Queen of Dragons

CHAPTER SIX

I should not have to speak to you of your own history. No doubt you know it far better than I, who was merely able to glean chunks and tidbits from terrible conversations under the worst of circumstances.

For nearly as long as there have been dragons, there have been humans come to hunt them. You are lesser and jealous and brimming with false conceit: Centuries ago, when we first realized you were more than a few misguided knights or villagers—that you were organized, that you were brutal—we devised a name for you. Sanf inimicus, the enemy of soft skin. And you snatched it from our lips and wore it like a badge, with all apparent pride.

You have your own traditions, I know that. You have your secret order, nearly as secret as ours, with a leader of not inconsiderable skills. We are born to our magnificence, family after family; you recruit from the lowest of your own kind and of ours to fill your ranks. I imagine it's not entirely effortless to persuade any human of reasonable intelligence that they ought to begin hunting dragons. Yet you do persevere.

I understand your rage, your envy, your blood-cold fear of us. I even understand your desire to do us harm. I will admit that once, a very long time past, there were those among us who enjoyed the taste of your flesh—although frankly I myself can scarcely stand the stench of you. Devouring you would be repulsive at best.

But it took me a very long while to understand why, after you killed us, you desired to tear out our hearts. Was it to prove the illusion of your strength? To extend your short, hollow victory over a creature greater than yourselves?

This is what I believe, and really, it could hardly be a surprise: You wish you were us. In the black sticky chambers of what you call a soul, you think to compensate for your weakness by consuming our cores. Our hearts, the throbbing muscle of our power.

Well, eat away. You're still going to lose.