Chapter 19: This may hurt, a lot

The old man laughed, not genuinely but terribly forced with quick breaths in-between. “What? Are you considering buying? What about your fancy pathwalker up north?”

Brandon played unimpressed and huffed his response. “You must know, there aren’t many dragons up in the fringes past Sawaila’s borders. And then they are mostly Metia.”

Elliot raised a shriveled finger. “I see, Metia. Not much good to be done with them, I suppose. So you seek new markets. Buy where the supply is largest.”

“Sometimes eggs make it all the way up.” Brandon homed in on his goal and pointed straight at Sylph. “My employer is looking for more of her, her family, to be exact. There is a lot of money to be made and he is willing to pay for all information.”

They all turned to look at her as though she turned into an expensive piece of artwork. The mention of money had a certain effect on every merchant, one that loosened lips and inhibitions.

“Do you have any more specific information about her?” For once, genuine curiosity stained Elliot’s voice. She could practically hear the gold beads jingle in their minds. They might actually spill something useful.

“She supposedly came from around here less than twenty years ago. That’s all I have. We bought her from someone else up north. Underhand and few questions asked.” Tim drew a short sharp breath, opened his mouth, but was promptly cut off by his father’s hand gesture. Sylph’s ears focused. He wanted to say something. She hoped Brandon noticed too and would press the fact. Whatever it was, it could help her find her parents.

Their little caravan stopped as Elliot sent Tim to untie one of the bags. The linen cloth slipped off and revealed a slim, deep-blue Aer egg. He held it in both arms. Sylph could not believe her eyes. They actually carried eggs with them. “That is the wrong color.” Was this what Tim was thinking about? A random egg they brought, not even her hue?

“Nobody asked you to speak up, be quiet.” Elliot turned back to Brandon. She should bite him again, maybe slavers too learned with pain.

“She is right,” Brandon said, “I am looking for her family line, not just any Aer.”

“Ah,” Elliot murmured, “Makes it harder, but there aren’t too many suppliers for Aer. For a fee I could hook you up with some of the promising ones.”

Brandon eyed the egg, and Tim raised his voice once again, this time undisturbed. “Doesn’t she remind you of someone?”

Sylph perked up, but Elliot dismissed him. “They are all blue. She looks like any other Aer.” Elliot turned to face Sylph. “Probably not a clue in this batch. Because these are for eating.”

“What!” Sylph exploded, forcing the entire word into a single mouthful. The fire in her chest, so long concealed, surged forth in an eruption of strength and she lunged forward before her head had a say in it. She ripped the rope out of Brandon’s hands. Bracing for the impact, she slammed into Tim with her shoulder and he dropped the egg. It fell into the sand with a heavy thud.

“Sylph, stop!” Brandon reached after the rope but failed to grab it in time.

“Boat, fucking boat!” She grabbed hold of Tim’s left leg, jerked it backwards, and pushed her shoulder into his lower stomach. He lost his balance, and she followed him downwards. Her claws found ample grip in his long clothes and flesh, and she brought up her hind legs as he fell, pinning him to the ground with all four. “Eating!” she snarled into his shocked and pale face. “We aren’t wyvern! Those are alive! You know something, don’t you? Spill it! Who do I remind you of?” She pressed her claws deeper into his shoulder and Tim winced, but did not answer.

“I knew it!” Elliot bellowed. In the sudden commotion, he had pulled out a thin-bladed knife. Its blade gleamed like Veria’s tail in the rising sun. “You are not who you pretend to be.” He took a step backwards and pointed the knife at Brandon’s chest with his good arm. Brandon yelped in surprise and threw up his arms at the sight of the shining tip poking against his tunic. “I did this job for nearly fifty years and have never heard of magic slavery in the north.” His frown turned into a fake smile. “I was intrigued at first. The world changes after all, but now I’m sure you are as fake as can be. No one would eat a dragon egg. You didn’t know that.”

Brandon stood utterly motionless with the knife to his chest and Sylph cursed herself. She glanced down at Tim wriggling beneath her; he posed no threat. Now she had to get Brandon away from that knife. “Great, you figured it out. What did you hope to achieve by revealing us? You could have led us to Prina and we would’ve been on our merry way.”

Elliot held the knife in his completely outstretched arm and made it clear that he had never used it before. His stance was awkward, feet close together and hunched over. He would fall over with the tiniest of pushes. She did not expect Brandon to know that, or to do anything. “Put down that knife and we can talk.” Even he must realize that he was a dead man if he hurt Brandon. They had commented on her physique themselves and all the muscle on her should tell them the rest if they knew what it meant. Dragons took years to build up muscle as their dragonheart constantly interfered with the process. The sight of Sylph worried the less experienced, as it showed her years of constant training. If she could use it was another question, one they could only judge by experience.

For the first time, Sylph had Elliot’s full attention. “You would not put up with this disguise unless you wanted something from us. You are lost in the desert.” He poked the knife tip into Brandon’s tunic. If intentional or not, she could not tell. “Sounds like I have the upper hand in this negotiation.”

“Sylph,” Brandon squeaked.

“Don’t you dare!” Sylph raised her claws closer to Tim’s face. Her dragonheart pumped, but her pfod did not shiver or twitch at all. This was a fight. This was something she could do. He wanted a dangerous negotiation, he could have it. “You disgust me. It took my claws to your apprentice’s neck for you to treat me like a person.” Tim’s face turned a ghostly pale and stiff as bone as her claw brushed against the cloth around his neck. She turned to Elliot, “Everything about you disgusts me. Do I look like a trade good to you?”

Elliot did not react. His bitter expression rested on his face, as if chiseled.

“These eggs, these hatchlings. They don’t deserve what I went through, nobody does. Are you not ashamed of yourself!”

“Monsters like you don’t deserve sympathy.” To her astonishment, the answer came from underneath her. “Monsters belong on a chain.” Sylph drew a hasty deep breath and swallowed the words lingering on her tongue. It was not a thing she would consider often, but engaging them verbally would not help Brandon.

“Look, I have something you don’t want to lose and you have something I don’t want to lose. You are merchants, so let’s just forget our views for a second and come to an agreement.” She withdrew her claws from Tim’s neck and placed her left pfod back into the sand. She turned towards Elliot, suggesting he did the same. He hesitantly lowered the blade an inch.

“Let’s make a deal. You point us to Prina and we will never meet-” A flash of red hot pain rushed through her thigh and she cried out. Instincts took over as a red mist overwhelmed her thoughts and she simply reacted as any dragon would. She swiped hard with her left. Her claws hit something, resistance. No training or duels had readied her for this, the painful throbbing, the raw fear in her head, the hot wetness on her leg and the panic as her claws got stuck. Fire shot through her muscles, deep into her arm and she raked through the resistance, ruthlessly cutting through the cloth, not even hesitating as her claws met skin, slid through sinew and cartilage, and finally tore through into freedom.

Blood rushed down her pfod, screams broke through the leaden heat, and the icy terror in her mind. It all blended into a single, overpowering sensation that made her thoughts both sharper and blurred. She did what her body thought was right. It wanted but one thing; To survive.

Another hot flash of pain struck her leg, but this time she froze, her gaze downward. The knife slipped into the sand below her belly. Tim clutched his throat, his fingers dug into the gashing wound, got lost in the stream of crimson blood, unable to stem the flow. Red foam bubbled from his mouth. He convulsed, curled upwards, and gasped for air. He coughed and sent heavy droplets of blood flying.

A wave of nausea passed through Sylph’s stomach. “No!” Elliot screamed. He whirled the knife around and pointed it at Sylph. Brandon ran. He did not look back, he simply ran. Elliot stumbled forwards, mouth agape in a stuck scream. He closed in, three tail lengths, two, one. He pulled back his arm, winding up his strike. A fatal mistake. Sylph noticed, sidestepped, and leaped at his side. She dug into his robes and used his own momentum to spin him halfway and trip him with her tail. She followed him down, seized the good hand with her pfod. Her claws dug into his fist and hand until he dropped the knife with a pained outcry. She smacked the knife out of range, rolled him over onto his back, and pinned him to the ground.

Elliot kicked and flailed against her underbelly in desperation. All he hit was a pack of tense muscle, his legs too weak to do any damage. She sat down on his legs to stop his struggling and pushed down his shoulders. Her claws dug into the skin, the left red with crusted blood.

Tim’s gurgles went quiet behind her. Brandon gagged and threw up somewhere even further. An odd stillness took hold of everything, if only for a second.

“I killed him.” She shook off that thought, shook off the stillness. He was a piece of shit who would sell her without a second thought. Tim called her a monster. He stabbed her. The realization intensified the throbbing pain in her leg and the feeling of something warm running downward.

Her claws pierced further into Elliot’s shoulders as she lifted his upper body and smashed him back into the sand. “Tell me what he wanted to say!” she yelled straight into his face.

“I’m telling you nothing,” Elliot wailed and spat a mixture of sand and spit onto her snout. Tears streamed down his face, followed by ugly heaves and shaky wails. He looked over at Tim’s body. “You murderer!”

Her grip tightened. Another fiery trail of liquid traveled down her leg. The fire inside burned hotter still, drowning everything but the questions on her mind in its flames. “If you don’t want to end up like him, you better talk! Where is Prina?”

“You- You monster! You wild beast! You would kill us all if you had the chance again! And you proved it! There is no place in the world for dragons unless it’s on a chain.” Elliot spat out sand once again.

The fire parted for an icy wave of disbelief and terror. “He stabbed me.”

“You attacked us,” Elliot said. “You killed my little boy!” He spat in her face one more time and broke into tears. “All for an egg.”

“It was an accident.”

“Your kind’s accidents cost more lives than anything a human could ever do.”

Her body and mind had an argument. Tim could have killed her if he had any idea where to stick the knife. No, he had aimed to kill her. She did not want to do this. He did it to himself. They would not even bat an eye if he killed her, would probably have killed Brandon next. Her anger rekindled the flame inside. Blood seeped through the cloth and pooled around her pfod as she pushed down harder. “Talk. My parents. Prina.”

A desperate, whiny laugh escaped Elliot’s mouth. “Nobody keeps track of that. No one gives a wyvern’s shit where you came from. Especially you Aer, at least animals care for their young, unlike your kind. You are probably the unwanted daughter of a whore that sold you for a speck of smoke.”

His words only fueled her dragonheart, like a blazing star deep inside. “Shut up, or I swear to the six that I will sodomize you with a cactus until you do.”

Elliot’s head shot upwards without warning and smacked into her lower jaw. The sweet metallic taste of blood filled her mouth, and she smashed him into the sand once more. “Prina will put your head on a spike,” he wheezed. “They will make sure you pay for what you did today, you monster. You think you are the first to return? You aren’t and you won’t be the las-” he coughed up a spout of blood mid sentence.

His face drained of all color and caved in on itself. Skin grew hard as leather and flaked like dried mud in the desert sun. “What?” he mumbled hoarsely. His eyes bulged outward before shriveling up into his head. Sylph released her grip in surprise, staring at the dried blood in disbelief.

“No, no, no,” she whimpered. His water, she had taken his water. Elliot’s breathing slowed to a wheeze and stopped. She jumped backwards. She had not intended to do that. He could not be right! She was not a monster, they were. She never hurt somebody before. Images of the last seconds echoed through her head, never stopping, constantly repeating. She killed them. She killed them.

More hot liquid raced down her shaking legs and pattered onto the sand. Her dragonheart flared up one last time, closing in on the dreaded line of burning out. What if all of this was a big mistake? Her parents would be impossible to find. It was the slaver capital. They will put her in chains again. That was why her mothers kept it a secret. They knew this would happen. What if they did not recognize her? What if all of this was for nothing? Something deep down made her feel sick to the bones. Anger? Sadness? Regret? All of it? She wanted to run and never look back. Or to fight and never make it back. She wanted to curl up in the sand and sleep.

Something brushed against her wing as she tapped around in a circle. The simple touch carried the impact of a war hammer. She flinched sideways and spun around, claws at the ready. “DO NOT TOUCH ME!” She bared her teeth at Brandon. She stopped herself as he stumbled backwards. “Don’t, just go away, leave me alone, I-, I’m sorry. I didn’t-, I’m not—, Why?” Her legs grew shaky, stomach heavy, and she threw up nothing but water.

Brandon looked as pale and ghastly as she felt. “They are dead?” His voice was tiny, a little whisper, but strong enough to wash over her wild thoughts like a bucket of cold water. The fire inside vanished, leaving a hollow inside of her.

His gaze went downwards. “You are bleeding!” He jumped up and pointed at the little pool of blood in the sand beneath her that steadily grew larger.

“It’s nothing.” Nothing was leaving deep red streaks on the sand and burned like a blazing hot rod of iron inside of her. The second one was but a scratch, but the first was deeper than she thought.

“We have to wash and bandage that,” Brandon realized and made his way to the solemnly chewing camel. Maybe it was the shock that made him step past the bodies without comment. He focused entirely on that one goal right now.

She was a duelist, not a fighter. Her opponents got scratches and always lived to tell the tale. Today was different. She had crossed a boundary. She knew about death; she had seen death. But this was so personal. Nothing like Veria said. Nothing like Dalian said. It all felt so empty and guilty.

A new sting interrupted her thoughts. A trail of blood trickled down the side of her leg. Sylph concentrated on the burning wound and a squall of water burst forth. White hot pain filled her whole body as the water expanded the wound and her skin snapped back afterwards. She clenched her teeth and pushed her forehead into the hot sand. “Horrid idea.”

She waited for Brandon to return with a bandage. He sat down next to her, released his backpack from his shoulders and took out a familiar-looking bottle. Her body already tensed at the memory of the sharp liquid entering the wound. Brandon gazed down at the bandage, then up at her. The wound was high up her left thigh, quite an awkward position to reach without ever touching her. She nodded at Brandon to get it over with.

He fumbled with the bottle and hesitated to approach her with his arms. He had seen her kill somebody. How could he be sure that she would not do the same to him? She could not look in his face ever again. “This may hurt, a lot,” he said, carefully reached around her leg and pushed a piece of cloth drenched in liquid against the wound. She tried to suppress a scream as liquid fire touched her skin and stung worse than the actual blade. “That’s an understatement,” she hissed.

Brandon’s arms brushed against her underside as he tightly bandaged her thigh. His touch was an icy burn, mixing with the hot flares radiating from her leg. It was a different kind of painful. He closed the bandage with a tight knot on the outside and fell backwards into the burning sand.

She wiped off her legs and carefully laid down next to him, using her wing as sun sail once more and taking the weight of her wound. “Now what?”