When Sigurd woke, his body was on fire. The burning need for vengeance inside of his gut had become real flames that poured from his flesh. All around him was the rancid smell of human flesh on fire.

  It took him a moment to realize that he was not the only body on fire. He laid in a pit with bodies on either side of him. A scream of terror tried to rise inside of him, but it was choked with ash. His hands reached out, clawing at his surroundings to try and escape.

  Muted voices spoke up over the crackle of bones snapping in the heat and the sizzle of fluids boiling. Sigurd couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they sounded afraid. With a great effort, he managed to haul himself off of the pyre and rolled into the dirt. Smoke rose from his body in foul smelling streams.

  A pair of hands reached into the pit and grabbed him by the shoulders. He heard a muttered curse as the person dragging him burned their hands. Someone else took him instead. They were wearing gloves and successfully pulled him out of the burn pit.

  They dragged him across the ground, away from the pit. The grass beneath his back felt like needles digging into his flesh. Every movement was agony. Once they’d gotten far enough from the heat, Sigurd was laid down to stare up at the sky.

  Baron Reimse came into view overhead. The man had his arm in a sling and a bandage around his head. In spite of his injuries, the Baron kneeled down next to Sigurd and inspected him closely.

  “Are you a Sorcerer, boy?” the man hissed urgently. “Tell me truthfully, or I shall slit your throat and throw you back in the fire.”

  Sigurd managed to shake his head in spite of the pain. He could feel how his skin crackled and broke from the motion. Every part of him was charred and brittle. “No.” The single world was all the boy could manage.

  “Mi’lord, be careful,” another man said. It was one of the knights. Not Thadwin. Thadwin was dead, his head had vanished between the dragon’s jaws. “No mortal man could survive being burned alive.”

  “And yet, the gods themselves declared you ‘Sigurd the Burned’,” Baron Reimse said contemplatively as he stared down at Sigurd. The man’s stern expression held a glimmer of curiosity. “You were dead, boy. My men checked thoroughly, after what you did. We set you on the pyre as a marker of honor. A hero’s burial.”

  “Why?” Sigurd hissed, his cracked lips barely able to form the question. Curiously, the overwhelming pain had begun to lessen slightly.

  “... Do you not remember? Curious,” The Baron mused out loud. “You killed the dragon, Sigurd.” An odd tone of respect crept into the Baron’s tone. “When it charged, you leapt right into his throat, spear in hand. Your spear pierced its brain from inside its mouth.” That wasn’t at all how Sigurd remembered it. All he could remember was mind melting fear.

  “It’s dead?” Already, speaking was becoming easier. The Baron seemed to notice, his eyebrows shooting upwards.

  “Bring this man some water!” Baron Reimse ordered his knight before looking back down to Sigurd. “Yes. The dragon is dead, Sigurd. We found you buried beneath its body when it collapsed. Or, my men did. I’m afraid I was unconscious at the time.” The Baron sighed deeply. “I wish I had been there, to see my son’s murderer die. Alas, sometimes the gods are cruel.”

  The knight came back to the Baron’s side. He knelt to bring a waterskin to Sigurd’s lips, but the Baron insistently took the skin instead. Cool water poured between the boy’s lips. He’d never tasted anything so sweet, even if it was tinged by leather and stale by age.

  “... What now?” Sigurd asked. With great effort, he started to sit up. Several surrounding men made muttered sounds of shock, to see the burned corpse sit upright. Black chunks of burnt flesh fell away to reveal painfully raw, but unblemished skin beneath.

  “By the gods,” the knight next to the Baron hissed.

  The Baron himself was watching Sigurd’s recovery with the eyes of a hawk. He could see no incantation being spoken, or the strange methods Sorcerer’s used to utilize magic. At last he made a decision and stood upright. His voice rang out across the field.

  “This boy, Sigurd, has been blessed by the Gods!” Baron Reimse called out to his surviving men. “Recall how he survived his home’s destruction to bring us dire warnings. Take heed, that our Oracle declared before my court that he would slay the dragon by Divine Edict! You all watched as he threw himself into the maw of the beast that claimed so many lives and emerged victorious!”

  The surviving members of the war party moved to surround the Baron as he spoke. They all stared at Sigurd, enraptured by their lord’s declaration.

  “Sigurd the Burned sacrificed himself to slay the beast! You yourselves took his broken body and set it on the pyre. There was no life within him-” The Baron whipped his uninjured hand towards Sigurd, gesturing with an open palm. “-yet he lives! His wounds heal before our very eyes!”

  “The Gods have blessed this boy. I shall see him honored. None shall raise their hand against him, because I declare him here and now to be both a Hero of the Realm, and my adopted son!”

  Shocked whispers circulated through the Baron’s soldiers. They had never seen their liege so animated. A fervent light burned behind the stern man’s eyes. He seemed to look beyond what was in front of them, to a realm that only he could see.

  Baron Reimse drew his sword, fumbling the grip for a moment due to using his non-dominant hand. He held it aloft, the steel flickering from the light of the funeral pyre.

  “Hail our Hero, Sigurd of House Reimse!”

  The twenty surviving soldiers and knights that helped slay the Black Dragon raised their fists and blades to the night sky. Their cheer rang in Sigurd’s ears.

  He didn’t understand why it rang so hollow.

  First paced back and forth in his lair. The white stone beneath his claws was scratched and marred by innumerable marks. He’d started to cut a distinct track in the floor by following the same route over and over again. It was the only way he had been able to quench the burning rage inside of him.

  His lair had already borne the brunt of his anger. The intellectual part of him knew that he couldn’t afford to keep wrecking his belongings. Many of the items he’d collected were rare and irreplaceable. Breaking them in a tantrum would only harm his future plans.

  Third was dead. That was well within parameters. First had planned for that. Setting up Third to track down their errant sibling had been incredibly simple. One of them would kill the other. The victor would emerge stronger for it. They would taste all the more delectable when First eventually devoured them.

  What he hadn’t planned for was outside interference. Something that defied explanation had messed with one of his side projects. Sigurd had been a mortal human boy when First had last looked. Only the smallest amount of dragon magic was sufficient to keep him alive long enough to bring his report to the Baron.

  Baron Reimse was supposed to be his sibling's next meal. A fanatic that would gladly throw himself into a dragon’s jaws, especially with the hints First had laid out. Getting rid of Sir Kenneth’s horse at the goat herder’s hut had been child’s play. Laying out the broken barding had been a bit trickier. Third was always a messy eater.

  First hadn’t accounted for his sibling ‘Seventh’ having other priorities than finishing the fight with Third. He’d only been able to watch in growing agitation as his sibling ran off after a Wizard of all things, one that was in the process of kidnapping a human child. In the meantime Third had proved that for all his strength, he was ultimately unworthy to live as a dragon.

  Running from a fight wasn’t the issue. First himself knew the value of picking and choosing one’s battles. What infuriated him was the incredible waste of magic that Third had displayed, only to turn tail and run when he got scared. To put the final nail in the coffin, he’d exhausted his magic reserves and fallen into a ditch like a common animal!

  First had almost been glad when the Baron’s hunting party attacked. At least they’d provide a decent meal for Third to rebuild his strength. First had planned to keep a much tighter leash on his idiot of a sibling for his future plans.

  Then, out of nowhere, the burned child from the farm showed up and killed Third.

  First had no idea how he’d overlooked the child’s presence. He’d lost track of the boy when Seventh had broken the binding spell on Sixth’s soul. A half dead human child, a long shot in the dark he’d taken to set up future plans, was beneath his notice once they were no longer useful.

  The boy had seemed to appear from thin air to First’s observation, when he jumped into Third’s mouth. ‘Flabbergasted’ was only one amongst many words that First could use to describe his mental state afterwards. ‘Baffled’ and ‘Incensed’ were also strong contenders. Just how had the boy been in the exact right place and time to do the impossible and kill a dragon?

  The waste of Vitae had been staggering. First received some through the pact he’d forced on his siblings. Some went to ‘Seventh’ as well, through the cretin’s affinity for blood magic. Everything else, a bloated collection of life force and magic, should have dissipated into the air.

  But it hadn’t.

  First watched in shock, then horror, as the twisting cyclone of raw magical power had been absorbed into Sigurd’s dead body. He was definitely dead at the time. A snapped neck was universally fatal to humans and First had his own means of verification to make sure. Every last drop of spare Vitae had flowed into the corpse. There was nothing First could do about it.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  By the time First watched the boy sit up out of a funeral pyre, horror had settled into a morbid curiosity. A more careful examination revealed some interesting facts. To begin with, the boy was indeed dead. His body was still moving around and acting like it was alive. He breathed, bled, and did all the normal messy things human bodies were capable of. For all intents and purposes, Sigurd was alive.

  Except it wasn’t Sigurd piloting the flesh. It may act like Sigurd, think like him, and even believe that it was him; but it wasn't and would never be him. First knew this, because he’d captured the boy’s soul the moment he died. He’d intended to use it to potentially recapture the escaping Vitae, but the power had slipped out from between his claws like a greased eel.

  The question First had to answer now was: How could he exploit this turn of events to his own benefit?

  Visk was having an interesting day.

  They’d woken up at a reasonable time, made some breakfast, then gone exploring in the Boss’s caves. There sure were a lot of caves to go rooting around in, with many shiny and interesting goodies to find. Boss hadn’t asked about what else was on his turf, but Visk knew he’d eventually get around to it. Things had been busy after all, so it wasn’t his fault.

  Visk knew how to keep people like the Boss happy. Powerful people liked it when you fanned their ego’s. They wanted their minions to be ‘yuppies’ who never disagreed with their decisions. You had to be just competent enough to be recognized as ‘helpful’, but not so competent that it would get you put on dangerous tasks.

  They’d made that mistake with Avery. Visk could admit that they’d made a massive error in judgement when they’d tied their metaphoric horse to that literal dead weight of a cart. Was it really Visk’s fault that they fancied a man who was quick with his tongue and looked dashing with his swords in hand?

  The first couple of years had been good. That was the hook that had buried itself in Visk’s jaw. Avery’s little crew had expanded as they moved from one adventure to the next. Gold and luxury came with it. For a little while, Visk had been living the ‘good life’ that they’d always dreamed of.

  Except for Avery’s disinterest in anything more than a business partnership. ‘An elf can’t have everything,’ Visk had thought. But, they were also patient. They’d figured that eventually Avery would get bored with the whores and minor noble diletantes.

  It turned out that Avery had had his eyes set higher than scions of lesser houses. That was the first time Visk had heard Avery talk about the ‘map to the vault’. Visk still couldn’t believe that Avery had been willing to risk the wrath of a Viscount just for a shot at rumored treasure.

  Nobles on the Inner Continent weren’t anything like the backwoods of the Reimse Barony. They had real power that went beyond financial and military means. That had all come crashing down on Avery’s band of misfits when he came sprinting in the door one night, saying they needed to leave immediately. Not everyone had made it out of the city before the guards had slammed the gates shut.

  Visk had never found out what happened to those Avery had left behind. He’d kept them all moving ahead of the manhunt. The map he’d shown Visk had seemed… simple, but there were enough signs that it was authentic to believe it was real. It was enough to convince the remaining members of Avery’s band to venture up into the mountains.

  Lately, the elf had started to wonder if Avery had somehow lied about that as well. It was all a bit too convenient, that their former ‘Captain’ had managed to steal the map to a fabled treasure from a Viscount’s mansion. How had he managed to evade the guards? Avery was quite capable of talking his way out of most situations, but talking his way into a heavily guarded estate beggared belief.

  Hindsight, without the goggles of fading love clouding her eyes, was twenty-twenty.

  Visk had wanted to be more careful with their new Boss. Serving a dragon was certainly not their first choice of career, but it beat being torn to shreds like the rest of Avery’s crew. They’d not liked any of the men who survived crossing the Cloudshear Mountains. All of the ones Visk had been fond of had perished in the cold and snow.

  The elf turned and pressed their head against the wall as they thought about their new Boss. They knew that their ears twitched whenever the Boss looked at them. There was something about those amber eyes… It felt like Sanguine was staring into Visk’s soul.

  They’d been scared witless by the dragon’s might. Visk was no stranger to bloodshed, but the Boss had cut through Avery’s crew like they were wheat to the scythe. When the dragon had spotted Visk hiding in the shadow, the elf had been sure their death was at hand. The following flight through the sky, held in the dragon’s claws, had only deepened their sense of doom.

  Everything since then… Visk struggled to admit to themself that it had been thrilling. When Sanguine had pinned them to the tree stump for questioning, a strange sensation had risen in the elf’s chest. They’d always had a ‘thing’ for dangerous and powerful men. Visk had believed it was because of the benefits such associations brought them.

  A dark elf would never be truly accepted outside of the Hunter Clades. But for Visk, there was no going back. They’d have to spend the entirety of their long life floating from one place to the next. At least they could enjoy themselves along the way.

  "Visk, if you hug me, you won’t escape again.” The dragon’s words sent a shudder up the elf’s spine just by remembering them. Visk’s head smacked into the wall as they tried to shut it out, but they could still feel Sanguine’s eyes staring into their own.

  “He’s just a… big greedy lizard,” Visk hissed to themself. Their own words sounded like a lie. “He just wants to keep you around because you’re good at finding shiny things for him. He already has two ladies that have him wrapped around their fingers.” Visk took several deep breaths in and out to calm their heart.

  “He doesn’t need a third,” they whispered to themself.

  For now, Visk would stick to exploring the boss’s domain. They were pretty sure that the cave system had a connection to the World Below. The amount of natural magic in the caves was shocking. Just sleeping in Sanguine’s den was enough to rejuvenate Visk in a way that years of expensive potions concocted by human Wizards couldn’t. If they could find something truly valuable in the depths of the earth… then they’d cement their place in the Boss’s good graces.

  Visk turned and headed deeper into the dark, ignoring the persistent whispers of their own mind. For now.

  Howard Avery stared glumly at the floor as he pushed a broom back and forth across ancient stone tiles. Every whisk of the broom’s bristles across the floor sent a small cloud of dust drifting across his boots. The dirty rag tied across his face did little to keep the dust out of his nostrils and mouth. He had no idea how someone who allegedly lived by themself generated so much filth.

  The bracelet locked around Howard’s wrist put any thoughts of trying to leave out of his mind. Mortimer had provided a poignant example of what would happen to Howard if he tried to leave. He’d locked a similar bracelet around a chicken’s neck and tossed it out of a window. The grisly noises the poor bird had made afterwards would likely haunt Howard for the rest of his days.

  Being a wizard’s stooge wasn’t what Howard had planned for his future career path, but it was probably better than being eaten by a dragon. When Mortimer had shoved the goat herder’s kid into the Bard’s arms, his first instinct had been to drop the little bastard and run for the hills. The only reason he hadn’t was because he’d been completely lost. It only took a couple of minutes of indecision for Mortimer to return and after that, it was too late.

  Howard didn’t need to guess what had happened to the Sorcerer when the Wizard returned with him. He knew the look of greed in the crazy old man’s eyes. Whether it was for gold or magic, men looked the same when they spotted something that someone else had that they wanted. At least whatever Mortimer wanted with the kid seemed to be purely magical in nature.

  The Bard had known a lot of foul people in his day. He’d take an obsession with magic over ‘other’ concerns any day of the week.

  The kid, Magnus, was currently engaged in an even more thankless task than Howard was. He’d knocked over a bunch of Mortimer’s belongings when he woke up. The old man was highly particular about his ‘filing’ system, which seemed to operate under rules that no one but the old man himself could understand. Every time something was put into an incorrect position, the blasted white raven perched on a nearby chair would give out a warning squawk.

  Howard still doubted his own sanity whenever he caught the bird staring at him. It didn’t seem like a normal creature. There was far too much intelligence in those beady eyes. Whenever something unfortunate happened to the Bard, it gave off a loud caw that he swore was cruel laughter.

  The scrape of the bristles on the hard stones continued to irritate Howard’s nerves.

  “Why did you bring me here?!” He’d asked Mortimer when they appeared in a crash of light inside of the tower. Their flight through the prismatic world of the mirror’s reflection had temporarily broken him out of his terror. Howard suspected his mind had snapped for a little while. What he’d seen on the other side of the mirror went far beyond fear.

  “Because you’re not dead yet my lad.” Mortimer had responded, as if that explained anything. “I suspect you’ve been cursed with a remarkably resilient strand of Fortune. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.” How that ‘Fortune’ resulted in Howard being handed a broom and set to work, remained to be determined. Howard was horribly suspicious that it meant he was being kept around as a kind of proverbial lightning rod.

  A lot of accidents tended to happen around Mortimer. In the couple of days since they had been transported to the Tower of Baedain, multiple life threatening coincidences had occurred. Whether it was the kid waking up and knocking over the towering stacks of ‘research materials’, or spilled lamp oil starting a fire on Howard’s bed roll, there always seemed to be something happening which put him in danger. That kind of danger had been a constant background to Howard’s life ever since he’d met Mortimer.

  He bitterly reflected that none of the danger ever seemed to affect Mortimer himself.

  The man in question appeared in the air next to Howard with a pop of arcane energy. Howard yelped and tripped over the broom, which sent him toppling into a pile of raven droppings that he’d been sweeping up. Loose feathers slowly fluttered to the floor as the Wizard looked down at him.

  “Get up sl- Servant,” Mortimer told Howard casually. “I’ve got business for you to do out in the city.”

  “The c-city? But the- the bracelet!” Howard said with a gasp as he dragged himself to his feet. The rags he was wearing had gained an ‘interesting’ new set of stains.

  “Hmm? Oh right, the bracelet.” Mortimer twisted his fingers in a complex fashion and muttered under his breath. “Dae’haed Raejul Yunfidh Waemir.” The bracelet on Howard’s wrist shined with a soft violet light before it returned to normal. Howard suddenly felt inexplicably tired, like he’d not slept in multiple days.

  “There. That should do the trick,” Mortimer continued. “Assuming I didn’t make a waffle out of the pronunciation. Always troublesome when I’m hungry. Speaking of which-” He pulled a list scribbled on a scrap piece of vellum out of his robes and handed it to Howard. “Nip down to these shops and pick up everything on this list.”

  “The shops…?” Howard said, blinking owlishly at the old man. His eyes scanned as quickly as possible over the messy handwriting in the Tower’s dull light. “But this- I don’t have any money to pay for this! Some of these will cost a fortune!”

  “Pay?” Mortimer said, tilting his head to one side. “Servant, this is Osteriath. If they ask you to pay, just show them that doodad on your wrist. If they’re still playing silly buggers after that…” Mortimer smiled slowly in a manner which greatly unnerved Howard.

  “My new Apprentice could use an object lesson in learning about Consequences.”

  Yes to more 'Baby Dragon' scenes, and Character art for Sanguine. After some consideration, I'll release the extra scenes as their own intermission chapter. Character art will take me a little while to produce, since I've got either time to write more chapters or draw, but you should hear more about that soon.

  It might be a bit early, but are you as a reader interested in using Discord to discuss the story, send dragon memes, and possibly provide input about future updates?

  Either way, let me know in the Chapter poll!