"There is no human drive stronger than that
of wanting to control the souls of others."
CHAPTER 4
THE DRAGON
There's no point in hiding the truth.
Overnight, in front of our eyes, Daemon had gone from being a favorite son, the light that brought some hope into our miserable lives, to becoming a traitor. An enemy.
The thing that hurt me the most was that he didn't tell us anything, probably because he knew we'd do anything to dissuade him.
One day he had simply shown up at home with the star on his chest, and the fact that not even my father had been able to contain his dismay at that sight spoke volumes about our reaction.
He said he did it for us, that as Sheriff he could have protected us from the abuses we had to endure every day working like beasts in the mines and the woods. And despite everything, we had made an effort to believe him.
Instead, a short time later, I had seen him kill Malik with my own eyes. That poor ogre, as enormous as he was naive, was pricked day and night, at least until his servant stone broke due to all those risky uses. And when a servant stone breaks, the wearer goes crazy – becoming the animal that we have always been in the eyes of humans.
I don't know exactly what happened. What I do know is that when I passed by there with some slaves heading towards the sawmill, I saw Daemon shaking hands with Captain Oldrick in front of Malik's lifeless body already covered in brushwood and ready to be burned.
In that moment, my world collapsed around me.
My father, the only one who even tried to find the good in something that astonishing, had tried to say that it had been an inevitable choice, almost an act of mercy. But the fact that even Lori had stopped smiling or talking about him said a lot about the opinion everyone now had of Daemon.
I hated him.
It was a terrible thing to say about your brother, but there were no other words to express how I felt.
In the end, a human is still a human: why should he care about us, when a lifetime of possibilities that we could only dream of was about to open up before him?
Then, that damned morning came. The one that changed everything I believed in forever.
Me, my father, and everyone else were in line at the gate, waiting to be taken to work.
"Stop. You're not going out." Commander Beek told me as soon as he saw me.
"Why?"
"You have been reassigned."
"Reassigned!? Where?"
"To the reserves."
That single word plunged me into darkness. My legs began to shake, breathing became nearly impossible, and everyone who heard it was equally as shocked as I was.
"Wait, Commander," my father tried to say. "This must be a mistake. Ende is under special administration. None of us can be sent to the reserves."
"This is a special order that comes directly from the capital. All female dragons, whether pure or mixed blood, are to be gathered and brought to the reserves."
"However…"
"That's enough, you stupid lizard! I told you these are the orders! Your freak will leave with the next shipment! It goes without saying that if anything should happen to her before then, you all will answer for it."
No one else breathed. I couldn't find the strength to speak either.
After all, what could I have said? To them, we were nothing more than objects to be disposed of at will.
Leaving everything, I ran home, and once I locked myself inside, I did what I had never done in my life: I cried.
Eirinn didn't have a reserve – either to the east or to the west.
The closest reserve was in the Baxos province, nearly two hundred miles further north along the Via Imperiale.
Once a month, a military convoy carrying of provisions, equipment, and some reinforcements made its way from the capital to the border and vice versa. Since the last one had left a few days before, it would be four weeks before we saw another.
Every second that passed was agony, and not being able to work only gave me more time to think about what awaited me.
Even though I had left the one I was born in when I was still very young, I had heard all those stories about reserves, and about the experiments they did on females belonging to rare species.
Dragons like me – especially the half-humans – were versatile, lived long, and were highly resilient and immune to mortal wounds that would be fatal to anyone else.
With these attributes, being transformed into an animal stud almost seemed the least terrible prospect, compared with what they would put me through in an attempt to create others like me.
I was aware of being an almost unique exception for my species. Intelligent, anthropomorphic dragons were rare, and according to my father, I was the only half-human dragon he had ever heard of. No wonder someone in the empire took notice of me and was determined to exploit me.
I don't want to end up like this.
I'd be lying to myself if I said that in those days, I didn't consider the idea of ending it, even at the cost of making others pay the price for my action, but every time the thought of what my father and the others could have suffered had stopped, chaining me to my fate.
"Damn, what a face. Compared to you, even an ogre with scurvy would seem more attractive."
That voice, as jovial and shrill as it was unpleasant, gave me a jolt, making me feel angry with his joy.
His name was Jack, short for Bojack, a name he himself claimed to detest. The name was nothing more than the botched result of crossing a man and a horse, tall and massive.
He was a guy who liked to joke. He was easygoing, even with the guards. Exactly the kind of person I hated the most.
"I'm not in the mood, Jack."
"Yes, I see that. May I suggest rhubarb root? They say it's a wonderful way to lift the spirits. Otherwise, you can always try red weed."
If my gaze could have burned anyone to ashes, I would have left nothing of that cursed horse but a pile of dust. Even if his attitude made me furious.
"Damn it, if I'd known what kind of comrades I'd have, I'd have asked to stay on the galleys. At least there, between the patrols and the fights with the pirates, there was always something interesting to do."
"People like you are the worst. How old are you? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? I've been living this existence for two hundred years. So don't come here and tell me how I should feel or that I could be happier, because you can be sure that after all this time the urge to laugh and joke is gone. And now, leave. Go away and leave me alone."
Jack didn't seem to lose his composure even in front of such a hostile answer, but for the sake of peace he decided to shut it up and give up on replying.
"Unfortunately, sometimes things don't always go as planned. And you must be prepared for unforeseen events."
And having said this, he went away, leaving me alone again with my torments.
A week passed.
Seven days of pain and anguished waiting, during which the news made the rounds of Ende.
Almost everyone showed understanding, except for someone came to incite me to do what I wanted, since my death is a price they were willing to pay no matter what happened. But I was too worried about the fate of my friends, or perhaps just too frightened to carry out the resolutions that I was thinking about day and night.
By now, autumn was descending into winter. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and I could feel in the air the upcoming arrival of the snow.
It was an afternoon like any other.
I was there, sitting on the bench next to the entrance to the house, lost in the darkest thoughts regardless of the cold.
A prison wagon suddenly arrived, pulled by Jack himself, who since his arrival a few years earlier had been destined for the rather thankless task of draft animal in the service of the militia. Commander Oldrick gave a nod, and the two accompanying guards grabbed me and carried me away.
"What are you doing? It's not time yet! Leave me!"
True to my nature, I initially screamed with all my voice, throwing insults and curses at the three humans, until I surrendered and lifelessly abandoned myself on the bottom of the wagon, completely exhausted and deprived of any further will to fight.
We followed the Via Imperiale for a few hours, stopping around sunset at the foot of a castle just beyond the borders of the region, farther than I've ever gone in my life.
"Where we are? Why are we stopping so early?"
There were four slaves waiting for us in the entrance courtyard, an ogress, a dog and two bunny girls, dressed as maids.
"As hypocritical as that sounds, I'm sorry," Captain Oldrick told me as his men let me off. "Perhaps this is the best solution after all."
Without saying a word, the slaves led me bodily into a sort of bathroom, where they washed, perfumed, combed, and prepared my provocative dress and put me in the hands of two legionaries, who after handcuffing me again took me to the library, where I found a fat old man covered in jewels and a dapper young boy with cold eyes waiting for me.
"So, my son. What do you think of your birthday present?"
I had never seen them before, but assumed they were Governor Longinus and his son Adrian.
"Very beautiful, at least for a monster. And to think that some microcephalus wanted to make a stud animal out of her. Can you imagine something more stupid than that?"
"Please, Father. It is not necessary."
"We've talked about it before, boy. You're almost a man now, and you must learn to act like one. By your age, I had already taken dozens of these beasts."
"With all due respect, I don't think it's something you should brag about. They're monsters."
"But there are different kinds of monsters. I mean, have you seen her? If my youthful vigor hadn't gone underground years ago with your poor mother, I would have gotten this nice piece of lizard for myself. And if you don't like that thing behind her back, we can always make her cut it. Instead, I would keep the horns in your place. With such dark skin, they give her something savage."
"Father, I remind you that an official request has come from the capital to deliver every dragon of childbearing age you have to the reserves, and you have pledged loyalty to comply."
"Screw the Emperor and his pack of grabbers. If anyone comes to check, we'll shut them up with a bit of money."
Adrian was staring at me so darkly it made me shiver. He had such bright eyes I could almost see my reflection in them, and I had to look away to avoid getting lost in them.
"Let's do this way. Keep her for a few days, while we are Baron Mecht's guests. If you like her, we'll take her to the Castle, otherwise we'll send her where she needs to go. Agreed?"
The young man seemed hesitant, but in the end he agreed, being called a wimp for always wanting to follow the rules and avoiding enjoying the privileges of his status.
"Go on, get this animal out of my sight, and take her to my son's room. And feed her too. She must be fit for the night ahead."
The bedroom where they took me was bigger than my house.
They chained me to the wall like a dog and fed me, but I was too angry and too scared to touch the food.
When Adrian arrived around midnight, I was motionless in a corner, pinned down by the cold, also because the first blizzard of the year had broken out outside in the meantime.
"Idiots. I told them to light the fire."
All he had to do was wave his hand for a spark to ignite the wood in the fireplace, finally spreading some warmth into the room.
"You are a sorcerer."
"I have the Gift, but nothing more than this. Of course, I can't hope to be on your level."
"I have no magical powers."
"Just because they are neutralized by the servant stone. You first should know that dragons are the only monsters with sorcery-like abilities. You may never be at the level of a true dragon, but I'm pretty sure that with the right training you could easily outclass any human wizard in this world."
Then, Adrian grabbed me by the chin, staring at me for a long time without saying a word – and for some reason I couldn't fight back.
"Of course. It's natural."
"What you mean?"
"Do you know why the reserves were created?"
"Because you always need new slaves."
"This is the official reason. For some time, the Empire has been producing more slaves than it really needs. The truth is that since the beginning their goal was to carry out hybridization experiments in order to create ever more humanized monsters, more intelligent but also easier to control. With some, they succeeded, with others, things didn't go as hoped."
On the other side of the room was a large traveling trunk. Adrian took out a book – a kind of big old worn ledger.
"Obviously it is difficult to get reliable information after so long, despite the notoriously scrupulous nature of the Empire's bureaucratic slave machine. But according to this record, it appears that as early as three centuries ago there were several attempts to obtain a half-blood dragon using known slaves, and the dragon Zorech appears to have taken part in most of them."
"My father?!"
"Almost all the experiments failed, while those few that resulted in a birth produced specimens that did not meet expectations. But about two centuries ago, the result of so much effort finally arrived. A half-blood dragon, female, born on the sixth day of the tenth month of the fourteenth regnal year of Emperor Augustine XXI, on the Estevan Reserve. It's quite obvious that we are talking about you."
"Why are you telling me these things?"
Adrian looked at me again, this time in a far colder and more menacing way.
"To let you know how special you are. If every information about you hadn't been lost in the great fire of the capital one hundred and fifty years ago, you would have been sent to reserves long ago by now. The obvious consequence is that at the present moment no one knows of your existence. Even now that the Empire has started looking for you again, as my father said, a little money would be enough to make you disappear."
It was clear what that apparently mild-mannered young man had in mind.
"You don't seem like the type of person to act out of compassion or some noble purpose. Why would you want to do such a thing?"
"Because like all nobles I am ambitious, but unlike my father I know how to profit from the opportunities that present themselves. The truth is, I spotted you a few weeks ago on a visit to the sawmill, but my idiot father mistook pragmatic interest for sexual attraction. He's right when he says it would be a waste to send you to the reserves. You have potential you can't even imagine, and all you need is someone to help you realize it and a cause to use it for. And I have a lot of both."
I squirmed in disgust, but between my empty belly and the chain I ended up kneeling on the ground again, as weak and helpless as a wet kitten; but still capable of baring fangs.
"You hide behind nice words and that pretty face, but you're just another human who sees us as tools. You disgust me. If I could, I'd sink my teeth into your throat."
At that point, Adrian touched my chest with a finger, and a sensation never felt before went through my body.
It wasn't pain – far from it.
It was something strange, like a wave of fire that, rising from every single part of the body, reached me straight to the head, clouding my usual judgment. But it was a good fire, quite different from the one that gave me the sensation of burning alive when being punished by the guards.
My breathing got faster and faster, as the little bit of self-control I still had left struggled to keep my hands from moving and my mouth from moaning.
I felt vulnerable, understanding very well what kind of impression I was giving from the outside by how I moaned, by my expression, by the saliva that I couldn't hold back – but I couldn't help it. My body had become my enemy, and trying to resist that pleasure only served to make it stronger.
Meanwhile Adrian watched the scene impassively.
"Those idiots think the bind is only for inflicting pain. But as you see, it can be used in other ways as well."
"S… stop… please…"
"Let's put it this way. What you have experienced to date is what awaits you in the reserves. What you are experiencing now is what you will have by coming with me. But I have no use for a capricious mare. It's up to you to decide."
With that said, and without bothering to stop the action of the bind, he left.
"I'll give you one night to think about it," he said before closing the door.