Page 50 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
No, it didn’t make sense. She was sure she’d attached it tightly around her daughter’s neck. It was her only memento of her mother, the most prized possession she had, and the one thing she valued most after Lumie. This little necklace couldn’t be a decoy either; it held the symbol of her mother’s birth clan, the Lumiata, and it couldn’t be copied easily.
Moreover, this pendant was old and bore the same imperfections she’d always known it to have. She knew it was definitely the necklace she’d left with Lumie...
Then, what could her father possibly want? The only thing she could think of was intel on the Dragon Clan. If his men had seen her here for quite some time, maybe the madman had decided that information about the enemy was more important than a child’s sacrifice.
Her father was obsessed with his pride and maintaining his status in front of the other clans. Under the pretense of safekeeping peace with alliances and betrothals, the council gatherings were usually a way for those men to prove their clan was more worthy than the others, to show off their wealth and how powerful they were, and to prevent future wars. Since everything was so scarce and each clan desperate for survival, wars happened anyway, but the clans carefully chose an enemy,and anyone who’d shown weakness at the council gathering was vulnerable.
Those gatherings were nothing more than a show to display wealth they didn’t have, show off new weapons they’d invented, gloat about the amount of prey they’d killed, and pretend their mountain was the biggest, most comfortable one.
Her father’s clan’s prestige relied a lot on their proximity to the Dragon Clan’s people. He pretended they were at the forefront of the fight against the Dragon Tyrant and its people, and would once in a while show off a weapon they’d supposedly gotten from the men they’d killed.
The pathetic truth was that they rarely fought, and mostly hid. So, perhaps seeing his daughter actually last behind enemy lines had given her cunning father some ideas. She wouldn’t have been surprised; information that could be used against the Dragon Clan was considered far more valuable than anything else, for it was most of the clans’ impossible dream to one day be able to get down to those lands to access more food and living space.
With that thought in mind, Alezya looked around the space she was in. They’d been right on one thing: the Dragon Clan was far wealthier than their clans. She’d experienced so much good food and had eaten more meat in two days than the wealthiest people of her clan ate in a week. She’d never seen a more comfortable living space, nor enjoyed so many furs to protect her from the cold. Not only that, they had enough to gift her two coats without thinking about it. She’d never had enough money to buy a fur coat... Fur was expensive enough, but the price easily tripled with the craft to turn it into a piece of clothing. The ones she did have were all from her mother, or what she’d been given prior to her wedding that she could keep, and since she couldn’t buy any, the bits of fur she’d been able to hunt by herself, she’d used them all on Lumie.
She quietly washed herself with that good-smelling thing again, wondering what face her father would have made if he’d seen what luxury she had been living in after she had just survived certain death. She had been numb to most of it in the pain of losing Lumie, though.
One thing her father would never, ever understand was how she would easily trade all this to get back her child, without an ounce of regret.
In fact, the only thing she hoped was that Lumie would get to experience such wealth one day... Her hand stopped moving.
What if, after whatever deal her father wanted to make, she came back here with Lumie? If the clans didn’t want her, why couldn’t she try again in the Dragon Clan?
If she was honest with herself, she’d always dreamt of a new life down here, in a world she’d only ever been able to stare at. She’d hoped to be able to join another clan, one that was hostile to her father, but maybe, this was even better. She didn’t care about being labeled a traitor, she had been wearing that one for a while now.
Now that she’d seen and experienced the Dragon Clan for herself, it didn’t seem that crazy anymore to come here with Lumie for a second chance. From what she’d seen, these people weren’t as bad or barbaric as the clans had painted them to be... although most of her interactions had been with Kassein.
She let out a faint sigh. She’d have to leave him; no matter how kind he was, no man in his right mind would want a woman who’d already been married and had a child with another man. Moreover, there was no telling how he’d react to Lumie. Her baby was different, and she had yet to see anyone react positively to her unique appearance.
Tired, Alezya chased all those thoughts away. She was thinking too far into the future, making too many conjectures.
She finished cleaning herself up, and slid into bed, wearing only her new underwear and tunic. The fire in the middle of the habitation was slowly dying, but she was afraid she’d do something wrong if she tried to take care of it herself since she didn’t know how they made their habitations safe despite it. She assumed that strange channel above it was the key.
She glanced toward the entrance, but there was still no sign of Kassein. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything but the gentle wind blowing the snow around. She curled up under the covers, grimacing a bit at her painful feet. She had to leave the next day, so she hoped they would heal as much as possible during the night. She would have waited longer for Kassein, if she wasn’t so eager to recover, and leave to see her daughter again. Still alone as the habitation grew darker, she couldn’t find sleep. Too much had happened, and everything was too quiet.
After a while of hesitation, she opened her lips.
“...Kein?”
She had barely whispered that into the dark, but a soft growl answered her from the other side of the fabric behind her, making her smile. The dragon was still there, at least. This crazy, dangerous creature was suddenly a little bit of a comforting presence surrounding the place.
It also made her believe Kassein would eventually come back. She didn’t want to leave without at least saying goodbye to her benefactor.
Just like that, Alezya gently drifted to sleep.
More tired than she’d let on, she didn’t hear Kassein come back inside, and she didn’t even wake up when he removed the heavy, fire-colored gear and set his sword aside.
He fanned the flames of the fire a bit, made sure the habitation was sealed shut except for the hole the smoke escapedthrough, and then, he finally went to lay on the fur rug right next to the bed Alezya was sleeping on.
He had just closed his eyes when she opened hers, perhaps woken up by the sudden proximity.
With no idea they’d missed each other by a handful of seconds, she stared at his large figure sleeping beneath her. So he had left her his bed indeed and was sleeping on the floor. She watched him sleep for a little while with mixed feelings.
She was still nervous about what she’d done wrong, and a bit sorry. She hoped he’d be up when she left the next day. She wasn’t sure what he understood of all this, what he thought of it.
Perhaps he thought she was crazy, and was just helping her out of the kindness of his heart. It still baffled her how such a powerful man could act so kind and humbly toward a foreign woman. Was he like that to all the women he knew? If so, the Dragon Clan’s people were far kinder than she’d have ever imagined.
But she couldn’t help but think that Kassein had been especially kind to her. He hadn’t let other men approach, yet he hadn’t staked any sort of claim on her.
