Page 59 of Evil Hearts
Chapter Two
A fter a brief, but heartfelt farewell, Oryn leaves Zath to make his way to the main entrance of his lair. The drake has a tendency to get weepy during their goodbyes, and the last time he accompanied Oryn to the exterior entryway, he needed a tremendous amount of consoling. Both of them knew the likelihood of Oryn returning in one piece was high, but over the last fifty years, things have become more and more dangerous throughout Drandaris. Humans attack dragons without provocation, and the number of dragons dwindles.
The Orcran tribes had wiped out the Wyrms, even the faedragon species of their lands had fled. The Prince would have to fly near their lands on his way to the Nathairfae, or go all the way around them, risking exposing himself to the humans of other lands. While many of the peoples of Drandaris weren’t as bloodthirsty as the Orcranians, every dragon the tribes killed was proof to each and every human that dragons weren’t the threat they’d initially thought. Even the Karstinian nation now held their own standing army, ready to slay dragons if commanded. Zath and Oryn liked to be sure to say their final words in the event they were terribly wrong and one of them didn’t make it home from raiding. Obviously Oryn knew how to take care of himself, that wasn’t the issue. But when an entire clan made plans to kill a dragon, there wasn’t always a way out of it.
A pinprick of light greets him as he continues to walk through the unlit circular stone passage, his claws scraping on the cool stone as he walks on all fours. It had once been a small tunnel to the vast cave deeper in the mountain, but his ancestors had enlarged it by carving away at the stone until it was both wide and tall enough to emit even the largest of their kind. All of the royal lairs were made this way, but his own home let out on the waterway between the mainland, and the small mountainous island that once housed the extended royal family. Vacant now, the empty caves serve as a reminder of how different things are in Drandaris.
Once he makes it through the passageway and outside of his lair, Oryn releases the tight hold he keeps on his transformative power and, in seconds, his body reacts. Both the Prince’s wings and his body return to their normal, much larger, size. Oryn extends his talons, feeling the crunch of sand, pebbles, and earth beneath them as he flexes them to grow accustomed to his reclaimed size. He can smell hints of the sea wafting through the air, and shudders as the cool wind brushes over his hide. His lair and entryway were designed to accommodate a dragon at his full size, but he always felt even more claustrophobic within the stone walls when he was at his regular size. Tensing his muscles, Oryn flaps his membranous wings once, tossing sand and debris all around. Pebbles crash into him after rebounding off the steep mountainside nearby, but the feeling of stretching his wings fully is so sublime, he wouldn’t have cared if a rock had struck him in the eye.
Oryn rolls his shoulders back, leans his neck to one side, then the other. He takes joy in feeling his muscles come back to life. Now, fully able to move, fire builds in Oryn’s chest as elation spreads through him. Despite his attempts to control himself, the Prince opens his jaws and blows it out. The stream of heat and flame spreading over the water near the entrance of Oryn’s lair causes thick steam to rise. When a single fish bobs to the surface, he grins greedily, feeling his sharp teeth against his lips. His flames obviously boiled the water, killing the fish in the process. Not wanting to waste it, Oryn plucks it from the water’s edge and tosses it in his mouth, swallowing it all at once.
The steaming water looks inviting, but Oryn controls his urge to dive into it and rinse away the last of the stifling feeling of being so hemmed in while his muscles are relaxed by the heat at the same time. Instead, he jumps off the ground, using all of his strength to push away from the earth. Flapping his wings, the prince rises into the air inch by hard-earned inch until the top of the mountain his lair is in begins to pass below his sight. Beyond it, Oryn catches sight of the open gates marking his eldest brother, King Khrysoar’s, home and lair. Though he can’t see it, the entrance to his middle brother, Admetus’ lair, lies beyond that. Each of their caves is marked by dark gates adorned with golden trinkets and paint, though his own had faded over the years. In the times before the rift between humans and dragons, it wasn’t a concern that the royal family’s lairs were so visible, but now, the Prince was happy the shining edifice had dimmed.
Oryn hadn’t spoken to either of his brothers in some time, and the distance between the trio of royal brothers had only seemed to grow after his outburst at the last Assemblage. Neither of them had written to him when they returned from their own raids as they usually would have, and while he knew they were both safe, Oryn still missed his brothers. The Prince curses himself again for the arguments that took place, and the unkind words they all spoke, but pushes it from his mind for the time being. It’s finally his turn to be free, and he can work toward repairing those relationships when he’s trapped once more.
Tilting his wings, Oryn flies away from the royal lairs and heads south along a river, toward his destination. Rusty red scrub bushes begin dotting the ground on his right as he flies near the tribe lands, and looking down at the withered landscape fills him with sadness. With their systematic extermination of the wyrms, the Orcran tribes had effectively killed their own land without even knowing they had done so. The disappearance of the miniscule faedragons of the land proved more than anything else, that the land had indeed lost the last remnants of the magic keeping it alive and flourishing. Oryn’s chest heats in mourning for the dragons the tribespeople killed. No matter how they teased one another, there was no denying the wyrms were just as much dragon kind as any other species.
He had even been lucky enough to call some of the lost wyrms his friends. The close proximity to his lair being only one reason he had befriended them, Oryn always enjoyed their company as it was so different from any other dragons. The loss of even one dragon was cause for sorrow though, no matter if they were close with Oryn. Yet the massacre felt more personal when he knew his friends had been among the first to die.
From his vantage point, Oryn looks out over Drandaris and tries to ignore the brown, rotting color of the Orcran Tribe Lands just to the west of him. He turns to the east to see the fields of the Agrigor Valley and its village nestled safely at the foot of the very mountain range the royal lairs are in. Thatched roofs dot the lush valley and Oryn remembers his few visits with the Keepers who reside there fondly. After the Orcran tribes began hunting dragons, the carefully-selected group of women quickly dispersed, leaving only a few to remain. The Prince hadn’t gone to the village to see if even one of the Keepers remained, though he would be surprised if any had.
A damp breeze blows into him, and Oryn shifts his attention to the glistening Waters of the Draca and away from the lost Keepers. The watery underground caves wind beneath the colorful reef, keeping the few amphithere who reside there safe. Oryn had always enjoyed swimming in the warm waters and basking on the golden sands. Beyond the Draca, even further to the east, the Karstinian Nation clings to the steep mountainside. Their homes latch onto and are even carved from the stone of the mountain much like a dragon’s lair. The Karstinian people are known for their horse breeding and medicine making, and while Oryn is sure there are many other wonderful qualities they might possess, he hadn’t ever enjoyed the people overly much. They had an air of superiority about them, and even though his own power, and that of his brothers, is what keeps their land alive, he’d never spent long there. Even before things changed through all of Drandaris.
After some time, Oryn’s attention is pulled from his sightseeing by a putrid odor. The shrubland of the tribes is beginning to give way to the stinking animal pens they rely on for survival and Oryn snorts hot jets of air from his nostrils hoping to rid himself of the stench to no avail. Just beyond the pens, looming like a writhing beast, is the towering wall dividing the Orcran Tribe Lands and the Nathairfae Wood. The odd-looking wall’s construction had begun when the tribespeople had started cutting down trees around their town to ensure dragons couldn’t hide among their branches. The tall trunks were then lined up on the border of the colorful forest for protection, and over time, the thick barrier was added to until it completely blocked the tribelands from the otherworldly forest. Since its completion though, the Natheirfae had overtaken the wooden structure, covering it with flowering vines, almost as if the wood itself was mocking the humans for trying to keep it at bay.
Beyond the fortification, the brilliant canopy and colorful undergrowth of the Nathairfae Wood is just visible and even the smallest sliver of its foliage is inviting. When Oryn flies over the distinct line dividing the two territories, his body shivers at the change in temperature. Beyond the wall, the air smells and feels different. Its fresh green scent is heavy with humidity from the abundance of plants in the wood, making the Prince close his eyes in relief. Inhaling deeply, Oryn lets it wash over himself before beginning his descent.