By The Sword - Homepage

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The trek back was ruthless.

I pressed my foot into the dirt and rolled my shoulders. Small movements to to keep my body moving. That was what the apothecaries had advised when I’d asked about the soreness that was still there after a full night’s rest. Though, that was all the advice they’d given before sending us off. But I did it either way. If I kept moving, I’d get used to the pain at some point. That was what I told myself, at least.

Sharp rays of sunlight pierced through the canopy above. They danced on my face, moving in warm, wavering patterns as I walked under the imperfect cover of leaves. Veering away from it, I shielded my eyes with a hand. But no matter how hard I tried to protect from it, the sun bit me anyway. Its golden light stung the side of my head—right where I’d been burned, in fact.

I shook myself. Blinking and relaxing my shoulders, I tried to ignore the searing pain that had since healed. Taking a large whiff of the smooth, natural smell of the forest path, I tried to forget the scent of burnt hair. It was harder than I thought. Never again, I decided as my hand crept up to my scalp to pat where brown locks of hair has been only a day prior.

A sigh fell from my lips as I walked on, my eyes downcast and my mind whirring. In general, the treatment I’d received at the apothecary’s guild had been much better than I’d expected. If their descriptions of my wounds had been correct, I’d been lucky that I’d made it out at all. And for all that I could say about magic, having elixirs made of herbs and plants that collected the world’s latent magical energy had made for some quality painkillers.

I wished I could’ve taken some with me.

My leg screamed again as my boot fell crookedly in the dirt. I winced, clenching my jaw and correcting myself as quickly as I could. This time, I didn’t even curse myself. I didn’t even curse the muscles that seemed to be going against me. After the battle with Keris, it was as if my body refused to cooperate, instead holding a passive resentment for what I’d done to it. Though, as another pulse of pain raked across my skull, I couldn’t entirely blame it.

When I’d taken the job from Arathorn, I really had assumed it to be simple. I’d assumed I would’ve gone to Norn, retrieved the package, and left. And I’d hoped for that too, especially after that thing that had attacked me on our way through this forest the first time. I still couldn’t bring myself to say its name. Because every time I did, my fear would spike like it had back then and a wave of disgust and resentment would wash up from the back of my head. It was better to push it away. Better not to think about it at all.

Letting out a sigh, I tried my best to relax. I tried my best to take in the ambience of the forest. The world knew my ears could pick up on it all. The birds chirping high above. The wind rolling through the leaves. Even the scurrying animals hiding in the brush dozens of paces away. But still… I wasn’t feeling any of it. Despite my warm surroundings, I felt bitter.

And Kye felt about the same way as we trudged along the path. Although I guessed her bitterness came from a different place than mine. She hated the knights more than anything. I still couldn’t have felt that way if I’d wanted—it felt like a slap in the face to the past life that I’d lived. To the citizens I’d served and protected back then.

I didn’t tell her any of that, though. It wasn’t as simple as that. The beast had cursed me with a new life—and there was no reason to try and force the two to collide. There was no reason to try and bring what was now a continent away back into this new life. Things were different now.

Kye kicked the dirt up ahead. My eyes flicked to her, watching the way she shrugged brown hair over her shoulder. There was no finesse in the action. No extra flair or emotion. It was blank and bitter. Just like how both of us felt She hadn’t talked since we’d started.

But I knew she’d talk when she wanted too. It wasn’t my business to go about trying to get her to open up. Not when I felt the same way. Not when she hadn’t pushed it with me on our way into Sarin all of those weeks back. I was a ranger now, and I’d convinced her to come along on a simple trip. A simple journey that was supposed to gain me information and experience.

Well, I guessed it had done both of those things. I just hadn’t predicted the shaking of stone or the fire and flames.

A sharp breath escaped my nose. And we’d left so early, I’d reminded myself. Even now that we’d been traveling for over an hour, it was still before mid-morning. The apothecaries had woken us up after letting us stay in the infirmary and then kicked us out. Lady Amelia hadn’t even come to see us off. Not that I’d expected her to, anyway. But a knight with as much honor as she displayed… it left a foul taste in my mouth.

With the breeze drifting over me, my mind wandered back to the fight. It replayed the action in my head. I’d been doing it since it had ended, and what I saw didn’t sit well. I remembered the knights’ forms. Their little inaccuracies and over-aggression that had given Keris the upper hand. Because no matter how strong the knights had come at him, his power had made everything simple. His simple manipulation of fire—the least complex form of energy from what I’d been told—had been enough to outpace all of it. No matter how many times I thought about it, that fact kept bringing me back to one thought.

I was afraid.

He’d fought off all of us single-handedly. He’d kept up with multiple opponents and pushed them off. And as much as it pained me to admit it, his dexterous form actually hadn’t been terrible. It had been fluid and practiced. He’d stayed arrogant the entire time, and at no point had there been doubt in his mind that he would win. That he would at the very least escape with his life.

Well, his life and the package we’d gone there to get in the first place.

I ground my teeth and looked up, remembering the package. The important one that Arathorn had been so eager to receive. Dragon’s blood. That was what it had been. But no matter how much stray information I gathered from odd questions here and there regarding dragons, I still had a question I couldn’t answer.

I lifted my head and quickened, forcing a little bit more purpose into my steps. “Why did Arathorn want dragon’s blood?”

Kye twisted her head, slowing only a hair. She widened her eyes as though surprised I was even still there behind her. “Why did…” Her face contorted. “How the hell would I know?”

I grumbled, taking a deep breath and using the nature around me to calm myself. “Well, why would anybody want dragon’s blood? What’s so special about it anyway?”

Kye just stared at me for a moment, her body on automatic as her attention was directed toward making sure I knew how dumb my question was. I gritted my teeth, trying to push away the irritable frustration simmering underneath my skin. I knew my question was stupid—it was the blood of a dragon, after all. But there was more to it than that. Arathorn wasn’t simply a collector. He’d said that package was important. He’d wanted it for a specific reason.

“I don’t know,” Kye finally said. She threw up a hand. “People want it for any number of reasons. Depending on what legends you believe, it has any number of properties.”

I raised an eyebrow, tilting forward. “Properties like what?”

Kye bit back a curse and forced a deep breath. She came back at me with the most derisive smirk I’d ever seen her give. “It’s the blood of a fucking dragon, what do you expect? If you can think of a property for it, somebody probably believes it acts that way. People understand as little about dragon’s blood as they do about dragons themselves.”

I nodded, my head bobbing slowly. “What are the most widely believed properties?” I figured it was a good place to start. If Arathorn had wanted that vial, he probably believed in some aspect of it that was useful to him. Some aspect that he’d probably heard from somebody else.

“I don’t…” Kye started, slumping her shoulders. “There are a lot of them. Too many to sort through. Dragon’s blood has been said to do anything from increasing the soul’s capacity for magic, to curing vampirism, to enhancing physical abilities, to attuning one with dragons themselves… The list goes on.”

My eyes narrowed. “How are there so many rumors? Where did they come from?” I chuckled dryly. “I mean… it’s not like dragon’s blood is common. It can’t be.”

Kye shook her head. “It’s not, obviously. Outside of that vial that we almost got burned alive for back there, I’ve only ever heard one other credible story regarding it. And that was…” She dragged her eyes on the dirt. “That was years ago in a completely different part of Ruia.”

“How do the myths come about then?” I asked, trying to connect what information about Ruian myths I was being told with the ones I’d learned back home. In Credon, the blood of a dragon had been cursed. It had been used in dozens of horror stories where it transformed people into chaotic monsters of destruction. But that was all they were. Stories. Ideas made and changed by the imaginations of people who didn’t know better. And I assumed the same thing was true in Ruia—the only difference being that the myths here had more variety.

“I couldn’t tell you.” Kye gave a half-hearted shrug before turning around again. “As I said, people understand dragon’s blood as much as they understand dragons. Which is to say not at all. Nobody I’ve ever met has seen a dragon.” She hesitated. “Well, nobody I’ve ever met has seen a dragon and lived long afterward. They’re elusive and legendary. Effectively only as impactful as their stories.”

That made sense, at least. In my home kingdom, there hadn’t been dragons at all. It had been common knowledge that they were no more than imaginary myth. But even still they had influenced people. They had wormed their way into the public conscience and done anything from simply scaring children to having people do faulty magical rituals in hopes of joining wherever the dragons were.

In Ruia, though, they were real. Or, they were apparently real. I hadn’t seen any confirmation on that yet. Though, with the world-shaking quake and the sweltering heat of Keris’ magic still fresh in my mind, I didn’t entirely doubt that they could exist.

Falling back into silence, my foot curled. A smaller misstep than the last but an annoying one all the same. I cursed into the air and corrected myself, stepping heavily into the dirt as if to show my body who was in charge of it. As frustration rushed back, my will to stay silent melted away rather quickly.

“How far until we’re out of this damn forest?” I asked, trying not to wield my words like daggers.

Kye chuckled. “Not far… maybe up to half an hour?”

I nodded, biting back whatever twisted retort I’d built up in my mind. It wasn’t worth it. I still just frustrated. Though, I couldn’t blame myself for it. Each step still hurt. My thoughts were still tied in knots. And all in all, I was feeling my new, disappointing body a little more than I wanted to.

I huffed, the sound coming out as more of a sigh. Then, lowering my head, the sun glinted in my eye. Shying away from the spear of light, I sighed again. I wanted the journey to be over.

My fingers flexed by my side, reaching for the hilt of my sword. All I caught was air. As the wind blew over me again, my empty scabbard wobbled slightly in negligible weight. Metal clinked in the bag strewn across my back. The shortsword, I remembered. It mocked me with its existence, belittling me with its ineptitude and uselessness. I gritted my teeth as my fingers curled into a fist instead.

A shaky sigh slipped through my teeth at the realization. I’d lost my sword.

After Keris had ripped the steel blade of my longsword out of his leg, he’d nearly melted it right there. In whatever enraged state he’d shifted into, the entire sword had burst into flames. And on top of that, he’d thrown it against the wall. I’d slipped down into the abyss before I could get it back, but the apothecaries had told me the only sword they’d found had been charred, bent, and melted. Useless, in other words.

Shaking my head, I walked on. I tried to focus away from the now-stark absence of weight by my side. The pain in my legs offered to take my attention. I concentrated on it instead, feeling the soreness with each push of my foot into dirt. But no matter how intently I focused, I couldn’t stop the berating from my own conscience. I couldn’t stop remembering how back in Credon, I’d lost only two swords in my entire lifetime. But here… things were different, I reminded myself. Stupid. Chaotic. Senseless.

A soft growl built in my throat as I stared down, my fiery eyes burning holes into the dirt. Then, getting tired of even that, I flicked my gaze back up to Kye. The taller, chestnut haired ranger was still only walking a few paces ahead.

“How?” I asked, my voice soft. She slowed her pace a fraction and started to turn. I hesitated before continuing. “How is any of this allowed to happen?”

Kye twisted fully, sending a wide-eyed stare my way. “What are you talking about?”

I heaved a breath. “This entire trip. The way we were treated in Norn. The fight. How is any of this allowed to happen?” Irrationality crept into my voice, but with how frustrated I was, I didn’t push it back.

She sneered at me. “You’re the one who told me this would be simple. But what do you expect? Not everything can go as you want it to all the time.”

“It could be better, though,” I said, my eyes flashing dangerously. Kye didn’t falter, only shooting me a glare harsh as nails. I didn’t falter either. “The knights there treated us so… passively. So disrespectfully.”

“Of course they did,” Kye said, flashing a smirk. I was already nodding my head and waving a dismissive hand, remembering her warnings before we’d come. I just hadn’t pictured them as bad as they were. Lady Amelia had barely even made sure we were alive.

Now I knew Kye had been right, at least. They didn’t care about the rangers. Not very much anyway. That didn’t make up for the fact that it was a weak excuse for me. “Knights are supposed to be honorable,” I said. “They aren’t supposed to hold grudges. They are supposed to care about visitors beyond petty political appearances.”

Kye laughed. “So now you’re an expert on how knights are supposed to act?”

I shrugged. “It’s the knightly code.”

“Knightly code?” Kye asked, waving a hand through the air. “What—“

“The code of order and integrity that all knights follow,” I said, almost directly relaying the words of significance I’d learned in my youth.

Kye gave a wry chuckle. “Out of all the things you choose to know about, it’s the knightly code?” I glared at her. She didn’t seem to care. “And then you don’t even understand that?”

I blinked, my eyes flaring. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but that is not at all what the knightly code is about.” Kye stiffened her posture. “I hate the knights and even I know that. Their code is about protecting them. It has nothing to do with us. They have no obligation to care about us, so they don’t.”

I curled my lip, stewing silently for a moment. My companion’s words worked their way through my brain slowly. Chipping and scraping against the cogs of my mind as they shattered yet another conception I’d held before. Things were different in Ruia. So who was to say knights were spared of that. My face twisted into a scowl and I killed the rest of my questions. There was no use in asking them anymore. I wouldn’t magically teleport back to my old life by yelling loud enough. The beast had cursed me here—I had to accept that, at least.

So instead, I sighed and pushed past it. Threw it away from my attention so that the next of my worries could line itself up.

“What happens when we get back?” I asked, my voice a shell of its former self. Kye didn’t slow her pace or even turn to me. I didn’t need to see her to know though.

“We face Arathorn,” she said, her tone firm and steady. She didn’t chuckle again. She only squared her shoulders almost like a wall against me and walked on.

I ran a hand over my face. We’d return empty-handed, I told myself. We’d face Arathorn without the package he’d asked us to get. My mind flashed to his office. The image of his knife crept back. I bit back another curse and bowed my head, disappointed in myself now more than I’d been minutes ago. We would face what we had to face, I decided. It was as simple as that.

With my resolve sturdy, I walked on. I followed Kye down along the path through the spearing rays of sunlight and beautiful shades of green. Past all of the tranquil sounds I could pick out without much effort. I still wasn’t feeling any of it, but at least it was there. That was comforting, if I thought about it enough.

Eventually, we broke through the tree line. The path below us narrowed and gave way back to the stone-lined one we’d walked thousands of paces on already. In front of us, the trees tapered out. They gave way to rolling plains and sparse, jutting rock formations. Ruia, I reminded myself. I lived here now.

And as we set off, I turned as well. I angled my gaze toward the collection of wooden buildings we could barely see raised in the distance. A small smile grew on my face as I saw it. I lived here now, sure. But that was my home. The sight of it brought back my earlier question. It nagged my mind one more time.

What did we have to face?

Well, there was only one way to find out.