Page 112 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)
Kassein wasn’t sure what to say; a part of him almost felt sorry for his older brother, stuck in this golden cage every day.
Kassian was the firstborn, and he had been raised to become the Emperor since he was a child.
In the year Kassein had been born, Kassian had already reached fourteen years of age and begun to train under their aunt.
Kassein could only guess the kind of pressure that would put on a boy’s shoulders.
“...What do you want?” Kassian eventually asked, his eyes set on the rain outside.
Kassein took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for the hard argument ahead.
“I want the north.”
That got his older brother’s attention. Kassian turned to him with a confused frown, studying Kassein rather than asking what he meant. Slowly, he took a couple of steps back and let himself collapse into the oversized golden throne.
“You want the north,” he repeated slowly.
“From the tip of the continent to the Shadelands,” Kassein said. “The Onyx Castle too. I know the north is of little interest to the Empire now, and the local villages need someone to–”
“How dare you,” Kassian hissed from the throne he was slumped on. “After all you’ve done, after everything, you have the nerve to come back here, unannounced, and ask the north from me?”
Kassein clenched his fist. Alezya, he had to think about Alezya, and how much she needed him.
“You wanted me to pacify it,” Kassein retorted, his resolve getting firmer. “You can’t oversee all of the Empire from this throne, Brother. There are things happening in every street, every city, every shadow, and you cannot control it all. Give me the north, and let me take it off your hands.”
Only a subtle twitch of the vein on his older brother’s temple and the tight fist on his armrest gave Kassian’s reaction away. His brother was furious, but he knew Kassein’s words held some truth.
More surprisingly, Kassian kept his ire silent for a few seconds, and surely, that meant there was more to it.
Kassein exchanged a glance with Tievin, who looked nervous but equally confused.
It wasn’t like Kassian to waver. It wasn’t like his oldest brother to flinch or let anything get to him.
Since first taking his seat on the Emperor’s throne, his brother had become as cold as ice and as unyielding as a fortress wall.
But this time, for the first time, they both noticed a crack in that wall.
“...Kassein?”
Kassein’s head whipped back to the entrance of the throne room.
Their youngest sister, Sadara, stood there in a silk nightgown, holding two cups, probably one for herself and one for Kassian.
“Oh my dragon!” she exclaimed, a genuine smile spreading on her face.
Ignoring all the tension in the room, she ran to them, shoved the glasses into Tievin’s hands, and jumped at Kassein’s neck to hug him.
It took him a second to recover from the surprise and hug her back. Sadara had always been the sweetest and quietest of his sisters, and she was also the closest to Kassein in age, being less than three years older.
When she finally released him, he could see for himself how she’d grown more beautiful while he was gone, with her dark skin that contrasted exquisitely with their mother’s green eyes, long dark brown hair, and full lips like their father’s.
While Cessilia looked a lot like their mother, and Kiera was a mix of their parents, Sadara was a copy of their father, his very feminine double.
“I have missed you,” she whispered, ecstatic.
“I missed you too,” Kassein confessed.
“You too, Tievin,” Sadara smiled, taking the cups back from him.
“Long time no see, Your Highness. Your beauty has blossomed even more.”
Sadara gave him a tight smile but didn’t approach him.
Kassein had always noticed how Sadara was wary of men outside of their family and hated anyone but her relatives touching her at all.
His sister was twenty-one, but she had grown early into a beautiful woman, and she disliked the extra attention she got for it.
She turned her attention to Kassian, then back to Kassein, frowning as she slowly took in the tension in the room.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Sadara’s arrival had noticeably shifted the atmosphere in the room, and she fixed her gaze on Kassian, who was staring at her intently as if they were having a silent conversation.
Kassein realized he might have been waiting for his sister to come back for whatever he had interrupted with his arrival.
Still, he couldn’t leave without Kassian’s approval. Thus, he cleared his throat and, ignoring their older brother’s glare on him, quickly explained his request to his sister. Sadara raised her eyebrows, glancing several times toward Kassian while he spoke.
Then, she gave him a faint nod.
“Kassian?” she pressed him.
His older brother hadn’t said a word for several minutes now, and he looked annoyed by Sadara’s presence. Perhaps he didn’t feel like being as angry as before with their sister in the room.
“What an unexpected request.”
This time, another voice had spoken, and they all turned their heads to find another of their siblings, Shenan, peering in from one of the arched windows.
His dragon, Shan, was as black as ink and incredibly silent, which explained how none of them had heard it land nor noticed its rider eavesdropping before he spoke.
“How long have you been spying?” Kassian hissed, looking even more pissed at him than he was at Kassein.
“Long enough to hear the interesting bits,” Shenan grinned mischievously.
He climbed over the window and let himself fall elegantly.
It wasn’t always like this, but Shenan was now the sibling Kassein knew the least, mostly because he was the most self-centered and hadn’t been around much when they were younger.
All that Kassein knew was that he was the next in line until Kassian had children, since Darsan and Cessilia had left the line of succession to live in the Eastern Kingdom, and Kiera had also said she’d never be empress.
That and his own interest in politics was why he was the third and last sibling who still permanently resided in the Imperial Palace.
For the rest, he might as well have been a stranger.
Despite being dripping wet, he strolled elegantly into the throne room, his messy black hair falling to his shoulders in waves, his skin the darkest of them all, his eyes as black as his dragon’s scales.
Strangely, Shenan always sported a long line of black scales on his face, a scar that ran across his nose and under his left eye to his ear.
For some reason, that particular wound never seemed to heal, and Kassein had no idea how that strange scar across his brother’s face had first come to be.
Most of them had a hard time keeping up with his eccentric, unpredictable personality.
While he barely acknowledged Kassein’s presence with a little amused smirk, his eyes were scouring the room as if looking for something around the empty space. Their older brother went even more still, his fists clenched.
“Where is that little snake you usually keep by your side, older brother?” Shenan probed, unafraid.
Kassein witnessed Kassian’s expression crumble right in front of him.
It was like Shenan’s question had broken a dam.
His mighty, impassible older brother suddenly looked torn by so many conflicted emotions that he couldn’t keep up the act anymore.
Fury, shock, despair, sadness, and fury again.
His fists went from clenched tight to furiously shaking, and his cold green eyes suddenly turned into a raging and misty storm.
Kassein was stunned. Whoever that “snake” was, they had somehow managed to make the ice wall crumble with the mere mention of them.
If he hadn’t known the siblings would never harm one another, he would have been worried for Shenan, for he was the target of the Emperor’s most murderous glare he’d ever seen, of which he’d been on the receiving end many times.
While Kassian was still choked up by his boiling anger, Kassein glanced around.
Now that he thought about it, there was something else missing from the palace. The place was strangely quiet, but in the distance, he could hear the faint bustling of the servants.
What he couldn’t hear or see, however, was the creature that had accompanied his brother since his birth.
“...Where is your dragon, Kassian?” he finally asked.
Now Kassian’s furious glare was on him, and Kassein knew he’d just poured more fuel on the fire. Something else had happened in the palace which made their oldest brother far more enraged than Kassein’s request.
Made him more vulnerable too. Kassein had never witnessed his brother failing so miserably to dominate his emotions, which perhaps explained the odd lack of entourage and the alcohol he could smell from Sadara’s cups.
Kassian was the Emperor; why would he be alone in his ridiculously grand throne room?
No, his older brother was hurting, nursing a wound where no one else had hurt him before, and for once, Kassein could relate to the pain.
They were dragons; they hated to show anything had broken through their scales and penetrated their skin, but here they were, both carrying their bleeding hearts and desperate to stop the pain.
It gave him the push he needed. Kassein stepped forward.
“...I’m doing this for someone.”
Kassian frowned subtly, his anger seeming to lessen by a degree.
Kassein hadn’t wanted to let Kassian know anything about his real motives, but that was before he realized that behind his facade of the untouchable, impassible Emperor, his older brother was still a man who could bleed, hurt, and go through the same pains he did.
Someone who could love fiercely and dangerously, someone who loved like a dragon.