We had to dress in our robes today for this. Questioning this mission was so stupid and all because Caleb didn’t feel part of this. He was such a kid sometimes.
My black with dark red and purple colors reached my ankles as my foot tapped against the floor listening to how Declan accused Tanya and Herbert of being part of the royals assassination.
The room we waited in was small. Had chairs lining the wall with a table at the entrance and register where you had to sign in.
A soft cream carpet covered the wooden floor that matched the wooden wall panels. There was no window in this room, only a painting of what the building used to look like a long time ago. It was bigger now.
Dad sat next to me, wearing his black robe. He was no stranger to this room and to this building, just like me.
We kept watching the screen at the circus of a hearing. Caleb stood up and clarified his agenda. It had nothing to do with Tanya or Herbert. He didn’t believe that Elena was Albert’s daughter.
My gaze looked at Elena on the screen. She looked like a scared little mouse. I missed her so much.
Dad sighed at that revelation, but a part of me knew Caleb would make a lot of shit.
I chuckled as Tanya set him straight. She was feisty, and I realized I didn’t have many memories of her. Dragons never forget. We remembered the tiniest detail. Even the temperature of our egg when our mom laid on us.
“Now I get why you and Tanya didn’t get along?” I said.
“Why?” Dad leaned back in his chair with arms folded.
“You are the same.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Dad scolded, but the corner of his lips curved upward as I chuckled.
Tanya had enough, and she walked out. Guards seized her and Elena jumped up. My inside froze as we stared at her, begging for their lives.
“She is a Malone through and through. The elders are fucking stupid,” Dad said. I knew he took it still hard that he didn’t know about her. That his rider didn’t trust him with that knowledge that the queen was with child.
The one at the end spoke. He hardly opened his mouth at hearings. I always thought he was a wuss.
Dad chuckled.
“He can talk?”
“Adolph doesn’t speak when it’s not needed. He is one of the oldest Dragonians in Paegeia.”
“He’s not a dragon?”
“No, he was part of a dent, easily the first, from what Albert had gathered.”
“Gathered, why?”
“Adolph had a strange liking for the queen.”
My gut warmed when he asked Declan to call me. I got up.
“Sit, he is making his point.”
Declan didn’t answer.
“Just as I thought,” Adolph spoke.
“Albert never told me why, but in the beginning, it used to drive him mad. It stopped after a while.”
“The queen?”
“Many adored her, Blake. She was an exceptional woman, and I agree with Tanya. She deserved to have been a mother.”
Dad never agreed with Tanya. “The queen scared the living crap out of me.”
“Know you know why. She knew her daughter had to claim you one day, Blake. I guess a part of her even blamed you for sending Elena away.”
“Humph.” I didn’t think about that.
The meeting got dismissed and I couldn’t believe that I was going to see Elena again.
My thumb rubbed the stress in my palm away as we both got up from the chairs.
The waiting part until the guard called us was killing me, and I kept scowling at the door.
“Calm down, Blake.”
“It’s weeks, Dad, almost a bloody month. If I wanted to kill her, I would’ve done that a long time ago, not helped to get her back to Paegeia.”
“Just remember, you are the first Rubicon to show us what is real. There isn’t a book out there that can guide any of us.”
The door opened. I walked with huge strides and rushed up the stairs and entered the hall. My eyes flickered to Helmut. Both the chairs next to him were empty.
The heaviness came back. I slumped toward the chair and plopped into it, folding my arms. My jaw muscles pumped as I ground my teeth.
Dad begged me to keep quiet. Helmut was going to speak on our behalf.
“The case is against the authorization of a mission that was unorthodox. We didn’t grant any permission,” Declan spoke. He was such a scaly bastard.
“Sorry, your honor. I granted them permission,” Helmut spoke up.
“Why wasn’t it brought to our attention?”
“Because with all due respect, it had nothing to do with you. I’m still king of Tith. I funded this mission, and they departed from Tith and entered Tith. So, I can’t foresee any reason to run this by you. You might not like Tanya Le Frey, but she opened my eyes today. Hit a couple of truths that I’d forgotten about.”
Declan glared at Helmut.
“What is the plan with the person of interest that you brought back?”
“Princess, Declan. That is the word you are looking for.” Adolph spoke. “You can ask Blake. Her dragon is sitting right there.”
My lips curved, and I saw Dad’s lips moved into a smile too.
“We are going to train her, so that she can claim the Rubicon. I got a feeling that was why Albert sent her away, so that we do not lose another Rubicon,” Helmut said.
Immense guilt weighed in my gut. I was the reason they didn’t get to raise their own daughter.
“I thought it was because they were threatened?” Declan said.
“Your honor, if you knew King Albert the way I did, you would’ve known that there are a few reasons behind his actions, not just one.” King Helmut stood straight with his chin held high.
Declan nodded, and his gaze shifted to mine. “Is she your rider?”
“Yes, she is.” I never addressed them as your honors, as there was nothing honorable about them.
Everyone gasped and twittered.
Declan’s lips twitched. “How can you be so sure? How do we know it isn’t another tactic of yours—”
“To do what? Kill her. If she isn’t my rider, why would I even waste my time worrying about her. As you know, a dragon always knows that part. I’m the alpha, like it or not. I knew it the second I saw her.”
“Do you have an urge to kill her, Rubicon?” Adolph asked.
“Blake is just fine, your honor,” I replied and more gasps filled the hall.
Adolph nodded once.
“No, I don’t have an urge to kill her. I think you need to recheck your research.” I looked at Declan.
“Still, just to be on the safe side, I’m not lifting that sentence. You will abide by my decision.”
“Your decision is horse-shit.” More gasps filled.
“Blake,” Dad hissed.
“If I wanted to kill her, I would’ve killed her on the other side of the wall, or better, let Malcolm Cooper do that for me when he sabotaged our plan the first night to get her home. I wouldn’t have gone and got her back. She is my only chance to be good, to become light and not give myself to the darkness that will destroy my world and the human world. So yeah, your decision to keep us apart is horse-shit.”
I got up and walked out of the building. No seizing order came from one of them.
Elena was nowhere to be found. They already left, and I grunted in frustration, punching the nearest tree.
Master Longwei reached me. “You don’t want to kill her?”
I sighed and looked at him. “No, I don’t. But I have an urge to kill Declan and his hold he claims to have with important decisions.”
Master Longwei chuckled. “Between you and me, Adolph was always one of my favorites. A man with brief words, but when he speaks, you know he means every single one of them.”
“You know the reason he was so smitten with Queen Catherine?”
“She was a favorite of many. The woman was beautiful, Blake.”
I chuckled and shook my head.
“It was only you she didn’t like so much, and we all know the reason behind that now. So I guess we will never know how she felt about you.”
“Pity, I would’ve loved to discover the real queen everyone keeps telling me about.”
“Let’s go back, your father is going to be in there for a while.”
I nodded and followed him to the carriage.
ELENA
The following day, class started. I didn’t know why Lucian attended Dragonia, as he had everything he needed here. I guessed it had to do with friends and being part of a normal environment.
I had three lectors, that they called professors. One was an old woman, Professor Dumphreys. She had gray hair that she took up in a neat bun. Specs lingered on her long, defined nose. She had the brownest eyes, almost honey color and a permanent scowl on her face. Even when she smiles. She loved natural colors, skirts and blouses and smelled like a library. I found her staring many times at me, which crept me out.
The other two, Professor Wick and Professor Baileaf, were the complete opposite of each other.
Professor Baileaf was short and round around the middle with a wig, but I pretended I didn’t know about it. He had this annoying saying after each sentence; ‘you get my meaning, Princess’. I wished he could drop the princess part, but no matter how much I begged, the word popped from his lips.
The last professor was Professor Wick. He was tall and skinny and had this eagle type of nose, with thin lips.
He tied his hair up in a neat pony behind his neck. The guy loved brown pants and white button shirts with suspenders.
Dumphreys lectured subjects like science, potions and spells. I’d never been great at science and sucked at potions. Spells were in Latin and the words were so hard to pronounce correctly. She told me I needed to ask magic permission first so that my spells and potions could work. Her classes were hard and gave me headaches.
Wick covered anatomy, geography and Bonds and Dents.
Anatomy was fun as I learned everything about beasties, how they were put together, and about Dragonians. How magic enhanced our normal human bodies. Geography was all the countries in Paegeia, even Etan, which was where I was born. Bonds and Dents were everything about Dragonians and Dragons and how they co-exist with one another. Dents, the word that I didn’t know, was about their bonds, a very special bond, meaning that a Dragonian found the beasty that belonged to them. It wasn’t one that carried the same abilities as them, which was dubbed a normal bond. No, this beasty was created just for that Dragonian. Something similar to soul mates. There weren’t a lot of Dents, and it was something that the people of Paegeia deemed as rare. The beasties even have their own law that is like high up. They get all sorts of wavers if they kill in order to defend their rider. When that dragon is part of a dent, it was an entire new law.
Baileaf lectured Arithmetic and History. He was the professor that taught me about my parents and the first time that I saw a picture of my father, my throat became super dry.
He had the warmest and kindest face. His eyes and hair were like mine.
He ruled with a kind heart and a powerful mind. Whatever he put his heart, mind and soul to, he got it done.
He claimed his dragon, which was a Night-Villain without being born with the mark. His dragon looked vicious. He was black as night and two huge horns curved forward like a mean bull. His skin looked slightly burned, as if he was busy decomposing. Wick told me it had to do with the acid that they carried. They were acid breathers.
My dad claimed him even if it wasn’t his abilities. I get what the queen meant when she said that Lucian reminded her so much about my father.
My mother was the complete opposite. I saw her side profile, but it was nothing compared to what she looked from the front. She was stunning, with dark brown hair. She was tall too, with long limbs. When her hair didn’t cascade down her shoulders, she tied it up into a ponytail, like me. She had kind gray doe eyes, and the most beautiful thick lips and high cheekbones. I got nothing from her. That was my mom. I wished I knew them, could remember them. They sounded like amazing people. She loved her charities, which always involved children and people suffering. She was a saint.
They both fought in war, even when the women weren’t allowed to fight. She changed her appearance through magic and during the war; it was where she found her green vapor, Tanya Le Frey. She saved her life, and the dragon was smitten with her after that.
I was too. I had to keep reminding myself it was my mom. She wanted me so badly.
The first week it was only the three of them, but the second week, Dad came to fetch me around three.
We walked to a building that almost looked like royal stables. I begged that there weren’t any beasties in there. I wasn’t ready to face one yet. Emanual was enough.
Dad opened the one side of the double door, and we entered an oval arena. They lay the floor out with black training mats. Seating steps lined half the one side of the arena. Next to that were rows and rows of armor. On the other side, sun streamed through the windows and paintings of knights in medieval times straight through modern times lined the walls. There was one of Lucian too, staring into the crowd. He wore black pants, with a black long sleeve vest, hugging his arms. Some sort of kevlar vest, that was a modern version of a shielded breast plate, covered his body. With a gladiator skirt and boots on.
He stood in a similar arena, but it had no roof, filled with flags of all the dragons and abilities. Thousands of human figures surrounded him in the crowd.
My eyes flickered to a guy that fought with a sai weapon in the middle of the arena. The guy was fast and wore black pants and a shirt with bare feet.
Dad walked toward him, and he stopped.
“Bear, I want you to meet Devon Lockendor.”
First leaf, now lock and door.
I held out my hand. The guy was about a few years older than me, had black hair tied up in a ponytail and was about the same length as me.
He shook my hand. “Princess.”
“Elena, please,” I begged, and he nodded.
“Devon is part of King Caleb’s fleet. I knew his grandfather well. He’s fast, and that is what I want you to learn from him. Become fast as him in your reflexes and work on that balance of yours.”
I nodded.
“Tomorrow you will start your training with him. For the next month, you need to learn as much as you can from Devon. Okay? So listen to everything he says.”
I nodded.
We said goodbye after Dad told him my training hours, which was going to be 5am in the mornings to 7am. Then from 3pm to 5pm and again from 7pm to 9pm.
I could foresee my life for the next month. Train, school, eat and sleep.
