How did he know. Not a dragon but a ghost?
I didn’t get a single word out; inside, my mind was a rollercoaster.
Even so, a brief exchange loosened the air. Ordin nodded toward Neira.
Then she scooped up a son twice her mass as if he weighed nothing. The one who was too much for me to handle with even one leg, she lifted like a princess.
“I’ll take Varen.”
“Sorry? Wait! Please wait!”
Without a chance to grab them, Neira flew off with Varen in her arms.
I watched mother and child recede with empty eyes. All I could do was gesture faintly toward Varen as he vanished in a blink.
Even if they were his birth parents, wasn’t this too much.
Blood may be thick, but so is the bond of raising. My dragon, whom I’d treasured like gold and jade, was slipping farther away and I couldn’t even reach.
I hadn’t even said a proper goodbye to Varen... I hadn’t had that cool ride on a dragon’s neck yet... If I’d known, I would’ve hugged his tail one more time...
My eyes stung at a parting like having my nose cut off while I watched. It felt like a hole had been punched through one side of my chest.
“Varen... bye...”
Then Ordin came to me.
I shifted my gaze to his soft smile. His iron-gray hair was unfamiliar, but the familiar blue eyes steadied me.
Even in this mess, I was glad Varen’s pick had been sound.
“You’ll come along as well.”
Ordin flicked his hand lightly. My body floated like a balloon.
I couldn’t walk or fly by my own will, but the sensation of weight vanishing was uncanny.
“C— Ceryl!”
As I rose, Margon and Kallen, still on the ground, sprang up together.
A grown man and a girl who looked nothing alike wore the same expression: a reproachful look that asked how we could leave them behind.
Suspended in midair, I pressed my palms together toward Ordin.
“Your Majesty, if it’s not an imposition, could my companions come with us?”
The Belzena Range strictly barred human entry.
Proof of that lay in the merchants’ bundles piled at the mouth and the gatekeeper who’d held the pass.
I might count as the benefactor who brought their son back, but Kallen and Margon could be refused.
So I folded my eyes in a smile and rubbed my joined hands. I bowed, just a touch.
“Ahaha! ‘Your Majesty’? Ahahaha!”
Maybe the flattery was too barefaced; Ordin let out a hearty laugh.
True to a merciful King of Dravergh, he gestured to the humans below.
Kallen and Margon rose, floating like me.
I went to rub my joined hands again in thanks—
“We ought to grant the favor, since you saved my precious son.”
Hearing the title I’d only used in my head come out of Ordin’s mouth made me sheepish.
***
Would I ever get another chance to fly over the Belzena Range before I died. I had to take it all in.
I’d piled on expectations, but romance and reality were nothing alike.
“Ubbbbb.”
Sightseeing, my ass. All I could do was keep from passing out under the mercyless speed of a dragon in flight.
The headwind hit me full-on, flapping my lips so I couldn’t even close my mouth. I thought my face would be flayed off.
After a short flight, Ordin set us down.
Before I could get my bearings, one look at Kallen’s face dragged a sigh out of me.
“Uu... uu...”
The nineteen-year-old looked like she’d aged straight through the years in a single blow.
It wasn’t a spell—it was being pulped by acceleration.
Margon looked the same. I didn’t know his exact age, but his already-worn face was wrinkled to a prune.
Seeing them, I doubted I looked any better.
I rubbed my cheeks with both palms to smooth the crumpled face. After kneading a while, my head began to clear.
“...Wow.”
Only then did the sight sink in and pull a gasp from me.
The Kingdom of Dravergh lay inside a deep cave clinging to the cliff. But “cave” hardly covered it.
The ceiling rose dozens of meters; stalactites shed a clear light like a forest of chandeliers.
Stalagmites that held the space like pillars were studded with gems. The flat floor gleamed with a marble-soft sheen.
It was undoubtedly a cave, and yet the atmosphere was as opulent as any palace.
I could see why greedy merchants wanted to do business with dragons.
Neira sat on a sofa the size of a bed, cradling Varen like a child. The pose called the Pietà to mind.
Ordin went straight to mother and son. He checked Varen’s brow once more and murmured something to his wife.
Neira lifted Varen again at once. Watching her recede at a quick pace, I bit my lip in impatience.
“Is Varen going to be all right?”
At the sneeze-like spill of worry, Ordin gave me a bright smile.
“Don’t fret. Varen isn’t a complete dragon yet. When he awakens Dravergh’s power, he’ll heal himself.”
“Ah...”
It matched what the Spirit had said. I remembered him calling it a dragon’s growing pains.
The cave was a maze like an anthill. I had no idea where Varen had gone.
“Where did Varen go?”
“To the Spring of Wisdom. When he bathes there, he becomes a true Dravergh.”
The Spring of Wisdom. The moment I heard it, a fragment from the original flashed.
The human army’s goal in the Belzena War was exactly to destroy that spring.
The place that made Dravergh whole. Destroying it was no different from cutting off Dravergh’s line.
So much had happened that I kept forgetting the original objective.
We had hurried to the Belzena Range to announce the beginning of the war.
“Ordin, I have urgent things to tell you.”
“After I see to your companions first.”
At his words I looked back—Kallen and Margon were staggering.
Unlike me, who was moved to tears at finally stepping into the dragon kingdom, the two had their eyes down, cowed by the overwhelming atmosphere.
When Ordin approached with a gentle face, they flinched and edged back.
“Hm. These two ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) need treatment.”
The voice was mild, but the word “treatment” from his mouth made my heart drop with a thud.
Because every time Varen treated me, he’d mixed tongues deep.
I stepped in front of Kallen and watched Ordin’s face.
A dragon in Humanization was hard to age by sight. Like Varen he was a drawn-perfect beauty, but marriage and a child meant he was certainly an adult.
Margon could kiss an adult man for all I cared.
But this uncle wasn’t going to do something to Kallen...!
“You’ll feel better shortly.”
Contrary to my worry, all Ordin did was rest his palm briefly on Margon’s brow.
For an instant, white light sank from his hand into Margon’s body.
Margon, bewildered by whatever had passed, tilted his head and checked himself.
“Huh... I’m actually fine.”
He felt along his right clavicle. A touch from my fingers used to make him wince, and now his own kneading didn’t seem to bother him at all.
Watching that, I gently nudged Kallen’s back.
“Your Majesty, forgive the impertinence, but might I ask you to see to this child as well.”
Kallen stepped forward, blank-faced.
When Ordin’s shining hand touched her brow, Kallen spoke in a dazed voice at once.
“Oh— I really do feel okay.”
Stumbling with a tired face, Kallen regained her usual spark. Eyes shining, she finally took in the cave interior.
I tapped my forehead, blaming my short sight.
Well, well. You prejudiced brat.
Varen was still young and hadn’t properly awakened his strength. Ordin, by contrast, was a whole dragon.
And not just any dragon—the reigning King of Dravergh, strongest among those extant.
There was no way Argon would treat like Varen did; I’d worried for nothing.
“Haha, will Varen be able to do that once he awakens his strength?”
“What do you mean?”
Ordin asked me back in a gentle tone.
His kindness loosened me, and my speech eased.
“Healing. Varen usually treated me with saliva.”
I tapped the corner of my mouth with my forefinger.
Ordin’s brow pinched at once like he’d seen something indecent.
“Saliva? Hm. Why such an unclean method.”
“Well... Varen hadn’t learned the method.”
“What method?”
“...He said you had to stimulate the tongue to produce healing saliva...”
The handsome face, the spitting image of Varen’s, shook his head.
At that small motion, my insides flipped.
“This is Dravergh instinct. Like breathing or closing your eyes. It needs no learning.”
“......”
“I’ve never heard that saliva only comes with tongue stimulation. Why on earth did my son do that? Why use such a needlessly unclean way.”
I only blinked. The smile I’d been wearing turned stiff.
I clasped both hands behind my back so he wouldn’t see and clenched my fists.
Sticky memories of mingled tongues “for treatment” slid through my skull.
“...Ha-ha. Good question. Why indeed did Varen do that.”
Varen, you perverted brat.
He fooled me. Betrayal made my knotted fists tremble.
The places Varen had so carefully licked under the pretext of treatment prickled. My tongue ached all of a sudden, too.
