“We should hide in the brush over there.” He pointed to a thicket of purple flowers. “Now that the sun is up people can see you easily. We can rest and then head back out when the sun starts to go down,” He gently patted her side. “I am going to try to get a rabbit or two. And, you really shouldn’t blame yourself for what your father does. You have no control over him. No one does. I wish I could gift you what little Water magic I have, like Ja Hua does for your father with her Earth magic.” He held up his hands, frowning at them.
“Thank you, I know that means a lot; but I think, you probably have more magic than you know. You’re just blocking it with your blind revenge and grudge holding. Water magic is very sensitive to strong emotions, or so I have read,’ she said, watching him pull a sling out of his backpack. “I have never hunted, or fished. I don’t know how.”
He picked up several small rocks and placed one in the sling. He ignored her first comment. “You will learn. Meanwhile, even if you did, I need you to hide.” He pointed to the purple-flowered bush. “Over there; use your Air magic to hide your body heat in case any Earth or Fire Dragons fly over. I’ll get some rabbits while you hide and keep an eye out for anyone approaching.”
She nodded and went to hide in the bushes. She kept a vigilant eye on her surroundings. The leaves were fat with early-spring rain and sunshine, and the blooms were so fragrant they were nearly intoxicating. She sniffed the air and looked up at the sky. A gentle breeze blew the leaves causing them to rustle, making the sunlight twinkle. She sniffed again and smelled only the vast diversity of life in the rainforest. She could also smell Zhao’s sorrow. It oozed from his pores like a sickness.
A skunk would smell better. Good thing he didn’t smell like that all the time. She sniffed the floral scents in, to cover the foul odor, thinking that for him, the sorrow was indeed a sickness. It was killing him slowly from the inside out. She needed to guard herself; she couldn’t allow her emotions to control her the way Zhao’s did. Still: she hoped he would be able to find peace, and build a new life. He still had time to find a mate, and have a new family.
She looked out of the bushes at the mouth of the river, allowing a sense of awe to wash over her. It was the most amazing thing she had seen. She could feel its pull, to get in it, and bask in its waters. The healing magic here was powerful, but it wasn’t the sort of healing Zhao needed. He needed the blessed Earth clay. She wondered if Blue Valley would have an Earth Dragon or a witch who could help him. She was also curious as to why no one in South Dragons Ridge helped him; it was a fire village, for the most part, but surely someone knew how to use Earth magic.
Maybe they didn’t know he was emotionally ill? Was his determination to hurt her father so strong that he covered his sickness for extended periods of time? Maybe he didn’t know he was that ill, or perhaps he was simply good at covering it up?
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
About thirty minutes later he returned with two rabbits.
He held them up smiling, “Let me guess, you are the only dragon in existence who doesn’t know how to prepare a meal for herself?” He no longer carried the stench of self-pity mixed with sorrow.
She nodded her head. “The palace staff did it.”
He took out his knife. “I’ll show you,’ he said, tossing a rabbit over to her. “Best to put that which you cannot control behind you. Meanwhile, you can take control of other areas. Let’s start with that rabbit.”
“Sounds like you should’ve taken your own advice.” She nodded and cocked one ear back, feeling very intimidated at having to skin her own rabbit.
She had done nothing to care for herself. She had three servants dedicated to her. She was due a bath, with a gold dust scale-waxing. She held up one of her faceted claws, ready to follow Zhao’s lead. It would take about three months for the facets to grow out; couldn’t come fast enough, but all she could hope for right now was that her claws wouldn’t hinder skinning the rabbit. He was right, she could start taking control with this beautiful, delicious looking rabbit.
“Just do what I do.” He ignored the comment, making the first cut on his rabbit. “Now you try.”
She did it and smiled when it looked just like his.
“See, you’re a natural.”
She giggled and continued watching and repeating until the rabbit was skinned. “Now what?”
“You eat it. You can actually eat it with the fur on, but the classier dragons I know don’t like it that way. Only wild dragons eat it with the fur on.” He started cutting his rabbit into smaller pieces.
“What about you?”
“Humans like it gutted. Personally, I like it cut into little pieces for a kebob.”
“What about the bones?”
“Eat them, your teeth are made for it. You can have mine too. I think you will find you like it. Most of the dragons I know do it to keep their teeth clean. Or they eat antlers. They don’t have official royal tooth polishers and chefs working for them. Meanwhile,” he pulled an expandable metal stick out of his backpack, and skewered his pieces. “Humans like their rabbit cooked. If you don’t mind.” He held it up in front of her.
“I don’t mind,” she said, biting the meat off the stick, and chewing it up.
“Oh boy, we do have a long way to go, don’t’ we, Princess,” he said, smiling. “I meant for you to breathe fire on it.”
“Oh,” she said with a full mouth. Her cheeks turning a dark purple with embarrassment. “Sorry.” She handed her rabbit over to him.
“It’s alright, I should have been more specific.” He cut fresh little steaks, and she put it on the stick and roasted it for him.
They ate and then rested. No one came around or flew overhead. She laid down, sniffing the flowers, and remembered a more pleasant time. When she was a small pup, she would hide in the lilac bushes in her garden. Father would walk around asking everyone if they had seen Princess Agne. They would say no, and she would giggle, but he would continue to pretend he couldn’t find her. He would, eventually, find her and smile, head butting her gently, and pulling her close to him with his tail. It was good to be loved. She wished her father showed everyone the same side of himself that he showed her.
How could he be so different from what she believed? Was she that stupid? It seemed like stupidity to her. People – the nation was oppressed and terrorized by him. Yet he pranced around playing with her like a little pup, as if he could recapture his own puppyhood.
Her eyes grew heavy, wondering if he was still looking for her. She drifted off into an uneasy sleep, dreaming she was a teeny wooden carved dragon in a toyshop. Two boys, one human and one dragon, fought over her while a third boy, a dragon, stood in the background, eyeing her with disapproval. He ignored the two fighting and continued to look her in the eyes. He cocked his head to the side and asked. “Are you a cake topper or are you real?” One ear was back and the other straight up. “I’ll not be your toy.”
She opened her eyes and lifted her head up. “I am real, and please, no more toys,” she whispered, before laying her head back down and falling into a deeper sleep.
lonely places
“Hey, Lilac. Time to go, it’s getting dark. The sky is turning purple with the sunset, so no one should see us.” Zhao gently rubbed her shoulder. “We can fly through the night.”
“Oh, I fell asleep. Did I sleep that long?” She stretched, and scratched her claws into the ground. She looked up at the tangle of flowering branches. “It smells amazing here. I almost wish we could hide here forever, but I have to get help for the survivors of South Dragons Ridge.” She was having a hard time shaking the guilt.
He was moving slow as he nodded. “It is nice here. It’s a good place to camp.”
She stretched feeling re-energized despite yesterday’s events. He looked like how she thought she should feel. “Are you sure you are alright? Did you rest?”
“It’s alright, you are the one doing most of the work. Don’t worry, not a soul came around
. This is a very lonely place.”
“Not as lonely as my garden.” She stood up, and he mounted the saddle, smiling. She looked around as they climbed out of the bushes. “One last look to cement this place into my memory,” she said, taking off as she heard his leg braces snap into place.
She flew as high as she could, following the river and stopping twice for food and rest breaks. In the morning, they landed at the bottom of some high rocky cliffs with sheer faces. She could see at least, three tall waterfalls, and dozens of shorter ones. A thick bamboo forest stretched out for miles behind them, and the smell of flowers, trees, and the river filled the air.
“What an amazing place.”
“I seem to remember there being a waystation inn around here,” Zhao said. His eyes looked like he was wearing red rings around them, and his cheeks looked hollow. “Over there, I think.” He pointed to a narrow path in the forest.
It looked overgrown like no one had been there in a long time. The bamboo was thick in some places. But to her, the area looked as if it was once a hot spot to stop. There were signs that a town had once been there, and was burned out. She could only see it using her Fire Dragon magic to see the buried burned out remains of the building foundations.
She nodded and trotted over to a path so narrow she wasn’t sure she would fit down it.
“Princess, easy with the trotting. I am feeling drained.” He patted her neck, but his touch felt weak to her.
She could tell, he was fatigued to the point of illness. This had nothing to do with his emotional sickness. She walked slower, working harder to keep the saddle steady.
“Who goes there,” A white Air Dragon said, peering out of some bushes with little white flowers blooming on them. “By Jove! There is such a thing as a Lilac Princess.”
“I am not a thing; I am Agne,” she said. She felt Zhao stiffen in the saddle like he sat up straight.
The dragon came out in the open and looked at her with silvery blue eyes. He appeared to be slightly older than her but not yet an adult. She could tell because his tail horns had not fully grown in yet, the nubs were just breaking through his scales. On the other hand, he seemed to be about mother’s size, so it was possible they shed, and new ones were growing in.
“Your rider looks exhausted. Come, I have a cabin over here. You can rest.” He headed down the path motioning with his tail for her to follow him.
“Um, who are you?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
Zhao patted her neck, “It’s Marut. He lives here. I remember him as a little pup.”
“Do I know you?” He continued walking but turned to look back at Zhao, squinting at him.
“I am Zhao, of South Dragons Ridge. My parents used to run a trade route between there and Blue Valley. We used to stop here to rest. It was a favorite place. Didn’t there use to be an inn here? W-we should g-get her inside.” His voice sounded weaker as he spoke.
“It used to be popular. No one has stopped here for years. Not since the invasion of East Blue Plains. We used to have a home there; our second home was in South Dragons Ridge. As Zhao knows, the entire village was burned to the ground by the Blood King when they refused to renegotiate their trade contract with North Dragons Ridge. I haven’t seen my parents since then.” He continued down the narrow path to a small, moss-covered cabin. “What about your family?”
“Killed and buried during that same invasion,” Zhao said. “That’s why I moved to our home in South Dragons Ridge.”
They walked another few hundred yards back into the forest. Green trees towered up, with dense foliage in some areas.
“The forest is so green here that cabin is almost camouflaged against it,” she said, looking around, unable to hear more about her parent’s campaigns. The topic needed to change.
It was beautiful here, with giant tropical trees scattered here and there in between the bamboo. She was sure father had slaughtered an entire village for wanting what she was sure she would discover to be fair trade prices. His sins were piling up, just as her mother warned they would.
She felt Zhao’s hand on her neck, as he leaned forward to her ear whispering. “You had nothing to do with it, remember that. He went out of his way to keep you in the dark, and you certainly didn’t ask to be kidnapped.”
She nodded, turning one ear back to hear him, and then following Marut into the cabin. It was about the same size as the closet she kept her cute little horn hats in. It had a large room with a small loft upstairs. It reminded her of what someone’s hunting cabin would look like.
She stopped so fast it was like she had run into a wall; How had Zhao known she was sad about that? She had been looking around and commenting aloud about the beauty of the forest, not her father’s reign of terror. She had read somewhere that riders quickly develop an intuition on their dragon’s train of thought? No! her “no” so steadfast in that she almost yelled it.
Zhao patted her neck again. “I am sorry, one day I’ll find a way to make it up to you,” he whispered.
She nodded but focused in on Marut. She refused to think about Zhao right now. She didn’t have a rider; he was just taking her to her aunt. If anything, she should immediately send him away when they arrived in Blue Valley. Don’t be indecisive. If nothing else, she could trust him to tell her the truth.
“Welcome to my little house. The rider quarters are upstairs.” He used his tail to point over to the narrow staircase. “I’ll warn you, I can’t fit up there anymore, so it’s probably really dusty up there. And Agne, you can use my bed. I’ll stay out here since I am wide awake.” He pointed to a granite slab.
She felt Zhao release his leg braces, taking off the bridle as he slid off her back. She unstrapped the saddle, and he lifted it off.
“Here, I’ll take that, you look terrible,” Marut said, reaching for the saddle and hanging it on the wall with a conspicuously empty saddle hook, and then placed the bridle and braces next to it.
Zhao nodded and headed up the stairs. She heard him flop down.
Marut looked up to the loft. “Is he alright?”
“I think so. He has been awake for about forty-eight hours. I am hoping he just needs a rest.”
His eyes seemed to trace the dark purple and white striping on her back. But he didn’t seem to be ogling her, he seemed to be studying her. Still, she didn’t want any part of it.
“Hey, eyes up here, stranger boy.”
It was inappropriate for a male to trace a female’s stripes with his eyes. It was the equivalent of a boy looking down a girl’s shirt. And, probably the fastest way for a male to get his tail bitten off. Females chose and took their mates, not the other way around, and there was a reason. Their necks and tails were far more flexible, and had twice the muscle, meaning it was easy for females to bite and claw their way free. It was just another fact that reinforced how evil both of her parents were. There is no way Father could physically force Mother to stay. She could have easily out flown him; anytime she wanted to. Not only that but her mother was military trained. It was how she met her father – at the Royal Military Academy.
“Sorry, I was just wondering if you were really her? The Lilac Princess. The Blood King’s daughter? You have the stripe color of an Air Dragon, but the pattern is that of a Fire Dragon. There aren’t that many purple dragons.” A light blue hue filled his cheeks as his embarrassment showed. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
She frowned. “I am just a girl who was too sheltered by her overprotective father.”
“I used to hear the legends. When I was a pup, my parents would take me into East Blue Plains for flying lessons. Some of the mothers would tell younger pups the fairytale of the Lilac Princess. There was a dark, evil dragon who kept her locked in a tower, but she loved him in spite of this. It melted his heart. He loved her so much that she was able to get him to free the people by deciding to stay in his castle and use his scary army to protect her. She sacrificed her freedom so the people could be free. Everyone loves the Lilac Princes
s for staying locked in the castle.”
“Are you sure that is how that goes? I seem to remember reading that she killed him.”
It was a fairytale well known to everyone, even her, but it wasn’t called the Lilac Princess, it was the story of how the four great elemental dragons set up a fair and prosperous government for both humans and dragons, even the non-magical humans. Modern society was based on the myth of the Jade King.
“It’s a story about the unity of the elements and dragons protecting humans, not killing kings.”
Marut shrugged by arching his back up. “I don’t know. After my parents died my formal schooling ended, so I am missing secondary school. What about you, do you hunt…Princess?”
“I am Agne, and I can skin game just fine.”
“Why skin it?” Marut asked, with his ears slanted slightly back to indicate his confusion. “Why not just eat it? Or do all princesses have their game skinned for them? What about your sisters? Do they hunt? I didn’t know the Lilac Princess had a rider. Is he the child of the King’s rider?”
“No,” she interrupted his questioning. It was like he couldn’t stop talking. “What sisters? My mother only has one pup, and that is me; just little me; Agne.” She could not think about her sisters. They were horrible to her, and the one time they tried to include her it was a ruse to have her killed. She wouldn’t cry over them – not right now anyway.
“Okay, Agne. Why not just eat it? Why skin it at all?” He shrugged like it had never occurred to him to skin his food.
“And have fur stuck in my teeth? Or hurl up a hairball in front of people. How undignified. No, thank you. I am just fine skinning it.” She put up a paw, shaking her head with her ears perked to the sides and tail stiffened.
The Lilac Princess and the Blood King Page 6
