"Your Highness," came the breath of an exasperated messenger. A tug of the reins brought the horse to the stop in front of the Dragon Slayer. "Favilla has scaled the wall and flown away!"
"Is that so?" Prince Marcellus sneered out of disgust and jumped on the messenger's horse. His heels dug into its sides and he guided the reins toward the east wall.
There was no use searching for Umbra Caligo anymore who had disappeared like smoke. Instead, he would go straight to the fire. Where there is smoke, there is fire—or in this case, vice versa. The shadow dragon could be found with the pitiful, fire dragoness.
They thought they could trick me…. It infuriated him that it had worked thus far. As clever as the young dragons thought they were, the Dragon Slayer vowed to track them down and live up to his name.
While the horse galloped across the city, his jaw clenched tightly. It always locked up as the first sign of the medicine wearing off. The complexity of gravity magic and its sheer mana requirements forced his body into a state of weak manzy—the ailment of magical exhaustion. Normally after expending so much mana, he needed rest, yet it seemed that the prince had to do everything himself.
The worst part about all this: the Dragon Slayer had his suspicions. He knew dragon behavior, so he could predict their moves. The savage species would not hesitate to betray their own kind—all except their closest bonds. Parents to child. Lovers to each other. Twins of the same clutch.
In this vein, Umbra Caligo and Favilla regarded each other in close kinship. The illogical bond was something that Prince Marcellus had not expected from the older, hardened dragon. The younger female had likely imprinted stronger on the male out of necessity for her survival, but not so much the other way around. This would have explained the behavior witnessed in the coliseum. Favilla risked everything to escape with Umbra Caligo, but when it came to his own survival, he ought to have left her behind.
As expected, the healer had delivered the first news as to his whereabouts. Umbra Caligo had breached the west side of the perimeter alone. Naturally, Prince Marcellus wanted to maximize the odds of catching both dragons, so he personally went after the real threat—the shadow dragon. Fewer guards were left behind to search for the already debilitated Favilla in the circle. She had no chance of escaping alone in her condition, so when the report came, he knew that Umbra Caligo had played a shadowy trick. Prince Marcellus had not expected his magic to subvert nature magic—life itself.
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Given that shadow was an element as rare as his own, Prince Marcellus reasonably could not have known better. The topic never came up in his academic studies. Even with his experience against the Dagonir Clan, he had never encountered such an interaction with a niche spell. The nature mage, on the other hand, should have understood the limitations of his own element.
"Blasted healer…." As punishment, Prince Marcellus would reassign him to the frontier.
The adolescent black dragon was either young enough to consider her a sister or old enough to protect her as his future mate. Either way, Prince Marcellus now knew that those two dragons would be inseparable. I'll use that to my advantage next time, he thought. I'll tear them apart!
No time to plot now, he arrived at the wall. The Dragon Slayer received the report from the guards who had witnessed his prey—the ones who had survived anyway. Outside the city, they gathered around a dead body.
"When the pink dragon climbed up, it appeared he fell over the wall from shock," said the guard who had witnessed the ordeal.
Prince Marcellus examined the body with numerous broken bones laid askew. "How many dragons were there?"
"Just the one, Your Highness."
Prince Marcellus clenched his fists at the wrong answer. I'm surrounded by incompetent baffoons, he fumed. The guards had been too far away to see the black dragon at night, especially under the cloak of shadow magic.
Taking in a deep breath, Prince Marcellus calmed himself so that he could unclench his hand. The tightening muscles were spreading from manzy. His fingers traced the marks of dragon claws along the shoulder of the corpse. Too deep for Favilla's small claws, the larger Umbra Caligo had been the one to kill the guard.
The prince stood up and gave the orders. He dispatched an initial search party towards the east. "All reports of missing livestock must be investigated in full. I suspect our little dragons will have a big appetite come morning."
"Yes, Your Highness." His subordinates always agreed and bowed before carrying out his commands. The search party galloped on swift steeds, freshly tacked at the nearby stables.
Whenever they found the dragons, it would be too late for the Dragon Slayer's image. Since he needed to reconcile support for the war effort as quickly as possible, Prince Marcellus whispered to one of his trusted knights.
"Bring two drakans, faces painted with pink and black dye. I want them decapitated, and their heads put on stakes outside the coliseum." The public would not be able to discern the difference between drakan and dragon, especially once the flesh began to rot.
"Yes, Your Highness."