Legacy's Prince

Chapter Fifteen: The First Day

The early morning shadows dance across the ceiling above my bed as a lay fully awake. I can't sleep, haven't been able to all night. Dezden's slipped back into the tub, leaving the bed meant for him empty once more. I must admit that I've shifted between the two beds hoping one might be comfortable enough to fall asleep in. Yet here I am, watching the sun come up without once dozing off.

     Loud drums begin pounding outside the walls. I throw my blankets off and head towards the washroom.

     Like yesterday, all that can be seen of Dezden is his tail fins hanging outside the tub. Unlike yesterday, though, he doesn't jump out, but instead sleeps peacefully as I go about washing my face, shaving, and combing my hair.

     "Dezden?" I finally ask.

All I get in return is a watery, muffled noise and a couple of bubbles popping on the surface. I walk over to him and tap him on the tail fin.

"Dezden."

He pokes the top of his head and eyes out of the water, still groggy from sleep.

"Time to get up."

He grunts and lets himself sink back below the surface. I sigh, grab him by the tail and haul him out.

"'Ey!"

"Come on, we don't want to be late on the first day." I throw a towel at him. "You don't want someone to find you in the middle of the washroom floor after you've changed back, do you?"

"Why not?"

"Remember what happened with Axellia yesterday?"

"She learned her lesson, right?"

"I wouldn't count on it."

"Augh!" Dezden begins dragging himself into the main room. "You're all gonna be the death of me!"

     Once we're both dressed we follow the crowds towards the veranda where we'd gotten our room numbers...two days ago? Already it seems longer than that.

I line back up in the human male line, and stare at my feet as the line slowly moves. Ardan will give me the old professor's kelpie at some point today. All I have to do after that is keep my head down and not draw attention to myself. Shouldn't be hard, but what after that?

I grumble under my breath and shake my head as the line begins to move. Everyone's going to find out I'm not really a kelpie holder at some point. There's only so long I can fake being bad at magic before someone catches on. They'll find out about Zahairas soon afterwards.

Then what? I'm either going to be treated like a dangerous beast, or dragged here and there to fix any kind of petty problem that might arise.

Or maybe not so petty, actually urgent problems that I have no control over?

As if having to look forward to being king of an entire kingdom wasn't bad enough, now I have to be the protector of the entire world!

Of course, Headmaster Ardan could be right. It could just be some weird anomaly that I have a dragon, not some grand fate or prophecy. If that's the case life just goes back to normal, right?

The line begins moving again. I sigh deeply as I kick at a pebble and follow the boy in front of me.

That can't be. Return to normalcy? Hah! Not after everything that happened at that old tower Zahairas brought me to. All that damage, it couldn't have just been an accident. So, what happened? I try to think back over my various history lessons. I can't remember any particular war that could have caused this, but it didn't have to be a war. There are natural disasters, plagues. It could have just been a casualty of one of those, right?