Page 242 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
“Do you think he passed out? Standing up? ...Tiev?”
“It can’t be!” Tievin suddenly jerked. “It’s impossible! There is no way Kein decided to make a dragon for a–”
“Enough,” Kassein suddenly seethed.
His angry tone calmed Tievin’s protest immediately, and the Intendant went a bit pale under his glare. Even Kiera pressed her lips together.
“Niiru is Lumie’s dragon and Kein’s child,” Kassein growled. “There is nothing to argue.”
“I... I understand,” Tievin finally muttered. “And Lady Alezya is indeed... with child?”
“Yes.”
He lifted Alezya’s hand, showing off the white scales that peppered her skin to Tievin, who observed them with a frown. After a while, the Intendant let out a long sigh, leaned his head back, and massaged his eyelids. Then, he straightened up, and bowed.
“Congratulations, Your Highness,” he said, ”and congratulations to Lady Alezya on the pregnancy.”
Alezya was now looking down at Tievin with a frown, obviously confused. Kassein nodded, dismissing the situation entirely, and turned to his sister.
“So?”
“So?” his sister scoffed. “You leave me in charge all night, and all you have to ask is ‘so’? Seriously... Well, nothing much happened, alright? The scouts we sent spotted a lot of movement everywhere in the mountains. Little groups going in all directions but ours. There’s definitely something going on out there. All the tribes are agitated.”
“They’re rallying allies,” Kassein explained.
“Allies?” Tievin raised his eyebrows.
Quickly, he explained everything that had transpired with the Munsa Tribe and the other tribes Alezya had spoken to. He had already explained some of it to his sister the previous night, but he took the time to give a more detailed account for Tievin to hear. Kiera listened with a frown while Tievin was already furiously writing in his notepad, frowning. Alezya, who seemed to understand some of what he said, nodded along, her eyes alternating between the three of them to gauge Tievin and Kiera’s reactions. When he was done, his sister blinked.
“...This is such an unforeseen development,” Tievin whispered. “Those people... Those tribes are really splitting over whether or not to fight us?”
“It’s crazy,” Kiera nodded. “We’ve been hunting them without distinction, they shouldn’t hesitate!”
“They seem to have noticed we’re only after some of them. Alezya seemed to say her birth tribe was hell-bent on attacking us, but the ones she had me meet were of a different mind. She showed them Kein listened to her too. I think they’re scared of us, and most of them have no intention to fight. They’re terrified of Kein, but they live too far to care what happens on our side ofthe mountain. I think there’s more going on between the tribes than we know.”
“So they would have their own reasons,” Kiera shrugged, ”but are we sure that we do want to keep fighting? You got your girl and her kid, Kassein. If you wanted, we could stop things here and go back to the camp.”
Tievin raised his eyebrows in question, probably in favor of that option as well. Kassein hesitated, before he gently pulled Alezya to face him.
“Do you want us to keep hunting?” he asked her. “The tribes, the mountains. Your people, the... Deklaan, was it?”
Alezya nodded.
“Your friends. Do they want to hunt too? ...Why?”
She licked her lips, glancing around, before she suddenly grabbed Tievin’s notepad, snatching it and his pen out of his hand and getting on her knees to start scribbling something. All three of them gathered around her after a moment.. Alezya wasn’t a great artist by any means, but it didn’t take long to realize the triangles she made were meant to be those mountains. She made a circle at the bottom, and lower down, a black dot. She began by pointing to the dot.
“Onyx Castle, yes?” she asked them.
They all nodded, and she moved to the big circle.
“Kassein’s home,” she said. “Kassein’s men, with the medicinal herbs and the fire. And the forest.”
She moved up, showing the triangles, and Kassein nodded.
“The mountains.”
“My home,” Alezya nodded, pointing at one of the triangles nearest to the camp. “DeklaanKulani. This mountain, we attack Kassein’s home. Thosekulani,they hunt Kassein’skulani. MunsaKulani, here. They don’t hunt Kassein’skulani.They don’t want to. But my homekulani, my father, they want men. More men to hunt Kassein’s men.”
