The Dragon's Love

Chapter 4

-Laelia-

“My Lady, you should rest a little,” Libelle urged.

I looked at her and smiled. She was my friend, no matter how we had met or what kind of relationship we started with. She was my friend. I slowly shook my head as she gazed at me with concerned eyes.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

I was exhausted. For three days, I hadn’t slept. I had just watched over Samuel, watching his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. I hadn’t eaten, too worried about him and what he might say once he woke up.

“My Lady…”

“Please call me Laelia,” I insisted.

Kayda stood beside Libelle, and they both looked at me in shock as they heard my words. They glanced at each other, likely fearing that my lack of sleep had me speaking out of turn.

“Please. I’m no longer a princess. I’m just me. Call me Laelia.”

They both looked almost frightened. I understood. It had probably been made very clear to them that calling people anything other than “my Lady”, “my Lord”, or perhaps even “master”, was wrong and could be punished. So, if they refused, I wouldn’t hold it against them.

“The girls are right. You’re not helping your brother by neglecting yourself,” the healer said, breaking the silence.

Again, I shook my head. “Not until he is awake will I get some sleep.”

“That could be days. He has been cut very deeply.”

“Then I will wait,” I replied.

The healer looked at me with concern but didn’t argue. I had made up my mind, but even though I was determined to stay awake, I eventually found myself slowly drifting into darkness.

***

“Laelia?” I was awoken in the middle of the night by a hoarse, deep voice. I blinked my eyes open to see my brother looking back at me with his sky-blue eyes.

“Samuel!” I quickly sat up, looking him over before glancing around the room. We were alone. Was I dreaming? I didn’t care if I was. I was so happy to see him.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

His face and the exposed part of his upper body were covered in sweat. One of his arms was in a sling, and he had clear bruises and small cuts all over.

“Bad,” he whispered.

“You’ll be okay. You’ll get through this.”

“Laelia,” he said again, his eyes wild, as if he couldn’t believe I was really there. I felt the same. I couldn’t believe I was seeing him again. I placed my hand on his face, and it seemed to calm him a little.

“Shh, you should rest some more,” I told him softly.

“They knew we were coming,” he muttered.

I wasn’t surprised. If they had caught Tylon, they would have known Ashes would come back, or at least suspected he would return for his younger brother.

“It’s okay. You’re here now. You’re safe.”

“I-I don’t know if the rest are dead…”

“We’ll find out. But right now, you need to sleep.”

“They will kill them, Laelia. One way or another,” he said, his voice desperate. “We can’t let them die. We can’t!”

It was the fever, I was certain. Samuel didn’t really believe I was there.

“It’s okay. We will save them,” I assured him.

My words seemed to calm him, yet I hadn’t even thought much about what I was saying. Would we? How? Samuel couldn’t lift a sword. His right arm was the one that had been cut. Liam could fight, of course, but he was only one man. We needed more...

Samuel slowly closed his eyes, mumbling, “Good... Go save them... Go find them.”

Then he fell into a deep sleep again, but his words continued to echo in my mind. Go save them. Could I? I had never lifted a sword—except for that one time when Tylon and I were ambushed by runaway slaves. But I had never shot a bow either. I smiled as an idea came to me.

I got up from the cold floor. It was still dark, but I was too worked up to sleep. I needed to find Rathilion. I stormed out of the room where my brother lay and went down dark hallways filled with pictures painted on the walls, telling stories I had never heard before.

I knew where his room was, and I was focused on getting there. I stopped in front of two white doors, with dark blue emeralds carved into the wood. I knocked on the door, waiting impatiently, but I heard no response.

I knocked again, only to hear a female voice behind the doors. I was apparently interrupting something, but I had come this far and wouldn’t be turned away until he promised to teach me how to fight.

“Rathilion!” I called out.

There was more mumbling behind the doors, and then one of them opened slightly. A young female elf, holding a dress to her bare body, slipped past me and smiled a little.

I smiled back, finding the situation somewhat amusing. Then I turned back to the door and found myself staring directly at a bare, muscular chest. My eyes traveled up the pale skin until it met his light green eyes. He was only covered from the waist down in a long linen cloth tied at his hip.

“Do you ever sleep, Queen of Dragons?”

I rolled my eyes. “I told you to stop calling me that,” I warned. “And I don’t think you were sleeping either.”

That made him smile, but he didn’t comment on my remark. “What brings you here?” he inquired.

“You taught me to use a bow.”

He nodded slowly, clearly intrigued by where I was going with this.

“Can you teach me to fight with a sword as well?”

“I can,” he replied. “The question is, should I?”

I shook my head, not in the mood for games. “My brother came back, half dead. He said they took the others. We don’t know if they’re dead or alive. I need to find them. If they’re alive... I want to free them.”

Rathilion looked almost worried by my words and shook his head. “You’ll be walking straight into their hands. You’ll give them exactly what they want.”

“We’ll make a plan. I can sneak in the same way we snuck out, or find a different way, maybe disguised as a slave.”

Suddenly, he took one of my hands. I tried to pull it back, but he held it firmly.

“With hands like these?” he questioned, holding one up. “Hands that have never seen hard work?”

I groaned in frustration and, with a sharp tug, I freed myself. “I can’t just sit and wait anymore. I know it’s insane. That’s why I need your help.”

He placed a hand on the door and tapped a finger against it, clearly deep in thought. He didn’t seem happy about what I was suggesting. I understood why. It was a reckless plan. There were a hundred ways it could fail and very few ways it could succeed.

“I taught you how to use the bow because you seemed like you needed a way to release all that anger, not because I wanted to send you straight into a trap.”

“How do you know it’s a trap?”

He shook his head at me, clearly puzzled by my question. “Your husband is alive,” he said. “Most likely your brothers are too.”

“How do you know that?”

He sighed deeply. “Because they know you’ll come looking. They might have even let Samuel go just to lure you in. You’re walking right into a trap.”

I crossed my arms. Maybe he was right, but what was the alternative? Sitting here, rotting away? “Will you teach me or not?”

He smiled slightly. “Ask me in the morning.”

Then he closed his door. Did everyone think I was acting crazy because of sleep deprivation? I groaned and turned around.

“Fine,” I whispered. “If he wants me to ask him in the morning, then I’ll ask him in the morning.”