***Magnus's POV***
"You can't be serious Father! You really can't mean. . ."
"Oh but I do son. Malcolm has told me that if you do this we can finally put an end to all dragon kind. How can you not be excited by such a prospect?" Asmodeus asked.
Magnus felt his hands clenching tightly on the table as he tried to gather his frazzled thoughts. Live with dragons? With actual DRAGONS!! The same beasties I kill each and everyday! The monsters who murdered my mother! Is he crazy!? Magnus had questioned his father's sanity a few times before in the past, but never to this level. This was not something he could've seen coming. There was no way of knowing Asmodeus would spring such a crazy plan on him. It had Malcolm's conniving stench all over it, which was no surprise seeing as it came from the crazy old coot. He could still remember the time Malcolm had asked for the head of the first dragon he ever fought. He'd been so young at the time, the request so morbid to his ears.
"Because it's from Malcolm. Because you're both out of your mind!" Magnus threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "Father you can't be serious." Those repeated words fell on deaf ears though as Asmodeus continued to give a happy smile.
"Of course I am son. I know the news coming from Malcolm of all people is a little strange, but this is just too good of an opportunity to pass up."
"But Father, you want me to, you want me to essentially shack up with those scaly beasties. The very monsters we've sworn to kill."
Asmodeus made a noise of discontent at the back of his throat. It was not a pleasant sound, like a bedraggled cat getting thrown into a torrent of rain. "You will I no way be having sexual intercourse with the likes of those . . . foul ruffians. I am only telling you to infiltrate their innermost society, so we can strike them down at their core."
"But Father—"
"No buts Magnus. A little discomfort is nothing in comparison to the lives this will save. You should know better than to ignore the call of duty, to let more innocent lives die. Like your own dear mother."
Magnus banged a fist on the table, his eyes misting. "Please do not bring mother into this." He had pushed her to the recesses of his mind as much as he could. She left an inextinguishable sadness imprinted in him. It would not leave him. Magnus suspected her memory never would.
His Father frowned. "I'm sorry Magnus. Bringing her up saddens me too."
Then why do it? The question hangs on his lips, gripping the edge tightly as he sucked in another intake of cold air. Even in the heat of summer, the castle still felt cold. Ever since mother had died, the warmth of these stony walls had lost all warmth. A forbidding freeze was left behind.
"I know. And I understand what you're getting at."
"So you'll do it?"
There as hope in Asmodeus's golden gaze again, the kind that only came from getting what he wanted. Magnus knew this look well, saw it every time his Father was proud of him for killing a dragon. Before the dragon slaying had started, Magnus could not recall a time his father was proud of him.
Some part of him still felt this was a bad idea. There's just too much about the enemy we still don't know. And what about the cold season? How long exactly will this mission last. Magnus's reservations battled inside his mind, each wanting to take the forefront. But in the end, his own need for revenge won out.
"Yes Father. Let's end those monsters once and for all."
Little did he know, his life was about to get a lot more complicated.