The first thing I remember is fire.

  Flames dancing across the hillocks. A colossal shadow crossing over the ranges, raining hell and death upon my old home. A Western Dragon: covetous and greedy.

  My mother’s hand guided me towards Clan Adachi, away from all that hellfire.

  And it was there that I grew up, poor and destitute, alone and friendless. Until one day I met a hero: a girl who would come to be known as Dragon Slayer.

  And we became friends.

  Now, ten years after I last saw her, she climbs my tower. Her thin form sways as she traverses the pillar—long white hair flowing in the wind.

  My legs dangle from the bone-antler precipice of the tower. Hui reaches her hand up. I grasp it, pulling her onto the antlered outlook, the wind pushing us ever so slightly. Off-balance she stumbles into me, nearly knocking us both off. When her gray eyes stare up at me, my heart quickens a pace. I swallow my bile and even consider hugging her for a moment. She seems to be considering the same. Her arms open slightly, like a vulture posturing in a tree. I pull away. Tense my muscles.

  “It is good to see you, Raiten,” she says. Despite all that rage swirling in my heart, her face, her smile—it melts away my bitterness for a brief moment.

  “I hear you have become quite the hero,” I say. “Vanquishing the Western Dragons. Quite a feat.”

  She shakes her head, straightening herself. “No. I have become quite the fool actually.”

  “Ah, so nothing has changed.”

  “You could say that I suppose.”

  We both chuckle lightly at that notion. Yet, things have changed. Hui looks war-scarred and muscled. She stands tall, confident, as if she is untouchable.

  I no doubt look like a child to her, starved thanks to twenty years of being underfed.

  Though, I have changed too in some ways. Whereas before, my eyes were a crow black, now they are a dark shade of red. My ragged clothes hide the deeper scars of lightning and monsters that rake across my skin.

  The sun peeks over the adjacent snow-capped mountains. Cherry-red trees slope against the range, dipping into the valley below. They, along with my orange tower, are the only colors, the only brightness, in this escalation of rocks and pebbles that make up my dominion and the broader territory Clan Adachi. We are a mountain clan, stony and immovable—or so I’ve been told, time and time again.

  “I might have the frozen dragon in my arsenal, but I still get chilly. Shall we enter your—” she struggles for a moment, not quite sure what to call this strange tower. She must remember it to a degree, but perhaps she forgot its purpose. To be honest, I don’t know what to call it either. I’ve disliked the notion of considering it my home.

  “My abode?” I prompt her.

  She nods.

  I nudge my head, motioning for her to follow me into the small orange house of wood, stone, magic, and bone. She trails her hand along the hard grooves of the walls as I stir a stew pot over the fireplace, smelling its salts and adding more red lettuce with rooted garnish.

  “This is…” Hui trails off, looking around the interior. One futon in the corner, one rounded pot held over the eternal flame, one torch stump hanging along the right wall, two slits for windows, open and whistling with frigid air, assaulting us endlessly.

  “Cozy?” I ask. She frowns at my attempt at humor.

  “Horrible. What have they done to you, Raiten? Why… just for helping me?”

  Well, what did you expect? Did you expect that I would get a slap on the wrist and be let off? I wasn’t born a noble little daughter like you, I was born a bastard and a concubine’s son. I gave you everything because that sword is everything and what did you do?

  What did you do?

  “It was not so bad,” I say, my face a perfect little mask, hollow from years of cold, sunken from thousands of sleepless nights, no thanks to the creatures of Katal. Some deeper part of me whispers that my thoughts have turned insane—that this path I walk will destroy me. I bury those thoughts with memories of my mother’s hair flapping like a flag; her head pale and bloodless, stuck through with a stake; her eyes, bloated and blackened, dead and gone.

  I think of all the monsters I’ve faced and the nightmares they’ve left me with. I grind my teeth at the thought of Baroth, the mountain djinn, cackling while slicing me up, the thought of Afrasiyab leaving my maimed form to the crows, and even that damned wyvern who nearly spelt my end.

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  “Are the Elders still alive?” Hui asks, breaking me from my trance. Her face is colored by that stark rage I used to bear witness to in our childhood. She hated our clan leaders with a passion. Yet, that youthful anger was more wild and immature—this seems tempered and controlled, like that of a warrior’s determination.

  My anger burns hot for them, for they are the ones who slew my mother. But, that fury has never been satiated. Can never be satiated. I am bound to this eldritch domain by them—unable to do anything except defend this accursed land. That is the truth of things. A truth I have accepted, for now, my anger is more economical. At this moment, it burns for one person alone.

  “Unfortunately, yes.” I walk over to the torch stump on the wall and produce from its ashen insides a small, intricate amulet. Hui Long looks at me, eyes focused on that red amulet. “They made me the Thunder Watcher.”

  “I… do not understand.” She hesitates, as if searching her memory. So, she has forgotten even this. How fortunate for me.

  “You don’t need to understand,” I say, clutching the amulet now. It glows with essence as I begin to squeeze it. “But I shall ordain to you my purpose: I am a slave to this tower; the wall against the beasts of the North. Whenever devs, war monkeys, half-giants and bloody ravens came to cross our borders, it fell upon me to slay them.”

  The amulet grows hot. Hui Long steps back. The fire spits, crackles, and cackles like an evil spirit watching our exchange unfold.

  I smile for once. It is not a smile Hui likes. Seeing her step back, a glint of fear in her eyes, hurts me. But, I endure nonetheless.

  “Do you remember the day that we made our grand escape?” I ask. She nods slowly, fingers curling around her waist, where the Scaled Nodachi lays in its sheath. She can feel the aura of my killing intent.

  “I called out to you,” I continue. “Told you to keep running. ‘Chase your dream!’ I yelled. What a fool I was. I should’ve screamed, ‘Come back for me!’ But for some reason, I expected you to do that anyway. I thought that much was implied.”

  “Raiten I—”

  “And you know what saddened me most?” The amulet breaks, shattering into red angel dust, covering my palm, seeping into my skin. It is the last of my supply for this month, imparted unto me by Elder Kai. “It was the hope. I hoped you would return, even as the Elders beat me. I hoped you would return, even as they killed my mother and cursed me with immortal enslavement. I hoped you would return for the first week. The first month. The first year. The first five years, even. I never faltered. I believed in you.

  “And then, a week ago, a traveler came and I let him pass. And he bid me news of your adventures. Your victories,” I spit. My mind is pushing through now, working overtime to replay that image of my mother’s head. Screaming at me to ignore everything else. The angel dust sends waves of thunderous power flowing through my veins, like a dam cracking, and I am unleashed once more upon this unfair world of mine. “He told me that he is your lover, your scout: Gareth Ratkar. He said that he had gone ahead and that you would visit me soon.” I bark out a laugh. “‘Visit’. As if we were old friends, catching up.”

  And Hui Long is speechless. She doesn't even touch her sword, for she looks at me, looks at my sunken face and starved visage, with a horror beyond comprehension. And my smile widens as I gain some catharsis—some petty, useless catharsis from that reaction alone.

  “I—I did not know,” Hui Long finally says. “I did not know they would—that they did kill your mother.”

  This takes me back a step. But only for a moment. The anger surges once more and sparks of crimson lightning begin forming around me, bouncing off my skin, playing off my glowing red veins.

  “You did not know? You truly have turned into a fool. Perhaps it is your spoiled upbringing that ingrained such ignorance as this—for me, any slight against our clan was punished severely and our final escapade was my last straw. You have seen me steal rotten apples and get beaten bloody for it. When you pilfered steak, you were merely slapped on the wrist and still, you did not know?”

  Her face stiffens. “We agreed—” she pauses, voice cracking, betraying her. “We agreed it would be worth the risk.”

  It is a weak protest, one that she seemingly has to force out. And I see the look of regret that passes over her face once she realizes the error in her words.

  I know she probably did not mean it.

  Yet, I’ve been hungering for her to put up any sort of stupid defense.

  “Did my mother’s death,” I begin, growling the words out now. “Make it worth a single damn thing?”

  Now Hui Long puts her hand on the blue dragon-scaled grip of the nodachi, drawing it from its scabbard with a metallic screech. Shaking, she holds it forward, a tear rolling down her face. I have never seen her cry.

  “I didn’t mean that, Raiten. I—I am sorry you have suffered so much. But please, we can talk—”

  “What did you do Hui?” I cut her off purposefully before she can ruin this for me: this grand moment that I’ve dreamed of for years. “What did you do when I gave you that sword?”

  “Please just—”

  “What did you do?!?”

  “I—”

  “I shall impart upon you the truth: you fled.”

  “Hear me out—”

  “No!” I yell, lightning bursting from my fingers and striking the wall next to her, shattering it and letting through the full breadth of the cold, blaring wind. “Now is not the time for words. That was one, five, ten years ago.” Another bolt of electricity, of angelic smite, whips from the palm of my hand, striking closer to her, grazing her flesh, eliciting a searing, burning, crackling scar across her thigh.

  She does not wince.

  “Fight!” I yell. Then, I force her hand, imbuing red lightning into my legs, exploding off the ground and soaring straight into her.

  In a panic, she extends her blade forward. Right before hitting Hui, I create a temporary sword of red lightning and, with one sparking slash, parry her blade away.

  There’s a metallic ZING!!! Lightning and steel create music.

  We crash.

  We fall.

  And thus, our battle begins.