The Shadowed Crown: A Reverse Harem Epic Fantasy (Kingdoms of Sky and Shadow Book 2) by Lidiya Foxglove

Author:Lidiya Foxglove [Foxglove, Lidiya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-06T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ezeru

The passages leading to Imaru were colder than the rest of the kingdom. I woke up, the fire still smoking but barely warm, and all the rock dragons were lethargic in the cold. I took this as a good sign. If we found any rogues, they wouldn’t be quick to fight either.

We were almost there. Imaru was in sight, a dark ruin cupped inside a huge broken geode of black crystal. I hadn’t expected it to look and feel so ominous.

I could imagine King Orvenu handing his illegitimate son this castle. Had it really been a gift? Or was he just getting him out of the way?

Having rested up, I was ready to tackle this dark place.

It had been two weeks since I left Irandal. I had not run into too much trouble. Some high dragons had put up a fight, and I had to talk my way into peace. One traveling merchant wouldn’t let up; I had left him unconscious on the side of the road, with water and food close at hand, hopefully he would be all right. Trouble might come for me, but I had no interest in starting it.

The rock dragons stirred as I fixed some breakfast. They could hunt on their own, but they always wanted mine. I quickly learned that I couldn’t share and I had to keep them back, or they would swarm me and snatch food right out of my hands. The worst offender was a little female, Nuru, who would rub her head against my knee, trying to cajole my way into giving her a bite.

If I ignored her, she would swish her tail impatiently. “I want,” she said.

“Catch your own!”

I could use food as rewards for particularly good behavior. It was a fine line between fair discipline and just ordering them around.

I’m sure one of the biggest differences between Dvaro and myself is that I wanted to see the rock dragons as individuals and as people. Dvaro and Izeria didn’t look for it. They only saw a useful mob.

As I was cooking my meal, I sang to them, despite my ragged voice. All the songs were about how terrible Dvaro and Izeria were. It was doing a very nice job of making sure they remembered who the real enemy was. By now, they knew the words and they would start to pick up the song for me. More than anything, music got through their heads, and marked them as superior creatures to the snakes and weasels and fish. They understood rhythm and dance, and they added little improvisations. The men sang in a low drone, and the women in a higher howl, and the more they sang a certain song, the more they made it their own. It was the greatest pleasure of my day to get them going, and I’d picked up new recruits just because they were attracted by the music. By now, my band was nearly a hundred strong. In fact, I would have to turn them away from now on or we wouldn’t be able to find enough food.

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