The dragon's harem

As the troll’s mighty chieftain fell dead, the other trolls turned around and ran away as fast as their clawed legs allowed them, stumbling and sliding on their way down the mountain’s snowy slopes.

Arad grabbed the chieftain’s corpse with one hand and shoved it away, throwing it down the mountain to the monster-infested ravine. He wanted some food, but the troll’s rotten and maggot-riddled flesh was too appalling even for him.

The woman looked at Arad with a shocked and terrified face. Even in her cruelest expedition to wild mountains, she had never seen someone with enough strength to rip a troll’s twin heads clean off with a punch.

Unlike her, who risked her life to brave the deadly storm, he probably can’t even feel the cold.

Arad turned around and pointed at the carriage. “Get inside before you freeze. We should move before more of them come. The last thing I want is to be late, and I’m sure your little boy needs to be cared for as soon as possible.”

The woman remained silent for a long while, giving Arad enough time to reach his driver’s seat. She only climbed into the carriage when he stared at her a second time.

What she saw inside the carriage caused her to scream as loudly as her frozen lungs allowed. She couldn’t miss those two, no matter how exhausted or long she had been away from the battlefields.

Jasmine, the Dark Queen of the Black Moon.

Cerilla, the Ever-brilliant Gold Queen, Caretaker of the World Tree.

Her queen and the queen of her enemies were sitting together in a carriage. What madness has she stumbled upon for two mortal enemies to happen to be passing by in the middle of nowhere, and happen to give her a ride?

No, even she who had lived alone at the peak of the mountain had heard the news. The two queens have married the same man, the same dragon overlord: Arad Orion, the Black Emperor of the Sapphire Star, Uranus the Destroyer.

“Is that child sick?” Dalla’s words shook the woman, bringing her back to her senses. But she didn’t take long to get lost in her thoughts again. The woman who called her. That was Dalla, the Slapping Queen, the one called: She Who Makes People Scream. She might be the weakest S-rank, but still, she is the one S-rank no one dares to fight.

Dalla approached the woman and snatched the kid from beneath her robe. “He’s hot, this fever is bad. But it means he got something worse going on.” She laid him on the seat facing them and looked at Cerilla.

“Care to give him a look?”

“I’m a warlock, not a cleric.” Cerilla tilted her head, and Dalla sighed, “Yeah, I know. Get to it.”

Cerilla stood, approached the kid, and looked at his face, hands, and legs. “He isn’t sweating that much, his skin color isn’t faded, but he is breathing heavily, and there is a rumble coming from his lungs.”

“That means?” Dalla looked at the kid and then at his mother. Cerilla still didn’t say anything, but it was clear the situation was bad from the look on her face.

Cerilla tilted the kid on his side and gave him a solid slap on the back, causing him to cough blood and start convulsing.

“He has been bleeding into his lungs for a while now. Whatever infection, it’s eaten away at his lungs for too long, and you’ve been carrying him on his back, with his head looking up so he didn’t get any of the blood out.” Cerilla looked at the kid’s mother, “He won’t make it to the city. Right now, he is slowly drowning in his blood.”

Jasmine, who was sitting in the back, smiled, “If blood is the problem, we’ve got one who can deal with it.” She turned around and knocked on the driver’s window, “Arad! Can you come back for a moment?”

To her luck, Arad wasn’t in the driver’s seat. He was already listening and had stood the moment Cerilla mentioned blood. Before Jasmine could figure out that he wasn’t there, he opened the carriage’s door and walked in.

“I’ll deal with the blood. Can you heal the kid?” He looked at Cerilla, and she shook her head, “I can’t heal him in one sitting. He’ll need to be cared for by a healer for a few days. I’ll do my best now to buy him time.” She then looked at the kid’s mother, “You’ll have to find him a healer as soon as we reach the city. I bet it’ll be expensive to get someone to keep an eye on him for a few days, at least a week.”

Jasmine waved her hand in the back, “Money isn’t an issue. I’ve got a guess who she is.” She then looked at the woman, “We’ve got four lighthouses in the mountains. Are you Raindell’s wife?”

The woman knelt, “That’s me, Light Keeper Frella.”

Raindell, Frella’s husband, had died a decade ago in a skirmish at the mountain’s peak. He acted as a scout and a guide to lead the soldiers to the trolls’ lairs so they could clear them out, but he ended up getting caught in the fight and died in combat.

He and Frella were the Light Keepers of the third lighthouse. Their job is to keep the eastern lighthouse illuminated. After her husband’s death, Frella had kept the lighthouse illuminated on her own for the past decade while still caring for their only child, who could only walk just recently.

Since the elves live ten times longer than humans, the ten-year-old boy was more like a one-year-old human baby.

Arad cleared the kid’s lungs from blood, and Cerilla called upon her power, drawing holy magic straight from the Elvish Goddess Sylph. She wasn’t a cleric.

A warlock with a god empowering them is just a cleric with fewer steps. All Cerilla needed to do was call upon Sylph’s power, and the kid got healed in seconds. For the time being, he’ll be fine, but the disease wasn’t erased, and it’ll surface again.

“All she needed to do was present her military card, and the kingdom would pay for anything, even candy for the kid.” Jasmine looked at her, “No, she won’t even need the card. As long as they have an identification crystal, they’ll be able to tell who she is and grant her all of her rights.”

Jasmine then stood.

“Forget that, you’re coming with me to the castle. That’ll be easier. We’ve got many powerful clerics with nothing better to do.” She looked at the woman, “It’s your lucky day.”