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I’ll destroy anyone that seeks to harm her. Even if that happens to be my father, although I don’tthinkhe was the one behind this.
I exit my chambers and cross the hallway, entering my office, where embers still glow in the hearth. I reach a nondescript wooden door at the end of a long row of bookcases.
I open it and step into my private armory.
It’s a windowless room enclosed on all sides by thick stone walls. I don’t need a lantern to help me see. My vampiric eyesight quickly adjusts to the darkness.
In the distance, I can hear Finley’s breathing, slow and rhythmic, deepening into sleep. I can hear her shifting slightly in the sheets, and the faint whisper of the breeze outside.
If anyone dares step inside my chambers, I’ll know.
I’ll be there in a heartbeat.
She’ll be perfectly safe, as long as I’m near.
My attention turns to the swords hanging on the wall, nestled in their sheaths. I have at least a dozen swords to my name. A couple are sturdy and basic—I use them for training. The rest are proper war-swords; forged by masters, their blades kept finely honed.
The sword was always my weapon of choice. Kaithar uses his axe. Some prefer maces or halberds or crossbows.
I like the blade for its speed and swiftness and simplicity. When I was human, I was considered unnaturally gifted at the sword. So much so that after a while, I became used to fighting alone in battle.
My men knew to give me a wide berth, as anyone that got in my way risked his head.
That was why I went into the mountains alone, to slay the dragon the Khaturians had summoned from its millennial slumber. Some would say it was sheer folly; a commander risking his life when he should be giving orders from the back.
But if the dragon were allowed to rise, the battle would be over, and the empire lost. The Khaturians have no respect for weakness. They would have driven down into Tyron and seized the Northlands.
And the morale of my men was low, shattered by the constant attrition of arcane magic, which they’d never had to face before.
I knew that if I could slay the dragon, the battle would be over.
They never expected me to steal into the valley and lure it to me; to shoot it with poison-tipped bolts, taking both its eyes out.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a feared dragon if it hadn’t scorched me with its fire and rended me with its claws; if it hadn’t viciously whipped me with its tail. With my body broken and burned, I knew I didn’t have long. As the poison took hold and it fell to the icy ground, roaring with all the fury of a summer firestorm, I fought through excruciating pain, drawing on the very last of my strength to take my sword to its neck.
Dragons have a vulnerable part, just below the angle of the jaw, where their scales are thinner than anywhere else.
I read that in a book somewhere.
Turns out, the book was somewhat accurate. But it didn’t explain that a dragon’s blood is as hot as lava, and deep cerulean in color.
It spurted all over me, burning my already scalded flesh, and I was certain I was as good as dead.
I remember collapsing into the snow, surrounded by the burning blood of a dragon.
I died. I know it, because I saw the Death Goddess herself, and at the time, I thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in my life.
That was until I met Finley.
A sigh escapes me as I walk toward the wall and select a sword. This one is made from Solkrian bluesteel. It’s simple in construction, with a perfectly balanced heft and a blade made from thousands of layers of folded steel.
It’s the sword I slayed the dragon with.
I’ll use it again, to slay anyone or anything that poses a threat to Finley.
Even if they’re of my very own blood.
A suit of black leather armor hangs on the other side of the room.
