Page 290 of The War God’s Favorite

Krai and Phe finally reached them. Both dragons were covered in their siblings’ blood. Krai was limping a bit as it came to Cassandra, and lowered its head to sniff the Baby Dragon that had just jumped out of the water. The young concubine didn’t have much time for the Black Dragon, as she struggled to get to the Lake. A bit at a loss on what to do, Opheus helped her, though he was frowning.

“What are you going to do?”

“Look for them. The Water God will help me.”

He still had no idea what she was actually about to do, but seeing how sure she was, he didn’t dare protest and just nodded. Cassandra slowly got into the water, followed by the Baby Dragon, who looked excited about going back into the Lake. For Opheus, it was also his first time seeing a dragon actually enjoy itself in the water.

Once Cassandra had half of her body immersed in the water, to Opheus’ surprise, the gigantic creature decided to follow her back inside the Lake. The Fourth Prince stumbled back, almost falling on his own dragon, as the snake-like creature rolled it’s long body back inside the water. It was a strangely silent and imposing creature. Only Kian was overexcited, swimming and jumping around in the water like a pond fish. Even Krai looked confused. The Black Dragon had its front paws in the water, looking at the young concubine and its offspring, yet not following them as they went in deeper.

They got into the water in seconds, but it felt like long minutes to Opheus. He had hidden Phemera with Anour and the younger sister, after Anour had found his way around the Palace to protect them. But Opheus wasn’t feeling good about any of this. No one could ignore the horrible sounds of the battle still raging inside the Hall. It wasn’t a good sign at all.

His attention was caught closer to them, as Lephys kept blaring under all of his rocks. His sons’ dragons were struggling to get him out of there, but it was only a matter of minutes before they succeeded. The Fourth Prince frowned. Those damn little pests!

“Phe,” he called.

The White Dragon immediately turned towards the little ones, growling. It only caught the attention of a few of the young dragons, but Phe started going their way anyway. Opheus was making a dark expression too. Cassandra may be too nice and gentle to kill the young dragons, but he wasn’t the same. All the siblings had grown side by side with death. He knew exactly what to do.

Still growling, the White Dragon started climbing on the little mountain of rocks, and suddenly jumped on the first younger dragon, killing it with one bite. Lephys was buried deep underneath, but Opheus had no intention to bother digging his younger brother out to finish him off. The truth was, he’d rather not dirty his own hands. Instead, it was satisfying enough to have the weight of Phe climbing on the rocks add to his suffering. With a bit of luck, that would finally crush him to death.

Meanwhile, Cassandra had finally swum to the middle of the lake. Even if swimming was easier for her, the amount of pain her body had endured already made every muscle ache. Yet, she had to hold on, for Kairen’s sake. He was fighting his own fight inside that Hall. She had to fight her own battle.

The young woman took a deep breath and dived. Kian and the Water God followed her under the surface. She actually grabbed one of the Water God’s horns as it swam next to her. The Creature didn’t seem to mind, and took her deeper under.

Once she felt like she was deep enough, Cassandra closed her eyes, and with her mouth closed, started singing. It was a song she never thought she’d use, one that wasn’t made of lyrics. At best, it was only like several long sounds, like a siren of some sort. However, it used the deeper layers of her voice, ones that echoed in the water. Sure enough, the Water God quickly reacted to it. The Creature started making deep sounds, echoing Cassandra’s. There was no comparison. Its voice was much deeper and much, much louder. Soon enough, it started resonating all through the lake, sending gigantic sound waves throughout the lake. Her eyes still closed, Cassandra had to stay focused to listen to the echo. She had never done such a thing before, she had only witnessed it, when she was much, much younger.

Years and years ago, she remembered watching the members of her tribe, diving in the water and all together, using their voices to find where the wood of their shacks was getting weaker, where the fish were, or where to dive to hunt. It was a skill she had never practiced herself, but she remembered it well enough, apparently. She could feel her own heartbeat slowing down, as if to let her listen.

She could feel the water around her shaking. Cassandra had suspected the Water God’s voice would be louder, much louder. She would even have trouble staying where she was, if it wasn’t for her holding on to one of its horns. Next to her, Kian seemed rather amused by the situation, chasing the large air bubbles that left the Creature, and swimming to follow the echo waves.

On the surface, things weren’t as calm. To Opheus’ surprise, the surroundings of the Lake had started trembling shortly after the young concubine had disappeared underwater. While he wanted to trust her and that Creature she had summoned, Gods know how. It started to worry him a little as the whole ground under him began shaking. One could tell the epicenter of those strange waves that shook the whole area came from the Lake, and Opheus began to worry.

Before he could call her out though, a huge portion of the roof, a few meters away, crumbled down. It was already fragile from the earlier struggle of the iron net being torn down. But now, all the walls around were trembling. Is that what she meant by taking cover? Taking cover looked rather deadly at the moment!

“Phe!”

The White Dragon was still absorbed by its little hunt in the rocks. The smaller dragons had quickly understood that their survival was linked to whichever hole they could squeeze themselves in. While Phe had caught the biggest and killed them already, the smaller ones had managed to crawl under the rocks and hide themselves, though they could still be heard growling and struggling.

However, there wasn’t any time to play, as the whole garden was dangerously shaking. After another heavy shake, the White Dragon finally jumped down from its little playground, and went to its Master. Phe extended one of its wings over Opheus’ head, growling at the shaky walls around them. Krai, too, was growling, but the Black Dragon wouldn’t leave the border of the Lake, its ruby eyes fixated on the surface. Opheus frowned, feeling the whole Palace tremble. What was this crazy girl doing now? How long could she hold her breath underwater anyway? After everything that had happened today, he felt like he owed it to her to help keep her alive, but there was truly nothing he could do when she was going on a swim with some oversized snake!

To his surprise, the little dragon suddenly jumped out of the water, and flew with a long chirp to Krai, happily reuniting with its parent. Right after that, Cassandra suddenly emerged from the water, struggling to swim. Opheus ran to help her get out of there. She was drenched, and though it had helped wash most of the blood and dirt away, her dress was weighing heavy.

“Are you alright?” asked the Fourth Prince, glancing at her, completely confused. “What was that?”

“It’s the Echo, a technique used by my people to...locate things. Anyway, I know where they are.”

“You do?”

“I located several younger dragons, somewhere south-west of here, in a very large building, something like a round one.”

Their eyes lit up at the same moment, as they both realized what that building was.

“The Arena,” whispered Cassandra, astonished.

“Of course. He needed somewhere big enough to put all the dragons, along with what he needed to trap them. That damn rat Vrehan went to free all his little bastards from the Arena!”

The question was, how many dragons were they talking about? Cassandra felt a shudder going down her spine. She turned towards the Great Hall, where the fight was still raging. The truth was, her heart was begging her to go there and help Kairen fight off the Red Dragon. However, she knew she’d be useless there. Shareen was already inside to help him, and Cassandra would be nothing but a hindrance.

Suddenly, just as she hesitated, a part of the wall she was watching burst out, and something violently flew their way.

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