- The pale moon of Renée's face against the darkness shone with beads of sweat and soot. Away from the heat of the inferno, the night was cold. It pressed against her bare arms, tore at her cheeks as she climbed gingerly upward. Her home stretched out beneath her, lanterns of warmth offering no shelter to her now. Somewhere amongst the rose walls and jade carvings, the Vanmoriel royal family would be at loggerheads with the heathen king. Renée had been seen by a dozen eyes at the scene of the chaos, now she was gone. It was as good as signing her death warrant. The kingdom might even brace itself for war.
Especially if the dragon was harmed. The barbarian lord from across the sea struck Renée as battle-hardened and more than merry to make war against her family. He'd come here to take a bride away and now he would leave with nothing. Not even his dragon. Not that Renée knew this at the time.
All she was aware of was how tiered and achy her bones were from scampering up. The gardens were not so well tended at this height. She had slipped back through the labyrinth to Prospect hill and now she was beyond the gleaming balcony, few ventured this high and even less at this time of year, it showed. The ground was littered with overgrown plants, the bushes were unclipped and the tress hung on bough brunches that drooped lowly. Nothing about the mountain gardens struck her as majestic, not in comparison to the world she knew below. Her slippers struggled to find grip on the uneven ground and she stumbled blindly onward, too afraid to stop even for a moment. The guards would be out before dawn, they'd have lanterns and tools to find her. They would hunt her down without remorse.
Terror fuelled her panicked drive up the mountain side, by the time the sky oozed colour into the inky swell of night, Renée had made it out of the green foliage and onto the rocks. She'd fallen over shortly before and, too tiered and weary to get back up, she'd dragged herself into a small niche between three large boulders. Her left leg stuck out awkwardly, the rest of her body curled up in an attempt to contain her warmth. The dragon, her family, the bad king, they were all far from her mind as she lay half-frozen, refusing to cry and desperate for sleep to cover her.
{{ let's pretend it didn't take me so long to make this awful post.
