Page 99 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)
“How are we going to conquer the mountains without harming them?” Herken massaged his temples. “I don’t think this will happen without a fight, Commander...”
“I never said there would be no fight. There are some tribes who will refuse negotiations, and there is one tribe, in particular, that I plan to conquer first.”
Kassein had very little desire to let the tribe who had hurt Alezya get away alive. He wasn’t sure yet if it had been her own tribe, but he definitely remembered the men he had seen beating her up, and he had every intention to murder each one of them himself.
Anyone he could find who’d had a hand in her suffering, he would personally see to their end.
“So what?” Herken scoffed. “We start keeping those tribesmen hostage one by one? We cannot decide to start negotiating with their people; we don’t even understand their language!”
“Not true anymore,” Kiera smirked. “My brother’s new pet has been learning plenty during her stay here.”
“Your concubine has been learning our language?” Sazaran raised an eyebrow.
“You let a woman learn our ways?” Herken barked. “Commander! Who knows what that—”
“You really should value your tongue more, old man,” Kiera cut him off with a hiss.
The General froze, realizing his mistake half a second before it was too late. Kassein’s burning gaze was on him, absolutely murderous. The older General slowly shrunk back in his seat, suddenly feeling an ice-cold chill down his spine.
“A-apologies, Commander,” he mumbled. “But... that woman is—”
“Our key to establishing the negotiations with the tribes,” Kassein hissed, his glare still pinning the old man down in his chair.
Another cold chill made its way around the room.
No matter how much the generals distrusted Alezya and her people, Kassein wasn’t taking any objections, and none of them were brave enough to stand up to their Commander in Chief.
He might have been young, but Kassein already had the body of a grown man and the strength of one who shared the blood of a dragon.
The number of people who could possibly hold their ground against him in a duel could be counted on one hand and were all related to him.
“I have made up my mind already,” Kassein said.
“I will go to the Capital and talk to my brother first. Then, when I return, our army will get ready to march on the mountains. Train all of our men and prepare them for a long, possibly drawn-out battle. The mountains are vast and wide, and conquering them on foot will take a long time. We need to get ready for several trips.”
“What about the tribes that refuse to negotiate with us, Commander?” Kauser asked. “As optimistic as I want to be about this, according to Grand Intendant Tievin, there are many tribes who are of different opinions from one another. What shall we do about the ones that will refuse to cooperate?”
“I will go with Alezya to meet each tribe first and open the negotiations,” Kassein said.
“I’m counting on the word spreading through the mountains.
The tribe I intend to take down will serve as an example of what happens if they try to fight us.
I can ignore the tribes that will stay indifferent to us, but those who are set on trying to kill our people will meet their end. ”
The three generals nodded in unison. Kiera had her eyes on her brother too.
There was a huge change coming. The best outcome was that all tribes would submit and be open to negotiations, but it was unlikely.
While some tribes had shown curiosity or indifference to the Empire, some had been openly hostile for centuries.
The way that one tribe had treated Alezya showed that there also might be a case of irreconcilable differences in their way of life.
.. but at least Kassein had every intention of showing that he would not forgive or turn a blind eye to women being harmed.
Even without having witnessed Alezya’s torment for himself, her brother had been raised to not let any of his sex get away with raising a hand to a woman.
And Kiera was all on board with retribution coming to the people who had almost killed a woman not once but twice.
They had been literally trained for war, after all.
Kassein offering those tribes to negotiate first was considered mercy, especially after they had let them get away with those attacks for so long.
In all the months he had been here, her brother had launched only a few attacks, and only after being provoked. Perhaps the tribes were going to understand that hiding in their mountains could only save them for so long.
Kassein dismissed the generals, leaving only his sister and Tievin in the room.
For a while, he only discussed tactical borders, how much of the territory his brother would be willing to concede, and how to proceed with their negotiations with the tribes based on Tievin’s observations.
The camp’s Intendant had actually done a great job of keeping track of the various attacks and, correlated with his system of identifying the tribes by their attire, they were able to narrow down two more tribes that might be next in line to meet their end.
“...How do you think she will react to you attacking her people?”
Kiera’s question made Kassein freeze.
His hand, which had been spread on the map, tightened into a fist.
His sister shrugged. She hadn’t moved from her seat while participating in their conversation, but her eyes were riveted on her brother.
Kiera was on board with his plan; she had interacted with plenty of Western tribes before to know that things would either go fairly peacefully or need some strength, and she wasn’t one to oppose the latter when necessary.
Lorey was the peace advocate, and she was the strong-handed persuasion. In fact, Kiki had seldom killed humans because Kiera had no qualms about dirtying her own hands first when people deserved it.
They had run into plenty of awful people who were keen to underestimate two females; she had learned quickly not to be too sorry for killing murderers and rapists.
It was the world their ancestors had lived in, where their mother had been made a slave, sold to be killed or abused, countless tribes hunted down for their people to suffer the same fate, and abusers could live wealthy lives fed by enslaved people.
Their parents had changed everything or, at least, they had set things in motion.
Their father, the War God and an Imperial Prince, had fallen for a slave and made her his concubine. Far from being satisfied with her belonging to him like a possession, he had freed her and married her.
Then, when his sister, Empress Shareen, had been the first female to sit on the Imperial Throne alone, they had started to undo centuries of damage, freeing slaves and promulging more laws against slavery.
Now, their older brother Kassian was still arguing every day against old men who wanted things to stay the old way and were very much against giving up free labor and young female slaves.
However, all of this was fairly recent, and many tribes still feared the Empire which had hunted them for centuries.
It had sometimes taken weeks for her and Lorey to convince a tribe to even talk to them, and that was with Western tribes who spoke the same language.
How long would it take for Kassein to have those negotiations with the Northern tribes who spoke a different language and feared him and his butcher dragon most of all? Alezya would be essential to his plan, that is, if he could convince her.
That woman wouldn’t even teach them her language. How was she going to react to the idea of her lover conquering her tribe and more?
“I will talk to Alezya,” Kassein muttered.
He didn’t sound as convinced as when he’d talked to the generals, but that was fair; the young Prince was far more nervous about that woman than three old men.
Kiera massaged her neck. While his plan made sense in many ways, a lot of things could go wrong, and they were setting themselves up for a few months’ worth of work, probably, if not years.
“Ugh, fine,” she grunted after a few seconds.
“Princess?” Tievin raised an eyebrow, visibly confused.
“I’ll help you,” she sighed. “Truthfully, I expected Lorey and I to be out of here within a few weeks, but I’m guessing you’re going to need some help with this mad plan of yours... and you probably could use some.”
“I can do it fine on my own,” Kassein said.
“By the dragon’s balls, shut up and accept free help when you get it, would you?”
Kassein didn’t add any more, but after a few more seconds, he gave the nod to his older sister.
If it had been a few weeks ago, his pride wouldn’t have allowed for any help from his family, but now, with a clear objective in mind, he would gladly take Kiera’s. The faster he was done conquering the north, the faster Alezya would be safe and at ease by his side.
That was all he wanted.
“What’s going on?”
All three of them turned their heads to see Lorey, looking confused as she stepped inside the tent and glanced at the map sprawled on the table.
“Just planning to conquer some mountains,” Kiera shrugged. “Why?”
“Conquer the mountains?” Lorey blinked. “...Really?”
Kassein gave her a stern nod, and when she turned to Tievin, the Grand Intendant sighed and summarized everything she’d missed in a few sentences, from their hypothesis about the tribes, Kassein’s plan to conquer the mountains and claim the north as his own, the meeting with the generals, and finally, Kiera offering her help.
“I hope you don’t mind, honey,” Kiera sighed. “It looks like we’re set to stay here for a while.”
“I don’t, but... have you guys seen Alezya?”
They froze, the tension in the tent rising noticeably, all eyes going to Kassein as his jaw tensed.
“...She was in my tent.”
“She isn’t anymore,” Lorey announced with a sorry expression, “and... your dragon took off a little while ago too.”
“Kein?” He frowned.
“You have another dumb dragon we don’t know about?” Kiera rolled her eyes.