The Emperor's Secret Enemy

1. A Story of Survival

A Story of Survival

Fresh blisters burned, blood-soaked toes slipping inside my combat boots, as I followed behind the rest of the red-clad recruits.

The Draconis Empire will fall in my lifetime.

To build up endurance, we ran single file across the rolling desert dunes of Scorpion Valley. My long braid rhythmically bounced against the scabbard of my standard-issue sword, and my sweaty balaclava pulled tight, sticking to my salt-covered cheeks.

A serendipitous turn of events—we were finally outside the military hangar and doing something other than boring formation drills. I’d take running over standing still any day of the week.

Rule of survival: Enjoy the adrenaline rush.

Long silvery streaks of storm magic danced above in the violet sky. Within the world of Antichthon, the continent of Westmere was renowned for its three unique ecosystems. We were in the Middlelands’ desert, infamous for its unforgiving heat and rust-orange dunes.

All Westmere was as beautiful as it was deadly, a world full of treacherous storms, dangerous dire beasts, and strange magics.

I was still grateful to be here, despite all the trauma.

Lucky, blessed girl.

Blinding sunlight burned my eyes as I looked back at the ornate spire-covered facade of the Scorpion Hole. Stones wavered through the heat haze. Even from this distance, the gray brick gothic exterior of the military base contrasted sharply with the white interior of the hangar.

“Tighten up formation, recruits!” the Admiral shouted from the front of the line as he led us farther away from the base.

Two months ago, I joined the Crimson Army, leaving behind the snowy forests of the Northern Commune. I miss you, Mom. Her gentle voice whispered in my ear, “If you do something for those you love, it’s not a sacrifice. It’s a gift.”

I was going to take down the Draconis Empire. No matter what it took.

I will win.

Perspiration dripped from my lashes, burning my eyes as I lost myself in the high of running-induced delusions of grandeur.

“Patchy Beard Man is mean,” Squire, my tiny pygmy owl, hooted from where he balanced on my shoulder, silver storm magic wafting from his yellow beak.

“No, darling,” I whispered quickly. “Remember, we’re playing the quiet game.” Recruits looked back, shooting me and Squire glares.

The Admiral, whose beard was scraggly at best, turned with a fierce scowl. “Who said that?”

“Me!” Squire squawked happily.

I grimaced.

Squire weighed barely two ounces and stood as tall as my pointer finger, but what he lacked in size, he made up for in being vocally problematic.

He inspires me. We’d been best friends since I found him years ago in the North, crying on an icy branch because magic had gifted him speech but no one to talk to.

“I’ve told you to be quiet, simpleton bird,” the Admiral said as he ran backward.

“No speak to me,” Squire gasped with outrage, fluffing his tawny feathers. “Rude man.”

I covered Squire’s head, and he nibbled playfully on my finger. “Please accept his sincerest apology,” I said, not for the first time. “He doesn’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do!” Squire hooted from behind my hand (not helpful).

The Admiral’s face reddened, but he shook his head and turned back around. Pygmy owls were a highly endangered protected species, and Squire had said he would kill himself if they separated us, so there was nothing the Admiral could do; it was one of Squire’s more intelligent moments.

Recruits grumbled as we picked up the pace.

“Uneducated Northern peasant,” Kane, aka recruit number Five, said under his breath as he ran in front of me.

His tone made it clear he was disgusted by my heritage, specifically that Northerners prioritized trade apprenticeships over traditional education. Unlike him, I never attended Steelden, the Middlelands’ most prestigious military university.

Instead, I started my apprenticeship with Tracker Gareth on my tenth birthday. He taught me everything I needed to know. The forest was my happy place, and even though I didn’t have the stomach for killing like Gareth did, I was good at it. Therefore, I became a hunter.

With talent comes duty.

The North was isolated from the rest of Westmere’s Communes by mountains, so we survived using a cooperative land-based economy. Nostalgia was bittersweet, softening the hunger pains that had plagued my childhood. Because of the escalating Storm Wars, our food supply was dwindling.

Guilt gnawed at me for leaving, but before I left, I’d drawn a map of all the active traps and given it to the council with extensive instructions.

Sure, the North wasn’t perfect.

When I was only thirteen, Gareth was mauled to death by a dire bear while snowboarding, but at least he’d died doing what he loved. In his memory, I hiked up mountains for hours just so I could race back down, throwing death-defying flips.

Gareth didn’t just teach me how to snowboard; he showed me that when you loved something, you gave everything to it. No exceptions.

Kane turned, his face hidden beneath his balaclava. “You don’t belong here,” he said pointedly as I held his gaze. He waited for me to react, but mentally I was far away, playing chess against myself—an old distraction technique I used to use on my longest hunts.

Kane looked away first.

He always did.

Squire hooted as he pecked kisses onto the side of my cloth-covered sweaty face while I leaned forward into another steep hill. My worries drifted far away as I lost myself in the peaceful rhythm of jogging; sand whistled in a low hum across the sloping mounds.

It was a glorious day to be alive. I could run like this forever.

Vibrations shook my boots.

I paused on the top of the dune.

Hiss.

A strange crinkling, scraping sound shuddered below.

“Number Six!” the Admiral shouted. “Get back into—”

BOOM.

Sand displaced with a hissing screech as a monstrous creature breached out of the dune in a blue-green blur. It was larger than a dire horse.

Mammoth serrated pincers clacked as it soared through the air with unfathomable speed; blood splattered in a gruesome arc; recruit number Two let out a high-pitched wail, then fell abruptly silent.

Her torso dropped to the sand. She had been cleaved in two by the pincers; her legs dangled from its maw as it turned away.

It was the desert’s namesake: a deadly dire scorpion.

Silver wafted from the magically mutated beast. Dire scorpions formed colonies in the caves along the river canyon to the west, but they rarely ventured this far into the dunes.

The Admiral pointed at the beast. “Fall into formation. Draw your swords—” He was cut off as he rolled to the ground, hit by recruit numbers One and Three, who fell into each other as they scrambled to get away. Recruit number Four retched violently, cursing the old god for abandoning us.

Meanwhile, the dire scorpion finished swallowing and swung back around with its pincers raised.

Two middle eyes stared at us, and its stinger was raised high—it was longer than my forearm. On the side of its exoskeleton, five pairs of additional eyes swiveled in different directions. Somehow it was looking at all of us simultaneously.

Squire trembled on my shoulder. “Me scared.”

“Look away, dear,” I whispered, and he turned his head obediently like he always did on a hunt, staring behind me.

The dire scorpion opened its jaw wide.

On instinct, I went to grab my bone daggers, but I wasn’t wearing my hunting leathers. Swearing, I drew the sword we’d barely touched so far in training.

The wood handle and steel blade were unfamiliar in my sweaty grip. The weight was off-balance and too elongated. This monster is going to be impossible to beat—Stop it, Zora.

I took a deep breath and cleared my head.

Rule of survival: Don’t you dare panic.

“We all need to approach it at the same time from opposite sides,” Kane whispered beside me, drawing his sword with practiced ease. He looked back to the others.

Recruits One and Three were now sprinting away across the dunes, and recruit number Four was holding number Two’s head, crying into her auburn hair. The Admiral stood off on a different dune, watching us as he slowly backed away.

Kane scoffed and turned to me. “Fine. The two of us must approach simultaneously. Their stingers are highly venomous but have a rigid range of motion. They can’t attack laterally. Follow my lead.” I distantly remembered him bragging about being valedictorian of Steelden.

Kane inched left with his sword held close to his face in a two-handed grip. I followed his direction, heading toward the right, but I raised my weapon forward with one hand like I would my dagger, arm extended to put as much space as possible between myself and the beast.

Its many eyes swiveled, tracking us with beady intelligence. Eight spindly legs shifted, and every single eye focused on Kane.

A weight settled into my gut, instincts screaming at me to change course. It looked hungry.

I stopped. “I don’t think we should get this close,” I whispered as I redirected and stepped slowly toward Kane. “Are you sure it can’t attack laterally?” Trepidation mounted with each tense second.

Kane scoffed. “I’m positive, peasant. You need to follow my lead—”

The stinger exploded dexterously to the left, heading straight for Kane, laterally; I lunged at the same time.

Thud. My blade sliced the venomous appendage clean off, but the edge of the stinger clipped Kane’s forearm. He shrieked as he fell to his knees, the fast-acting toxin working immediately.

“Run!” the Admiral bellowed as he turned and sprinted. Recruit number Four staggered to his feet and ran after him.

The dire scorpion scurried backward, screeching in pain as its blue blood splattered across the sand, gushing from the injured tail.

Pincers clacked together loudly, but instead of retreating, it did what every predator did when it sensed injured prey.

It focused on Kane, its distended jaw salivating.

“Zora?” Squire hooted.