60. The Mother Dragon
Olcan stood over the rampart, looking down on the ancient draconic city resting under the darkness. The palace was fully under his control. He was the first-ever werewolf king to accomplish standing at the dragon realm capital's highest point. But there was still a hole in his heart that couldn't possibly be healed.
“My king,” one of his sentries approached and reported, “The dragon warriors, the so-called "Dark Wings," surrounding the palace were all captured.”
“What about the brute prince and his foolish knights?” Olcan withdrew himself from the city view and moved back into the torch light.
“All were put in the dungeons.”
“Any casualties?”
“No. The Frost Stones were very effective. As soon as the stones touched their skin, they were incapable of moving.”
“You’ve done well,” Olcan gritted his teeth, “They underestimated us in every possible way, thinking I could easily fall for this imbecile's trickery.” He walked over to Serlon, who was bruised and swollen, lying in a pool of his own blood. Olcan kicked him in the stomach and yanked his head up from the ground. “Are you ready to talk now? Where is my son? Where did that fucking black dragon take him?”
Serlon spat his blood at Olcan’s feet. “I won’t tell you anything. Kill me if you want.”
“You think you're so loyal, don't you?" Olcan shouted, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do to your friends in the dungeon. I'll make each of them swallow a nice little chunk of Frost Stone. Their guts will rot from the cold, and their blood will freeze over. One by one, they will die painfully, all because you don’t want to tell me where my son is.”
Serlon stayed silent, refusing to answer the ruthless man.
Olcan eyed his sentry.
Tuya was dragged out, hands tied behind her back.
“Watch me,” Olcan smirked, taking a small piece of Frost Stone out of his pocket.
The stone looked like an ordinary piece of ice with a strange, bluish glow. Tuya was pinned down by the sentry like a lamb awaiting slaughter.
“Open her mouth,” Olcan said. The sentry squeezed Tuya’s mouth open. She tried to resist, but the werewolf was too strong for her to fight off. She felt as if her teeth were going to shatter.
“Tuya...” Serlon murmured from the ground. His entire body was immobilized. He used all of his power to try to stand up, but he failed to move an inch.
“It’s been a while since I watched a dragon die from the cold,” Olcan said, clearly restraining his excitement, “I'm curious to see if it’s still the same, now that you've lost your spirits.”
Olcan raised his hand, gently caressing Tuya like a fragile doll. He slowly snaked the stone along the side of her neck, from the bottom of her chin down to her collarbone. Where the stone had brushed, her skin immediately froze and peeled off in a strip. Her jaw tightened as she forbade herself from screaming in pain. But her body told another story. The veins in her eyes bulged a dangerous red, and her silver hair frosted with ice as if the fire inside her was eager to burst out to withstand the heart-wrenching pain.
“Alright!” Serlon exclaimed with a raspy voice, unable to watch Tuya suffer any longer, “I’ll tell you!”
Olcan stopped moving toward Tuya’s mouth. He threw away the stone and turned to Serlon. “Now that’s a good boy,” he snarled, satisfied.
--
Thorn took Leila and their newborn baby in his arms. The ground was shaking as the Mother Dragon awakened. The stone on Leila’s neck was shining brightly.
She appeared from a mist of shadow and dust. Thorn saw her clearly in the reflection of the radiant crystals. She was an enormous white dragon with fabulous blue veins crawling all over her body like the tissue inside a jellyfish. He could feel his own body shattered by her awakening as if a beam of light had shot right into his dragon soul. He could feel her every emotion.
“Mother Dragon!” Ula exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with joyful tears, “You're awake! Finally! I’ve waited for this moment for too long.” But Mother Dragon didn’t pause for her, instead, she flew past her, creating a gush of water that flooded forwards.
Thorn looked down at his baby, still struggling to let out its first cry.
Mother Dragon flew towards the baby. Thorn tried to move away from her, but Leila urged Thorn to trust her. The dragon ducked her head down towards the baby. Thorn saw the near-imperceptible traces of a smile around her mouth, and her eyes flooded with pure love.
Leila sensed a connection to the Mother Dragon. As she stood up and walked to the Mother Dragon, Leila said, “She says she wants to help the baby. I’ll hold it.”
As soon as Leila peeled away from Thorn, the water pressed against them. A gleaming sphere formed around Leila, the baby, and the Mother Dragon.
Ula tried to get inside the circle and watch them, but the sphere was moving too fast to be penetrated by force. Soon, the circle grew bigger and even more lustrous.
By the time Leila and the baby were completely out of sight, Rina arrived, inhaling ferociously from the bubbling shells.
“So that’s why I've felt so agitated since I left the capital,” she said while eyeing the sphere, “It’s real then. Leila is the daughter of the Mother Dragon.”
“Why are you here?” Thorn asked. Suddenly, he spotted Tora’s diary in Rina’s hands.
“Brother,” Rina said, rarely addressing him in such a manner, “I think you should have a look at this.”
Thorn took the diary, flipped it open, and traced his fingers across the pages, which were miraculously protected from the water.
“Wait,” Ula snapped, hands raised as if she was ready to snatch the dairy away, “What is that thing shining inside?”
“Back off, lady.” Rina moved in front of Thorn, deciding it wasn't the time to be friendly. “Stay quiet, or I’ll cut your pretty little tail and cook it for dinner.”
Ula giggled at Rina’s ignorance, “You're just like your mother. I’m pleased. Oh, but she’s dead now. Did you know?”
Just as Ula had hoped, Rina caught sight of Amaya’s dead body lying a fair distance from her, and her father, the dragon king Eros, injured before her.
“What did you do?” Rina yelled at Ula, “I can tell you're wicked just by looking at you! I just killed my own mate—killing a little fish is nothing to me!”
“Watch your tongue, dragon princess. You shouldn't yell at your enemies while you're in their territory,” Ula cooed provokingly, waving her hands in a circle and forming a new spear.
Rina narrowed her eyes to a threatening gaze, getting ready to shift into a dragon at any second.
“Stop it,” Thorn lifted his face from the diary, “This isn't the time to fight.” He turned to Ula, “You made a serious mistake. This stone in my hand,” he took an object out of the diary and showed it to Ula, “...I believe it's Father Dragon's heart stone.”
Ula's hands stopped moving at once. “It's... been lost for years. H—How did it end up in there?”
“Because this is where it's supposed to be,” Thorn said as he examined the stone carefully. It was a solid, cylindrical black stone, smaller than Leila's, but seemingly made from the same material. It gleamed with a dark, gorgeous sheen. “It was put here by my mother intentionally. She hid it there, in the spine of her diary. All these years, the stone was waiting for an opportunity to reveal itself at the right place and the right time... like tonight.”
“What are you talking about?” Rina asked, “You mean Tora knew what would happen, even before she died?”
Thorn nodded. “She knew fate would lead the stone here to us after she died—or rather after she was murdered. The murderer must have searched for this stone for a long time. Otherwise, he would have destroyed it and made a move for the kingdom long ago. Of course, it wasn't Eros... He didn’t even know what was in the diary.”
“If not Eros, then who could have done it?” Ula urgently asked, pointing to Ben, who was standing at Thorn’s side, “Was it this naive one’s father?”
Thorn put down the diary carefully behind a cluster of crystals, aware of the man approaching them from behind.
“You finally realized it was me, dragon prince,” Olcan said with a dark grin as he pointed a sharp arrow at the center of the swirling water sphere.