Seeking The Dragon
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Alexander (Bonus)
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Nicholas (Bonus)
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Seeking The Dragon
Exiled Dragons Book 6
Sarah J. Stone
Copyright © 2017 by Sarah J. Stone. This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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Prologue
Khalil sat at the edge of the meadow, watching, waiting. The men were nearby; they had spears and stalked the night for their prey. It didn’t matter to them that he was not an ordinary tiger. They knew that if they caught him in tiger form, he would die in tiger form. His pelt would sell just like those they got from his non-shifter brothers, only it was bigger, worth more.
“We know you are out there,” one of them shouted, but Khalil made no sound. He waited, as still as the night around him.
“Come on, Arrhan. We have enough pelts for today. We don’t need this one,” another man told him.
“I’m not leaving until we have them all. We won’t be back here for some time,” the man he called Arrhan replied.
“I’m cold, and I’m hungry. Just let it go. It’s probably long gone by now anyway.”
“No, it’s not gone. Be quiet!”
The men continued across the meadow. He could smell them and heard the way their feet crunched against the dry field beneath them. It was cold, too cold to return to his human form. He’d freeze out here in short order in his naked human form. They disappeared into the darkness, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he walked toward the castle that stood high on the side of a nearby hill, careful not to make a sound.
Sitting in the darkness, he looked upon it, forgetting all about the men that had been following him only moments ago. He waited for her. She would come out soon. It was time. It had been a hard day for him, his entire clan wiped out by a pack of poachers that wanted fur for their frocks. They had come here to protect themselves, thinking Ireland would be safer than his home in India, but they were wrong. Now, he was alone. Alone, except for her.
He watched as she and her friends left the large stone structure, before shifting and retrieving the clothes he had stashed earlier behind a tree. He quickly put them on and trotted down through the tree line toward where she walked down the road, away from the other girls.
“I can hear you out there, Khalil,” she told him. “It’s safe to come out now.”
Stepping through the trees, he joined her on the road, walking quietly with her as she returned toward her family home in the Mournes. It was a long walk for a girl so late at night.
“Why do you walk home on this long, dark path, when you know you could just fly and be there in no time?” he asked her.
“Because then, I wouldn’t have a handsome stranger to walk with me,” she replied.
“Is he more handsome than me, Cassi?” Khalil replied.
“Only when he shifts into a tiger,” she said with a smile.
Khalil smiled and paused on the road, pulling her close to him and kissing her softly on the lips. They lingered there in one another’s arms, holding on to the moment until she finally pushed him away with a laugh.
“I have to get going. My father will be looking for me if I’m not back as expected.”
“Why do you come down here and work at that castle? Your family does not need the money. They own so much land and have so much livestock. Surely, there is no need for you to play the part of servant to others?”
“I like coming down here, Khalil. I enjoy being around people that aren’t like myself.”
“People like me?”
“Most especially you.”
“I don’t know if I can continue to see you, Cassi,” he told her quietly, his eyes downcast.
“What? Why?” she replied, stopping dead in her tracks to look at him with a pained expression.
“The poachers. They killed the remainder of my family tonight. I am all alone, and I will have to go someplace where I can be safe.”
“Khalil, I am so sorry,” she said, pulling him close to her to hold him.
No matter what may come, being with her always felt as if he had come home again. She was his world now, but he couldn’t stay out in the woods. It was winter, and he could only remain in tiger form for so long. It was too cold to survive the damp, cold nights as a human.
“Come home with me. We have empty houses on our property. I will tell my father you work at the castle with me and need a place to stay. He will let you,” she said, as she suddenly pulled away and looked up at him.
“Cassi, I can’t let you lie to your father. It is wrong.”
“I don’t care. You are important to me, Khalil. I love you. I will do what I must to keep you here with me. Come home with me now.”
Khalil considered it for a moment. His options were slim, and he couldn’t bear the thought of being without her. Still, they would be living a lie, and he would be amid dragon shifters. He would have to hide the fact that he was a tiger and hide his love for Cassi. They might be willing to put him up as a human, but certainly not as another shifter from a foreign land.
“Okay. We will see what he says, but I don’t want to cause any trouble with you and your family.”
***
Khalil paused for a moment, looking as his son sat rapt at his feet, listening to his story. It wasn’t the first time he had told him of how he and his mother had met and it would undoubtedly not be the last. It wasn’t a story he enjoyed telling, the memory was wonderful, but always followed by the bad ones that he knew would come.
“What did my mother look like?” Advik asked.
“Why do you want to know this, son?” Khalil asked as Advik sat waiting for an answer.
“I always want to know about my mother. I have never had one, and I want to know what she was like, Father,” the young boy told him.
“She was beautiful; long, flowing hair and the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen,” Advik told him.
“No, not that. I don’t want to know the icky stuff. I want to know about her dragon. I want to hear about my mother, the dragon!” Advik insisted.
“Fine, son. Her dragon was beautiful, the colors of a peacock. Whereas most of the dragons in her clan were the color of dirt or night, she shimmered in the sunlight, just like her eyes did when she looked upward.”
“You’re drifting again, Father. Did she breathe fire? Did she fly?”
“I never saw her breath fire, but she could. Watching her fly was a thing of beauty. She could soar high above the land and look down on everything.”
“Can I fly, Father?”
“I don’t think so, son. I’ve seen no signs that you have any of your mother’s abilities in you. I’m afraid you are like your father, just my simple little tiogar.”
“I want to go and see my mother.”
“Don’t you like it here with me, Advik?”
His father studied his face, looking for the answers that Advik still searched for in his own head. Khalil waited patiently for an answer, giving his son time to generate it on his own.
“I do like it here, Father. I just want to know what my
mother is like, too. You could go with me. We could go together and see her.”
“No. We cannot,” Khalil said.
“Why not? Why can’t we go?”
“We have crops to tend and animals to watch over. It is a long way to see your mother. It is a very hard trip.”
“I am strong. I can make it.”
“And what of our crops and our livestock? What do you think would become of them in our absence?”
“They would perish, Father.”
“Yes, they would. Our place is here, Advik. We cannot go so far to see your mother. Perhaps, one day, she will come here to see you instead.”
“Do you think so, Father? Do you think she will come for me – for us – one day?”
“I don’t know, Son. I hope so. It is my heart’s desire.”
“Do you love her, Father? Do you love my mother, the dragon?”
“With all of my heart and soul, Advik. There will never be another for me.”
“Are you sad, Father? You look so sad,” Advik told him.
“I am not sad, my son. I have you, and for that, I am grateful. You are my greatest treasure in this world.”
“I won’t ever leave you, Father. I want to see the dragon mother, but if you won’t come with me, then I will not go.”
“Thank you, Advik. I don’t know what I would do if anything were to happen to you.”
“I’m tired, Father. Can we go to sleep now?”
“Yes, it would be best. We have an early morning tomorrow.”
Both of them climbed to their feet. Advik hugged his father tightly before pulling away and smiling up at him for a moment.
“Goodnight, Father.”
“Goodnight, Advik.”
Chapter 1
There were many such conversations under the roof of the cottage, the two Kandahar men called home. It wasn’t much, but it was warm and dry. They had all they needed there. All, except Advik’s mother. He had never heard his father say an unkind word about her, but she had run away from them when Advik was a baby. His father told him that she had her reasons and that he shouldn’t be angry with her for it, but sometimes, he was.
It grew harder over the years as he watched his father age and grow weary. Though he tried to hide it from Advik, his sadness was apparent in those moments when he thought no one was watching. Advik had awoken to the sounds of his father crying in the night, sobbing against his arm like a girl, but he had not tried to comfort him. He had done nothing. He was unwilling to take his father’s dignity by letting him know he had heard him in a time of weakness.
Instead, they would always awaken early while it was still dark, and shift, running through the fields and down to the sea to play in the frothy tide. It seemed to make his father feel better and less sad for a few days, but it never lasted. It continued this way for as long as Advik and his father shared their simple cottage on the southern coast of Ireland.
When his father became too weak to get up and around anymore, Advik took care of him. During his last days, he was delirious, calling the dragon mother’s name. Sometimes, he would talk to her as if she were there with them. Toward the end, in a moment of clarity, he called Advik to his bedside and told him a story that made Advik’s heart weep for his beloved father.
“Advik, when you were a baby, your mother had to go away. I don’t know the reasons why. I went to her, I begged her to come home, but she turned me away. I didn’t want to leave her behind, but she gave me no choice. So, I returned here, and I’ve done my best to get through the years without her.”
“I know you have, Father.”
“I want you to know that my time is coming soon. I’ve heard the voices of my ancestors calling to me from the great beyond. I thought I was the last of them, but then came your mother and you were born. Now, you are not only the last of my kind, but also the first of yours. People will not accept what you are, my son.”
“Don’t leave me, Father. I will miss you, and I will have no one.”
The tears were already beginning to run down Advik’s face as he looked at his weary father. It was difficult to see him like this, so worn down and on the verge of death. It felt as if his own life might end with his father’s life. He was all he had.
“Yes, you will have someone. I should have listened to you. I should have tried again. I should have tried harder. You should go to your mother. I can tell you how to get there, and when I am gone, you should go. Tell her who you are, and stay there with her.”
“I am not a dragon, Father. They won’t want me there.”
“Your mother will find a way. She will find a way to let you stay with her. I believe that. She couldn’t come back here, not with me, but she will not turn you away. You are her son. In the wall, behind the block with the small, black mark in the center, you will find a map and my journal. They are all I have to give you, but perhaps they will help you to understand one day, when you are ready to read them.”
“Father, just rest. You are tired, and you need to sleep.”
“No. Listen to me, Advik. I will not be here come morning. There is also a box back there, behind the loose block. It is for your mother. Leave it in case you don’t make it to her but she finds her way here. Leave it for her. It is important to me. I need you to promise me you will do these things. I need you to swear you will leave this place, where you are alone, and make a new life with your mother, the dragon.”
Advik looked down at his father and nodded solemnly. Has this not been what he had begged him for since he was small? Now, he was almost seventeen in years and would be without anyone in this remote place. It was just hard to think about having to go without his father. Why did it have to be one or the other? A father or a mother, but not both? It was unfair.
His father had known his time was short, and he passed away before the dawn once again broke the sky. Advik built a pyre and burned his father in the traditional way, sending him out to the sea to float away on his final journey before returning to their home to decide what he wanted to do next.
A month later, Advik had finished selling the remainder of the livestock and crops, packing up only what he needed for the trek north. It would be a long journey – two to three weeks depending on how well he traveled and how much time was spent hunting for food or diverting any potential enemies. He was frightened by what he might find ahead of him, having lived his whole life here with only his father for company. He had scarcely been around people other than a few merchants and those he encountered at the market.
Closing the door to the cottage for what might be the last time, he began his new adventure to find his mother, the dragon.
Chapter 2
Two weeks later, a bearded, dirty traveler walked into a small village near the Mourne mountains. Stopping at an inn near his destination, he took shelter in an overgrown cottage, near a stream, that looked as if it hadn’t been visited in years. It was dark and dirty, but after being on the road for so long, it was a welcome find. He was exhausted and, as much as he wanted to meet his mother, he couldn’t go to her looking like this.
Within minutes, he was asleep, dreaming of his father’s face, of the soft lines that had only begun to crease his forehead when he had taken ill and died. He did not know how old his father was, but he had seemed young compared to the fathers of others his own age that Advik had sometimes encountered in the marketplace.
The light had barely begun to break the day when he rose and gathered his things, making his way to a nearby stream to bathe and shave away the thick beard that had grown during his travels. He hoped he looked presentable before finally meeting his mother face to face. He put on the fresh clothes he had saved for the occasion and began his walk toward his destination, his heart beating wildly, in his chest, as he grew closer. His weariness remained, but he had all but forgotten it as he made his way toward the castle where his mother sometimes worked.
“Cassi? She no longer serves this castle,” an angry-looking guard told him.
“She doesn’t? How do you know? Are you sure? Perhaps there is another Cassi,” Advik prattled.
“I know everyone that is employed by these castle walls. I also know Cassi. Her family lives up in the Mourne Mountains. She hasn’t worked here for years. Her father doesn’t even allow her to come down here to see those of us who used to call her a friend.”
Advik looked solemn. He nodded in acceptance of the man’s explanation. It would make sense that she had left her work there when she had run away with her father, and it had been many years since then. Her father had probably forbidden her to return to the place where she had met Khalil. Still, that was over seventeen years ago. She would be a grown woman by now. Surely, she wasn’t still under her father’s roof.
The thought that perhaps she had remarried crossed his mind. Maybe he wouldn’t be welcome if there was another man in the picture. Of course, he had to consider that he wouldn’t be welcome at all. She had left him behind and not returned. The thought saddened him, but he would just have to take the chance that she would want to know who her son had grown up to become.
Unsure of what to do next, he returned to the cottage and sat down to read his father’s journal by the light of a small lantern he had purchased in town. After a while, he bedded down for the night, shifting into tiger form and curling up in a darkened corner of the cottage where he could remain hidden and warm. Once again, he awoke early and looked for the place he had been directed toward. It turned out to be within sight and an easy walking distance. He made himself more presentable and made his way toward it. He was surprised to find it was so close.
Advik stepped into the center of the village that Cassi’s family had started and now settled in, according to what the guard had told him before he had left. He looked around for the local pub. The guard said she worked there now, tending to the patrons that frequented her father’s newest business. He hated the thought of his mother working as a common barmaid. It was vile and inappropriate, but he stepped inside and sat down at the bar to order a pint, looking around to see if he could spot her in the crowd based on the description his father had given him.
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