Page 96 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)
“I-I mean this from a t-tactical point of view,” Tievin squeaked.
“Establishing p-proper rapport with the Northern tribes would include a considerable amount of time, resources, and manpower to make the... the suggested trades happen. The mere coordination of resources coming from the nearest village to here is already quite the task given how far the army is located compared to the past. The Onyx Castle itself is at a notable distance, and if we were to establish long-term relationships, we would have to consider many factors as well...”
“The north is too deserted,” Lorey muttered.
“...It’s true. I mean, we’ve already seen it.
It takes a while for anything to reach this camp, and you have to self-supply as much as you can because of how long anything takes to arrive, less we use one of the dragons.
The villages surrounding the Onyx Castle aren’t doing too well either; they’re too far from the center of the Empire and the Capital itself.
The Empire has lost interest in the north.
The Emperor has established a great relationship with the Eastern Kingdom since Queen Cessilia’s wedding, and there are already countless tribes the Empire has been establishing rapport with in the west since Empress Shareen began abolishing the slavery laws, but the north has been. .. left behind.”
Kassein knew it all too well.
The north prospered for a short while during his childhood, when his parents lived there, and the presence of the War God as the unofficial local lord allowed trade to bloom. His family had brought the wealth the north needed to thrive, but now, things were different.
The Onyx Castle had been deserted for a few years, ever since most of his now grown siblings had scattered in the south, and his father had had enough of sharing their mother with the Capital; now, his parents resided mostly in the Diamond Castle, their paternal grandmother’s residence, using her old age as an excuse to stay in one of the most beautiful places of the Kingdom.
Kassian had sent him to the north because there was no better place to exile a prince; it was as desolate as it was in need of a local ruler.
Upon his first days of exile, even with the little interest he had in his brother’s order, Kassein had definitely noticed how the north had decayed since his childhood.
The Onyx Castle was abandoned, the staff had left, and the nearby villages had thinned and most likely lost a bunch of their residents to the south as well.
Tievin’s words ignited something in Kassein’s mind. Something he had never thought of or desired before. Something he wouldn’t have ever dreamt of wanting, but... Alezya had changed everything.
He took a step to turn and glance around the camp.
This was the north: a bunch of tents braving heavy snowfalls every day, ragged soldiers, and criminals living out their sentences.
Miles and miles of forest full of prey and large mountains full of strangers.
A few miles from there, there were villages, the Onyx Castle, and the first paths that led to the rest of the Empire.
Long roads he knew the locals seldom took; the journey was too long, and the resources were all readily available in the area already.
The north was poor and harsh, but it was resilient. In fact, it was very different from the rest of the Empire, which was hot, dry, and wealthy. The north was forgotten, cold, and gaunt, but it was also resourceful, enduring, and independent. It was... waiting for a change.
“Kassein?” his sister called.
Kassein was already walking away, turning his back to the other three and heading into the forest. For once, he wasn’t going to hunt but just to get away from it all, to think.
He had always been one to need time to think alone. If it had been possible, he would have taken a ride on the back of his dragon, but Kein was both unwilling and unavailable; the only thing he and his dragon probably agreed on was that Alezya came first.
So he wandered into the forest on his own, picking up on cues about nearby prey on instinct, hearing them run away from him, unaware that, for once, all creatures were safe from him.
Kassein was merely walking, looking for the silence he needed to be able to think, for the first time in a long time, about his future.
He had never been one to think about the future too much.
He was enough of a disappointment to his family in the present, and his future had never been promising.
Where his siblings saw endless possibilities, all he could see was a dark tunnel.
Trying to avoid his parents’ disappointment, his siblings’ concerns, and their people’s fear. He was the Wild Prince.
He had been since that fateful night when his dragon had turned mad, and Kassein had spent his teenage years trying everything to get away from Kein’s attempts at killing him.
His father had kept his dragon bound for a while.
His older siblings’ dragons had kept Kein in check until he became too big for another dragon to contain. And then, the chaos had ensued.
His fights with Kein had happened everywhere he stood, no matter how far he fled to try and avoid his dragon.
The incident felt like a horrible fate that had just been waiting to happen, terrible and unavoidable.
There had always been casualties resulting from their fights, but none had been a human life until then.
Other dragons had destroyed buildings, burned forests, and ravaged lands.
His brother Darsan’s dragon had even damaged a mountain and a couple of bridges.
But Kein had caused someone’s death, and that was the one crime no one could forgive.
He was the family pariah.
The one disappointment in an otherwise perfect family.
All of his siblings were adored. Kassian, the perfect first son and heir of the Empire.
Darsan, the rambunctious second son. Cessilia, the beloved older sister, so kind and graceful.
Kiera, the free spirit, always flying toward new lands.
Shenan, the young prodigy, always studying and probably set to become a renowned scholar serving the Empire.
Sadara, the Imperial beauty, as beautiful as she was witty, adored by all.
Sepheus, the elusive youngest child, their mother’s favorite surely, always daydreaming.
And then... there was him.
Kassein, the one no one rejoiced to see or even hear he was around because they knew of his mad dragon.
He had never hoped to be more than ignored.
The Empire didn’t want him, and he realized that was a prevalent truth for a lot of the Northern people.
Those who lived in the north were either too stubborn to move south or had been sent here because the Empire didn’t want them anywhere else.
People who loved this land dearly, and outcasts.
The north was like him: the Empire didn’t expect anything from them anymore.
Kassein kept walking, ignoring how long and how far he had gone as his mind was building the foundations of a different future. He had this idea that seemed both insane and... right.
It felt perfectly right for him, for the future, for Alezya, and for his family. He kept thinking about what his sister had said days ago about the Onyx Castle, about their parents’ wishes for him, about everything.
He tried to ignore his past to think about the future, a future he had only dared to start fantasizing about recently.
Alezya had done that to his flightless life.
She had come in like a violent, graceful, blinding ray of moonlight to show him the world that existed alongside him in the darkness.
This place. The Onyx Castle. His army. The mountain tribes and the Northerners.
Kassein stopped walking and took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second before he looked up at the skies through the thick pine trees.
There was nothing but silence surrounding him.
He had ventured deeper than ever before into the forest, where no sound could reach him.
He stood for a while, letting the cold bite his skin, and his thoughts wandered back to the camp, to his tent, where that one woman who had changed everything rested, hopefully still smelling like him.
Kassein wouldn’t have dared to have the ambition he had now just days ago, but he also didn’t have anything to wish for.
Now, every time he thought about Alezya, about her deep eyes, her shy smile, her long raven hair, and her body in his sheets, he choked up a bit.
His heart ached because he wanted to offer her the world, and he had nothing.
He wanted to be the kind of man who’d provide for her, not some lowlife failure with nothing to his name.
That woman was happy with a bit of warmth, some meat in her soup, and his care, but Kassein refused to let her be content with just that.
He had already disappointed his mother, his father, and his siblings.
He didn’t want Alezya to join the long list of people who’d given up on him.
For the first time, he wanted more; he wasn’t resigned to his fate anymore. He hadn’t felt that kind of hunger in a long time, but now, it just wouldn’t go away. He was considering another future, and in other circumstances, he would have been the first one to laugh at the idea.
Yet now, it didn’t seem as mad anymore.
He wanted that kind of future for himself and for Alezya. For the north too, for the pariahs like him, for the Onyx Castle that had been abandoned with its memories, and, maybe, to prove his family wrong too.
Kassein spent a while in the forest.
He didn’t know how long, but he stayed long enough that when he got out of that forest, his mind was made up for good. There would be no coming back from that decision and no giving up either.