40
Another Attack
Olivier
Olivier rubbed his eyes. It was late at night, and the Assembly inquiries were just too boring. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with all of them.
“Do you hear that?” Gahariet asked.
Olivier listened hard. “Wings.” His eyes turned to flame.
Olivier threw open the window before dissolving into smoke. Gahariet followed him up to the highest tower in their castle.
“I knew that he’d be back.”
“He has reinforcements.”
Jumping out of the tower, they shifted into their dragon forms as they fell. Then they chased the winged meddlers off, one by one. They were in a ring around the castle, and it was easy for the brothers to chase them off. Their flames blew hot as they overwhelmed the attacking party. Their dragons, royal dragons, were much larger than the average Draka. It was crazy for anybody to attack a Draka castle, especially a royal one. The attackers would soon find that out.
It was a very confusing and suicidal attack, but they soon had slaughtered all of the small Lockwings who had been sent to them.
They flowed back to Phuong’s room. She had left her bedroom window open a crack. They would have to tell her to try to be safer.
Hoa was at Phuong’s bedside, weaving together some sort of mat.
“Your Highnesses,” she said. Olivier wondered if she was going to sink to her knees, but apparently Draka weren’t going to be treated like a Yore royal.
She set the mat aside. “Are you hurt? Do you need any kind of help?”
“Don’t worry. It was just Lockwings. They’re a minor threat, and honestly, they’re an insult more than anything.”
Hoa nodded at them, digesting their words for a moment, before she said, “You’re right, the Lockwings don’t matter. I need to tell you more about the prophecy.”
“We’re listening.” Olivier sat on the bed and stroked Phuong’s light silver hair with one hand. She smiled in her sleep.
“I’m sure of what I saw. Your children — the dragon babies born to a Yore queen — are destined to change this entire world when they are kings. They will be dragons in spirit more than they will ever be Yore, and the Yore will rebel against it.”
Gahariet raised one eyebrow, but Olivier was still listening intently.
“How do you know the gender...”
Hoa’s eyes were glowing silver now. “The babies must make it into the world before they can become kings, and there will be a number of attempts to ensure that they don’t.”
Olivier caught his brother’s eyes. Olivier knew that Gahariet didn’t put much faith in Yore predictions, but Olivier thought that her prophecy was pretty much common sense. Yes, there were plenty of Yore-Draka pairings...but as far as he knew, they were the only Thrones to take Yore wives. With the quantity of Draka and off-world girls thrown at them, most Draka princes didn’t need to marry Yore.
Gahariet and Olivier had mated Phuong purely by choice and a little bit of luck.
If the seer was right, the children who were growing inside of Phuong would be little boys.
Olivier smiled at the thought of chubby little dragonlings running around the castle. It would be fun to teach them how to fly.
“I must go to bed,” Hoa told them, rising from her chair in the corner. “But think about what I said to you. The threat is very real. If they aren’t born, then this world will stay just as it is.”
With that, Hoa walked out of the room.
“I understand why that’s bad for the Yore, but what do we have invested in it? We’re Drakan Thrones...we rule this planet.” Olivier turned to his brother. “So why would we care?”
“We care because those twins are our children, Olivier.” Gahariet sighed. “We will protect them until they are born, and we’ll protect them beyond that. We have the money and the fighters to do it. I just hope that Phuong has a healthy pregnancy. We can fight Marc, but we can’t fight sickness. Pregnancy is a fragile time.”