Chapter 13-364: The Dragonbound (2/2)
“It’s time to be a teacher, and let your students out into the world. Even Amana the Mother, Patron of Peace itself, knows that you can’t win over everyone with love and kindness. There are people that can only be reasoned with using strength, and some of those people, with a blade in the heart.
“It is natural, it is expected. Building something good takes blood, sweat, and tears, not just sweat.
“And don’t think for a moment I believe that you are trapped here.” He stiffened despite himself. “You’re a Ten. You figured out how to get out of here, probably the same way you came, a long time ago. You stayed because you love this land and its people. Either take the next step to reinforce your dream so that it lasts after you are gone, or leave this place so you don’t get in their way.”
“You are observant. I should have expected that,” he admitted a tad ruefully.
“You are being condescending again. You must be seriously unused to people being intellectually superior to you,” I returned in the same level voice, and noticed his twitch. “Tell me, were you ever going to tell your people and your wife you are Dragonbound?”
There was a tinkle as the teacup and platter fell from his hands. His wife’s emerald eyes widened in shock, looking back and forth between us in disbelief.
“Oh, you thought you were being clever about it, only using passives and never actively calling on the power. Doubtless you think I Divined something and invaded your privacy, because you are simply too good at hiding the fact, when it is so bloody obvious anyone with half a brain could deduce it.”
He looked regretfully down at his cup, trying to recover his thoughts, and wincing at my admonishment. “Is that so?” he asked faintly.
“Yes. You aren’t using any kind of mana draw, so your Pact doesn’t actually show in your Aura. If I went looking for it, it’d be an obvious probe, and you’d know it. Since I haven’t done such a thing, obviously I used other methods, and obvious method is obvious.”
His cheek twitched as I tore down his smug intellectual superiority. “How, then, did I fail?”
“You don’t know?” I asked archly. “You’re one hundred and seventeen years old, Professor. You look like you’re in your late thirties, although you try to hide it with your beard going white early. You’re not Powered, or you’d have an obvious Aura. Likewise, you’re not a Warlock, or you wouldn’t be here sipping tea, you’d be out fighting. You didn’t know about it, so you missed your only chance to be Forsaken, and that would be obvious, too.
“That leaves the other kind of Pact, which is a Dragonbound Pact, which does not have the conflict obligations that a Warlock Pact has. Get a sufficiently lazy or intellectual dragon as a Patron, and you get at least some Pact abilities without having to go around and fight things... and the extra years of longevity.
“The upper world has very few dragons, and most of them are hostile to humans. There are many, many more dragons down here, especially in the Cloud Tiers, which you obviously know of after mentioning them, and so must have visited there.
“A. B. C. Obvious.”
His face fell slightly, and he looked to his wife in apology. “I am sorry, my dear. I know how your people feel about dragons.”
She was silent for a moment, looking at him with hurt eyes, obviously thinking of their long years together, looking for signs of betrayal or manipulation. At last, she closed her verdant eyes. “You did not figure out how to sabotage the Wardstones to escape from the Amethyst’s lair. It let you go,” she deduced, and he could only nod.
He sighed again. “I could have done so. I would have done so. But, not in time to save you. Thinking back, I realized Umryxigorz probably arranged the entire situation so as to leave me with no choice in the matter, and has withheld from pressuring me for anything more than occasional games of chess. I hazard that most of his servants are not of a cerebral mindset, and the dragon enjoys having an intelligent man sworn to him.”
“You are aware of exactly who this Dragon Queen neighbor is.” It wasn’t a question.
He glanced at me, and nodded slowly. “Yes. She is the demon daughter of a very powerful demonic elder dragon trapped here when the Shroud came down. She and her brother, the Divine Dragon God-Emperor of the Empire of the Cold Blood, grant Dragonbound Pacts to their most favored minions, and pass their bloodline into the world with great regularity. The majority of the scalefolk of the Cold Blood possess some measure of the Demon Dragon’s bloodline, and are controlled by their forebears.”
I settled back into the chair and looked at him. “As a human, you should find those things abhorrent to your very soul. You have been affected by the uncaring nature of your Patron, whether you want to realize it or not.
“Such little tricks with their progeny are common of evil dragons, infecting the local ecosphere with progeny to control everything around them. Neutral dragons manipulate others to contain the Bloodline infection of their rivals, or simply remain above the conflict, uncaring as long as they are not personally infringed upon, merely watching in interest as hapless mortals contend with their distant kin.
“Demonic bloodlines should not exist in the mortal realm. Draconic bloodlines, due to the domination by their ancestors, need to be closely contained or eliminated as well. This problem does not contain itself. It must be fought, and fought aggressively, for it spreads automatically and aggressively if not fought.
“Yet here you sit, just an observer doing nothing, smart and knowledgeable and civilized and above such petty matters.” I curled my lip. “Amethyst Dragonbound to the bone.”
He trembled at my assessment, and his face fell as his wife nodded slowly.