A Pet for the Dragons

81.

ARIKA

When I woke up next, I found myself in an unfamiliar room. For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was and why I was there. On top of that, my head hurt, and I had a lingering, sick feeling.

I couldn't understand why that was happening. I got out of bed and looked around the room. The room's interior didn't look like anything inside a castle. It took me a moment to remember that we'd left the castle and travelled to the realm called Cerdosa— the dragon realm.

My room had a window, so I decided to look out. For a moment, I couldn't see anything but clouds, and this confused me, but when the clouds parted, I was able to get a faint glimpse of the city beneath, and that was when I realised that I was inside the floating building on top of which the dragons had landed with me.

After that, I'd passed out of exhaustion, and I was still feeling sick from the travel and being teleported. However, that wasn't the main thing bothering me. I felt anxious because I did not know where the dragons were.

I decided to step out of the room and find them. The building was nothing like a castle. It was smaller than the castle, and the hallways didn't look familiar, so I could mentally note where I was going.

After almost half an hour of wandering, I had memorised the layout of the floor I was. It mostly had bedrooms, a study and a huge open balcony. From the size of it, I guessed it was used as a landing platform for the dragons. I didn't dare step out on the balcony. I was already feeling sick enough from the travelling.

Even after all this exploring, there was no hint of the dragons, so I decided to take the only stairs on the floor that led to the floor below. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I realised that this house had only two floors.

The bottom floor's layout was much more straightforward. First, I came across a giant kitchen, followed by a dining hall with a table that could seat at least thirty guests, and then, I saw what seemed like a mid-sized ballroom.

There was then a huge foyer with a beautiful garden and fountain. Still, there was no sign of the dragons, so I kept exploring until I came across the last and the only door left for me to open.

It seemed like another study, and right when I was about to open it, I stopped. I heard voices coming from inside. They were all muffled, but I recognised them right away. They were my three dragons.

Hearing their voices eased my anxiety a bit. I didn't know what I was anxious about, but the relief I got from knowing that they were still around made me worry less.

"Then what do you suggest we shall do?" Radrox asked. "Giver her the venom and see if she survives?"

The ease that I had felt before vanished immediately. An intense wave of anxiety replaced it. I didn't have to hear the rest of the conversation to know they were talking about me.

Were they going to poison me as punishment? A shiver ran down my spine as soon as the thought crossed my head. I swallowed hard. I couldn't believe they'd do something like that to me.

"We have no other choice. I've managed to prepare a binding spell for her." Ivret said.

"But will it work against the venom?" Zorge asked.

"We can only find out by giving it to her. There's no other way." Ivret suggested. He sounded anxious.

The more I listened to their conversation, the more it puzzled me. What did a binding spell have to do with me? I thought binding spells were only used on dragons.

"There has to be some other way," Radrox said.

"There might be, but this is the only option we know of so far. We have to mark her within two days, or the Empress will take her away when we arrive at the Cardinal House." Ivret said. I heard the stress in his voice. If anything, his words confused me even more.

How was all this related? I considered barging in and demanding what they planned to do with me. But then I remembered that all of them were mad at me. I had already ruined this enough, and any more wrong moves would hamper any chances of future reconciliation.

"We still don't know if the Empress plans to take her from us," Radrox said, confusing me even more.

"I don't want to take a risk with Mavie. She's... possessive." Ivret said darkly. Zorge made a noise of frustration.

"There has to be some other way," Radrox continued to urge. "I don't want to take the risk of..." He trailed off, and I shuddered. I knew what his silence meant.

My death.

But this further confused me. Why did they want to poison me in the first place? How was all this related to the Empress? My head was spinning the more I thought about it. I could find no correlation.

"I won't let her die," Ivret said quietly. His voice sounded more distant. At this point, I wanted to barge and demand they tell me what this was all about. I had the right to know since I was the subject of their discussion.

I was about to open the door and burst in when Ivret added. "We need to do it quickly. Fail fast, as they say."

"What do you imply by failing here?" Radrox asks. There was an unmistakable edge to his voice that sounded like a threat.

"I didn't mean it in the literal sense," Ivret clarified quickly. "But we have to do it quickly. The more we wait, the more we fuel the probabilities of Arika being taken away from us," Ivret said.

"When do you plan to begin?" Zorge asked.

"Tonight," Ivret answered.

Instead of stepping inside the study, I rushed to my bedroom and hid there for the rest of the day. 

~

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