Chapter 23: A loose dragon in the royal palace!

Demetri rubbed his wrists together tiredly and sighed as he looked anxiously at Selena. Having been surrounded by the queen’s guard all day long and after listening to some of their talks, he had already figured out her plan and what exactly Selena had gone through.

Demetri cursed himself for his slow wittiness. He literally just walked into the Queen’s trap. He was flabbergasted at first when the Queen had requested to meet him and he had showed up only because he didn’t want to disrespect the Queen and they had a fairly amicable talk. What he didn’t expect was the Queen’s guards to abruptly kidnap him on the way back.

He had barely took a step out the hallway when he was abducted. He felt humiliated that a trained soldier like him was caught by surprise. Yes, it wasn’t exactly a fair fight. It was him against a dozen of the Queen’s guard, but that still didn’t make him feel any better as he realized the pain he had inflicted upon his friend and comrade.

His eyes softened at her worried look and he asked, “Did you do it? Did you go back into the Labyrinth of death?”
She nodded meekly and he swore out loud, feeling guilt ridden all of a sudden.

A part of him already knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to go back in there if it meant saving his life. He felt a lot of conflicted emotions rising inside him. He felt both touched as well as guilty.

His eyes softened at her and he sighed, “You fool!”
“You would have done the same for me”, she replied softly.
“Demetri”

Demetri eyed her warily since she had just used a tone she rarely used when addressing him. She wanted to say something but she was unsure of how to.
She slowly took the chain out of her neck and held it in her open palm and Demetri raised an eyebrow at her questioningly, wondering what it was that was making her so jittery and nervous all of a sudden.
“I found out about your family”

Both his eyebrows vanished into his forehead, surprised at the sudden declaration. He got up and immediately pounced on Selena, shaking her shoulders wildly, unable to control his excitement.
Selena however flinched seeing him excited like a puppy after all she was about to shatter all his hopes and dreams of reuniting with his family with the next few seconds.
“You belong to the noble family of Syldavia.”, she said softly, biting her under lip anxiously, while stealthily avoiding his penetrating gaze.

She didn’t quite want to tell that his entire family had gone into extinction, but she felt guilty about keeping something this big from him too.
He froze, seeing through my inference and let out a sigh as he mumbled to himself, “They are extinct?”
Selena nodded meekly at him, not daring to utter another word. He shook his head vividly, then flashed Selena a broken smile and reassured her, “It’s not like I hadn’t already predicted that kind of outcome. It’s not your fault for being the unlucky one to deliver it.”

Selena avoided his eye contact and squirmed uncomfortably. She was feeling awkward all of a sudden. She didn’t know how to comfort or reassure people and found herself squirming nervously, unable to do anything else.

“By the way, how did you find out?”
“The dragon told me”, Selena answered detachedly.

“The dragon told you?”, Demetri repeated, unsure of what he had just heard. He shot an incredulous look at his friend. Dragons were extinct….What the hell was she talking about?

Then Demetri’s eyes flicked towards Selena’s hands and he was stunned when he saw that Selena was holding the Blood sword in her hand. How had he missed that the first time? His concern for her safety was so overwhelming that his attention had been solely on her and not what she had been holding this entire time.
The sword was huge and quite a magnificent sight to behold. He found himself gaping at the intricate emerald and ruby works, while a part of him felt a teensy bit proud that she had done it. The Queen’s belief in her wasn’t misplaced.

At least, she hadn’t entered into the Labyrinth of the death in vain. She at least got a blood sword out of it.
As they walked side by side, out of the dungeon and out of the Queen’s place, he still couldn’t take his eyes of the beautiful sword.
“Can I touch it?”
Selena smiled at him and tossed him the sword which he caught perfectly. As he swished the sword through the air, he realized that the length and weight, even its shaped was a perfect fit for Selena.
“Aren’t you afraid that I might not give it back?”, he asked her teasingly and she rolled her eyes at him.

“That isn’t how the Blood sword works. It already chose me as a master and it’s loyalty won’t be deterred so easily.”
Selena flashed him a coy look and said confidently, “Try to stab me with my own sword”

Demetri frowned at her, then shrugged and did what he was told to. He aimed the sword to her stomach but to his surprise, he found that the sword refused to bulge in his hands. He could hold it, but he couldn’t wield it. The sword suddenly felt so heavy that he couldn’t even pick it up and he dropped the sword on to the ground, taken aback and gripped his arm tightly in pain.

Selena smirked at him and he let out an annoyed sigh at her. Just then a loud screech was heard through the sky and he ducked in just in time for a dragon was headed straight towards him. Demetri eyed the dragon incredulously, wondering whether he was starting to see things or have hallucinations while gulping simultaneously as it softly landed on the ground and its tail circled protectively around Selena.

“So, uhm….dragons, huh?”, he found himself at a loss for words. He eyed the dragon warily and let out a sigh. After knowing her since childhood, he had always felt proud that he was the only one who knew her well enough to read her otherwise poker face. But even he was getting surprised by her unexpected actions these days.

She smirked at him as she gently patted the dragon’s back, then confirmed proudly, “Yes, Dragons”