Cassian Malaspina loathed humans with a passion that was as ancient as his blood. He was hardly unique in this. It was a sentiment he shared with every dragon across the continent.
They voiced their hatred for humans, openly and loudly, at continental gatherings. Those assemblies were never for celebration, but for the somber ritual of mourning another fallen brother.
Dragons were no ordinary monsters, yet they were hunted by the six kingdoms like common prey for the sake of spoils. Even when it took armies of knights and legions of mages to bring one down, dragons fell one after another. With every scale harvested and every wing torn away, the draconic hatred for humanity had hardened into something unbreakable.
When the Black Mage prophecy first rippled through dragonkind, the collective response was utter revulsion. To suggest a dragon should pledge devotion to a mage was an insult. If a dragon encountered a mage, the only natural response was to incinerate them, not to offer a vow.
Cassian himself had whispered vows of devotion to dozens of different princesses in his time. Deep down, however, he felt a physical urge to retch every time those hollow words tainted his tongue.
Roughly a hundred and twenty years ago, he had devised a solution he deemed unthinkably brilliant to ease his mounting disdain. Instead of unleashing his frustration into the lava ponds near the volcanic maws as he usually did, he sought out the peaks buried under eternal snow.
Here, the lakes remained so biting that they could drag his Dragon Fever down to its base zero level. It was a routine he found tedious. The ascent to these heights always took four grueling hours, and his black stallion was far from fond of the altitude.
Now, having had enough of the soak, Cassian emerged from the ice-choked lake. His skin was slick with water, yet they steamed instantly upon contact with the thin mountain air, shrouding him in a ghostly mist.
He stepped onto the frozen bank and threw his head back, unleashing a roar that shattered the silence of the peaks. Around him, the snow shuddered in terror, falling in heavy clumps from the skeletal branches of long-dead trees.
He remained completely bare, his feet sinking into the thick snow. With every step he took, the white powder hissed and melted into water beneath his heat.
"Speak, Marco," he muttered, the words heavy with disdain. "What gives you the nerve to interrupt my rest? Have the humans devised a new way to be tedious in my absence?"
His gaze snapped to the Commander, who stood beside a withered trunk. Among the modest army Cassian was unfortunate enough to lead, Marco was the only one selectively blessed, or perhaps cursed, with knowledge of his King's true identity.
The man had sworn loyalty to dragonkind with all the bravest words a human could muster. And yet here he was, committing the ultimate sacrilege: interrupting his King's bath.
Marco finally turned, having kept his back to Cassian the entire time. Even now, his hands were clamped over his eyes, as though he didn't have the same anatomy as his King.
"Your Majesty," Marco insisted, his voice tight. "You may want to clothe yourself first before I reach the point."
Cassian scoffed. This was not even the first time Marco had seen him in his natural state. Cassian suspected the Commander's discomfort was simply from intimidation: Marco was likely struggling to stand before his perfectly sculpted physique, which certainly made his own look like a lump of unworked clay.
Standing perfectly still to display more of that magnificent form, Cassian demanded, "If this concerns the Queen, you'd better mount your horse and return to the fortress. I have no interest in reversing my decision."
"But Your Majesty, it is truly unfair," Marco argued. "She has trained for days now, yet she hasn't managed to replicate that perfect shot even once."
"And how do you know she isn't pretending, merely to provoke me into withdrawing my order? The way she handled that bow, Commander, suggested she had done so countless times."
Marco persisted, his display of empathy one Cassian found utterly exhausting. "Even if Her Majesty is pretending, she is unfamiliar with the terrain. The volcanic caves are unforgiving. Even seasoned archers find them treacherous."
Cassian felt the first lick of Dragon Fever rise in his throat. Every word from the Commander was another coal tossed onto the fire of his irritation. He let out a contemptuous sound, turning the matter back on Marco.
"How often do we see a swarm of Mummy Bats this size, Marco? Tell me."
Marco stiffened, lowering his head. "Only… only three or four times a year. Just before the end of autumn, Your Majesty."
The current campaign had already entered the third wave of Mummy Bats. These creatures typically migrated to the caves of Ferramonte during this season to breed and birth, before returning to the southeastern kingdom of Valerion for a milder winter.
Such hunts yielded immense returns. The dried glands and crystallized urea harvested from the carcasses would provide enough coin to carry the Black Fortress through the winter.
When the archer divisions had returned for their brief respite, Commander Otho reported a significant number still lurking deep within the tunnels. They had to launch another raid at once.
Cassian finally began to dress, his movements languid and bored. "Our Queen seemed exceedingly eager to join the raids, Marco. You wouldn't wish to be the one to extinguish her fire."
"But, Your Majesty—"
Cassian lifted a hand, one finger wagging in dismissal. "No more buts. Enjoy the ride down alone, Marco. I have a meeting with the Archivist to attend, and your voice is beginning to grate."
He finished dressing at last, the silk and leather proving to be poor substitutes for scales. Mounting the black stallion, he urged it forward, leaving the Commander standing alone in the snow.
Once Marco was out of sight, Cassian pulled the reins at a viewpoint, casting a disinterested gaze down at the tiny dot that was the Black Fortress far below. If he abandoned the horse here and simply took a free dive from this height, he could shorten this tedious journey to mere seconds.
His body would remain perfectly intact, of course. The earth would shatter before he did. However, he would likely return to the fortress with his clothes shredded to ribbons by the sheer violence of the fall. It was an undignified spectacle he had no desire to imprint upon the minds of the lowly humans who served him.
Clicking his tongue in a fit of rising contempt, Cassian dismissed the temptation and urged the stallion forward, resigning himself to the four mind-numbing hours along the winding mountain path.