Blood Runner: Book Three of the Empress Saga

CHAPTER EIGHT

Blood magic carried a cost. It took and it took, year by year, until only a shadow remained. Krayson no longer felt trust, nor compassion, nor any manner of altruism. He was only his purpose— his profession as a brother of the Sanguine Order— and anything else was just a ghost. A blood mage's red eyes revealed the emptiness of their souls. Krayson was less than human.

Even so, he decided he had more humanity in his little finger than Elise of Eastrun had ever possessed.

Krayson's mind was racing. Saveen was on her knees and on the verge of tears. Kimpo tensed. Garret and Trell watched intently, the man intrigued and the black dragon pensive.

"Well?" Elise asked in a sultry tone. "Give me your answer, Blood Runner."

"Absolutely not!" Kimpo roared. "Saveen is still a dragonet. She's too young to be passed off like a..." She froze in mid-sentence and clutched at her chest. Her eyes were wild and her jaw was clenched. Kimpo was in pain.

"You dare defy me?" Elise shouted. "How many times must I break you, slave?"

Kimpo screamed as if pierced through the heart. She fell to the ground and writhed as pain assaulted her.

Krayson watched in morbid fascination, uncertain of what was causing the dragon such agony. He looked to Elise and saw that her pupils had contracted to tiny specks. She wore a mask of fury.

"Shall I lock the spell?" Elise asked. "I could leave you like this for what feels like a thousand years and turn you into a shattered husk of a creature. With every dragon I find, you're less valuable to me." She pointed to Trell. "Others aren't so willful. My Watchman knows his place." Elise pointed to Saveen at her feet. "Even this one only needed a single taste of the bond. But you..."

She gestured towards Kimpo, and the dragon loosed a tremendous roar of pain.

"The only reason you have your life is because of what you know," Elise spat. "You're no Imperial breed, but you've bedded one. The Watchman tells me that the Storyteller has been spendin' the last hundred years scourin' the Continent for the mighty. The silver's told you some of what it's found, and you're only use is takin' me to them." Elise walked up to Kimpo as she spoke. When she reached her, Elise placed the heel of her boot on the dragon's throat. "The fancy man is my first, the blood runner my second, but I'll need more knights than that to see these kingdoms burn."

Krayson took a step towards Kimpo, but stopped himself. He didn't understand why he suddenly felt a need to act. It was fortunate that his right mind returned to him before he did something stupid. Why had he even thought to go to her aid?

Not my fight, he told himself. I have one purpose, and that's to be a blood runner.

There were old feelings he remembered having once, from long before the Order took him in. Blood magic washed those impediments away, yet sometimes Krayson could feel their ghosts coming back to haunt him. Whenever they did, they always tried to get him killed.

While no one looked his way, Krayson used his fingernail to cut ten lines into the palm of his left hand. A single second-tier rune was the upper limit of his ability with sigils. He winced at the stinging pain and fought down instincts against self-mutilation. His work finished, he closed his hand over the cuts, hiding the bleeding wounds from sight.

He noticed Saveen. She covered her mouth as she watched Kimpo being tortured. The dragon girl trembled. Then, Krayson saw her eyes harden and her body tense as if preparing to pounce.

"Your indulgence, my lady," Krayson said to Elise. "I've no wish to interrupt however you discipline your pets, but time is a concern for me."

Elise released whatever she was doing to Kimpo and removed her boot from her throat. Kimpo's cries faded and were replaced by heavy panting. She murmured something almost too low to be overheard.