The Selection: Bride Of The Dark Dragon

MIRA

The light is strong and it takes some time for my eyes to adjust to it. But when I do, I see three tall figures. One female and two males, men in armour and a woman in an elegantly draped white dress with golden cape. She is the kind of a woman who attracts the attention of anyone who sees her, blue eyes shining like two diamonds, red lips although there’s hardly any make-up on her, long black hair with many golden decorations in it – hairpins and thin chains create an intricate pattern – yet it all looks very tasteful. Only one thing bothers me – she does not look happy. And it also seems like she is the one in charge here.

“How dare you!” she starts speaking and I feel like thunder strikes, “Insolent!”

I and my friends look at each other awkwardly while Rien steps forward, covering me with his body and secretly squeezing my chest.

“Leave!” the woman says, “You have failed the test!”

“And yet here you are!” Derrien chuckles and I almost hit him with my elbow as I get in front of him again, looking at him angrily. Not the time to piss off the dragons! And I am pretty sure that the people in front of us are dragons as well. Just to make sure, I change to my magical vision and see that fire surrounds them, although each is in a different shade. But it mostly forms as wings behind them, the same as darkness forms wings around Rien’s back when I look at him. Yep, definitely dragons.

“We are looking for Agnegard!” I step forward and feel like Rien is following me. His desire to protect me is cute although I start to get worried that this may cause troubles at the moment.

The woman looks me up and down with a supercilious gaze like I am just a spec of dust under her feet.

“Too bad you couldn’t pass the test!” she repeats herself.

“We found the gate, we know your location now,” Rien smirks and I want to hit him again, but this time he catches my elbow in time.

“You are one of us,” the woman says slowly after observing him for a while, “You did this!”

“It was annoying,” Rien says and I just close my eyes exhaling heavily. Doesn’t he know how to be nice to your host? Now they will never…

“Follow me,” the woman says and turns on her heels. My jaw is literally on the floor at the sudden change and Rien grabs my hand, pulling me after him. Dereck, Isidore, and Rick hurry along.

We go through “the gates” and enter… yet another tunnel. Disappointing, to say the least! And to think that dragons would actually live underground instead of high in the skies!

But I bite my tongue when we walk out of the cave. What I see before my eyes surpasses every expectation I had. It’s a whole city before my eyes with tall milky white towers mounted straight into the rock. I guess they do live in the skies! Of sorts. Some of the towers don’t even seem to have staircases leading to them! Dragons don’t need them, after all, they can fly! I notice that each tower has something resembling balconies, but bigger than what we have back at home. They might use those for landing in their dragon forms.

The other amazing thing is how many dragons are there in the skies! Hundreds at least! Of different shapes, colours and sizes! At the bottom of the green valley, there are smaller houses made of the same white material. As they lead us, I stop just for a second to have a better look at what is it made of.

“Glass?” I can’t believe my own eyes! It looks like everything is made out of milky matte glass!

“Flameglass,” the woman with black hair smirks, “Forged by dragon masters with dragon fire. There is no sturdier material in the world! Your steel would break if it comes in contact with it!”

“Impressive,” I smile at her and her face softens just for a second, but next she pulls on her mask of indifference and continues her path. The two men follow us as well and I have no doubt now that they are her guards.

People are coming out of their houses to have a look at us. I guess they don’t have too many guests here. The other thing that they don’t seem to have here is children! I don’t see even one however much I look around.

After a while, the woman stops, and suddenly more men dressed like the two that brought us here surround us.

“You will stay here”, the woman says coldly and then turns to Rien, “And you will follow me!”

“No,” he snorts.

“What did you just say?” fire glows in her eyes, “How dare you disobey me?!”

“I am not leaving Mira alone here!” he crosses his hands on his chest.

“She is not going to be alone, there are four of them if you haven’t noticed,” the dragoness retorts, “They are staying here as… our guests. No one will harm them.”

“And I should believe you because?” he raises his brow.

“Because a dragon would never lie to another dragon,” the woman smirks, “Even though you are just a half-breed!”

He flinches at her words but only I notice that. I hurry to step forward to him.

“Rien, it’s fine!” I smile and put my hand on his, rubbing it gently, “Go and talk to them. This is what we came here for. And I will wait for you here. All I want at the moment is rest anyway.”

He pulls me into a quick embrace and k****s the top of my head, “I’ll come back for you soon. For all of you.”

He nods to Dereck and others and then to the dragons. The woman starts walking without saying her goodbyes to us and he follows her, throwing one last glance at me.

I smile and wave at him, even though I am unsettled on the inside. As soon as they disappear from sight, another dragon steps forward – good-looking as all of them, wearing golden armour and white cape.

“We will need you to give us everything you have with you,” he says, “Bags, things, artifacts, clothes.”

“Excuse me!” Isidore chimes in.

“You will change into what we give you,” the man clears his throat, looking at her with apologetic gaze, “These are the rules here.”

Dereck and Rick look at me questioningly and I sigh, “Fine! Let’s do it.”

They lead us to a not so big house with two bedrooms. The guys go and change into one room and Isidore and I into another. Both rooms have connected bathrooms and Isidore runs in to take a bath first. I don’t mind. All I want now is to see Rien again faster.

“He’ll be fine,” Isidore walks out wrapped in a towel, smiling, “He can deal with anything. For you.”

“I hope you are right,” I smile sadly.

I clean myself after so many days and change into what the dragons prepared for us. Which are simple white dresses. Surprisingly they are into white a lot! I thought dragons would be fans of red. But no.

All our things are taken away. Everything except for my engagement bracelet. The blonde guard, whose name is Eric, looks at it for a while and then just leaves it be.

After a few hours, Rien is still not back. We meet with the guys in the small reception room of our little house and just sit there without saying a word. Everyone is in their own thoughts.

But soon the door opens and the guards bring in food, the delicious smell hits our nostrils.

I look at Eric with a raised brow and he smiles, “You are our guests. We would never harm you.”

“It feels more like we are your prisoners,” Isidore chuckles, “And what do you do with your prisoners?”

“We don’t keep them in houses above the ground, that’s for sure,” the man winks at her. I think he likes her. I throw a quick glance at Dereck and he doesn’t look too happy about that.

“Thank you,” I smile weakly, “Any news about Derrien? When will he come to us?”

“Not tonight, I am afraid,” the dragon says, “I am sorry for the inconvenience. But you can rest assured that he is treated well here. He is talking to our king.”

“I see,” I sigh.

As soon as the guard left, my friends are eyeing the food. I take a piece of bread and swallow some. The hunger suddenly is the least of my worries but I wanted to check the food first. Dereck, Rick, and Isidore start eating and sounds of enjoyment fill the room. I eat some more as well but all my thoughts are elsewhere.

Rien is talking to the king. Is it good or bad? I strange thought occurs to me – and what if his father is still alive? What if his father is the kind himself? But that probably would be too good to be true.

I just hope it goes well for him… At least he is reunited with his kind. Even if that girl has called him a half-breed… He is still treated differently to us. They accept him as one of them, right?

It’s late at night and all my friends are already fast asleep in comfortable beds. But I keep sitting on the windowsill of our house, watching dragons fly in the sky. The whole day one group leaves and another appears… Sometimes they create flames and it reminds me of fireworks back at home.

I hear footsteps. They are closer and closer to our house and I jump to my feet in hopes that it’s Rien.

However, when the door opens the same dragoness with black hair appears before me with a furious face. She holds Aaron Brookland’s journal in her hands and throws it at me.

“How the chaos did you get that?!”