Page 127 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)
Ekata didn’t stop there, however, and instead guided her through new tunnels, narrower than the others, without any decorations anywhere.
Some of the paths they took were going up so quickly that they even had to climb some of the nets the Munsa seemed to be constantly weaving, which had been hung there for safety.
Alezya wondered if their clan had made their weaving techniques a strength both underwater and vertically as she appreciated the strength of those nets while they climbed.
So many of the dangerous climbs she’d undertaken before would have been made so much easier if she’d had access to such a thing. ..
Once again, Alezya couldn’t help but think of how much each clan would benefit from exchanging more than raw resources and wedding promises with one another.
It was just a thought at the back of her mind, but she still felt like there was a better future possible, one where the clans helped each other, traded more, and trusted one another.
“We’re almost there,” Ekata told her as they were climbing a particularly long and upright corner.
“I’m alright,” Alezya nodded, glancing at Niiru, who was taking little jumps and flapping its wings to keep up with their ascent.
“You’re a great climber,” Ekata nodded.
Again, Alezya didn’t know what to do with the compliment, but she sure appreciated it. Ekata reached the top first and held out a hand to help Alezya up.
Just like she had mentioned, it was a tight opening in the mountain, but one that had a narrow view straight toward the south.
It was too dangerous to stay close to the long, vertical opening that was nothing but a visible crack in the flank of the mountain, which explained why their ascent had been so steep and narrow.
They were just a foot away from the edge, with a dangerous cliff that promised a certain death right below them and a tiny vertical nook in which a male sentinel of the Munsa Clan greeted them.
“Anything?” Ekata asked him as she and Alezya took his spot by the opening.
“It’s already over,” the man said. “It looks like they launched a lightning strike because it happened so fast. The dragon flew off just minutes before you arrived. We’re not sure which clan was attacked yet, but it sure looked like the Deklaan’s territory. The shouts echoed throughout the valley.”
Alezya squinted at the opening, disappointed she had missed Kein and potentially Kassein.
Sure, they would have been too far away to see her, hidden behind the smallest crack in the mountain, but she sure would have liked to see them.
She still hadn’t been able to confirm that Kein had delivered Lumie to Kassein. If not, what had it done with her? Did it keep her with it? Had it entrusted her to Lorey and Kiera? Or to Tievin, perhaps?
Alezya kept squinting toward her father’s mountain, trying to see something, anything, but the Munsa territory was too far away.
It was already impressive how much distance she’d covered in a few hours, and it was nighttime too; she couldn’t see anything, and her clan was probably hiding inside anyway.
She sighed and let Ekata take a look, grateful the Munsa Clan Chief had let her take a peek first.
“Why would they launch such a short attack?” Ekata frowned, squinting at the opening. “And using the dragon too?”
“...I’m not sure,” Alezya confessed. “Maybe... I’m thinking he might have been looking for me.”
She wasn’t entirely sure, but it felt like the most likely explanation.
Kassein had definitely fought and sent men up the mountains to fight the clans before, but the timing was just too off. Why would he and Kein come back after she’d sent Lumie to them?
Alezya couldn’t help but believe it was for her, and it made her all the more hopeful.
“You’re sure it was the orange dragon?” she asked the sentinel.
“Certain,” he nodded. “It’s easy to recognize, even at night...”
Alezya let out a heavy sigh.
“You think they did some damage?” Ekata asked with a grin.
“Kein, I mean, the dragon is too big to get into the mountain, so they might have been sending him just to try and find me... but I can’t say for sure.”
“It had all the signs of some quick, punishing attack,” the sentinel noted.
“I didn’t see the men, but I heard plenty of shouting, and the orange dragon was checking out anyone trying to leave the mountain from another way.
It’s hard to know what happened inside from where we are though. We’re completely on the wrong side...”
They remained quiet for a few seconds, still glancing through the opening, but indeed, it looked like things were over.
Alezya let out a faint sigh. She really needed to get back to the Dragon Clan as quickly as possible. She was glad the Munsa Clan had rescued her because she was fairly certain she would have been dead by the time Kassein and Kein attacked her clan; they would have never found her in time.
At her feet, Niiru was also trying to peek through the opening, its tail swishing with curiosity before it turned its head toward her with a little growl.
“I know,” she whispered. “I miss them too.”
“We should go back down,” Ekata suggested. “See if the other sentinels caught anything else.”
Alezya agreed, and she followed her all the way back to the main cove, where, indeed, several adults of the Munsa Clan were standing and talking animatedly to Ekut.
They acknowledged their other leader with nods, but they had arrived right in the middle of what already seemed to be a very lively discussion. Alezya listened as several of the Munsa Clan sentinels repeated the same accounts from different points of view, although no one had seen much more.
Kein had attacked several flanks of the Deklaan Clan’s mountain, even making some rocks collapse, and they were sure there had been some fighting. Ekut had sent men to inquire with the nearby clans, but their end of the mountains was so far from the other that they probably wouldn’t get much more.
Ekata let her brother chat with their men, instead taking a step aside with Alezya. At their feet, Niiru let out a yawn, prompting her to lift the heavy dragon and carry it; the young dragon immediately nestled in her arms.
“If only that dragon had done some good damage to the Deklaan Clan,” Ekata hissed. “We’d be better off without those leeches...”
Alezya could understand that woman’s venom toward her clan, but she didn’t entirely agree.
No matter how corrupted her father was, the Deklaan Clan wasn’t just him. Even if many men followed his orders blindly, Alezya knew there were a few good people amongst them. She had seen very little of their goodness herself in the past, but still, she couldn’t condone an outright massacre.
She was almost surprised to find herself worried about what had happened and how angry Kein and Kassein had possibly been. Had something happened? Had her father done something to prompt an attack?
She sighed, petting Niiru. Maybe they’d been looking for the baby dragon? Niiru was more than capable of flying back on its own, but the young dragon was clearly unwilling to fly away from her.
“The dragon,” Ekata commented. “You called it by a different name before. Kain?”
“...Kein,” Alezya corrected. “That’s the orange dragon’s name.”
“Their dragons have names?” Ekata said, surprised. “Do you know many of them...?”
“No,” Alezya replied, wary. “Only a couple. I don’t even know this little one. He just appeared out of nowhere and is sticking to me.”
“So... It’s not your baby’s dragon, then?”
Alezya opened her eyes wide in disbelief, but Ekata shook her head.
“I knew it was probably nonsense, but after what your father said last night, and seeing that you have a miniature dragon stuck to you... I didn’t want to press the issue until you were ready to talk about it, but I can’t help but be curious.
If you can really get your own dragon, it could change many things. ..”
“No,” Alezya replied, a bit too abruptly.
“First, I’m not pregnant. I fooled my father into thinking I was.
Even if I was, dragons aren’t... born like that.
Niiru probably belongs to a child from the Dragon Clan, and he won’t grow into an adult size until much, much later.
The orange dragon is so big because it belongs to a grown man, but not all adult dragons are the same either. ”
“How many dragons have you seen...?”
“Only a couple,” Alezya confessed, “but I’ve learned enough.”
Ekata gave a slow, thoughtful nod.
“No wonder your father was so... excited about you possibly controlling one of them. If we could have at least one of those dragons, like the Dragon Clan, we wouldn’t lose any battles anymore.
Any clan who can get their hands on one of those dragons would be able to force all the others to submit to them. ”
“Dragons aren’t meant to be weapons,” Alezya suddenly said.
Ekata blinked, staring at her with surprise, but Alezya was looking down at Niiru, who was quietly napping in her arms.
“Dragons aren’t meant to win battles for humans,” she said.
“They aren’t the brutal, man-killing monsters we thought them to be.
I’ve seen it myself. They can be kind, caring creatures.
Protective, even. They let humans sit on them to keep warm, Ekata.
They can play around like young snow leopards, tease one another, and be silly.
They will let a human they trust and care about order them around, and yes, they do not hesitate to kill, but never because of something like hunger or hatred.
Every time I’ve seen the orange dragon attack, it was to protect someone else. ”
To protect me , Alezya thought.
Kein had killed several men of the Dragon Clan, men it had known for longer than her, simply because she had been in danger, and the dragon wouldn’t tolerate that. She took a deep breath in.
“We should stop looking for ways to win against a dragon,” she said, “or against the Dragon Clan. Our clans are capable of so much more, and we would be capable of wonders if we could learn to really work together, not merely coexist. The emergency of our survival has blinded us. I have no idea what has been attempted before, but if we actually tried to make peace with the Dragon Clan...”
“It’s not like no one ever hoped for peace before. But we hoped for the Dragon Clan to be gone, not to... befriend them. You’re the first person of our kind to speak some of their language in centuries, if not... ever,” Ekata mentioned.
“I know, but after witnessing the gathering and spending time with the Dragon Clan, I cannot help but think there has to be a better future for all of us. My father is blinded by greed, and he is setting us all up for extinction when we should be aspiring to coexist with the Dragon Clan. If their dragons do not need to eat us, why would they keep fighting unless we push them to? I... I’ve lived with them.
I’ve seen all that they have that we don’t, and I don’t think they envy us at all.
If they have nothing to gain from fighting us, why should we keep pushing them to? ”
“Is that what you’ve come to think? After spending time with them?”
“I’ve seen what I have seen. The Dragon Clan was attacked far more often by our people than they attacked us.
It might be easy for the dragon, but the climb is hard and tenuous for their people.
My clan has nothing they could want, Ekata, nothing.
I was given far better treatment as a...
guest in their clan than back when I was the Clan Chief’s child.
They eat meat and take hot baths every day; they have far more clothes than they need, and they fight covered in clothes of stone.
The Deklaan Clan is of no interest to them, merely a bothersome piece of rubble under their feet.
I don’t know about the other clans that have been attacking them, but it is unfair that all of us live in fear and keep up this fight when we’re being punished for a few men’s decisions. ”
“...You speak like a true clan chief.”
That took Alezya by surprise, and she glanced at Ekata, who was staring at her with a smile.
“I mean it,” she continued. “I was raised my entire life to fit this role, but you, Alezya, are a natural-born leader.”
“I don’t think so,” Alezya muttered, her eyes going back to Niiru.
“You were smart enough to learn a completely different language in a matter of days,” Ekata said.
“You can command a dragon. You survived on your own despite being your clan’s pariah, and you managed to befriend the one clan everyone’s scared of.
I saw the way you stared at the Exkiu Clan bastard you were married to and at your father.
You’re no helpless woman, Alezya. You’re strong and brave.
And even when you’re alone, miles away from anything and anyone you know, you still manage to care for a baby dragon and think about the future of all the clans.
That’s the kind of leader any clan needs. ”
Alezya didn’t answer that.
She knew what a bad leader was: a man like her father, who was blinded by ambition and greed, dreams of victory and glory, so much so that he was dragging his own people to ruin. But for her to be a leader?
She had been her clan’s daughter and then an outsider.
She was a mother and, certainly, a survivor.
At the moment, she also felt more feminine than she had in a long time because she was missing Kassein terribly. She hadn’t allowed herself to feel vulnerable in a long time, but the mere thought of that man’s embrace was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
“Let’s get you in front of more clan chiefs,” Ekata finally said. “If there’s any chance of peace with the Dragon Clan, I believe you might be our best one yet.”