Starting out as a Dragon Slave
Chapter 165: Slave Sister

Chapter 165: Chapter 165: Slave Sister

Several hours later: In the vast disfigured and sterilized plain where once stood the international airport of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, with its runways that had once welcomed millions of hopeful travelers, the black waterproof canvas tents and dark steel structures of the Central Sorting Camp now rose like purulent metallic warts on France’s wounded earth. The very architecture of this place seemed designed to crush the human soul: electrified barbed wire, watchtowers where draconic guards kept vigil, windowless buildings with walls oozing humidity.

The air was perpetually saturated with a sickening mixture of metallic dust, rancid sweat, dried blood that stuck to the nostrils, and a burning, corrosive mana that only dragons could perceive without faltering. A cursed place where cries of distress had become the permanent background sound, where whispered prayers were nothing more than a lost echo in a sky perpetually covered with black clouds.

King Maelor, still clad in his regal armor of obsidian scales engraved with ancient fire by the best artisan-smiths of his kingdom, walked with heavy but implacably dignified steps through the heart of the camp. Every detail of his presence commanded respect and terror, the way his purple cape swept the ground without ever getting dirty, how his golden eyes seemed to pierce souls, how his mere breathing made the ambient air vibrate.

At his side, displaying the tranquil and imperial gaze of one who has seen entire civilizations born and die, the former king Eldorath bore that hard and implacable wisdom of historical conquerors, that assurance of one who knows that time and History always prove him right. His hair white as the eternal snow of draconic peaks framed a face weathered by centuries, where each wrinkle told of a battle, each scar a victory. Behind them, in perfect order that testified to their military education, some high-ranking nobles recently arrived with the Draconic Court followed in silence, their armor clicking in rhythm on the stony ground.

A steward in worn leather robes, whose yellowed fangs protruded like talons dulled by age and use, awaited them at the center of the main courtyard, a thick iron-bound register in hand and eyes bright with zealous servility that bordered on obscenity. His movements betrayed palpable nervousness - serving the royal family directly was an honor as much as a mortal danger in case of error.

- "Majesty," he articulated while bowing so low that his forehead nearly touched the ground, "all reports from the weekly sortings are compiled and gathered according to your requirements. From the six large concentration camps currently under our direct jurisdiction, distributed across the entire French territory, we have recorded and catalogued a total of 314,000 humans captured alive during cleansing operations."

The king stopped abruptly, his golden eyes fixing on the steward with an intensity that made the latter pale.

- "How many useful ones among this livestock?" he asked in a voice where no emotion could be perceived.

- "Approximately 198,000, Majesty. After thorough examinations by our specialized veterinarians, we have sorted the specimens according to their physical capabilities, technical skills, age and reproductive potential. The others are... weak, old, sick, disabled, or simply without strategic or genetic interest for the empire."

- "Are purges planned for the useless ones?" the king continued with the same clinical coldness as if he were speaking of cattle slaughter.

The steward nodded vigorously, an almost satisfied smile stretching beneath his dull and poorly maintained scales.

- "The desiccation chambers have been operational since last week, Majesty. Our mage-engineers have perfected the process: the vital mana will be entirely recycled to reinforce the power circuits of the dimensional portals, notably to support the war effort on the eastern front. No energy will be wasted, in accordance with Your Majesty’s edicts of maximum efficiency."

Valmure, the king’s father, silent until this moment, sketched a contemptuous rictus that revealed his black ivory canines.

- "As long as every resource of this pathetic planet is exploited to the last drop, the kingdom grows in power. It is the natural law of domination, my son. These creatures had their chance at civilization, they wasted it. Now they serve only to feed our grandeur."

The king nodded gravely, manifestly satisfied with this implacable logic. He approached the registers placed on a camp table, slowly turned a thick page covered with columns of figures and detailed classifications.

- "And the slaves deemed fit for work?" he inquired while scanning the data with an expert eye.

- "Distributed according to standard protocol into three main groups, Sire: heavy labor for mines and construction sites, personal service for noble residences, and reserves for gladiator pits that entertain our soldiers. Other selected lots will be put up for auction during the next Oath Ceremony. The Drakenvault family, if Your Majesty permits me this information, has already reserved a choice lot to feed their private arenas and clandestine betting."

The king, visibly satisfied with this methodical organization, closed the register with a definitive gesture.

- "Perfect. France is definitively on its knees, and it will remain so for centuries to come. It is time to make it a lasting example that other nations will never forget. Let the draconic historians write in their annals that we knew how to transform a defeat into a lesson, a resistance into submission."

POV: Léna Norh

The metal gnawed at her skin like slow and implacable acid.

In barracks number E-12, a corrugated iron building where the walls perpetually sweated unhealthy humidity and where the ceilings dripped black soot mixed with indefinable substances, Léna Norh was crouched in an uncomfortable position, chained by crude iron shackles at wrists and ankles, connected by a short chain to a steel rod screwed deep into the cracked concrete floor.

Around her, in a space designed for fifteen people at most, forty other captives reduced to the status of human livestock were crammed together, each bearing the distinctive marks of defeat and humiliation. Some still wept, shedding tears they no longer had the strength to hold back.

Others had stopped long ago, their extinguished gaze fixed on an invisible point on the horizon of their memories. The youngest, those who should have been running in schoolyards or laughing with their classmates, stared into emptiness with that terrible expression of children who have lost their innocence too early and too brutally.

She had stopped saying anything for days. Her vocal cords, irritated by dust and lack of water, produced nothing more than a hoarse rasp when she tried to speak.

Her clothes, once the impeccable uniform of a French army officer, were now nothing but frayed and patched fabric, stuck to her emaciated skin by a repugnant mixture of dirt, dried sweat and coagulated blood.

Bruises of evolving colors from purple to yellow via green dotted her protruding ribs, silent testimonies to muscular interrogations and gratuitous blows distributed by the guards. Her lips were split by dehydration and blows, her tangled hair hung in greasy strands on her hunched shoulders.

And yet, despite this physical decay, despite this systematic degradation of her human dignity... her green eyes still burned with a spark she stubbornly refused to abandon, that inner flame that neither chains nor humiliations could completely extinguish.

She watched one of the guards pass in front of the rusty bars that closed their collective cell. A dragon in humanoid form, but whose every gesture betrayed his predatory nature. His forked tongue regularly hissed in the stale air while sniffing the prisoners like one sniffs a decomposing carcass, his nostrils dilating to better perceive the pheromones of fear and despair. His reptilian eyes methodically swept over the prisoners, evaluating their state of health, their resistance potential, their market value.

When he stopped precisely in front of her, suddenly intrigued by something in her attitude, she did not lower her eyes as the others automatically did. She held his gaze with a determination that surprised even the guard. Even if her whole body screamed with pain, even if every fiber of her being begged for a moment of respite.

- "That one still has some bite," he whispered to the other guard while pointing to Léna with a chin movement. "Look at those eyes... It’s like she’s still defying us. We might put her in the pit games next week, with the other wild beasts that refuse to submit. The betting will be interesting."

They laughed together, a guttural and cruel laugh that resonated in the barracks like a promise of suffering to come.

Léna remained perfectly still, betraying no emotion, but her jaw contracted imperceptibly.

- "Isaac... she thought while briefly closing her eyes. I hope you’re doing well in that cursed prison where they locked you up... I hope you’re resisting better than me, that you haven’t lost that strength that characterized you..."

Each night, in the rare moments when exhaustion allowed her to sink into agitated sleep, she saw her brother’s face again with painful precision. Sometimes luminous as in their shared childhood memories, when they ran together in the golden wheat fields near their family home, sometimes drowned in the shadow of present nightmares, deformed by suffering and anguish. Sometimes she heard him screaming her name through the mists of her dreams, his voice torn by pain mixing with the cries of other prisoners.

Sometimes he extended his hand to her with that protective smile he had always had for her, whispering words of hope that she could no longer grasp upon waking. And each morning, implacably, there remained only the cold chains that shackled her limbs, the grime that accumulated on her skin, and the pestilential odor of the human enclosure - that mixture of urine, excrement, sweat and despair that impregnated every fiber of her clothes.

A child of barely ten years old was softly sobbing to her left, huddled against his mother who rocked him with mechanical gestures, her own eyes lost in the void. A woman had given birth three days earlier, directly on the ground, without medical help, without clean water, without even a blanket to protect the newborn from icy drafts.

The baby, a little boy with blond hair, had not survived more than six hours in these inhuman conditions. His small body had been carried away by the guards like waste, under the haggard eyes of his mother who no longer even had the strength to cry.

And today, according to rumors circulating among prisoners in frightened whispers, there was already talk of a new massive transfer to the extraction mines of Albi, where life expectancy was counted in weeks rather than months.

- " I will survive, she repeated tirelessly like a mantra, clenching her fists despite the pain of the shackles. Even if I must crawl on the bleached bones of my own. Even if I must become a monster to succeed. Even if I must forget who I was to become what I need to be. But I will find them. Him. Isaac. My little brother. And all those who did this to us, all those who destroyed our world, I will make them all pay. One by one. Slowly."

She was just a shadow among others in this assembly of despair, an anonymous face in the mass of the defeated. But in her emaciated entrails, in the deepest part of her wounded being, something continued to burn. A tiny but inextinguishable flame. A promise of vengeance that grew a little more each day.