When I arrived in the dining hall the next day, the demonborn boy was wearing a guilty expression. If his conscience was going to bother him, perhaps he would have been better off not throwing me to the dogs in the first place. I narrowed my eyes in a display of quiet rage before averting my gaze. It had been a sneaky move on his part. If I didn’t let him see my anger, he might have felt emboldened to slight me again. My roommates had always had the option of discussing the move with me first—not that I would have accepted, of course. I decided that I would be getting revenge one way or another.
✦ ✦ ✦
At some point, endurance training was rebranded as “combat training.” We were no longer required to keep our strikes from hitting our partners.
“You’re mad. Aren’t you?”
“What do you think?” I thrust out with my knife. He dodged it.
I stabbed at him again, but it was a feint. I drove my foot into his thigh instead, and when his head came down, I held my knife to his throat.
He clicked his tongue. “You win.”
“Again.”
“You don’t know when to quit,” he said with a sigh.
I won every bout with the demonborn that day and also earned myself the session’s coin of honor.
✦ ✦ ✦
“How strange,” hummed the snakeborn instructor as he massaged my shoulder.
It seemed like it was odd for someone not to be able to release their essence while being capable of drawing it in. The instructor often came up behind me when I meditated during training, placing a hand on my shoulder like this.
“A true believer of Him should not be struggling like this...” His hand stopped. It moved an inch closer to my neck.
If I reacted in a way he didn’t like, I would be killed. I could smell it.
I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him. I believe in Him.
“I see. Can you think of any other reason I might be struggling?” I asked. “I want to learn to release my essence as soon as possible.”
“Hmm, let me think.” The instructor stared at me with pity in his eyes before his gaze fell away. He looked pensive as he searched through his memories.
It seemed I was out of danger for now. In the end, however, he was unable to give me any decent advice.
✦ ✦ ✦
A powerful roar greeted me when I returned from dinner. The dragonborn was in high spirits again and was doing exactly what I thought she would be. Incidentally, she had so many wounds from our morning sessions that she had yet to take part in the afternoon essence or long-distance training. Her routine seemed to involve spending the morning being beaten in front of the other children by the endurance instructor, then being escorted back to her room once she recovered.
But she hadn’t recuperated enough; she was still bleeding. The bedding in the room was dyed red. No wonder her former roommates complained. Who wanted to sleep under a duvet sodden with blood?
“What are you looking at?”
Whoops.
“I got a bucket and some towels. Want them?”
She slowly got to her feet. Her body was covered in painful-looking wounds. “Get out, snake boy.”
“Sure.”
As usual, she had insulted me in her childish tone. Not wanting to be the thing that set her off, I did as I was told. I left the bucket and towels in the room, then closed the door behind me.
“It’s been a while since I’ve heard her speak.”
I had heard her scream in rage and give earsplitting roars, but this was the first time I heard her form actual words since I had woken up in this body.
I decided to ask the room next door if I could borrow their bucket of water. I imagined that by the time the dragon girl was done with ours, it would be saturated with blood. The kids were reluctant at first but quickly changed their tune when I subtly threatened to set an enraged dragon on them. It wasn’t a total bluff. If I took something of hers and threw it in their room, she would probably give all of us an ear-piercing roar at close quarters. I let them deal with my dirty water afterward since I had the dragonborn’s water to clear away.
When I returned to our room, I found her fixing the hem of her jacket. As expected, the water in the bucket was bright red.
It was still too early to go to bed. I didn’t often get sleepy at night, probably because I was a snakeborn. Maybe I was nocturnal. Normally, I would get under the covers and meditate, but I feared I would only get distracted in my current environment. It smelled of blood and probably wasn’t especially hygienic. I decided to replace the water in the bucket and do some cleaning.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Every room gets one bucket of water to bathe with,” Sister told me as she denied my request for more. “No more.”
In this community, every round of baptized children was assigned a group of adults to take care of them. My cohort—or was it class?—had three adults in charge: our two training instructors and this Sister, who oversaw our practical needs. She also saw to any minor injuries we had, so she must have been aware of the dragon girl’s current state.
“My roommate—the dragonborn girl—her blood’s all over the room. I was hoping to clean it.” I blinked up at the Sister, making as much use as I could of my childish cuteness.
“Oh yes, I know. I told them to get rid of her,” she spat icily, without so much as a glance in my direction.
I should have asked someone else. I thought she would be fond of children.
“Very well. But draw it yourself. I’m going to bed.”
I did so, taking the fresh bucketful of water back to my room. I arrived to the sight of a boy collapsed along the wall outside it—the tigerborn from the next room. He was covered in blood. With a sigh, I asked the kids next door to come and fetch him, and then I went into my room.
When the dragon girl’s eyes alighted on the bucket of water in my hand, a suspicious frown came over her. As I noticed that the number of bloodstains around the room had increased, I grimaced. I started to clean, trying not to let her presence bother me. Although the boy inside me wasn’t especially fussy when it came to cleanliness, I found that I rather enjoyed the process. It was satisfying to see the marks fade away as a result of my efforts. Besides, I knew for a fact that a clean environment was important for maintaining your health. This place was quick when it came to healing physical wounds, but I wasn’t sure if the same could be said for illnesses. I found it quite motivating when I justified to myself that good hygiene was part of my efforts to ward off death.
Death scared me; it filled me with immobilizing terror. I would happily dedicate my entire life, throw every scrap of pride I had, to avoid it. Cleaning up a room that someone else had dirtied was one hundred percent worth it. It wasn’t as though asking the dragonborn to do it herself would result in anything. She was the type to die rather than take orders from anybody.
This didn’t mean I was a fool, however. I decided to start leaving buckets of water in the room so that she could clean up when she was injured. That way, maybe I could sleep on something that didn’t have blood on it.
✦ ✦ ✦
When I returned to my room the next day, I found a bucket of bloody water. It seemed she had indeed decided to clean her wounded body. As a result, the bedding was spotless. I would have rather she took care of the used bucket herself, but maybe that was asking too much of someone who got a beating every morning. I nodded to myself, quietly satisfied.
CHAPTER 1: THE TYRANT’S AWAKENING