Sweet Waters Throne

245 Chapter 24Leoric looked on as his only legitimate son was taken from him, he loved Jeremiah with all his heart. He could have cried, but he was never taught that, his father told him men don’t cry. That’s a sign of weakness. When his aunts and uncles used to tell him racist words and things he didn’t need to hear, as a child he needed a good cry, but his father forbade him from doing so.

Lysene was by his side, they both looked at the skies with rage.

“You’ll soon fly a dragon my love, let Blackmount be the first place you’ll burn” Lysene said to Leoric, then she walked away leaving Leoric still standing at the same spot as if hoping maybe Artemis will change his mind and come back. Five minutes passed and it was still quiet, no one was coming back.

Hence even when it hurt like hell for him to see his son snatched from him, Leoric didn’t allow himself to show weakness. He summoned One, “Gather the best of your men, we leave for Iron Falcon now” he said and proceeded inside the castle.

“Yes, master” replied One with a bow and walked away, outside of the castle and disappeared into the city to look for his best men in their camp.

Aryan got out of the hiding tunnel to come and see Leoric’s condition after interaction with Artemis, she met Leoric halfway and he seemed to be so busy. “We are going to the Iron Falcon” he told her while walking towards his chambers.

“We? I am leaving for Sweetfish Retreat tomorrow” said Aryan shocked by Leoric’s sudden change of heart.

Leoric paused, “Oh! I had forgotten about that. I guess I will be going alone”

“Are you alright?”

.....

“Don’t ask me that, I just lost my son” replied Leoric and entered inside his chambers, Aryan didn’t follow him, she knew to keep her distance and let Leoric mourn the loss by himself, that’s the only way he will learn how to handle loses and grow as a man of worth.

Later on, Leoric took one thousand Killers all on horses and marched towards Iron Falcon to make a trade with Lord Finnian as he discussed with Aryan. One didn’t escort his master because he was already assigned with escorting Aryan, hence he remained behind as Leoric made a journey to Iron Falcon.

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Came dawn, Aryan also left the Mines but she just took twenty sailors who could help in the ship and with One by his side, she knew they could face anything along the way and be fine. When they were on the ship, that’s when Aryan asked One to remove his armory uniform and helmet. “Your master isn’t here, you can take it off” she told him and One did as instructed.

Aryan saw his face, he had one huge scar on his chin.

“How did you get that scar?” she asked.

“Fighting”

“Where?”

“In an arena, far away from here. I was twelve, I couldn’t fight good then” One’s accent showed he hadn’t mastered the common tongue.

“Where do you come from?” Aryan kept investigating One with questions. Maybe because she was bored and it was a long sail from the Mines to Sweetfish Retreat, or simply she wanted to know why was One so valuable to Lord Leoric.

One didn’t feel like he needed to hide who he was from Aryan, if his master can trust her, so can he. Hence he said it all to Aryan, from where he came from and when Leoric bought him in one of the fighting pit after he won a fight. The price for One was one thousand gold coins, and Leoric paid it full ─ this was six years ago when Leoric was just twenty shy away from twenty first name day.

“I’ve been serving my master ever since. He saved me” said One.

“From what?”

“Death, starvation and being a cruel man. When you are a slave fighting in the pits, you do not have option, you kill and rape women, if you fail they kill you. That’s it. My master brought me to his city to serve him, and he feeds me”

Aryan smiled, that should never be a reason as to why a man would swear his life to another man for. But what did she know about being a slave? Born a lady in a castle and spent her whole life being given gifts after gifts by her father and some people said she grew with a silver spoon in her mouth and she would never understand the struggle of not being free or being poor ─ perhaps they were right.

When Aurora saw a sight of the purple dragon floating smoothly above the skies of Blackmount, she knew Artemis was back from his rather short quest of retrieving Jeremiah Arteides from Leoric. Aeryn and Dante stood close to each other outside of the dragons’ cave waiting anxiously for Artemis to come back. Aeryn was so nervous, she held Dante’s arm and squeezed it from time to time, that’s what she always do when she is nervous.

Aurora was standing close to Visera, these two have been inseparable ever since she came back, they spent most of their time reading spells and practicing magic.

When Artemis landed right in front of the dragons’ cave, Aeryn raced to him. She stood looking up at her brother who was holding her son as she waited for him to dismount from his dragon. Artemis finally came down and he handed Jeremiah to his sister, Aeryn held her son while tears fell down between her cheeks, she had never expected to see Jeremiah anytime soon. Dante joined in and they held Jeremiah together.

Then Artemis walked towards Aurora, it’s been a moon since they talked or stood close to one another. Aurora spent most of her time in Aurora’s Hill while Artemis in the main palace, he used to sleep in Aurora’s Hill but since they weren’t talking, he had his things moved back to the main palace. The only time you will see Artemis in Aurora’s Hill will be when he wants to fly a dragon, which was very rare since he didn’t feel entitled to the dragon.

The words which Aurora said to him the day they lost the dragon eggs stuck like glue to him, she blamed him because he wasn’t a true Morrow descendant and she said a true Morrow would have known what to do in difficult times and perhaps Artodo would still be alive.

“Did he try to fight?” asked Aurora nervously trying to look Artemis in his eyes.

“He knew better than to do that, but I think I made him cry”

Visera interrupted, “This is a good thing Your Grace, Leoric can’t be trusted. Something tells me he stole the dragon eggs, it’s him” she said.

Then Aurora felt as if she and her grandmother were having the same feeling. “I feel the same thing too, but I didn’t see it when I read his mind. It’s just a feeling, but he isn’t the one” she said, then turned to Artemis. “I wanted to tell you about tears of the fire, but we never had time to be alone. Will you be available for supper today?”

Sounded like a good start of rekindling their flame and relationship, but Artemis was wounded beyond Aurora’s knowledge. He felt as if he shouldn’t be mingling in dragons business anymore since he was branded not belonging to the tribe.

“I… I would love to, but I ─ Lord Angun and I have a meeting during supper. I should go and attend meetings with other lords now, if you’ll excuse me” replied Artemis and without looking at Aurora, he walked right pass through her and gave order to his servant to prepare a palanquin for him.

Then Aeryn and Dante curtsied before Aurora.

“I’m so glad you have your son now princess, he deserves to be with his mother more than anything” Aurora held Aeryn’s shoulder and then leaned on to kiss Jeremiah on his forehead.

“Thank you, Your Grace. I must return back to the palace now”

“Sure, be careful of the riots outside. But I shouldn’t be worried, you have the Lord Commander to protect you now”

Both Aeryn and Dante smiled, then Aeryn continued, “I do apologize for the incident that happened with your dragon, I know you blame him for it but we were both asleep, he could have burned the whole city looking for those eggs. You know it, but when we woke up they were gone. There was nothing he could have done, I hope this will at least make you reconsider forgiving him”

After saying that, Aeryn walked away with her son and Dante. A royal wheelhouse was waiting for them outside of the castle, they got inside and made their way to the main palace. Back then it would have been very difficult to pass through the streets while inside a royal wheelhouse, but the riots had somehow slowed down and the good folks went back to their usual activities. They had chanted Aprophil’s name and supported his claim, but where was he? He didn’t show up for his people, and in return his people abandoned him and some had even forgot that there were riots in Blackmount.