Tales of Fire and Ruin - Chapter 31: Chapter 31

I remembered the first time I witnessed a man hanging at the docks of the Thundercoast.
It'd been a sweltering summer day. The oppressive kind during which your clothes end up soaked in sweat simply by walking around outside. With the smell of fresh fish in the breeze and the taste of salt on my lips, I watched a ruddy man get dragged to the noose. He hadn't gone down easily. Thrashing his arms and kicking all the way, the man had shouted this was injustice and his trial had not been fair.
The man was a thief and smuggler who had wanted to steal me and take me away from the Thundercoast, my parents had told me. Because I was god-touched. He had his punishment coming.
I remembered the stomach-churning snap of his neck, the dockworkers laughing how the bastard had finally shut up, and the way my parents had argued after we went home. Mother said I was to be the head of the Montbow family one day — I needed to be prepared for my role. If I wanted to show the town folks I was a powerful leader, it would involve personally handling the punishment of criminals on our lands. Father argued I was still too young to have seen it and they should have waited a few more years to let me be a child. My mother then retorted Conrad had been able to handle it, to which my father replied I had a very different temperament than Conrad.
Being made to watch a hanging had been the first time I learned the carvings on my chest meant more than only fun, praise, and buffets with pastries. It also meant responsibility and many people in the world who wished me harm or wanted to steal me away from my parents to raise as their own because I was god-touched. It meant if I hadn't wandered the streets alone, this man wouldn't have attempted to take me and he wouldn't have died.
The world could be a cruel place, and the man hanging that day had been a deplorable criminal and a stranger. Still, I could see his glazed over, lifeless eyes in front of me as if it'd happened yesterday.
Over the years I'd hardened and seen more death, even within Wildewall itself, at the execution of the half-elf. But I knew watching Oleander get run through with a sword by priest Landefort would forever scar me. I wasn't Conrad or Gisela, and I knew I shouldn't go to the temple square. This would break me. Worse than seeing a stranger die as a child and believing I was partially to blame for this fate.
I was fully to blame for Oleander's fate today. If I saw him die, wouldn't be able to bear that guilt. And yet, I kept running.
Crowds still parted for me whenever they noticed my mark, wherever they could, as I rushed through the streets. Gisela had no such luxury and had to weave her way through. The distance between us grew fast and her shouts of protest, demanding me to stop walking, drowned out behind me.
When I reached the temple district, however, even I couldn't move further at a quick pace. Oleander's execution must've been announced, or everyone was gathered at the temples for the queen. I had to squeeze and elbow past people who whipped their head around at me in annoyance, then saw my mark, muttered a prayer with eyes wide as shields, and let me pass.
This time, it was the temple of the thunder god where the people swarmed. The building was tall with spiralling towers like the others. Patterns of branches like a tree, similar to the ones I had on my chest, adorned the bright white stone. Once I got closer, I saw a priest Landefort standing at the top of the staircases on a plateau. There were no ordinary guards stationed beside him for this execution. He was only accompanied by a man and a woman who wore body armours of plaited leather, the man with a strange cut-out at their stomach. I didn't see the logic in exposing one's midriff, which defeat the purpose of wearing an armour in the first place, until I'd manoeuvred myself to the front. With a sinking stomach, I realised what he and the women were.
The 'guards' were god-touched.
I had seen no others like me in Wildewall, but that didn't mean they weren't present. Endris had explained to me on the way to the city that god-touched often remained inside their respective temples, living lavish lives, served at their beck and call. They didn't come to see people, people came to see them. They'd sounded spoiled and arrogant to me, which had made me not want to seek them out. Not to mention, Wildewall god-touched etiquette had sounded unnecessarily complicated.
If such high-status citizens were out here defending the priest, this had to be for Oleander. With other god-touched as my opponents, I had no hopes of freeing him by striking every other person in the square down. The god-touched matched my power and would kill me and then they would kill Oleander. My heart pounded. Fear and despair squeezed the air out of lungs in shallow breaths as it dawned on me there was truly nothing I could do now. Even if I wanted to.
I stood nailed to the ground at the front of the crowd as priest Landefort on the plateau cleared his throat loudly. "Gentlewomen. Gentlemen. Dear citizens of Wildewall," he shouted. "On this day, that should be a celebration in honour of the queen's autumn ball, we have an evil in our midst. An evil we thought had long been vanquished from our world by king Bertram the third and his second son, prince Malte. It is an evil of which we are still weeding out the last traces to this day!" Priest Landefort paused for a moment. "Yesterday, there was an attempt on our beloved queen's life."
Instantly, the crowd started murmuring until the priest continued in a louder voice, "In the name of queen Idonia, I will bring this monster who would attack our crown and our city to justice! I humbly thank our queen for giving me, and the temple of the thunder god, the honour."
Priest Landefort made a deep bow. I looked over my shoulder to who he was bowing for, and that was when I realised even the queen herself was present for the execution. Seated on the balcony of a tall building behind the temple was queen Idonia. She held the staff with the red gem in her hands. About a dozen guards with bows and swords flanked her.
The priest stood straight. "Thanks to the noble house of Montbow and our vigilant guards thwarting this evildoers plans, a tragedy was prevented. Bless the Montbow family. Bless prince Malte. Bless the knights!"
At priest Landefort's urging, a roaring applause filled the square. Some even yelled their blessings for house Montbow.
I could take the priest's words as official approval of the court, and a sign the crown had acknowledged and embraced our house once more after years of exile. This was more than what my family had ever dreamed of when I departed for Wildewall. Mother and father had been convinced I needed knighthood, and a slain dragon to ever have hopes of catching the queen's eye.
Knowing now what the price was instead, however, I wished I had slain a dragon.
Priest Landefort raised his arms in a dramatic gesture. "I present to you," he boomed, stilling the crowd, "the evil that has plagued our lands, slaughtered our men, and feasted on the blood of our children!"
The heavy double doors of the temple opened with a loud creaking. Four men pushed a cart with a cage, which was covered by a black blanket, outside. Priest Landefort gripped the dark fabric and removed the blanket from the cage with a sharp, downward pull.
Oleander was inside the cage. My fists trembled at my sides as I took in the bruises marring Oleander's skin. Even from a distance, I saw there were even more now than there had been in the dungeon. His long, silvery hair had been chopped off, revealing the unmistakable pointed ears of an elven man. Despite already being kept in a cage, he was chained like a beast.
I was not the only one who noticed his ears. Shocked gasps and cries of horror reverberated across the square. I got shoved around as some people tried to wriggle and force their way forward, leaning as close as possible to see the 'monster', while others recoiled.
I just stared at the cage numbly. The chaos surrounding me blurred into the background as a ringing filled my ears. Priest Landefort approached the cage and threw it open. Two of the men who'd pushed the cart aside approached Oleander, but hesitated for a moment. They seemed reluctant to touch Oleander, like he could curse them with his touch. But at priest Landefort's snapping his fingers and pointing at Oleander, they roughly took a hold of his arms and dragged him out, chains and all.
Priest Landefort grabbed a fistful of Oleander's remaining hair and yanked his head up, revealing him to the scandalised crowd in front of him. "An elf!" he called out with a maniacal glint in his wide eyes.
"How is this possible?" a man hissed on my left.
"I don't know. Do you think there are more of them?" his wife anxiously asked, clinging onto her husband's arm.
Priest Landefort placed his other hand on Oleander's jaw. "This monster crawled out of the dark, slithered into the palace, and tried to take our queen's life! Tell me, dear citizens of Wildewall: what do we do with monsters?"
"Kill him!" a shrill woman's voice called out. "Kill!" others joined her. More and more voices shouted out until the entire crowd was chanting 'kill, kill!'
Oleander looked over all the people demanding his death with an even, cool gaze. He held his chin up and faced everyone with as much dignity as one could muster in chains and a priest yanking on his mauled hair.
"Do you have any last words, elf?" Priest Landefort asked mockingly. "As a favour of our beloved queen, you are given the opportunity to express your remorse to the gods, and they may be merciful to you in another life."
The crows went silent. Dead silent.
Oleander looked left and right. Then his gaze settled on the queen. "I do have words," he said in a raspy voice. "If you humans wish to see a monster so badly today... then I will happily oblige and show you one."
Oleander's shoulders visibly rose and fell as he breathed in deeply. Then a loud snapping broke the silence. Oleander hunched forward as the bones of his right arm and hand exploded. Fabric tore, and chains broke. The light skin of Oleander's arm darkened into black scales. Before priest Landefort could even scream, fingernails that turned into razor-sharp claws pierced his chest like a knife in butter. The priest fell in a pool of blood, dead before he hit the ground.
There was one moment of shocked silence. Then all hell broke loose. Screams rose from the crowd and I had to fight to stay standing and not get knocked over or swept away while townsfolk started fleeing the square in blind panic. Oleander turned his attention to the god-touched. The blonde woman attempted to conjure frost around Oleander's ankles to stop his movement while the man summoned bursts of wind to hold him in place. Neither was enough to stop Oleander.
With a furious shriek, Oleander lashed out at both god-touched with his still-growing claws. Both of the god-touched bodies got slammed into the temple walls hard enough to crack stone, and they slumped to the ground unconscious.
Oleander kept growing larger and larger. More bones snapped, more skin grew dark and scaly, and his spine expanded on his back, forming two bumps that shaped into leathery wings. Not made to support a dragon's weight, the plateau in front of the temple crackled dangerously. The stone broke, shards pelting the square, as Oleander's transformation was complete.
A dragon the size of a house stood in front of me. A dragon that looked eerily familiar. Emerald eyes, and pitch-black. I had seen this beast in the Serpentine mountains. I had taken a shot at it and missed its head, making it plummet into the valley, only to vanish without a trace. I had found only felled trees, rubble... and an unconscious elven man in the water, freezing but alive, and exactly in the spot where I would have expected the dragon.
I'd seen Oleander change right in front of me, but my mind didn't comprehend what I saw until the dragon settled its gaze on me, and I recognised the flares of magic in its green eyes. I released a shaky breath."It was you all along? You're the dragon?"
I did not believe Oleander could hear me speak over the panicked screams, but he snorted like he had heard me. Then Oleander stretched his wings wide. The stone plateau collapsed entirely in a loud rumble as he pushed off and flew towards the balcony.
Guards readied their bows and fired, loosening volleys of arrows onto Oleander. Sharp arrowheads dug into his skin, but it didn't slow him down. Oleander reached the balcony, his claws open as he slammed into the wall which crumbled instantly. Guards plummeted down from the balcony, while Oleander reached into the building through the hole he'd created with his body slam.
I couldn't see what happened, but when Oleander leapt away from the building, flapping his wings as he lowered to the square, a guardsman yelled, "Wait, hold your fire! Hold your fire! He has the queen!"
As the guardsman said, when Oleander landed in the square a few feet away from me, he had his claws wrapped firmly around the queen. She shrieked and wriggled in his grasp to absolutely no effect; Oleander didn't seem to notice her struggling as he searched the square until his eyes landed on me. Snorting loudly again, he reached for me.
A huge, scaled claw came my way and my first instinct was to conjure my thunder magic to fight it off.
But this was Oleander.
No matter what he had done to me, I couldn't bring myself to hurt him. And it seemed that, regardless of what he'd said, Oleander couldn't harm me either.
Warm, rough dragon's skin brushed against my waist as Oleander carefully wrapped his claw around me and lifted me off the ground. Then he spread his wings. A rush of air hit my face as Oleander rose into the sky fast like a strike of thunder, leaving Wildewall's square and the execution far behind.