Dolor Reptilia

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Now there are many. At least, that’s what the rest of Orthylla thinks. In truth, there is only one dragon in the Valley, and no one has seen her for millenia. Instead, the Valley is overrun with Litheneae, vile creatures thrust into existence by pain, curiosity, and greed.

Below the mountains that line either side of the Valley, offering protection from the harsh winds that roll in off the choppy sea, Avarack draws in a deep breath. Dry, smoky ash fills his mouth and lungs, and he exhales slowly, one hand clutching his sword hilt tightly against his hip. His knuckles are white beneath leather hand wraps, and for once he is thankful protocol dictates he wear hand coverings while on the job–they squeeze his knuckles just a little too tightly, always reminding him where he is. Who he is within these vast caverns: nobody. Another mind and body being shaped to serve King Unithra, one among hundreds. A drop of sweat cutting a clear path through the grime on his temple threatens to spill into his eye, and he jerks his head sharply to fling it off, but he only succeeds in getting a nasty look from Ghondrol, the hulking student next to him. The salty bead of sweat stings his eye as it lands, and he can only just make out white teeth peeking out from the broad face sneering down at him.

“Sorry,” Avarack mutters to the larger man, but Ghondrol just picks up the bonesaw on the supplies table and flips it around in his hand. Avarack winces as the blade catches the light from the embers below, and Ghondrol rolls his eyes, smothering sympathy with exasperation.

“Lighten up,” Ghondrol chuckles, gently shoving Avarack to the side, nearly sending the smaller man to the ground. “It’s my turn anyway. You’ve been sawing at this wing for hours–”

“It has not been hours!” Avarack defends, straightening up, but Ghondrol steamrolls over him, digging into the inky leather wing hanging before them as he speaks.

“You’re not even halfway through the bone, and the part you have worked through is mostly specks of dust that’s just fuel for the fire.” Avarack wants to say something, but he knows Ghondrol’s right. He’s weak. Settling for a scowl, he steps further away as Ghondrol cuts through the wing at a startling pace.

When the sickening crack of bone splitting rings out, Avarack can’t help the way his face scrunches up, nose wrinkling in disgust. He schools his features as quickly as he can, but it’s not fast enough. His shoulders ride up towards his ears as he waits for the yelling to start.

“Avarack! Get your sorry ass over here!” Strawface hollers. The continuous clang of metal on metal and the buzz of bones being sliced stops for a second, and Avarack can feel it as everyone sets their eyes on him. Strawface is quick to release an angry grunt, and every set of idle hands is back in back in motion before Avarack can blink.

“How long have you been here?” Strawface asks as Avarack falls into place, feet side by side, shoulders pulled back, head held high, back ramrod straight. Avarack forces himself to meet the hard green eyes boring into him from Strawface’s scar-littered face when he answers.

“Eight weeks.”

“Eight weeks! Eight weeks, what?”

“Sir!” Avarack amends quickly.

“That’s right! And you’re still squirming like a lame worm every time we open one of them bitches up. Why’s that, huh?”

“Because I’m weak, sir!” Avarack calls out for what had to be the millionth time since he’d arrived at Lilith’s Peak. He’d gotten better at acting unaffected as he gave Strawface the answer he wanted, but inside, it tore him up just as badly now as it did the first time.

“Damn right you are! Get out, I don’t want weaklings like yourself in my classroom. Go check if the garden needs any workers, that might be more your speed. Don’t come back here until you’ve toughened up, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Avarack bites out, turning on his heel and leaving the classroom before he lashes out in front of Strawface.

He gets about halfway down the hallway leading away from the cavern when he hears a set of light footsteps speed up and feels a hand on his arm. He tries to shake it off, but the grip tightens and the person beside him speaks.

“He’s an ass, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Avarack grunts, turning to face whatever idiot decided to follow him out of the cavern. He stops struggling when he sees that it’s Bira, the slender woman with mischievous eyes and dark hair that she kept cropped close to her head he met during his first week in the caves. “Oh . . . I didn’t know it was you,” he supplies lamely.

“Obviously,” Bira replies, deadpan. “Listen, Strawface is one bitter motherfucker, and he has a knack for hitting right where it hurts, but you can’t let him get to you.”

“Well that’s easier said than done, isn’t it?” Avarack snaps.

“Follow me,” Bira says, giving his arm a semi-forceful tug.

Avarack has already walked a few steps when he thinks to ask where they are going.

“I can’t believe you still don’t know the layout of this place,” Bira mutters. “Training grounds. You need to swing a sword at something.”

“You just want to kick my ass again,” Avarack groans, recalling the last time Bira had lured him to the training grounds with the promise of fresh peaches, only to reveal that she would only give them to him if he could disarm her. After a beat of silence, he asks, “Why do they call him Strawface, anyway?”

“Because in the winter he grows a beard and it looks like he’s stuck a bunch of straw to his face,” Bira answers, face blank save for a spark in her eyes she can’t quite hide. Avarack gapes in shock for a long moment before she laughs. “I’m fucking with you! No one knows the real reason, but there are rumors and theories. That just happens to be mine,” she shrugs.

“Seriously?” Avarack asks, ears red and cheeks hot.

“Seriously.”

Avarack doesn’t notice the different hallways disappearing behind them as they walk, but muscle memory takes over as he draws his sword and steps into what serves as a training room. The large cavern is close to the surface, and a wide hole in the ceiling covered with rippled glass makes the room more well-lit than most areas below the surface, and the sunlight illuminates the various groups as they train and spar.

“Someone’s eager,” Bira teases, and Avarack would never admit it, but she’s right. He is eager to fight. And that repulses him.

Ever since coming to this place, Lilith’s Peak, he’d been steeped in violence, and it had been changing him from the inside out. It was terrifying. Avarack grew up hearing stories of violent conquerors who took joy in pillaging towns, raping women, taking children as prisoners, and he’d sworn he’d never become one of those people. He refused. Yet here he was, looking forward to the thrill of the fight, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was already hurtling down that path. His mother would be disgusted.

Before he can ponder the matter further, his back hits the ground and Bira stands above him with a foot on his stomach and her sword angled towards his chest.

“Maybe I spoke too soon,” she corrects herself, stepping back so he can get up and take a fighting stance while she repositions herself. and Her pale blue eyes lock with Avarack’s darker ones. They nod, one after the other, and then they move into a complicated dance as identity and conscious thought are replaced by clanging swords, shuffling feet, and heavy breathing. Bira twists beyond the reach of Avarack’s blade before swinging her own sword into his extended one, knocking him off balance. Quick to recover, Avarack dodges her lunge and swings from above, only to be blocked by the upward movement of Bira’s now horizontal blade. Using his position against him, Bira kicks a leg out, hitting him right in the stomach and sending him back a couple feet. Before he can gather himself, she drops low and sweeps a foot out, nearly tripping him once more.

“You’ve gotten better,” Bira notes as Avarack avoids another attack.

“It’s bound to happen–you can only lose so many times before you realize what the tricks are,” he huffs in reply.

“Snarkier too,” she notes, a smirk betraying the annoyance she tries to convey.

Shifting his weight back onto his left foot, Avarack prepares to strike, but he pauses at the loud toll of the iron bell. Bira, too, ceases her attacks and they still, as does everyone else, and they all look towards the bell dangling from a beam high on the cave wall, a bell they’d heard once before.

Then, from the western entrance to the room–a narrow tunnel with stairs ascending slowly towards the surface–enters a ginger-haired boy, sweaty freckled arms flailing as he comes to a stop. “They’ve got one!” he shouts, panting. “They’re taking it to Stawface’s cavern!” A murmur spreads through the training room and students rush to put their weapons away, shuffling towards the exit excitedly.

Beside him, Bira looks skeptical. “Do you really think they’ve got one?” she asks, sliding her sword back into the sheath at her hip. “That’d be the second one this week . . . I thought they were damn near impossible to catch.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” is all Avarack says in reply, nerves knotting in his stomach. As badly as he wants this to be a false alarm, something tells him it isn’t, and his hands join, slim fingers picking at his already short nails. His thumb starts to bleed when he tugs at the nail too harshly as they cross the threshold of the room. The warm crimson gathers in the crevice between nail and skin, but Avarack can’t stop; his anxious movements are well beyond his control. In the cavern, the lines of workshop tables have been pushed together, creating a large platform in the center of the room. He pushes to the front of the crowd that has formed around the table, and he clenches his jaw at the sight before him.

There, on the center of the makeshift table, lies a Litheneae.

His blood runs cold, and his body takes another step forward before he can decide not to. Memories boil to the surface in hot, unwelcome waves as he takes in the long dark hair, tanned skin, and limp, deteriorated body attached to a set of large wings darker than the night sky and rough as a lizard’s hide. He knows that body, even before he sees the face with its dark green eyes still staring out, half-opened–how could he not? He’d spent many nights wondering just where those arms that used to hold him had disappeared to and telling himself his own mother had abandoned him for a better life. Painful as it was, that version of events left the possibility that she was bathing in hot springs somewhere surrounded by flowers and faeries. But deep down, he knew that wasn’t true, and now the evidence sits right before him in the form of his mother’s mangled body, twisted and transformed and scaly and dead.

Avarack had known that the Lithenae weren’t natural; only could the twisted hearts and minds of men thrust something so wretched into the world. But to see the evidence before him, someone he’d loved and been loved by, who knew him better than he knew himself, utterly transformed into a monster was something else entirely. It stirs something inside of him, something that starts deep in his bones and works its way outwards, simmering as it travels: fury, unlike anything he’d felt before. It overrides everything else, and as he storms out of the room for the second time that day, he vows he will find out who is making the Lithenae. He doesn’t fight the bitter laugh that escapes his mouth as he considers how not long ago he’d thought his mother would be disgusted with the person he was becoming. It doesn’t matter now, and even if it did, Avarack wouldn’t care. Because he does nothing to stop the rage consuming him, and now he knows he is hurtling down the path he once feared, and he embraces it; it will enable him to do the only thing that matters to him now. He will find who did this. He will make them pay.