Page 75 of Blood of Dragons

I don’t expect you to understand.

Good. Because I never will.

You haven’t found other dragons, so what chance do we even have, Khazmuda? We fly to the Southern Isles and take on a hundred dragons single-handedly? Along with the dark elves that we know nothing about? We’ll last a few minutes at most. What kind of plan is that?

Khazmuda was quiet.

You know I’m right.

This is the first time you’ve sounded receptive to the idea.

I’m not receptive. I’m just telling you we have no chance?—

We have no chance in our current predicament. But what if our circumstances change?

I was quiet.

What if I find an army of dragons to fight with us? Will you fight with me?

I continued to stare at the sea.

Talon.

I’d been numb for a long time, but there was a new flame inside me, the burn of a single-wick candle.I would consider it.

Khazmuda fell silent, and that silence stretched on for a long time, like he was shocked by what I’d said or hadn’t heard it at all.Thank you.

Our fleet came to the village port, and we hopped out, ready to take the provisions we needed, knowing the civilians would never take up arms against us. Even those villages that had a militia were still too fearful to oppose us, because the sailors in the ships could destroy their homes with the cannons.

I stole from others, something I never would have done in my previous life, but I didn’t care. My father lived an honorable life and gave people second chances when they didn’t deserve their first chance—and he was burned at the stake. My moral compass had been smashed under a heavy boot.

I helped the crew load the supplies onto the main ship, the men bringing more crates of fruit and bread, of dried meat and nuts. What we needed more than anything was the fruit sowe wouldn’t fall weak to scurvy. Someone suffered it on every voyage, and fortunately, it hadn’t happened to me yet.

Squid and the others returned, but instead of bringing crates of more goods, they brought prisoners.

Women.

Their hands were bound behind their backs, and they sobbed as they were forced to the ship, all young and pretty, women who’d barely reached adulthood, stripped from their families. Squid shoved them forward like cattle. “Shut up and get on board.”

I watched in horror, seeing the five women who would be used to service the sailors out at sea. In the years that I’d sailed with the crew, I’d never witnessed this. We pulled into ports with brothels, and the men paid for their fantasies.

But this had never happened before.

“Let them go.” I dropped the crate onto the ground and stepped toward Squid, blocking the women’s path to the ship.

“What did you say?” Squid asked, looking at me like he didn’t believe what I’d just said.

“You heard me, Squid. The women stay.”

The women turned quiet, stopping their cries once they felt a moment of hope.

Squid and I had formed a friendship through our journey across the seas, but that was instantly shattered when I opposed him. There was a gleam of anger in his eyes, an unmistakable threat. “You may be the commander, but you aren’t the captain, and the captain wants women for the long journey ahead?—”

I pulled out my blade and put it to his throat. “Let.Them.Go.”

He swallowed, his throat shifting and pressing into the knife just enough to cut the skin.

“Now.”