All Chapters of Wielder Of The Dragon Flame : Chapter 441
- Chapter 450
456 chapters
Chapter 440
"Commander.” He said. "The prince summons the squad."…………….The planning quarters were exactly as they had left them.The big round table. The map spread across it. The pinned corners and the markings and the lines that stopped where they were supposed to stop and didn't tell you what came after.Except now Yuki was at the table.Both palms pressed flat against the surface of the map. Her eyes were open but still, the particular stillness of someone looking at something nobody else in the room could see. The flame lines of her technique were running across the map in a warm, steady glow, spreading out from her palms in every direction, filling the markings and the territory lines with a living layer of orange that breathed as she breathed.Wabash was standing at the far side of the table. He looked up when they came through the door."You're back." He said."We're here." Egries said, stepping in.Roderick was already moving across the room to the table. He looked at Yuki, then a
Chapter 441
"Nobody ever knows that. Not before any of these things.""That is not a reassuring answer.""Egries…""You are not a soldier. You are not a unit member. You are the prince and there are people in this village who have nothing left if something happens to you…""Those same people have nothing left already." His voice shifted, not harder, but heavier. "Two hundred of their children are in that forest right now. Two hundred children that went missing while I was sitting in a palace meeting at the Realm of the Royals, doing exactly what a prince is supposed to do." She heard movement on the other side of the door, footsteps, slow and steady. "And you want me to sit here now, in this room, while the people who came to my village go into that forest on behalf of my citizens?"Silence."What kind of prince does that?" He said. Not angry. Just honest. "What kind of ruler, what kind of man, sends everyone else to fix the thing that happened on his watch and waits at home?" A pause. "M
Chapter 442:The Night Before The Storm
The horses moved at an easy pace through the dark road, the torchlight from the column behind them throwing long warm shadows across the tree line on either side. The night air was cool and carried the smell of deep forest,damp earth, old wood, something green and alive underneath all of it.Asta and Jabber rode up from the middle of the formation, nudging their horses forward until they came alongside Prince Wabash. He looked over when he heard them coming, easy and unhurried, the way he looked at most things.They rode three abreast for a moment without saying anything.Then Asta said, "So. How did you find out you were a vessel?"Wabash turned his head toward him.Then he let out a short quiet laugh, not at the question, just at the directness of it. The laugh of someone who hadn't expected a conversation to start that fast and found it refreshing."First." He said."Please stop calling me Prince Wabash. Both of you." He looked between them. "Just Wabash. We're riding through
Chapter 443
"We camp. Right side of the forest. There's enough flat ground in there for the full unit and it puts us close enough to move at first light."Roderick, riding just ahead of the middle column, turned in his saddle. "You heard her. Right side. Move."The column began to filter off the road, horses stepping carefully into the undergrowth, warriors following on foot in their unit lines. The sound of the march changed, from the clean rhythm of road walking to the quieter, more careful movement of people threading through trees in the dark.Yuki was already off her horse.She walked ahead of the group into the trees, the small flame map still burning above her palm, and she moved with the specific confidence of someone who was watching a map nobody else could see and trusted it completely.The warriors followed.…………………..The campsite came together quickly.The right side of the forest opened up into a wide flat clearing, ground solid and dry, trees around the edges close enough to provi
Chapter 444
Asta took his and sat cross-legged across from the prince. Jabber sat beside him, wrapping both hands around his cup.A comfortable quiet settled over the three of them for a moment.Then Wabash looked at Asta."You were about to tell me.”He said.“Before Yuki called the stop. How did you find out."Asta looked at his cup. Then up."Right." He said. "Yeah."He took a short breath."It was my first day in the academy mine pit.” He said. "The underground labour section,first-year students, grey uniforms, pickaxes. Clank clank clank in the dark for hours." He looked at his hands briefly. "I had blisters within the first hour. Didn't stop. Just kept going."Wabash listened without interrupting."There were two older students." Asta said. "Crimson uniforms, proper rank. They had a girl pinned against the tunnel wall." He said it simply, no drama in it, just the shape of what happened. "I put my pickaxe down and walked over and told them to let her go.""Just like that?" Wabash
Chapter 445
He said."From that point." Asta said.Jabber nodded. Then, after a beat… "He is significantly more annoying than I expected a best friend to be, just so you know.""He is the most annoying person I have met in my life.” Asta said pleasantly. "I say that with genuine affection.""Likewise." Jabber said."Truly.""Deeply."Wabash laughed, a real one, short and warm, that moved his whole face. He shook his head."It's good." He said. “What you two have. It's, it's a good thing."Neither of them said anything for a moment.Then Jabber looked at his cup."This tea is actually really good." He said."Glad you like it." Wabash said."What is it?""Old forest blend. The cook makes it before any mission night. He says it helps you sleep when your mind won't stop."Jabber took another slow sip."Smart cook." He said.……………………..Deep in the forest, behind a wall of flame camouflage so thick it swallowed all light and sound, the children were crying.Not all of them, some had gone past
Chapter 446:Hear Every Whisper
The men in black cloaks were still on their knees.Every single one of them, heads bowed, hands flat on the ground, not one of them willing to be the next person to look up. The silence in the space had that particular quality of a room where something bad just happened and everyone is very focused on not being the reason something bad happens again.Dero stood above them. Unhurried. Looking across the tops of their bowed heads the way someone looks across a field,with no urgency, just observation.Then, from the second row of kneeling figures, something started.A trembling.One man. His shoulders were moving, small and fast, the involuntary shake of someone whose body was doing something his brain was trying very hard to stop. His head was down but his lips were moving, the faintest murmur, barely sound at all.‘’’Oh God.’’’He wasn't saying it to anyone. He was saying it to himself, or to the ground, or to whatever part of his brain was still processing the last two minutes.‘’’It
Chapter 447
"I genuinely didn't think he would die from that." She looked around at all of them with something approaching mild surprise. "Anyone else? Don't be shy. Come on. You can say it out loud or you can mutter it to yourself,your choice. Either way I'll hear it."Complete silence.Not one person moved.Not one person appeared to even be breathing in a way that could be considered voluntary.Dero looked at them all for one more moment, then straightened up.……………………."She can hear human thought."Kyx said it quietly, from just behind Dero's right shoulder. Not alarmed, Kyx didn't really do alarmed. Just stating it, the way you state a fact that you want on record."Yes." Gull said immediately, from the left.Web turned and looked at Gull. "How?"Gull looked at Web with the specific expression of someone who has been asked to explain something technical to someone they are not sure will fully appreciate the explanation."She has a built-in flame technique." He said. "Passive. Always ac
Chapter 448
Then the side of her mouth moved. Just slightly."I won't kill you." She said. "You're too useful to me." She looked at him for one more beat. "Don't do it again."Gull exhaled.The exhale was quiet and controlled and the relief in it was absolutely genuine.He stepped back to his position.Dero looked at the men still kneeling on the ground."Is there a bed somewhere in this place?" She said. Not specifically to anyone. "Somewhere I can rest and recover my strength."Two or three of the kneeling figures began to speak at the same time.She held up one hand.They stopped.She looked at the competing voices, then at the ceiling, then back down."You know what.”She said. "Never mind. I'll find it myself."She turned.And then she looked at Web.The look she gave him was different from anything else she had produced in the last hour. It was slower. And warmer. In a way that was not entirely comfortable."Web.” she said.Web looked at her."Would you mind accompanying me?" She s
Chapter 449
One clean cut, diagonal, across the binding that held the basket sealed and the flame solid material split along the cut line with a sharp crack that echoed through the trees."Jabber!"From below, almost before the word had finished leaving his mouth. "Already on it."The flame shield came up from the ground,wide, cupped, angled perfectly and the basket fell into it, not crashing, just settling, the broken seal falling away as Jabber brought it steady and slow and set it down beside him on the ground with the careful hands of someone carrying something that couldn't afford to be dropped.Asta dropped from the branch and landed beside him.They looked at each other for one second.Then Mira was there, already reaching for the broken seam of the basket, pulling the edges apart, the flame material dissolving at her hands as she worked it open.The basket opened.Fifteen children.Pressed together in the center of it, some sitting, some curled against each other, all of them in the cond