The Dragon's Call

Chapter 7

-Laelia-

It was hard to see the castle disappear behind the horizon. Even harder seeing the snow slowly disappear from the ground. It would probably be the last time I got a chance to experience snow, or feel the cold wind bite my cheeks.

“You won’t get away with this,” I said, as I looked at Prince Ashes.

“Is that a threat, princess?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.

I didn’t answer him, but turned my head. The sight of my home slowly disappearing was too much.

As day slowly turned to night, the princes finally ordered us to rest. Ashes lowered me to the ground, and people were quick to set up camp. I wasn’t the only northern person who had been taken from her home. They had taken many of my people with them, none of them exactly knowing what was going to happen to them. Some were ordered to help set up camp, others to start making food. I was the only one standing on the sideline, with two dragons guarding me. I recognized some of my people who usually worked in the castle, being ordered around and looked at as if they weren’t worth more than dirt. I wanted to go help them, protect them, but just the slightest movement from me made the dragons beside me stir. They looked ready to bind my hands and feet if I tried anything…

I found the princes in the crowd, talking, even smiling, as they watched the camp quickly being set up. They all shared the same yellow eyes, but none of them had hair like Ashes’s. One had completely black hair and the other golden. I didn’t know the names of his brothers, but my hatred towards them was as strong as my hatred towards Ashes. I wanted them dead. All of them, yet here I stood, not being able to do anything. How dare they stand there and laugh, as my people suffered under their orders?

“Princess.”

Ashes yelled out to me and lifted his hand up and made a small wave towards him. One of my guards quickly grabbed my arm and started to lead me over to the prince. His brothers had already left his side.

“Your tent is ready,” he said, the smile on his lips not hard to miss.

“My tent?” I asked, before he turned his back to me, and had the guards and me follow him.

The tent was in the center of it all, one of the biggest, with two others just as big beside it. We followed a big path that had been made by all the other tents, leading directly to the one I had been told was mine.

“Here we are,” he said, as we stopped right at the entrance.

There were two big torches put in the ground just beside the entrance. The tent was a red and golden color, and I wasn’t entirely sure why I, his prisoner, had been given such a large one. Why not simply put me with the others outside on the cold ground?

Ashes held out a hand, gesturing me to go inside. Was this a trick? Why did he look so satisfied with himself? I really didn’t have much choice, and slowly walked inside. It looked even bigger from the inside. There was even a big bed and a small tub. How had they been able to bring such luxuries with them? I walked a little further inside, but then felt a presence right behind me. It turned around only to be met by Ashes’s golden eyes. His big body towered over me.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked, my voice laced with fear.

“You didn’t really believe me when I said this was your tent?”

I looked at him confused. If this was not mine, then whose was it?

“My brothers and I flipped a coin. I lost. You stay with me.”

“What?!”

I was to sleep in here with the man that had taken everything from me? I shook my head. I would rather sleep on the ground.

“No! I’ll go be with my people. Anywhere but here,” I said before trying to storm past him.

Ashes quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me close, preventing me from leaving the tent.

“And risk you, convincing your people to try to fight back while we sleep. No, you stay here!” he growled in my ear.

His voice had a slight echo to it. It made him seem even more terrifying. I was not certain, but for a moment it looked like his round pupils changed into vertical ones. I pulled away in fear but did not move otherwise.

“W-Where will I sleep?” I then asked, glancing at the only bed in the tent.

Ashes just smiled cruelly, before starting to remove his armor, his grey shirt following right behind, so he stood only in leather pants and boots. I quickly turned away. I had no desire to see the man who killed my father and brothers half-naked.

“On the ground. In the bed. I don’t really care, as long as you stay in the tent,” he said before I heard him move around.

Then shortly after, there was the sound of something hitting water. I turned and saw Ashes lowering himself into the tub, exhaling deeply, as he leaned his head back. He was obviously exhausted, and the warm water relieved his pain. There was a cut just on his shoulder, and a dark blue spot on the upper part of his left arm. I was almost happy to see he hadn’t gotten out of this without a scratch.

“Were you not tired, princess? Or do you wish to join me?”

I gasped at his suggestion. What nerve! I crossed my arms angrily, before storming over to his bed and taking a pillow and the blanket before finding a place on the ground far away from him and the bed and laid down. I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to sleep. It had only been a day since I had lost everything, and the pain was still fresh and new. Maybe … I would never sleep again.

***

“Here, wear this.”

The next morning, the prince had woken me by throwing some kind of thin fabric into my face, startling me from my sleep.

“What is this?” I asked, holding the thin light blue fabric in my hands.

“A stola. Soon the sun will be too hot to wear anything else. Besides, I didn’t think you would want to keep wearing your wedding dress covered in your husband’s blood.”

“Dead husband’s blood,” I spat back, seeing the side of his mouth curve a little.

Ashes stood up again, his yellow eyes scarily piercing mine. He had changed clothes too. He still wore his golden armor, but a black Pteruges skirt, which I had only seen before in my history books. Because of the warm weather in the South, you would simply overheat if you wore the same leather pants and thick undergarments, as we did in the North.

“Be quick. The camp is already being taken down.”

He then left the tent, leaving me to change in peace. I sighed, before getting up from the ground. My back ached, but I tried to ignore it, as I got rid of my filthy wedding dress and put on the stola.

It was almost see-through, I noticed, as I had put it on. The material was light and thin, easy to wear, but since the fabric was thinner, you could almost see my skin. I quickly pulled my arms around me. I couldn’t believe he made me wear such a thing! Yet I had no choice. My family might be dead, but not my people, and I was the only one who could protect them now … So, I walked outside, the dirty wedding dress in one hand, while my other arm covered my breasts.

“May you be burned in the underworld’s fire for a thousand years,” I prayed, as I came outside, and saw him already standing ready by his horse.

Ashes was right. Even only a day’s ride from the North and the sun had turned warmer and would soon make it unbearable to wear anything thicker. I walked over to him, clearly with a sour expression on my face, yet it only seemed to amuse him to see me almost burning up with embarrassment.

“Give me that,” he said, taking my wedding dress from my hand and throwing it into a fire nearby that hadn’t been put out yet.

“Hey!” I yelled, not really knowing why I even cared about the horrible thing.

“Now. Let’s go,” he said and got up on his horse, reaching a hand down to me.

“Can I not ride on my own?”

“Do you know how to?” he asked mockingly.

I growled lowly, as I crossed my arms.

“I cannot risk you running away,” he then said.

I sighed. Unless I wanted to walk all the way to the Golden City, I had no choice. I grabbed his hand and he pulled me up on his horse.

“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

If I could just punch him, I would! Ashes once again caged me in with his big broad arms and then we slowly moved away, getting even further from my home by the second.