Page 59 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
The dragon’s silver eyes met Tievin, who felt his voice and the very bit of bravery he’d mustered up for this moment leave his body.
“S-stop,” he mumbled. “...P-please.”
Kein snarled at him, but obviously, the dragon had been taken out of its murderous frenzy.
Still, the amount of blood on its face was worrisome, coupled with the fact that all around it, everything was strangely quiet. Wherever the Prince was in that chaos, he was not showing any sign of life.
Just as Tievin was getting worried Kein might release more of its fury, the dragon turned its head toward the mountain instead. It seemed to be listening, and then, it suddenly flew off.
As soon as the dragon was in the air, the men all ran, leaving Tievin’s side to look for their leader. The poor man letout a long sigh of relief and prayed for his legs not to let him down completely, all strength having left them. After a couple of seconds, he walked through the crowd and chased them away with orders that his hoarse voice only made half convincing.
He finally saw Kassein, lying in a pool of his own blood. His first thought was to thank the gods as the Prince was still alive. Considerably injured, but alive. He was on his flank, half of his face in the blood, his breathing making little ripples under him.
“Go away. Stop watching.” Tievin chased the men away with his hands like flies.
When he finally stood alone by Kassein’s side, he sighed.
“This seems to have been a close one, sir. It might be time to take Kein’s unruliness ser–”
“You stink.”
Kassein had barely groaned those words, but it made Tievin pinch his lips.
“I need... a dry pair of pants. Since you seem alive, and alive enough to be unaccommodating, I’ll leave you here, Commander. I sincerely hope that mad, mad dragon of yours doesn’t come and finish you off in the meantime. I’ll come back when you’re, hopefully, in a better mood. And me with clean pants.”
He turned around, and after giving orders for no one to approach Kassein, he hurried back to his tent to change.
For some reason, he didn’t trust that Kein was gone for good at all. Something was different this time, and neither the man nor his dragon were acting normally. Tievin hadn’t had time to truly think while their brawl had been happening, but it wasn’t just Kein.
He couldn’t shake off the feeling that the Prince was acting oddly too. He’d seen it when he’d walked back into the camp after returning that woman to her people. That expression on his face was one he hadn’t seen in a while. One that had taken along time to disappear. The soldiers here didn’t know the Prince, so they had no idea. Only Tievin, who’d been by his side since childhood, knew how complex the Prince’s personality was, how tortured he could be under that cold, hard facade. He couldn’t understand why his dragon had gone mad, but he did pity the Prince’s circumstances a bit. He hadn’t been too happy about a woman coming to the camp, but now, he realized that woman might have been the best thing that had happened to Kassein in a long while.
It spoke volumes that the Prince and his dragon had been able to stay together in the same place for several hours, a couple of days even, without so much as making a scratch on each other, and the second that woman was gone, they were back to trying to kill each other.
As he stepped out of his tent with new, clean, and dry pants, Tievin looked up at the mountains. He’d always thought women brought nothing but trouble, and he was still thinking that. But perhaps, just perhaps, that particular woman could have brought something good into the Prince’s life. Now that she was gone, he was anxious about the days ahead.
With a lot of worrisome thoughts in mind, Tievin began walking back toward the spot he’d left the Prince. With his incredible regeneration capacity, he had no doubt that the Prince would be able to get up soon, unless the dragon came back for another round.
“Sir!”
A man ran up to him, which Tievin recognized as that new Captain, Dajan. The newcomer began walking beside Tievin, visibly nervous.
“Sir, I need to report that the dragon was spotted nearby. It seems to have gone toward the mountains.”
“Toward the mountains?” Tievin repeated, feeling uneasy. “Anything more precise than that?”
“We’re not sure yet, Grand Intendant. It suddenly... dove between mountains and out of our sight. We thought it was hunting, but it hasn’t come back yet. Sir, should we prepare some protective measures around the Commander in Chief, just in case? If the dragon comes back, I’m worried that–”
“You’ll just put more people between the Commander and his dragon, and it won’t end well for any of them,” Tievin scolded him.
“But, the Commander’s life–”
“The Commander has survived ten years with an insane dragon trying to kill him daily. Sacrificing men will not end the problem. Just keep monitoring that stupid dragon. Let’s–”
He stopped talking as, right ahead, they had both noticed the large figure now rising in the sky. In a clear blue sky, the sudden appearance of an orange dragon couldn’t be missed, and Tievin rolled his eyes when someone shouted about the dragon being spotted. Next to him, Dajan went livid.
“Commander!”
The Captain ran ahead, and Tievin didn’t try to hold him back.
