“I will follow orders;

Swallow coals, or pierce my own heart,

I will do it- without hesitation. 

For I am hollow, I am nothing else except my orders.”

IV

Reeda Glayze bowed. She bowed so low that her forehead nearly kissed the cold stone floor. She hated these moments. The moments when she was forced to be the humblest, a creature of empty thought.

 She waited. She waited until her mental bell rang three chimes. She stood, a silent waiting warrior, still bent in a sharp bow waist up. She kept her balled up hands at her sides, the fingertips of her left hand longingly ghosting over the hilt of her sheathed katana. 

“You are clear…” Lazily rang out the voice of her boy-king. Reeda looked up, forcing herself to look at him. To look at the lazily outstretched boy on the throne. No not boy- a Dragon glamoured to appear as a boy. The Dragon of Death glamoured to be an innocent eleven-year-old boy. “Did Lyrrii give you the specifics of your mission…?”

 “No.” 

 Her King sighed. Idly, he rolled his head in her direction. He looked her over, up and down, with his large eyes- large orange, dragon eyes. Dragon eyes that burned with malice from the hollows of his skull. His slitted cat pupils landed on every imperfection. Every dent and scratch in her armor, and through the emotionless stone like calmness that hid her fear.  

 “Yes… well… it’ll be your first. An assassination. Talk to Lyrii for the rest.”

  Reeda bowed and turned to leave the great hall- Assassination. She wanted to scream and cry. She wasn’t a murder. Her feet made no sound against the moth-eaten carpet. She was silent as a ghost. With the sensation of his serpentine eyes, and coy smirk against her back, she knew that he was listening to her sobbing heart. So Reeda took a deep breath and did what she did best. She grabbed her falling pieces and stitched herself up, using the thread made of her pains, worries, and fear. She turned herself to stone. 

 She pushed open the rotting oak doors of the great hall. Soldiers bowed to her. ‘No! I am no General! I am a prisoner! I never asked to be a Doryu! I never wanted to make a deal with him. I am lower than you!’ She didn’t cast them a glance. She calmly stalked down the stone hallways that were suffocated by the smoke from the burning torches. ‘My King, you hold my head underwater. I will kill. I will obey. But what are you going to do, Ejdair, when it’s your blood in the water?’