No Longer Freedom

1. The Midnight Pearl.

Tord's POV

"I'm going to check the traps!" I announced to my best guards, Paul and Patryk. They replied with a quick nod. They wrote down the time when I had left with an old piece of coal. It had been 3 years since I started the black-market business with them. It had been going smoothly without any problems and the money was running. What I had heard from my spies, the law that I had created in Stardies had been canceled and abandoned because they thought there were loopholes. Jokes on them, that had only increased the demand of dragon products, that's where I had stepped in with my allies. Me and my little crew of exiled people were hunting down dragons and we made custom weapons, armors and other products out of them, then we sold them to our customers who were usually from other gangs or people of the other Kingdoms. However, I weren't usually do the business personally, It would had been a huge risk since we weren't always able to tell if the person wanted to buy our products or if they were working for the royalty. If I would had gotten caught my plan would had fucked up badly, so I preferred working from the shadows leading my Kingdom Of The Lost Ones....KOTLO.

I sighed and admired my dark Kingdom over my shoulder while I walked deeper into the forest. Those rocks covered by moss and huge spruces filled by cones had been protecting our realm from people that were not wanted near us. Nobody with at least a little bit of common sense would had taken the risk of coming this deep into the forest. KOTLO were standing almost straight next to a steep rock ledge which guaranteed that we were on the edge of our continent. Nobody would had accidentally found this place.

"I fear no evil, the shadow is mine and so is the valley. Edd... You put me in the darkness, so darkness I became." I smirked and turned my way to the traps. I knew that I would had a long walk ahead but that was already a routine for me. I usually checked the traps every other day so the potential catch would be exhausted when I would arrive. That way it was easier to kill and carry it to KOTLO, when the prey is thirsty, hungry and tired of fighting but sometimes I just had to kill the dragon then and there. Some of them really were true fighters. Hydra dragons were one of the most aggressive ones I had ever caught. They had multiple heads, usually 3 up to 5 and they all were starving. Hydra's every head has their own stomach which made them 3 to 5 times more aggressive and dangerous then the other dragons. Couatl dragons were just as difficult because they had no legs. They were just flying snakes with colorful feathery wings. "Slippery lissome snakes." I mumbled my thoughts. I had started to naming different species of dragons so it would had been easier to sell them to others. If I wouldn't know anything about them, how would I had been a credible seller? I chuckled at the image of me selling products without knowing anything about those lizards. "How funny~"

When I reached the first trap there were nothing. "Damn it..." I whispered and started checking if the trap would had been broken, but it wasn't. "Weird." Chancing the bite witch was a huge piece of pork meat, I mumbled. We usually hunted down wild boards for our own source of food but we used the extra pieces that we weren't be able to eat as a bait for the dragons.

I stood up and walked towards the second trap which was near to a little lake. The lake's water were bright turquoise which allowed me to see the colorful fishes. Some of them were hiding in the alga while the others were swimming freely around searching for food and simply trying to survive. Just like me back then. No money, no food, no parents who would had taken care of me. Afraid of the future. Just like most of the children who had lost their parents after the tragedy, that took place almost 20 years ago. I remembered how Edd got his crown a few days after that, Because his parents died too and he was the only child that their parents had. Edd was only 8-years-old when that happened so most of the Knights took care of him and helped him lead and take responsibility for his people. He was a child. He understood how scared the other abandoned kids were. How lonely and hopeless I was. Begging for food from the church when those lucky brats had already knocked on all of the remained doors. The thought of a young me begging for food with starving eyes caused me to feel a shamed but at the same time I was sorry, sorry? For what? That odd feeling made me sick of my stomach.