Chapter 123: Chapter 123: The Celebration

What happened behind the closed doors of Mariana’s guest room that night was, strictly speaking, a private matter.

The moaning sounds that carried through the palace walls into the surrounding corridors suggested otherwise.

The dragon maid who had been stationed at the end of the east wing hallway as a matter of routine courtesy took exactly three steps toward the source of the noise before stopping.

She heard the moans and groans from inside.

Her face flushed imagining the handsome young man pounding the human princess wildly.

Then she started withdrawing with professional grace.

She passed Claudia on her way out.

Claudia was standing at the junction of the corridor, arms folded, staring at the ceiling with the expression of someone who had made a considered decision to have absolutely no opinion about anything they were currently hearing.

The dragon maid looked at her.

Claudia looked back.

“No need to say a word,” she said.

“I said nothing, honored knight,” the maid replied.

“Keep it that way.”

They parted in opposite directions.

—

Two corridors away, Elliott Chronos sat at a writing desk attempting to document his observations of the Fate threads he had been perceiving since his sight was restored.

He had been making considerable progress until approximately an hour ago, at which point the moaning noise beginning to drift through the palace from various directions had made concentration somewhat challenging.

Chronach sat across from him in a high backed chair, ankles crossed, apparently entirely unbothered.

“Master,” Elliott said carefully, “is that…”

“Yes,” Chronach said, turning a page of the ancient text he was reading.

“.. ..”

Elliott looked at his notes. Looked at the window. Looked back at his notes.

“The future threads around those three are extraordinarily dense. I have never seen anything like them. They spiral around each other in ways that suggest something genuinely significant is being established tonight.”

“Mm,” said Chronach, still reading.

“Master, you already knew this would happen, did you not.”

Chronach turned another page. “I am the Time Lord, Elliott. I know a great many things.”

“Oh, really? Then can you tell me about the future of Dragon Kingdom? Will we rise, or Will we fail once more?.”

Chronach smiled mysteriously,

“Where would be the entertainment in that,”

Elliott closed his notebook with annoyance.

“Humph, I am going to arrange their wedding myself.”

—

The news left the palace before sunrise.

The Dragon Lords had been waiting for this kind of something news that moved fast and far and gathered weight as it traveled. They spread across the Land of Dragons in every direction, some in human form, some in their full dragon forms.

By the time the eastern sky had shifted from deep black to the earliest grey of approaching morning, the news had reached every corner of the Dragon Kingdom.

Their Queen was getting married.

Not as a political concession wrung from her by circumstance, not as a reluctant formality, but as her own choice, her own sacrifice and offering for the survival and flourishing of the dragon race.

The Progenitor’s Successor had arrived and their Queen had chosen to bind herself to him and through him to bind the entire dragon race to a future that had seemed increasingly uncertain for far too long.

And there was more.

‹ A human Princess would also be wed alongside their Queen on the same day, making it a double ceremony unlike anything the Land of Dragons had seen in its recorded history. ›

‹The Progenitor’s Successor was taking two wives at once, one the last royal blood of the dragon race and one a former princess who had renounced her own kingdom for him›

“Roar!”

The sound rose from the settlements below the palace as the news arrived there. It was a collective draconic sound of genuine celebration that was loud enough to rattle the palace windows and send several flocks of smaller winged creatures scattering from the enormous trees in startled clouds.

“The Progenitor’s Successor is securing the future of our race!”

“Two weddings! The Dragon Queen and the human princess will be bound to the Heir on the same day!”

“Our great bloodline will continue! The drought is over!”

“Roar! Long live the Successor! Long live Queen Sapphira!”

The elder couple from the day before, the ones whose grandchild Raza had been healed, stood outside their nest dwelling in the early grey light listening to the celebration ripple outward through the settlement around them.

The old female held Raza against her chest, the small black dragon awake and alert and producing tiny bursts of black flame with great personal satisfaction at irregular intervals.

“Did you hear, old man?” she said quietly.

“I heard,” the old male replied.

“The Successor will be staying with us. He is binding himself to us.”

The old male was quiet for a moment, looking up at the palace on the ridge above them, its luminescent walls catching the first grey light of approaching dawn.

“Yes. Raza will grow up in a Dragon Kingdom with a future,” he said finally.

The old female said nothing. She pressed her face briefly to the top of Raza’s small head.

That was answer enough.

—

In the Queen’s private chambers on the opposite wing of the palace, Sapphira stood at her balcony looking out over the Land of Dragons as the celebration spread through it like light spreading across water.

She had not slept.

She had stood here for most of the night, listening to the palace come quietly alive around her, feeling the shift in the collective draconic aura of her people as the news moved through them and the quality of that aura changed from its long accustomed weight of quiet worry into something lighter and more alive.

One of the dragon maids appeared in the doorway behind her.

“My Queen. The Dragon Lords are reporting unanimous celebration across all settlements. The news has been received with great joy.”

“Good,” Sapphira said quietly, without turning from the colonnade.

“Also, my Queen, the guest wing reports that the honored Successor and the Princess had settled their disagreements.

Sapphira said,

“I am aware. The palace made that rather clear to anyone within its walls.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

“My Queen, are you…” the maid began carefully.

“I am perfectly well,” Sapphira said. “You may go.”

The maid bowed and withdrew.

Sapphira stood alone at her balcony as the sky ahead of her continued its slow progression from grey toward gold.

She wacthed the celebration of her people rising and falling through the valley below like breathing, like something alive that had been holding itself carefully for a very long time and had finally been given permission to simply be what it was.

She thought about the young man sleeping somewhere on the other side of this palace. About the absurd, infuriating, genuinely impressive series of events that had brought him here. About the way he had stood in the Ancestral Hall and met every elder and Dragon Lord’s gaze with those burning gold eyes as though he had been doing it for centuries.

About the pink haired girl who had stood in the same hall and told a room full of ancient dragons that the answer was no with the absolute conviction of someone who had not for a single moment considered the possibility that no was not an option available to her.

“She is difficult, but I can manage.” she murmured, “After all, she is still a child. Within no time, I shall steal his heart and become the main wife. After that, everything will be under my control, just like things always had been.”

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