The Dragon Bride | ✔️

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Kora's POV

Regina Anvika was the First Princess of Shravasti, and soon to be crowned queen. When she was eighteen, she got engaged to the love of her life. They were blissful together.

Her fiancée was the child of the royal blacksmith. She was human.

Usually, a marriage like this would be seen as shameful, but a country like Shravasti has few cares about social status and species when it comes to marriage.

But then, one day, the Grigolian King Cylus came to visit, and asked for Princess Anvika to marry his son Prince Gabriel. When the royal family refused, knowing Anvika loved her fiancée, King Cylus was not happy.

He had Anvika followed and found out she was seeing the blacksmith's daughter, Maithili.

King Cylus ordered his elite soldiers to kill Maithili out of bitterness.

Regina Anvika's mother and father were furious, but what could they do? Grigolia was much stronger than Shravasti and full-scale war would end in Shravasti being taken over. So the Emperor smuggled poisonous tea leaves to Grigolia for the King Cylus in the hopes of getting revenge for his daughter's loss.

However, smuggling the tea leaves meant that they'd unintentionally sabotaged Ignatian trade routes. A furious King Isin demanded repentance as this had a bad impact on his economy.

Emperor Lakshay and Empress Shanthi offered many gems and jewels, but King Isin had treasures plentiful already. No, they had to offer up a much greater jewel.

Princess Anvika offered to give herself up as an empress for the King Isin in the hopes it would save Shravasti from Ignatia's wrath.

Devastated, the Emperor and Empress were left with no choice but to save their kingdom with the price of giving up their only daughter.

I stare at Regina Anvika, and my eyes drift down to that rose ring she's always wearing.

"...I- It's Maithili's, isn't it?"

She nods. "Yes, she made it herself. She said it's made from pure gold, beautiful inside and out, just like me," she says fondly, looking down at it, her eyes glistening with tears, "Maithili was never much of a wordsmith. She could barely read. But she always found the sweetest words when it mattered."

Regina Anvika suddenly looks so different. Usually, I see her emotionless, silent and hollow on the inside. But now I see it was all a façade. Now I see how hurt she was, all this time.

"My mother, she... Ahem, she always used to send me these special elixirs to stop pregnancies. If I ever got pregnant with the King's child, the Queen would surely harm me. Just look at what happened to poor Crowned Concubine Velia..." her frown deepens.

Before I have time to ask what she's leading up to, I hear a scream and feel the need to follow it. It's coming from me and Azura's shared room.

Regina Anvika motions me to go.

I feel my heartbeat quicken as I race towards the room, desperate to be at her side as I hear her yells.

I open the door to find blood on the floor, and her holding her knees to her chest, her head bent over, looking like a scrunched up piece of paper.

"Azura? What happened?"

She looks up, slowly, and for a second I feel sick to the stomach at the sight of her. Her eyes are bleeding. It's trickling down her cheeks like streams of tears, staining her clothes, the rugs, the floorboards. I stare, eyes wide, approaching her wild eyes as slowly as possible. Her hair's messy and untamed, one of her eyes twitching madly, either out of pain or insanity.