Chương 135: 05. Great Dragon 1

We arrived over Typhon Fortress before dawn had fully broken. This was not, in any meaningful sense, good news. Because "pre-dawn darkness, border on maximum alert, fire dragon passing overhead" is a combination that does not typically guide garrison troops toward the conclusion of ah, she's here to deliver compensation. The more reasonable assessment would be: yesterday was just the preview—here comes the main event. Predictably.

We had barely cleared the high cliffs beyond the Southern Wall when Typhon Fortress's warning bells went absolutely berserk. CLANG—CLANG—CLANG— Urgent and vicious, like someone had ripped the fortress's entire nervous system out and started beating it methodically with an iron mallet. Fire basins flared to life along the battlements in rapid succession. Every crossbow mount swiveled as one. Horn calls detonated across the courtyard, and within moments the outer slopes were crawling with running figures.

Ignicia flew with infuriating serenity. As though carrying three sacks of treasure capable of making a Treasury official faint on principle, while single-handedly triggering full combat mobilization in a border fortress, were merely minor inconveniences encountered during her morning detour.

"Your Highness." I gripped her scales with both hands, watching Typhon Fortress boil over beneath us, a pulse starting at my temple.

"I am making a very sincere recommendation that you gain altitude immediately."

"Why?"

"Because if you drop any lower, they're going to try shooting you down."

"With what they have?"

"I understand your skepticism. The issue isn't whether they can succeed—the issue is that once they fire the first arrow, the compensation letter starts looking suspiciously like a condolence note add-on." She snorted, but her wings angled slightly upward. Progress. At least this dragon was beginning to grasp that occasionally following human advice didn't automatically constitute a loss of dignity. Even so, the garrison below had clearly moved past wondering why does that fire dragon have a rider.

Their operational priorities had shifted to something more immediate: try not to die pathetically in the next thirty seconds. I could see the heavy crossbows being cranked to maximum tension along the wall—arms drawn so tight another pound of pressure would snap the wood. Runners sprinted along the battlements, their shouts tangling with the bell-clamor into a headache-inducing cacophony. Then I saw something that nearly made my stomach fold entirely.

Above the outer gate, Margrave Frank himself had already taken the wall in full armor. Excellent. Yesterday, I had spent considerable diplomatic effort—backed by imperial authority and whatever personal credibility I possessed—wrestling this border marquis back from immediate war to temporary restraint. And how long had it taken me to follow that up by personally arriving on a fire dragon with three bags of treasure?

If our positions were reversed, I would have already used yesterday's imperial directive as kindling.

"Your Highness." I drew a careful breath.

"Listen to me, just this once. Don't get closer, and don't drop anything yet."

"Weren't you the one who said to drop the bags?"

"I said drop, not hurl them at the border marquis's face." I paused, working very hard to keep my voice from suggesting imminent aneurysm.

"And you need to give me a moment to speak first."

"They can hear you from this altitude?"

"Whether they can or not, I need to make them hear me. Otherwise this entire trip reads as a declaration of war." Ignicia seemed to find this thoroughly tedious, but offered no argument. I immediately pulled the communication pendant from my chest. Thank every available deity. It was still there, hanging quietly where I'd left it, not pretending to be ordinary jewelry at the worst possible moment.

Olivia's pendant—the same one that had delivered last night's catastrophic news—had better not suddenly forget it was functional magical equipment. I gripped it and lowered my voice.

"Julian. Can you hear me?" The pendant vibrated faintly. Two seconds later, Julian's voice came through—that particular voice of his that always managed to convey things are not ideal, but funeral arrangements remain premature.

"Receiving you. My lord, please don't tell me the fire dragon currently visible above Typhon Fortress is the one you're presently riding." A brief silence on my end.

"Regrettably, yes." A matching silence from his end. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"... May I ask whether you are currently being held hostage, or if you've made a deliberate decision to withdraw from human society?"

"Neither." I set my teeth.

"I need you on the wall immediately. Tell Margrave Frank: do not fire. The fire dragon princess is here to—" I stopped.

"Actually, don't use apologize. Tell him she's here to negotiate and deliver compensation."

"Is the distinction meaningful?"

"To a border marquis who nearly mobilized out of sheer panic, the distinction is enormous." I checked the increasingly agitated wall below.

"Go. Now. Run." Julian didn't waste time on commentary.

"Understood." The connection cut. I managed half a breath. Please be fast enough. Because the moment the first arrow launches, I'll have front-row seats to the complete evaporation of border diplomacy. Ignicia tilted her head slightly.

"Humans make everything so complicated."

"We do," I agreed.

"But humans generally manage to execute I'm here to pay you back without accidentally executing I'm here to terrify you to death simultaneously." She looked like she wanted to argue, then decided it wasn't worth the breath, producing only a low sound and continuing her circle. Below, Typhon Fortress showed no signs of calming simply because we hadn't dive-bombed them yet. I could make out figures positioning fire oil barrels and grappling hooks along the walls.

Not equipment for fighting armies—equipment for the scenario where a dragon actually lands on the battlements and you want to die having at least made an effort. Frank stood at the center of the wall like a drawn blade. Even from this distance, I could sense his current mood had bypassed "poor" and arrived somewhere closer to: if Cedric were within arrow range, I'd be reconsidering my commitment to diplomacy. Shortly after, a familiar figure sprinted onto the battlements. Julian.

He'd clearly taken every step at a dead run—his cloak hadn't even settled—and he reached Frank's side before he'd fully stopped moving, clearly delivering the situation summary at maximum speed. Frank wheeled to glare at him first, then snapped his head up to glare at us. Even without audio, the translation was obvious: —This is what you meant by "prevent misinterpretation"? I silently lit a candle for Julian in my mind. If he walked off that wall intact, I owed him an entire pitcher tonight.

A brief, visibly heated exchange occurred on the wall. Then, with extreme reluctance, the elevated crossbow angles shifted fractionally downward. Not retracted. But no longer in the configuration of next second we introduce steel to dragon-eye. I had relaxed approximately half an inch when Ignicia spoke.

"Can I drop it now?" The question nearly made me laugh from sheer exasperation.

"Your Highness, why are you so fixated on the word drop?"

"Because it's literally falling from the sky."

"That's called delivery. Not dropping." I pressed fingers to my temple.

"And we start with Frank's bag. Only that one. Keep the other two secured."

"Why?"

"Because what he needs right now is a graceful exit, not a heart attack combo meal." Ignicia clearly found human vocabulary intensely irritating, but she banked slightly, giving me access to the specifically labeled bag. The wind at altitude was still brutal. One hand gripping her scales, other hand wrestling the sack—I felt considerably less like an Imperial envoy and considerably more like someone conscripted into aerial freight operations.

The bag was brutally heavy, metal shifting and clinking inside, and if it landed directly on the battlements it would probably cover both compensation and medical expenses simultaneously.

"Lower," I said.

"You just told me to go higher."

"I've revised my position. Human diplomacy is fundamentally built on the continuous correction of one's previous statements." She made a contemptuous sound, but descended another pass. I fixed on the relatively clear stone courtyard inside the outer gate—confirmed it wouldn't kill anyone, confirmed it wouldn't bounce outside the walls and trigger another round of misinterpretation—and finally gritted my teeth and let go. The heavy burlap sack plummeted. Every pair of eyes below tracked its descent.

And then— THUD!!! The impact was so loud I felt sympathy for the flagstones from mid-air. The bag hit hard, the force splitting the neck open, and several gold coins and gemstones rolled free, catching the early light in a display that was both dazzling and profoundly absurd. Typhon Fortress went dead silent for exactly one beat. The kind of silence where an entire garrison collectively uses half a breath to process what they just witnessed. Then the wall erupted again. Shouting. People surging forward.

Others reflexively raising crossbows again, because apparently the fire dragon isn't here to breathe fire but to drop money was a concept requiring more than three seconds to integrate. Frank himself appeared stunned. He looked down at the split bag on the courtyard stones, then slowly raised his head to look at us. His expression cycled through fury, bewilderment, and existential crisis before arriving at something so complex I almost wanted to pour him a drink.

If I had to find the most accurate description for that look: He looked exactly like a man who had already composed his final words, only to have his enemy drop a bag of compensation from the sky instead. And then, from below, someone shouted:"My lord! There's a letter in the bag!" Wonderful. The explanatory note I had written in a dragon's cave last night had now arrived via a delivery method I sincerely hoped would never appear in any diplomatic training manual. Frank didn't move to retrieve it immediately.

He looked up first—fixing me with a stare of such concentrated intensity I could feel it across the entire distance. Even from dragonback, I could sense the heat radiating off those battlements. Then he made his first decision. In front of his entire assembled garrison, he reached up, seized his steel helmet, and hurled it at the ground. CLANG. The sound rang sharp and clear. My eye twitched. Right. That was very Frank. Not acceptance. Not forgiveness. Certainly not gratitude.

More precisely: —Cedric, I made the mistake of trusting you yesterday. That's the only reason I'm currently standing here watching a dragon make change over my fortress. He kicked aside the adjutant who moved to retrieve the bag, strode there himself, and yanked the letter out in one sharp motion. The morning wind was strong. The paper snapped like a flag in his grip. The entire fortress watched him. I watched him. Then I watched his expression deteriorate considerably after scanning two lines. Excellent.

The letter I had written specifically to prevent awkwardness had successfully elevated the awkwardness to the level of public diplomatic humiliation. From below me, Ignicia's voice rumbled low:"Why is his face doing that?" I remained silent for half a breath.

"Because, Your Highness, for humans, having a bag of money dropped from the sky is not necessarily easier to process than having a burning rooftop dropped from the sky."

"How troublesome."

"My sentiments exactly." Below, Margrave Frank finally crushed the letter in his fist and roared something up at us. I didn't need to guess the content. It definitely wasn't an expression of gratitude. But at least—at least he was still roaring. As long as he was still shouting, it meant that however comprehensively absurd this situation had become, it hadn't yet detonated past the point of recovery.

I slowly exhaled into the cold, bitter high-altitude air, and with the resignation of a man who had fully accepted his circumstances, said to Ignicia:"Your Highness. Congratulations."

"Mm?"

"You have successfully caused a southern border marquis to question whether he's trapped in a nightmare—twice—within twenty-four hours." She actually sounded mildly pleased with this achievement.

"So?" I looked down at Margrave Frank, standing on his battlements clutching a compensation letter, radiating enough fury to crack the flagstones beneath his boots, and calculated that I was probably going to be cleaning up at least three more rounds of fallout for this fire dragon princess.

"So," I said, "from here on, let me handle the talking. If you continue managing this personally, the humans are genuinely going to die of stress first."