Dragon's wrath

Chapter 6: Short vacation

For five days I didn’t move an inch from the bed. Alarick spoiled me and besides bathroom trips, I could just relax in our king size bed, enjoying his lovely attention. When we stayed at the cottage in the middle of woods and I cooked every day, I came to the conclusion that he couldn’t cook, but the food I had eaten in these five days was miles better than anything I had eaten until now. Alarick was the best chef in the world. Not to mention that he specifically made my favorite foods. I was really lucky Agnes stocked our pantry because she really arranged the best things she could. 

“Good morning Princess.” Alarick opened the door, entered the room with a tray in his hands and served breakfast. He made sure the menu was nutritious, but at the same time delicious. The truth was I needed a lot of food since he exhausted me every day, but I didn’t complain. We were truly alone for the first time, without anyone butting in, destroying our privacy.

“Good morning.” I yawned, stretching my neck and cracking my back. Doing nothing all day was exhausting as well, but I didn’t mind. I would still be able to enjoy this for a few more days, maybe even a few weeks. 

Alarick placed the tray on my knees while I sat on the bed. It was the kind of tray with legs on its sides, meant for serving the food to a person in bed. 

“It looks delicious.” I inhaled all the amazing scents deeply.

“Only the best for my little princess,” he professed, but I pursed my lips.

“I am not that little right now, am I?” I asked, adding an angry tone as I tried to scold him jokingly. 

“No, you are not,” he whispered huskily, while nibbling the tip of my pointy Elven ear. During our first night in this house together, I shifted into this form. My Elven body was lighter, easier to control and more importantly, it was flexible compared to my stiff human form. It almost made me feel like my human body was missing any sort of elasticity. 

Just as I was about to dig into my breakfast, which Alarick had plated so nicely, something very similar to a doorbell sounded across the house. I looked at Alarick, my eyes questioning if it was really what I thought it was. The confused and worried expression that instantly appeared on his face told me that it was exactly as I thought. He stood up and left the room excusing himself for a moment. I quickly moved the tray away and hurriedly put some clothes on so I could go after him. I found him standing in the entrance hall with a piece of paper in his hand and clenched wrist on his other.

“Something wrong?” I asked, but Alarick stood there, frozen, almost like a statue. Whatever was written on that piece of paper had made him extremely angry and anxious.

“I am sorry Princess, but we have to go back home,” Alarick said while crumpling the paper in his hand. Something serious had to have happened. I had never seen such an expression on his face before. It was a mixture of anger, sadness, along with desperation and guilt. I wanted to know what was wrong. What had happened that we needed to return so abruptly. Thousands of questions were swirling in my mind, demanding answers, but one thing I knew for sure, I just needed to listen to what Alarick said now and let him absorb the news he had just received. Later he would be able to tell me about it, but demanding answers right now would only cause more damage. 

Packing our stuff was easy. Most of my clothes were still on the bed since I actually hadn’t needed them. I put my winter clothes to survive the flight on Alarick’s back on again. In less than ten minutes we were ready to go. I felt sad to leave this place in such a hurry, but I knew we would come back sooner or later. This was our hideout, our second home. I was not ready to let this place go, especially because of the memories Alarick and I had made here and the feelings I had experienced when he kept me close.

“Are you ready?” he asked and I nodded.

“We can go,” I confirmed without telling him how much I was going to miss the place. He was stressed and worried and I didn’t need to make him feel guilty as well.

“I am sorry Princess,” he said with a sad smile. 

“Don’t be. It is not like we are leaving forever and never coming back,” I assured him with a wide smile and kissed his temple. With my current height it was quite easy to reach it. 

“Thank you,” he sighed, taking both of our bags and opening the main door for us to leave. I had almost forgotten just how freezing the air actually was outside. The heating system in the house worked really well and the dark walls of the rocky mountain made me forget we were so high, almost at the top of the mountain. To my surprise the route up to the platform seemed much shorter than when we arrived and went down to the cabin, but I guess it was because I didn’t know where we were going or how far we were going to go. Once we reached the platform, Alarick gave me both bags and immediately shifted into his dragon form. The flight back to the dome was as long as when we came to the mountain cabin. Our car was waiting in the same place we left it and the way back to the operations building was long and quiet. Alarick was probably still thinking about the report he had received up there.

“Good morning,” I greeted my father as soon as we entered the operations room, as did Alarick.

“I am sorry to call you back.” His words were meant for both of us, but I still had no idea what was going on and my father probably guessed as much from the confusion that was written on my face. 

“It is alright. Tell me what happened? Why didn't we receive any information before?” Alarick immediately asked a question that must have been burning in his mind since he read the letter. 

“I am not so sure about that. We either lost all the spies we had with Ezekiel or they betrayed us. Either way, no information has come from the castle for the past week,” my father informed him. This seemed to be extremely urgent so I quietly took a seat in the corner like I did the last time, when I sat in this room and listened to their conversation.

“How many have we lost?” Alarick asked and I froze at the question. He was talking about lives, about human lives. 

“An entire village,” my father answered and by his tone I realized he was trying to avoid saying the number. Alarick, on the other hand, was persistent. 

“How many?” he repeated his question in a more stern tone. 

“Over five hundred,” my father finally answered after a short pause. Even I felt devastated by that information. While we were gone, enjoying our time up in the mountains, more than five hundred people lost their lives and most likely because of me. Because I had made Ezekiel angry and furious. I planted the seed of fear within him and now he was looking for ways to show us how powerful he was. The only thing I still didn’t understand was why we hadn’t received any information before. Nothing like that had happened before, it was unusual. My father and even Alarick had always sent troops and helped evacuate the civilians from any village that Ezekiel had threatened to destroy. 

“If we can’t get information from the inside, we won’t be able to stop it next time as well,” Alarick suddenly said and now I finally understood. I didn’t know why my father was talking about the castle, since the castle itself was destroyed during the rescue mission when we came for him, but I guess it was his way of talking about the fortress in the mountains. 

“I know, but we can’t randomly send people there again. It would be suspicious. Ezekiel doesn't accept any new servants into his castle now. He stopped taking women as well. No one gets in or out right now. We have a few more people around the mountain, but no information gets to us. All they can do is to follow the generals or Ezekiel’s troops if he deploys them,” my father summarized the situation and Alarick literally fell into the chair that was right behind him. 

“We can’t protect them all Alarick,” my father finally said, but Alarick shook his head.

“No, we can’t, but we should at least try. They are civilians, innocent people who have nothing to do with our fight. We might fight for them as well, but that doesn’t mean they should suffer because of a war they don’t even know exists.” Alarick’s words were painfully true. Since I arrived here I felt that everyone should have been supporting our cause. Everyone should have been helping us with the fight, but then I realized that not everyone had the power and courage to do so. Some of them might be just like Andrew, accepting the hierarchy and taking their place in this twisted society. There might even have been those who didn’t want to accept it, who wanted to fight, but simply didn’t have the power to do so. I was a warrior. I knew that now and I was born with the power and courage to fight for what I believed was right and for my family and friends. There were thousands of people who prayed for us and wished us good luck, but other than that, they couldn’t do anything else. For this reason we had domes with farmers and bakers. Those were people who supported us with their hard work, but were not able to fight. 

These five hundred who died had nothing to do with our fight. They never went against Ezekiel or his men. They never did anything wrong and most likely, until one of Ezekiel's generals burned them and destroyed their village, they probably didn’t even know why they were suffering such terrible punishment. 

“We need to do something,” Alarick insisted. I saw just how hard he was trying to find a solution to this sad situation. There was nothing he could do for those who had already died, but what he was trying to do now was to find a way to prevent it from happening again.