Chapter 173 Before I

Chapter 173 Before I

Third Person POV

Drakthar had never understood why creatures insisted on borders. He had crossed so many of them that they had stopped meaning anything to him centuries ago.

A mountain range did not become more difficult to fly over because someone had decided it belonged to another kingdom. river did not suddenly become dangerous because a king had drawn a line through a map.

The Lore was simply there, stretching endlessly beneath his wings. Drakthar had always considered the entire thing his to explore. He could enter any kingdom he pleased.

There were laws, of course. There were agreements between rulers and ancient treaties that supposedly governed where dragons could go but Drakthar had never been particularly interested in being governed.

No guard would stop him at a border. No gate would remain closed if he wanted through it.

He could fly over a kingdom without anyone knowing he had been there until he was already gone and if he wanted to walk through a city in another plane, he could do that too.

Very few creatures in the Lore were powerful enough to question him. Even fewer were foolish enough to try. So Drakthar went where he wanted.

Sometimes he disappeared for years.

He spent an entire winter flying above the mountains of a forgotten human kingdom simply because he liked the way the snow looked from above. He had slept inside the ruins of an ancient city that no longer appeared on any map and woken to find a family of small silver creatures nesting against his tail.

He had once spent six months in the Demonarchy because he had become fascinated by a black stone that hummed whenever someone lied near it.

He carried it around for decades before finally giving it to a demon lord who had annoyed him enough times that Drakthar decided the object was better suited to someone else’s headaches. He collected things.

Not treasures in the traditional sense. Gold had never interested him much. He liked strange things. A broken human compass that still pointed toward a place that no longer existed.

A small fae bell that only rang when someone nearby was thinking about leaving. A A knife made by demons that could cut through almost anything except flesh.

His hoard was less a collection of wealth and more a collection of places he had been. He remembered almost everything.

The scent of the first forest he had entered after waking from a hundred-year sleep. The taste of fruit grown beneath a human sun. The sound of a particular river in the northern mountains. He had friends too.

Drakthar had never been particularly easy to befriend and he had no interest in collecting people simply to fill the silence. But there were creatures scattered across the Lore who knew him well enough to leave a door open when he arrived or pour him a drink without asking what he wanted.

Caelan was one of them. That was why Drakthar had first gone to the Fae kingdom.

Caelan had been there for weems at the time, working to forge an alliance between Noctharys and the Fae court. It was not unusual for Caelan to disappear into another kingdom when politics demanded it.

Drakthar had grown curious after hearing that the negotiations were taking longer than expected. So he went to see him.

He landed beyond the borders of the Fae kingdom just before dawn and shifted into his other form before walking toward the palace. Nobody stopped him. Nobody would have been stupid enough.

By the time he reached the palace gardens, the sun had barely begun touching the tops of the trees, turning the leaves silver where the light reached them. Caelan was already awake.

He was sitting beneath an enormous white tree with a book open across one knee, dressed in black despite the fact that the Fae kingdom seemed determined to make every other creature look underdressed simply by existing.

Drakthar stopped several feet away. “You look miserable.”

Caelan lifted his eyes from the book. “You flew across three planes to insult me?”

—“I flew across three planes because I was bored.”

“You’re always bored.”

—“That sounds like a personal problem.”

Caelan closed the book, his mouth twitching despite the attempt to hide it. “How long are you staying?”

—“I haven’t decided.”

“Then you’re staying.”

Drakthar laughed and dropped down onto the grass beside him. That was how it had always been between them.

No ceremony or submission. No expectation that Drakthar would behave like some tame creature grateful for his place beside a king. Caelan never treated him like a weapon. Drakthar never treated Caelan like an owner.

They were simply two old creatures who had somehow managed to become friends. The alliance negotiations continued.  Drakthar stayed longer than he intended.

At first, he remained because Caelan was there. Then he started enjoying the Fae kingdom itself.

There were places in the forests that even he had never seen, rivers that glowed beneath the moon and villages hidden so deeply within the trees that a dragon could fly over them without realizing anyone lived below.