A Snake By Name: A Dark Fantasy Romance

Chapter 1

Krista

“At least Lodra is beautiful,” I murmur to myself as I walk down the corridor behind the royal blacksmith.

         Today marks a year since I have been a slave for the royal family. A year since my village was raided by the naga from Jalma.

         On that day, I thought I would die. In fact, I looked forward to my death. Because every human in Nagaland, in Protheka for that matter, knows that death is better than serving the naga.

         But I didn’t die. Instead, I watched as a human became a naga princess and gave birth to half-human, half-naga babies.

         Instead, I watched as Prince Zalith’s royal advisor took a human mate.

         I watched as conditions for humans, especially human women, became better. I watched as the senseless torture of humans stopped. I watched as the naga stopped hunting us.

         This is only in Lodra, of course. The rest of Nagaland is still brutal in their treatment of humans. I also know that there are many naga in Lodra who still believe in treating humans like dirt. There are many naga who believe that Prince Zalith has brought shame to their species.

         We come to a sudden stop, turn a corner, and head out of the lower section of the royal palace. Something twists in my chest as we walk outside and are greeted by the wild and natural beauty of Lodra.

         Sudden tears sting hot and bothersome in the corners of my eyes as memories of my village, just outside Lodra, come back to me in an almost violent wave.

         I want to let all the heavy metal equipment in my arms fall to the ground and just sit down. I want to sit down and allow those memories, painful as they are, to overtake me, to overwhelm me.

         I want to drown in them, until I am a crying, shaking, mess.

         But I cannot.

         At least Lodra is beautiful. At least I get to spend my time outside.

         Today, exactly a year since I was taken as a slave, I am being promoted to the assistant of the naga in charge of the royal armory.

         I am not sure how I got this position, especially because I am a woman, and the naga have a very patriarchal view of the role of women.

         Probably because they took more women than men when they kidnapped us all. We head down to the smith, which is some way away from the palace. It’s surrounded by a grove of trees.

         “Now,” the royal blacksmith speaks gruffly, his voice hoarse and low. “You’ve collected weapons here before. You know how it goes. You’ll be making them instead of just cleaning them and organizing them.”

         “Yes.” I speak demurely. I don’t dare look any of the naga, particularly the men, directly in the eye.

         I may have been living and working among them for a year, but I am still a slave. I do not want to be accused of being insolent and getting myself whipped – or worse.

         “There are your clothes.” The blacksmith, an older naga named Irian, jerks his head towards a pile of clothing on the floor just outside the door.

         “Get dressed while I get the fire going.”

         It is just after dawn, and I shiver as I strip off the threadbare clothes that were provided to me a year ago and pull on the new set of clothes that I have earned.

         The clothes that I am to wear are made from cotton and hemp, and they come with a pair of leather gloves that are slightly too large.

         The grove around the smithy is quiet, aside from the murmuring of the trees as a gentle wind whispers through them.

         My body, lean, lithe, and tall, doesn’t quite fit into the clothing they’ve provided. The sleeves of the long cotton shirt do not cover my wrists, and the cuffs of the long hemp pants do not really come down to cover my ankles and the tops of my feet.

         “These will just have to do,” I murmur to myself. 

I pull my long, blonde hair that hangs to my waist away from my face and braid it into a loose plait before I twist the plait into a bun and secure it at the nape of my neck. Errant strands of hair have already come undone and frame my face, but I cannot be bothered with them as I pull on the leather gloves and boots.

         The smithy is already hot and humid when I walk in and pull the mask and goggles on. The fire is never put out, and there is always someone around to stoke it to ensure that it keeps going.

         Now Irian stokes it, piling on more wood and lots of coal until the flames are high and sparking and spitting.

         Irian’s clothes are all cotton, too, but he doesn’t wear any protective covering like leather gloves or boots. He doesn’t even wear anything to cover his face. Instead, he relies on his scales, dark blue and gray, to be protection enough.

         After he has the fire roaring and sparks spattering all over the place, Irian takes me outside again to tell me exactly what I will be doing.

         “You’ll be responsible for very little. For now.” He grunts as he eyes me.

         He’s sizing me up, I think to myself grimly. He’s trying to figure out how to get rid of me. He’s wondering how I got this job in the first place.

         Working in the armory was difficult. But I threw myself into it and got to know each of the weapons individually until I could find any of them in the dark or with my eyes closed.

         I’ve learned how to take care of them. I love them, and I wear the evidence all over my hands and arms, which are scarred from knives and swords that slipped from my hands when I first started working in the armory.

         After a while, the scars didn’t matter. After a while, I loved the blades more than I cared about the beauty of my skin.

         After a while, a nick or scratch here or there didn’t bother me. Instead, it just drove me forward, encouraging me in a manner that I know deep down is sick.

         Pain should not be a motivator.

         I think I must be wired wrong. Because, after a while, I became determined to master the art of taking care of the blades.

         And now I’ll be making them. And this will be even more difficult than simply polishing a sword.

         Irian continues speaking. As if, during the silence, he tried and failed to find a reason to get rid of me.

         “You’ll keep the fire going. You’ll sort out the metal, sort the good from the bad. You’ll ensure that the place is always clean, and that there aren’t any hazards, especially when the royal guard comes to visit.”

         I nod obediently, still keeping my eyes down as Irian speaks in halting grunts about the schedule we’ll be keeping and how I should take care of my skin to guarantee that my skin doesn’t dry out and start flaking away.

         “Now.” He hitches up the waist of his pants. Pants that he is clearly uncomfortable wearing. “You need to prepare the metal for a bunch of broadswords that the royal guard has commissioned.”

         And just like that, we begin.

         I have already cut and bruised myself several times by noon cleaning up a bunch of old, rusted swords.

         “Fuck,” I gasp as a spark from the fire flutters out of the forge and burns right through the leather glove.

         I wince, but do not do much else as the pain settles into my hand, burning and relentless.

         The pain is, in a way, a relief.

         When I was taken as a slave, I stopped feeling much of anything.

         Now, instead of feeling nothing, I strive to feel as much as I can. And that includes feeling as much pain as possible.

         You sound really fucking crazy, I think to myself as I start to sweep up the rust from the floor.

         I only leave the smithy after dark, and I walk slowly back to the palace, my limbs tired and aching.

         I am sweaty, covered in soot and ash, and there are blue streaks up and down my arms where bruises are forming. My hands are practically shredded, so instead of heading to my room, I head to the infirmary where I’ll patch up my hands.

         When I get to my room after the infirmary, I fall asleep right away, although the pain follows me into my dreams. It doesn’t let up even when I gasp in my sleep.

         I wake up well before dawn and wash myself in the small basin in my room before I slip out quietly and head to the smithy.

         The fire is already going, and Irian is already there.

         “Forge these,” Irian grunts, directing me to the metal I cleaned off yesterday.

         He showed me briefly how to forge new swords yesterday, and now he looks at me expectantly, eyebrow raised. I square my shoulders and grab the huge tongs.

         My first few attempts are pathetic, but the third sword that I hammer into shape and dunk into freezing cold water actually has a shape.

         Irian snatches it away from me and examines it before chucking it to the ground like he did with the previous swords.

         “Again,” he tells me, just like he did before.

         And I follow his instructions until the last ten swords that I forge meet whatever standard Irian has in place.

         I am blind with exhaustion when I leave the smithy close to midnight, but I am also proud of what I have achieved.

         And tonight, like every other night, I take the pain, physical and emotional, and sit with it.

And I enjoy it.