The Dragon Bride | ✔️

Chapter Thirty-Five

Kora's POV

It's been two days since Regina Catania's funeral and I still can't get used to seeing Giulia with the blue tiara on her head, the diamond gown flowing around her instead of on Catania.

It suited her so much better.

Or perhaps it just seems that way because I'm beginning to hate Regina Giulia more and more everyday. I remember our confrontation just yesterday.

We'd bumped into each other after lunch and she looked at me like I was dirt on her shoe.

"Got a problem?" I'd snapped.

"Don't hiss at me all cattily like that, dragon bride. Don't forget who you're talking to. I'm a Regina now, second only to the Queen," she'd said, and I swear I could see her head swell with the idea of it.

"Oh, really? Forgotten how you became Regina already?"

"Of course I haven-"

"But then what else would one expect. Catania's death was very convenient for you, wasn't it?"

"What are you implying, you little halfwit?" Regina Giulia stepped forward, a challenging look in her eye. At her side now was Concubine Penelope, also glaring at me like I was a plague victim.

"All I'm saying is that I'd be careful if I were you. Wouldn't want others to know what part you had in your own sister's death," I snapped, before walking away altogether. Azura practically clapped for me when I told her about it.

We both sit together now, her stroking my knuckles soothingly as she chats on and on. She's not very talkative around unfamiliar people but goodness she has a lot to say otherwise.

I try listen, but most of her sentences get cut off by my own thoughts, fogging my mind and taking up my attention as I sink deep into endless possibilities about our meeting. God, what if what Zac had told me in his letter just days ago was really true? I don't think I could bear that.

After an hour or so, Azura tells me to go down and wait for him by the gates. Hesitantly, I do so. I hate leaving her in that room by herself, but there isn't much I can do.

"Kora Moons?"

I see Guardsman Kyros, standing post by the gates as he squints at me. Ugh. "What do you want?"

He bites his lip anxiously, as if forcing the words back in, before looking down to the ground, and then back at me again.

"I just wanted to... Well... You're not as bad as I made you out to be,"

I raise an eyebrow. "Are you trying to say sorry to me?" I say challengingly.

"Perhaps. Except that I'm rubbish at apologies. Azura talked to me, after you left the dungeon. And, well, she was right. I sort of acted like a fool,"

"That's it?"

He rolls his eyes, "I acted like a huge fool. Better?"

"Much better. And very true," I nod.

Kyros grits his teeth at me, "I do still find you to be unlikable, Miss Moons."

I smile at him, the artificialness of it radiating off my face. "Thank you. I'd hate for my brilliance to be palatable to the likes of you."

He huffs but seems more or less content with the exchange.

Kyros and I do not get along, and I don't know if we ever will. Or if we should. I don't know what feelings Azura has for him, but they're certainly not just friendly. I've seen the way she looks at him; you'd have to be a fool to not notice.