The Tocri’ah’s monstrous corpse stood upright only moments before it swayed and tipped to the side, the great weight sending ripples through the sand and thundering about the arena’s vaulted ceiling as it collapsed. Axis rode the body’s fall to ground, but made no effort to dismount gracefully, instead being flung into the dirt and tumbling like a rag doll. His chest heaved with gasping pants, and he lay otherwise unmoving with no rush to muster the strength to stand. His Sense had gone silent and his Second State had become unchained from itself. The danger had passed, and he could allow himself a respite. But having returned to a normal frame of mind, so too did the questions begin to pour in overflowing quantity back into his mind. A Tocri’ah had clearly been the source of the damage in his own room, meaning one had stalked this territory before and frequently. How had the Duchery never known? Why had no one come to his aid in the battle? The Tocri’ah couldn’t have been the trial on account of how quickly it nearly turned the Loft into an Exodus Event and how utterly mad the Duchery would have to be to keep one locked up in the heart of the Palace. Yet contradictorily, it also seemed highly probable such was the case. No, no, stop being an idiot, Mortimer, Axis debated himself. A test that kills over half the class like it’s nothin? Fat chance…

He groaned and rolled onto his stomach, sand sticking to his black slime covered body, and forced himself to his feet, albeit with an unsteady wobble. He spat and wiped his mouth clear of Tocri’ahn sludge matter. He had seen four victims of the Tocri’ah’s gorging rampage, and none of them had been Katya. The soldier and Watcher half of him knew what he had to do, but the other half, the half that reminded him however much he tried to suppress it, rebelled at the idea of confirming he was in fact the only survivor. How could he not be? To his knowledge, she hadn’t the benefits of his past and her slighter build would have been mangled if she had tried to fight. He pushed gruesome imaginings of her broken body out of his mind. There was no reason to add further horror to what reality would surely show him. He grit his teeth and took his first steps back toward the housing corridors but was stopped by a voice both delighted and astonished.

“Legendary! Magnificent!” the shout crowed from behind him. He pivoted back and the gears in his head nearly locked at what he beheld. The six Matriarchs from before had emerged onto the field, four of them murmuring in wonder and circling the hulking cadaver like it was a particularly exquisite museum specimen. Certainly it was a sight to behold, not only for its sheer size but the body was already beginning to crack and decay into flakes of ash that disintegrated to powder before alighting on the ground. Of the other two, the one who had claimed herself as Matriarch Aiza payed the corpse no mind, standing farther off from the four and fixing Axis with a deterministic, hierarchal glare. But it was not she he had spoken. “Greatest warrior of the age, they’ll call you!” Chloe Nieves continued ecstatically, limping and hobbling across the arena like an overly desperate beggar. She had removed her veil in her excitement and while still a hideous mess, she seemed far less an affront to nature compared to what Axis had just seen.

“Back off,” Axis snarled and barred his fangs at her, his thoughts resuming and flashing in the pan of growing anger. His voice must have carried, as the four dazzled Matriarchs hushed and focused their attention to him. Chloe for her part started at his aggression, her energy tempered by confusion and caution. “Do you ivory tower whores have any idea what that is!?” He jabbed a dripping talon at the fading Tocri’ah body, consumed with indignation at their collective merriment. “That is the face of death! The last thing an innocent life sees before it’s indiscriminately snuffed out!” He was speaking Common now, but couldn’t be bothered to find the right Drael words. “That is what buries homes and good lives under its heel and leaves children to die under the crushed bodies of my own parents! It is pure evil! And you wanna just waltz out here like its the grand finale of a dinner party auction!? Act like I’m some gladiatorial champion you can brag about later to your other sick, whore friends!? I know you were watching! WATCHING! Get the fuck away from me before I do the same to you psychotic piss for brains!”

“Mind your tongue, Axis Mortimer,” Matriarch Aiza said with cool firmness as she joined Chloe’s still stunned side.

“Yeah?” he hissed still in Common and leveling his snout inches from her own. To her credit, she did not flinch. “How ‘bout I cut yours out instead.”

“You know not of what you speak,” Aiza said in the same even tone. “All shall soon be revealed to you. But take my Sister’s compliment with the honor befitting a warrior of your stature. To slay one of these with naught but your talons is a feat even many accomplished Dukes would claim is impossible.” Axis’s eyes darted to Chloe, who had eager and curious brows raised at his bold threat to Matriarch Aiza.

“I wouldn’t have believed it if it were only a story,” she said.

“Uh-huh… watching,” Axis reviled the both of them and shoved his way between them. He had caught sight of the armored Dukes entering the arena, and if the Matriarchs would not provide answers, they could. He would flay it out of them if he had to. “You wanna explain to me where you fucks were sitting your shiny asses while I - !” Axis rolled into aggressive accusation of Holland as he stomped up to them only to be cut off by a hook to his jaw from the elder Duke’s wing.

“Watch how you speak to me!” Holland growled. “You are not a Duke yet, and while our Sisters may tolerate your ignorance with the patience of the Progeny Himself, I will not!”

“I want answers,” Axis said, voice laced with rage as he massaged the fresh bruise Holland had given him.

“And Duke Rothbard will give them to you,” Holland agreed. “But before you twist your wings off, you should know none of this was supposed to happen. Overcoming a Tocri’ah in Exodus with no weapons at your back is beyond spectacular and…” Holland’s grizzled face softened. “... and it is a demonstration of skill and fortitude you should never have had to display.”

“Is that an apology?” Axis leered.

“For what little it’s worth, yes,” Holland said plainly. “It is Samuel’s right to explain the rest. Follow me.” Suspicion covered Axis’s whole being as Holland motioned a wing for him, but he had to know why. Nothing about a Tocri’ah’s appearance in the sanctuary of the Dukes would make sense until he had unraveled the truth. An increasing foulness was brewing around said truth the more Axis saw of these dragons’ reaction to his butchering of the Tocri’ah, but if Rothbard held the illuminating details, he saw no choice but to follow Holland. Everything about the secrecy and evident duplicity revolving around the Tocri’ah and his resultant battle with it set Axis’s face into a permanent scowl. The older dragon led him back into the housing passages, only this time, the door they stopped at was not made of wood and iron. It was a modern device of polymetal and it slid open at the request of Holland’s lenses.

The door was like a portal between the ancient past and immediate present. The room on the other side, while the same in size as the others in the arena walls, was made of cold, glassy smooth, clinically spotless white tile. Light bars were affixed to all four edges of the ceiling, illuminating everything with a perfectly even gleam. A single bench waited, also polished white, in the center with two white felt seating cushions on either side. A dainty white cloth covered something resting on the bench, and Rothboard occupied one of the cushions opposite Axis’s entrance. In the presence of such perfect cleanliness, Axis became intensely aware of his own filthiness. His talons left prints of blood on the tile, sand scattered off his scales at every step, and the black fluid of the Tocri’ah’s innards dripped from his soaked feathers. “Thank you, Holland,” Rothbard said past Axis, and he registered the sealing of the door behind him. “Sit,” Rothboard directed him with an outstretched talon.

Axis’s eyes jumped between the Duke and the stark white cushion twice before he answered, “I’m disgusting.”

“Axis you have never cared about Imperial politeness before so don’t pretend to now out of spite,” Rothbard sighed. “Sit.” Axis hesitated a second longer, but acquiesced and fixed his scowl on Rothbard. “You killed Shofet,” the Duke said with an impressed nod. “Many congratulations are in order.”

“Shofet?” Axis repeated, incredulously. “You named that demon?”

“Of course he had a name,” Rothbard said matter-of-factly. “Shofet has belonged to the Duchery as one of its most important tools and greatest secrets for millennia.”

“Okay,” Axis couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief. “Ya’ll had better have one hell of a good answer for why I shouldn’t kill every Duke in this Tower for DELIBERATING HARBORING A TOCRI’AH!”

“I do,” Rothbard said, his narrowed eyes making his displeasure with Axis’s outburst eminently clear. “Don’t think you are the first self-righteous drake to sit on that cushion and bellow and rage at his selector for the very existence of Shofet.”

“I’m gonna guess none of those ‘self-righteous drakes’ ever fought it in Exodus,” Axis shot back sarcastically.

“None of them ever had to,” Rothbard corrected. “I never had to. Shofet did not remain in Duchery custody for thousands of years as a test of strength in battle. His resorting to Exodus was your doing, Axis.”

“You will not turn this around on me,” Axis hissed.

“I can and will, because you were not supposed to fight him!” Rothbard raised his voice, and he continued his barking rebuke, “No Duke is to fight him! None! Explicitly for the risk of Exodus! Tocri’ah can be restrained, and he would have been if you had not started a brawl with the damn thing!”

“Then why was it here in the first place if it’s not a test!” Axis matched Rothbard’s pitch, only with greater wrath. His body was shivering, adrenaline still having yet to fully evacuate from his system and barely contained fury inciting violent thoughts that only ended in as many dead Dukes as he could get his talons around. Rothbard did not immediately respond, instead closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. When he did speak again, it was with greater composure and a note of empathetic understanding.

“Axis,” Rothbard said, “Shofet is a term that comes from a dead human language that was used to record the first known instance of Tocri’ah. In that language, Shofet means ‘judge’, and we named him that because that was his purpose. To be a Duke, a drake must possess not just an affinity for bolt and blade. If that were the only metric, we would have no shortage of candidates and could hardly be called the elite of the elite. A Duke must also possess control of his emotions even and especially in the face of the worst evils in the galaxy. That is… was, Shofet’s function.”

“So you stick a bunch of young dragons in isolation chambers,” Axis scoffed in disgust, “watch them get murdered by a demon for being ‘unfit’, and take the lone survivor? That’s selection? A death ritual?”

“Don’t patronize me,” Rothbard snapped back. “It is a necessary evil and you will not be able to play dumb with me. You and I both know your Office subjects children barely able to even speak to the creatures for similar purposes! Or would you have the Duchery not separate wheat from the chaff and doom millions of lives when a Duke runs at the first sight of a Tocri’ah!” Axis rumbled a low growl deep in his chest but couldn’t refute Rothbard’s claims to the Office’s brutal methods. “To die seeking to become a Duke is an accepted part of that path to all who embark on it!” Rothbard continued, unable to avoid becoming heated again. “And more to the point, I’d expect a dragon like you whose Naval file is filled with constant reports of obsession with mettle and worthiness to welcome a method establishing those things with mortal finality!”

Axis said nothing for a long while. Everything Rothbard spoke was true. The Office was notorious for its ruthless tactics that raised up equally ruthless Watchers, often from birth. And while many turned a blind eye to the mass graves of children the Office facilitated, unable to bear the thought of the horror of such methodologies, those who did attempt to challenge the Office invariably arrived at the same conclusion: there was no other way. Countless planetary governments and independent organizations had tried to train corps of Watcher-like agents without the Office’s regiments, and each had eventually declared the effort a failure while the Office continued to operate with undeniable effectiveness. As Rothbard had said, it was deemed a necessary evil that dozens were sacrificed to save billions. Axis could not deny the naivete in assuming the Duchery could produce Dukes without incorporating similar, lethal systems.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

And for his own part, Axis could admit to his own fanatical approach to excellence. He judged himself harshly such that he could find others wanting without reproach. He was religiously averse to fools and incompetents, and had no patience for those without passion and vision. He refused to associate with anything that came short of his own strict standards, a policy which had netted him few friends but which also ensured his allies shared his drive and facilitated a powerful, mutual respect. He raised his eyes to the ceiling, unable to honestly deny that if the selectee victims had cowered and died so easily at the hands of Shofet, he would have never seen them as worthy of standing by his side as a Duke. Moreover, for all its appearance of uncontrolled, irresponsible ineptitude at the time, the selection system Rothbard described had collapsed into chaos not because of Shofet’s presence, but because Axis knew how to fight Tocri’ah and had done so. It all was perfectly in line with cold reason Axis himself believed in. His blood still boiled and his head still pounded in rage, but he was forced to accept the fact that that fury was directed more at himself for having written off the Duchery’s willingness to shed dragon blood in pursuit of peerless selectees. He did not respect the Empire, not after what it had done to him and his sister; but having been willing to kill to determine who was worthy and able to defend those who could not defend themselves, Axis could respect the Duchery.

He brought his gaze back to Rothbard, who had yet to remove the intensity in his eyes, and allowed his tensed body to slack. “So…” Axis sighed, “I’ve been selected.”

“Not yet,” Rothbard replied in a forced calm not unlike Axis’s own. “Shofet may have been an effective means by which to root out those incapable of staring into the heart of darkness without succumbing to fear, but as a Tocri’ahn beast, he was a blunt instrument and the Duchery is a finely tuned machine.”

“I’m listening,” Axis nodded.

Rothbard acknowledged his attention and flung the cloth covering the bench back with dramatic flair. Resting on it were two ornate blades about seven feet in length. The steel itself was a beautiful single edge, lithe and narrow with the subtlest of curves ending in a slightly upturned point. Gold filigree was inlaid to the blade in the form of a half phoenix such that bringing both together would form the complete image. The mounts were of equally fine craftsmanship, solid wood wrapped in leather by golden clasps and embossed with the crest of the Duchery. “Wing blades,” Axis identified the implements. “Very, very old ones…”

“These have been passed down since the first Dukes,” Rothbard said solemnly. “Don them.” Axis needed no further invitation and handled the antiques with the delicate reverence they deserved. He suppressed his initial awe at how easily they strapped to his far wing bone, better even than some modern versions, but rapidly became confused at how they rested once in place. Wing blades were meant to turn the far leading edge of a dragon’s wing into lethal cutting devices and thus rested parallel to the bone. But not these. He knew from having secured them to his wings countless times in the Navy that he’d gotten the position of the mounts correct, but the steel itself, rather than lay flat against the webbing, jutted out straight like an ungainly spike from the elbow joint of his wing.

“In a normal selection,” Rothbard said once Axis had tested the blades’ tightness and seemingly ignoring his confusion at their position, “Shofet was allowed to roam the arena until only two selectees remained.” Rather than continue, Rothbard’s HUDlenses flickered to life and the whir of motors below the floor could be heard. Axis jumped back as the bench between them was jostled before the tiles around it opened up like access hatches to admit the piece of furniture. Where it had been was closed up by a plate of perfectly aligned flooring, like the bench had never been there. Just behind Rothbard, more tiles hinged back and the sound of an elevator ascending could be heard within the revealed void. “At the final hour of reckoning,” Rothbard’s serious tone penetrated the whirring, “the true measure of a Duke is in his ability to never falter in the commands given to him by our Empress. His loyalty to her must be second to nothing, and the Duchery will not accept a new Duke into our ranks without ensuring he contains that resolve.” The elevator was nearly to the room, the cavernous echoes of its motors dimming. “Those wing blades are ceremonial and for one specific purpose,” Rothbard continued. “They are executioner’s blades.”

On clearly practiced cue with the conclusion of Rothbard’s speech, the elevator entered the room. It was no contained box or cylinder, but merely an open platform matching the white floor. And on it was Katya. She was gagged, her wings bound to her sides, and both sets of her legs crossed, cuffed, and chained to the lift. The design of the wing blades made immediate sense to Axis. They were shaped explicitly to sever a dragon’s head from its body, and he had barely begun to reconcile this with Katya’s appearance than Rothbard gave him a singular command.

“Kill her.”

“No.” Axis didn’t even need to consider it. He accepted, even approved, the need for trials by combat that resulted in death. A battlefield, informal though it was, performed that function. It hardened the strong, purged the weak, and made more fit for the duties of war and destruction those who survived. But this was not judgment of the wicked nor a fight for survival.

“If you will not do it I will unbind her and offer her the same chance!” Rothbard snarled. “Show me you have the resolve demanded by servitude to the Empress!”

“No!” Axis roared back. He did not look at Rothbard. His eyes were locked to Katya’s vibrant blue orbs, and in them he could see a terrified resignation. She could hear his refusals but believed he would relent.

“Only one Duke comes from a selection, Axis! You are our desired choice!” Rothbard yelled. “Kill her, or be killed yourself!”

“I will not kill her!” Axis repeated again.

“Then you are not fit to bear the title Duke! Maybe she will be!” Rothbard declared, moving to Katya, lenses alight and ready to undo her shackles.

“Wait, stop!” Axis grimaced. Rothbard paused and let his lenses go to sleep, slowly and methodically turning to face him with a single raised brow of doubt. Axis crossed the room in four large strides, standing directly in front of Katya. Never once did he cease in staring into her eyes and he hardened himself for what would come next. He lowered and crossed the executioner’s wing blades around her neck. Katya broke their contact first, lifting up her chin and shutting her eyes, determined that if she were to die, she would die as dignified as possible. “If this is what makes a dragon worthy to hold the name Duke…” Axis said with a hushed hiss before roaring out, “I WILL NEVER TAKE IT!”

He whipped the wing blades from Katya’s throat and tackled himself into the unsuspecting Rothbard, sending them both tumbling to the floor. Rothbard’s talons unsheathed and he made to struggle but the conflict was over before it had started. Axis jammed the wing blades into the tile, crossing them a hair’s breadth from the scales of Rothbard’s neck, leering down at the older dragon with utter contempt. But just as quickly as he had pinned Rothbard, the door to the room was flung open, and five Dukes fully outfitted with cannon harnesses rushed in, all aiming squarely at Axis. “Release him, Mortimer,” the tired voice of Duke Holland preceded the dragon as he rounded through the doorway.

“Or what?” Axis spat. “You think I can’t cut his head off before one of you fires a shot? Really!? After I killed a Tocri’ah in Exodus? Really!?”

“He makes a fair point, Samuel,” Holland addressed Rothbard with clear disapproval before returning his attention to Axis, voice hard. “I won’t have the most promising selectee in over half a millennia end his career before he starts it by killing his own selector. The Empress would have my head.”

“Oooo, what a shame that’d be,” Axis offered no sympathy.

“I don’t believe in insurmountable obstacles, Mortimer,” Holland said. “Even with your refusal to abide Duchery tradition, there is a way out of this without you killing Sam and me killing you.”

“Release Truminoff and maybe I’ll give enough of a shit to hear you out,” Axis snarled.

“Sam?” Holland inclined his head to Rothbard. He did nothing but glower at his captor until Axis slid the blades close enough to brush against his scales. The message was transparently clear and without a word, Rothbard’s lenses glowed again, followed immediately after by the clanging of Katya’s bonds releasing and her resultant gasps of air. But rather than take up a position behind Axis, she shifted the entire tension of the room to one of utter shock as she strode in front of him and fanned her wings to their fullest extent, completely blocking the Dukes’ view of Axis and Rothbard. Her brow was set in a severe death stare straight into Holland, her sapphire eyes cold as ice.

“Start talking,” she demanded of him.

“I admit my surprise Truminoff,” Holland complimented her, apparently impressed. “Let’s hear the terms.”

“Oh no,” Katya answered in biting retort, “you’re the one who said he had solutions. You first.”

“Can you hear me, Mortimer?” Holland raised his voice ever so slightly.

“Obviously, dipshit,” Axis yelled from behind Katya. “Quit stalling.”

“Well, in extreme circumstances, there has been precedent for both final two selectees to be granted admittance to the Duchery,” Holland said. “It requires that one of the selectees has demonstrated especially unique aptitudes desired by the Duchery and to be in the best interests of the Duchery for both selectees to pass together.” Holland allowed the offer to rest in the air and when neither Axis nor Katya replied, continued, “Mortimer, your defeat of Shofet in Exodus satisfies the first criterion, and if Katya passing selection with you keeps Samuel alive, that satisfies the second.”

“Oh how rosy and convenient,” Axis replied sardonically.

“He’s right,” Katya answered more seriously. “What’s the catch? There has to be one if this precedent is hardly ever invoked.”

“It’s less a catch and more a set of conditions,” Holland said. “If I take this route, you forfeit your sponsorship from Matriarch Aiza and join Mortimer under his sponsorship through Matriarch Nieves.”

“Holland!” Rothbard shouted in protest, cut off quickly by a reverberating growl from Axis.

“Quiet Sam!” Holland yelled back, his otherwise smooth composure broken as he added, “I’m trying to keep your head attached to your neck! Your devotion to DelRose can go to hell!”

“You said a set of conditions,” Katya interrupted the two of them. “What’s the second?”

“For both selectees to enter the Duchery,” Holland said after a cautious pause to be certain Rothbard planned no more outbursts, “the two of you would be bound to one another. You would act as one, move as one, and serve the Empress as one. And this arrangement would stay in effect until the day came when you could no longer serve the Duchery.”

Katya opened her mouth to reply, but Axis beat her to the punch. “And if I refuse since the Duchery is filled with nothing but murdering shitstains?

“Then I have you both shot, give Sam a warrior’s funeral, and forget this embarrassment of a selection,” Holland replied with so monotone an answer it was plainly evident he was not partial to either outcome.

“Axis?” Katya asked. He said nothing first, merely boring his gaze through Rothbard in deep thought. The heat of passion told him that Holland and the Duchery could kiss his ass; that he should slice off Rothbard’s head and die an honorable death with a clear conscience. But he also had not refused to kill the very dragoness now offering herself to bolt cannons for his sake just so she could be killed anyway by Holland. And Katya giving him the choice of yay or nay had to mean she was willing to agree to the terms, humiliating as they were for her. Live to fight another day felt cowardly and disgraceful, but also rang with a note of truth. There would only be one way he could accept the agreement without tarnishing his soul beyond a hope of reconciliation.

“I have one condition to add,” Axis finally spoke up.

“Let’s hear it,Mortimer,” Holland agreed.

“If we take this offer, Truminoff and me are not under you or Duchery Command,” Axis said. “Only the Empress or Chloe Nieves can give us orders.”

“I concur,” Katya added. Now it was Duke Holland’s turn to let silence reign in the room. He showed no sign what considerations and calculations ran through his head save for a grimaced curl of his lips. But neither did he outright reject their proposal. His eyes shifted to the armed Dukes surrounding him, as if debating whether the slim chance of killing Katya and Axis and saving Rothbard justified avoiding the negotiation altogether. He rustled his wings to adjust his feathers and returned his attention to Katya still trying to reduce him to a puddle of slag with her withering glare.

“Fine!” he shouted. “On behalf of the Duchery, I, Duke Holland, accept the terms. Lower your weapons,” he ordered his Dukes. Katya cautiously folded in her wings, and when certain Holland would be true to his word, whirled to face Axis.

“I know you don’t want to…” she said to him, not feeling it necessary to elaborate on what she meant.

“You’re right… I don’t,” he strained without meeting her eyes only to turn and face her and aggressively withdraw the wing blades from around Rothbard’s neck. “But I said I wouldn’t kill you. And I won’t. Now help me get these disgusting things off.” He offered a wing to her as he worked the other to remove the weapons, Rothbard cautiously pulling himself upright and circling around to join Holland, his expression an impossible mix of relief, fury, guilt, and apprehension.

“Congratulations,” Holland announced to them in spite of their resolute ignoring of his words, “You are now Duke Axis Mortimer and Duchess Katya Truminoff.”