Page 42 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)

He watched Alezya’s figure for a long time as she gradually disappeared into the heights of her homeland. Kassein didn’t take his gaze off her, not until she was completely out of sight.

Only then did he let out a heavy sigh and turn around.

It was a lonely trip back. He’d never minded being alone before, but now, he was hating it.

It was so early in the morning, the land was just waking up and only the birds had begun their day, singing cheerfully somewhere above his head.

It was a rare beautiful day, the opposite of his current mood.

He didn’t linger, tracing the path in the snow back to the camp.

He knew he was being observed. Not just then, but these days, he felt constant gazes turned toward the camp.

It wasn’t completely new, but it sure felt like a lot more than before.

Perhaps the tribes were getting bolder after seeing that one of their women had survived a few days in the camp, but they were still keeping a distance, and Kassein didn’t like it at all.

He still didn’t feel good about letting Alezya go back either.

She had supposedly gone back to her people, yet she hadn’t seemed that happy to go, although her determination was there. He wished he had accompanied her further to understand what was going on. Being sidelined was the worst feeling...

He tried to brush those thoughts away as he reached the camp with a heavy heart. She was gone now, and she wasn’t coming back.

His men welcomed him back, but their greetings fell on deaf ears. Tievin raised an eyebrow, scouring the plain behind him with narrowed eyes, but didn’t say anything, and slowly walked behind him for a little while until they were alone.

“Did you see anyone from her tribe? Did they come to collect her?”

“No.”

Kassein’s cold, annoyed tone conveyed how he felt about it.

If a woman had been missing, why had none of them come forward to retrieve her?

If one of his sisters had been taken away, he would have stopped at nothing to get them back.

Where was her family? They knew she wasn’t dead, it was definitely her tribe that had been spying on them.

So why were they acting so cryptically toward her?

What was the meaning of that necklace they’d sent her?

Alezya had seemed completely overwhelmed after getting it.

Why? He’d only gotten a glimpse of the symbol, but he had no idea what it was.

Something just didn’t feel right with her attitude, and he couldn’t shake it off. She didn’t seem forced to go back, so why did it feel like it?

“Commander?”

From his tone, it was the second or third time Tievin had tried getting his attention. Kassein turned an annoyed glare to him, but it wasn’t enough to discourage him.

“I was asking if you still need that cape for the lady to be made. From my understanding, it is unlikely she’ll be paying us a visit again.

The soldiers in charge were asking. Also, I’m sure you already know, but we’ve noted more spies in the heights.

What shall we do about them? Your dragon doesn’t seem to want to bother himself with them. Of course, we could–”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence as Kassein’s eye caught a shadow behind him and brutally pushed Tievin out of the way, sending him flying far to his left.

Tievin landed face first and mouth wide open in the snow before realizing anything had happened or was happening to him.

He couldn’t see anything, but he did hear the deafening growl of a furious dragon above his head.

His first reflex was to get his head out of the snow, spit some out with disgust, and cover his head while trying to look up.

He was right under Kein’s wing, although the dragon was moving too much above him for its shadow to be stable.

Tievin panicked and began crawling in the snow to get as far away as possible. The dragon was even more violent than usual, and he could hear Kassein groan loudly in response to its growls as the two fought.

The sounds of flesh ripping and sword meeting scales were not reassuring either.

“Grand Intendant!”

A handful of soldiers came to his aid, several hands grabbing the Grand Intendant and pulling him away from the fight; this was only made possible because neither the dragon nor the Prince actually cared about Tievin being in the area.

They were dueling each other, everything else was an annoyance at best, collateral damage at worst.

After much difficulty, and once they were a safe distance away, Tievin managed to get up, still a bit in shock, while the soldiers gathered around him, pressing him to keep retreating, a lot of them shocked.

“W-what do we do, Grand Intendant?”

“Shall we intervene? At this rate, the Commander will–!”

Tievin raised a hand, signaling them to shut up.

He was watching the fight, now from a reasonably safe distance, and just like the men, he was starting to realize this one was much more violent than usual. The Prince and the dragon were trying to slaughter each other in a storm of snow and blood.

No wonder the men were so panicked; it was hard to believe Kassein would survive this.

Tievin was starting to genuinely worry too.

Until now, both Prince and dragon had seriously tried to kill one another, but the attacks were short, and the dragon that had missed its chance to succeed in one go would often give up quickly.

This was worse, much worse than before. For some reason, Kein seemed determined to try and kill its owner for good.

Neither dragon nor prince was giving up or holding back.

They had been mad before, but this was pure rage.

The sheer chaos of that duel was hard to witness and believe, even for the most experienced of the men.

Tievin hesitated, as he had never had to face this kind of situation before; He was just there to do some damage control and see that no one else was injured.

This time, Kein had chosen to attack right at the entrance of the camp, thankfully away from any tents and in a large, unoccupied area that usually stood as a battling ground during the tribes’ attacks.

This was almost the exact same spot they’d fought in just a couple of days prior, so it only had a thin layer of snow.

Now, all the snow was quickly getting tainted a dramatic red.

Tievin tried to think as calmly as he could, given the situation.

It was foolish for Kassein’s men to try and attack the dragon; Kein had killed before, and it couldn’t be stopped from killing one of them when it was this out of control. There was no way to get in between the Prince and his dragon without someone else getting hurt.

If this had been in the Capital, one of the members of the Imperial Family and their dragon would have intervened, but there was none here.

The fastest horse wouldn’t reach the closest of them before a couple of days at least, far too late.

If this went on, there would be neither prince nor dragon left.

He watched, feeling helpless, with three dozen men behind him waiting for orders.

“Oh, by the gods,” he eventually grumbled. “Somebody get me a crossbow and a boot.”

“A-a boot, sir?”

“Hurry!” he insisted, annoyed.

Within a few seconds, somebody handed him a crossbow and half a dozen boots were handed out without more questions asked, although they were definitely raised in most minds.

He grabbed the closest one, put the head of the arrow inside, and aimed, boot first, at the dragon.

He took a deep breath and shot. The first shot completely missed, flying far to the right, but Tievin just grabbed another arrow, another boot, and tried again.

This time, he hit Kein right on the cheek.

The dragon growled furiously and turned its head toward the group, but at least it had left its owner alone for a second. All the men around Tievin froze or ran away, even if they had one foot bare in the snow.

The dragon’s silver eyes met Tievin, who felt his voice and the very bit of bravery he’d mustered up for this moment leave his body.

“S-stop,” he mumbled. “...P-please.”

Kein snarled at him, but obviously, the dragon had been taken out of its murderous frenzy.

Still, the amount of blood on its face was worrisome, coupled with the fact that all around it, everything was strangely quiet. Wherever the Prince was in that chaos, he was not showing any sign of life.

Just as Tievin was getting worried Kein might release more of its fury, the dragon turned its head toward the mountain instead. It seemed to be listening, and then, it suddenly flew off.

As soon as the dragon was in the air, the men all ran, leaving Tievin’s side to look for their leader.

The poor man let out a long sigh of relief and prayed for his legs not to let him down completely, all strength having left them.

After a couple of seconds, he walked through the crowd and chased them away with orders that his hoarse voice only made half convincing.

He finally saw Kassein, lying in a pool of his own blood. His first thought was to thank the gods as the Prince was still alive. Considerably injured, but alive. He was on his flank, half of his face in the blood, his breathing making little ripples under him.

“Go away. Stop watching.” Tievin chased the men away with his hands like flies.

When he finally stood alone by Kassein’s side, he sighed.

“This seems to have been a close one, sir. It might be time to take Kein’s unruliness ser–”

“You stink.”

Kassein had barely groaned those words, but it made Tievin pinch his lips.

“I need... a dry pair of pants. Since you seem alive, and alive enough to be unaccommodating, I’ll leave you here, Commander.

I sincerely hope that mad, mad dragon of yours doesn’t come and finish you off in the meantime.

I’ll come back when you’re, hopefully, in a better mood. And me with clean pants.”