Page 10 of Brutal Dragon King

I’m not the only one cursed, I think glumly. All of the king’s dragon people, or Nayarans, who have the supernaturalability to shape-shift between a dragon and a human, have been cursed by their makers.

The female dragon shifters aren’t capable of bearing children because they’re immortal. Eternal life comes at a price of not being able to create life in their wombs.

The curse of the dragon shifters became the humans’ affliction to bear when it was discovered that dragon shifters could reproduce by planting their sperm inside a human female’s womb.

That’s why we have to face this nightmarish reality in which a human has to bear a dragon shifter’ child.

When the gears on the spherical mechanism stop grinding, a metallic clink rings out when a coin drops onto the tray and rolls down the metal plate on the side for a few short seconds. The stiff dragon woman finally moves to reach down when she catches the token in her hand and then lifts it to her face. She doesn’t waste time, and without looking up, she announces, “Participant number seven.”

One word.

One number.

That’s all it takes to crumble my world into a million tiny shards that pierce my skin from the inside, and prickle fine hairs I didn’t even know existed. I feel the color seep from my head down as I pale, the blood rushing to my ankles like cold chains keeping me shackled to the spot.

Humans already face severe consequences just for being born in The Emberlands. The only thing that’s worse than waking up as a baby in this village, under the rule of King Haidën, is becoming a dragon shifter’s child-bearer.

Or rather, slave.

Just three words were all it took to make me realize how unlucky I am.It’s a double-whammy curse that just befell me.

Last year’s participant number seven rebelled against the dragon shifters when her token was picked. Of course, her disruption wasn’t met warmly, and one of the king’s men slayed her on the spot with a swipe of his sword through her neck. The token she held went tinkling on the ground, while her blood pooled all around it, and her decapitated head rolled down to the front of the line. Her eyelids were left open as they stared blankly at last year’s unlucky participant—the winner of the reaping lottery.

“Participant number seven…” the royal secretary calls out stoically. “... Althea Waters.”

I know I can’t fight this. Not after witnessing what happened to last year’s “participant number seven”. This time, it’s my name that’s called out along with that number, and I know what will happen if I try to resist or fight my fate.

The ringing in my eardrums fades into nothingness, an empty void where even the whispers of the other participants vanish. My jaw drops, and it’s the only movement that comes as a natural response to my shock and horror. I feel so numb that I forget how to breathe.

Why would I care to breathe when I see no way out of this nightmare?

A million questions run a rampant race in my mind. Whats. Hows. Whys. All I know is that life couldn’t get any worse than this.

When the secretary’s dark eyes land on me, threatening to slit my throat with the daggers of her intense glare, I remember to breathe. The air is hot, scorching my lungs on its descent, andthe two pairs of hands that grip my arms feel like hot branding irons on my flesh.

As I’m dragged to the podium by the king’s soldiers, I surrender to their pushing and pulling only as a survival tactic. If I fight, I’ll be killed in front of everyone, giving the villagers the satisfaction that they’ve been seeking ever since I became a target of their abuse.

I know I can’t fight this, but every inch of my being wants to resist, but my survival instincts kick in and keep me silent.

It’s a deafening silence that stretches out all around us and makes space for the drop of a pin to be heard, if anyone dared to move right now. When the royal secretary turns to me, her disdainful eyes pierce those pins into my already sensitized flesh.

She sizes me from head to toe, a begrudging grimace curling her lips as she snarls and clicks her tongue.

“You will leave for The Kingdom of The Spine immediately,” the prim and proper woman tells me, her voice stern as if this is an order directly from the king. “You will not need any of your belongings for where you're going now.”

It feels like a death-sentence, destroying me as something inside me dies with her statement. The lack of worth for a human slave means that the things I consider valuable have no value in the land of the dragon shifters.

I only have a few seconds to grieve the loss of the things tucked underneath a loose floorboard in Delores's cottage, hiding below my mattress in the corner of her living room.

Instinctively, I try lifting my hand to my chest where, behind the dreadful robe I'm wearing, I have my mother's carved wooden pendant hanging from my neck.

The wooden star is one of the few things I have in memory of my parents. Delores chucked the rest of the things when they were murdered and, in their death, shamed for their failed attempt to flee The Emberlands.

Everything they owned was considered bad luck. Just as I was deemed a bad omen left to steal the air they breathed in the village. Now, I'll be gone too, and the Waters family will be wiped from the village's existence for good.

When the royal secretary turns to the crowd, I’m compelled to do the same, only to find that the other participants all wear a look of utter relief along with something else that borders on smugness.

I remember that feeling—the former, at least. The relief comes from not being the “chosen one” in the reaping draw. The relief comes when someone else’s token is taken out of the pot.

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