“You’re too late, Sir Knight.” The spider’s master is elated with success. She snuggles against the rainbow-colored body and lovingly strokes it with her right hand.
“Damn you!”
My mouth turns dry. Tremors run through me. Ridiculing and sneering at me is that girl. The sole survivor of the Little Girl Hunt. The little girl I picked up with these very hands and carried here!
“Who…are you?”
She laughs. Her shoulders shake with amusement.
Anger, frustration, humiliation, and regret jumble together, squeezing my heart in a vise. I choke down the bile making its way up my throat and go to cut her with my sword.
“You still don’t understand?” The girl looks at me. No, she’s looking at him through me. “Spike Scale, noble and strong ruby dragon.”
I feel like I’ve been ripped in half. How the hell does this thing know Dragon’s name, when only those closest to him are allowed to say it?
“I’ve been calling for you all this time…” she whispers.
The girl’s form shifts. In the blink of an eye, her appearance wavers, like a shadow reflected in the water. Her skin turns black, almost raven-like in color. Her light-brown hair is replaced by silver. Even the clothing on her back changes. The shabby skirt and blouse fall off her, and in their place, a black, thin silk material with spider webs on it clings to her body. Her skin looks transparent through it. She looks like a foreigner in striking clothing. I thought—I felt—that we had met somewhere before.
“Why didn’t you save me?” Tears mist her amber eyes. They fill her eyes, quiver, and threaten to spill over at any moment. “Like you did this child.”
Then her wide-open eyes transform. Black paints over each eyeball and red pupils burn in the center and stab at me.
Dragon roars. His rumbling cry rattles my eardrums and violently shakes the floors, walls, and the damned entire treehouse.
“GUH!”
That’s not all—it’s not just the sound. Dragon’s thoughts surge through the scale. His emotions shoot into my head like a jet of water, penetrating my mind. They gouge at me from the inside. Ransack my mind. Sparks fly within my eyes. The world distorts.
“Agh…grrr…nggh…”
Regret.
Panic.
Sorrow.
Frustration.
Self-resentment.
The pitch-black emotions pouring into my mind through the scale are exactly the same as the ones I felt myself several hours earlier.
“Damn it. Damn it!”
“Why? Why?!”
“Why did I—”
“How could I—”
Our identical emotions collide and rebound off each other, tormenting us twice as much.
“It’s hot!”
The scale I left in my left pocket is boiling hot. My fingers blister as they try to tear it off of me. Flames—bluish-white flames are burning my fingers. In a flash, they spread across my entire body.
“AAAAHHH!”
I’m being burned alive by bluish-white flames on the outside while my inside is hacked open by a heavy, cold, dull blade.
I can’t stop it. Even though I’m aware it’s my very own arm swinging that blade.
“PRINCESSSSSSSS!”
My words crumble in my mouth and my thoughts shatter.
I’m going to be swallowed alive by the dragon’s raging emotions.
I can’t fight against it.
I’m being dragged along with it.
“Prin…cess…”
My consciousness cuts off in the roiling turmoil of overwhelming emotions.