but she still refused to look at me. The small flickers of emotion I could feel from her were muted and dull. At least she was up and moving around now.

  “Beasty, I’ll ride on yer back,” Edith directed me. “Carry the old shite who fought a tree and lost, carefully aye?”

  As per my Edith’s instructions, soon enough we were sailing over the tree tops. Flying with two people’s weight was considerably easier than four. Reaching the village at the gorge seemed to only take a couple of minutes.

  Once I’d landed by the stream, Edith dropped off my back and got to work. She immediately began ordering the gathered goblins to clear a space, gather supplies, and perform a dozen other tasks. After I’d set the ailing knight on a clean flat surface, I was ordered in no uncertain terms to find someplace else to be.

  Visk hovered at the edge of the hustle and bustle, examining my wounds with a curious eye. As I turned to walk back to my Den, I jerked my head in their direction so that they would follow me.

  My footsteps echoed through the cave as I slowly padded through its depths. Curiously, the claustrophobia I’d experienced before was no longer as pressing. It remained, but as a shallow concern in the back of my mind.

  Visk’s almost silent footsteps pattered along behind me as I walked all the way back to my nest. In the time I’d been away, the elf had taken the time to clean and tidy my scattered treasure pile. It was a nice gesture, but for the moment I was beyond caring.

  With as much care as I could muster, I dragged my body into the deep pool of water in my den. The waters soothed the lingering burn in my muscles and the persistent itch that assailed my wounds as they slowly closed. Only my head remained partially out of the water, sitting with my nose just above the surface on the stone shelf at the pool’s edge.

  “Uhm, boss, do you need anything?” Visk asked me nervously as they stood nearby. “A, uh, a drink or… something?”

  My amber eyes lazily focused on the elf, their ears twitching in the crystalline twilight of my Den.

  “Can you bring back the dead, Visk?” My question seemed to throw the elf for a loop, but they quickly recovered.

  “If I could, boss…,” they said quietly. “There’s about three or four people waiting in line for me to bring them back. I’m sorry… if there’s someone you need to, uhm, push to the front of the queue.” They slowly approached closer, pausing at the edge of the water. “Did… someone you care about die?”

  “... Not me. Edith,” I clarified. “Her mentor. It’s… partly my fault, though.” Visk pursed their lips, rubbing their hands over each other.

  “Was there something you could have done differently?” Visk asked me softly. “Something it was possible to change?”

  I thought about their question for a long time before answering. Only the soft trickle of the stream through the cave could be heard.

  If I had tried to heal T’laanga, I knew that I would have failed. It would have been close. Perhaps if I’d been there the moment he was wounded, I could have fixed it. Thinking back on it, I remembered a glimpse of him being thrown past me. I was too busy trying to not have my throat ripped out by Third to notice.

  By the time I’d arrived, T’laanga was almost dead. I only had the magic I’d siphoned from Third’s blood at my disposal. Perhaps if I’d spent every last drop of his own magic and Third’s, I’d have been able to get him to Edith before he died. If not for his last words and for the Intent behind him, that’s probably what I would have done.

  But T’laanga had chosen to prioritize Magnus’s safety over his life. I could have tried anyways, but I knew in my gut that I’d have failed. With him resisting my attempt to save his life, T’laanga would have died.

  At the point I’d have gotten back to the site of the battle, the Wizard and Magnus would be gone with no sign. Raban would probably have also died before I’d returned. Sir Kenneth would likely have attacked or fled. Either way, I’d not have him for a potential ally.

  As I mulled over the entire disaster, the only thing I’d have done differently, was to communicate with my Cassia what needed to be done. It was unlikely that she’d have agreed to the course of action I’d taken, but I hadn’t even attempted to persuade her.

  She’d had to watch in horror as her dragon took another man’s life in her arms, with little to no warning.

  “Different…,” I finally answered Visk. “About the man who died… I should have tried to warn Cassia. I think it needed to happen, but her heart was too kind to bear it.”

  “...” Visk had waited patiently the entire time I mulled their question over.

  “Do you need a hug, boss?” Visk asked me slowly. They were watching me with obvious concern on their face. “I’m… not sure your ladies are going to want to… do that, for a while.”

  “Visk, if you hug me, you won’t escape again,” I said, already half asleep. The pool was easy to relax in. “I know you snuck in under my wing while I slept.” I gave a deep rumble that vibrated through the water. “I’m done with people hurting those close to me. The next person who tries, dies. No mercy.”

  My amber eyes, almost fully closed, focused back on Visk. I could see that the slate color of their cheeks and ears had darkened considerably. The tips of their ears were vibrating intensely. For the first time, I could smell Visk’s scent. It was barely present. Visually, it would have been almost invisible. There were hints of wood nuts and something else. Spider webs, maybe.

  “Ah- uhm- well-,” Visk said nervously. “A-are you sure about that boss? I’m bad at… not hurting people. I don’t want to get eaten.”

  “If you hug me, You’re Mine,” I goaded the elf.

  Their antics were usually amusing, but my soul was sapped of any patience. I knew Visk wanted something from me, but was trying to play the long game. Unfortunately for them, recent events meant that they needed to cement their choice. Either they were on Team Dragon, or they could get lost.

  I’d lied. I did have a tiny sliver of mercy reserved for Visk, if they wanted to walk away.

  Rather than answer, Visk pulled off their leather boots. Their soft feet padded across the floor, one of the first times I’d been able to hear them when they walked. Carefully, Visk stepped down onto the stone shelf beneath the water and waded over to me.

  Visk continued to rub their hands together as they looked me in the eye from close proximity. The amber orb of my eye reflected a soft light onto the water and the damp leather of their trousers. After a moment’s further hesitation, Visk reached out and pulled their slender body against my head.

  The water sloshed around their legs as they tried to find a more comfortable position. My jaw and the upper ridge of my head had many horn nubs and armored scales that a human shaped creature needed to work around to get close.

  “B-boss?” Visk said softly, their teeth chattering. “I’m trying my b-best. Promise. I’m h-hugg-gging y-you with a-all I g-got. Th-this w-water isss r-r-really cold.” I could barely feel their arms squeezing me, compared to Cassia’s grip. The thought made me rumble unhappily, which unsettled Visk.

  “I believe you, Visk,” I reassured them. With great reluctance I rose from the water. “It’ll be warmer soon.” Visk continued to hold onto my neck even as I lifted them clear of the floor and walked over to my nest. It was just a bare stone floor with treasure piled on top, but it was mine.

  Getting bedding went on the list of future goals, far behind: One, Rescue Magnus. Two, Kill my sibling Third. Three, Convince Cassia to forgive me. There were several more ambiguous goals floating around in my head. Getting bedding was probably ninth or tenth in line.

  Maybe that would be a good job for Visk, if I didn’t need them to do something more important.

  When I laid down on the ground, Visk folded beneath me. They laid there limply on the ground beneath my head for a moment, before they wriggled into a better position. With a sigh, I curled up my body and tucked my head and tail under my wing. Visk seemed much more pleased with this arrangement and darted in to get comfortable.

  “Are… you really sure boss?” Visk asked me as they settled into a nook where their arms were wrapped around my neck and their back pressing into my side. “I know you had a really rough day…” They ground their teeth together for a bit before continuing. “But… I don’t want you to keep me around, just because your ladies are mad at you.”

  A great puff of heat rolled out of my nose, raising the temperature under my wing considerably.

  “Visk, the reason I want you around is because you chose to be here,” I told them sternly. “I saw in your eyes that you chose to leave your old life behind, even if it hurt you too. I can also see that you want something you never had in that life. I’m just waiting for you to tell me what that is.”

  “... So you want me around because I’m greedy?” Visk asked softly.

  “Greedy for Us,” I asserted. “For whatever it is you saw in me and my people.”

  “That’s… pretty embarrassing boss,” Visk grumbled. “I’m no good at talking about the touchy-feely stuff.”

  “Great,” I hissed. “I’m not either. Now Visk?”

  “Yes boss?”

  “Shut up and let us sleep.”