Book 2: The Blood Tears
Azula
Drozo was gone an entire week… but I was in bed as the maids came in. They looked like I used to before I met Drozo, and I looked at Mary, silently motioning to close the door to talk to me.
“Is something Wrong?” I asked.
“No just-His majesty’s brother walks the halls this morning. I thought he was going to kill me.” She mumbled.
“He does not talk much, nor is he vulgar…. Worry not of him.” I said with a small smile.
“But his eyes are red…. He looks…. Lost or something. The Crimson line is too strong for the others to subdue if he decides to loose his mind.” She said sheepishly.
Now that had my attention.
“I’ll get dressed, and as Queen, it is my job to tell him what he does is not permitted.” I said firmly.
I was helped into my robes so I could dress faster. I would cancel my studies today. If he needed to be watched, his wife was busy blessing the river water, so it would be purified as it flowed, and also the grounds. Holy magics on the land to sanctify it took all the nuns, saints, and priests in the city to help her, but I heard that she intended to even bless the rats…. And their fleas.
I had no idea why, but I would not stop her.
They rushed out the room while I walked to see Rainath sitting on the floor.
It wasn’t too long before the Crimson King and his mother appeared with lightning speed.
“You will stop this.” He demanded.
He looked at me as Drozo does. “How goes the city?” He asked… with Drozo’s voice. Rainath was a gentle spoken man compared to his brother…. I did not expect his tone to be so authoritative…
“We did as you instructed. And the city…. Even the fleas and mosquitoes are blessed by Solis.” The Crimson King grumbled.
“Good… Nox is well enough to go about doing that to the north is he not?” He asked.
“He left as soon as you instructed. We’ve sent light-o-grams to every major city, and every city to instruct and bless their peoples who visit, so the word spreads.
“Good… I will release my brother from this… tell him I’m sorry that he had to see what I have done.” He said before his eyes turned orange…
“What did you do?” He asked.
He said nothing …. But Rainath looked mortified now. His eyes darted around the hall as if he were seeing things.
“Son are you alright?” Asked Paige, concerned for her son. “It’s going to be o-”
“Paige don’t.” Snarled the Crimson King yanking her away from their child, as she was reaching for him, but he clawed at her….
She screamed…. If not for her cloak, her arm would likely be gone… just the impact of it had her arm broken…
He looked about ready to kill his own child, though I could tell he also looked pained…. Her arm did not look right…. The King dislocated her shoulder..
Rainath growled looking so fearful, it held no meaning… but his eyes turned blue.
“Healia.” Said The Crimson king, before his eyes were now orange.
“I’m alright.” Said Paige… who was obviously shaken that she was attacked by her own child… and her husband… The Crimson king rushed so fast to keep her from being killed… but it could not be denied that he harmed her as well….
“Why do I smell mother’s blood….?” He asked. “Oh gods.. mother. I-” Rainath was cut off by the king.
“You should get out of my sight a moment son…” He warned… I felt like I should intervene.
“I’ll take him to the gardens. I forbid any of you from leaving the castle.” I said firmly.
King Nathaniel glared at me with orange eyes…. They were imposing and intimidating to say the least, but Paige now healed, backed me up. She limped, then kneeled down to her son, still sore, and put her hands on his face. She hesitated to do so, but she did all the same…
“She’s right.” She said petting her son’s hair…
“I know she is.” The Crimson King growled…. “Every scale on my body wishes to kill my own kin… but he was not in his right mind….”
“There were so many…” he mumbled. “Hands… gaping, dislocated mouths and soulless, clouded eyes… and pain.” He hissed.
He looked on his arms and legs, but nothing was there….
“What happened…. Son… what did you See?” He interrogated.
“Leave him be Nate.” Said Paige.
“My sweet…,” Said Nate. He made draconic sounds of concern, but his eyes were still orange… if Rainath got off the floor, I didn’t doubt he’d kill his own son.
“No… They doubled back and stole the steel Drozakrahth breathed on… that was their plan… Every city he crushed…. Every knight he’s killed… They salvaged dragon tempered steel…. Now their arrows can pierce his hide…”
“Oh my gods….” Said the Crimson King… “Then me sending you off… I’m sorry for my temper, but you hurt your mother… I wasn’t thinking.” He said letting his eyes return to some strange combination of orange and blue… giving a sickly greenish hue.
“I didn’t see all of you at first… the beast-kin catch something called…. Rabies… they go mad….They cannot drink the blessed waters… but if they bite someone before they die, the others go rabid as well.” He mumbled. “They climb and scratch and claw…. Having on steel gauntlets before they hold them down… and he Forces them to catch it...”
“So he IS trying to kill Drozo…. Maybe steal his blood too.” Said Nate…. “We must make my son some kind of armor….”
“He can have mine.” Said Rainath. “I am smaller than him, but our measurements if he can manage to multiply it to his size should fit…. It’s what I’m good for.” He said getting up.
The king and Paige stood there, letting him leave so upset…. She stayed to soothe her husband, and he stayed so he wouldn’t kill his son…
I ran walked behind him, and he did go to the courtyard like I’d mentioned. The rain poured heavily today, but with my cloak on properly and my hood on, I only got a little wet.
“Why did you follow the family failure?” he asked, sitting in the grass. I did with him.
“Because you aren’t… you deserve to be cared for as well… Lady Zeshava cannot stop her chants, or the spell she’s worked on for 5 days and 4 nights will fail….” I mumbled.
“Exactly… all but me are useful… My wife becomes light and can teleport, my father is the second largest drake alive… and I am just Rainath, the Prince because his elder brother Let him be…I am the younger brother of the Blood King… but none would know it looking at how Pitiful I am….” He mumbled. “And on top of all of it… I cannot handle War or Pain… I’ve been held up in here scared as a whelp during Tenth Moon….” He said with his blood mixing in with the rain… his tears rolled off his cheeks.
They did so, and he made no effort to wipe them.
“Weakness.” He hissed. “I am only weakness.”
“Even if you are, you are as the gods made you… for whatever reason, Drozo saw fit to use you to relay his words… that is something even I cannot do, to see through his eyes.” I said to sooth him.
He wept blood on my dress while I patted his hair. He rested his head on my lap as the rain poured and thunder rumbled.
“Fear is weakness… I reek of it.” He sobbed. I could see the other kings be roused from the commotion… and they gave him judgmental looks… even his father looked disappointed… His mother was in the infirmary most likely…. Something I shielded him from….
I may not have parents, but had Sister Trish looked at me this way, I don’t think I’d forgive myself of whatever I’d done to gain such a stare.
“In that regard, you are in the right… to See and Feel what he does is not something anyone else was meant to do.” I glared at them all, and they looked down or away, because I was right. “Pain you have never felt…. Sights you were not meant to see… such carnage you described.” I mumbled.
---Drozakrahth--
In the desert, I rolled in the hot sand. It dried my blood nearly instantly, as the sun kissed ground was blessed by Nox…. now they burned at the mere Touch of it, and I grabbed mighty handfuls of it…. They burst into flames of many colors, but they did not really react…. Being undead.
They could NOT reach the jungle… The rain could not be blessed… at least our attempt at it didn’t work. I had a few undead here and there as experiments to test that…
Even the fleas that rode upon the rats that ate the undead sluffed flesh… they could spread the disease… the beastkin got a new one… called rabies… because they frothed at the mouth, rabid with murderous intent….
I had to completely annihilate the bearkin…. How they screamed… they still knew pain and fear… but their slashes wearing metal made by my own arrogance…. It Hurt…
They Flayed underneath my wing, where it connected to my body… likely the most sensitive and thin-skinned areas…
That was Dragon Slayer knowledge he wove into the illness… so they would know where to jump… what to slash… what to die for….
I was so fucking tired.
I had not slept in about 4 or 5 days…. Time no longer meant anything… and the undead food I found, once it was blessed, could only be put to rest… even if we blessed them Freshly after turning, it would leave behind a fresh corpse…
The fish were rancid out the rivers…
The trees were a sickly dying green….
I was losing this war in some places, but once they were purged, it was safe…
I used my magic to teleport to the center of the dunes, and in the scorching sun I fell asleep…. I felt something land on my back, but I was too tired to get up. My body felt as if gravitas was cast on it 15 times… I could not even lift my pitiful head… channeling Ranath, and teleporting was too great a toll on me.
“Sleep it is me, Nox.” He said putting sticks on my back… making camp.
[You little shit. Get off Me.] I growled.
He tossed a whole buffalo at my snout with his strength. It bonked me on the nose, but I ate it happily…. Fresh meat…. There was nothing sweeter.
“Mass Heal and Staminos.” He said casting a double spell… “The fire will wake us if someone comes near.” He said passing out on my back, between my wings. “We’re killing Harbon tonight. You’ll need whatever you can get.” He said amused.
What a little shit.