Song of the Dragoons

Grace got her excitement back soon enough, but the atmosphere in the refectory as we had our dinner for the night was still subdued. Everyone seemed to have a lot on their minds—too much to talk about, except for Yura, who spent most of the meal heartily accepting congratulations from some of the other knights.

"Well! Seems like we've answered our little 'leader problem'," he said once it was clear that everyone who was going to give commendations had done so.

"How do you mean?" asked Grace.

Yura nodded towards me. "Belfry did admirably in our test today, so I think we should be counting on her during our mission."

"Oh," said Grace.

Her shoulders sagged, but I straightened up and tilted my head in silent agreement with Yura. I would have been lying if I said I wasn't thinking about that during the test, but now that it was over, I felt silly for even thinking that anyone else would get the position. Of course it would be me. I was the only one with real experience, not to mention natural talent.

The declaration was met only with quiet assent, and I felt a twinge of disappointment that there weren't any more proper gestures of respect, but I chided myself for that. It wasn't like I was queen of the flight; my job was to make sure everyone else could do theirs well. That was all. As much as the selfishness clouding my heart wished otherwise.

I wasn't much of a fan of the silence, and elected to leave early. It was late and I was tired, but I didn't feel like going to bed just yet. Instead, I wandered around the upper levels of the keep until I found the selfsame balcony that Yura, Brand, and I had flown from last night. With the sun setting, the moons were beginning to rise in the east, casting the stars out before them across the sky. I sat down, watching the vista for a while.

It couldn't have been more than half an hour before I heard the scratching of claws on stone behind me, and looked back to see Arthur and Griffin quietly come to sit at the balcony's edge. Neither of them had their partners with them. It was just dragons out here tonight. Or, at least fake dragons.

«You know, you can shift back now,» I said. «The trial's over.»

«I know,» said Griffin. «I…don't think I want to.»

«Really?» I turned to glance at them, a little surprised. I mean, I hadn't shifted back either, but I planned to before going to sleep tonight.

«Yeah.» They laid their head down on the low stone railing, not bothering to elaborate on that.

«Okay,» I muttered. «So…how are you two doing? What brings you out here instead of back in the room, resting?»

«Could ask you the same question,» said Arthur. «I wanted a quiet space to think. I saw Griffin going the same way, and then you were here, so I guess we all just had the same idea.»

«Sounds like it,» I said.

Arthur stared out at the horizon, his eyes unfocussing. «It's "later", now,» he said, his voice low and quiet like a fearful whisper. «Should we talk about what happened today?»

«You mean at the wagon?» clarified Griffin.

«Yeah,» said Arthur.

«We should,» said Griffin. «Do you want to?»

Arthur sucked in a sharp breath. «I'm scared.»

«Me too,» agreed Griffin. «I don't know what happened, I just know how I felt.»

«Like someone put your mind on rails?» asked Arthur.

«It felt like being drunk to me,» I said. «Like deep down I wanted to do something that I knew I shouldn't, but the smell of the silver was keeping me from telling myself "no".»

Now that I had brought it up, I could almost smell that scent again. It wasn't any more than a faint memory, but it was still enough to stir up my mind. It's not yours, I reminded myself, and you can't have it. It's not even here anymore. I kept running those thoughts through my head like a mantra.

«It's kind of like both of those things,» said Griffin. They started idly scratching a claw against the ground as they stared into space. «Someone else is thinking for you, but you can't stop it. And then, I'm thinking about what that means. I'm scared, and it really, really scares me because now I don't know if I'm ever in control. Or if the dark just lets me think I am sometimes. Or if it's all me, and the old Griffin is basically dead.»

Their claw scratched faster and faster, and I could see where it was starting to file down and leave black dust behind, but Griffin didn't seem to notice. «And I'm scared, and I don't know which is worse. If I'm a passenger or the one driving. One's a prison, the other means I'm evil. And I don't think I was always evil. But I still think things, and do things, and I don't think that I would have before. But I still did it and I'm sorry, but if I secretly wanted it, I don't know if that's enough, and—and—»

Their body shook with a brief seizure, and there was a flash in their eyes before they finally stopped scratching the ground and instead balled their hand into a fist and slammed it into the floor with a sharp crack. They were breathing hard, which turned into quiet sobs as they fell onto their front on the ground, covering their eyes with their hands.

«And I know I love this and I want to keep it, but I really hate it when it makes me do things like that, and I don't know if me being happy is just another thing I shouldn't feel and then maybe I'm going to love losing control like that and then I'll really be gone and then that's it, I'm still alive but I'm dead and this is basically the Pit forever until someone puts me out of my misery to keep me from hurting anyone else….»

Arthur stepped away from Griffin's frenzied rambling, but I came closer, kneeling down beside them and putting a wing over their back. «Griffin, shh, shh, focus.» I pointed my nose upwards at the sky. «Focus on the stars.»

«Stars…» Griffin repeated limply.

«Count them,» I said, trying to feel my way through guiding them out of their spiral. «Um…look, the stars all look white, but you know some of them are actually blue? See how many blue ones you can find.»

«Okay…okay…» Griffin said, and started counting in between breaths. Gradually, their panic abated, but it was slow going getting there. Arthur stayed away. I shot him a glare to try and get him to come help comfort Griffin, but strangely for him, he just froze, nervously scratching at the back of one of his hands that was balled up against the floor.

Eventually, Griffin was able to force themself to take a deeper breath, and shakily got back onto their feet. «I'm sorry,» they said. «I just…sometimes I get nervous, and….»

«I understand,» I said. «I used to know someone like that. It's okay.»

«Right,» agreed Griffin. «I just wish that I knew what was causing this. If it was just how dragons are, or if there's something wrong with us.»

«We're not real dragons,» I reminded them.

«Yes we are,» Griffin snapped. «Er, we are. Right now. I mean, we're pretty close.»

I picked at the groove Griffin had worn in the floor with their incessant scratching. I fought myself on whether to tell them. I'd said nothing yet on Linus's assessment, and by the sounds of things, he hadn't told anyone either, just as he'd promised. But now it wasn't just me feeling the effects.

«I…know the answer, but I need you not to tell anyone else. Okay?» I said.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. «Uh…sure,» he said uncertainly.

«We won't!» said Griffin. «Promise.»

I took a deep breath. As long as Grace didn't find out, everything would be fine. It'd be fine. «After I got into that fight and talked to the physician in the medical wing, he said that he had a theory on what was happening.»

Well, he had two, but Griffin doesn't need to know about the curse right now, I thought.

«Apparently dragons have some kind of instinctive urge towards certain things,» I continued. «Like violence. Or, I guess greed, going by what we've seen. He thought that we wouldn't be as able to ignore them as normal dragons since we didn't grow up with them.»

«Oh,» said Griffin. Despite me thinking that news would be somewhat bleak since it didn't have an answer to the problem, Griffin seemed to get excited. «So we might be able to ask one of the dragons for help, then? Like Elvild?»

«Probably,» I said. «That's what he said I should do. Ask for some advice on controlling my mind a little better.»

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

«And?» prompted Arthur. «Did you?»

I pinched my finger between my claws. «…No,» I admitted.

«Why?» asked Griffin.

«I don't want Grace to find out,» I said, speaking far too quickly. «I don't want to scare her. Or worry her.»

Arthur shuffled nervously. «So, did he say what happens if we…give in?»

«Not entirely,» I said. «I, um, lied when I said I didn't remember anything when I lost it against Ingo. I did. I still do. It was awful. I felt like I lost the ability to think about anything other than hurting people. Like if I tried to do anything else, it just got drowned out. If Grace hadn't pulled me out of it…I'm sure I would have killed him. And probably gone to hurt someone else.»

Griffin gasped. «Saints,» they whispered. They sounded sick.

«Linus said that those kinds of urges are why there are stories about dragons that burn villages without reason or steal giant hoards of gold,» I continued. «So I guess if we were to give up completely, we'd just turn into a monster. He said that you can always come back from that if you have people to help snap you out of it, but if Grace hadn't been magically bonded to me, I don't know what it would have taken for me to come to.»

There was the clacking sound of stone on stone behind me. I jumped at the interruption, twisting my head around to see that it was just Brand. She was alone too, and for once, she was holding one of those slate tablets that I'd seen some of the other dragons carrying. It had a small piece of chalk resting in a groove on top, and she was holding it up with a message written on it. "SO DON'T DO IT," it said.

«Gideon's breath, lady, don't sneak up on us like that!» I shouted once my heartbeat had calmed back down from its momentary jump. «What are you doing out here? Where's Yura.»

Brand walked in between us and laid down on the ground with her tablet in front of her and began writing. Her handwriting was a lot better than I suspected mine would be with these draconic hands, but it was still noticeably sharp and coarse, like she'd had a lot of practise but no instruction.

"Left Yura in the bunks," she wrote. "Came to talk to Arthur." She cleared away the messages and gave Arthur a hard stare as she wrote the next one. "Open your hand."

«What?» said Arthur. His confusion seemed genuine to me. «What do you mean?»

Brand pointed at his hand, which was still balled up like he was clutching something. I hadn't even noticed he'd been favouring it, but now that I thought back, he had been holding that hand up all evening, since we came back from our test at least.

Brand didn't bother writing a new message, just tapping the one she'd already written. "Open your hand."

He made to, his hand tensing. Then he stopped. There was anger in his eyes. Griffin took a step closer. «Arthur?» they said.

Arthur grunted, and, like he was fighting against an invisible force holding his hand closed, he slowly pried his fingers apart. The faint "memory" of that silver smell immediately grew stronger, and I gasped at its sudden intrusion into reality. With a series of clinks, two tiny silver bars fell from Arthur's hand, bouncing a couple times when they hit the stone floor of the balcony.

«Wh—What?» said Arthur. He was almost out of breath. «I didn't—»

"You did," wrote Brand. "Good job letting them go."

She swept the bars towards her with her tail. A low growl escaped Arthur as she did, only lasting a moment before he clapped a hand over his mouth and stumbled back, leaning his head over the rail. I could hear him retch.

«What do you mean "I didn't"?» I asked.

«I don't remember taking those,» he answered. «How did they get there?»

«You must have grabbed them without thinking about it,» said Griffin.

Arthur dragged his head back from over the railing and pressed a hand against his forehead. «I can't even remember why I want it. I don't have any use for silver. I've never really wanted wealth in my life anyway.»

Griffin glanced nervously at the silver bars. «…Do you still want them?»

Arthur pointed looked away. «…I do. I want to take them, and…and have them. Put them somewhere no one else will find them.» His claws dug into his scales. «Urgh! But that doesn't make any sense! What's the point of having silver if you don't want to spend it?» He sank to the ground. «I wish I knew why.»

Brand tapped on her tablet, getting all of our attentions. "You're a dragon," she had written. "That's why."

«That's not a reason,» said Arthur. «People don't have to deal with this. The only monsters that do are the ones that eat metals. I don't get anything out of keeping that silver.»

Brand sat there for a minute, writing a long response. When she turned it around to show us, the writing was all even scratchier than usual from the speed and size she'd had to write to make it all fit on the tablet. "We have vices to deal with," she wrote. "My mother called them the 'Three Fiends'. She said they were a curse. I don't think that's true, but I don't know any other explanation. They are Greed, Rage, and Pride. We have to ignore them, or we'll turn into monsters."

As we read, she kept writing on the back, flipping the tablet around a minute later. "Humans have those things too. Maybe not as strong, though. They're bad. They will consume you if you don't fight them. Then you become a 'demon'. She said it was like being possessed by yourself."

«Your mother did?» asked Arthur. Brand nodded. «How did she know?»

Brand's perpetual scowl deepened. "She was a demon before. Then she became one again when I was young. We had to kill her to keep her from destroying the humans' village."

«Oh,» I muttered.

«Saints, I'm so sorry,» said Arthur. «I didn't mean to bring up something so painful.»

"It's done," was all Brand wrote.

We held the silence for a moment before Arthur spoke again. «So how do you deal with those "vices"?» he asked. «You didn't seem to have the same…issue we had with the silver.»

"You cut them out," wrote Brand. "It's hard. You want to hold onto them because they feel good. You'll be miserable when they're gone, and they take some of your strength with them. But it's the only way. Let the thoughts come up and then beat them until they're dead. They never stop bothering you, but that makes them weaker."

«It's hard to ignore them as it is,» said Arthur.

"It's something we do as whelps," wrote Brand. "You are too old for this. You are also human. You don't have the same willpower."

«I have willpower!» exclaimed Arthur. «I can do this! I have to.»

"Practise then." Brand pushed the silver bars towards him. "Do not take the silver."

The metal glinted in Arthur's eyes. I felt it too. I wanted it. I needed it. I knew that it would make me happy to have and hold. It should be mine.

I did the same thing as when I transformed, and pictured my mind as the sea. I called on the imagery that Brand had used. These thoughts weren't mine. They weren't what I wanted. They came from the mouth of a monster. A Fiend. A Fiend that wanted to take me and use me, make me something I would never recognise. A Fiend that needed me to be its instrument in the world. Its words bubbled up through the water, bursting into loud thoughts when they broke the surface.

But this was my mind that it was intruding in, and I had control here. I could see it swimming below the surface, just close enough for me to see it as a twisted reflection of the dragon, covered in gnarled horns and twisted scales. Just close enough to hear, and close enough to hurt.

You don't need it, I said, reciting each word in my head like an incantation. It's not yours to keep. There's no reason to want something like this when you can't use it. You don't want to hurt its owners. You don't want to be a thief again. You don't want to disappoint your sister. These thoughts I formed into weapons, harpoons that I hurled down at the monster in the depths.

But the pain that I expected as I attacked the darkness in my head didn't come. Instead, I felt suddenly cold. The waters turned choppy and shadows drew close. I felt the boat holding my waking mind up threatening to capsize.

«Belfry?» Griffin's voice broke into my head.

I brought myself out of my mind, my eyes focussing again on the world around me. I was clutching cold metal against my chest. The silver. Its touch felt heavenly. I glanced to my right. Arthur was staring at where I held it. Hungrily.

He can't have it, I found myself thinking.

«Hey, can you…uh, please put it down?» Griffin said nervously, backing away. Brand rose to her feet, tensing her muscles like she was getting ready to pounce.

Arthur pounced first. The speed with which he moved was far more than I ever expected him to have. He slammed into me, his claws out, grabbing at my hand. «IT'S MINE!» he roared in my ear.

The monster in my head roared back, screaming incoherent selfishness into my mind. I was pushed onto my back by the tackle, and I only had one hand to fight back with, pressing the other as hard as I could against my scales to keep the silver safe. I used my hind legs, trying to push Arthur away. My talons scraped against his scales, and I felt a small trickle of warm blood seeping onto them.

Suddenly, Arthur was wrenched back. His claws scrabbled against the stone trying to reach me, but Brand and a reluctant Griffin both had their hands around his torso, holding him back.

«Belfry, get rid of it!» said Griffin.

There was an easy way to do that, but then…I'd have to give up a treasure. Throw away something I deserved, that I'd fought for. The whispering of the Fiend was so loud, I could almost feel its hands on mine, pressing the precious silver closer to my heart.

In amongst the thoughts flying wildly around in my head, I heard one that rose over the noise. You're better than this. I caught it and repeated it, over and over and over until I was sure it was me that was holding the reins again. The surety granted by my chant gave me enough willpower to pull the silver away from me and push it through the bars of the railing, letting it fall a couple storeys into the trench paths between the courtyards. Arthur tried to lunge after it, but Brand and Griffin kept him still.

Once the silver was gone, the smell went with it, the two tiny bars not strong enough for the scent to reach up here. Arthur snapped at his captors, snarling like a feral animal, but after a few moments without any silver around, the light came back to his eyes and he stood still where he was held, breathing hard.

«That was bad,» said Griffin. «That was a bad reaction to two little bits of silver.»

I used the railing to pull myself to my feet. «It was worse than before,» I said, my voice quivering. «It wasn't that strong before. Then I tried fighting like you said, Brand, and…»

«…and it got stronger,» Arthur finished, his voice just as shaky as mine. «I feel sick.»

"It shouldn't get stronger," Brand wrote, going back to her dropped tablet. "That's strange."

«Should we talk to Linus?» asked Griffin.

«Not right now,» said Arthur. «Maybe…maybe we can tell Nalezen tomorrow.»

«I want to fix this,» I said. «But we can't let the flight down. We have a mission tomorrow.»

Arthur rubbed his head again, like he was trying to push the Fiend out. «Right.»

«If it's not a mission where we'll need to deal with silver or anything else…precious…then we can tell them when we get back. If we tell them now, they might keep us from going, and then we won't be able to get that commission.»

«That sounds dangerous,» said Griffin. «What will we do? If someone snaps.»

«Count on the team,» I said. «It's easier to resist if we have our partners with us.»

«It is,» agreed Arthur. «Rosalie really helped earlier today.»

«Grace got me out of it when I completely lost it two weeks ago,» I reminded them. «We're strong enough together to deal with it.»

Griffin shifted uncomfortably. «I don't like this,» they mumbled. «Feels like that "unnecessary risk".»

«I'm the leader here,» I reminded them. «What I say goes, and I say the alternative risk is worse. We'll tell the others about this, but…not until we're away from the keep tomorrow. Okay?» I walked between them, heading back inside the hallway. «Come on. It's late, I'm exhausted, and Arthur's been sick. We need some rest. It'll help get your mind off this.»

Griffin gave a defeated shrug. «Okay,» they mumbled, and came along behind. Brand gathered up her tablet and chalk and went after. Arthur made to follow, but stopped at the archway, looking back towards the rail.

«Arthur,» I said, my voice sharp. «Come on.»

He shook his head and hurried inside, leaving the silver where it laid. For now.