Page 167 of The White King's Favorite

“Damn it,” grunted Tessandra. “It would have been better if I wasn’t so fucking drenched...”

“I hope you can dry fast.”

The voice coming from behind made them jump.

With a smirk on her face, Jisel was slowly coming out of the water, looking exhausted but still smug. Just like them, she had transformed her legs into red-scaled limbs that appeared in between the folds of her dress. She tilted her head.

“You damn bitch...”

“Oh, I’m the least of your problems right now.”

Just as she had said that, they heard it again. A loud, furious growl coming from ahead. Both Tessandra and Naptunie looked ahead, while Cessilia was still glaring at Jisel.

“Sir Dragon!”

“...That wasn’t Krai, Nana,” said Tessa, cutting her hopes short.

The young woman’s expression sank. She had noticed the growl was different from usual, but she hadn’t even thought it could have been another dragon. With horror, Naptunie watched as a large, dark-scaled creature appeared on the other side of the cave. This time, even Cessilia had to turn her head, her heart beating fast. There truly was another dragon, glaring at them with terrifying black eyes.

“What is it, Princesses?” chuckled Jisel. “...Never seen a dragon before?”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me...” muttered Tessandra.

Fighting men, no matter their number, was still conceivable, and offered chances to actually survive. However, with a dragon in the mix, their chances of survival were cut drastically short. Tessandra was trying hard to think of something, an opening, but right now, she was exhausted from swimming, still not properly able to use her Dragon Fire, and they still had to care for the two that couldn’t fight behind them.

“...Meet Jinn,” said Jisel, as if it was a normal introduction. “Isn’t my dragon wonderful?”

“He c-can’t be your d-dragon,” hissed Cessilia.

“Oh, right. He’s actually my dead brother’s... but he is still very much attached to me. And after all, who cares about the details? If I tell him to kill you, he will.”

“Who are you r-really?”

“Is that really what you care about right now, Princess?” said Jisel, raising an eyebrow. “You’re going to die here.”

“I want to know b-before I get rid of you.”

“Not today.”

Jisel then launched a new salvo of needles, but this time, Cessilia saw them coming. In an impressive movement, she swung her arm and grabbed all four right as they were about to hit her. Her glaring at Jisel hadn’t changed; this time, if she wanted a real fight, that woman would have to stop trying to cheat. Jisel grimaced and stepped back. Either she wasn’t confident in fighting Cessilia, or she preferred to see her killed by the soldiers or her dragon, it was hard to tell. She simply left the small lake at which they had arrived from via the opposite shore, never turning her back on the group of four, but also cautiously stepping back.

While Jisel wasn’t engaging in a fight, there was a lot more to be worried about upfront. The first soldiers had already arrived at Tessandra, and she had to use her very best fighting skills to keep them at a distance. It wouldn’t be enough, though. If she had been alone, she could have gone deeper into the crowd and fought with circular movements, but in this case, she still had to protect Nana and the King. Right behind her, Cessilia glanced at the situation ahead, and quickly pulled Ashen further out of the water, but closer to the cave’s wall behind them.

“Nana, s-stay here,” she said, tightening Ashen’s bandages again. “J-just watch the K-King for me, alright?”

“I understand,” nodded Nana.

Her voice was shaking, and she was visibly scared, but she was putting on a brave front, and that made Cessilia smile at her, loving the brave Nana even more.

“Put p-pressure on the injury,” added Cessilia, quickly showing her. “Th-the other side is b-blocked but he c-can’t lose more b-blood, alright?”

“Yes!”

Happy to have something to be useful with, Naptunie put all her focus into applying her hands on the King’s injury. She tried to ignore the blood that almost immediately stained her palms, or how pale the King was looking, and simply focused, staring at it as if her gaze could keep the blood from flowing out.

Right after that, Cessilia got back up, and ran into battle next to Tessandra. She only had the needles she had just stolen from Jisel, but as an experienced fighter, any weapon in her hand was deadly. She was moving incredibly fast, and in such a perfect combo with her cousin, it was as if their fighting power had been tripled instead of doubled. The men were even reluctant to approach the deadly duo, as they seemed to quickly get rid of any opponent. The two of them were perfectly complementing each other, covering any blind spots, watching each other’s back, and standing like an impenetrable wall between their opponents and the King. Their main issue was the number of fighters that kept coming at them, no matter how many they killed, and the dragon that was behind them, lying in wait but growling furiously. Cessilia was moving like a relentless tornado, swinging left and right, the two needles in each hand acting like sharp claws that sliced and stabbed her enemies in a deadly silence. Tessandra’s style was much heavier and brutal. Her sword was drenched in blood, and she wasn’t picky about her own precision; she was inflicting large injuries, chopping off limbs and rendering her opponents useless if not dead.

Both of them were keeping a close eye on the foreign dragon. It was their first time encountering an enemy dragon, but they both knew enough about those creatures to analyze what they saw. It was a large creature, but smaller than most dragons they knew. It wasn’t adult size, more like a teen dragon, about the size of three men. It had the body of a water dragon, long and sleek, which explained how it had gotten there without trouble. While fighting, they had spotted boats stranded on the seashore, somewhere behind those men, further past the cave’s large opening. Most of the people they fought were even a bit wet, and so was that dragon. Was that where it had been hidden all along? Underwater?

---