The Selection: Bride Of The Dark Dragon

MIRA

I don’t even at once realize what exactly is she talking about. I am just disappointed that it’s not Rien. But when I notice Aaron Brookland’s journal it suddenly hits me.

“And what is wrong with it?” I raise my brow, picking the poor journal up.

“I asked you a question?! Where the chaos did you get this…thing?!” the dragoness is shaking with anger.

“Are you Agnes?” I ask firmly and she freezes, a surprised expression on her perfect face that doesn’t look older than twenty-five. But if she is who I think she is that. She is much, much older than that.

She doesn’t respond to me and I calmly walk to the sofa and sit on it.

“I take that as a yes”, I smile, “I found it in Rien’s library back at the Gerdian Empire. He was buying a lot of books about dragons, anything he could find. This was one of his finds but he couldn’t read it since it’s the ancient Akyrian language. But I could.”

“You are an Akyrian yourself, right?” Agnes looks down on me from the standing position and I gesture for her to sit next to me.

“That’s right,” I admit, “I am.”

“How did you know my name?” she asks, “He never mentions it in the journal. ”

“Of course he mentions it,” I chuckle, “In fact, he mentions it a lot.”

She looks at me questioningly and I sigh, opening the journal. She sits next to me at once, still holding her head high, but obviously curious.

“Look here,” I say, Every page, third row third letter, “A, g, n, e, s. And then again, and again and again. He has hidden your name in those pages.”

“It can’t be!” she exclaims, grabbing the journal out of my page. With trembling fingers, she checks every single page finding out exactly what I have found already. Since Aaron entered Agnegard he encrypted her name on every page.

“H-how?” she looks at me, startled, “How did you notice? That’s impossible!”

“Well,” I chuckle, “To be honest I had a clue. This is actually a child game in my mother’s family. You hide a secret in the third row third letter of every page. Sometimes it’s the fifth though. And sometimes third and then the fifth. But mostly the third.”

“What the chaos are you talking about?” she looks at me suspiciously.

“My mother is a Brookland,” I admit after hesitating, “I knew where to look.”

“You are a Brookland!” Agnes stands up and starts pacing around the room, “His descendant! He… he… he had children!”

“Not really,” I shrug my shoulders, “We come from his brother’s line. Aaron Brookland… He died in a war. He was a famous traveller and he wrote a book that even now is studied at magical academies. But when war broke out he was mobilized… And… Well, he wasn’t a warrior really.”

A single tear rolls down her cheek and she turns away from me, not wishing for me to witness her moment of weakness.

“He was your soulmate, right?” I ask after a while, “How did… Why did you separate from each other?”

“Agnegard has closed already. We stopped visiting the world of humans. He spent here a few years but then… he wanted to check on his family. Precisely his little brother that you mentioned. He was much younger and…”

“He became a famous mage, opened a few significant laws of magic. Aaron was like a father to him. Or at least that’s what they write in history books,” I inform her.

“Yes, that’s what he was telling me,” she snorts, “Right before he abandoned me!”

I am starting to regret I told her who I am. She seems inconvincible in her hatred of humans and especially Brooklands.

“Thanks for telling me the truth,” she says after another prolonged pause, “I always wanted to know what happened to him.”

“He was just defending his brother and his motherland,” I try to touch her hand but she shrugs away.

“He could have brought his brother here! I would have accepted him as my own!” she says spitefully.

“Maybe he just didn’t have the opportunity after he came back,” I suggest, “Also, you could have gone with him. Why didn’t you?”

She looks at me as if I said the craziest thing in the world.

“Dragons are not allowed to leave Agnegard anymore!”

“Even for their soulmates?” I raise my brow, “I thought you could do anything for them.”

“Unless we are under our King’s order!” Agnes falls back to the sofa, closing her face with her hands, “You cannot disobey the Dragon King. Physically. It’s impossible. When he left, I couldn’t follow him! He promised to come back and I waited… But it was horrible. And one day I finally realized that he isn’t coming back, the pain in my heart became unbearable.”

“How did you survive? Aaron writes that dragons either go crazy or die if they lose their soulmate.”

“That’s true,” she sighs, “I’ve been sick for a long time. On the verge of dying. But I was lucky and I survived in the end. Not everyone does. My own brother died after he lost his mate. And I am one of the very few who managed to continue living. Although, one can hardly call it life now… It’s… existence.”

“I am sorry about that, Agnes…”, I don’t even attempt to touch her anymore, she is clearly not a fan of tactile contact.

“Thank you for the information,” she stands up and regains her control, fixing creases on her elegant dress. She is already at the door when I catch up with her.

“Agnes! Wait!” I stop her, “Tell me, please, where is Rien? When will he be back?”

“I don’t know,” she says and then looks me in the eyes, “He has an audience with the Dragon King. No one is allowed to interrupt them. For you, everything depends on how it goes.”

Agnes leaves without saying anything else and I shrug a bit. I hate not t know what is really going on. But at the same time, I also trust Rien. If anyone can persuade the Dragon King, it would be him.

I go back to the windowsill. There is the best view from this point. An additional advantage – you can see the road that leads to the King’s castle. It is also made of milky Flameglass and looks beautiful from afar with its slim tall towers that almost reach the skies…

I don’t notice how I fall asleep. But as soon as I feel his presence I open my eyes. I am disappointed to see that I am still alone in the dark room. But then I see the familiar sparks from afar. Sparks of dark magic!

“Rien!” I run out of the house and pass the guards who don’t even try to stop me, throwing myself into my fiancé’s arms.

“Mira!” he k****s my hair, my forehead, my nose, my lips, and whenever else he gets in the darkness of the night. It feels like we haven’t seen each other for years when in fact it’s been just a few hours.

“Oh, gods, Rien!” I wrap my hands around his neck, pressing tighter into him, “What happened there! It’s been so long! I’ve been dying without you here!”

“I have some news,” he says with some kind of tiredness in his voice and the sound concerns me.

“Tell me everything,” I urge him.

“Let’s go,” he chuckles, pulling me in the direction opposite from our little house and I look back at our dragon guards.

“Is it all right to just leave like this?” I ask.

“Yes, we aren’t prisoners here anymore,” Derrien explains, leading me somewhere at a very fast pace. I follow him without saying another word, it seems like this is important to him.

He leads me to a small hill, one side of it observes Agnegard and another looks at a huge mountain river. There is a silver statue of some man with wings, holding a sword up and pointing it to the sky.

Derrien pulls me into another warm embrace and inhales my scent. I know that this always helps him to calm down and just wait until he is ready to speak.

We stand like this for a while and when he seems much calmer, I ask, “Did you find out anything about your father?”

“Yes,” he says somehow sadly and my heart hurts for him.

“What is it, Rien? Just tell me…”

“He is dead, Mira…”