The Dragon's Kiss

The Dragon's Kiss - Chapter 85 - EIGHTY FIVE: Euridice

Pale skin and black hair.

Until today, Kel had only seen such a striking combination in one person.

The Dragon Emperor.

Even the idea that the emperor, a man born from the womb of the previous empress, had so much as a drop of Subterra blood in his veins was ridiculous. It wasn’t worth wasting a second thinking about.

“That has nothing to do with what we’re talking about,” Kel insisted, turning away from Soren. “Don’t change th-“

“It doesn’t?” Soren scoffed, cutting her off. “I already knew you didn’t have the sharpest wits, but have you really not pieced this much together?”

Blood connection. A specific set of genetics. Snow white skin and raven hair.

The pieces were all there, swirling aimlessly in Kel’s mind as she refused to afford them any concentration. To say the emperor was of the same race as these cultish ground-dwellers was unlikely–no, it was impossible.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she remarked sternly, keeping her face turned away.

“That guy, the one who seated himself on the emperor’s throne, is one of us. Plain and simple,” Soren snorted.

Kel had already deemed it impossible, but hearing the words out loud still caused her heart rate to quicken. In her waking mind, she had no idea why her body was reacting in such a way. Regardless of the emperor’s genetic heritage, what did she care?

Somewhere deep inside her unconscious self, however, she knew just how dangerous the idea was. Because if the emperor was like Soren and Lila, there was a good chance he, like those two, believed her to be someone of worth solely based on her hair.

It meant that those words, ‘I want you,’ she had unwittingly been holding close to her heart, and couldn’t help from believing were spoken with pure intentions, were full of a sinister ulterior motive.

Perhaps, above all, it was the possibility that, once again, she had let her guard down and grew to trust a man who only meant to betray her that made her heart race.

“Don’t try to trick me!” Kel snapped. “He’s the empress’s son. He can’t be one of you.”

Shaking her head, she repeated quietly to herself, “he can’t be.”

“Ah, but the empress wasn’t capable of creating a child by herself, was she?” Soren interjected.

Kel expected the usual hint of amusement at her frustration, but Soren’s tone was flat and serious. It seemed he found some part of their discussion unpleasant.

“You said yourself that most people don’t know about this place and few here ever leave,” Kel reasoned, as much to herself as the man sitting next to her, “so how could the empress have possibly met a man from Subterra?”

Her argument sounded logical, even to herself. Surely it was enough to put an end to Soren’s unsettling joke.

“That is a good point,” Soren conceded, “but let me ask you this. Wouldn’t a woman of Subterra have no problem becoming acquainted with a man of Subterra?”

“Well, naturally, but what does that have to do with-gasp!”

The image of the late queen’s portrait settled behind Kel’s eyes, even without calling it from her memory. In the flickering candlelight, the woman’s ghostly skin and raven hair glowed ominously. Kel had thought she was the spitting image of her son, the Dragon Emperor, but that wasn’t all.