Page 68 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)

She stopped and held on to Kein’s neck so as not to fall under the numbing pain in her chest. Lumie.

Lumie was waiting for her mom. She prayed, all she could, that her cousin and her husband would at least take proper care of her baby.

Zenia was a mother too, and Suolk had shown more kindness to Lumie than she’d thought him capable of in the brief moment she’d seen her baby in his arms..

. She could only hope they would be decent people, or that her cousin would remember how much she owed her for all the times Alezya had risked her life for herbs.

At least, her father wouldn’t kill Lumie as long as he thought he could use her, but she didn’t put it past that vile man to harm a baby. She had to find a solution, and quickly.

When Kein growled, pulling her out of her dark thoughts, Alezya turned to the dragon, patting its thick neck and feeling grateful for the comfort of its warm skin, until she realized Kein had growled at someone else.

One of the warriors was bravely coming toward them, although his wariness of the dragon made him walk strangely to the side, like a crab.

It took a second for Alezya to realize she knew that one.

“...Dajan?” she excavated from the back of her mind.

Dajan nodded and gave her a polite smile.

So it was him. The warrior she’d been introduced to, for some reason.

.. He kept glancing nervously at Kein, visibly unwilling to step any closer than where he stood.

Then, Dajan’s eyes finally left the dragon to look at Alezya and speak to her, a flow of words leaving his lips.

She watched out for any word she might recognize, but none came up, not even Kassein’s or Lorey’s name.

She frowned, confused as to what he expected from her, wondering if she was in trouble.

It didn’t seem so, judging from how strangely amicable that man was.

She could tell he was making an extra effort to smile.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, as she had no idea what or how to respond, Dajan glanced at Kein again, before going back to her.

“ Eh... Mahi? Ahra mahi? ”

Hot water. Alezya knew those words. Was he offering her tea?

“ N-nam, ” she nodded, remembering what Lorey had taught her the previous day.

Dajan gave her a big smile and turned around, running away to grab whatever she’d just said yes to.

Alezya felt so strangely proud of herself.

She’d understood one of their people! Without help!

A bit excited by her little victory, she walked the same path Dajan had just taken while mentally studying the words Lorey had taught her the previous day.

All were very basic, but she was confident she could make her basic needs understood thanks to that.

A couple of minutes later, she met Dajan again, and he was carrying a little cup he proudly handed her, obviously gathering every brave inch of his being to approach closer to the dragon and very carefully avoid looking anywhere near the orange scales.

Alezya happily took the cup and realized that it was not tea.

Dajan had just brought her a cup of hot water.

.. Had he taken her word literally and decided to stick to the offer?

Or was it custom for those people to drink plain hot water?

She felt a bit reluctant to, but this cup was almost the first time she’d managed to ask for something for herself using their tongue. ..

Thus, she forced herself to take a sip, at least to make Dajan happy.

She suppressed a grimace. She really wasn’t fond of unflavored hot water... and mentally took note for herself to look for flowers and herbs she could use to flavor it with later.

“...Herbs,” Alezya suddenly muttered to herself.

Thinking of herbs, a crazy idea had just popped into her head.

Ignoring Dajan’s confused expression, she took a minute to think about it.

It wasn’t completely mad, but... it would be a big risk.

Moreover, she didn’t know if... Alezya suddenly turned back to Dajan, who jumped, surprised.

She walked up to him, grabbing his wrist.

“Dajan, herbs? Uh...” She tried to remember, but she was sure Lorey hadn’t taught her the word in their language.

Frustrated, Alezya glanced around, but there was nothing in sight she could use...

Then, she had an idea. She crouched down, and in front of Dajan’s confused eyes, she emptied her cup right at her feet before putting the empty cup aside and diving through the melting snow.

The hot water had helped melt a couple of inches, but the tips of her fingers still got red and cold by the time she reached the ground underneath all that snow.

She kept digging around, until, finally, she found a tiny, unique blade of grass that had miraculously survived. She stood back up and showed it to an utterly confused Dajan.

“This,” she said, showing it to him. “Do you have any place with more of this?”

“ Eushib? ” he said.

Was that their word for herbs? Or grass? Alezya tried to think, getting frustrated by the language barrier, until she remembered she had even better, on herself. She undid the bandage on her hand and pointed at the remains of the greenish paste that had been applied there.

“This! Medicinal herbs! Do you have more? Inkir? ”

“ Eh! ” Dajan exclaimed. “ Tibin eushib! Nam, nam. ”

“ Tibin eushib, ” Alezya repeated for herself.

Dajan gave her a sign to follow him and, after a brief hesitation, turned his back on the dragon and her to lead the way.

They walked for a long while, but even Kein didn’t seem to mind, as if Alezya was walking it around the camp, only strolling away a couple of times to go and sniff the remains of a firepit, or another habitation which had something that seemed to pique the dragon’s interest.

Still, Kein always came back to be her shadow, and even she was surprised at how little she minded the dragon anymore... unlike Dajan, who kept glancing back at their odd duo nervously.

This warrior seemed young, but he had shown more bravery than most of those Alezya had met until then.

More kindness too. She couldn’t bring herself to trust any man here but Kassein and Tievin.

Anywhere she went without the dragon-skinned warrior, she could feel their stares on her. .. and it made her skin crawl.

She hated it. She hated not having a hideout she could crawl into and escape their gazes.

Kassein was her only refuge in this place, his dark green eyes more efficient than any cave she could have crawled herself into.

He kept all the others at bay, but without him, Alezya couldn’t feel safe in this place.

Even right now, she was grateful for Kein acting as a bodyguard on his behalf, for she wouldn’t have approached any man alone or dared to go so far away from Kassein without the dragon’s protection.

Dajan felt different from the other warriors, however.

Unlike the other men, he didn’t seem to stare at her like she was some exotic prize, and he was doing his best to put some respectful, calculated distance between them.

It was easy to tell when one was purposely mindful of her, just like Lorey was.

Hence, Alezya felt confident following him through the camp for a while, farther from the paths she’d already walked before.

It took longer than she’d expected, making her realize how little of this place she’d seen before, or how she’d underestimated its size.

It was no wonder she had a hard time remembering the men she’d met already; there were a lot more warriors than she’d thought, too many for her to remember all those faces.

Only those she’d interacted with stood out.

.. or those who particularly creeped her out.

There were a few that didn’t try to hide their cunning gazes.

They made her shiver in disgust, and she tried to ignore them.

If those warriors obeyed Kassein, she was probably safe, no matter how much they lusted after her. .. or so she really hoped.

She just made sure to keep a hand on Kein’s warm neck as she walked and stuck close to Dajan.

After a while, he eventually brought her to face another one of those very large habitations, as big as the one Kassein had fought Kiera in.

More surprisingly, this one was actually set near one of the mountains as if to protect its back from the wind, and there were more warriors guarding it.

They gave the strange trio surprised glances, but Dajan said something, and they didn’t stop her from entering after him.

.. Only Kein was left behind with a frustrated growl.

The orange dragon couldn’t possibly fit in there, despite the place being extremely large indeed, as Alezya realized for herself upon stepping in.

She had no idea there could be such a place, and it took her a few seconds to fully analyze what she was seeing.

Dajan was chatting, visibly happy to present the place with wide open arms despite her not understanding a word he was saying.

She could only tell that tibin eushib kept coming back in his sentences.

The Dragon Clan didn’t just have medicinal herbs; they were actively cultivating them.