The Eternal War: The Dragon's Valkyrie

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Saidy spat a mouthful of blood. She choked in her next few breaths, coughing each one back out fiercer than the last. They were half breaths. Each one came with a piercing pain in the right side of her chest.

She could taste only iron—smell only iron. All she heard was the pounding of her own heart, and the terrible scratching of the wind she sucked in as her mouth and throat filled with more blood.

However, for the first time, the memory of her baptism did not force its way into her mind. Instead, she was fixated on the pulsing half-heart in her hand. No blood entered it, and none left it, yet it throbbed regardless.

This is what Yrden had sent her across Tallenheim for. Somehow this black pulsing organ in her hand was half the key to him ridding the world of sorrow and suffering.

Saidy tried to stifle another cough. She knew if she kept choking on her own blood, she'd eventually succumb to it or the blood loss itself. Death wasn't an option for her now. She'd come so far, and all she had to do was return with this and Yrden would tell her where her brother was. She could go to him.

But she knew she hadn't the strength to stand and walk out—no—she'd need to crawl. She'd also need to find some way to heal herself.

Yrden's not coming this time. This isn't The Red Forest, Saidy.

She gripped the heart firmer and threw her other hand onto the stone floor in front of her. She began to drag her body along the cold stones until she reached the lifeless corpse of the minotaur. She set the heart on the ground and grabbed fistfuls of its fur and climbed up to reach her swords. She didn't bother to clean the blood from them this time. It wouldn't have mattered anyways; she was already soaked in it.

She tried to let herself slide back to the floor but fell instead. She grimaced as pain arced through her body once more. As she opened her eyes to reach for the heart, she saw the heart pulling the blood into itself. It was drinking it.

"What the abyss?"

'Don't touch it!' Yrden's voice rang inside her head. 'It hasn't feasted for thousands of years. The Heart knows it needs you alive to escape. That's why it protected you earlier, remember? It will probably do it again now.'

Saidy sat back, coughing some more before she slowly drank in what air her chest would allow. She watched as the heart slowly absorbed the large pool of blood that had poured from the minotaur. She wondered how long she should wait, or could wait, when cold began to creep through her body. She'd lost too much blood between the door and what she'd come to decide was a punctured lung—nothing else would explain her ineptitude to breathing so suddenly.

Worse, her vision had begun to bruise. It was difficult to notice in all the black, but the minotaur's visage was becoming blurry on the edge of her sight. The Heart clearly meant to drink every last drop of blood that the minotaur had.

Saidy could wait no longer as she felt the last of her strength leaving her. She scooped the heart up in her hand, and immediately, the heart sprouted dark tendrils that phased through her gauntlet and pierced her flesh. Saidy grimaced, expecting to feel the sting as it entered her, but was surprised when she felt nothing. Perhaps she'd gone numb from the cold that had crept into her?

Then, the heart merged through her armor into her hand and disappeared inside her body.

Saidy screamed. She dug at her wrist trying to pull it back out, but the heart had already snaked its way under her skin. She could feel it moving through her arm. Her armor rippled like a bangle had been inserted between it and her skin. Saidy ground her teeth together still expecting pain, but only feeling the awkwardness of her skin crawling.

The heart slithered up her arm into her shoulder, then it was in her chest. There was another loud crack as she felt her rib get ripped from her lung. Saidy howled and coughed out another mouthful of blood before collapsing to the floor as it ripped more out. Her vision faded in and out, and she tried not to pass out from the immense pain.

The harder Saidy fought to stay in the world of the living, the better she began to feel. The cracking of her ribs, the sharp shooting pains radiating throughout her had been the Heart repairing her body. She inhaled with a sharp gasp as she felt her chest fill full of air. Her fingers and toes tingled as they flushed back to life. The Heart healed every bone and drop of blood she'd lost before taking its place next to her heart.

She could feel both beating independently of each other. She felt a vast well of power and energy deep within her that wasn't there before. Saidy wondered if this is what magical energy felt like, or maybe she could use it to enhance her physical prowess.

She felt indifferent about using such an artifact for her own personal gain. Saidy shook her head and stood. There was no sense in squabbling over it—doing so wouldn't get her out of here. She did; however, enjoy the rejuvenation of her energy. She took off, sprinting back the way she came. She slowed when she figured she'd come to the area where that creature was. Her eyes widened when it was no longer there.

She could hear the sound of water as she continued down the long stretches of corridor. The stone turned to sand, and the light of a morning sun shone like a star at the mouth of the cave. The sight that came next burned itself into Saidy's mind next to the memory of her first kill.

Bodies—both druid and apprentice—lay strewn across the sand. Most had been cleaved in half, and their innards coated the blood-soaked granules. Gailesh and Lexil were among the druids that had been slain. Smoke filled the air, causing Saidy to begin coughing again. The glade burned. Every tree, plant, and animal has been set ablaze by something. Spell or creature, Saidy was unsure.

Then, every hair on her body stood erect again. That same dread that filled her back in the cave had come once more. She looked across the lake, her body begging her to run, but her feet stuck in the sand as if it had taken hold of them. There it was. The creature with the scythe.

It brought its massive blade down with a speed Saidy had never witnessed. The victim of it collapsed into two parts without ever seeing the strike.

Saidy forced herself to move. She didn't dare wait for her to be between that thing and its cave.

As she took a step, a voice rang out, "Iriticus flo Spira!"

A shard of ice fashioned into a spear hurdled toward her. Saidy hadn't the time to draw her swords to adsorb it. She flinched as spear crashed into her. Much to her surprise, and the caster's she hadn't been impaled as it shattered like glass and fell to her feet.

This must be the power of the heart, she thought, and without hesitation, her swords were drawn as she charged her assailant. The apprentice's eyes widened, and she stumbled backward, tripping over the unidentifiable remains of one of her incinerated comrades.

Saidy plunged her sword through her heart. The girl reached up for Saidy with pleading eyes, but she was only met with the cold stare Saidy was conditioned to show all her enemies.

The Heart's black tendrils snaked their wait through Saidy's arm once more, lunging out of her forearm and into the girl as it drank her blood. Saidy reeled away from the body with a shriek.

The feeling of someone else's blood being pulsed into her body made every cell on her skin crawl. An unnatural warmth crept up her arm into her chest as the tendrils retracted into her. The Heart willed her to return, but Saidy refused. She needed to find a way to escape. She needed to get the Heart out of her.