Page 165 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)
Ultimately, if there was one thing she’d learned, it was that clans followed their leaders, and if their leaders stopped fighting, so would the clans. She hoped they would be able to see that they had to stop fighting, that their survival mattered more than her father’s empty promises.
But she knew no truce would be possible while her father filled their heads with his poisonous lies. He was the one they were all following into the abyss, and she had to stop him before he sacrificed hundreds for his greed.
She rode Kein to survey the battlefield again, noting how many men lay dead already and the awful amount of bodies wrecked on the jagged cliffs; one man was even impaled through his torso, his lifeless limbs blown by the wind in a sorrowful sight.
Alezya even spotted some men who were hiding from the battle, hidden in gaps or shivering behind rocks, and she couldn’t blame them; it was a massacre down there.
She tried to be careful as she swept Kein above the battlefield, watching out for treacherous knife-sharp cliffs and anyone who would target them.
They made several passes, Kein sometimes crushing a man who had the audacity to stand out there between its fangs or claws while Alezya leaned to survey the area. It was almost impossible to recognize anyone with the rain battering them, the darkness that had overtaken the scene, and the distance.
The only good thing was that the mist was gone, and occasionally, a bolt of lightning from afar would suddenly illuminate the scene.
Alezya glanced up, growing nervous as it felt like the thunderstorm was coming closer; she was fairly certain even a dragon wouldn’t take a lightning bolt too well, and she didn’t want them to end up burned to a crisp mid-air.
They had to find her father fast.
“Where are you, Darak?” she hissed as they did another pass of the battlefield.
Where would her father have chosen to stand? He was arrogant, and a manipulative leader. He would have wanted to make sure they knew who was in charge. But he was a coward. She had never seen him go to war himself, and he never risked his most trusted men either...
“He isn’t down there,” she realized.
Her father was a coward.
He had a big, smart mouth, but if there was one thing she knew, it was that he never joined a fight he wasn’t sure he could win; he was far too spineless for that.
He had sent hundreds of men to their deaths, never once risking his own life.
Alezya was red with fury. The manipulative bastard had dragged more than a dozen clans into his war, but he wasn’t even there.
Of course, he wasn’t. He would trigger a war, send hundreds to die, and then wait to collect all the glory.
Perhaps he even prayed some other clan chiefs would lose their lives, giving him less competition.
It was possible the Deklaan Clan wasn’t down there at all; she wouldn’t have been shocked if he had come up with some mastermind plan that justified him staying behind or lied about what his clan would do.
“You’re going to pay for this, Father,” she hissed.
She took Kein for a larger tour of the rift, trying to locate her father.
He had to have chosen a safe place from which he would be able to see the battle. She couldn’t imagine him not wanting to rush to the forefront if the victory was theirs so he could take all of the credit.
He wouldn’t have positioned himself at the rear, but more like right above where the main battle was, close enough that it would take him minutes to descend and reap the benefits of other men’s sweat and blood.
Alezya focused on the mountains close to where Kassein fought, scouring the area with hawk-like eyes to try and find a familiar face.
It took her several minutes, but finally, she spotted one.
It wasn’t her father, but she noticed a man who was standing guard outside, a bow in his hand, and she recognized him as one of her father’s warriors; it was one of the bastards who had grabbed her and shoved her during the gathering.
“Get him,” she hissed to the dragon.
Kein roared and surged like a fury.
The man, who had probably relaxed upon noticing the dragon had only been making lazy loops until then, barely had time to panic, let alone flee.
For its humongous size, the orange dragon could be deadly fast. Kein’s angry fangs ripped him apart mid-scream, and the dragon threw the bloody remains down the rocks with disdain.
Then, it climbed on the flank of the mountain, looking for any other humans to devour, its claws ripping at the mountain’s flanks, triggering slow avalanches and landslides.
Alezya let the dragon furiously scratch all it wanted; if she wanted to get to her father, Kein might have to dig the Deklaan Clan out.
The dragon was latched onto the cliff and almost vertical to the ground, so Alezya had to focus all she could on holding on, but she kept a watchful eye on their surroundings, knowing they were more vulnerable when they weren’t up in the air.
And, sure enough, she saw a man appear in a dangerously close opening; she didn’t hesitate, and with the fluidity and assurance only a seasoned climber could have, she leaped to the mountainside and hurried to reach him.
Whether by luck or his own distraction, the man failed to notice her in time, too fixated on aiming for the dragon. Alezya reached him right before he saw her and pushed him off the edge.
His scream tore through the air, echoing off the cliffs until it was silenced by a brutal end.
She didn’t have time to look down; she glanced into the opening and seized her only weapon, the dagger she’d gotten from Kassein.
It was a small blade, but it was sharp, and it felt right in her grip as she ventured inside while Kein continued to cause chaos outside.
She had to find her father, kill him, and put an end to this.
Storming into those tunnels alone was probably reckless, but she had no choice; each second her father lived, more lives were sacrificed.
At the very least, she was in her element, infiltrating dark tunnels and making herself as silent and invisible as she could.
Alezya was no fighter, no warrior, but she had spent years mastering the art of moving unseen.
She knew how to make herself silent and invisible in the darkness, and Kein was providing a remarkable distraction too.
She could feel the ground shaking under her feet and hear the chaos of panicked men weighing their chances to get out of there before they were buried alive.
From the frantic shouts echoing through the tunnels, it was clear her father had kept only his most trusted guards by his side, maybe half a dozen men or so.
Before long, she heard his voice barking sharp, commanding orders like he always did, trying to prompt his men to get out and fight the dragon while he would no doubt flee somewhere like the coward he was.
Alezya sneered and crept deeper into the tunnels.
She was about to round a corner when a man appeared, a flash of surprise in his eyes, and she moved out of pure reflex.
Her wrist snapped up, the blade slicing across his throat in a single practiced motion.
Kiera had drilled this move into her, and now, without a thought, it had come to her from muscle memory.
The man’s breath hitched, his eyes wide with shock as he crumpled to the ground, blood pooling at her feet. He was dead before Alezya even registered what she had done, but when she did, she had to cover her mouth to suppress a yelp of fright.
She had never killed a man in cold blood before.
Sure, she’d reacted instinctively, and she would likely be the one dead if she hadn’t, but it wasn’t easy to get over.
She squeezed her eyes shut for just a second, then forced herself to step over the body and keep moving, listening to Kein’s roars for comfort.
She had wanted this war; her hands couldn’t remain blood-free when everyone else was risking their lives killing their opponents.
With this thought in mind and a slightly shaking hand, she kept going in, cautious.
This time, she didn’t have time to silence the man before he spotted her at the end of the tunnel; Alezya knew he had seen her, and she tried to hurry, but she couldn’t get to him in time before he shouted.
“She’s here! That damn bitch is here!”
Alezya threw herself at the man, dagger first, with the fury of a hungry dragon. This time, it wasn’t anything that Kiera had taught her; this was about sheer survival and doing as much damage as possible to silence this man before more came.
Blood flew, and she didn’t know who it belonged to, but she didn’t stop.
She swung her dagger like a mad woman, so focused on defending herself she barely registered what the man’s blade was doing.
Some of her movements felt familiar, echoes of lessons drilled into her by Kiera, but mostly, she was doing what she knew: she fought for survival.
She fought like a wild animal backed into a corner; she struck anywhere and everywhere she could in a frenzy. She felt pain flaring across random parts of her body, but she didn’t stop.
Finally, she felt her blade sink deep, and she froze, slowly taking in the scene.
It was a gruesome sight.
She had cut the man on every visible patch of skin, and bleeding gashes disfigured his face, torso, and arms. Now, her dagger was sticking out of the side of his skull, and he crumbled backward.
It took Alezya everything she had to crouch down, ignore the pain that was searing all over her body, how much she trembled and hurt, and pull her dagger out with her bloodied hands.
She knew she was found. She knew more men were coming, but she stood, taking a second to face the raw emotions that shook her. There was blood everywhere, some of it hers, and the madness of what had just happened was a lot to take in.