Chapter 4: Into the Dragons’ Den

 

 

 

Chapter 4: Into the Dragons’ Den

 

NOW that Princess Patricia was to be wed to the Prince of Vaxwald, arrangements had been made for her to leave the country in just ten days. No sense in dawdling now that the engagement was official, I suppose.

Naturally, this meant that I, too, had just ten days to prepare, and I couldn’t afford to waste a moment. First I had to pack, then go and explain everything to my parents, then say goodbye to everyone I’d be leaving behind here in Myulan.

Unlike Patricia, however, I was by no means fated to remain in Vaxwald for the rest of my life. The Princess herself had told me she didn’t want to tie me down permanently. “Just until I feel comfortable there,” she’d explained. “I imagine it won’t take more than a year at most.” So that was my plan: to live there for a year and see where it took me.

Near the end of our final days in Myulan, I was summoned to the throne room, where the King and Queen personally beseeched me to look after their little girl.

Then, finally, it was the day of our departure.

On that fine summer day, a massive crowd of commoners and nobles alike (as well as the King, Queen, and Prince) gathered to bid the Princess farewell as she climbed into a splendid horse-drawn carriage. I quietly followed her into it.

From there, the royal cavalcade was organized as follows: two rows of horseback knights at the front to serve as bodyguards, our passenger carriage in the center, and then five more carriages behind us carrying Her Highness’s dowry items as well as a handful of servants who would be traveling with us to the border and no further. Lastly, another two rows of horseback knights brought up the rear.

Patricia had been tearful all throughout her final farewells to her parents and for some time afterward, but her sobs finally dried up about an hour into the journey.

“Feeling any better?” I asked as I rubbed her back reassuringly.

“Not at all,” she sniffed. “The thought that...I won’t be seeing my parents again for who knows how long... Oh, I just can’t stop crying...”

“There, there. You’re going to have so much fun in Vaxwald, I just know it,” I said, hoping to cheer her up a bit. “Aren’t you excited to see how all the ladies wear their hair over there? Judging from the knights that came to visit us with Prince Dario, it seems short hair is the standard for Dragonkin men. But what of the women, I wonder? Perhaps they wear their hair long and tie it up, like we do in Myulan. Aren’t you curious?”

“No,” Patricia replied flatly, glaring at me with puffy red eyes. Strange... I thought she’d be more enthusiastic. Guess I’ll have to use my trump card.

I held my hands out in front of me, cupping the empty air, and envisioned a bright orange gerbera daisy. Then I focused my mana into my hands—poof! A single flower appeared out of thin air, identical to the one I had imagined, and I promptly offered it to the Princess.

“Here. I hope this flower makes you feel better.”

Unlike the Dragonkin, whose bodies were built for combat, or the Treeborn and Shadowkin, whose mana capacity made them adept at magic, we Flowerfolk didn’t really have any talents...save for this one small special trait.

Unfortunately, one measly flower didn’t seem to have much of an impact on her dour mood...so I kept on making daisies in every color until her lap was covered in a rainbow of blossoms. Soon they spilled over to the floor, and by that time, the entire carriage smelled like a garden in spring.

At last, Patricia finally smiled.

“Hee hee... Look at all these flowers! They’re so pretty.”

“There’s more where that came from!”

I kept on producing bloom after bloom until the carriage was carpeted in petals of every hue—at which point my mana finally gave out. Oh well. At least I managed to make her smile.

“The pink ones are so cute,” Patricia mused as she plucked one from the pile. She brought it to her nose to smell its fragrance, then turned to the window. “How much longer until we reach the border?”

I checked my pocket watch. “Not for a while yet, I’m afraid. At our current pace, it will take five hours to go from the castle to the border...and we’ve only been traveling for an hour and a half.”

And once we made it to the border, it’d take us another six hours to reach the Vaxwald castle proper.

“We’ll be stopping to have lunch at some point during the journey, but let me know if you’d like to hop out and stretch your legs before then. It’s a sunny day, so be sure to stay hydrated.”

It was the end of August, and while Myulan’s weather was generally mild, it couldn’t hurt to stay cautious. Besides, Patricia’s other servants were riding in the carriages behind us, and once we crossed the border, a number of Dragonkin servant girls would be joining us for the second leg of the journey.

“I will, thank you. Goodness, is traveling ever exhausting,” Patricia sighed, spinning the daisy between her fingers.

❀❀❀

WE arrived at the border just past noon. There, Patricia and I would be parting ways with the Myulan knights and servants; the two of us were to cross the border on foot, along with Patricia’s dowry items.

“The Vaxwald convoy is already waiting for us on the other side,” I called to Patricia, who was still inside the carriage.

Similar to the Myulan cavalcade, the Vaxwald convoy was flanked by horseback knights on both sides, with a passenger carriage for the Princess in the center. There appeared to be a crowd of Dragonkin onlookers forming in the distance—nearly a hundred people, if I had to guess.

“Looks like you’ve got quite the turnout, too. It seems the people of Vaxwald have come to welcome you,” I told her, my tone encouraging.

“Really?” The tension faded from her expression ever so slightly. As she stepped out of the carriage, the gerbera daisies spilled out with her. “Well then... Let’s be off.”

“As you wish, Your Highness.”

With a final farewell to the Myulan servants and knights, Patricia slowly crossed over the border. I quietly followed along after her, admiring my own handiwork from behind.

Today I had given her a more refined, polished hairstyle: all of it—bangs included—pulled up into a high fan-shaped bun with a tiara perched in front. It was the sort of look that would go well paired with a wedding dress, and it complemented her large earrings, too. As for myself, I had chosen to keep my hairstyle comparatively plain, with no hair ornaments. I didn’t want to distract from Her Highness, after all.

As we approached the Vaxwald convoy, a middle-aged knight near the front of the procession hopped down from his horse and knelt before Patricia.

“From here, we, the knights of Vaxwald, do humbly swear to protect Her Highness Princess Patricia and bring her safely to Prince Dario in the castle. Come this way, if you please.” The man rose to his feet and led us to a lovely pale white carriage.

But before Patricia made it inside, the crowd of commoners began to shout:

“ANNUL THE MARRIAGE!”

“What?” Startled, I turned back to look at them. I’d thought they’d turned out in support of Patricia, but on further inspection, the looks on their faces didn’t seem very welcoming at all.

“Send that spoiled princess back to Myulan!”

“We don’t want some gold-digger spending our tax money on pretty dresses!”

I couldn’t believe what they were saying. Spoiled? Gold-digger? Where did this come from? Patricia certainly didn’t have this sort of reputation back in Myulan. If anything, she was viewed as the nation’s “little royal sweetheart.” Granted, she still had a child’s sense of self-interest, but she was kind at heart. And while she was known to purchase expensive dresses and accessories, she was a princess. Surely that much was to be expected.

“What’s going on...?” Patricia asked, her eyes wide, her face white as a sheet.

“ANNUL THE MARRIAGE!”

Incensed, the crowd began to close in faster and faster until they were nearly running at her.

“Board the carriage, Your Highness. We’ll handle them.” The middle-aged knight ushered us inside, then quickly shut the door behind us. “On you go, now!” we heard him tell the coachman, and so the carriage began to move, with knights protecting us on all sides.

But just a few steps later, the procession once again came to a halt as the crowd of protesters moved to block our path.

“Get out of the way, all of you! Doing this will accomplish nothing! The engagement has already been decided!” one of the knights shouted somewhere outside.

“You call yourself a knight?! Don’t you care about the future of Vaxwald?!” a protester shouted back. “Surely Prince Dario can find a better queen than that!”

“ANNUL! THE! MARRIAGE! ANNUL! THE! MARRIAGE!” the crowd chanted in unison all around us.

At first this protest seemed relatively peaceful, but the argument with the knight had added fuel to the fire, and the carriage shook slightly as someone outside gave it a hard shove.

“I’m scared,” Patricia whispered next to me, nearly on the verge of tears. Gritting my teeth, I pulled her into a tight embrace. I could only imagine how the Myulan knights and servants must have felt right now, powerless to do anything but simply watch the spectacle from the other side of the border.

“Don’t touch the carriage! Arrest him!” a knight thundered.

Though they may have apprehended the one protester, the crowd quickly devolved into a full-scale riot, and the carriage continued to buck and jolt. Were people inadvertently bumping against the conveyance in the scuffle, or were they actively trying to tip us over?

“Why is this happening?! What did I ever do to them?!” Patricia wailed, shrinking into a tiny ball.

What if these protesters try to board the carriage? I thought in a panic. What do we do then?

Surely they’d have the sense to keep their hands off another country’s princess, or so I hoped. As for me, however, I was fair game—

Just then, the low roar of a beast shook the carriage. No, not just one—multiple. And I could tell they were coming closer.

“What was that?!” Patricia shrieked, clapping her hands over her ears in fright. The cabin of the carriage seemed to vibrate with every growl, and for a moment I wondered if it might shatter the windows.

“Dragons?!” I shouted over the earsplitting roars. “Maybe someone’s transformed!”

Was it the knights, or was it the protesters? Regardless, we were in danger. If this was to become an all-out clash of full-sized dragons, our carriage would surely be crushed underfoot.

Then, out of nowhere, the scene fell silent—deathly silent, with no trace of a dragon’s beastly cries.

“What happened?” Patricia whispered, and a split second later, the carriage door flew open. I dove in front of the Princess, shielding her.

“Your Highness! Are you all ri—”

Who should walk in but a golden-haired dreamboat—I mean, Ray Alide. The guy who dumped me.

You know, it’s ironic that a mere knight would look more princely than the actual prince, I snarked internally.

Meanwhile, Ray took one look at me and froze, eyes wide.

“Hi,” I greeted him casually.

“What are you doing here?” he growled.

“I’ve come along with Her Highness as her personal hairstylist.”

“I personally requested her company,” Patricia explained.

Ray glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, then looked back to me and implied, “You didn’t decide to...chase after me or anything, did you?”

Mind you, I’m not usually the type to lose my temper, but boy, did that ever set me off. I leapt to my feet.

“As if!” Furious at the mere thought, I glared and laid into him, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about you. I came here to do my job. Get over yourself!”

“Ray! Is Her Highness safe?” someone called to us from outside the carriage.

At this, Ray snapped back to his senses. He ushered us outside and over to a young man with trim and tidy silver hair. He was shorter than Ray, but more tan and muscular in build.

It was none other than His Highness Prince Dario himself.

“I’m glad you’re here, Patricia. What an awful welcome this has been... I’m so sorry.”

A handful of protesters were now bound with rope, but they scarcely needed it. Now that Dario was here, the entire crowd was still.

“Your Highness...” Patricia meekly stepped up to him, and as he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, she continued, “I thought you were waiting for me at the castle.”

“Eh, I got bored, so I asked my bodyguards to escort me here...and am I ever glad I did.”

“Then...were those roars we heard your roars?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. We came by horse, but when we saw the commotion, we transformed.”

Beyond him on the hill, I could see a few horses trotting in our direction to reunite with their masters.

Dario glanced at the crowd, then back at Patricia. “Don’t worry. These rioters will be dealt with accordingly. It seems they were only acting out of concern for their country.”

“I think they have the wrong idea about me.”

“Yes, it seems they’ve bought into some baseless rumors.”

“Where would such rumors even come from?”

“I’m not sure... I’ll have my men continue to look into it. For now, I think it’s safe to say the true culprit lies elsewhere. Don’t worry about it too much, all right? These things happen whenever foreign royalty is introduced to the ruling dynasty. The people worry that an outsider will damage the country, and then they start to take their own paranoia as fact.” Dario smiled, flashing his pearly whites. “Just relax. The rumors will die out once the citizens get to know you. They’re going to love you, I promise.”

For one so young, Dario seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. I could envision the great king he would someday become.

“Okay,” Patricia replied, blushing faintly.

“By the way...” Dario began, glancing in my direction, then turned to Ray. “Isn’t this the woman you thought was your Bondmate? What’s she doing here?”

“She’s my hairstylist. I got special permission to bring her along,” Patricia explained.

“Oh, that’s right. I remember you were telling me about her. It seems we meet at last.”

Ray scowled as Dario and Patricia continued their conversation. It was my first time seeing him upset, considering he was all smiles back when we were “Bondmates” or whatever.

As Dario grinned mischievously at his faithful bodyguard two years his senior, I remembered how Ray had told me that he both respected His Highness and thought of him as a younger brother. Back then, their rapport had seemed rather fraternal indeed—but now Ray seemed to resent every fiber of Dario’s being.

“Oh, I know!” Dario exclaimed, clapping his hands together.

“Don’t you dare,” Ray shot back hastily.

“At least let me finish!”

“That look on your face tells me you’re up to no good.”

“Nonsense! Perish the thought!” Dario insisted, a playful smile on his lips. “I’ve decided I’ll make you one of Patricia’s bodyguards.”

“You’re demoting me? I thought we had already chosen her guards,” Ray countered, quirking a brow.

But Dario didn’t miss a beat. “I’m not demoting you. This is just a temporary placement,” he clarified with a sunny smile. “And while I’ve already assigned a few men to the task, I’m sure Patricia would feel more secure having someone around that she already knows and trusts. You don’t mind joining the team, do you?” He turned to Patricia. “What say you? I’ll bet you’d prefer to have at least one familiar face nearby, am I right?”

“Yes, please,” Patricia answered dutifully, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I must’ve looked in that moment...but I’m willing to bet “Kill me now” was written all over my face.