The Della Valley was only a small township, boasting scarcely more than three thousand men, plus women and children. But smallness notwithstanding, the citizens somehow had the leisure and wherewithal to fashion a crude amphitheater, from which to sit and view the slaughter of their children in comfort.
Gazing at the structure, Felderon’s stomach turned and he’d have vomited, had he anything in his stomach to throw up. “Why have you built this?”
“We were trying to contain the damage,” the mayor said. “A dragon's fire spreads. We thought an amphitheater would save lives, if not property.”
Felderon slitted his eyelids. “How prudent of you.”
“Forgive us Your Majesty. We are but poor famers. And have not the resources to host more fashionable forms of death and destruction.”
Some kings would kill for less impertinence, and Felderon surveyed the mayor up and down. “May you live, as I do, haunted—by the ghosts of those innocents whose trust you have betrayed.”
The mayor looked away, unable to hold the King’s gaze, and Felderon strode through the first open gateway toward the floor of the amphitheater.
He clucked his tongue. Wasted words, shaming a blind man—blind in a way, at least. How could he be otherwise than blind? Did simple men have the obligation to awaken themselves by staring into the horrors of dark mirrors?
Maybe they had. But who would show them?
He slowed his stride, not quite surprised by the sordid evidence of poor housekeeping in the theater. A broken skull. Vertebrae scattered across the stone floor. He forced himself to stare at the blackened bones, the burned pieces of tiny shoes. Was that a ribbon? The people ornamented their child sacrifices?
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Felderon recoiled at the sight, but muscled back his gag reflex and made himself see. No sanctimony. No self-righteousness. That might come as a relief, but his own hands were bloody. It hadn't been so long since he'd drunk himself silly on the famed wine of the Della River Valley. Everyone in his father's Court had. The Chalbeam cellars were stocked full of wine from this valley. And worse, now that he thought about it, he'd heard the rumors about the brutal price to be paid for Della River Valley wine. Laughed like a fathead at them. And there it was. The excuse, arguing that he didn't really know. But didn’t he? If he didn't, well he was about to.
It was a strange feeling, contemplating an imminent death. Oddly, Felderon didn’t wish to die. He’d lived through the horror of the dark mirror. And he wanted to live. Self loathing was a weak excuse for not giving the world what one owed it.
Did viewing my darkness make me brave? The artery in his neck throbbed with excess blood flow. His hands trembled on the gate latch on the threshold of the open arena. Not brave. Not exactly.
The guard took hold of the door for him, setting his palm against his back, didn't quite push him. Felderon stepped--unwilling--into the arena. Then came the clang of the shutting metal door and the jolt of the latching bolt.
His gaze went to the seating above the arena, which was filling fast. Men mostly, but more women than he would have thought, turning out for the entertainment of a foreign king's death rite. This made sense enough. In a short three years, his father's war might have cost them as much life as generations of sacrifices to the dragon who haunted the valley. This time, the rite would offer more than mere morbid fascination. This time, they might be actually be rooting for the dragon, and with some justice.
The air stirred, and thunder rolled. No, not thunder. The rhythmic beating of massive wings upon the air. Like a god's breath. Bending the trees. Sending animals to their burrows. Men to their cellars.
In one motion, all the faces turned skyward. Felderon watched, hypnotized as a shadow glided across the sun.