Dragon of the Flames

Chapter 4

Shadow's cup felt to the ground and shattered in deafening clatter. Yet she didn't hear the glass break. The only thing she could hear was the Eldest Elder's words repeating in her head, over and over again, in an orchestral cacophony. Shadow exploded with rage.

"I'm going to get married with HIM?!" she roared, slamming her paws on the table and making a dent in the wood. Her vision turned crimson, her chest heaved painfully and her claws were breaking the table.

"Your marriage is an ordeal from the Hexagon. We are unanimous on it." pronounced Griffin with a soothing tone, but Shadow wasn't soothed by his words. On the contrary, her anger rose even more.

"What word do I have in this?! I'M THE QUEEN!" she bellowed, as an oppressing silence fell around the table. What angered Shadow so much was that she had had no clue, no hint, no consultancy about this very important thing, something that would happen to her only once in her life. Her marriage! Her union with the dragon she LOVED, not this excuse for a prince!

Azure's posture was detached, lopsided, calm and cool as usual. The news hadn't bothered him like Shadow. No- it hadn't bothered him at all, because he must have already known!

Shadow had long stopped using her royal voice to address the Elders angrily. Her anger deflated slowly in a breath, as only sadness remained. Why hadn't they told her anything? Did they think she was too young, too inexperienced, too stupid to understand?

Not wanting everyone at the table to see her cry, Shadow turned away and spread her wings, flying out of the throne room by one of the open windows.

She hadn't even taken more than a bite of her meal.

*****

Shadow weaved around the gardens. This was her favorite place in the entire castle. There was a maze in the center of the garden, sculpted three stories high. Whereas the precedent queen of dragons had cherished her office tower, Shadow cherished this unique maze. She remembered hours of playtime in it with her friends, Sweet and Clay, and other friends from her litter.

What she liked so much about her gardens was that the only person she'd ever meet in them was Clay. He was either playing with the pegasus living here or taking care of the garden's esthetic. When she was sad, or angry, or both, she always hid in the maze, a vertical and horizontal challenge she knew only too well by now. The best part was, when she was sad, she knew that if she met Clay or Sweet, they wouldn't ask any questions about it.

They were the best friends any dragon could have had, and Shadow knew that only too well.

Shadow swooped through the maze, trying to forget her worries. She had long discovered the path that rose to the center, and flew into the second level, trying to find the passage to the third. She didn't feel like thinking about anything else, about her duties, her classes, about Azure. All she wanted was to get out this maze and then fly through it again.

Flying at an incomparable speed, Shadow could be seen as an expert when it came to swooping around. Swift, fast to react, no one ever beat her in a race, not even Clay, who was known to be the second best around. Clay... now that she thought of him, she wondered if he was relieved that his sister didn't have a chance with Azure. It was obvious the dull, red-scaled dragon didn't like the Prince one bit.

Shadow began regretting the marriage even more at the thought of Clay. She'd never realized it, but Clay had been there when she'd lost Elder Griffin's elven ring, or each time she'd been sent to her quarters after she got angry after Elder Mana over some silly thing. What if Azure dumped him back to the dragon city because they didn't get along? The thought made Shadow slow down to a halt and shiver, her scales shifting on her back.

She looked around, realizing that while she had been lost in her thoughts, she had found a way out of the maze. The entire landscape stretched before her eyes. A castle etched upon the side of a mountain, circled by exotic gardens. Father beyond view, she could spot the dragon city snuggled in the valley bellow. Passed the comfort of the valley circled by mountains, Shadow knew that was where the other creatures lived.

It was easy to remember where each creature lived. The last remaining unicorns stayed in the enchanted forest south of the valley, working on the difficult task of rising and lowering the sun and moon every day. Pegasus, their faraway cousins, roamed the skies every day to take care of moving the rainclouds. Griffins patrolled the north-east plains past the mountains surrounding the dragon valley.

Elves' territories varied in size and place, and the elves living in each colony were different. Gnomes made their homes in mountainsides outside the valley, and hobbits in prairies and forests. Fairies were common inhabitants of the forests where the unicorns lived. There were so many races and creatures living near the dragons' lands that keeping treaties with all of they was an arduous task in itself.

Yetis lived in the northern lands, huddled in the stretch of mountains there, but often tried wandering in the valley for hunting animals and gathering food, to most dragons' displeasure. Lastly, west and farthest of the valley, past the tribes of gargoyles living in the Jade Forest, was Tarus's ruins.

Legend had it that, once Eden had sealed away the demon Tarus, a volcano had formed in the center of the continent, in the center of the Jade Forest. Creating terror in it's wake, Flen'Dihir erupted, and the lava it spewed from it's belly chewed through the beautiful forest like a monster with it's own conscience.

The sons and daughters of Edna, fearing the demon hadn't been sealed powerfully enough, built Tarus a magnificent castle. To sooth the volcano Flen'Dihir, and Tarus, they cared for it and kept a magnificent library boasting the life of Tarus and stocking legends that are still known amongst all dragons alike today.

As the years passed on, dragonkind realized that Tarus was deeply sealed inside Eden, and then castle started to fall in ruins with the slow nudge of time. Dragons stopped caring for the place. Since none wanted to live there, the Jade Forest took back what it was it's own. It tried erasing the scar that dragonkind had made by tearing the trees to build the shrine. The Jade Forest and Tarus's ruins became a forbidden place, with rumors concerning gargoyles, surreal monsters and a mysterious civilization nestled under the bushy trees.

Shadow had never seen the forest with her own eyes. For that matter, she had never left the comfort of the valley surrounded by it's tall mountains. She hardly even left her castle's domain, in exception for resigning treaties, or visiting royals. At that moment, admiring the beauty of the view in front of her with daylight pouring on her face, she understood that she didn't belong, cooped up inside the castle like a tamed pegasus.

She had friends, but she had no power, no will, no reason. Who was truly in charge? The hexagon made all of the choices. Some days, Shadow felt as if that was for the best. She hated paperwork, treaties, or history... leave that for the old dragons to rumble about. She wanted freedom. She wanted to be like every other dragon out there, to fly around the mountains, to explore the beyonds, to reach the end of the continent and see the sun setting down over an endless stretch of water.

Yes, that's what she wanted. Shadow billowed out a little red flame in delight. The best part was, a plan was starting to form in the depths of her mind...