The Dragon's Kiss

Following Kel's eyes to the woman behind him, Soren's expression darkened. He slowly turned his body toward Lila and raised his hand threateningly above his head.

"You. Did you say something unnecessary?" he hissed angrily.

Lila shrugged nonchalantly, clearly unconcerned with the man's outrage.

"You're mistaken, Sir," she replied quietly. "I never once used your name in connection with the conspiracy against Sir Barclay."

"The.. conspiracy against… Ha." Soren sighed, pressing his palm into his forehead out of frustration. "I see now. So, in the end, it all went to waste."

"No at all, Sir," Lila responded, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Your plan to kill the princess's only comrade and blame it on the emperor was a total success."

The woman paused for a moment, shooting Kel a knowing wink.

"Well, until you gave yourself away just now.." she finished with a devilish smirk.

At Lila's remark, Soren dropped his fist to his side and let out a snort. His mouth formed a smile, but Kel saw his cheeks twitching in irritation.

It turned out that he was guilty, after all. It wasn't some ambiguous member of a secret organization that set up Barclay's demise.

It was the brown-haired, golden-eyed man in front of her.

Realization crashed over her as she studied Soren's frowning figure.

Her explosive rage after putting Barclay out of his misery with her own hands. A half-baked revenge plot conveniently aimed against everyone in Soren's way. The feeling that she'd never find peace again until she destroyed the Dragon Emperor.

It was all carefully calculated and conjured by Soren in order to send her running to him.

At the expense of Barclay's life.

Those two guards, killed seemingly unjustly by the emperor for their hand in her burly friend's death, were they in on the plan as well? Were they pawns planted by the leader of the Yellow Marguerite to use and discard at will?

On how many occasions had Kel misjudged the emperor because of this kind of deliberate interference? How could she only be seeing every single one of Soren's truly repulsive colors now?

The fact that she hadn't taken one of her many chances to catch the snake-like man off guard and beat him to a pulp made her want to kick herself.

No matter. She would just pay him back double now.

Glancing furiously toward the sleazy man in question, Kel suddenly froze. Soren was still busy glaring at Lila, but something in his gaze was off--something indescribably lethal.

With her eyes on Soren's hand, indistinctly grasping for something at his waist, Kel lunged forward. Lucy and Thane had also sensed the sinister turn in the atmosphere and moved in sync with her.

At the same time, like lightning, Soren whipped a dagger out of his belt and pounced on Lila. Kel gasped in horror as she watched the blade slide into Lila's flesh, she and her two companions just a single moment too slow.

A high-pitched ringing engulfed Kel's ears as Lila fell slowly to the ground, a waterfall of thick red liquid trailing from her chest to the knife, still in Soren's hand.

"I should have gotten rid of you years ago." Soren's dark laugh echoed above the ringing plaguing Kel's mind.

Fury rising in her chest, Kel charged toward the disgusting man, ready to strangle his thick, veiny neck. Noticing Lucy and Thane reaching him first, she turned abruptly on her heels and dove down next to Lila instead.

"Lila!" she called, hardly able to hear her own voice.

With shaking fingers, she grasped one of the woman's hands.

"L-Lila," she repeated. "Can you hear me? Don't worry; you'll be fine. Everything will be al-"

"Shhh child," Lila's soothing, if somewhat hoarse, voice floated into Kel's ears. "Stop speaking nonsense."

"No. You'll be ok," Kel choked, pressing her hands into the deep pool of blood forming just below the woman's left collarbone.

The wound wasn't large, but it was deep. Fortunately, it missed Lila's heart. If Kel could just stop the bleeding..

"Don't follow that man," Lila croaked, grabbing feebly at Kel's wrists. "He will bring nothing but darkness to this land."

"Which man?" Kel implored, briefly looking between the emperor and Soren.

Soren was on his knees, the dagger sent clattering far out of his reach, completely subdued by Lucy and Thane. The emperor stood in front of him with his arms crossed intimidatingly.

"I'd say don't follow any man," Lila whispered, her voice rapidly losing strength, "but absolutely don't follow Soren."

"I know," Kel whimpered. "I wouldn't.. I won't.."

She gulped, biting her lip as Lila's eyelids began to droop. No matter how much pressure she applied to the hole in the woman's chest, the blood refused to stop pouring.

"Does this mean you're on the emperor's side?" Kel continued, a knot rising in her throat. "That you're a double agent or something?"

Though the situation was like this, she felt a lightness in her heart that her intuition about the woman hadn't been wrong after all.

Lila tried to laugh, but it quickly turned into a fit of coughing. When she calmed down, a small line of blood seeping from her lips, she spoke again.

"I serve neither of those men," she insisted. "I only serve…"

Raising a trembling, limp hand inches above her body, she pointed at Kel and gazed directly into her eyes.

"I serve you, Princess," she coughed. "Just as my parents. And their parents. And-"

Another fit of coughing overtook the woman.

"No," Kel gulped, patting the woman's forehead. "Not me. Please. I don't even-"

"My uncle was right in choosing you," Lila breathed, her eyelids finally falling closed. "There's something inside you. Something specia-"

Before she finished speaking, her voice faded away. The slow and inconsistent heartbeat beneath Kel's blood-soaked hands finally came to a halt.

She was gone.

Lila was gone.

Another friend, lost to Soren.

Glancing toward the hateful character, she saw Soren grinning at her through Lucy and Thane's attempts to shove his head down.

"I suppose I can't convince you that this was all the emperor's fault?" he grinned sickly, fighting against his captors.

As she allowed intense anger to slowly build inside her, a glint out of the corner of her eye suddenly caught Kel's attention. Like a ragdoll, she pulled herself to her feet and stumbled toward the discarded dagger.

It ends now, she told herself.

Soren's slimy, loathsome life.

It was going to end right here.