The pull on my flesh is just too strong
It stifles the choice and the
air in my lungs
Better not to breathe
than to breathe a lie
I'll never wear your broken crown
-Mumford & Sons

-----❅-----

- Nicolas -

-----❅-----

He slapped me hard across the face.

My head flew to the side and remained motionless for a moment until I placed one of my cool palms against my burning, throbbing cheek.

"Talesin!" my mother exclaimed her husband's name and rushed to me, startled, but my father stretched out his strong arm and blocked her path to me.

"He needs to learn his lesson. Pain is good. It makes him strong."

I looked up at him. He towered so high above me. This was what a king looked like. The crown on his hair seemed glued in place. With a closer look, I imagined cracks in the shiny metal.

"Look out!"

My head shot up as I awoke from a microsleep. My dragon jerked abruptly to the side and we dodged a dark ball of gloom. In the dim distance, I spotted a horde of flying shadowy figures whose territory we seemed to be trying to cross.

Their smoky silhouettes formed such a formidable wall that it would take far too much energy to push through it.

"Evade," I decided, whereupon our formation took off in the other direction. "We should find a place to sleep for the night," I then called out to the others. If you got tired, you got careless. And dragons also needed a lot of sleep to fly fully functional.

We broke through the treetops and flew until we spotted a small clearing. The dragons formed a circle around us humans and lined up against the dense trees.

"No fire, no loud voices," I then commanded in a covered voice. "We'll make a watch plan."

I assigned two people at a time to keep watch for two hours and then wake the next two. Due to my lack of confidence in Victorine, I assigned the two of us together for the last shift.

Then we spread out. I leaned against a stone, from where I had an overview of the entire camp. Victorine had taken her dragon to the center of the clearing. Normally the open night sky posed a danger there, but she was leaning right up against her large companion, which calmed me down a bit. Dragons had incredibly keen senses and reflexes, which actually made a guard plan unnecessary. But one could never be too careful.

Clutching my sword tightly, I looked around one last time, checking, then closed my eyes.

❅

Someone grabbed my shoulder.

I snapped my eyes open and slammed my sword in front of me, which slammed against a piece of armor.

"King Nicolas, it's me," said Orestes, who looked at his arm in fright, obviously wondering what would have happened if he hadn't been wearing armor.

Exhausted, I took off my helmet, ran my hand through my face and stroked my hair. Again I had dreamed of my father.

"Get some more sleep, I'll wake Victorine," I decided and got up. The soldier nodded and moved away from me. Sighing, I picked up my weapons and dragged them with me.

Cautiously, I approached the king's daughter. As expected, her dragon slowly opened one of its eyes and looked at me warningly. Smoke came out of its nostrils.

"It's all right, I'm already awake. It couldn't be avoided with your noise," Victorine reported in a hushed voice so as not to wake the others. Gently, she pushed aside one of the dragon's feet that was placed over her and stroked the beast's cheek. She then strapped on her weapons and walked over to the edge of the forest.

"What are you doing?", I asked sharply, suspicion running through all my body parts.

She gave me a venomous look. "Doing something that needs to be done in a while."

My eyes narrowed to slits and I took a small step forward.

"Alone," she hissed urgently and was gone in the next second.

I stood there with unease, feeling ridiculous. I feared for her life just because she was so stupid to keep this important matter to herself. But if she wanted to die - gladly. Then I would figure out how to chop Cephas' head off anyway.

I turned around and went back to my stone. Then I rummaged in the leather pouch for something to eat and drink. Suddenly my fingers grasped rough paper. I pulled out the scroll, which I had completely forgotten about until then.

Sighing, I sat down comfortably and opened the seal. Actually, I had intended to give her the scroll, but at the moment she made me angry. All right, when did that stupid brat not do that?

My eyes flew over the letters, then I jumped up as if out of my mind. Anger ran through all my guts, my hands crumpling the paper as they balled into fists. Instantly, I strode toward the edge of the forest.

Victorine met me halfway and I angrily pulled her with me into the forest to press her against the nearest tree.

"You're looking for your sister?", I hissed as my hand grabbed her collar and nearly sent her body flying.

All color drained from her face. She swallowed hard and looked at me with wide eyes.

I let go of her and slammed my fist into the wood next to her. "You can't be serious!", I snapped at her, still clearly holding back with the volume. "I'm taking a weakling on this trip. Do you even know how weak and vulnerable that makes you? Once you have to choose between Cephas' death and saving your sister, it is crystal clear what you will do. You will be guided by desperate feelings, and that will be our downfall."

"You are also guided by feelings, King Nicolas," she now hissed back. "Cephas murdered your parents, just as he killed mine."

"That has nothing to do with this. I am a king and I think of my people. I have my kingdom to protect."

"That's not entirely true," she ventured to say, and I could already feel her looking deep into my eyes again to read my mind.

Not many times in my life have I wanted to kill someone as much as I wanted to kill her now. My fingers itched so much to raise my sword and slit her throat. Or to ram it into her chest until she gasped and all life drained from her eyes.

Victorine looked to the side, because she must have had a hard time watching my ideas about the end of her life. "We will get what Cephas is trying to find. Then we'll invade his kingdom. I don't know exactly what he wants with it. But once I look him in the eye, we'll know. After that, you can kill him while I free my sister."

"How the hell are eight of us supposed to invade the most powerful kingdom in the land? Will Cephas just let you look into his eyes and then be murdered?", I questioned bitterly.

"I don't know," she admitted. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. "If we have it, maybe Cephas will come to us."

Never before had I wanted to know more about what she had seen in the spy's mind, what Cephas wanted to find. But now I understood why Victorine was so vehemently concealing it. It was her only way to free her sister.

Briefly, I regarded her and struck a friendlier tone. "Tell me what he wants, Victorine. I promise to still take you on the journey and to Tenebris so you can save your sister."

"No," she objected without hesitation. "I don't trust you."

Frustrated, I clenched my hands into fists and squinted my eyes. I couldn't even let her read my mind for insurance, because I lied. If I had the information, I would not bother to take her with me.

My mind raced. "How badly does he want it?", I asked, turning away.

"He would sell his soul for it," the king's daughter replied.

A short, bitter laugh escaped my throat. "That man no longer possesses a soul."

"No matter what," Victorine whispered, "I will save my sister and you will kill Cephas. We depend on each other if we are to succeed."

"If I had known that, I would have taken the time to torture the information out of you," I spat out spitefully. "But now it is what it is. Keep only one thing in mind: if you cause our plan to fail, then your sister will have to pay for it."

With this threat I ended our conversation, turned around and walked quickly towards the clearing. There I waited until the first rays of the day bathed the clearing in a weak, soft light.

Slowly my anger faded a little. I looked around and discovered how some lilies of the valley at the edge of the forest opened their little eyes. Together, they jumped down from the plant stalk and hopped a few feet along the meadow. I heard their soft, high-pitched cackling. Suddenly they seemed to have recognized me, because in the next moment the white buds already jumped to the next best stile to camouflage themselves there.

For another few minutes I looked around attentively, but nothing further happened.

Finally I woke the others and we got ready to leave. Victorine showed us the next stop on the map. I watched her closely, not hiding my anger in the process. It sickened me that we were all depending on the weakest member of our group.

I was aware that harboring feelings did not make one weak. But they often either made you numb or drove you to rash, hasty, desperate actions. If you wanted to reach your goal with so many feelings, you needed a lot of luck. I was reluctant to take that risk, however, I guess I had little choice.

"We'll set out," I decided. "When the sun is in the evening sky, we'll make our next stop to rest."

Thus we got on our dragons and flew on. The sun rose slowly but steadily further up the horizon, bathing the sky in reddish light streaked with pink and orange.

The shadowy creatures had retreated to the darkest, most inaccessible corners of the forest long before dawn to protect themselves from the sun's deadly rays. Otherwise, no other magical beings were to be seen far and wide.

I studied the map more closely, but eventually my thoughts drifted to Sanguis. As a king, it was not an easy decision to embark on such a long journey and leave the kingdom without a leader.

An icy shiver ran through my body as I thought about the fact that even a royal head could not stop an attack from Tenebris. In fact, it probably provided more of an incentive for Cephas.

Even if a king did not wear his crown, he still felt the weight of the cold metal on his head. It almost pushed down on the shoulders and yet a straight posture and rolled back shoulders were always expected.

I was given this crown much, much too soon.

Angrily, I clenched my fists and told my dragon to fly even faster.

It was high time that Cephas' dark rule was put to an end. That the people and nations of this land could live in peace again. A new era would dawn. That I swore to myself.

Slowly, I looked at one of my fellow warriors after another. I swore it to myself, even if it would cost all of our heads.

❅

Shortly after dark, we caught sight of faint lights in the distance on the largest of the countless hills ahead.

At first, I wanted to signify to the others to wait a little distance away so that our group would not be recognized as attackers. But then we suddenly heard screams.

Victorine and her dragon were the first to shoot out. Within a tiny second, they were so far away that I couldn't stop them.

Cursing, I flew off, the others following me.  "Highness Victorine, wait!", I yelled, but she didn't slow down one bit.

Seeing the village, I now recognized what was going on.

Wendigos.

"Formation at the edge of the village!", I yelled to the others and headed for the first houses. Victorine had already landed and was fighting one of the figures while her dragon took on two more.

By the time I reached the ground, I had analyzed and scanned the creatures.

The naked, emaciated, lanky bodies were all a little over six feet tall, so I estimated their age to be a few months and their strength to be medium. The glowing, red eyes stood out from the blank, thin-skinned skulls. A long, thin tongue snaked out from between the sharp, yellow teeth.

It was hard to believe that these had once been normal people. Humans who, for some reason, had eaten human flesh, enough of it to transform and develop an insatiable hunger for more flesh.

We spread out in a line. I drew my sword while two of the creatures were already running toward me, screeching. Relieved, I noticed that their mouths and teeth were not bloodied. At least these ones weren't.

They moved quickly and struck at me with their bony arms and long claws. I fought them off briefly to get an overview. My dragon was somewhere behind me, the soldiers had spread out to either side of me, some out of sight.

Victorine was fighting on my right. She swung her sword awkwardly to hit a large slash in the Wendigo's torso. Skin and ribs swung open, revealing the innermost part. Blood and guts gushed out, the elongated stomach taking a few seconds to spill out and slap the ground.

Then she summoned her dragon to set the front of the agile on fire. The creature shrieked out in agony, fell to the ground, and rolled on the earth.

I turned back to my own opponents. I didn't have to worry about Victorine. She knew the only absolutely sure way to kill a Wendigo.

Within a few blinks of an eye, I had cleared a direct path to their hearts. Their high, bitter cries hurt my ears. I lit fire in my hands and stepped closer to strike their hearts with certainty. Their smell of rot and rotten flesh burned my nostrils.

Without remorse or pity, I set their hearts on fire.

"Magma!", I then heard the king's daughter gasp beside me, alluding to the only way these creatures could be saved.

"I can't create magma!", I shouted back, annoyed. "And even if I could, I'd never heal a Wendigo."

She looked at me motionless for a moment, which gave me a huge fright. But then she finally regained her composure and prepared to take on the next battle with an attacking Wendigo.

One by one, the Wendigos fell. Slowly we fought our way to the center of the village, from where we heard human screams.

Without pausing for breath, we set the creatures and their hearts on fire until the smell of burning flesh was so thick that it permeated our clothing and was barely perceptible to our noses.

Isolated dead people lay on the paths. Their bodies were covered in blood, their throats bitten through. Then we stood in the village square, where fighting men and women were giving their lives to block the way of the Wendigos to the largest house. I understood immediately that the children had found refuge in the house.

"Over here!" roared Victorine at the top of her lungs. The creatures turned and charged toward us. We stumbled over human corpses, over Wendigo corpses, slaughtering one by one until the last one had fallen and we looked around breathlessly.

The surviving people rushed into the houses to their children, back to the edges of the village to check on the wounded, or sank to the ground weeping bitterly beside motionless corpses.

I wiped stinking blood from my face and looked at what must have been two dozen dead Wendigos on the blood-red ground. A pack of so many, this was not natural. This was man-made. But how?

My gaze passed over the half-eaten bodies lying or leaning against the houses.

I would never cure a Wendigo. It would cure them of their cannibalistic hunger for human flesh, perhaps, or of their shape. But never from the acts they had committed.