Dragon's Blade

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Now, their hoards covered the sky like storm clouds, wings spread wide as they soared over the hills that towered over our village.

Sometime in the last century, or so the story goes, a young witch lost control of a spell and in her panic, sent it flying into the abyss. Little did she know, the deep dark didn't want it either. It spat out the spell all over the world, scattering across the lands, showering humans with a new curse that would cost them everything.

The old crones down at the markets would have you believe that the carnage to follow was unrivalled. Thousands of innocents dead, so they say. In reality, many died in their first transformation. I can't say that part of the story is surprising, the feeling of the change is akin to burning your skin from your body piece by piece. A full sized, fire breathing dragon stretching your muscles, nerves, veins. The claws are the worst part. They tear from your bones, growing and sharpening until you're convinced you're already in hell, tortured by your darkest nightmare.

I imagine the screams that night would have filled the universe to the brim, even the stars covering their ears and cowering away from the pain they could hear ripping from people's throats.

Not everyone was touched by the witch's mistake though, oh no. Those waking in the night to find their family, neighbours and friends shredding their human form for scales and wings woke to a new world. Power, fear and death. We lived by those emotions, let them rule us. The technological advances founded in the one hundred years following were a direct result of irrevocable terror. Dragon shifters you see, when shifted, are absolutely indestructible. Bulletproof hides, immune to any and all poisons, and could burn a city to ash and ruin in minutes if the feeling struck them.

The same can't be said for our human forms, and the unafflicted got sneaky with that knowledge. Whilst the dragons took to the shadows to adjust to their new way of life, the humans with political power sat around their tables and put all they had into creating all manner of deadly weapons. For defence, they said. If defensive reasons meant breaking and entering, murdering entire families in the dead of night with nothing but darkness and a blade to guide them to their marks throats, then sure. Call it defence. I for one would name it attempted genocide.

Not that I was bitter. Born with the yellow reptilian eyes bearing the curses mark for all to see, as all children had since that night, I was forced to be hidden from the world following my parents death minutes after my birth. It was only thanks to the bloodbath forged in the fight for their lives that I was able to escape in the arms of a nurse.

The orphanage did the best they could, naming me Lillie Draic to protect me from my family name and tucking me into the dark corners of the basement that was made up shortly after my arrival, my bright yellow eyes the only light afforded to me.

My parents had been nobody of note. As I grew, I had researched them, on paper I knew everything there was to know about Brianne and Damion Ritton. Small members of the community rallying for peace. The problem was that the crowds screaming for violence far overpowered those asking to lay down their weapons. In the end, their little girl and bundle of joy, presented in the form of me, had cost them their defences, made an easy target of them for anyone looking close enough. And look they did.

They would stare and sneer, cower and hiss. It would have been easier to live separate lives to the humans, create our own colony. But out of pride, we had stayed. Out of power, we had thrived. The richest among us lived closer to the hill tops, allowing them space and a modicum of privacy to shed their fleshy skin and fly off into the skies. For those of us not so fortunate, we lived in the Valley amongst the humans. I myself was currently in ownership of a flat in said Valley. Not that I didn't have money, I just preferred to keep that under my belt for more practical purchases. Like witch's potions to enchant the colour of my eyes. Oh yes. They exist, but are extremely overpriced, and extremely precious.

As it turned out, in my later years I had a stroke of luck. My youthful, naive self had decided the orphanage was more like a cage than a safety blanket, and I had ran and ran and ran. With no worldly knowledge and too young to properly fend for myself, after a few weeks of desperation, I stumbled upon the doorway of a strong looking, middle aged woman.

There had been scraps on the porch, probably for stray cats or dogs, but since the world had long ago decided dragon shifters were no better, who was I to turn away free food. Marella must have seen me not so sneakily crawling up her steps to give my stomach at least a layer of lining to use as nutrients. I remember looking into her eyes and seeing her bright yellows staring back at me, relief allowing the food I had already consumed to settle after its brief threat to jump back up my throat at being caught.

"What a scrawny little thing you are," Marella had mused, a smile lifting one side of her thin, pink lips. After my mumbled apologies, she had taken me inside and cooked me a proper meal. Far more substantial than any food I had ever eaten. My tastebuds however didn't get the chance to delight in that meal, in my haste to calm the ache of starvation I had swallowed every single bite in fifteen seconds. Marella had just stood there and chuckled. Had seen the fight in me, even then.

The next day, after a night in a warm, soft bed and a hot shower, she had taken my hand and led me to a cave in the nearby woods. Much like the one I was currently sat next to. There, she strode into the dark without hesitation. Eventually, there were lanterns lighting our way along the domed passage, leading us down, down further into the ground. We walked past what seemed like hundreds of rooms carved out of the dirt, some with shouts bellowing out of them, knives clanging together in sparring matches, some with bunk beds lining the walls and curtains drawn around their host. Many of the people down there were dragon shifters, but to my surprise, there were a few humans within their ranks too.

We didn't slow at any of those rooms though, continuing along the thinning passageway until I was certain the packed soil surrounding me would give way and pour down, burying me alive. With Marella's hand in mine though, I felt no fear. We headed right to the end of the tunnel, finding a room with a long wooden table in the centre and hand carved chairs pushed under it, hundreds of pieces of paper individually pinned to the walls. My gaze drifted from one to the next, names and amounts of money scribbled on each one.

Pulling out a chair in the middle of the table, Marella had gestured for me to sit and then knelt down in front of me. We sat there in silence for a time, taking each other in. Looking at her through my waves of unkempt black hair, I saw her waist length, straight, chocolate brown hair had been tucked behind her ears, dark brows drawn in intrigue. I could see she held power, in the way her muscles were perfectly built around her tall, thin frame, but the confidence she held in her bright eyes pinned me to the spot.

"Now," Marella started hesitantly, "I don't know your name, or where you came from, Little Fighter, but here we are the Red Wing." She stood then, perching herself on the table beside me. "We will shelter and feed you if you wish to stay. We will train you if you wish to fight. And we will employ you if you wish to seek justice on those who have wronged others."

Reaching down to take my hand, she continued. "What I can promise you is that this is a safe community, united under one cause. It may be tough along the way, but we do not harm each other down here. You can have a family with us, if that is what you want?"

I had sat there with wide eyes and nerves jumping up and down my body like electric shocks, but to that question, there was only one answer. Squeezing Marella's hand a little tighter, I nodded. One single, certain nod. And so had started my assassin career that had led me where I was today.

Sitting on this rock next to the small cave I had found in the woods surrounding the Valley, I contemplated my beginnings. It was only right, since I was sitting in my home town. When this job had been posted, I hadn't hesitated to rip it right off the wall of Red Wing's cave. Granted, I didn't much like killing dragon shifters, but this particular shifter had innocent blood painting him so thick he could use it as a winter coat.

That wasn't what had drawn me to it, though. No, that had been his address. I finally had an excuse to come home, earn some money, and get vengeance after twenty-five years on the people that had torn my heart open with a fissure so wide, so bruised and damaged by the loss of my real family, nothing could ever repair it.

Marie, my favourite knife, was circling in my hand, the tip grazing my palm as I span it, close to drawing blood. But as I fixed my eyes on my mark flying over the treetops above me, I found I didn't care. I had a plan, and while I waited for night to draw closer and the moonlight to accompany me, my lips lifted in a smirk and my heart filled with darkness of the sweetest kind in preparation of the hunt.