Treasured by Dragons

A Celestial Prince

Through fluttering eyes, I glimpsed scenes indistinguishable from dreams. The governor's estate shrinking into the distance, breaking through the sea of clouds and soaking in the intense sunrays beyond, the cerulean coast and verdant countryside rushing below, and a majestic mountain wreathed with silvery mist. I was an errant kite with a snapped string, a bug on a bird's back, a mote buffeted by winds—minuscule and fragile.

When I came to, the first thing I saw was a hand blocking the sky. I knocked it away and flinched at the powerful glare of the sun.

"Oh? You'll hurt your eyes." The voice was warm and effervesced with the traces of a chuckle. The hand shielded my vision again. I tilted my head, following the sleeve draped on the hand, to broad shoulders, and a handsome face looming over me, upside-down. The breath caught in my throat and I coughed.

"Are you awake now?" The man peered closer—too close.

I jerked into a sitting position and knocked his hand away again. Getting a clear look at him, I stared in stunned silence. He could've stepped out of a painting: slender half-moon eyes that curved heavenward with dark eyebrows and a high nose, on an oval face with a sharp jawline. His blue-black hair was adorned with a jeweled wing headdress that I couldn't place, but his robes were Geunhwan style.

The corners of his plush lips curved downward. "I just didn't want to wake you from such a sweet slumber, I thought you might be tired. You've been sleeping for a while, you know?"

"Is that so? Thank you." I said, my tone measured in the face of this unusually pleasant stranger. The sea breeze at Hayan Song had been cool, but here, I could see puffs of my breath, visible in the cold. I shivered; he unlaced his overcoat and wrapped it around me. "Thank you..." I murmured, curling my chilled hands in the folds of the silk.

I swayed to my feet, feeling his hand under my elbow steady me. A few steps away was a crystalline lake, surrounded by a meadow and blossoming trees. The sanctuary was nestled within rocky peaks caressed by the clouds drifting across the sky.

The sky.

I gasped. The endless blue and white filled my vision. I had forgotten how wide and high it was. In my confinement in the tower of the Seventeenth Domain, I had only seen the horizon out of the square window.

Unconsciously, I reached out. The clouds seemed close enough to touch. A pink blossom fluttered off a tree and landed on my fingertip. Pink and five-petaled like a cherry blossom, but smaller.

"Would you like to see the peach blossoms?" he asked.

Peach blossoms. They were tinier than I had imagined, from the stylized prints in my books.

Before I could react, he had taken my other hand and led me to the lakeshore. Walking next to him, I noticed how tall he was, the top of my head not even grazing his shoulder. He broke off a flowering branch and handed it to me. I brought the delicately sweet-scented flowers to my nose, but my eyes remained on him.

Distracted, I stepped on a stone and yelped, stumbling as pain stabbed through my silk-slippered feet.

"Are you hurt?" As he kneeled, he braced my hand on his shoulder for balance. Cradling my aching foot, he lifted it, revealing a gold tael. My jaw dropped.

When he tossed it to the ground, the glittering amidst the grass caught my eye. It was littered with gold taels, pearls, and other gems, spilling out of lacquered chests, a dazzling trail leading to the box wagon from the governor's estate.

"The wagon was filled with these treasure chests, there was no time to empty them before escaping," he explained. "I thought they would be useful anyway, don't humans always seek gold and jewels?"