BOOK ONE
CHAPTER SIX
Everyone stood in shock at the bloody spectacle before them, everyone except Stellan that is, who, having fallen back to Earth, laughed quietly at the carnage. Flori detached herself from Iver’s body. Her skin visibly vibrated with rage. With haste, Lauori fired a trio of flaming arrows into Flori’s cottage. Flori’s eyes went big, and she raced into her rapidly burning home. Lauori and Stellan turned their weapons on Sasha, Moriandra and the Prince.
“Stop!” Sasha implored. “This is the Prince of the realm, your future King, most beloved son of the Queen! If you kill him, you’ll hang!” Stellan and Lauori glanced at each other. Stellan laughed.
“We were warned that you would try to trick us, Sasha the Merry Maker. We know he’s only a servant.” Lauori punctuated the sentence with an arrow to the Prince’s shoulder; he fell to the ground in pain. Moriandra transformed into a deer and sprinted away. Lauori gave chase; Stellan stayed and turned his sword on Sasha. Sasha dodged and blocked as many of Stellan's rapid attacks as she could, but his skill outperformed her speed, and before long a multitude of shallow cuts covered Sasha in her own blood. She fell to the ground at his mercy.
Further into the forest, Mo laid injured with two arrows in her back and one in her rump. She could feel Lauori coming up behind her to finish the job. Having no other option, Mo closed her eyes and sent out a silent message
Orion, if you’re listening, help, she commanded. Please help. Now! Lauori kept approaching, and for a moment Mo thought her message went unreceived. Then she heard a gurgling sound, and Lauori the Quick hit the ground next to her, dead.
Having immobilized Sasha, Stellan continued to taunt her with quick cuts all over her body. Sasha wondered if he ever intended to end it. Then he paused, and looked at her curiously.
“I know you, Sasha. But not as a Merry Maker, no, not at all. I know you as a Crimson. Sasha the Crimson. How on earth did you end up here?” he giggled, cutting her again.
“That’s not me now,” Sasha strained to say.
“Look again. It is you now,” Stellan cackled, referring to her wet, red clothing. Stellan leaned in for a final slice, but stopped abruptly, ears pricked up. Out of thin air, a blue figure appeared behind the assassin and attempted to grasp the Hyena’s throat. Stellan leapt over Sasha, barely escaping the monster before it vanished. Stellan prepared himself to fight, but the cerulean nightmare materialized a second later in the swordsman’s blind spot, grabbed him and threw him with great force into a tree, cracking open his skull. He did not move after that. Sasha looked up; a dragon looked down.
“Mo’s gonna owe us big time for this,” her savior spat before she lost consciousness.
“Stop!” Sasha implored. “This is the Prince of the realm, your future King, most beloved son of the Queen! If you kill him, you’ll hang!” Stellan and Lauori glanced at each other. Stellan laughed.
“We were warned that you would try to trick us, Sasha the Merry Maker. We know he’s only a servant.” Lauori punctuated the sentence with an arrow to the Prince’s shoulder; he fell to the ground in pain. Moriandra transformed into a deer and sprinted away. Lauori gave chase; Stellan stayed and turned his sword on Sasha. Sasha dodged and blocked as many of Stellan's rapid attacks as she could, but his skill outperformed her speed, and before long a multitude of shallow cuts covered Sasha in her own blood. She fell to the ground at his mercy.
Further into the forest, Mo laid injured with two arrows in her back and one in her rump. She could feel Lauori coming up behind her to finish the job. Having no other option, Mo closed her eyes and sent out a silent message
Orion, if you’re listening, help, she commanded. Please help. Now! Lauori kept approaching, and for a moment Mo thought her message went unreceived. Then she heard a gurgling sound, and Lauori the Quick hit the ground next to her, dead.
Having immobilized Sasha, Stellan continued to taunt her with quick cuts all over her body. Sasha wondered if he ever intended to end it. Then he paused, and looked at her curiously.
“I know you, Sasha. But not as a Merry Maker, no, not at all. I know you as a Crimson. Sasha the Crimson. How on earth did you end up here?” he giggled, cutting her again.
“That’s not me now,” Sasha strained to say.
“Look again. It is you now,” Stellan cackled, referring to her wet, red clothing. Stellan leaned in for a final slice, but stopped abruptly, ears pricked up. Out of thin air, a blue figure appeared behind the assassin and attempted to grasp the Hyena’s throat. Stellan leapt over Sasha, barely escaping the monster before it vanished. Stellan prepared himself to fight, but the cerulean nightmare materialized a second later in the swordsman’s blind spot, grabbed him and threw him with great force into a tree, cracking open his skull. He did not move after that. Sasha looked up; a dragon looked down.
“Mo’s gonna owe us big time for this,” her savior spat before she lost consciousness.
Sasha awoke to find her wounds bandaged and the Prince by her side, his arm in a sling.
“You’re awake!” he shouted jubilantly, then hugged and kissed her rather too roughly, but she was glad of it despite the pain. “You’ve been out almost two days, I’m so happy you’re okay.” He hugged her again, then looked at her concerned, not sure what to say next. “Come. Come see where we are,” he settled on, and the Prince carefully led the injured Sasha outside. They emerged from one of dozens of living quarters carved into the side of a mountain, and looked out onto a landscape of dream-like loveliness, a beautiful green valley speckled with foliage and dragons of every color. In one area vegetable gardens and fruit trees motleyed the land, a small vineyard took up another, sheep wandered wherever they pleased, and running through it all, a crystalline body of water so still and reflective, one might have mistaken it for a swath of misplaced sky. A paradise, small but effective, as well as an enclosed self-sustaining country for the world’s remaining dragons. Sasha and the Prince sat on a tuft of grass and admired the scenery.
“Sasha,” the Prince asked quietly. “What did that man mean, calling you Sasha the Crimson?” Sasha became uncomfortable. She considered a million different answers, but in the end she decided on the truth.
“I was raised in Reeza,” she confessed. The Prince furrowed his brow in disbelief. Reeza was a secretive kingdom to the north, known for its xenophobia, beautiful weaponry, and its tendency to publicly display the heads of its enemies. They were a dour people who valued youth and violence above all things. Once a warmongering state, in the last century it had contented itself with being merely reclusive and unwelcoming. Outsiders who entered did not leave, and very few Reezans ever left, or perhaps escaped is a better word.
“In my youth,” Sasha explained further, “I was champion of the Battle Ring, deadly with a rapier, the best. To me winning wasn’t winning until I annihilated my adversary. I often ended up covered in my opponent’s blood, earning me my nickname. I’m not proud of this,” Sasha told the Prince with growing urgency. “I was a child. I didn’t know that I had a choice. I thought that was just the way things were.”
The Prince stared forward, processing this information. “What happened, then? You obviously left…”
“A stranger came to Reeza. Strangers are always immediately imprisoned, then forced to fight the Ring champion. If they win, they are accepted into Reeza as a citizen.”
“And if they lose?” the Prince asked. Sasha looked at him as if to say, don’t be stupid.
“I went to talk to him before our battle, hoping to size him up, suss out his weaknesses. He was elderly; there would be no contest. But something about him fascinated me. He told me about himself and his life, life outside Reeza, people and places I’d never dreamed of, people for whom life was not a series of battles. He told me of societies that hated violence, rejected it. I realized I hated it, too. He carried what I thought was his weapon, but it was a lute. I asked him to demonstrate it, and he played me song after song. I fell in love. When he finished playing, he said the lute was mine if I wanted and something in me broke open. The next day, the day we were supposed to fight, he had disappeared, as if by magic. A day later, I left myself, swearing that I would never fight again, only play.”
“Who was the man?” the Prince asked.
“I don’t know,” Sasha replied sadly. The Prince tried to think of the right question to ask next, but Sasha hated talking about Reeza, and had a more pressing question of her own. “Where is everyone else?” she asked. The Prince seemed grateful for the subject change, though sad for what he had to report.
“Barnaby is dead. Moriandra’s been off with the other dragons most of the time since we came here, and in a foul mood when she’s back with us. And Flori is…the fire, it…you better come see.” The Prince helped Sasha to Flori’s room where they found her meditating, surrounded by as many of her half-burnt possessions as the dragons could save. Her body was deformed, strangely indented and textured. Large holes cross sectioned her body and face. Gilded skin dripped like candle wax exposing hollow insides. Despite the gold’s alien look, the humanity of her form made disfigurement of this degree sickening to behold. Flori covered herself with a blanket, then picked up the pad next to her bed and wrote, At least I saved the animals.
The Queen and her train arrived at the scene of the fire. They discovered the bodies of two assassins and a crippled man, as well as blood from multiple bodies now missing.
“Go look for evidence of the Prince in the house,” the Queen ordered, when out of the rubble came a man built like a scarecrow, giggling eerily, a makeshift bandage covering a rather serious head wound.
“You can kill him,” the Queen told her men lackadaisically. Five of her guards approached the Hyena, who made swift work of the lot without even breaking a sweat. “I see,” said the Queen. “Would you like a job?”
“Sure,” Stellan hissed, snickering maniacally.
“Go look for evidence of the Prince in the house,” the Queen ordered, when out of the rubble came a man built like a scarecrow, giggling eerily, a makeshift bandage covering a rather serious head wound.
“You can kill him,” the Queen told her men lackadaisically. Five of her guards approached the Hyena, who made swift work of the lot without even breaking a sweat. “I see,” said the Queen. “Would you like a job?”
“Sure,” Stellan hissed, snickering maniacally.
The dragons were all losing their tempers, especially Moriandra. As usual, only Orion remained cool-headed.
“Why are we even helping her?” one dragon shouted. “After what she did to poor Cicero.”
“Poor Cicero? After what she did to me!” another shouted.
“And me!” another voice sounded. Mo rose to defend herself.
“I didn’t do anything you didn’t deserve.” she rebuked. “You came after me. I couldn’t help that I was more powerful.”
“Not so powerful now, are you?”
“Exactly right,” Orion said. “Moriandra is different now. And we are helping her because she asked for help. She never would have done that before and you know it. Is that not proof of her transformation?”
“I’m grateful for the help you’ve given, Orion and Jove,” Moriandra reluctantly admitted. “But you can all rest assured that my friends and I will leave here the minute they have recovered. I want to be here as little as you want me here!”
“You’re not going anywhere,” an angry dragon stated. “We know the North Star repaired that human’s mind. The least you could do is help us, considering what we’ve done for you.”
“You haven’t done anything for me that I didn’t do for all of you by defeating Hades!” Mo shot back.
“You mean turning us out of our home?” a yellow dragon cried.
“You’re still on about leaving the Underworld?” a red dragon replied. “You can’t still miss that place.”
“Seeing her ugly face again, I do!”
“Stop it, all of you!” Orion ordered. “I understand that Moriandra’s return brings up many old conflicts, but we have to try and focus on the new situation in which we find ourselves.” The dragons all sulked. “Moriandra, I know how difficult it is for you to be here, how compromised you feel, but there is something larger that needs to be addressed and you know that. North Star has healed someone, and as hard as it is for you, we have to figure out how, and then work to undo the damage you did all those years ago.”
“Yes, I know,” Moriandra acknowledged. “I wish I could say I knew what happened. As we’ve seen the Star alone cannot restore any of you, and I am no help either. Somehow, the answer lies in one of my companions.”
“Why are we even helping her?” one dragon shouted. “After what she did to poor Cicero.”
“Poor Cicero? After what she did to me!” another shouted.
“And me!” another voice sounded. Mo rose to defend herself.
“I didn’t do anything you didn’t deserve.” she rebuked. “You came after me. I couldn’t help that I was more powerful.”
“Not so powerful now, are you?”
“Exactly right,” Orion said. “Moriandra is different now. And we are helping her because she asked for help. She never would have done that before and you know it. Is that not proof of her transformation?”
“I’m grateful for the help you’ve given, Orion and Jove,” Moriandra reluctantly admitted. “But you can all rest assured that my friends and I will leave here the minute they have recovered. I want to be here as little as you want me here!”
“You’re not going anywhere,” an angry dragon stated. “We know the North Star repaired that human’s mind. The least you could do is help us, considering what we’ve done for you.”
“You haven’t done anything for me that I didn’t do for all of you by defeating Hades!” Mo shot back.
“You mean turning us out of our home?” a yellow dragon cried.
“You’re still on about leaving the Underworld?” a red dragon replied. “You can’t still miss that place.”
“Seeing her ugly face again, I do!”
“Stop it, all of you!” Orion ordered. “I understand that Moriandra’s return brings up many old conflicts, but we have to try and focus on the new situation in which we find ourselves.” The dragons all sulked. “Moriandra, I know how difficult it is for you to be here, how compromised you feel, but there is something larger that needs to be addressed and you know that. North Star has healed someone, and as hard as it is for you, we have to figure out how, and then work to undo the damage you did all those years ago.”
“Yes, I know,” Moriandra acknowledged. “I wish I could say I knew what happened. As we’ve seen the Star alone cannot restore any of you, and I am no help either. Somehow, the answer lies in one of my companions.”
Continued in Chapter Seven...