Dragon Prince, page 1
Contents
Dedication
Title Page - Smashwords
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
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Dragon Prince
Alledria Hurt
Copyright 2021 Alledria Hurt
SMASHWORDS EDITION
CHAPTER ONE
ARCHANA FELT HER way through the growing snow storm, groping for her fellows who were as caught as she was in the sudden storm. She had come out with her father's knights in order to find the dragon they said was in the vicinity. There was a simple reason for this: she was the bring back the heart. If she didn't, her father would be highly disappointed and more than likely furious because that was his normal behavior. Archana knew her fingers were losing their feeling and perhaps going to fall off from the cold. It would not be the first or last time she had seen something like that happen; however, it would be the first time it had happened to her. For a moment though, she congratulated herself on being able to bring to fruition such a massive spell. If she could do it more often, perhaps her father wouldn't look down on her so much when they were together.
King Arachnid looked at his daughter, Archana, as a disappointment at best. Her mother had left not long after the girl came of age to be considered the heir to the throne and had never returned. Perhaps the woman had the right idea. Of course, there was no telling why she had left, only that she left. Archana had given up trying to find out from her father what things had been like when her mother was there. Archana did not remember her mother or the years in which she had been there well. For his part, the King thought nothing of telling his daughter that her mother had been little of Queen and more of a whore. That was his first response whenever Archana asked about her mother. She was nothing until he had elevated her and she went back to being nothing as soon as she had given him a child. Not the son he wanted, but a daughter he had little use for. At least, until she had shown some propensity for magic. Then he perked up, took notice, and even seemed to be a little interested in her. Archana had, luckily, known better than to assume her father had changed his ways. Things lasted for only a short period before he made new unreasonable requests. Like the fact that he wanted a dragon heart to give him immense power perhaps even immortality. Archana wasn't sure she wanted her father to be immortal, but perhaps if he got what he wanted, he wouldn't be unbearable.
The snowstorm was Archana's decision and power brought to the fore. She and her father's knights sought to bring down a dragon for the King, but they had been about to fly away.
In that moment, she took her staff and stabbed into the ground, summoning her thoughts to keep the dragons from leaving. There were a few young ones with them. Her father hadn't been specific about the age of the dragon he wanted, so perhaps a young dragon would be good enough. A moment later, the gathered clouds began to snow, though it didn't stay that way long. Her power summoned a blizzard, driving wind, snow, and hail. It pelted her and the others, pinging off the armor of the knights as and driving them back from where they had been. Archana trudged forward. She needed shelter. The blizzard had separated them as easily as a child's toy. They could have been a moment from each other, but there was no telling where anyone was in the driving snow. Ice gathered on the buckles of her dress and she gripped her staff with numb fingers as she groped for something or anything which would allow her to find her companions.
Kieran and his flight had been at the springs near the humans for their curative properties. His clutchmate Nadia needed the springs and they had come there in hopes of being able to repair her scorched wing injured in a tussle with another young dragon. He had carried her in his claws because her wings did not support her in that moment. Then the hunters showed up.
Of course, the hunters showed up. Kieran called for the others to make their way out of the springs and back into the mountains where the dragons made their ancestral home. They were taking to wing, Nadia supported by another older dragon, when the snowstorm crashed from the air. Though they could fly in many conditions, the blinding snow forced several of the dragons to take cover in the nearby forest, Kieran among them. They scrambled through the falling snow to find shelter for themselves away from the hunters. Though they had little to fear from humans who couldn't see in a snowstorm, Kieran hung back, piercing eyes looking for one of the humans to come out of the snow with a sword and spell pack ready. The air smelled unnatural, like the snow would have come later but it was forced to come now and far harder than it would have on its own. He huffed, smoke flowing from his nostrils, snow turning him into a sight like a breathing rock. He snaked out his forked tongue to taste the air, yes unnatural. It was elemental magic brought to bear.
With a sigh, he blinked slowly, focusing on seeing anything or anyone. If the humans were smart, they had taken themselves and their horses back to their settlement near the stone castle. If they weren't, well, perhaps they would be killed by the snow which threatened to kill the wildlife in the area as well. Humans never thought about such things before they put out a lot of energy into changing things.
Kieran tried to flex his wings and found them stuck to his body through the combined weight of the snow and ice which hung from him in icicles. He sighed again, interior temperature going up at his mental command. The snow closest to his body melted in moments, but it refroze the moment it touched the outside air. In short, he made his casing stronger. Kieran considered using fire to burn it off, but he risked giving away his position if he made enough fire to free him from his prison. He murmured a curse and whipped his tail back and forth. It cracked a frozen tree, which fell to one side. The tree slammed to the ground with a great noise.
Archana felt and heard the tree fall in the forest, uncertain of what had caused it, she jumped in her shivering skin. She wasn't far from it. One thing that might be good about a fallen tree was the chance to make fire. She needed fire. She needed something to help keep her from falling asleep and not waking up from the cold. Eyelashes covered in tiny crystals, she tried to orient on the sound, which had been distorted and carried by the howling wind. Unable to truly pinpoint it and unable to summon more power to her, she simply continued forward. Of course, if she stayed put she would die. At least if she made it to the edge of the storm, perhaps she had a chance of surviving. Stumbling, she landed in the pillowy snow. It broke her fall, but did nothing to make her any warmer. A moment later, she ran straight into something which felt to her like a wall. Exploring with her hands, she tried to find where the stone ended. Maybe it would offer her some kind of shelter from the weather.
She found a cave, but it was a shallow affair, little more than an overhang. Nearby, another large stone sat away from everything. Yet she knew there was something different about it. As if it weren't a stone at all. Archana huddled under the overhang and waited for the snowstorm to stop. She had brought it into being, but she didn't know how to make it stop or even if she could. The power of weather was not to be trifled with. She didn't know how far the storm extended, but she hoped it would move away soon enough. If it didn't, the knights might well find her huddled in one place dead from the cold.
That assumed that they weren't dead from the blizzard as well. One of them might have made it back to her father, but she didn't count on it. Even if the greater magician heard of what was happening, he most likely wouldn't trifle with the weather in order to get her back. She wasn't worth that much to him. Archana did her best not to cry at the thought. The tears would only freeze to her face and make her colder.
Archana attempted to sniffle and found herself with a nose full of ice. She tried to sneeze it out and found it near on impossible. Getting rid of it made her want to start a fire. Unfortunately, fire needed more preparation than things such as a weather which would do what it was told if the situation was right. Fire required fuel of some kind. Archana had none.
Kieran felt the human when she came by, but he did his best to stay still and silent. Where there was one human, there were others, even in a situation like this one. He slowed his breathing, even though it cost him the warmth of his internal furnace, waiting for her to move on. Except she didn't. She stopped under a nearby overhang and huddled there where he could see her. She looked rather pathetic there in that moment, her body shivering so hard there was nothing hidden about how cold she was. He tried his prison again. It held him fast.
Even if he wanted to take off and leave her there to die in this unnatural snowstorm, Kieran couldn't. She wasn't going to help him, but neither could he help himself in that moment. He kept himself as small as he could, despite being the height of two humans on each others shoulders. Kieran didn't want her to notice him, but he couldn't help noticing her, or the way her scent played over his nostrils driven back by the wind. To him, a female being among the party of humans didn't seem completely unusual, except
Then again, neither was he. The others had left him behind. He did not fault them for it, of course; however, he did wonder what he was going to do. At some point the snow would subside and he would be free again. Then he would take his leave. That was what he would do and assuming there were no other issues, he would return to his flight without issue.
Provided the snow ended. There was a touch of magic in it, that much he was sure of. Just like he felt the magic inside the woman nearby. Magic which, curiously, seemed terribly familiar and strange at the same time. If he were in the habit of asking questions of humans, he might have found it in himself to ask her what the familiarity was. Unfortunately, he had no intention of doing that. Asking a human about something so important as that was without a doubt the stupidest thing he could think of. Not that he had more to do than think in those moments.
Others would come looking for her at some point, he reasoned, and it was best if they didn't find him there.
Far better for everyone if they didn't find him there.
The wind subsided, slowly dying with the last of the stirring of the leaves, leaving behind great drifts of snow against the trees and against Kieran's sides. He didn't move immediately, though he felt the ice already beginning to crack around him. At first, he let it crack on its own, refusing to furl his wings or stamp his clawed feet. He didn't want to draw attention to himself. For the moment, she thought him a rock. Better to let her continue to think that until she was well out of the area. Then he could leave in peace, neither of them the worse for wear.
Archana uncurled from where she had hidden as best she could under the overhang. Nearby, the ice was already dripping from the trees, plinking carefully against the rocks and landing without a sound in the thick snow. Her toes were frozen and her hands caught as a crone's against her staff. Her hood kept her face from the worst, but her cheeks showed windburn from the rogue elements. She could only think herself so grateful the storm seemed to have finally passed. Using her staff to stand tall, she surveyed the world around her and realized, with despair in her heart, she recognized nothing. Everything had the softness of white to it from the snow and she had no idea either where she was or where to find her companions.
"Of course," she murmured to herself, the warmth of her breath making frigid lips pained. Where was she going to find the knights now? Separated as they had been by the sudden rise of the storm, she had no choice by to do her best to return to the castle of her father on her own. Pulling her hooded cloak tight around herself, she started in what she hoped was the direction of home. She wouldn't be able to tell until she got out of the forest and only then would it matter if she went in the right direction. Turning in a full circle, once she was out from under the overhang, she put the mountains of the dragons at her back and headed toward the edge of the forest. She hadn't gone far when she heard a snap from above then a rush as thick and heavy snow landed on her in a huge pile burying her to the tip of her hood.
Kieran shivered his entire scaled body, removing the last bits of ice from his scales. With his tail, he cleaned off one wing as he used the warmth of his breath to make the other supple again. "Damnable cold," he muttered to no one in particular. Then came the sudden snap and fall of snow, his eyes drew to it as one would prey.
The woman.
She'd been caught in the falling snow.
"Leave her," he told himself. She would be trouble, he reminded himself. Humans always were. They were murderous and greedy and oftentimes unclean. There was no reason for him to involve himself in her affairs. He turned his head to take in the pile. The tip of her hood hadn't been hidden, so he knew where she was. He could perhaps dig her out, he thought. He certainly could, but did he dare to offer such assistance to a human? Any mortal human tended to look up on a dragon as a creature to be feared and fought, better to leave her be.
"She'll freeze to death," he said. There was no telling exactly how much trouble he was about to get himself into, but he knew, without knowing, that she would not be thankful for his assistance. Ah well, as the singers said, no good deed came without price.
Taking in deep breaths of the chilled air, he warmed them in his internal furnace. Once they were quite warm, he breathed them out in a whistling not unlike a tea kettle. The same breath which could have easily made his right wing useful once again, he used to bring her out of the snow.
Archana felt the snow drop on top of her and then struggled against it as it settled against her. Unfortunately, her slender form was certainly not enough to fight off the weight. Instead, she found herself quite solidly trapped and losing her breath.
Dearest heavens, she shivered under the weight of it, she was going to die in the cold she had created. Well, perhaps there was some truth to that. She deserved certainly what she got if it were true. Then came the rush of warmth. First she thought it was merely her mind playing tricks, then it continued, along with a high pitched whine she associated with a kettle coming to boil. Taking in a deep breath as the weight dissolved around her, Archana thanked the gods above when she was released only to be face to face with a dragon.
Kieran knew that no good deed went without a price, but he didn't expect the price would be his own skin. She thwacked him one across the nose with her staff and made signs as if she were going to begin a magical spell.
He reared back and floundered to one side as his right wing refused to let him take flight. His roar was cut off, by the seizing pain in his side as the wing twisted caught in the ice as it was.
Archana ceased her motion and the spell died in the air. She gasped both in fear and delight. A dragon. One like her father wanted undoubtedly. He would be indispensable to her father's ascension. She brought her hands together at her staff. Then her eyes caught the reason it did not attack. Its right wing had been encased in ice from the snowstorm. No wonder it hadn't been able to hurt her. Of course, there was nothing stopping her from capturing it, but where was the nobility in that?
It would be little better than killing a wolf caught in a trap. There was no way for the creature to truly defend itself, and she would be lauded for it of course, but part of her balked against it.
"You helped me," she said. That had to be the truth; otherwise, why would it be so close and not hurt her? "You released me from the snow."
Though she had never be taught to think of dragons as anything other than mindless beasts, it made some sense that it could take care of itself and maybe others. If it had helped her, what right did she have to do it any harm at all. In fact, she should be thanking it.
"I'll help you as well," she said. Her fingers were still near frozen, but nimble enough to make the sign for fire. A will o' wisp of flame appeared in her hand and it would follow her every whim where she wanted it to go. So she summoned it over his wing and then clapped her hands to make it explode into a shower of sparks. The sparks fell on the ice and melted through it, making it easily breakable. Kieran flexed his wing and the ice fell away leaving him with a route of escape, should he want to take it.
The pair stared at each other for a moment, Kieran sitting up at his full height well above Archana. Then came a falcon's cry from above. Kieran looked up.
Aeiran, one of his clutchmates descended out of the sky, talons extended and landed with a not so silent whumpf near them. He prepared to blow a gout of flame at the woman and Kieran stepped in the way with a shake of his head.
"She's human," Aeiran protested. The bronze dragon looked as confused as though the world had suddenly been turned upside down by the goings on in front of him.
"Leave her," Kieran said. Then he leapt cat-like into the air, a downbeat of his wings holding him aloft. Aeiran joined him as he circled the overhang once and then continued on his way west toward the mountains where the dragons held sway.
Hours later, the King's knights found the Princess Archana walking through the forest using her staff to support herself. Her hands were cramped and stiff, her feet frozen, but she held a smile on her face just the same as though she knew something they did not. Perhaps that was wholly true.
