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But what Selliss did, how he felt about Maya, his motivations – I cannot understand them.
“And you never will,” I tell myself as I look up at the steadily darkening sky.
If it came to it, I’d rather use my hand to get off than give myself like that to any woman.
Luckily, I have never had to rely on myself. I know that I am attractive, and so do the women around me.
“But if it came to it…” I look over at Terrian and Kryon, who are also leaning against their posts.
Yadat is cold at night, especially here where we are, on the border between Yadat and Marzula.
We are miles away from civilization, and we are surrounded by a strip of dead and dry land. The lush beauty of Marzula glares at us from a long distance.
But here, at these wooden posts, it is just us, the desert, and the sky.
And each of those things is brutal and unforgiving.
Including us.
And I know that if I ever come across Selliss again, I’ll have his head for what he did to me, my King, and the men underneath my command.
“Lodra will be easy to take,” Terrian tells me later on when we are being relieved from our shift.
“Of course it will be,” I scoff, my hood flaring angrily as I think about that kingdom that has shamed the entirety of Nagaland.
“Lodra is weak, even if they do not look like it. Any kingdom that would prioritize humans over naga is weak.”
We do not go to bed, but walk straight to the center of Yadat, to the town that lies beneath the palace.
There, in the town square, we see dozens of young naga men, ready to be trained.
“This will be brutal,” I tell Kryon, who nods in agreement.
It will be brutal, not just for the new recruits, but for us too.
We will need to train as hard and as fast as we can. We will need to be faster and stronger than ever.
King Kriseri will not tolerate any failure going forward.
He will expect us to take Lodra and win.
And it probably will be easy. Because clearly, the Lodrian naga males cannot think straight when a semi-attractive human woman walks into the room.
But I am not willing to take any chances.
When war comes – because it will – I want to take Lodra and I do not want to lose any men.
Kryon and Terrian take the new recruits through their first round of training, while I speak to Melinu, Kriseri’s chief war strategist.
“We need to send in a few spies,” Melinu mutters. He is old and short and very thin, and the skin of his upper body is so pale that I can practically see the rush of blood through it.
He has white, wiry, unkempt hair and he wears round, wire-rimmed glasses.
He looks insane, but he really is a genius.
Can you have one without the other?
“I’ve gotten word from Kario,” he tells me. “They caught a Lodrian spy in the royal palace a few months ago. But he escaped before they could question him.”
“And you think we should do the same? What if they capture one of our men, and we lose a good soldier? We have already lost too many men.”
“That is why we send a spy and not a soldier,” Melinu says, his voice sharp. “This is war boy. You need to start asking yourself what you’re willing to do. And who you’re willing to lose.”
THE END.
