Dragonia: Revenge of the Dragons

Chapter 2

2

Naveen trembled, her curly red locks of hair draping over her eyes. She couldn’t believe what was happening. Her village burned. The Dragonia Empire claimed there were traitors in the village, sympathizers to the resistance. The three dragonriders were making a statement in the village.

The afternoon was quiet. All the villagers had given up the fight, though not many had attempted to defy the dragonriders in the first place—those who had were eaten alive by the dragons. Naveen had protested at first, when they took her friend, but after being backhanded by one of the riders and being told if she spoke another word she’d join her friend, she stood down. Naveen wondered if she’d made the right decision. She was alive, yes, but her friend stared at her from the gallows. Three others stood by nooses on the platform as well. They only had four nooses. There was a line of another eight people they’d rounded up, standing in line, waiting their turn to die.

Naveen’s eyes welled up, and tears flowed down her face freely. Her best friend was about to die. And for what? Because the dragonriders believed her to be part of the resistance. Naveen knew better. Her friend had nothing to do with the resistance. But if Naveen said anything, she’d be hung as well. Perhaps she should. Why accept the lie and let her friend die alone? Her teeth clenched. How could the Dragonia Empire do this? How could they make false accusations?

The lead dragonrider made sure all the nooses were secure around the four necks. He turned to face the crowd, a grin splitting his face in two.

“People of Anius. The Dragonia Empire has no sympathy for traitors. Let this be a lesson to you all. If you join the resistance, or feed them information, like these scum”—he gestured to the four behind him—“you will fall to the same fate.”

“I am not a trait—” Yvanya, her friend, yelled.

The dragonrider snarled as he slapped her mid-sentence. “Lies!”

He turned to the executioner. “Pull the lever.”

The man glanced to the crowd, fear clear in his expression, but shock as well. He knew the people accused were innocent. His pause was for only an instant before he jerked the lever. The trapdoors dropped beneath the four accused. Silence ensued. They struggled, but their words wouldn’t escape with the nooses blocking their air passages.

Naveen looked away, wiping a tear from her face. She was a coward. She couldn’t even face her friend, couldn’t watch her die. Yvanya had looked at Naveen when the floor dropped from under her. Guilt formed a lump in her throat. She shivered.

“Next,” the dragonrider called.

Naveen glanced back to the gallows. Four people hung, unmoving, each dangling like a broken flower hanging from its stem by a thread. Two women and two men. She knew all of them. They were all good people. Her eyes blurred as she tried to unfocus, to unsee the people she knew, the people she’d grown up with, dead. She inhaled, closing her eyes. When she exhaled, and her eyes opened, they betrayed her. The scene before her was crystal clear. Her eyes focused on Yvanya as they lowered her lifeless body from the noose. She looked calm, at peace. Naveen knew she was with the Creator now, walking in a land of paradise. She envied her friend. If the afterlife was indeed true, and it was indeed a paradise, it beat the horrid reality of the world Naveen was still stuck in. She should have had courage. She should have fought for her friend’s innocence. Then they both could have died today. They could be in paradise together, or everlasting darkness. Whichever truth it was, it was better than this moment, this chaos. It was better than living a life under the rule of the Dragonia Empire.

The dragonriders finished hanging another eight people in the next hour. Naveen unfocused, barely noticing what was going on around her.

“Burn the traitors’ homes,” Naveen vaguely heard one of the dragonriders say.

She tuned it all out, refusing to accept the reality of the situation. It wasn’t until someone nudged her that she snapped out of it.

“Naveen? Are you all right?”

Naveen shook her head. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“I know it’s hard on you. Hard to come to terms with the fact that Yvanya was a traitor. But you must move past—”

“Yvanya was not a traitor.”

“Shh. Don’t let the dragonriders hear you say that,” Leland, the blacksmith, whispered.

Naveen stormed off, refusing to respond. She knew her friend. They’d been friends since little girls. If she was part of some secret resistance, Naveen would have known about it. Rumors had been spreading lately about this so-called resistance fighting the empire. She wondered if they stood a chance. Naveen hoped so. She wanted the Dragonia Empire to burn. Though, as she thought about it, why was the Dragonia Empire focused on killing innocents, claiming they were traitors? To spread fear? To make people scared to join the resistance? She pondered it as she walked back home. If they were trying to convince people to stay away from the resistance … then it meant they were scared. Did they actually believe the resistance had a chance? Naveen knew nothing about the resistance, but now she desperately wanted to find them. She wanted to know if they were indeed strong enough to face the Dragonia Empire.