Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

Keiara woke up in a grand and richly appointed room. Her head felt dizzy and her stomach was nauseous to the point where she had to fight not to throw up. She was pretty sure the fat man with the bright clothes had drugged her sometime during the trip from the edge of her forest.

She was on a soft couch that felt like a cloud. Around her were opulent rugs, master paintings, marble, metal, and so much more. She couldn’t believe that people lived in something so outlandishly rich. She glanced to her right and saw a long row of floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond those was a massive terrace with a pool, a small tub in the ground that seemed to be boiling, a metal-worked table and chair set of astounding detail and beauty, plants, a fire pit and other overly grand items. The sky shone with bright sunlight and it was a pretty blue. Marring that beauty were over a dozen thin columns of smoke that billowed into the sky.

She glanced around, trying to get her bearings and quickly gasped in shock when she saw someone staring at her. Her fingers dug into the soft cushions of the couch. In front of her was a hideous, horribly disfigured man. Patches of silver dotted his twisted and scarred scalp. His lips were burned off and showed her a skeletal-looking mouth and teeth. One eye was covered in thick, wax-like scar tissue that made it look droopy.

“You will have to excuse my appearance. Your people were not kind to me,” the man said sarcastically, his voice odd. It sounded distorted and warped.

He got up and started walking toward her and Keiara stiffened in fear.

“Why am I here?” she asked, controlling her voice so that none of the emotions inside her would show. She thought she’d done a good job of it. Her voice came out smooth and strong. Confident even.

“For the most part, as bait,” the burned man responded. “Or at least, that’s what the incompetent fool, Lord Guilder proposed. He believes you have a somewhat unique relationship with our dear Prince Rone. And since he has proven more adept at staying alive than I would have thought, I need something to lure him to me. Namely, you.”

He reached out a disfigured hand toward her and caressed locks of her dark hair.

“He won’t come for me,” she snarled, ripping her head to the side so that his disgusting hands wouldn’t touch her.

“There is something to be said about you savages,” the man mumbled, his voice so low she could barely hear him. “Your kind breeds very beautiful women.”

The creepy look in the man’s eyes unnerved her and she tried to get as far away from him as she could. His arm snaked out and grabbed hold of hers, however. His fingers dug painfully into her flesh.

“Rone is impetuous and often selfish but he is also very protective of people. Even if it’s someone he doesn’t know. If he sees them in trouble or hurting, he goes out of his way to right it. Just ask Lord Guilder what the Prince did to him. Now imagine for a minute,” he paused, letting his words sink in, “what he would do for the beautiful, savage woman that saved his life? He would drag himself through Damnation and beyond to save her.”

Stone cold fear raced through her.

How did they know I saved his life? she asked herself.

“I see you’re confused as to where our information came from,” the man went on, looking smug and happy about it. “We Rooks are very talented with making whatever suits our needs. Including drugs that can loosen a person’s tongue whether they want to or not. Lord Guilder administered it to you as soon as you both arrived in Roanoke. He got everything he needed from you. And I got everything I need to exterminate the Varlamagnes once and for all. You see, he’s here. In the city. Actually, beneath it, leading a raid against the prison where the non-converted are being kept. But once he hears your pretty voice, he’ll come to me.”

Keiara was shaking her head no, over and over again. She didn’t want to believe what he said they did to her and what he planned for her and Rone.

She thought back, trying to force herself to remember everything, but there was only darkness. The last thing she remembered about her abduction was fighting. She had fought, scratched, bit and clawed the man that had grabbed her. Then she’d felt a sharp sting to her arm. After that, everything was black. When she woke up again, she was here.

“You’re lying to me,” she said, trying to make herself believe it.

“I don’t lie,” the man replied. “I have no need for it. I find the truth to be much more liberating and useful. I told the soldiers of my army the truth. I told them the truth of the Varlamagnes’ rotten control and now they will follow me into the jaws of death and back if I told them to. So, girl, what need do I have to lie to some savage, insignificant bug of a Terraquois?”

He talked in a matter of fact tone and added a snarl of hatred there at the end. She could tell this man hated her kind more than most Rooks. There was murder and insanity flickering in the back of his eyes. It seemed to radiate out at her and for the first time, she felt real, cold terror seep through her.

She knew the man intended to kill her. And she knew he meant to do it in the most horrible, and public, fashion imaginable so that Rone would be lured out of hiding.

She felt anger well inside of her again. The same kind of blinding anger that had gotten her into her current mess in the first place. It grew and quickly burned out the fear she’d been feeling. It overwhelmed her entire mind in no time.

She looked up at the man and her eyes glowed with orange, burning light.

“No,” she said, calmly.

A part of him reacted badly to her display of power. It recoiled and screamed in wild terror and Wilhelm fought hard to maintain control.

All the while Keiara’s rage kept rising.

“No,” she repeated.

“You can’t stop me,” he replied, chancing a laugh. It didn’t sound very convincing though. “Nobody can.”

She stood up and the man took a step back.

“I won’t let you hurt him,” Keiara told him.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, something weird happened to her. It felt so far away though. So unimportant. She didn’t even register what was going on with her until after the incident was done and over with.

Her body suddenly felt superhot. Her skin started to tingle. There was a loud whoosh! and the plants in the suite all burst into flame.

The man flinched violently when the fire came up.

“What are you doing?” he asked, after he got better control of himself. “Stop it.”

“You,” she said instead, totally succumbing to the weird power coursing through her. “You will leave him alone!”

The walls burst into flame now. She watched them burn and felt immense pride. Somewhere deep inside her she knew she was doing that. She just didn’t know how or why.

The fires raged out of control for a few minutes more and then the power she felt dipped sickeningly before bottoming out completely. When it left, she felt empty. She felt drained. Her body crumpled to the floor and she lay there, breathing heavily. Her arms and legs felt like lead bricks. Her chest seemed to weigh a million pounds. It was hard to breathe.

The minute she collapsed, all the fires in the room went out. Black scorch marks on the walls and the blackened husks of the plants were the only indications that there had been any fire at all.

The man walked over to her then. The maniacal, murderous flicker in the back of his eyes was still there, only now it was more pronounced.

“I don’t know what you did or how you did it, but I will make sure I see you burn for it,” he told her, his voice quietly ominous. His hand crept up and touched the warped and scarred landscape of his face. He squinted angrily at her. “Then you’ll see how it feels.”

With that he walked away and out of the room. The door slammed into the wall next to its frame as he opened it.

Keiara tried to pick herself up but her body still wasn’t cooperating. She hoped to use the open door to escape but with her body in its current condition, it was impossible. Even if she’d been in top shape and ran out, she wouldn’t have made it far. About two minutes after the burned man left, a squadron of Blak Soldiers entered, each with blasters trained on her.

They grabbed her, roughly twisting her arms behind her back. They hauled her off the floor, but her legs still weren’t strong enough to hold her up. She nearly fell to the ground again, but the soldiers held her up by her twisted arms, causing her shoulders to scream out in pain. She bit down on it though, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of hearing her cry.

They carried her out of the suite and down a long, wide hall. The walls were a deep purple with wooden wainscoting along the bottom. Electric sconces dotted the wall every five feet or so. Their harsh, yellow light speared into Keiara’s eyes. She winced and resolved to look at the ground instead. The pattern on the carpeting seemed to blur past her as she was rushed along.

They came to the end of the hall a few minutes later and waited there. One of the soldiers holding her pressed a button next to shiny metallic doors. It lit up bright blue. A couple minutes later, a ding sounded and the doors opened. Then they pushed her inside a confined little room.

She was still weak but she could feel the strength returning to the rest of her body. She could almost stand on her own now.

Not for the first time, she wondered what was going on with her. How was she able to block their killing fire and set things aflame in that room? And why did it make her so weak afterwards? She didn’t know, but she thought that maybe the answers were important. Too bad she wouldn’t survive to get them.

She watched the doors close and then the room plummeted, causing her stomach to lurch and jump queasily. She shut her eyes tightly closed, breathing slow and deep. After a second or two, the queasy feeling faded away. The only thing left was her terror. She knew she was going to die and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

****

They stuck her in a windowless, grey room with only a simple metal table and chair in the center of it. It was bleak and depressing but she didn’t let it get to her. She immediately tried the door and found it locked and very sturdy. She couldn’t get it to open, no matter how much she struggled with it. She got on the table and experimentally prodded the ceiling. There was no give. She looked around, trying to spot weaknesses but there were none. The walls were made of some hard, rock-like substance. The door wasn’t about to open and she couldn’t punch a hole in the ceiling. She was trapped and the only thing she had to wait for was her own death.

A couple of hours went by. Despair had quickly invaded her mind and she spent a lot of that time crying. She told herself she wasn’t going to. She hadn’t wanted them to gloat over seeing her sobbing, but she couldn’t help it. All she could think about was the things she wouldn’t get to do in life. Have a family. Have children. Explore the rest of Purga like she’d always dreamed of doing. Then she thought about the people she loved and the ones that loved her. She thought about not being able to see them anymore and what that would do to them. Her father and mother. Asher. Her friends.

Rone.

A flutter of excitement raced through her at the thought of him. She hadn’t wanted to admit to herself that she had deep feelings for the Rook boy. When she had finally given into them and kissed him, all she could feel was shame and guilt. She imagined her father’s rage and the disgust from the rest of her people. They would’ve shunned her. They would’ve treated her like a pariah. Like someone diseased. That was why she’d run away from him. She loved her home and she loved her people and she had put too much weight on what they would’ve thought. When she finally realized that and had gone back to explain, he was gone and it was too late. Now she would never get a chance to.

She cried again.

She was still crying when the door suddenly opened. A burst of fear went through her, but she stopped it coldly. She dried her eyes and stood, lifting her head somewhat. If she was to die, then she would do it with as much dignity as she could.

The soldiers went inside and stoically led her down a hall and then outside to a wide area of smooth, featureless concrete. Planters of blue colored brick held a wild collection of flowers in a circle around a graceful, marble fountain. A large sculpture of a hunting hawk graced the top and water shot out of its bent wing tips as well as its beak. Beyond that were several hundred stairs that led to a very big, semi-circular landing with more planters and beautiful plants. In the middle of this landing was a thick wooden pole standing straight up in the air. Four stout cables went from the top of the pole to the ground and were anchored into the concrete. It was tall. At least twelve feet in height. A circular wooden platform was attached to it, about four feet up the pole. Underneath the platform was a clustered hill of wooden planks and cords of wood.

The soldiers prodded her onward.

She came to the steps and went down them, still keeping her head held high. A couple of minutes later, she came to the landing. As she got closer to the wood pile, she caught a faint acrid smell and noticed that the wood was dark and wet. She assumed it was soaked with some kind of fire accelerant.

Her steps slowed and her terror rose. Her heart pounded painfully. The soldiers at her side and back, however, pushed her forward.

There was a cleared space in the hill of wood for her to walk down. At its end was a ladder that led up to the wooden platform.

That’s where the soldiers were taking her.

She looked past the platform and the pile of wood and saw the burned man. Behind him stood a living nightmarish monster like nothing she’d ever seen before. It was a giant misshapen, humanoid creature that was flat out terrifying. There were a couple of other people standing next to them, including the garishly clothed man that had kidnapped her. And behind them was another set of stairs that led down to the streets below.

In the streets, standing in orderly blocks, were massive amounts of black-clad soldiers. Their ranks seemed to go on forever, filling the building-lined roads in every direction.

She came to the ladder and hesitated there. The soldiers prodded her in the back again and she started climbing. They followed her up and when they were on the platform with her, they tied her to the post. First they tied her hands behind her back and then they tied a rope around her waist. When she was lashed tightly to it, they checked their work. Confident that she couldn’t escape her fate, they went down the ladder and stood away.

The burned, twisted man stepped forward and turned to face the crowd. He had a hood on now that hid most of his face, but if you looked hard enough you could still see his mutilated features.

“Today,” he yelled, his odd voice carrying far and wide, “we have in our possession one of the enemy! A heathen savage that has spent years trying to destroy what we have sought to build. Today, my brothers and sisters, we show them that we are a force to be reckoned with. We show them that we are powerful! We are strong! And we show! No! Mercy!”

He paused as a wave of roaring and cheering rose up. He let it go on for a calculated amount of time and then gestured for them to quiet down.

“Our Prince, Rone Varlamagne, has cavorted with this woman.” Outraged yells ripped through the city. “He has forsaken our history. He has forsaken our people. He has turned against us in favor of these savages.”

He turned and looked directly into a camera that was pointed at the proceedings.

“I know you are watching, Rone,” he spat. His anger and disgust were a tangible object. “Prove me wrong! Let her die and we will all know that what I have said is nothing more than a lie. Let her burn and you will win back the loyalty of your people.” He smiled. It was something revolting, that smile. Something that would make small children cry. “You have two hours to climb out of the hole you buried yourself in. After that, I will set her aflame myself.”