Chapter 1: A Warm Welcome To Cygnia
"And stay out, you filthy beggar." Dominic heard the shopkeeper's voice shout as he picked himself up from the dusty roadway.
That made the fourth time this week he had been physically thrown out of a Noble run establishment after he had gone in attempting to sell his salvaged goods.
Stupid Noble shopkeepers, it wasn't like they were the only ones with a claim to this continent. They just had better weapons and more population than the nonhuman nations did.
The only problem he had with that fact was the small matter of him being born a Dragonkin. A demihuman species, more commonly known as Sorcerers for the power that they wielded.
A lineage of innate magic users with a hint of a magical beast's blood in their veins.
In his case, it was the blood of a Golden Dragon, which had given him the horns that had alerted the shopkeeper to his nonhuman status when his hat slipped to the side. But also, more importantly, his blood had given him the ability to channel mana for spells without using his own internal reserves, an ability that he had never heard of anyone but the Dragon Princes of his home nation having.
However, his homeland had already fallen under the might of the Dagos Armies, and he had fled to Cygnia. Referring to himself as a Prince of Wavemates was a bit pretentious these days.
Today he was flat broke and hungry. Far from Royalty, even minor Royalty living in a country manor.
Giving up on finding a buyer for his goods now wasn't an option.
Perhaps one more stealthy trip to the recyclers would turn up something too good to turn down if he could avoid the guards. He was always good with his hands, and plenty of these rich snobs would throw out perfectly good stuff that was only a little damaged. Change out a watch strap or replace a crystal focus, and the items they called junk were as good as new.
But none of the dealers in the uptown district would buy from him, and he had been regretting coming to this city from the very moment that he had arrived. A week of continued rejection hadn't helped his mood at all.