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Healing warmth washed over Pakani's face, focused on his eyes. He almost thought he could see it, the embery radiance. It soothed his soreness like a midsummer breeze in a flowering meadow. It did not, however, restore his sight.
The other red drake didn't have to ask if it worked. His pupils were presumably still absent. His kin made an embarrassed apology and went to fetch one of the bronze flight instead.
Well, of course red dragons can't heal it. It wouldn't make sense to give me a curse I could just fix myself, right?
A bronze dragon popped into existence beside him instantly. "Right, let's try this..." the voice muttered. A new magic enveloped Pakani's head this time, coarse and smooth at once like fine sand, shifting between hot and cool. Half-seconds of scattered memories flashed through his mind, too quickly to comprehend, leaving him momentarily dizzy with deja vu.
But still blind.
"Right... one of the dreamers, perhaps, mmh..." the bronze muttered and was already gone.
Sure, one of the dreamers. The green dragons always have their eyes closed but still see somehow, right?
The red drake from earlier trotted back to Pakani. "I just asked one of the bronzes to come try time-reversing the damages, and he just disappeared into thin air, so who knows when he'll show up."
Something will work. Something has to work. Right?
...Right?
---
"You," Mikona stated from beneath her hood, "have been causing trouble."
The orcish woman's voice was quiet and steady. One could mistake it for polite, even. But he'd seen what she'd done to others. With a touch, she could kill, or worse. She pushed her hood back to gaze down evenly at the drake.
Her skin was green but not emerald like her magic was, not vibrant, but ashen. Her head was shaved, and her eyes were black, with a hint of red from far within, like keyholes peering at a distant furnace. Her form was small, physically weak compared to her kind, but she needed no strength to draw one's soul from their flesh with a touch of her hand.
Pakani would never forget the face of the last person he'd ever seen.
The warlock circled him. Casual, indifferent, callous. She surveyed him like an insect under a glass. Without the chains binding him to the stone floor of Grim Batol, he could have killed her in one bite. Instead he could only watch her in fear as she weighed the worth of his soul on a mental scale, debating his fate with cold scorn like choosing which earrings to wear that day. Whelpling fang earrings, that day.
"Your rider has been..." She finished her circuit, coming to stand in front of Pakani again. "...patient. You've been given opportunities to prove your worth. I wouldn't have been so forgiving. You are fortunate I'm not a rider. But you are unfortunate that I'm here."
She squatted in front of him, skull-trophied robes rustle-rattling. "I don't visit the stock unless I'm here to punish. Do you understand?"
He couldn't speak. He muzzle was bound shut. He gave a small, fearful nod. He'd seen her work. The torture, the murder.
"You told your rider," she said, standing again, "you can't stand to see this. What do you hate to see, dragon? Is it the fire, or the blood, or the fear on their faces? Or is it their hatred? Yes. That would be it. You think you're above this. Being hated is unfair, isn't it?"
A shadow grew in her palm as she raised a hand. The darkness swirled outward, threading around her fingers like snakes.
"You are unfortunate to be worthless as a mount. But you're fortunate to be useful as a hostage. I wouldn't cause any more trouble, if I were you. I would hate to have to make this even worse for you."
The shadow sparked with green felfire. The magic stung his mind as the scent stung his nose, sharp as acid, sour as festering fruits, fetid as a septic wound.
"I want you," she continued calmly, "to think of everyone you've ever loved. I want you to think of how your world looks in sunset. At sunrise. At dawn. Think of every place you've been before. Think of your moons. Think of your beautiful sun. I hope you're thinking very hard about them, now."
He tried to pull away, giving a final effort to thrash against his chains. She stepped closer, held her arm out to him. The green flame drew toward him like a wind blew against it, like his flesh lured it closer.
"Because you will never see any of them again."
Her hand touched his face. Burning agony ripped through him. Green seared his eyes, through and around them, warped them, cursed them. Green was the last thing he saw, as he shrieked through his closed teeth. Green, and then nothing.