13 The Richest Man

A tall man with black hair made his way briskly along a row of burning houses. His once elegant clothes were now full of dust and burnt in places, with cuts from the shattered window. The villagers had yet to douse the flames, and their hope of saving their homes faded with each passing moment.

The man in black gazed in a haunted stare, lower lip jabbering, until he saw her. He stopped for a moment, and hope returned to his gaze. "Hope..." he said, murmuring her name.

She sat on the ground supported by a stone fence, with her arms wrapped around her knees. Dazed and confused, she stared off into the distance, oblivious to Drake's presence. A fine layer of grime covered her face, and her wacky hair was splotchy with ashes and singed where it had been too close to the flames. She held her palms out so they wouldn't touch her knees, and Drake noticed that the fire had burned them badly.

He knelt beside her. "Which one is your house?"

She didn't blink or look away. Hope sat still slumped against the fence. Then her right arm rose up as if some unseen puppeteer had pulled the string, and her limp hand pointed at the house in front of her. The fire still smoldered, but it had largely gone out. Drake got up and headed there. He entered carefully, not to be caught under the rubble again should the roof collapse.

As soon as he stepped inside, Drake saw a charred body, a corpse close to the door. It was a horrible sight, and a shiver ran through his body when he realized that Hope must have seen it. 

Then Drake knew that Hope had burned her hands opening a burning door and went into shock seeing the corpse. He considered it a miracle that she did not throw herself into the flames to get the corpse out, knowing that such impulsiveness would have been so into her character.

"You should have come faster! You should not have stopped saving all the human children who are born only to rest their worthless shadows upon this land. You shouldn't have allowed this to happen!"

The creature's voice grew louder and louder, and Drake wasn't feeling strong enough to push him back into the depths of his being. He was too tired to fight and murmured helplessly. "Can you please shut the fuck up?"

The dragon was not going to give up. "Do you see the condition of the girl? What if she doesn't recover? What if she remains in this state forever? What if she was irreparably shocked? "

Drake shook his head. "Impossible! Hope is strong, and she will get over it. She only needs time and space and by no means your unnecessary worries. I'll take care of this! "

"How? Do you intend to do it in the same way you managed to find her before something happened?" snorted the Fire Dragon.

Drake was tired, and all he wanted was to take care of Hope and not bother with this annoying creature. He lifted a burnt wooden pole, broke it on his knee, and kept the sharper half. Drake grabbed it with both hands and placed it near his heart. "One more word, and I will pierce my chest with it. I've had enough. Go back and leave me. "

Drake paused and then whispered, "Please."

Though he wasn't sure if it was due to the threat or the last word, he no longer felt the presence of the annoying beast. He breathed a sigh of relief and walked away from the ruined house.

Drake talked to the villagers and received a bucket of water, clean rags, and some ointment for burns. When he returned, Hope was in the same position and had not moved an inch.

He sat and tenderly raised one of her hands, pulling it towards him and placing it with the palm up in his lap. He cleaned her burned hand with a damp cloth, and after it dried, he applied ointment. He knew Hope was in terrible pain, considering how nasty her wounds looked, but she endured it without moving or blinking. Drake bandaged her hand in a clean cloth, then repeated the procedure on the other hand.

A monotonous silence had descended upon them, in which only the crackling of burning wood could be heard. The smell of smoke was already soaked in their nostrils, and they could no longer smell it.

When he had finished bandaging her hands, Drake took the last clean cloth left, soaked it in water, and gently cleaned her dirty cheeks. Hope still didn't move.

Realizing that he had done everything in his power to help Hope heal, Drake sighed, sat down next to her, and leaned against the same stone fence. Knowing how much he sometimes needed his moments of peace, he decided to respect her quietness.

By dusk, several times Drake fought the urge to break the silence, always thinking he had found something interesting to say that could soothe her and put her in a better frame of mind. But every time he opened his lips to say something, he realized it wasn't enough. Nothing he could say would be enough.

No one would have imagined that he would see the imposing Lord Springwood looking like a beggar and sleeping at night supported by a stone fence. A passerby recognized him from a celebration a few years ago and thought he was the perfect example of how wealthy people can decay.

When Drake woke, he saw Hope sleeping with her head on his shoulder and holding him in her arms. He looked at her with pride and admiration and began to caress her ruffled hair. If the same passerby had seen him now, he would have realized that only now had Drake become the richest man in the world.