WE DECIDED TO go back to the lodge via the road we’d traveled a few days ago.
My heart beat like crazy as I kept my gaze on the tents. It was still early in the morning, the sun had just started to rise, and I had no idea who those tents belonged to, but the feeling inside made my stomach turn.
Annie didn’t say a peep, but I could feel her presence next to me.
She had tears in her eyes as I turned to speak.
“Are you okay?” I asked, and touched her arm gently.
“It’s a bit overwhelming, knowing that almost all my life I’d thought there was nothing this side. That there was no hope.” She stared to cry.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into my chest. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Is it?” She pushed me back. “I don’t know much about this side. I can’t even remember if I’ve ever left Etan before. I’m worried about my other family and feel so guilty for leaving them, but at the same time I’m scared. I know what fear looks like, I grew up with it. When you saw those tents…”
“Shhhh, I’m just concerned. Why did you think I wanted Blake to come with me? The Ancients and the Council aren’t really fans of mine, nor do they believe that I can follow in my father’s footsteps.”
“What are they going to do with me?”
“Nothing, I swear to you. You’ve suffered enough. They will not harm you, okay.” I pulled her in for another hug and we walked further up the road. After a couple of miles the tavern came into view.
“Wow, it is so beautiful.”
“I know. It belongs to David, Charles’s dragon.”
She smiled. “I can’t believe he is still alive.”
“Your cousin was right that it’s more of a surprise of who is alive in Etan than on this side.” I grabbed her hand. “Now, come. I need to find out who is here.”
“THEY WHAT?”
“Elena, calm down.” King Helmut’s hologram looked worried, just like me, but at least he kept his temper together and wasn’t losing it like me. “Can I speak to Blake, please?”
I ignored his last request completely and chucked my Cammy down on my bed. King Helmut’s hologram disappeared. I didn’t even give him a chance to explain further. I was through with asking, asking them to give me a chance, asking them to let me be a princess, asking them to try and approve of my choices. I didn’t have to try and fill his shoes. I was his daughter. We were not going into any sort of quarantine.
“Stupid Blake!” I said, but I wasn’t going to run back. I was the princess of this world, and if they didn’t want to accept it, well, I would not give them the choice.
I’d never been this livid before. How dare the Ancients send security to come and pick everyone up as if they carried some sort of a disease and… Urgh! They made me so furious.
I went outside while David and Connie kept Annie company.
“Elle.” Annie got up.
“Stay here, I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
She nodded.
“Is everything okay?” Connie asked.
“Oh, I can promise you, it will be.”
I strode out the front door. “David, may I please borrow one of the SUVs?” I interrupted the awkward conversation I’d tried to block out.
“Sure, just let me get you the keys.”
THE DRIVE DIDN’T take that long, and there were three men sitting around a fire brewing coffee. Everything about this was wrong. If the Ancients had any good intentions, they would’ve come and stayed at the lodge, but they hadn’t. These men knew under what circumstance they had come here, and I wasn’t going to let my friends go through this.
“We told you before, we don’t need –” One of them started to speak and stopped the minute he saw that it was me. “Princess, what can we do for you?”
“You really want me to answer that?” I asked, and he looked awkwardly to the other two. “Pack up your tents and go back to where you came from. Tell the Ancients that this matter is not one of their pet projects they are going to be able to handle the way they see fit. I will speak to them when I am ready and have some time.”
I returned to the SUV.
“We do not take orders from you, princess.”
“I don’t give a shit from whom you take orders. If you don’t do as I say, I swear to you I will unleash my dragon on each and every single one of you and them. Then we’ll see if the dead can give orders.”
They eyes grew huge. “Is that a threat?” One of them got up with a grunt.
“See it how you want, but I’m giving you two hours to pack up your tents and move out.”
I climbed back into the SUV. My heart was beating like mad. It was fear, anger or maybe both. I reversed the truck, and had a feeling I’d only experienced a few times warm my belly. It was addictive but it couldn’t be forced. For that second I truly felt like my father and mother’s daughter. That I’d stood up for others, put others before my own needs, and that I would fight with every ounce I had to keep them safe from whatever harm was coming their way. For the first time, I truly felt like a princess.
What they wanted to do was wrong, and every fiber of my being was telling me to fight with everything I had for them not to win this time. I meant it. These people had gone through enough. To put them into quarantine, treating them as if they carried some sort of plague. I shook my head as I drove toward the tavern.
The only thing I regretted was referencing Blake, but the minute I had, fear jumped through their entire beings. It had been evident on their faces. It did the opposite to me. I felt weak, hiding behind him, and it was something I really didn’t like.
“ELENA,” MASTER LONGWEI scolded. “You need to be careful what you say to the guards of the Ancients. They do not answer to any royal, they protect –”
“I don’t care who they protect, and if you want to see me become my father, I need you to fight with me.”
“The Ancients have a point.”
“You begged me to make peace with Blake so we could get your family out. What if those people that they are desperately trying to put into quarantine are exactly that, your family? Would you really do that to them? Put them through misery and hell for another four months, not see them?”
He had guilt in his eyes. “I have to think of what is best for Paegeia.”
“No, I have to think about what is best for Paegeia. All of Paegeia. So if the Ancients want to succeed, they will have to kill me first.”
“Elena!” Master Longwei roared.
“What? What do you want from me?” I asked him. “When I don’t act like the princess you tell me to buff up, and the minute I do, it’s not right. Blake was right.”
He froze as I said that.
“None of you will ever give me this chance.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Well, you know what, maybe it’s time I stop asking for chances and just take what was rightfully bestowed on me the day I was born.”
I switched off my Cammy. I’d never been this angry in my entire life. They didn’t even know what they wanted from me, but they expected me to know. I couldn’t even remember why I was so scared of all of them in the first place.
“ELLE, WHAT DID they say?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen.” I smiled at Annie with confidence. When I started to calm down I began to realize what the hell I’d just done, but they’d given me no choice. They couldn’t do this. It wasn’t right.
I didn’t even know how I was going to do all of this without Blake at my side. Arrogant idiot.
It was already too late. He’d lured me in with everything he’d had. I was so weak.
My Cammy rang, and I saw Emanuel’s name.
“You are safe here. Nobody is going to hurt you. That I promise, but I need to take this, okay?”
Annie smiled, and I got up from her bed and went to Blake’s room. The Cammy stopped as I walked up the stairs and entered his room.
“Emanuel,” I said and his face popped up after a few rings.
“Elena.” A soft curve tugged at the corner of his lips. “You calm?”
“Yes, I am.” I sighed, and he started to laugh.
“For what it’s worth, Maggie gives two thumbs up.”
“So how much trouble am I in?”
“It’s the Ancients. I know you don’t want Blake at these meetings, but this is one I strongly advise him to be at. They are scheduling it for two days from now.”
I shook my head. “Please, I beg you. Just help me. They can’t take her into quarantine.”
He narrowed his eyes and smiled. “You need to start trusting Blake. I’m not your dragon. I can’t stand at these trials with you.”
“He’s not here!” I yelled. “He stayed behind, felt that they needed him more and that I should learn how to stand up for myself.”
His face fell. Yeah, I know that feeling. Disappointment was a bitch.
“Okay, we have two days to come up with a plan. Are there any little ones?”
“Little ones?”
“Elena, they can soften the case. Nobody likes putting children in quarantine.”
“There are, but it’s too late. We need the Buyo devices if we want to get them out of there.”
“We have some, about ten. King Helmut asked me to do him a favor that side.”
“Is he insane?” I cried. “Do you know what they do to dragons that side? Of course you don’t. None of you do.”
“Elena, I can take care of myself. Have done so the past three hundred years.”
“This is different.”
He smiled. I hated it so much that he could affect me with only a smile; even he didn’t take me seriously. “I’m glad Blake is on the other side and not around the corner hearing how much you care.”
I got why he’d smiled. “It’s not like that between us. I told you that before. It will never be like that.” So we’d kissed. It didn’t mean anything.
“You are wrong. You need to trust him.”
I did, well a part of me did trust this new side of him, and a part was shit scared too.
“I’ll see you soon.”
His hologram disappeared, and I sat on the edge of the bed holding my Cammy while considering how draining today had been.
I was tired. Tired of everything, and wished there was a spell that could take away my fear of so many things. Especially the Ancients.
Another image jumped into my mind.
I saw Emanuel and Blake flying from the Creepers in my mind’s eye. He’d saved Blake’s life a number of times, because he knew I was there but didn’t trust it.
He would’ve been dead if it wasn’t for Emanuel. I sort of missed him now that he wasn’t constantly bugging me.
I sighed and went back to the room where Annie was.
I knocked on the door and she opened it. “Come, I need to speak to Connie and David too. Over the next two days, plenty is going to change.
