Soldier

“Before he left, he told me this—be careful you are not making a terrible mistake. Without Talon, you are vulnerable. Without Talon, St. George will eventually come for you, and all your desires for peace and simplicity will mean nothing when they are burning your temple to the ground.”

My skin prickled, and cold spread through my insides. I knew where was this was going. I remembered the conversation between the Patriarch and the Talon agent, about a temple in China, and suddenly everything became perfectly, sickeningly clear.

“One month later,” the dragon continued softly, “that is exactly what happened. The Order of St. George came in the night and began slaughtering everyone in the temple. Unarmed monks, who had never killed so much as a grasshopper in their entire lives, were cut down in a hail of bullets as the soldiers marched through, searching for me. I know the monks tried to talk to the soldiers, reason with them. I know they strove for a peaceful solution and were gunned down without mercy or thought. I wanted to fight—my friends, men I’d known since they were children, infants, were being systematically executed. But the abbot convinced me to flee.

“We are the only ones to survive the massacre at the temple,” the dragon finished, glancing at the two men standing like rocks beside me. “Three survivors, out of a dozen souls who wished only to live their lives in peace and isolation. And then, St. George came through, slaughtered them all, and burned the ancient temple to the ground. Nothing remains of my home but cinders and ash. So, tell me, St. George...” She stepped forward, raising her arm, and the cold edge of a knife was pressed against my throat. The dragon’s gaze was glassy as she leaned in. “Why should I trust you? Why shouldn’t I show you the same amount of mercy your kind showed the monks at my temple?”

I closed my eyes. “You have no reason to trust me,” I said. “I’ve done all the things you’ve seen St. George do and more. Had circumstances been different, I might have been on that raid.” Opening my eyes, I met her furious stare. “I know it means little now, and nothing I say can make up for what you’ve lost, but...I am sorry for what happened.”

The dragon paused, confusion and astonishment battling the anger in her expression. “You are either a very gifted manipulator, or the strangest soldier of St. George I have ever seen,” she murmured at last. The blade’s edge dropped from my throat, and she stepped back, regarding me intently. “All right, mortal. Let us say, against all my better judgment, I decide to believe you for the moment. You went from butchering every dragon you came across to apologizing to one of them today. What changed?”

“I met someone,” I said quietly. “A dragon. A hatchling out of Talon, being sent to live with humans for the first time. The Order knew the organization had sent one of their agents to a small town in California. My mission was to track her down, expose what she really was and kill her.”