Chapter 310: Before He Hatched

Kael Dravaryn, the newly married dragon lord, glanced to the side and silently praised himself for being truly magnanimous.

As someone who should have been enjoying what was supposed to be his honeymoon with his mate, he was instead seated on the floor while competitor number two used his twig’s lap as a bed.

Riley had said something about comforting the little twerp after he cried himself into exhaustion, and Kael had agreed. It was understandable. Reasonable, even.

What he had not expected was for that to mean his mate would be cradling the mushy pea for hours.

Couldn’t that have been done by literally anyone else?

But the dragon lord kept his thoughts to himself. He did not voice a single complaint because for some reason, he was certain that the moment such words left his mouth, he would be banished somewhere dark and cold, never to see the light of his mate’s eyes again.

So fine.

They sat there in silence as Riley continued to pat Orien’s back, slow and steady, while the golden dragonling slept soundly on his mate’s thighs.

So what exactly had reduced him to this state in the first place?

__

Kael would have assumed it was the part about aspect saturation that broke him.

Riley, however, thought otherwise.

While Orien had always valued strength and took great pride in being a dragon, the little one had never been greedy about power. The way he spoke about it and the way he acted rarely matched, and by now, everyone had grown used to that contradiction.

More importantly, Orien had barely blinked at the fact that Riley was now wearing the Dravaryn family heirloom and mainly reacted about why he didn’t get to witness the proposal.

That alone told Riley everything he needed to know.

Despite all his grandstandings and claims, the child didn’t particularly hunger for dominance.

Which meant the missing fragment was likely not what unsettled him.

Instead, it had likely been the story of his origins. Of his parents.

Learning that he had been returned to the clan because his young mother needed help and didn’t know what to do with a hatchling suffering from aspect saturation was one thing.

But hearing that she could not leave a way to contact her because she had been searching for his missing father was another.

And then came the part that probably did him in.

That he had been deliberately left in the care of Lord Karion and Lady Cirila for his own safety. That it had been done to prevent him from meeting the same fate as his father.

That was a weight no child should have had to carry and yet was a weight that felt extremely familiar to Riley.

The ex-mortal himself sat there, stunned, struggling to process it.

A story of mated dragons who should have lived full, brilliant lives, only to be forced into hiding to escape dragon politics. And even then, they hadn’t escaped unscathed.

It was a cruel kind of irony.

And one Riley couldn’t imagine anyone taking lightly especially when it could have been him in such a situation.

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Orien’s story began long before he ever hatched.

It started with a female golden dragon of the prestigious Dravaryn clan falling in love with the most unexpected candidate for heir among the red dragons.

Orien’s mother was a Dravaryn through and through. Yet her temperament leaned far closer to Lady Cirila’s than most. She had grown up watching her uncle’s mate, admiring her, and quietly modeling herself after the kind of dragon who chose her own happiness and actually succeeded.

As expected, her abilities and her family backing placed her firmly at the top of the list when it came to mating eligibility. She was powerful, well-regarded, and unattached, with no fated mate discovered since she was an egg.

She was, by definition, an ideal candidate.

Suitors were plentiful. Those who coveted greater power were especially eager to secure her as a mate. But a Dravaryn could not be forced into an arrangement they despised. And having grown up witnessing bonds like Lord Karion’s and Lady Cirila’s, it was unthinkable for her to agree to a purely political union.

Heck, if they couldn’t force Kael Dravaryn, the actual heir of the Dravaryn clan, to choose a random mate to replace the one he had been looking for then they certainly wouldn’t be able to force Ilyss Dravaryn to take some random dragon as a mate.

Who would willingly bind themselves for life to someone they might come to hate?

Not her.

But maybe the young maiden shouldn’t have thought about such a thing. Because as if the gods wanted to play tricks on her, she was met with the kind of accident that would change the course of her life.

One day, as seemed to be a recurring trait among Dravaryns, the wandering maiden set off to explore the world and promptly stumbled into trouble.

Or rather, into someone interesting.

To be fair she hadn’t been looking for trouble. In fact, she was merely going around under the guise of looking for leads for her cousin when she stumbled upon someone.

Surprisingly, the storytellers switched and now it was Lady Cirila who was telling this part of the story. Apparently, Lord Karion, for reasons that would soon be obvious, refused to elaborate on the dubious details involving a dragon maiden engaging in a battle of wits with a half-naked individual who had been tied upside down to a tree.

“???”

It was an unexpected turn of events.

Even Kael raised a brow as he listened while Riley was so invested that he needed to look for someone to share his reactions with.

As Lady Cirila recounted it with an amused and reflective smile, Riley noticed Orien stiffen on the floor. The golden dragonling sat rigid, eyes wide, ears keenly attentive, clearly committing every word to memory. His expression looked like he might burst into tears again at any moment, even as Liam continued patting his back in quiet comfort.

“But after meeting again at a gathering that called forth many dragons from all over Eryndra,” Lady Cirila continued, “everyone was truly in for a surprise.”

“It came as a shock to both your mother and father to realize that they were both dragons,” she said, laughing now. “Apparently, they met near an active leyline and were both trying to conceal their identities.”

“I distinctly remember your mother having a long list of complaints about how such a shameless person could be a dragon. She could have ranted the whole day and maybe even until the next.”

“That was the kind of relationship they started with,” said Lady Cirila with strangled giggle.

All the while, Lord Karion actually kept shaking his head, though he was smiling. “She says it like it was simple, but they caused such a ruckus that they were both sent outside to sort things out.”

“That was the kind of relationship they actually started with,” corrected the ex-dragon lord.

“But who knows what happened between that moment and the day your mother returned to tell us she wanted a mating ceremony,” he added.

“One day she just waltzed in saying something completely preposterous that we weren’t sure if she’d been poisoned, possessed, or threatened. But Ilyss wasn’t the kind of dragon who could be threatened. She was the threat herself.”

“So imagine our surprise when she suddenly said such a thing, especially considering it involved the same dragon she nearly chewed out.”

“But it happened,” Lady Cirila said softly.

“And they were happy.”

“At least for a time.”

Ah shit. Riley didn’t like hearing such things because it was always a flag.

And sure enough, it was a flag so big it could probably be seen from the depths of the sea.

Dammit.

Lady Cirila continued, only this time she had a somber expression, “Unfortunately, your father’s existence stirred far too many scales.”

“!!!”

As expected from even Lord Karion’s indignant expression, this was the part that would make everyone grimace.

Orien’s father, Orryn Vathros, was a red dragon who had deliberately concealed his overwhelming mana after realizing that the current heirs of the main branch of his clan were far weaker than him.

In truth, this was a common situation for dragons who didn’t have the backing or had no desires to burden themselves with ruling other dragons.

The usual goal was to exist without being noticed until the expected heir inherits the position.

Yes, it could take a long time, but dragons had a long time. And for those who preferred solitary living, this wasn’t much of an issue.

So as planned, he remained unnoticed. Well, he remained as such until it became public that he was to be mated to a golden dragon.

The very same golden dragon the red dragon clan’s heir had been attempting to court.

One could only imagine what that led to.

“Unfortunately, the accusations and correlations were never proven,” Lord Karion said softly. “There was no evidence to pursue because Orryn vanished not long after you were born.”

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