AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1
Isavelle
Freezing winds from the northern mountains whip across the clearing, driving flurries of snow and ash into the air. Two Brethren Guard have a merciless grip on my upper arms as they drag me toward the towering funeral pyre. Heat scorches my face, and my bare feet stumble over the frozen, rocky ground. My hands are bound and my mouth is gagged.
I can’t run.
I can’t scream.
My body is covered in bruises and cuts, and I’ve been deprived of food and sleep for three days. From behind my long veil, I glimpse dozens of Brethren in their robes, hands buried in their sleeves, and Brethren Guard in battle-scarred armor. The air is thick with the acrid scent of burning flesh and incense.
The Brethren drone on, chanting their hymns as the guards drag me through the watching, silent crowd. The mood is more like a funeral than a wedding, which is fitting considering my bridegroom is ashes and charred bone atop a burning pyre. There will be no vows spoken today. I’ll be joined forever with my husband, King Alaster, when they throw me atop the burning pyre, my fiery death the last hope the Brethren have to turn this war around.
What a great privilege it was that I was chosen above all others for this sacred duty.
I spat in the High Priest’s face when he told me that, which earned me a fresh coating of whip marks. I know why, of all the Veiled Virgins, they chose me to wed King Alaster. Because of my disobedience. My impiety. My insolence. The High Priest is so fragile, so paranoid, that he couldn’t bear my contemptuous glances and small acts of rebellion, like mouthing the words of my prayers instead of saying them.
He’s watching me now with a gloating smile twisting his lips. His gray eyes bore into me as firelight glimmers on his short, silver-flecked beard. With my hands bound and my mouth gagged, I’m finally what he’s always wanted me to be. Willing. Silent.
Defeated.
At the last harvest equinox over a year ago, I was wrenched from my home and family as part of the tithe that the Brethren demand from every village in Maledin. One-tenth of the harvest and livestock. If there is not enough food to sustain everyone that coming winter, they take daughters of the village instead. The harvest failed, and the animals were sickly, so I knew they’d be coming. I hid my sister, two other girls, and myself, but I didn’t hide well enough. I was dragged onto a cart and sent to live in the monasteries where I became a Veiled Virgin and was forced to serve the men I hate most in the world.
The Brethren rule over the people of Maledin with a bruising fist as they preach the word of God. We’re taught that death is a gift and suffering is a privilege. If we’re not suffering, then we’re probably sinning. The Brethren’s decrees are enforced by the Brethren Guard, armed soldiers who force the people of Maledin to attend church if they will not go, flog families, and execute those convicted of blasphemy. They are our absolute overlords, and our kings are their puppets, though it’s rumored that the Brethren serve another, known only as the Shadow King, and he is crueler and more merciless even than his devoted servants.
But all that changed a week ago when the dragons came.
They erupted out of the north, breathing fire and filling the skies. Improbable creatures.Impossiblecreatures. Churches are on fire, hundreds of dead Brethren Guard litter the roads, and Brethren priests have run screaming into the forests.
All my life, we told each other tales of dragons and dragonriders on long winter nights, but that’s all they were. Stories. The Brethren hated us telling those tales, and anyone caught would be beaten and tortured. My favorite tale was called ‘The Mountain Prisoner,’ about a fierce dragonrider and the rightful ruler of Maledin who was betrayed by a wicked mage and trapped beneath the Bodan Mountains hundreds of years ago. The Brethren preached that there was nothing in the Bodan Mountains to the north except for bloodthirsty wolves, bears, and snow. Dragons and dragonriders belong to immoral tales not befitting the pious followers of the one true God.
Now the Brethren being slaughtered by the creatures they claimed do not exist.
I’ve heard their leader rides an enormous black dragon and has burning coals for eyes. Some of the Veiled Virgins were whispering that he comes from the depths of the underworld. A creature from hell walking among us.
King Alaster was slain in battle yesterday, supposedly bravely defending the capital. Seeing as his body is here, hundreds of miles from Lenhale where he was meant to have fallen, I suspect that he was really fleeing south for his life.
His spirit must be appeased with a bride to follow him into the next world, or Maledin will never rise up and defeat the invaders.
The funeral pyre roars greedily. I can feel the heat through my veil. When I dig my heels in and whimper, the soldiers pulling me along resort to dragging me across the ground. A few more feet and they will toss me into the flames. Heat scorches my legs. A log rolls off the pyre and showers my feet in sparks, and I’d scream if it wasn’t for the gag.
Despair and rage flare in my heart.
I hope the dragons burn them all.
Every single Brethren and Brethren Guard, and they’re all sent screaming to hell.
The soldiers grasp my underarms and lift me as the Brethren’s chanting reaches a crescendo.
Overhead, there’s a mind-shredding roar. The sky darkens as an enormous shape eclipses the pale winter sun. I glance up through my gauzy veil and make out an enormous scaled and clawed foreleg the size of a house descending right on top of me. The soldiers holding me release my arms and run, but I haven’t got time to do anything except fling myself away from the pyre and fall on my stomach.
There’s a crunch, and the earth shudders beneath me. When the dust and ash settle, an enormous black dragon is visible. It’s landed on top of the funeral pyre, stomping the flames, and what was left of my bridegroom, out of existence.
Adragon.
And I’m lying on the ground between its scaled forelegs.
I’ve seen their likeness carved into rocks that line the road up into the Bodan Mountains; warnings not to go that way, for the monstrous creatures slumber, awaiting the day their riders will return to summon them to battle. I would touch those carvings andwish. What a foolish child I was, for now I’m about to be trampled to death by the ravenous black beast on top of me.
