Page 122 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)
Alezya would have never thought the training she had done with Kein would help her order around a baby dragon, but sure enough, Niiru flew back into the crevice, its tiny wings appearing to be just big enough to support its body weight.
Much to Alezya’s surprise, instead of landing somewhere in the area, it dove right toward her, and she had nowhere to go, so in a last-second attempt to trust the young dragon, she opened her arms, and caught it as it landed all four paws on her.
She almost lost her footing from how heavy the baby dragon was, but Niiru held on just fine, putting its front paws over her shoulder and nestling against her neck like it was the most natural thing in the world to cuddle against a human.
Alezya wrapped her arms around the young dragon to support it, but it was as heavy as Lumie, if not heavier, and she still had a hard time believing what it was doing.
Its hind legs were pressed against her stomach, the claws digging into the leather, making her glad she wasn’t naked, or this would have been painful for her.
“She has a dragon,” someone whispered in disbelief. “She really has a dragon down there with her!”
“Get her out,” another voice hissed. “Let’s just get her out and bring her to the leaders. They can decide what to do with her then.”
Alezya let out a heavy sigh of relief.
Seconds later, a rope appeared, and she told Niiru to fly and get off of her so she could grab the bag of food and give it to the young black dragon to hold while it was flying next to her.
“ Fly ,” she said. “ Up .”
Niiru let out one of its cute little growls, but instead of taking off, it flapped its wings just enough to remain at Alezya’s eye level, and while she held onto the rope and was slowly pulled up, it kept flying at her level as if checking on her ascent.
The lift was slow and scary, making Alezya hold on to that rope for dear life and mentally remind herself not to look down.
She could climb the flank of a mountain very confidently, but being suspended by a single rope mere feet above rock-solid ice was one of the scariest experiences of her life.
She would take a dragon ride any day over this.
She tried to have faith, but it felt insanely long. If anything happened, if her father’s men came or something and those men dropped her, she might fall to her death this time...
Finally, her head reached the surface, and two hands grabbed under her arms to drag her up to a safe position. Niiru, who was following close behind, growled as soon as the men’s hands touched Alezya, and they dropped their grip a second later.
“Niiru,” she scolded the young dragon.
It stopped, turning its big amber eyes to her with curiosity written all over its baby dragon face. Still wary of how unstable the ground around a crevice could be, Alezya crawled on all fours until she was in a safe-looking area, and let out a heavy sigh.
“A-are you alright?”
The men looked too scared to approach her now, with a fierce baby dragon guarding her.
Alezya nodded, before she slowly stood. Her arms and shoulders were painful from holding on to the rope, but now that she was confirming for herself that there had been only three men to pull the rope, she couldn’t complain about the slow lift.
She immediately realized they were from the clan with the braids, as they all had some intricate hairstyles full of braids, as long as a woman’s hair.
“Munsa Clan, was it?” she said.
“Yes,” the oldest-looking of them nodded. “...Are you willing to meet our leaders? We can take you to them.”
“If we do, we should move quickly. If your father sees us...”
“I know,” Alezya nodded.
A clan intervening in the matters of another was never a good sign.
Her father could very easily use this as an excuse to start some war and launch an attack, and his allied clans would easily rally.
After the demonstration from last night, chances were that no clan would dare to come to the Munsa Clan’s rescue either, far too scared that he’d call a dragon.
Quickly, the four of them moved away from the crevice, walking toward the first sharp turn they could find and walking down that path in search of a more concealed area.
Alezya kept glancing back to try and see if she could spot anyone from her clan, but she didn’t know this area at all, and she had arrived when it was dark outside, making her even more confused.
Moreover, every time she looked back, she couldn’t help but be distracted by the black dragon’s little hops in the snow.
It looked like Niiru was having a great time digging itself into the snow, making little snow tunnels for a while before suddenly emerging with a big jump, sending snow flying everywhere.
Alezya didn’t dare tell the young dragon to stop its shenanigans; if anything, its black scales were far better concealed when it was burying itself under layers of fresh snow rather than walking on it.
She only made sure it followed her while the Munsa Clan’s men were leading her out of there.
She had no idea where the little dragon had come from nor why it was staying close to her, but she felt like she owed it to Kassein to be responsible for it, although Niiru seemed to be doing a better job at looking after her than the other way around so far.
“Here,” one of the men pointed at a tunnel that led into a foreign maze.
Alezya followed; she wasn’t fond of the idea of following men she didn’t know into enclosed spaces, but at least she had a dragon with her, and they couldn’t be worse than her father. Or so she hoped.
“Do your leaders not like my father, then?” she asked, hoping chatting with them would help her understand how to negotiate her survival.
“Not many do,” one of the men scoffed. “Most fear him more than they respect him. Many suspect Darak has been abusing his position as one of those facing the Dragon Clan to claim privileges and such. Things have gotten more tense ever since some clans stopped paying the tax, and it became clear it didn’t affect how many times the dragon attacked at all. ”
Alezya frowned. What tax? Had her father made other clans pay for their safety? He couldn’t guarantee anything. The few clans that fought with the Dragon Clan always ended up with dead men.
She knew information was power between the clans, but it seemed her father had manipulated a lot for his benefit...
They resumed walking, and Alezya found herself glad that Niiru was small enough to stroll by her side in the tunnel; she wouldn’t have felt confident following the three men on her own, but no dragon Kein’s size would have been able to follow them in there.
Even Kiki’s lean body might have been too big for most areas.
There was plenty of room for Niiru though, and while the young dragon was small, Alezya had no doubt its sharp claws and fangs would be able to do a lot of damage if needed.
Right now, the little black creature was keeping up with them, staying near Alezya but wandering ahead or staying behind to sniff something, full of curiosity. At all times, it kept track of where she was, its amber eyes always glancing back to find a trace of her.
The tunnels were pretty dark, but the Munsa men had pulled out some torches and lit them as soon as possible, the fire glowing against the walls of the tunnels.
Alezya had grown up and lived in tunnels like these her whole life, but there was always something very intimidating about going into deep, narrow tunnels she didn’t know. She missed the fresh air and the sense of freedom she had felt while wandering among the Dragon Clan.
Niiru was now sticking close to her heels as if it had sensed she was nervous or felt the need to stay right by her.
“...You’re not quite like the rumors said,” the youngest-looking of the three men said.
The other two immediately gave him annoyed looks, so Alezya guessed he’d spoken everyone’s minds out loud.
“How so?” she asked, curious.
“That you’re a witch,” he said bluntly. “That you made a deal with some demon to have a cursed child. That you tried to kill the man you were betrothed to, but your father saved him–”
“My father saved my ex-husband from me ?” Alezya scoffed.
The man grimaced. He had to have seen Vasilias’ reaction to her the previous evening; while her ex-husband did seem infuriated to have seen her alive, he had definitely been the one to ask for her head.
“But is it true you have a cursed child? It looked... strange.”
“She isn’t cursed,” Alezya hissed. “She’s just different.”
Niiru growled as if to back her up and warn them against insulting Lumie any further.
Alezya didn’t care about being called a witch, she had been called far worse plenty of times already.
But she wouldn’t allow another man to hurl yet another insult at her child.
Lumie was an innocent child, and she wasn’t responsible for her horrible father, her helpless mother, or how she looked.
And she didn’t look anything less than perfect in Alezya’s eyes.
Truthfully, the only other person whose opinion mattered was Kassein’s.
Alezya would have given anything for him to accept Lumie, and she felt sick just thinking of the possibility that he might reject her like everyone else did.
But Kassein wasn’t everyone else, and she had to trust he’d remain the man she had known him to be.
“Alright,” the man swallowed, glancing nervously at the tiny, angry dragon. “Anyhow... You don’t really look like a witch either.”