Gods, your head. You could hardly pry your eyes open as exhaustion thudded through your veins. Arms shaking, you tried to push yourself up from the cold, hard ground, with partial success. You couldn’t even remember what happened.

Your side protested with a sharp, agonising burn, tearing through you as you cried out.

Oh, yeah.

The venin had decided you’d served your purpose. There was nothing left for them to drag out of you - and so you’d taken a poisoned dagger to the abdomen. Selfish motherfuckers. They’d taken everything from you, and now they wanted your life?

You could feel the poison coursing through you, sapping the strength from your body as you tried to drag yourself to safety. The battlefield was chaos, but the fight was over: fires raged across the war-torn village, dragons perched on turrets as their riders surveyed the damage. Crap, if they saw you, you were as good as dead. If the poison didn’t end you first, that was. The venin and their wyvern had fled. Cowards.

Your hood obscured your face as you found solace beneath a rocky overhang, tucking yourself into the crevice and focusing on the wound. If you were quick, you might be able to draw the poison out before it-

Wing beats. Gusts of air so strong they nearly blew your hood from your crown. Fear coiling in your gut as the tip of a sword came to rest at the delicate skin of your throat, wrenching your head up. Dark eyes met yours, and all hope sank as your hands fell away from the wound at your side, letting it bleed sluggishly. You’d be dead anyway.

“Well… how unfortunate.”