Page 100 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
If she had been stronger, she wouldn’t have felt such humiliation...
“Kiera,” she said, grabbing everyone’s attention.
Kiera, who was talking to Lorey just before, turned her eyes to her with a surprised expression, and a faint frown.
“Kiera, sword,” Alezya said, annoyed at her own lack of vocabulary once again.
The woman frowned and glanced down at her sides as if she’d expected some weapon to be there, but nothing was hanging at her belt. Then, Lorey said something, and Kiera briefly looked at her before turning to Alezya. Alezya felt silly. How to express what she wanted?
She put the bowl aside, hoping Kein wouldn’t move and spill it, and took out the dagger she’d kept concealed on herself. Absolutely nobody seemed alarmed to see her holding a weapon, which was slightly vexing, but Alezya turned to Kassein, showing him the dagger.
“Alezya, sword,” she insisted, tapping her chest.
Then, she pointed at Kiera again.
Everyone seemed confused, except for Lorey, who smiled and spoke, gathering everyone’s attention again. Tievin replied something quickly, sounding annoyed, but the other three ignored him, their eyes going back to Alezya. Kassein put his hand on her wrist holding the weapon, and nodded.
“Alezya sword,” he repeated.
Alezya wasn’t sure he’d understood her at all, but he took the weapon out of her hands, placed it on her lap, and put her bowl of food back in her hands. Now Alezya was confused again. Was he telling her to eat first? She held her bowl, unsure what to do or try next.
Then, his sister let out an exclamation, and the two siblings seemed to be arguing while eating their breakfast. As a last resort, Alezya turned her eyes back to Lorey, but as usual, that woman only gave her amused smiles, either by her confusion or the two siblings’ bickering, while she ate in silence.
Alezya gave up and resumed eating. She would always have time to try and ask again later... or perhaps Kassein had better things to do than train her. Perhaps his sister thought it was nonsense, or Tievin was against it. Perhaps they hadn’t understood her at all, really. Now, she hoped there would be another of Lorey’s lessons that day because she had a ton of words she wanted to be able to say and understand.
They ate, the others chatting while Alezya enjoyed the warm food. At the very least, she was getting better, and far healthier, healthier than she had been in a while, actually. Her legs were mostly healed and barely hurt anymore when she walked. She felt stronger when she stood, and the meat was definitely helping her regain strength quickly.
She was enjoying a clan chief’s feast three times a day now, and she couldn’t help but be all the more proud to be treated so well by the Dragon Clan. Her father would have been absolutely enraged if he’d known how well his eyesore of a daughter ate and slept here...
She thought about the herbs concealed in her bandages again. Would she be able to hide them from Kassein for several days? It would be harder to conceal them when her bandages came off.
Did he even know what they were for? If they had so many medicinal herbs, it might mean that all of the Dragon Clan was well educated about their use, not just their Healer... whom she hadn’t met yet. The intricacies of their clan’s dynamics were still very confusing to Alezya; she still had no idea what Tievin’s position was, for example. The other warriors seemed to take him seriously, so she thought he had some important position, although she never saw him working... and he didn’t seem fit for any physical job. He only spoke a lot. Maybe he was some sort of leader counselor, but Kassein didn’t seem to like to hear him out very much. Maybe he had been appointed despite Kassein’s wishes.
Her father had mentioned that the Dragon Clan leaders were a full family blessed with dragons. Did that mean Kassein and Keira had a bigger family? Kassein seemed very young for a clan chief, but she hadn’t seen anyone older than him yet who would be fit as a clan chief... but then again, their territory was far bigger than what she could see now. The land she had seen from her mountain extended far beyond the horizon. Even if they shared with other clans, she had no doubt the Dragon Clan was one of the strongest ones out there.
Kassein then said something with an angry tone, and Alezya recognized her own name as well as the word “men.” Not only that, but Lorey and Kiera stopped eating, their eyes going to her briefly before going back to him.
Oh, no, Alezya thought. Was he telling them about what had happened earlier? How much of it had he actually witnessed? She glanced to the side to see Tievin’s reaction, but the man seemed completely unbothered by the situation, back to his deadpan expression. Wasn’t he going to say something? He had been the one to scold Kassein earlier, hadn’t he?
Quickly, there was a rapid-fire between Kassein and his sister, the latter’s eyes going to the men behind them. What werethose two talking about? Surely, Kassein wouldn’t do more than earlier, would he? He had already killed a man and let Kein eat another, that should have been enough! What if he lost his warriors’ respect because he overprotected a foreign woman? What if his people rioted against him or something?
She had heard of clan chiefs being murdered for less than this, and now, Alezya was genuinely worried she might have caused irreparable damage to Kassein’s standing in his clan.
But whatever they were chatting about, his sister was in on it, for their tones were the same, and her eyes riveted on a group of men.
The two of them suddenly stood up like one, clearly done with their food, and Alezya’s blood ran cold. What were they going to do? She grabbed Kassein’s hand.
“Kassein?”
But he didn’t say anything, and instead, just put a quick kiss on her hand before brushing it away and leaving with his sister.
Alezya’s head was spinning. What was going on now?
His sister seemed amused, giving him an elbow bump, but his expression was cold and determined. Alezya turned to Lorey for an answer or help, but the young woman was just calmly wiping her mouth and stood up next, giving Alezya a smile. She walked up to her, and as Alezya was done eating as well, she put her bowl aside and took her hand to guide her. She and Lorey walked past Tievin, but instead of following the two of them, he reluctantly went after the pair of siblings with a grimace... What in the world was going on?
Alezya was trying to peek, but she and Lorey were heading in a different direction, and the young woman had locked arms with her, making it difficult to glance the opposite way. Lorey seemed hell-bent on taking Alezya away from whatever the siblings were up to.
“Lorey? Kassein, Kiera?”
