Sometime later…

Thieon groaned softly as he awoke. His vision was clouded as if he had drunk too much and he was hearing voices. As the fog faded, recent memories came flooding back to him.

"Wait, so they're not even real?" One voice asked.

"Not at all. You can see the big one here is made of wood. The paint is chipping off." A wood-scraping sound accompanied the second voice.

The female voice scoffed in disgust: "So… all that talk about being a 'dragonslayer' was just him blowing smoke."

The regal male voice replied: "It would appear so. Frankly, they're not even good fakes. Even a basic understanding of dragon anatomy would allow one to realize these teeth are too curved to be dragon teeth. These are rather more like snake fangs. Though I suppose they would be enough to fool the layman. After all, there haven't been any dragons this far south… save for ourselves in nigh on… well, three hundred years, I believe… not since the Great Upheaval that divided the plans of The Icey North into its upper and lower halves."

As Thieon's vision cleared, he spotted Radais and the green half-dragon tending a campfire with their backs to him. They were clearly engrossed in their conversation. The white half-dragon was on the other side of the fire and appeared to be asleep. He tried to sit up but realized he had been tied to the tree he was leaning against. He might still have a chance; maybe with a quick spell he could cut himself free and slip away. He began gathering his focus to cast a bit, but it fizzled as he felt the sudden sharp pressure of cold steel against his neck. The edge of a blade forced his gaze upward to where the already large and imposing berzerker was looking down upon him.

Zhanatos let out a quick sharp whistle drawing Radais' and Larxene's attention.

"Ah, you're awake." Radais dusted his hands and approached the prisoner. He took a moment to adjust his attire and make himself presentable.

"I am awake, and given what I recall… I find that surprising. What of the rest of my men?" Theion demanded. He tried to make his voice boom but couldn't manage it while tied down.

"The smart ones ran; the rest are dead," Radais answered in an unperturbed manner. "Depending upon how the rest of this conversation goes, you'll either join the former group or the latter."

"What do you want?" Theion asked without pretext or formality as he heaved a sigh. He knew he was beaten. This was one investment that had NOT paid out as he had hoped, but that could always happen in his line of work. His best option now was to give the half-dragons whatever they wanted and leave. There were always more bandits to find and recruit; he could rebuild.

"We didn't run into you and your men by chance, did we? This was an ambush specifically for my team and me." Radais was certain of this part already.

"Aye… we were. Been hunting you for a while, in fact." Theion explained. "Our client had a man inside the Adventure's Association… that's how we knew you were heading for Wincam to help with their pirate thing." The information from the client had been remarkably accurate.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Radais, he's volunteering a lot of information…." Larxene cautioned. She had assumed it would be much more difficult to get answers from Thieon. Radais had already begun preparing some sort of chemical concoction that was supposed to force the imbiber to speak the truth for just such difficulties.

Theion interjected. "Hey, like it or not, I am a businessman in my trade. I know which pursuits are worthwhile and which aren't…." He found himself short of breath, and his head was beginning to ache. "If you want me to trade information for my life, I'll… I'll make that trade." A loud cough escaped his lips. He suddenly felt deathly ill.

"Alright, tell me everything you know about whoever hired you, and we'll set you free. I trust you'll give much more thought to my idea of pursuing honest work if we do?" Radais stated in a tone that conveyed honest intent.

“He was… he was….” Theion struggled to speak. Why was it so bloody hot all of a sudden? He felt like he was in a damned oven. “I… hot…” He began coughing as smoke poured out his mouth like a raging furnace.

Radais blinked in surprise as he noticed an odd glowing mark forming on Theion's forehead. It was a rectangle laying flat like a table with a stick drawn through it in the middle. There were other smaller markings at both ends of the stick that were too small to make out in detail. "EVERYONE GET BACK!" He exclaimed as he instinctively flung himself to safety. Larxene and Zhanatos did the same.

With one last wailing scream of pain, Theion ignited like dry wood and lamp oil! Within a second, his scream fell silent, and the fire engulfed the tree he had been tied to.

The screaming awoke Xion, who tried to use her ice magic to put the fire out but was too mentally exhausted to do so. She pointed her hand and tried to wield her magic, but her spell fizzled out uselessly. She had taxed herself beyond her limit and now was paying the debt of exhaustion.

Zhanatos went to grab a blanket to try to smother the fire but stopped short when Radias cried out.

"No! Grab our bags and run! If the leader has a curse mark, the rest of his men might as well!" No sooner had the Prince explained the threat that it came true, and each of the twenty bandits, perhaps including those that had run earlier but were long gone, all burst into flame just as their leader had moments ago.

The fire spread quickly! Far too quickly to have been natural. This was the work of a caster. As the team ran, the fire seemed to leap from branch to branch to chase after them like wolves pursuing prey. By the time the heroes were clear of the wooden thicket, it was fully engulfed. By the next morning, there would be nothing left by the charred corpse of a forest. The thin blackened ribs of tree trunks acting as tombstones for the life that was once present.

As the crew sat a safe distance away, catching their breath, Radais explained. "That was a 'Curse Mark'… a… REMARKABLY powerful one at that! They're used by dark practitioners to maintain sympathetic magical connections with distant targets. Whoever hired them to come after us probably did it to them." The Prince found himself unsteady. He had read of such magics before, but to see it up close… to nearly have been caught in the trap, left him troubled on a very deep level.

"The fire was so quick… one second he was fine, and the next he was engulfed in Dragonfire," Larxene noted with a shudder.

"Yeah… and he seemed really surprised to catch fire too!" Zhanatos added.

Larxene lowered her eyelids and turned to the berserker in annoyance. "Well, of course, he was surprised! People don't ever *expect* to catch fire!"

"Wait, wait…" Radais interrupted. "Once again, in his odd way, Zhanatos has raised an interesting point."

"He has!?" Larxene asked in disbelief.

"He does have a talent for it," Xion noted quietly, still struggling with fatigue.

"Yeah, because if he had known he had a curse mark, we wouldn't have talked, right?" Zhanatos inquired. "The reason he went up in flames is that he was going to tell us about his boss."

Radais nodded, "Correct on both accounts, my friend. This means whatever dark force is arrayed against is cunning, powerful, and exceptionally stealthy. As I recall from my research, a master 'Dark Caster' could apply a curse mark with as little as a touch… if the circumstances were right."

"So… who has that kind of power?" Larxene asked with concern heavy in her voice.

Radais frowned and shook his head. "I don't know… and that's the part that concerns me the most."