The New Gods of Anneas

There weren't always dragons in the Valley.

The air had always been too heavy with the magic of The Maw, too complex for their simple lungs. However, in the past decade, this changed. The dragons changed. They were no longer mere animals; they were gods.

And the gods were vicious. A hundred times more ruthless than the nearly extinct animals. They held massive amounts of power, able to shift between animal and human form at will, and impossible to kill. The only chance one had of surviving them was to run before they found you.

Odea remembered this the night they descended on her village in the valley, Anneas. Like ribbons of darkness, they plummeted from the night sky, their black hides glinting in the moonlight and fire ready to pour in endless torrents from their massive jaws.

She’d watched them fall, the buckets of water she’d gathered from the well dropping to the dirt as horror washed over her. At first, she’d believed her mind was playing tricks on her. It wasn’t possible, she’d told herself. But it was possible and had been since the first attack of hundreds on her country that had begun only a week before.

Then Janlise’s house had gone up in flames, and screams were suddenly everywhere, and Odea was running. Far from the village that had been her childhood and all of the awkward moments of her adolescence. She abandoned the house that had always opened up to her with warm arms, left the screams of her friends behind, and dove into the woods before any of the wicked golden eyes could spot her.

The woods were nearly pitch black, and she was running too loudly, her feet stomping over bushes and cracking fallen branches. She ran with her arms flung out despite how badly she wished she could cover her ears. The blood-curdling cries ringing throughout the night and in her head. The trees were tightly packed, and when she bumped into one, she bumped into another.

Foot catching on something in the darkness, she crashed to the floor. Her palms stung and her head spun, but she shoved back up to her feet and kept running. She didn’t stop, no matter how many times she fell, even as her chest grew too tight with panic and she became light-headed.

Finally, the trees thinned enough for the moon’s light to break through, and it was just barely enough for her to catch sight of a dark shape zipping across the sky. A gasp ripped out of her and she immediately ducked behind a tree, crouching in a tall bush even as it tore at her skin.

The dragon had been low to the trees, so much so that it could easily have heard her with its heightened hearing. Her black hair fell to cover her face, hopefully obscuring her from view. She clamped her hands over her ears, though it did nothing to block out the guttural screams.

Odea knew each one, and couldn’t fight the images racing through her mind.

Her child-sized hands covered in dirt as Janlise and her molded turrets and moats out of mud. Elione knocking her feet out from under her with his sparring stick and her returning the favor tenfold. The men lowering her father and mother into the ground. Hansen and her sneaking into the church late one night and him kissing her behind the Celestial Drana’s statue, her fingers knotted in his curls.

She’d abandoned them all to their deaths.

How had she not seen the dragons coming for them? How had she not heard their massive wings pushing against the air? If Odea had only looked up instead of thinking about tomorrow’s agility test, one she'd been working hard for the past five years, then she might have caught sight of them. She might have run to Jerome, the council head, and the village would have been evacuated.

Instead, she’d gotten distracted with fantasies of glory and had doomed them all. Had left all of the people she’d hugged, kissed, and loved to their deaths.

It’s your fault.

Your fault, your fault, your fault-your fault- your-

No. She needed to get up and keep moving, or else they’d find her. She was rocking against the tree, tears soaking her face as her breath escaped in gasps. Easy prey.

But moving was impossible. Doing anything was as their screams ripped and tore her apart. As the roars of the dragons sent her plummeting into panic.

"We've been looking for you," a haunting voice said behind her. Odea's heart plummetted.

A burning hand wrapped around her arm and tore her from hiding. She was brought face to-face with a man of horrible beauty; he had shining blond hair that brushed his shoulders in perfect ringlets, smooth pale skin, and a brilliant white smile. All a way to lure in their victims, but nothing hid their eyes, orange and gold, with snake-like slits for pupils, nor their touch that felt like burning coals.

Seeing those eyes and feeling his hand searing into her arm, the panic broke inside of Odea and she swung at him.

She shouldn’t have been able to make contact. The dragons were too fast, their blood living magic. But she’d caught him off guard, and her fist cracked right into his perfect nose. His head whipped to the side, his grip loosening enough for her to slip free.

Odea ran with everything she had, shoving past the near-debilitating terror racing through her. The dragon’s roar shook the ground, and she pushed her legs harder.

She felt his breath on her neck just before his hand knotted in her hair and tore her back. A cry slipped out of her, pain shooting through her neck as she fell and hit the ground, chest seizing. The air vanished from her lungs.

The dragon towered over her, sneering.

"Look at you," he hissed. His boot came down on her chest just as she was pushing up, knocking her back down and trapping her there. "So weak, so slow. It's a wonder he asked us to find you."

"Let me go," she gasped out, not understanding his meaning but knowing that whatever it was wasn't good. Wriggling beneath him, she fought to breathe past his crushing weight.

He leaned down toward her, effectively putting more weight behind his leg, and smiled, "I think I’ll keep you for myself instead. Have some fun. Rip you apart layer by layer, listen to your screams like they’re music.

"Don’t worry," he murmured, now close enough for her to smell the blood on his breath, to feel the heat rippling off of him. "I promise to make it as painful as possible."

The skin below his elbow suddenly began bubbling, shifting to black scales. His hand reared back, and she watched in horror as the scales rolled over it too, ending in curled metal-like talons. The orange in his eyes flared.

Odea screamed.

She hit and clawed at his boot, writhing and flailing beneath him as panic submerged her in its dark waters. His weight was unbreakable, and a horrible sense of helplessness washed over her then as her screams mingled with all those whom she'd abandoned.

Too fast for her to see, his hand came down on her shoulder, talons sinking through flesh and muscle to pin her to the ground and her cries pitched higher, white hot pain crashing through her.

Laughter echoed in her ears as he tore the talons free. Her vision went black.

She woke only seconds later to find the end of a sword jutting out of the dragon’s chest. His head was thrown back, his eyes gone white, and body jerking and twitching as groans tumbled from his lips.

Odea knew what everyone knew, that dragons were immortal beings, unkillable. She knew that and yet watched as the dragon went limp. Watched as, crawling up his body like a wave of darkness, he turned to ash.

The ash fell over her, but she didn’t move as he disappeared limb by limb. She found her savior then, a towering man dressed in a black hooded cloak. Hard green eyes glared back at her, dark hair poking out from beneath his hood.

Odea was trembling and her mind couldn't comprehend what he'd just done as she sputtered out, "Thank you." Her voice was pitched strangely and nothing felt right anymore. As if her whole life had just been tossed off balance.

He stuck out a hand and she took it, letting him pull her to her feet. His grip was strong and calloused, and when she went to let go, it didn't release hers. A gasp tore out of her as he shoved her back against a tree and pinned her with his forearm.

Angling the blade of his sword below her jaw so the metal kissed her skin, he said, "You have ten seconds to tell me why the dragons are after you and why I shouldn't kill you right now."