The Crown's Entrapment

Little did the two women know that their waves of laughter from inside the carriage were resonating towards the outside of their own privacy. Darius and Nikolai were riding their horses just a further back from the carriage, and they could hear every giggle and chuckle from their significant others.

“Siblings…” Darius commented as he shook his head.

“Not all siblings get along well though,” Nikolai pointed out with a scoff.

Darius hummed. He didn’t comment on the subject since he was well aware that Nikolai’s family was currently a hot mess.

Seeing his friend’s silence, Nikolai let out a breath and continued, “The news came… My wife wants to go help look for her brother.”

“I see,” Darius commented. “I’m still in a dilemma on whether to tell Xen about it or not, but the message from her parents was clear. They don’t want Xenia to get distracted. Somehow, they seem confident that Ezekiel is not in danger.”

It was baffling. From what he recalled from the message he received from King Stephan, they want to handle Ezekiel’s disappearance on their own, and that he must not let his men leave their posts to help on the search.

“Then do as they say, Darius. I asked Mineah about this earlier, and she too was in the same predicament regarding keeping this matter away from her sister,” Nikolai replied with a dark expression on his face. “She said she will help with the search together with the excellent warrior mages of Ebodia, but she refuses to get me involved in this.”

“So you’re letting her go by herself with just your convoy accompanying her?” Darius curiously asked.

Nikolai chuckled, “And since when did you become this nosy, huh?”

Darius chuckled in response, “Well, I’m a man in love, and I know how much my woman loves her family. Knowing her, Xen will go haywire if anything happened to Mineah. That’s why her family is trying to keep her in the dark about Ezekiel’s disappearance.”

The Werewolf King let out another heavy sigh as he added, “I suppose I’ll just settle everything of note in my kingdom; my wedding, the trials, and formal proclamation of Xen as my rightful queen. After that, I will then personally join this war to put an end to the Demon King.”

“Hah… That would take too long, my friend,” Nikolai replied in jest. “I would’ve probably already killed Devon with my own hands before you can even arrive to participate.”

“Well then, how nice would that be, saving me from sullying my hands?” Darius snorted, making both men laugh. After which, a bout of silence came between them before Nikolai broke it.

“What do you think really happened to Prince Ezekiel, Darius?” Nikolai curiously asked. “Don’t you think that something is amiss in all this? A dragon appeared the moment he disappeared. A dragon… when those creatures are already extinct… Something feels off about all this.”

Throughout history, humans, vampires, werewolves, including other types of creatures banded together to bring down the dragons centuries ago because they were naturally wild and bloodthirsty, often simply bringing terror and destruction to every kingdom in their wake. Seeing their threat to all living beings, they were eradicated, and their souls were forced to wander around trying to merge with any human or living thing they could find. And thankfully, none were successful.

“Isn’t it Queen Dana who sealed most of the powerful souls inside the forbidden forest including the Dragon King, Vulcan?” Nikolai asked. “That’s almost twenty-one years ago if I’m right.”

“Hmm, aren’t you supposed to be better than me in history, my friend?” Darius scoffed in jest.

Nikolai chuckled in reply, “Stop making fun of this. This is a serious matter. The dragon seen is something that looks more along the lines of Vulcan… The Dragon King…”

He pondered, “Somehow, I couldn’t help but consider the possibility that his soul merged with Prince Ezekiel. The King and Queen are probably aware of it by now including my wife, but they’re trying to conceal this fact from everyone. So far, there’s been no successful attempts at performing the alchemy of a soul of a dragon to any human being… So this is really something… questionable.”

“I see,” Darius hummed in thought. “Are you going to investigate this?”

“We have to look into this, Darius,” Nikolai insisted. “If left unchecked, this dragon could be more of a threat than the entirety of Helion’s Army itself.”

“What if your intuition is right, and this dragon is somehow inside of Prince Ezekiel?”

“Then we have to do what is needed. We eliminate the threat unless Prince Ezekiel would somehow manage to hold the reigns on this dragon…” Nikolai firmly stated. “But still, the chances of that happening is next to impossible. A dragon simply wouldn’t let a human overpower them that easily.”

“We never know, Nikolai. There’s always a first for everything,” Darius suggested. “Just because it hasn’t happened before in history doesn’t mean that it can’t happen in the present. Prince Ezekiel, if you are correct in your suspicion, would not merely be a simple human as you thought. He could be more than something that a dragon could somehow overpower…”

Taking into consideration the kind of blood that was flowing in Prince Ezekiel’s veins, it was possible that there might be some kind of interaction that could happen. Whether it was good or bad, however, he didn’t know.

“Why do you sound like you know something?” Nikolai pondered with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m just saying, the Ward Royal Family of Ebodia is something interesting,” Darius snorted, doing his best to keep Xenia’s lineage a secret as he noticed that Nikolai didn’t seem to know much about it. Perhaps Princess Mineah hadn’t told about it to her husband yet?

“See how my wife is very confident in surviving the trials when everyone else thinks she’s nothing but a weak human being. That can be something, yes?”

And at that, Darius suddenly felt joyful at the thought of how his mate trusted him so much, telling him all about the important matters in her life such as this.

“And what’s so funny right now, huh?” Nikolai chortled. “Look at you smiling alone like that, looking crazy all on your own.”

“Oh, nothing,” Darius grinned. “It’s just that I thought about my mate and how adorable she is.”

Nikolai’s face crumbled and said, “You don’t seem like the Darius I’ve known for so long. You’ve become totally soft now because of a woman. That’s so unlike you. How come Princess Xenia still isn’t even marked?”

“She wanted to do it after the wedding to follow the customs and traditions of the monarchy in our kingdom,” Darius explained. “I’m respecting her wishes, seeing as she’s just worried about my name being slandered by my court if I marked her before the marriage ceremony.”

“Hmm, you’re never patient like this before. Most often than not, you get into trouble because of how impatient you are, Darius. Seeing you like this feels weird,” Nikolai scoffed and Darius simply smiled at his friend… It was a proud smile because he liked how Xen was able to bring out the best in him.