Cessilia and Tessandra exchanged a glance, both surprised.

Yassim had saved Ashen from death? If that was true, it didn’t seem like the King was holding a lot of gratitude toward his savior. From the start, it was clear the King was mad at the Counselor for something, and he had already banished him even before Yassim had brought Cessilia and made his anger worse...

“So... your King didn’t really die back then? But he was gone for two years, wasn’t he?” asked Tessandra.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to save the Prince’s life and bring him to safety myself. Truth be told, I was only able to help him leave the Capital before our pursuers found me. I was captured, put into a cell just like today, and left there with no idea what had become of the young Prince. Even when rumors grew of his death, I had no way to confirm it for myself.”

“So you helped him flee, but you didn’t see him die. And then...”

Tessandra tilted her head, and in her eyes, it was clear she had understood too. The old Counselor nodded, a faint smile on his lips.

“You’re a very smart lady, Lady Tessa. Seven years later, when our Prince came back, talking about gods who had trained him, wearing scaled armor, I began to wonder about what had really happened to him, seven years ago. The good and young boy I had desperately tried to save had returned as an angry seventeen-year-old, a man ready for war and battle, with unparalleled strength and skills. That led me to wonder if... if the young Ashen had really met gods, the same gods he claimed had trained him for those two years.”

Tessandra’s eyes went to Cessilia. The Princess was perfectly calm and composed, not surprised at all by Yassim’s assumptions. Everything indeed made more sense now.

“Sadly, the more I asked questions, the more upset my King was with me. In fact, I realized that my King was desperately holding on to that story, but refused to have any of it even discussed. He refused to talk about what had happened to him after we separated, and threatened to imprison me, torture me, or kill me several times if I kept going on with my questions, or discussed it with anybody else. Eventually, as my suspicions grew, my master banished me from the Capital... So I took one last, insane, and insolent bet, and I made the journey to see if my assumptions could possibly be correct.”

He smiled faintly, while looking at Cessilia. Thanks to his meeting with the Princess and her mother, Yassim had been able to come back and keep his head. In fact, the old man didn’t care much about dying. What he wanted, however, was to free his King from a lie that seemed to torture him in several ways. It wasn’t just about knowing the truth behind King Ashen the White’s legend. What Yassim truly wanted was to understand what had happened to the good-hearted, fifteen-year-old boy to turn him into the tortured, violent, and ruthless King he was today.

Cessilia’s presence felt like incredible luck, or perhaps an inevitable twist of fate...

“Th-thank you. ...C-Counselors, we will m-meet you at d-dinner t-time,” she simply said.

This was a polite but decisive way to ask both old men to leave them for a while. Now that they knew why Yassim had made his journey to the Dragon Empire of all places to find Ashen’s prospective bride, Cessilia didn’t want to discuss this any further. Her cousin still had eyes on her, but Yamino and Yassim didn’t discuss it, and both men bowed. They felt a bit reluctant to leave the young women to deal with the mess; however, Cessilia and her cousin had just confronted the King and freed a man without his approval... Surely, it was safe to leave the young women to deal with this much. Hence, the two elders left, although Yassim cast one last glance toward the Princess, gratitude in his eyes.

Once the doors closed once again, a faint silence installed itself. Tessandra kept staring at her cousin, but Cessilia didn’t say a thing and turned back toward the mess, calm and resolute.

Meanwhile, realizing she was the only one who had been crying, Nana quickly tried to wipe her tears, and walked over to start cleaning up the mess. She was in a bit too much of a hurry. After a couple of seconds, she grabbed a dress that had also been tattered, and let out a sharp cry of pain.

“Nana!”

Tessandra and Cessilia both ran over, to find their friend’s hand bleeding.

“I’m sorry,” said Nana, starting to cry again. “I didn’t see the shards...”

It wasn’t her fault at all. In fact, Tessa’s expression darkened as she discovered the numerous little glass shards spilled all over the fabric. This was no accident, there was nothing in the room that would have matched those pieces of glass before it was broken. Someone had deliberately put those there, with the intention of one of them getting hurt. Cessilia, who was observing Nana’s injuries, came to the same conclusion at the same moment, and she frowned as well. She brought Nana away from the mess to rinse her hand quickly and get rid of the smallest shards, but her head turned to the balcony.

“K-Krai!”

Her call was in one simple, sharp, and single shout. The dragon’s black head appeared behind the rail a second later, a bit wet, and Nana realized that Krai had stayed on the beach nearby since that morning.

Tessa, who already knew her cousin’s intent, walked over, holding the same dress. Just like Nana, her hand was cut in multiple places, but as previously, her green scales appeared, pushing the little shards out and covering the cuts. Hence, she didn’t seem to care at all, and held the dress near the dragon’s snout, making it sniff it.

“Find th-them,” ordered Cessilia. “B-bring them b-back t-to us.”

The dragon sniffed a bit longer, and then suddenly flew away with a long growl. Tessa sighed, and threw the dress down, annoyed.

“Can Sir Dragon find the culprits...?” asked Nana, a bit calmer.

“It might take him a little while, but he will,” nodded Tessa. “A dragon’s sense of smell isn’t particularly great, but their memory is. Krai will never forget something he smelled once. Plus, the culprits might not be too far...”

“It’s probably one of the other candidates,” muttered Nana, still upset.

Cessilia shook her head calmly. She was carefully bandaging Nana’s hand with a little piece of linen fabric that had been spared, although her wounds weren’t that bad.

“Th-they p-probably p-paid someone to d-do this,” she said.

“I agree,” nodded Tessa. “The noblewomen we saw so far all wore perfume, but I don’t smell any here. Plus, they probably aren’t so dumb as to risk getting caught and disqualified before the first banquet... This looks like a warning from some petty bitches.”

“This is so mean and... bad!” protested Nana, sullen. “All your money, and your dresses... and the first banquet is in less than two days now! What are we going to do...?”

Next to her, Cessilia began taking off all of the gold jewelry she was wearing which hadn’t been stolen. In fact, she was wearing a lot of gold, and when Tessandra did the same, everything put together still constituted a small fortune. The only thing left was Cessilia’s choker, which she apparently had no intention to take off.

“C-can we exchange th-this for m-money, Nana?” asked Cessilia.

“Of course! That should be a lot of money, but... you’ll just trade all of this for a lot of silver. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“We have more where that came from,” chuckled Tessa.

“If our g-gold is what scares th-them,” added Cessilia. “We c-can d-do without t-this.”

Nana nodded, although she still felt bad about trading their gold, as they would definitely be losing in the change. Gold was so rare and precious in this Kingdom... She had also thought the two young women’s wealth would be one of their strongest assets in the competition. Yet now, Cessilia seemed to be renouncing all that gold so effortlessly, and Naptunie was a bit admirative of her. The Princess had probably grown up with different values, but to be able to give up on her money to stand equal to the other candidates was still something... She took a deep breath.

“It will be fine,” nodded Nana, suddenly resolute. “I’ll get as much silver as I can out of this, and we will buy you the prettiest dress we can!”

“I d-don’t n-need a new dr-dress.”

This time, even Tessa seemed surprised by her statement. They both stared at the Princess, a bit lost. Cessilia was already gathering the ruined clothes together, careful as to where she grabbed them, and shook them carefully. The many pieces of glass were clattering to the floor, showing the insane amount hidden in the clothes. From the multiple colors, they had clearly been from broken bottles or vases, as they had seen many of those in the market. In the Dragon Empire, glass wasn’t common and most containers were made of clay or metal. Here, though, glass was a common material, and just like their windows, many daily objects were made of blown and tinted glass.

With a sigh, Tessandra began doing the same next to her cousin, shaking each piece of ruined fabric to make sure no glass was left, and putting it on the bed, which had been miraculously spared. Naptunie wanted to help, but one of her hands was damaged, and she was afraid she’d spill blood all over.

“I’ll go get a broom!”

She came back very quickly and since Cessilia had dismissed the servants, she used it herself to carefully assemble all that broken glass together in a little pile. The more she gathered, the more upset she was at how people had done this to injure the Princess.

“They are cheaters,” she grumbled as they finished. “Just cowards to do this while you were gone! I hope Sir Dragon finds them and gives them a hard time!”

“He won’t eat them,” scoffed Tessandra, “but he’ll bring them back to us and then we can make them pay... I wish I meant that literally, for once. Looking at this, it looks like they didn’t spare anything. Of all the outfits and fabrics we brought, they ruined most of them... or stole the whole thing. What do we do, Cessi?”

Indeed, the end result was a bit disheartening, and Nana almost felt like crying again, looking at all the ruined dresses. Many had the skirts ripped open, the fabric torn apart, and the little gems broken or smashed out of their spots. It was clear they hadn’t just stolen the gold jewelry, but even the precious gems sewed into the dresses and the piece of clothing itself, if they couldn’t take it out, probably to disassemble it elsewhere.

Strangely, though, Cessilia’s eyes on the pile didn’t look upset at all. Much to Naptunie’s shock, she even had an enigmatic smile on while staring at all her ruined belongings.

“We have a b-bit of t-time left before the b-banquet,” she said. “Let’s g-get t-to work.”

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Chapter 8