The bastard child becomes the empires royal consort Chapter 53

Below a massive tree was a blue dragon curled up, comfortably snuggled against the dragon was Alan, his arms wrapped loosely around Sparky’s thick, scaly tail.

The steady rhythmic breath of the dragon was the only thing keeping Alan asleep.

Until.

"Pfft—"

A violent spray of crimson painted the dragon’s scales.

His eyes flew open, but he saw nothing but a red haze, he collapsed forward, doubling over the cold earth, but he couldn’t hold it back.

’What was that?!’ His mind was in a turmoil of static, he couldn’t even grasp a coherent thought as blood continued to be expelled from his body.

What the living hell did he just see...

Wait what did he see...?

Huh...why couldn’t he remember...

What was he just doing...?

Alan clutched his head, his fingers digging into his scalp, but the memories of whatever transpired faded from his mind, leaving him behind feeling utterly lost.

"Alan!" A rush of footsteps quickly approached Alan, Lucian arrived in an instant, dropping to one knee, his usual stoic mask broken by evident concern. "What happened?!"

"Hah... hah..." Alan’s lungs wheezed, drawing in air that tasted of iron, he wiped a sleeve across his face, but that only smeared the blood. "I don’t... I don’t know..."

Lucian frowned, without a word, he took out a clean cloth, gently tilting Alan’s head back to wipe the blood from his eyes. "Was it those dreams again, the ones you can never remember?"

"Dreams...?" Alan muttered, scrambling his already messed-up mind, ah right he did have occasional dreams that left him with the sense of dissonance.

"Do you remember anything this time?" Lucian asked, his voice low, as he leaned in closer with his brow furrowed. "Alan, this is different, you’ve never bled like this before."

Alan squeezed his eyes shut, digging through the wreckage of his mind, he pushed past the pain, diving into the fading darkness of his subconscious, and for a split second saw a set of eyes.

"Ah!" Alan gasped.

"What is it?"

"Gold..." Alan whispered. "Gold, Blue, and... Red?"

"So you remember colours?"

"No, it’s names, their names of, uh..." Alan lowered his head. "Who again?"

Lucian stared at him for a long moment, processing the information, then eventually leaned back and sat down on the ground, looking at Alan with his usual stoic face. "I have no idea what any of that means."

"...You’re bloody useless." Alan chuckled dryly, leaning his head against Sparky’s flank.

Then he noticed the red liquid staining Sparky’s tail and slowly turned his head to Lucian.

"Phew..." Alan sighed, seeing the dragon was still deep asleep. "Oi, Lucian, clean him up a bit."

"Do it yourself."

"Are you really saying that right now?"

"Fair enough." Lucian stood up from his position and pulled out a towel, he began gently wiping the fabric against Sparky’s tail.

"Hrrrr." The dragon let out a low purr in his sleep.

"Are you sure you’re alright?" Lucian asked without looking back.

"Yeah, I’m fine." Alan rubbed his forehead. "But I think I lost too much blood, I’m feeling a little lightheaded."

"Just take a rest."

"Yeah..." Alan sighed, gently closing his eyes. "Where are Julia and Iris?"

"Look over there." Lucian pointed to Sparky’s head.

"Ah." Alan peeked from one of his eyes and scoffed.

Julia was tucked under Sparky’s chin, knocked dead asleep while hugging the dragon’s neck, a bit further away, Iris was fast asleep, curled up against Sparky’s massive claws.

It was the dead of night, and the sun was still hours from rising.

Alan closed his eyes again, allowing his mind to start drifting into thoughts.

You might be asking why on earth the group was out in the middle of nowhere, sleeping in the dirt with their pet dragon.

Well, the thing was they had every resource available to create a tent for the night, but after doing it for three days it got tedious, so the group simply just slept wherever without a care about their surroundings.

A week passed since the events of the ceremony and the fall of the capital, the entire week was spent flying across the continent with Sparky.

They were headed for Kahl, the great seaport city of the Northern continent, a location primarily known for trade routes across other continents.

Normally the journey to the seaport city would’ve taken about three months by carriage, but that’s only normally, the group was moving with a literal dragon.

Needless to say, their speed was much faster than a simple carriage, although they were unsure when exactly, they were expected to arrive in a few days.

The thing was, they could only travel during the day, as dragons also needed rest, especially a dragon as young as Sparky, who hatched just a few months ago.

Still, it wasn’t a bad travel experience, in fact, it was quite fun, compared to the tiresome carriage, soaring through the sky was a much better experience.

As his pointless thoughts faded, his breathing finally levelled out, and he drifted back into a shallow, dreamless sleep, yet even then, the image of those two crimson eyes remained imprinted on the back of his mind.

Just where did those eyes come from?

***

"It’s a disaster!"

That was the very first thing Alan heard upon waking up.

"Hmm." Alan blinked his groggy state of mind.

His head still felt somewhat light, his skin took on a slightly paler hue, but otherwise he felt functional.

Beside him, Sparky was already awake, the dragon’s blue reptilian eyes were fixed on him, blinking slowly with an air of unusual calm.

"What’s going on this early in the morning..." Alan muttered, rising from his position.

Not that far away, the group were gathered around a campfire early in the morning, Julia was on her feet, gesturing wildly and shouting, while Lucian and Iris sat on fallen logs, rubbing their chins thoughtfully.

"What happened?" Alan asked, dropping down on an empty log.

"We’re doomed!" Julia spun toward him, her eyes wide with panic. "We have zero food, Alan! None! We’re going to starve out here in the middle of... wait."

Julia stopped mid-sentence she stepped forward, her eyes narrowing as she moved towards Alan.

"Hey, what are you doi–"

Grip

Before he could finish, Julia grabbed his shoulders and hauled him forward, burying her nose against his nape.

Sniff Sniff

And twitched her nose, inhaling his scent.

Alan was completely dumbfounded and more than a little flustered, he stared blankly at the top of her head while Lucian and Iris watched with raised eyebrows.

"You smell of blood." Julia whispered with narrowed eyes.

"Do I..." Alan averted his eyes, he couldn’t exactly explain the reason.

"Did you..." Julia pulled back, her expression becoming serious. "Did you eat the last of our supplies?!"

"Huh?" Alan blinked, somehow Julia got it completely wrong.

"You did, didn’t you!" Julia shouted, pointing a finger at Alan. "If you didn’t, then explain what happened to everything we stored!"

"What kind of a question is this?" Alan replied, feeling a bit wronged.

No, how can he even be accused of such a thing? He was sure the food supply was stored inside one of their dimensional artifacts.

Back at the capital, they didn’t have the chance to stock up on supply, for very obvious reason, and their rate of consumption was abnormal, which was understandable because they had to feed an entire growing dragon...

Hmm, a growing dragon, huh?

Alan turned his head to Sparky, who looked back at him with a guilty expression, then looked away, but Alan caught a glimpse of a familiar red grease stain near the corner of his jaw.

"It was Sparky." Alan instantly directed the blame to the culprit.

"Sparky?!" Julia whipped her head around.

"Gah!" Sparky let out a small gasp of betrayal, he shimmered and vanished into the air, utilising his innate powers.

"Get back here!" Julia dashed off into the bushes, chasing the now invisible dragon.

Alan exhaled, brushing the dust off his shoulders. "So, we actually have an issue?"

"We hit the end of our food supply." Iris replied. "To be fair, it wasn’t going to last long anyways."

"Is that so." Alan nodded.

"More importantly." Iris frowned lightly. "Are you really alright, Alan? Your skin is horribly pale."

"Me? I’ve just not had enough of the sun recently."

"Alan." Iris pressed, her brows furrowing. "You were coughing blood in your sleep, don’t think I didn’t notice just because Lucian tried to keep quiet."

Alan went quiet, glancing at Lucian, who was stubbornly focused on the campfire.

"I see, well don’t worry much about it." Alan brushed it off. "Anyway, our supply is gone?"

"Yes." Iris didn’t push the topic any further, although clearly displeased by the dismissal.

"Well, just how far are we from the seaport?"

"About a day or two of travel." Lucian answered. "But there’s a trading post pretty close by."

"A trading post?" Alan hummed. "Yeah, that’d be helpful."

"Why’s that?"

"Think, you idiot." Alan scoffed. "You think we can just fly into the seaport with a dragon? No, it’d work better if we just came by carriage."

"So you’re saying to catch a ride at the trading post?" Iris asked.

"Exactly, see, Iris is smarter than you." Alan threw a jab at Lucian. "And yeah, might as well stock up on supplies while we’re at it."

"Doesn’t sound bad." Iris agreed.