Five months later
Ilarion stood at the prow of the ship, both hands resting on the warm wood of the gunwale, a gentle spray cooling him periodically like mist from their passage through the waves. Ahead of him sprawled the open ocean, broken only by the grey-blue haze of the great islands Agnetavan and Zentilum receding in the distance to either side.
Ahead lay Khunuchan. Ahead lay home.
‘Not planning on standing up there the whole voyage, are you?’ Galnai asked from behind him.
He turned with a smile, keeping one hand on the gunwale. ‘I thought they could use a figurehead. The bow’s dreadfully boring without one.’
Galnai snorted. That laugh was the same, even if the rest of her manner had hardened and become brusque since he had first known her.
‘You’re so eager to go home,’ she said, ‘you’ll happily be the first bit of the ship to hit land.’
‘Well, it’s a long voyage. Give it long enough and you’ll want to have firm ground under you as fast as possible, you’ll see.’
She raised an eyebrow and joined him leaning on the gunwale. ‘I have made this journey before, remember?’
‘Ah yes.’ Ilarion gestured to her bulky frame. ‘With all the muscle you’ve gained, I had been assuming you swam the distance.’
She punched him on the shoulder – hard enough that he winced, though he knew she meant it playfully. Rubbing at the spot, he stared out once more at the far horizon. Just visible above it like some migratory sea bird, the two dragons Ushuene-amaak had sent to accompany them paved the way ahead.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
He still wasn’t sure what his prince would make of it. His hopes leant towards impressed – they were coming as allies, of a sort. Ambassadors for their kind, even if Ilarion was acting as their primary mouthpiece. That was better than outright failure, better than returning with new enemies. Nobler, too, like the stories of old, to return in the company of a beast of mutually earned respect. And yet, the prince couldn’t use them, nor could he use any knowledge Ilarion would bring to bind them to his will. Would he value talons more than tales? Only time would tell.
Galnai leaned towards him so her voice would carry better over the wind. ‘So, given we’re not swimming, we have time to spare. Tell me how things were when you left them.’
He let out a breath of air. ‘What do you want to know? There’s so much to cover, so much we never knew when we lived across the border, so much I’d have to put into context.’
‘Well, we have months on this boat, so plenty of time to be thorough. But I can narrow it down for you.’ She stared out to sea, her face set in a determined cast, her hair flicking past the hole that marked her missing ear. ‘I want to give that princess a fighting chance. Tell me about her betrothed, in case he’s still interested. Tell me about the other major players. Who might make her life a nightmare? Who might she learn to play? Who will meet her expectations?’
Ilarion frowned. ‘What are her expectations?’
Galnai reached into her coat and pulled a small, oilskin-wrapped scroll from an inside pocket. ‘She gave me a list. Put real thought into it and all. But tell me the basics, first. Let’s discount the thugs and the bandits before all else.’
It was hard to know what honest man might be a thug behind closed doors, though Ilarion imagined he could hazard a guess at most, and they had plenty of time to investigate before taking action. So he nodded and began to tell the facts of Khunuchan – all those new and wider details she never would have known before.
As he did so, Galnai returned the scroll to her pocket and her wedding ring caught the light for a moment. He had noticed it had their first reunion, of course, had kept it in his mind ever since and wondered at her reason for still wearing it, but had never enquired. Nor did he ask now. Perhaps some day, but for now he found he didn’t care – he was content. Adventure lay ahead of them, for them to face and explore together. It was to that adventure that they turned now, to the continued freedom of dragons and the eventual freedom of the princess who had helped them gain it.
The journey ahead would be long, but it was worth the cost.
a lot of developmental changes I want to make to this first draft, and I've no idea how long it will take to make them. With any luck, not too long, but my free time is about to become rather limited. As far as Royal Road is concerned, I will be going back and updating with some typo fixes at some point, but there will be no further changes. Once I have something closer to a final draft (and therefore ready for wider publishing), I will stub the story here.
