Page 167 of Evil Hearts

“I’m very glad to have given you such an exciting task, my friend,” Oryn tells him, and Zath’s chest returns to its usual coloring. The drake clears his throat, no doubt moving the warmth of his blush further away from the surface.

“Will you be headed to the Nathairfae first?” the drake questions, changing the subject to avoid talking about his embarrassment. He’d always been shy to share his hoard with other dragons, though Oryn couldn’t understand why. His own books were thought to be worthless by their kind. Easily destroyed and of no true value, and to others, it might be true. Yet to him, the volumes gracing his shelves were invaluable. Each one contains friends he couldn’t have met without opening the pages. Lessons in life and love that he wouldn’t haveexperienced any other way. He loved them just as Zathrian loved his teacups.

“Of course,” Oryn tells him and jerks his head toward his private nesting chamber just beyond the sitting area of the library. The drake follows behind as Oryn makes his way from his library through a wide but short passage, and into his personal room. He likes staying close to his horde, but has learned the hard way that the all too flammable books needed their own separate room. “It’s always my first stop, you know that.” He replies while Zath remains near the door while he removes his monocle. Oryn carefully unclasps the metal band from around one of the crystals crowning his head, and lifts it away. It had been a gift from Zath many years ago, and remained one of his most prized possessions next to his books.

Before the petite magnifying lens he’d been forced to stoop over a sheet of glass meant to enlarge the tiny words on the pages of his books. It was uncomfortable at best, and miserable more often than not. Oryn’s neck was always kinked, and there were times he’d been forced to quit reading far before he was ready due to the terrible ache in his legs from holding the same position for hours on end. With the eye piece though, he could lounge nearly anywhere and read comfortably. Even with the ability to spread out across cushions his body still became stiff after the long hours of reading, though.

Once the magnifying monocle is safely stored in its box, Oryn removes the golden bands at his wrists marking his status as a Prince, and the long silken robe he favors. They would only get in the way while flying, and he didn’t want to risk them getting damaged during his raid. He didn’t need to wear clothing, none of them did, but Oryn enjoyed the feel of the golden silk across the more supple areas of his hide. Unlike Zath, his skin bears far fewer armored scales which might catch on the delicate fabric,making it more of an option for him. He was made to fly, while the drakes were intended to endure.

After all, with no wings or other quick way of escape, their only option was to fight if the need arose, and their bodies showed it. Oryn’s body, on the other hand, was covered in a dark, leathery hide that was only dotted with heavy scales along his arms and legs. Altering the silken robe to accommodate both the scales and the golden crystals running down his spine and sprouting from his shoulders had been a simple task. He had removed the sleeves, and had a long slit cut into the rear of the robe to accommodate both his crystals and his tail.

“I’ll still never understand why you choose to run wild across the whole of Drandaris during your allotted time to raid instead of building your horde.”

Oryn shrugs before folding the robe and placing it next to his other precious belongings. He looks at the folded silk, then glances pointedly at Zath before repeating the process, ensuring the drake sees he’s folded the robe. The Prince’s actions have Zath shaking his head in amusement. Of course he wouldn’t understand Oryn’s desire for adventure, the drake has so little time for his own raids that every minute is precious.

“I can just as easily get my books through correspondence. The wayward Keepers still aid in that purpose, even if they’ve abandoned their post at the Plateau. Plus,” Oryn adds, looking wistfully toward the shelves in the next room, “I get a better selection that way. Do you remember when I would come home with charred remains of children’s books? Or even worse, copies of books I already had!” Zath nods before letting out a small huff of laughter. “I get four months every six years, Zath.” The prince groans. “That’s it. I want to spend that freedom seeing everything I can. Experiencing all the things I miss out on while I’m stuck here.”

“Here isn’t that bad, Oryn,” Zath presses and Oryn sighs in response. He’s right, and this isn’t the first time a similar conversation has come up. Indeed, nearly every time Oryn’s raiding period comes, it happens. He loves his lair, it’s filled with everything he could want, and if given the chance, his older brother would take it from under his nose. Its proximity to the crystal caverns, thermal spring, and abundant space were the envy of many, Admetus most of all. Yet all of that didn’t change Oryn’s nearly constant feeling of being hemmed in by the stone surrounding them.

“No, it’s a wonderful home. I freely admit that, Zath. But a home starts to feel like a prison when you have rules on how far you can stray from it.” Oryn flops down onto the pile of pillows in his nest and stretches his tight back. With his forelegs in front of him, he pushes them as far as possible, then stretches his sharp taloned hands, before doing the same with his hindlegs. He’d been reading since the sun rose and now, late in the afternoon, his body began to complain about the lack of movement. Oryn lingers there for a few moments, enjoying the deep sprawl before he returns to his conversation with Zath. “I can’t just take off and go swimming in the Draca or walk on its beaches with Rouhi. Nor can I soak in the sulfur pools of the wetlands with Cruor. Just like I can’t lose myself in the Nathairfae Wood when it strikes my fancy,” the Prince explains, only a little exasperated by the monotony of the talk.

Being a drake, Zath always enjoyed the comforts of home more than traveling, but if Oryn could, he would explore and run wild through the lands of Drandaris and only come home when he absolutely needed the rest. “I’m not saying I don’t love it here, I’m saying, I love seeing the world I’m a part of more than I enjoy sitting here every day wishing I could experience the things I read about.”

Chapter Two

After a brief,but heartfelt farewell, Oryn leaves Zath to make his way to the main entrance of his lair. The drake has a tendency to get weepy during their goodbyes, and the last time he accompanied Oryn to the exterior entryway, he needed a tremendous amount of consoling. Both of them knew the likelihood of Oryn returning in one piece was high, but over the last fifty years, things have become more and more dangerous throughout Drandaris. Humans attack dragons without provocation, and the number of dragons dwindles.

The Orcran tribes had wiped out the Wyrms, even the faedragon species of their lands had fled. The Prince would have to fly near their lands on his way to the Nathairfae, or go all the way around them, risking exposing himself to the humans of other lands. While many of the peoples of Drandaris weren’t as bloodthirsty as the Orcranians, every dragon the tribes killed was proof to each and every human that dragons weren’t the threat they’d initially thought. Even the Karstinian nation now held their own standing army, ready to slay dragons if commanded. Zath and Oryn liked to be sure to say their final words in the event they were terribly wrong and one of them didn’t make it home from raiding. Obviously Oryn knew how to take care of himself, that wasn’t the issue. But when an entireclan made plans to kill a dragon, there wasn’t always a way out of it.

A pinprick of light greets him as he continues to walk through the unlit circular stone passage, his claws scraping on the cool stone as he walks on all fours. It had once been a small tunnel to the vast cave deeper in the mountain, but his ancestors had enlarged it by carving away at the stone until it was both wide and tall enough to emit even the largest of their kind. All of the royal lairs were made this way, but his own home let out on the waterway between the mainland, and the small mountainous island that once housed the extended royal family. Vacant now, the empty caves serve as a reminder of how different things are in Drandaris.

Once he makes it through the passageway and outside of his lair, Oryn releases the tight hold he keeps on his transformative power and, in seconds, his body reacts. Both the Prince’s wings and his body return to their normal, much larger, size. Oryn extends his talons, feeling the crunch of sand, pebbles, and earth beneath them as he flexes them to grow accustomed to his reclaimed size. He can smell hints of the sea wafting through the air, and shudders as the cool wind brushes over his hide. His lair and entryway were designed to accommodate a dragon at his full size, but he always felt even more claustrophobic within the stone walls when he was at his regular size. Tensing his muscles, Oryn flaps his membranous wings once, tossing sand and debris all around. Pebbles crash into him after rebounding off the steep mountainside nearby, but the feeling of stretching his wings fully is so sublime, he wouldn’t have cared if a rock had struck him in the eye.

Oryn rolls his shoulders back, leans his neck to one side, then the other. He takes joy in feeling his muscles come back to life. Now, fully able to move, fire builds in Oryn’s chest as elation spreads through him. Despite his attempts to control himself,the Prince opens his jaws and blows it out. The stream of heat and flame spreading over the water near the entrance of Oryn’s lair causes thick steam to rise. When a single fish bobs to the surface, he grins greedily, feeling his sharp teeth against his lips. His flames obviously boiled the water, killing the fish in the process. Not wanting to waste it, Oryn plucks it from the water’s edge and tosses it in his mouth, swallowing it all at once.

The steaming water looks inviting, but Oryn controls his urge to dive into it and rinse away the last of the stifling feeling of being so hemmed in while his muscles are relaxed by the heat at the same time. Instead, he jumps off the ground, using all of his strength to push away from the earth. Flapping his wings, the prince rises into the air inch by hard-earned inch until the top of the mountain his lair is in begins to pass below his sight. Beyond it, Oryn catches sight of the open gates marking his eldest brother, King Khrysoar’s, home and lair. Though he can’t see it, the entrance to his middle brother, Admetus’ lair, lies beyond that. Each of their caves is marked by dark gates adorned with golden trinkets and paint, though his own had faded over the years. In the times before the rift between humans and dragons, it wasn’t a concern that the royal family’s lairs were so visible, but now, the Prince was happy the shining edifice had dimmed.

Oryn hadn’t spoken to either of his brothers in some time, and the distance between the trio of royal brothers had only seemed to grow after his outburst at the last Assemblage. Neither of them had written to him when they returned from their own raids as they usually would have, and while he knew they were both safe, Oryn still missed his brothers. The Prince curses himself again for the arguments that took place, and the unkind words they all spoke, but pushes it from his mind for the time being. It’s finally his turn to be free, and he can work toward repairing those relationships when he’s trapped once more.

Tilting his wings, Oryn flies away from the royal lairs and heads south along a river, toward his destination. Rusty red scrub bushes begin dotting the ground on his right as he flies near the tribe lands, and looking down at the withered landscape fills him with sadness. With their systematic extermination of the wyrms, the Orcran tribes had effectively killed their own land without even knowing they had done so. The disappearance of the miniscule faedragons of the land proved more than anything else, that the land had indeed lost the last remnants of the magic keeping it alive and flourishing. Oryn’s chest heats in mourning for the dragons the tribespeople killed. No matter how they teased one another, there was no denying the wyrms were just as much dragon kind as any other species.

He had even been lucky enough to call some of the lost wyrms his friends. The close proximity to his lair being only one reason he had befriended them, Oryn always enjoyed their company as it was so different from any other dragons. The loss of even one dragon was cause for sorrow though, no matter if they were close with Oryn. Yet the massacre felt more personal when he knew his friends had been among the first to die.

From his vantage point, Oryn looks out over Drandaris and tries to ignore the brown, rotting color of the Orcran Tribe Lands just to the west of him. He turns to the east to see the fields of the Agrigor Valley and its village nestled safely at the foot of the very mountain range the royal lairs are in. Thatched roofs dot the lush valley and Oryn remembers his few visits with the Keepers who reside there fondly. After the Orcran tribes began hunting dragons, the carefully-selected group of women quickly dispersed, leaving only a few to remain. The Prince hadn’t gone to the village to see if even one of the Keepers remained, though he would be surprised if any had.

A damp breeze blows into him, and Oryn shifts his attention to the glistening Waters of the Draca and away from thelost Keepers. The watery underground caves wind beneath the colorful reef, keeping the few amphithere who reside there safe. Oryn had always enjoyed swimming in the warm waters and basking on the golden sands. Beyond the Draca, even further to the east, the Karstinian Nation clings to the steep mountainside. Their homes latch onto and are even carved from the stone of the mountain much like a dragon’s lair. The Karstinian people are known for their horse breeding and medicine making, and while Oryn is sure there are many other wonderful qualities they might possess, he hadn’t ever enjoyed the people overly much. They had an air of superiority about them, and even though his own power, and that of his brothers, is what keeps their land alive, he’d never spent long there. Even before things changed through all of Drandaris.

After some time, Oryn’s attention is pulled from his sightseeing by a putrid odor. The shrubland of the tribes is beginning to give way to the stinking animal pens they rely on for survival and Oryn snorts hot jets of air from his nostrils hoping to rid himself of the stench to no avail. Just beyond the pens, looming like a writhing beast, is the towering wall dividing the Orcran Tribe Lands and the Nathairfae Wood. The odd-looking wall’s construction had begun when the tribespeople had started cutting down trees around their town to ensure dragons couldn’t hide among their branches. The tall trunks were then lined up on the border of the colorful forest for protection, and over time, the thick barrier was added to until it completely blocked the tribelands from the otherworldly forest. Since its completion though, the Natheirfae had overtaken the wooden structure, covering it with flowering vines, almost as if the wood itself was mocking the humans for trying to keep it at bay.

Beyond the fortification, the brilliant canopy and colorful undergrowth of the Nathairfae Wood is just visible and even thesmallest sliver of its foliage is inviting. When Oryn flies over the distinct line dividing the two territories, his body shivers at the change in temperature. Beyond the wall, the air smells and feels different. Its fresh green scent is heavy with humidity from the abundance of plants in the wood, making the Prince close his eyes in relief. Inhaling deeply, Oryn lets it wash over himself before beginning his descent.

Chapter Three

Just passing intothe Nathairfae Wood has Oryn feeling more at ease. Already the tension between his eyes is releasing under the barrage of sweet floral scents. Despite his desire to land among the blossoming foliage, he continues to fly. Circling the wood entirely, Oryn scans the skies to ensure he hasn’t been followed by man or beast before finally spiraling widely to land near his dear friend’s lair. Thick moss covers the ground in shades of green and yellow, padding his journey as he walks through the clearing to the entrance of Islwyn’s home. Though he both knows and has a friendship with the wyvern within, Oryn does not enter. A dragon’s home is a sacred space, and he’d never been invited into Islwyn’s. Oryn didn’t mind, and he didn’t blame the wyvern for his caution, after all, he was the last of his kind and the Prince knew that his survival was, at least in part, due to his vigilance.

Like the wyrms, the Orcran Tribes managed to kill off the rest of Islwyn’s kind before building the towering wall between their lands. They sent hunting parties through the wood to stalk and kill Islwyn’s nest mates while he was away attending the Assemblage that all the dragon leaders attend every six years. The magical wood had suffered after their loss due to the terriblegrief of its guardian, but Islwyn had somehow known how to keep it alive. Once he finished mourning his loved ones, Islwyn threw himself into the restoration of the Nathiarfae. Luckily, the Wood hadn’t lost all of its faedragons by the time he got started. The tiny creatures being, after all, the very key to the land’s survival.

“Oryn,” a deep voice echoes out of the dark stone cave. Its slanted sides and angled roof make it look like an ancient doleman, making the voice from within sound all the more mysterious and disquieting. “I expected you hours ago,” the sonorous voice chastises, and Oryn smiles, showing his teeth.

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