Lexyn looked at her feet, her entire body shaking, wondering how it came to this. Just a span of days ago, her life had been good. At least good as far as Volqori life could be. A man to love. A sister to rely on. Parents who were still there for her. She had been growing more confident in herself, believing that she could change the world with these people, make Volqor better for those who weren’t among the mightiest. But that was over.


    She was too mad to look at the monster that had seized her dreams and tore them to shreds, thrusting her into this nightmare. She hated him. Hated him more than she knew it was possible to hate someone. If he were a yasmar’s victim to be methodically flayed, taken piece by piece over the course of moons, that would be a fate too gentle for him. He deserved endless suffering, visceral and mental agony in an eternity in Zamael’s Hells.


    Hate. Such an alien feeling within her. Leverith taught her to love all, to understand all, but she couldn’t understand what would make a person so cruel. She couldn’t love this monster. Hate was all she could feel toward him.


    Leverith forgive and understand me, Lexyn thought.


    They’d come so far, not just in the last day, but ever since she met Pelzyq and Zyryxa outside the gates of the Pridefort. For all that, what she hated most of all was that it meant nothing now. If a hundred warriors watched Hatrox do this to them and not a single one thought to tell him to stop, what could they possibly do? In a land where the only thing that mattered was power, Lexyn was powerless. A yak cowering beneath a dragon, waiting to be devoured.


    She’d seen who he looked to when he threatened them. For whatever sick reason, Hatrox wanted to kill her. But Pelzyq would try to take her place. He’d die to keep her safe. Lexyn fell to her knees, sobbing, not knowing which was worse. She didn’t want Pelzyq to be like Hyzqar and she didn’t want to die. But she didn’t want to live in a world without Pelzyq, where monsters like Hatrox could be cruel without consequence, where she would continue to be under his evil dominion. All she could do was cry.


    “I warned you that softness would get you hurt here, girl,” Hatrox said.


    “To feel is not weakness,” Zyryxa said, her voice ice’s judgment. “To feel is to be reminded of what matters.”


    Hatrox chuckled as if Zyryxa couldn’t possibly believe that. He wasn’t the only one in the crowd that laughed.


    “Did you read that in some little Leverian girl’s fairytale book?” More laughter from the swarm. Hatrox’s voice became stern enough to make Lexyn flinch. “Strength is the only thing that is not weakness. One cannot be strong on their knees, crying like a babe hungry for their mother’s teat.” The harshness slipped into the background, still there, perhaps even more there. Hatrox flashed a toothy smile. “So, cast your votes. Who is it going to be?”


    Riverwatch went silent. Pelzyq set his hand on Lexyn’s shoulder, she could feel him trembling. Zyryxa shook her head, crossed her arms.


    “Should it be the weakest?” Hatrox asked, leering at Lexyn. She averted her eyes, too afraid. “The one you needed to carry? The one who cries and can’t even meet my eyes? Tell me, Zyryxa, would you be rid of her? She will only ever slow you down. Keep you from greatness.”


    Zyryxa drew her greataxe, took a step toward him. “They’re strength has grown mine in ways you couldn’t fathom. I choose myself, Hatrox. Kill me. If you can.”


    Hatrox laughed and more followed his example. Lexyn didn’t know she could hate anyone as much as she hated him. Not even the Fire Tribe raiders. They were a predictable evil. This monster was calculating, inflicting more psychological pain than she knew one person could to another. She remembered Natazia as the caring big sister, the laughter by the fireside, and this man stole her ability to feel joy, to care about others, to even love herself. If she lived, would that be her fate too? Would she become cold? Unable to feel anything but hatred? No joy? No love? How could anyone do this to another person? How could others laugh about it so callously?


    “What about you, boy?” Hatrox asked, pointing his dagger at Pelzyq. “You ran off when they needed you. That drake died to protect you while you cannot protect anyone. You are a failure. A coward. A disappointment. A piece of shit. Should I kill you now and rid us of your impotence or should I kill her because you’re not strong enough, not man enough, to take her place?”


    Lexyn felt Pelzyq’s steady love in the way his trembling hand rested on her shoulder.


    “Don’t do it, Pelzyq,” Zyryxa warned, her voice low. “I’ve got this.”


    Pelzyq was as firm as a dragon’s scales, his deep voice harder than meladonite. “You won’t hurt either of them. It has to be me.”


    “No,” Zyryxa growled. “Its me.”


    Pelzyq looked down at Lexyn, his eyes drooping from a life of abuse, a day of perseverance, and a future of sorrow no matter how this ended. She couldn’t lose him, lose the future they would have. “Don’t,” she begged.


    “I love you,” he said, before bearing his axe and walking toward the dragon knight.


    Zyryxa seized his arm. “No, Pelzyq. This is not the time to prove your manhood.”


    “I love you too,” he said, shaking her off. Zyryxa gripped him again, holding him back from his own slaughter.


    “How touching,” Hatrox said, vicious, hateful. He leered at them with so much antipathy that if looks could kill, she and Pelzyq would be dead. He despised what they had, this hateful creature who knew nothing but how to make others miserable. “I still need to hear from one more before I claim a life.”


    “No,” Pelzyq said. “Let’s end this.”


    Hatrox ignored him. He crouched, making himself eye level with Lexyn. She couldn’t look at him. The tears came faster, sobs escaping as she became just like Natazia. She wouldn’t last, wasn’t strong enough to endure this monster. She was a helpless girl up in a tree watching the sabretooths tear her brother apart.


    “What about you, ferocious one weeping on her knees? Will you let others die so that you might live? How many more saviors will you have before you run out sacrificial heroes?”


    “D-d-don’t h-h-hurt th-th-them.”


    “Th-th-th-th-th-th-then who should it be!” Hatrox roared, mocking her. Others laughed. Lexyn didn’t know if she’d ever felt smaller. He paced in front of them, one hand under his chin, the other on that sinister dark dagger. He smirked at them, licking his lips. “I’m waiting!”


    “Choose me, Lexyn,” Zyryxa said.


    “No!” Pelzyq shouted. “It has to be me.”


    “Why not yourself, weak one?” Hatrox said. “They’d be better off without you. Can’t you see that?”


    Pelzyq and Zyrxya protested, both defending her, both volunteering themselves. Zyryxa urged her to trust her. Pelzyq insisted he finally be the man she deserved. Hatrox laughed, his horrible voice echoing in her mind. Lexyn couldn’t think, couldn’t sort through it all. She felt like the girl up in the tree, frozen in place, as the monsters tore into the people she loved, people who willingly sacrificed themselves for her unworthy life. It should be her.


    Lexyn shook her head and cried. She couldn’t say her own name, couldn’t be as strong, as brave, as worthy as her full-blooded friends. Nor could she choose. Urine fell down her thighs, pooling beneath her. It was impossible to make a sound. So, like any Leverian in Ice Tribe lands, Lexyn froze.


    Hatrox sighed, feigning disappointment even as he beamed with delight. He rose to his full height, his dark dragon behind him, his swarm surrounding fortress courtyard. Nobody intervened.


    “To feel is to be reminded of what matters,” Hatrox said, contemptuously. “It would seem that neither of you matter for she has chosen to let one of you die.” Hatrox leveled his dagger at Pelzyq. “I want you to remember that for the rest of your short, meaningless life, boy. Let her choice be a reminder of how little you were loved.”


    *************


    Zyryxa had a plan. All they needed to do was volunteer her. Hatrox would hurt her, but he wanted her too much to kill her. That was the only way to get through this without anyone dying.


    Pelzyq either didn’t see that or wasn’t even willing to let her take the pain. He was an idiot. And he was a good man.


    “I’ve got this,” she groaned, yanking at his arm to keep him from rushing to this death. This exhausted, she knew she wouldn’t beat Hatrox head on. She just had to take the beating. He’d stop as soon as he got what he wanted out of it. But Zyryxa couldn’t even keep Pelzyq contained.


    Pelzyq tore from her grasp, dashed toward Hatrox, his axe lifted in a two-handed grip.


    Hatrox’s speed was unreal, quicker than an ulfhedinn. The dagger spun through the air, thudding into Pelzyq’s knee.


    Pelzyq dropped to his other knee with a pained gasp. He ripped the dagger out of his leg, his bone showing through the wound. Roaring, Pelzyq rose to his feet and threw the axe back at Hatrox.


    Hatrox grinned that sinister smirk, one lip higher than the other, and caught the dagger midflight. He laughed, sheathing it in his belt.


    Pelzyq had no chance and Zyryxa couldn’t let him die. She watched, hands held tight on her mother’s axe, waiting for an opening. She’d cut Hatrox’s head off and be done with him. An end, once and for all. Pelzyq just needed to last long enough and to get Hatrox repositioned so he wouldn’t see her coming.


    The dragon knight didn’t move, didn’t show a drop of fear as the bigger man thundered toward him. Hatrox stepped toward him at the last moment, caught Pelzyq’s axe at the top of the handle, shoved him back, ripped the axe out of his hands, smashed Pelzyq’s face with the blunt end of it, snapped off the handle and tossed both handle and head aside.


    “You’ve got spirit, boy,” Hatrox said as blood sprayed from Pelzyq’s broken nose. “It’d almost be a shame to kill you. Take me down and I will let you live.”


    Pelzyq flung a flurry of fists at the dragon knight. Beaming, Hatrox lowered his arms and let him land the blows. Pelzyq’s fists collided with Hatrox’s face and chest. The dragon knight laughed through them as though he was being tickled. He screamed, “More! More! Hurt me more!” as the blows rained down.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    Lexyn sobbed, stealing glances and averting her eyes at the sight of her lover being embarrassed. Though her arms felt heavy, her legs leaden, Zyryxa’s anger forced her grip to tighten on her mother’s axe. She waited her opening, needing to end this monster’s existence. He thought he was invincible. He hadn’t faced her judgment yet.


    Pelzyq pushed Hatrox, trying to tackle him down. Hatrox stood there as if the full force of Pelzyq were no stronger than a light breeze.


    He taunted, his voice booming through the courtyard. “Is this all you’ve got!”


    Hatrox caught a fist. “It’s not enough!” He gripped Pelzyq’s wrist in his other hand, squeezed and snapped. “Don’t you want to live!” He threw Pelzyq to the ground, his arm bone protruding through skin. “Don’t you want to spread your little woman’s legs again!” Hatrox lifted him in one hand, tossed him like a doll into the fortress’s walls. “Give me more! More!”


    Zyryxa had a broadside angle at him. Pelzyq struggled to roll to his stomach, to lift himself up with one arm pushing against the ground. He screamed, the noise resonating with Zyryxa’s anger. He might see her out of the corner of his eye, but Pelzyq wouldn’t last much longer. This was probably her best chance.


    She sprung forth, holding the axe, took aim for Hatrox’s neck, and brought the blade down with as much power as she could muster. The blow landed, striking the target with perfect precision. But, alas, it lacked power. The axe head snapped off, leaving naught but a thin blue line of blood on Hatrox’s neck. The worst of it all was that she had given him everything she had left, and in return, he smiled.


    “Naughty, naughty, naughty girl,” he said, in that facetious friendly way of his, taking a step toward her.


    Zyryxa backed away, holding the headless haft of her mother’s greataxe, clinging to it as if for life. She tried to swallow her fear, but it was too much.


    “That was a mistake,” he said, running his finger along the small cut, licking the blood off his fingertip. “And you will learn from your mistakes, Zyryxa.” He bared his teeth in a wide smile. “I will see to it.”


    Hatrox sprang toward her.


    Fear seizing her heart, stalling her body, she barely made a movement to shield her face before he ripped the axe handle from her grasp. Hatrox snapped it in half, tossed one part aside, then jammed the jagged end of the other into her eye.


    Zyryxa fell backwards, but Hatrox caught her before her back hit the ground, seizing her undergarment. He pulled her up, tore her garment off, exposing her top to Riverwatch. “Naughty, naughty, naughty girl! Can you see now!” He ripped the jagged axe handle out of her eye, tossing it aside in a spray of blue.


    In a panic, Zyryxa realized she couldn’t see from her eye. The pain was blinding, her skull in agony as if a fire ran through it. Tears streamed from her other eye, whimpers came from her mouth. He took her by the throat, stifling them.


    “No crying. Or is this you being strong?” Hatrox lifted her, strangling. She kicked at him, but it was like trying to topple a mountain with your feet. She was a mere woman battling a god. A vengeful god full of hatred wearing an exultant smile.


    Pelzyq rammed into him from the side, knocking him slightly off balance. She saw the glee twist into malice as his grin burst into a snarl. Hatrox threw her aside, tossing her twenty feet into a stack of barrels. She smashed through them, her body feeling broken, shattered, and empty as the barrels. Her pride departed. As departed as her mother, and the axe that was once hers. Zyryxa sobbed, unable to muster the will to move, unable to reconcile this alien feeling of having no confidence, of feeling helpless, powerless.


    Huffing, Pelzyq squared off with Hatrox. “This is between you and me. Leave her alone.”


    Hatrox spread his arms out, the smile returning like an evil sun emerging from behind dark clouds. “As you wish.”


    Zyryxa sat there, naked on the ground, blinded in one eye, weeping from the other, unable to do anything as she watched a dear friend get humiliated. Over and over again, Hatrox hammered into Pelzyq with his fists, shattering bones, splattering Pelzyq’s blood and teeth across the courtyard.


    Pelzyq kept rising, kept swinging, more lethargic with each attempt. Hatrox pushed him aside with ease, taunting and laughing. “Just once!” he yelled with glee.


    Pelzyq bent over, leaning against a weapon rack, fighting for air after a heavy blow to the ribs. Hatrox paced in front of him. “Take me down one time and you live! Is that asking for too much? Are you not good enough?” He seized Pelzyq’s head, twisted his eyes toward Zyryxa and Lexyn. His face was ruined, unrecognizable. Bones jutted out of his skin in several places, his knee was torn open. Blood trailed down him in lines of blue in two dozen places.


    Lexyn cried out his name, pleading with Hatrox to stop. She offered to do whatever he wanted. Zyryxa sobbed for her.


    “Anything I want?” Hatrox repeated, mocking Lexyn’s squeaky voice. He lifted Pelzyq’s face to his. “Do you hear that, boy? She’d let me fuck her in the ass just to keep your sorry ass alive. If you don’t knock me down, I might do it anyway. Somebody has to after you’re gone.”


    With a roar, Pelzyq swung at him. The blow wouldn’t have landed on a drunken child but Hatrox took it anyway, laughing as it left no mark behind. “Come on, Pelzyq! Fight for your life!”


    Pelzyq rushed him, wrapping his arms around Hatrox. He squeezed, kept his legs moving forward, as he pressed his weight into the dragon knight. Hatrox stumbled backward, Zyryxa’s eye shooting wide as hope flared. Pelzyq kept driving forward, pushing Hatrox back. He was going to go down!


    Then Hatrox straightened, broke Pelzyq’s grip around him, seized him by the underarms, and slammed him so hard into the ground that the ice beneath shattered. He lifted his arms over his head, motioning for his swarm to applaud. Zyryxa wanted to vomit when they did. Through her one teary eye, she couldn’t make out any faces in this unwelcoming crowd. Pelzyq would die and leave her with these for brothers and sisters? She wanted to destroy this entire place, raze it to the ground, freeze all its inhabitants, and never return.


    But she was weak. She couldn’t lift a finger. So, she did nothing as Hatrox seized Pelzyq’s head and forced him to look at Lexyn.


    “Don’t you want to be with her? Or do you want to leave her behind because you know she’s better off without a piece of shit like you?”


    Zyryxa had but one eye, and even through the tears, she knew which of those men was a piece of shit and which was her brother. “Pelzyq, we love you,” she called out to him, trying to rise, and failing.


    “Then you love nothing,” Hatrox said angrily, tossing Pelzyq aside.


    He wasn’t nothing. Not to Lexyn who loved him with every part of her. Not to Zyryxa who felt responsible for failing him.


    Hatrox slammed Pelzyq’s head into the ground again and again and again, shouting that he was nothing. With each blow, Zyryxa felt it as her gut tightened, her heart broke, and her pride shrank. She wasn’t ice. She wasn’t a champion. She was just a girl broken at the foot of one so much more powerful than her that she didn’t know if she could ever challenge him.


    *************


    Pelzyq’s whole life had been pain. He’d spent most of his days waiting for it to be over. But now that it was here, he wanted to fight for every last breath. This was his life, and thanks to a few women who didn’t let him push them away, he would live it to the very end because all of this pain was worth it for just a few moons of being loved by them.


    Pelzyq chose to die as he wished he could have lived, doing whatever he could to make those women feel loved and for keeping them safe. Thus, when the asshole’s boot stomped onto his sundered knee, Pelzyq didn’t feel pain. He felt purpose.


    He didn’t know how many times his head was smashed into the ice and stone or how many bones were broken. He just knew that he would try to stand as long as he could. He’d protect the women he loved. If he could knock Hatrox down, he doubted he’d actually honor his promise, but he wouldn’t give up like he had every other time in his life. He wouldn’t die Pavinax’s cursed son. He’d die Pelzyq, a brother to Zyryxa, a lover to Lexyn, a good man. One who wasn’t cursed to get those he cared about killed but kept them safe. No matter the cost.


    Pelzyq strained to get up. Each time it got harder. One of his arms didn’t work at all. His knees tried to buckle with each step. He couldn’t move any of his extremities. He long since lost feeling in his face, only able to see out of one eye. His half-vision was blurry. His ears rang and sound didn’t come through them clearly.


    Each time he saw Lexyn cringe and cry, it broke his heart. She hid her face, urine and tears pooling beneath her like a little mouse caught in a sabretooth’s grasp. Pelzyq wanted to believe she’d be better off without him, wanted to soften the blow. But he couldn’t. For once, it would be his death that left a gaping hole in someone else. The heartbreak made him angry, kept him focused on swinging at Hatrox. He grasped for a sword from a weapon rack.


    The piece of shit laughed at him. Yes. All along it had been monsters like Hatrox, like Pavinax, who weren’t good enough, not the ones they howled at and called worthless. Pelzyq could see that now. He would die with his head held high, knowing that he died the better man, a man who left behind traces of himself in the love he gave others. When this asshole died—when Zyryxa and Lexyn finished him off—nobody would mourn him. He couldn’t say the same about himself. Not anymore.


    Pelzyq wasn’t familiar with swords, and his fingers weren’t working right. The freezing thing slipped from his grasp, provoking even more jeering from Hatrox. Pelzyq stumbled on his bad knee, trying to fall into Hatrox and take him down. Instead, he fell on his face as the asshole moved aside.


    “This is so sad!” Hatrox roared. “Have some pride, boy!” He seized his head, pulling on his ear. He whispered, “Get back up and finish what you started.”


    Pelzyq tried. He fell, not knowing how it could be possible to get up. This was it. The end.


    “It’s okay,” Lexyn said, her voice low. “It’s okay, Pelzyq. You can stop fighting.”


    “Giving up on him?” Hatrox asked. “How fitting as it was your silence that got him killed.”


    Pelzyq found anger somewhere within his destroyed body. He pushed off his broken arm, supported himself on his shattered shoulder, balanced himself on a torn knee. He said that which he wished he’d said so many times in his life, standing up even when it felt impossible, when it would only bring more pain. But, then again, this wasn’t pain. It was purpose.


    “This isn’t her fault. It’s yours, asshole!”


    Pelzyq swung at him, barely seeing the dragon knight dodge to the side. The back of his head flared with agony, something shattering. He fell, hitting the ice face-first, unable to break the fall any other way.


    “Please stop,” Lexyn whispered. “Stop hurting him.”


    Hatrox shouted, “What was that! I cannot hear you! You need to speak up!”


    Pelzyq mustered his strength. He slurred his words, as he always had. “I don’t hurt,” he told her, “because I had your love.”


    “Have,” she corrected, shaking as she sobbed, crawling closer to him. “You’ll always have it. Forever.”


    “You’ve got this,” he said, remembering words uttered long ago. Though he cried, Pelzyq smiled. “Until next time… my love.”


    “Until next—”


    Hatrox’s bellow rose over Lexyn’s small, but far, far larger words. Pelzyq was loved. Perhaps this wasn’t the final end. Perhaps Lexyn’s goddess would reunite them in some shiny paradise in the sky, long, long from now after she lived a life where she changed the world, helping to rid it of many monsters like the Knight of Riverwatch, where her love taught people to care about others, even broken men who tried to push away their happiness. But Pelzyq knew that he had, for a time, been in paradise. And he was glad he stayed.


    *************


    Zyryxa screamed like she had moons ago in the Pridefort. The day that everything changed when she learned that her whole world had shattered, her future stolen from her by just a few words.


    Hatrox’s boot smashed through Pelzyq’s skull, spraying bone, brain, and blood at Lexyn. The monster hefted Pelzyq’s headless body, throwing it at Coryza’s feet.


    “Feast, my friend, though nothing isn’t very filling.”


    The dragon snapped its maw around Pelzyq before Hatrox even finished. Coryza crunched through bone, tore through muscle, eating Pelzyq’s heart and everything else that he was and ever would be. He was gone in a few moments, swallowed by the dark blue dragon with the horned head. Coryza let out a colossal roar, beat its wings furiously, and took flight.


    Zyryxa’s soul felt like an empty place. Where once pride was, she found a hole. In that hole, hate found a home. Hatred toward Natazia who forced them down this path, toward Vaztyma who let it happen, and Hatrox himself. That evil smiling Zamaelspawn.


    He glided over the icy ground, approaching her as if he owned her. Zyryxa swore to herself that she would kill this man if it took the rest of her life to accomplish. Her fingers closed into fists. She locked her one eye onto him, seeing into the future. He would die for this. The last thing he would hear would be Pelzyq’s name. The last thing he saw: her face.


    Hatrox opened his arms, beaming that horrific smile. “Welcome to Riverwatch.”


    END OF BOOK 1