A Dragon's Redemption [Book 2 in Rising Dragons]

Chapter XXIV: Harbinger

There was, they said, something – happiness – to be found in the little things. I don't know who they were, but I wondered what 'they' would think if they were in my position. There was nothing little about that place that could have created happiness. That was not to say that we didn't have happiness. There was just nothing little about where we found it.

In that dark and dreary place, with little to our name, we somehow – against all odds – found happiness. It was found in the sound of two sets of footsteps returning, the sound loud and echoing. There was nothing simple about two dragons returning from what was meant to be a deathmatch. There was happiness, and something like fierce pride, because this was something I had started. This was something that I had caused.

There was no joy about that place. Nothing to laugh or smile about. But there was this – no body being carted out, the fading smell of death, the diminishing scent of infection. There was life to be found in this disastrous place. I called the feeling that rose within me happiness, I called it pride. It started in my stomach and rose into my throat, not bubbly or burning but making me feel on the edge of something – it was like exhilaration but completely different. It existed. I knew that. It was something that I was certain of.

Despite the happiness and pride I felt, there were still bad days. Days I wouldn't hesitate to call terrible. There was nothing I could do about them. They were always going to exist, always going to be there. There were days when I fell into one thought and came back to myself, feeling as if days had passed but not knowing; never knowing. The days that were the worst was what always got me, what always took me back into my mind and locked me there.

Those days were the ones when I felt that if I reached enough, that if I tried harder, my wings would move. It was those days that I felt like my wings were still there, just out of reach. It was those days when the smell of recent blood filled my nose. It was those days when I felt like my teeth and claws were tearing through flesh and I was yelling from my mind to stop, but I couldn't. It was those days when I found myself locked in memories of battles where I murdered and murdered and murdered and never stopped, never died.

Without a sense of time, there was no way I could tell if it had been an unusually long time since I had been forced out into the arena and forced to fight. It felt like it had been longer, but there was no way of knowing. It made me anxious, hating the idea of going out there again but hating the idea of being unable to do something. I wanted to see the sky again, even from behind bars. I wanted to feel the sun. I wanted to know what free air tasted like, if it was the same as I remembered. I wanted to feel the wind.

I wanted to fly again.

***

I woke to the sound of muffled words; a conversation I couldn't quite make out. The words echoed and rebounded, the sounds becoming warped. The emotions underscoring the words were still clear. I could hear worry and what could be excitement.

I was already on my paws when they came to my cage.

I growled, lips curling back as I bared my teeth at the two humans. "Might actually work the way Boss wants it too," one said, tone flippant.

"Seems that way," the second person said. "Shall we send this one up?" The first human nodded, and I instinctively crouch as metal clacks somewhere out of sight. I knew where I was going. I knew what was going to happen.

"To the arena," the first one said, jeeringly. "The crowd's been promised blood, and one way or another they're going to get it."

I closed my eyes, knowing that the brightness of the arena will hurt my eyes otherwise. I couldn't help but worry about what the humans had said. Anxiety laid thick and heavy in my stomach, and I wondered what was going to happen, wondered if this was going to be my final stand.