Chapter 48: The first princess’s challenge!

Andrew had barely won the round with the werewolves. Andrew was very much strategic even though he wasn’t strong enough and had made use of the moment where the wolves felt smug and over confident to attack them ferociously and make them backstep in surprise. Though it was still a very close fight, because of the wolves arrogance and over confidence, Andrew emerged as the final victor. Selena found herself being glad that those arrogant wolves were defeated and even the crowd had cheered politely for their Valyrian prince who had emerged victorious, after teaching those mutts a good lesson.

She however, soon tensed up as she realized that soon it would be her turn. She hated suspense as that kept her at an edge. Having a fear of unknown made everything sound far worse than it really worse and her mind was dangerously starting to wheel in nightmares.

The council elder pointed at the first princess to enter the training grounds, and she straightened out her shoulders and stepped in to the huge, makeshift ring. She bowed deeply to the council elder and even he himself was taken aback by the respect he was getting from the princess. Having already had an insightful conversation with the Falak dragon, she clearly knew what was going on the council’s minds. They were deliberately trying to corner her up so that she would be forced to use her powers and that was one thing she could never afford to do as all the citizens of Valyria knew that their first princess didn’t have any special powers. Her using powers in front of the whole lot of them would ground the notions in the minds of the council of elders and the concubine that she indeed wasn’t the first princess and it would also breed suspicion in the minds of the citizens of Valyria too. Mia Langdon could have gained strength and be trained as a warrior after getting her paralysis treated by the ancient sage but she never would sprout powers suddenly which hadn’t displayed all through her childhood.

He then held out the same gold goblet in his hand and Selena pursed her lips tightly, appearing to be put in a tight spot, as whatever the case maybe, she has to make sure as to not use her powers in front of the council or they will know without a doubt that she is not Mia Langdon and that could prove to be catastrophic in her mother’s plans to see her as the Empress of Valyria.


With shaky hands, she pulled out an ominous strip of parchment and frowned at it as she handed it over to the council elder to read it aloud to the crowd.
Selena cursed her luck internally as she intently watched the council elder’s face when he read the parchment. Both his eyebrows shot up in surprise and he shot a ghastly look at the first princess while gulping heavily.

Not having a good feeling about what was to come, Selena waited with heated breath for the elder to continue and read the contents of the parchment out loud.
“The first princess has unfortunately opted for the most difficult task at hand……Slaying a minotaur and his heard of bulls.”

Selena’s eyebrows raised up in disbelief, sure she must have misheard it just as there was a collective gasp which was heard from the crowd.

The Queen, who was well up on the podium let out an indignant yelp while the concubine rejoiced at her choice.

The Minotaur being a mythical creature wasn’t that easy to tame and there was more than fifty percent chance that Selena would be forced to use her powers in defense, to protect herself from harm. The Queen slumped on to her chair, disappointed by the council’s vile tricks. This was clearly designed to test her powers and they had so blatantly had Andrew pick an easy one. Now, she found herself wondering whether the goblet was rigged in the first place.
“Your daughter is very unlucky just like you”, the royal concubine said snidely from beside the Queen.
The Queen however, ignored her vile and impudent attacks, solely concentrating at the sight unfolding in front of her, while dismissing the concubine’s existence altogether which further annoyed and irked out the royal concubine and she huffed in indignation at having been ignored so tactlessly by the Queen.

What if there were only two choices which the council had prepared for this event in the first place? And the elder had merely put on parchments stating the same thing before lots. It would be quite easy to switch the contents of the goblet when everyone was busy focusing on the fight between Andrew and the werewolves. The Queen cursed herself internally as she realized that she should have seen the council moves earlier on and come up with prompt strategies to tackle them. And now, she had put her daughter in quite a difficult spot, from which coming out of it was a rather tedious as well as dangerous task.

The crowd as a whole protested against this challenge and the elders shot a meaningful look at each other, nonplussed by the crowds demands to protect their first princess from harm’s way.
The elder raised his arm in the air and the crowd immediately fell silent.

“I promise that the first princess will never be in harms way. The royal guards surrounding the ground would jump in at the very slightest indication of real danger. We however can’t let this challenge go as that would be unfair to the other candidate. The first princess had chosen this with her own hand.”
He then dismissed aside the crowd’s valiant protest and waved at the Head guard.
The head guard then brought out ten big cartons made out of wood and the crowd went completely still when they started hearing thrashing noises from the carton. The guard waved at them, telling them to step back and the crowd along with the first princess took a step back immediately, knowing full well now that the carton contained a minotaur and his herd of bulls.

The council elder motioned at the first princess to enter the arena and she nodded politely at him and entered without a second of hesitation and eyed the cartons in front of her warily as she got inside the ring. She knew full well that once she got inside the ring, it would just be her that would be their focus and radar and she better gather her senses and stay attentive to what was brewing up inside the rather ominous and ill boding cartons.