Page 79 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)
“It is difficult to keep some of the most troublesome units in check... Commander in Chief,” Kauser argued. “Those men do not take orders well, and no matter how much we discipline them—”
“Why do you think my brother sends them here, Kauser?” Kassein hissed, his eyes suddenly filled with venom.
The generals exchanged awkward glances.
“Well, they are convicted...”
“This is their only alternative to the death penalty,” Kassein growled.
“There is no such thing as second chances. The only reason the Emperor sends them here is that he cannot be bothered to butcher the vermin himself. This place is the Empire’s slaughterhouse, General.
And I am the executioner. If anybody dares tell me again that this camp is at full capacity after the shit I witnessed this morning, I will slice their throat myself.
You have gone fucking soft. All of you. Let me be perfectly clear.
If someone steps a toe over the line, I want their foot severed.
If someone talks back, I want their tongue nailed.
If anybody so much as looks askance, I want their eyes gouged out.
And if anyone disrespects any woman again, I want their fucking head severed and their limbs fed to my dragon. Have I made myself clear?”
He had drawled that last word with his ice-cold glare touring the crowd.
This wasn’t just a threat to the criminals sent there; it was for every single man in the camp.
Suddenly, nobody dared to look him in the eye, and every single brigade captain was fascinated by the sand at their feet.
Even the generals had gone a shade paler than usual.
“...Understood, Commander.”
After a heavy, understood silence, Kassein left his generals to lead the rest of the meeting, and for once, he didn’t oppose their requests for more expeditions to the mountains.
If he wanted to keep his army in line, he needed to keep it busy, and after what had recently transpired, investigating the tribes some more seemed necessary.
Moreover, he had his own motives for agreeing to this, and the main motive was Alezya.
Whatever she had left behind, or whoever she missed, it was clear her tribe was not letting her come back for it, and it wasn’t something he was going to help her with if he didn’t start to question what was going on up there.
“Are you sure you’re alright with this, sir?” Tievin asked, scurrying behind him as they walked back.
“What?”
“W-well, that woman’s tribe might—”
“Alezya,” Kassein hissed, glaring back. “Her name is Alezya.”
Tievin only paused for a second, taken aback by his words, before he cleared his throat.
“Of course, Commander. I-I meant to say, aren’t you worried about... potentially getting into a fight with Lady Alezya’s tribe?”
“For whatever reason, they kicked her out and left her for dead on that mountain twice,” Kassein growled.
Getting into a fight with her tribe was certainly something he’d actually very much like to do. If given the chance, he was ready to kill every single man who had dared to lay their hands on her with his own bare hands.
Kassein was well aware that a part of him also wanted to personally fight the man she had left behind, if there was one, but he would never admit that out loud.
“I understand, sir,” Tievin said.
Just as he finished his sentence, Kassein brutally stopped, and Tievin almost crashed into him, instead staggering and managing to catch himself before he did and holding on to his notepad.
“Commander?”
“...Where are they?” Kassein growled, glancing around the camp.
They had been walking for a while, but he hadn’t caught sight of the three women. His sister wasn’t the type to confine herself inside a tent while the sun was out, so he had figured they’d be somewhere outside in the camp, but those women were nowhere to be seen.
“You,” Tievin called one of the men walking by. “Have you seen the Princess? Or one of the ladies?”
“No, Grand Intendant.”
“...What about the Commander in Chief’s dragon?” Tievin asked after a beat.
“Oh! He flew southeast a little while ago, sir. Along with the Princess’ dragon.”
Kassein had turned on his heels before the man was done talking.
He knew where Kiera had taken them already.
His sister hadn’t visited the north in a very long time, but like his older siblings, she had grown up in that region before his parents had moved to live in the Imperial Palace once Kassian had reached the age to be trained as the heir to the Imperial Throne.
Aside from Cessilia and Darsan, who had both moved to the Eastern Kingdom ten years ago, Kassian and their other siblings had lived in the Capital until Kiera had taken off to explore the uncharted lands, and Kassein had been banished to the north.
He had pushed his army farther north to the foot of the mountains precisely to get away from the north of his childhood.
It was easy for him to find his way back to the land he had grown up in, but without his dragon, and since the same dragon had made it nearly impossible for the camp to keep horses around, it took him and Tievin a long while and a long, long walk to get to where the women had flown to.
The journey was nothing short of unsettling for Kassein.
He didn’t want to go there, and he was also certain Kiera had gone there with Lorey and Alezya on purpose like one would lure an animal to a trap.
He’d entrusted Alezya to Lorey, but he had forgotten how cunning his sister could be.
Of his three sisters, Kiera was unpredictable at best and incredibly shrewd at worst. She would have been an amazing military leader if she was capable of staying in one place. ..
Still, Kassein marched stubbornly, each angry step taking him closer to his sister’s trap, just because he wanted to be reunited with Alezya. He could almost hear Tievin’s disbelief behind him as his Intendant did his best to keep up.
The dark stone appeared in the distance, and Kassein’s chest tightened every time he saw the silhouette of that place.
When he was a child, that mountain of dark stone had been his home.
As an adult, it stood like a monument to his failures.
Luckily for him, the Onyx Castle was far too small of a place to host his dragon; thus, he spotted Kein’s orange scales somewhere farther away in one of the long stretches of deserted land that once held his mother’s gardens, right outside the castle’s walls.
This place was almost as bad as standing inside the castle itself, but he pushed away the dread, focusing on Alezya instead.
“Ah, there he is!”
He replied to his sister’s satisfied expression with a furious glare.
She was standing, playing around with a dagger she kept throwing in her hand, one fist on her hip, and watching him walk into the frozen gardens with a smug smile.
Opposite to her was Alezya, also holding a dagger, the one she’d taken from his tent.
It looked as if the two of them had been sparring, and Kassein’s eyes immediately scoured Alezya’s body for any injuries, but she looked fine, if a bit tired.
A few steps away, Lorey was sitting on one of the benches his father had built for his mother.
He walked up to Alezya, immediately dropping his hands to her shoulders and letting relief fill his lungs again.
As much as he trusted his sister with her safety, nothing could beat holding her in his arms for himself to be certain.
“Sorry we made you come all this way, Your Highness,” Lorey said. “Kiera insisted—”
“I have no doubt she did,” Kassein growled.
His tone was filled with so much anger that Lorey was taken aback, although his glare was on his sister, not her.
Lorey had no way of knowing he would have never come to this place if not forced, but she immediately understood something was off, her eyes going to Kiera with a suspicious, questioning frown. His sister was not apologetic at all.
Instead, she kept throwing that dagger, watching her younger brother with her malicious eyes.
“I wondered if you’d come,” she said. “Turns out you like this girl a lot more than I thought.”
“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” he hissed.
Kassein could feel Alezya’s worried eyes on him, and he curled an arm around her waist. Although she couldn’t understand their argument, she could certainly understand he was angry, and Kassein didn’t want her to think it had anything to do with her, so he kept his angry eyes on his sister.
“Not really,” Kiera tilted his head. “I was expecting you to be... I don’t know. Angrier.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” he grunted.
Then, he turned around and gently pulled Alezya with him toward the garden’s exit.
“When are you going to grow up, Kassein?”
He stopped in his tracks, glaring back at his sister. This time, Kiera had lost her smile, and instead, she stared at him with an annoyed expression.
“It’s been years,” she said. “Fifteen years since your dragon went mad, and you refused to set foot in the Onyx Castle again. I don’t know what happened to you that time, but you–”
“What happened is none of your fucking business,” he hissed.
“Your dragon went mad,” Kiera retorted. “We had never had a dragon attack one of us before, not the way Kein tried to kill you. If Dran and Krai hadn’t stopped him, you would be dead.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t want to address it? To face the truth?”
“None of your damn business.”
“My little brother’s business is my business,” she retorted. “...And what if Kein attacks Alezya someday?”
The mere thought sent a horrible shiver down Kassein’s back.
Even more surprising though, was how Kein suddenly let out a furious, loud growl that made them all jump. Alezya stepped deeper into Kassein’s embrace, but her scared eyes were now on his dragon while Kassein’s had gone to hers. The fear in her eyes was something he never wanted to witness again.