Agent of the Dragon

Rhysa ducked a stray bottle flying by her head. It shattered on a wall a few feet behind her, splattering those nearby with wine. The riot’s roar deafened, and the press of bodies stifled. She was going to have several deep bruises--assuming she survived. Casually trampled bodies provided deadly obstacles in this amorphous mass of violence. A woman ahead of her stumbled and fell, screaming. By the time Rhysa reached her, blank eyes stared at her from a bloody face, the head lolled loosely on a broken neck. It had taken less than a minute.

She pushed frantically towards the edge--Death waited for those who stayed. Someone grabbed her and pulled. With a terrified shriek, she fell to the ground. One of Death’s feet stepped on her left arm and she felt the bones snap.

A hand grabbed her uninjured arm and hauled her to her feet. The frenzied mass faded as the person pulled her into an empty alley. Compared to the riot, the alley was quiet enough to start her ears ringing. Cradling her left arm against her chest, she leaned against the wall, bracing her right shoulder for support, and gasped for air. Every movement sent splinters of pain throughout her body. Her left arm bent halfway up her forearm. Ulna and radius, she noted with the calm dissociation of shock, and as clean a break as could be wished...the skin wasn’t even broken.

She felt a tug on the left sleeve of her tunic, heard the sound of fabric being cut. Numbly, she turned her head to look at the sleeve. Sure enough, someone had made a neat slit, exposing the slave tattoo underneath. She looked at the knife that had cut her sleeve. Her eyes travelled from the knife to the hand that held it, then tracked up the arm to look at the face of the man who’d saved her life.

When she saw who it was, she wanted to run back into the riot. Instead, shock, pain, and exhaustion buckled her legs. With her right shoulder still braced, she slowly slid down the wall until she sat on the ground, her legs straight out in front.

“That’s right,” said the voice that haunted her nightmares. “You know what I want. No one will stop me.”

Rhysa shook her head, not wanting to believe it. She tried to scoot back, but as soon as her left hand touched the ground, she shrieked in pain.

The man chuckled. “I’ll even be doing you a favor. I’ll be setting you free.”

She lashed out with her feet, or tried to. He didn’t even bother to sidestep her feeble kick. He crouched at her side. “None of that, now.” He tapped her left forearm lightly--a gentle reproof. Rhysa whimpered her scream through clenched jaws. The man gave a satisfied nod.

The slap came out of nowhere and torqued her head into the wall. Stunned, she slid the rest of the way to lie at his feet. In perfect despair, she knew he was right--Jagun could not rescue her this time.

“It’s a shame my friends aren’t here, this time.” The ex-caravan guard stood and stepped to her feet. His tone was casual, as if this were an ordinary conversation. He kicked her feet apart and crouched between her legs. “I guess I’ll have to do their part for them.” With practiced strokes, he cut her undergarments away and flipped back the edges of her tunic, then stood and undid his breeches. His phallus protruded, and in the dim light of the alley, it took on monstrous proportions.

He knelt and covered her. She struggled; the pain, though, made her movements weak. His eyes lit with pleasure as she moved under him. She froze when the head of his phallus found her opening. Their eyes met, and her eyes widened as she saw and felt him prepare his first thrust. He leaned down and covered her mouth with his. With a sudden, sharp movement he stretched her painfully wide. She screamed her agony, the sound muffled by his mouth. Tears blurred her eyes. She squeezed them shut, feeling moisture trickle down the side of her face even as she felt a trickle of blood between her legs.

She felt him pull back and push in, the rock of his phallus moving inside her--eager and unwanted, the dry friction painful. Each movement caused her to whimper. Finally, his whole body went rigid. Deep within her, she felt the wetness of his angry lust.

She assumed he would withdraw now, but she was wrong. He worked himself in and out, spreading semen and blood to lubricate himself. His motion grew smoother and faster as she lay there in shock and fear and pain and loathing. With each thrust, she felt a little of herself die. With each thrust, he was getting his revenge. It went on forever--until she felt him spurt again. Then he withdrew, leaving her in a downward spiral of self-loathing and fear and pain. Just before her mind stopped working altogether, she remembered he’d had two friends with him in the forest. She never felt him turn her over.

Rhysa sat up, gasping and vibrating with the memories. Her body ached at every place she’d been injured or violated during the riots, as if it, too, remembered.

Someone had found her bleeding and unconscious. He’d recognized the sigil under the slit sleeve and had arranged for her to be taken to Lord Hermestus’ House. She’d awakened in a room she recognized as Lord Hermestus’ critical care area. Her arm had been mended and the rest of her body healed.

Her mental and emotional healing, however, took much longer. She had been mildly surprised when Lady Hermestus took the lead in her treatment. Lady Hermestus, however, was more than a match for her husband when it came to matters of the mind and of the heart. She brought Rhysa safely through crisis point after crisis point much more quickly than Rhysa would have expected. Lady Hermestus encouraged, coaxed, confronted, pestered, and argued Rhysa into rebuilding herself.

A couple of days after Lady Hermestus had declared the primary rehabilitation period completed, Lady Kasteryn knocked softly on the door and entered.

“I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through.” Lady Kasteryn’s voice was soft, but held no resonance. “I just wanted to tell you...You’ll have a place in our Houses.”

Rhysa took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“We can officially declare you our apprentice. It will change nothing concerning your standing with us, but it will give you a certain amount of status.” Her voice dropped to a hesitating whisper. “And. Maybe, some small protection.”

Rhysa blinked away tears. “Yes.” She swallowed. “Yes, I want to keep learning.”

Lady Kasteryn’s own eyes shone, but no tears came. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” she began.

Rhysa interrupted her by locking eyes with her. “It wasn’t your fault.” No trace of a quiver touched her roughened voice. “It wasn’t mine. It was that damned guardsman’s fault. Don’t try to take even the slightest trace of responsibility.”

Tears etched compassion onto Lady Kasteryn’s cheeks. “I’m so proud of you. None of the other survivors I know turned around this quickly, or came back so strong.”

Rhysa looked at her feet embarrassed. “Most of it is due to Lady Hermestus. I don’t know if I can ever repay her for what she’s done for me.” She looked back up at Lady Kasteryn. “I’m still brittle, though. I can feel that. The strength is real but not yet settled.”

Lady Kasteryn wiped her cheeks dry. “I know. And I’m glad you can see it, too. Both the strength and its weakness.”

Rhysa smiled slightly. “They’ll release me in another couple of days. They were willing to release me sooner, but I wanted to give myself some extra time.”

“So they said. You can choose a new room once you return.”

Rhysa shook her head. “I have friends where I am. I’ll have to fight isolation for a while longer. There’s no need to make the fight harder than it has to be.”

“So wise, already. You’ve learned your lessons well. I’ll see you in a few days. We can get your apprentice papers officially submitted after that.” Rhysa had nodded, and Lady Kasteryn had left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

In all, Rhysa had spent six months recovering at House Hermestus--fast, after all, did not mean instantaneous. Her apprentice papers were submitted and duly countersigned by Prince Hallyk, himself. From time to time, he would come by to check on her progress. She’d come through the experience with an edge she hadn’t had before. The next year and a half was spent honing that edge.

Rhysa shook herself out of her daze. She swung her legs out of bed and stood on legs still shaking in reaction to the powerful memories. She grabbed a washcloth, and made her way to the washroom; she splashed cold water on her face, and wiped off the nightmare sweat with a damp washcloth. That dream hadn’t bothered her in a long time. She looked into her red-gold eyes reflected in the mirror, and wondered if it was her subconscious trying to tell her something.

Knowing she wouldn’t get any sleep until she at least got a start on what her subconscious was up to, she dressed and made her way to the library. On the way there, she stopped by the kitchen to make a mug of tea and butter some bread.

In the library, she grabbed pieces of foolscap from the scrap pile, sharpened a pencil, and sat down to think. The dream had started with the riot, so she wrote that in the center of the foolscap and drew a circle around it. Then she started to write down everything she needed to know about the riot: the day it occurred, what caused it, what the result was, how many people had died or been injured, how much property had been destroyed, did anyone benefit from it during or after. Each of these she wrote at the top of a separate piece of foolscap--one topic per foolscap.

She started with the page titled “Day of Riot”: she would never forget that day. The day had been slightly overcast. There was no festival or holiday going on, so the number of people in the streets had been unusual. She made a note to find out why so many people were in the streets. It was one of her free days as a slave, and she’d gone to a tavern to grab some food that didn’t come from any of the three kitchens she encountered regularly. She’d just finished eating when the first sounds reached those inside the tavern.

Rhysa made a note to find out what other events happened that day: was there some kind of religious meeting, or a neighborhood political rally? Then she scratched it out and wrote it on the foolscap labeled “Potential Causes”.

Rhysa continued to create lists of things to look into. It took her until false dawn to finish her lists--the beginnings of her investigation. Already she saw some common threads. Further research would reinforce the emerging pattern--or reduce it to nothing but coincidences.

With a plan in place, and the first steps taken, her mind released her and she yawned. She snuffed the lantern she’d been using as a light. The first of the morning staff roamed the halls, performing their daily tasks. Too late to go back to sleep, then. She heaved a purely mental sigh. It wouldn’t be her first day without sleep. She tapped the ambient energy through the overlay, and let it wash away what fatigue it could. This morning’s workout was going to be rough--time to change clothes.

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