For the Rebellion

Chapter 5 - Rebel Demands

Theo sat at the small table in his suite, across from Amil. Breakfast was set out before them, a collection of boiled eggs, diced fruit, sweet cakes with syrup, and links of sausage. His stomach grumbled as he loaded his plate.

"You're absolutely sure you saw her? Lady Mask?" he asked, adding a couple more sausages to the pile of food he was more than ready to devour. Amil had gone out the night before, following some of the intel he and the others had gathered in the city.

"Sure enough," Amil said, shrugging. Amil was built like the rest of them. He had a drengr's body, strong and muscled. His skin was darker than a northerner's, but not quite as dark as the westerners from Austar. His dark hair was curly and cropped close to his scalp. He had deep brown eyes and a pretty, almost delicate face. He plucked a sausage from the mound of them resting on the silver platter, and began devouring it. "Mmm. Good."

"Huh. So...lady mask lives, and she actually does wear a mask."

"You didn't think they called her Lady Mask for the hell of it, did you?" Amil grinned, his straight white teeth a contrast to the color of his skin.

A knock sounded. Fallon and Xander strolled in. "Oh. Excellent, breakfast." Fallon snatched up a sausage link while pulling out a chair. Xander slipped over and plopped into it before Fallon could. "You godsdamned thief," Fallon chided, but not meanly. He shoved the remainder of the sausage link into his mouth and took the fourth chair instead.

Fallon and Xander were complete opposites to each other both in looks and personality. Fallon was fair skinned, of northern descent, with auburn hair and a slightly crooked smile. He was serious more often than not, and an excellent strategist. Xander was olive skinned with hair a dark as night. He cared little for strategy and mostly for fun. He was the one that usually put a smile on their faces.

"Where's Idris?" Theo lifted his brows.

"Out. Never came in last night. Saw him run off with a pretty lass."

Theo snorted, feeling a little jealous. "That makes one of us. It's like I've got some sort of beware sign nailed to my forehead."

"Oh no, poor princeling isn't faring so well?" Xander jibed.

"Shut your mouth," he snapped. Xander only grinned wider. "If you've come here to give me a hard time, then you can leave. We were just talking about Amil's findings."

Xander huffed at the obvious topic change, but let it drop, filling a plate with food, instead. Fallon already had his filled and was attacking it with vigor. They'd hunted plenty on their flight north, but...they were all growing drengr, after all. Xander was a year younger than him, but the others were all older. Fallon was the oldest, by ten years.

For a drengr, the younger years were the most challenging. They weren't considered fully mature at puberty the way humans were. He'd need another decade or two before his magic fully settled. But already, he looked nearly as formidable as a fully grown drengr male.

There weren't any females of their kind. No one really knew why, though it was said to have something to do with the Sprite queen who had both blessed and cursed them. She'd given the wild dragons of old the gift of humanity, both males and females alike. But when those drengr bore offspring, they mostly bore sons, and the daughters that did come of them were unable to fledge into dragons. His mother was a prime example of that.

Lena had been born to drengr parents, Dragonwall's second princess, and she'd been unable to fledge into a dragon. Perhaps it had something to do with a female's reproductive organs. Or it was simply done out of spite when the Sprite queen made her bargain with their race.