The Dragon Bride | ✔️

Chapter Thirty-Two

Kora's POV

"Here is the paradise, here is the dome. So come back to me, my angel, for this is our home. Come back to me, come back to me, come back home. For this is our paradise, our earth, our dome..."

A beautiful voice echoes in my ears, smooth as velvet, light as a feather. I begin to stir, feeling my muscles aching horribly as I do so. Why is that voice so familiar? The song isn't. I've never heard of it before. But it's so soothing, nothing like the eerie Red Lady. I try to open my eyes, adjusting to the blinding light of day. How long was I asleep for? And why does everything hurt so much?

"Come back to me, come back to me, come back home. This is where I belong, where you belong. This is our own paradise, our home," Azura sings softly to me, stroking my hair gently with a lost look in her eye. My eyes are open properly now, watching her. She seems like the old Azura.

"What's this song?" I mutter.

"It's a song from the kingdom of Faiea, where my parents are from. They say it's sung to guide lost souls back home," she tells me, fiddling with a stray strand of hair.

"Faiea?"

"Kingdom of fairies and faeries,"

"What's the difference between a fairy and faerie, anyway?"

"Well... There are love fairies, season fairies, even dragon fairies. But faeries are the lower tier, I guess you could say. There's no such thing as a dragon faerie, only dragonfly faeries, like me," Azura tells me. There's not a single trace of sadness or self-pity in her voice.

"It's so rotten, these supernaturals ranking creatures from highest to lowest,"

"You sound like Crowned Concubine Velia,"

"Speaking of her, how is she doing? Is she taking the miscarriage OK?" I ask Azura with a dreary voice, as she gets up and begins to knot a thread several times.

"She's... Well, I don't know. She hasn't visited," she tells me, taking a sip of the rose water by her bedside table.

"Oh, right, of course. Nobody wants to come near us, do they, Az?" I ask wretchedly.

"Of course they do. Synn does. He doesn't seem to care if he catches pexoyusl,"

"Which is why I'm not going to allow him in here any more. He's next in line for the throne, the last thing he needs is to catch a disease," I say matter-of-factly.

Azura raises an eyebrow, "We're not contagious. I thought the reason would be a little more selfish than that, Kora,"

I don't reply. Because she's right, it is. The truth is, I don't want to see Synn because, well, what if I ruin things? What if I say something horribly wrong and he ends up hating me? I'm realising more and more, day by day, how much I wouldn't be able to bear it if he hated me. If I never, ever, got to see him again. And that's the thought that seems to get my brain working properly again.

"What happened last night?" I ask Azura.

She looks to me questioningly. "You... Had a concussion. But Synn came, and he brought you here. Safe and sound,"

I raise an eyebrow at her. She's not telling me everything. "Why did I have a concussion?"

"Th– The Crimsons leader, he–" Azura gulps, "Fought you. He wounded you really badly. One of his hits was directly to your head. You blacked out,"

"And?"

"And that's it,"

"No it's not. You're not telling me something. What happened to him? The leader of the Crimsons? Surely he didn't just let Synn swoop in and take me to your room? Didn't he put up a fight at least? Surely Synn isn't as good at combat as–"