17. The Choices They Made
The Choices They Made
“Was this worth it? Lives were lost tonight that didn’t need to end, but because of your selfishness, this is where we are at,” I spoke as I walked in their direction.
“Did you really think being able to gain a pair-bond with a dragon would change matters? A quarter of their people here have dragons, and it doesn’t make them any more important than those who don’t.
Someone, please explain to me what your plan was because I just don’t see it, and I’m not one to miss things like that. ”
Garold and Xio stayed tightlipped, but Acton surprised me as he spoke up after a few moments of silence.
“Tell me how would you feel if someone you didn’t know anything about appeared out of nowhere and took everything from you?
We have been groomed from a young age to take over these roles, spending our lives learning how best to take care of our people.
Then it’s all stripped from you in a moment like it was all a dream.
I was willing to work with you, to give you a chance to show us why the black dragon chose you, but then you decided to bring us here and cast us aside.
If I were in your position, I would want the counsel of those doing the job far longer than you have.
Snubbing us and allowing others to fill that role is foolish and shortsighted. ”
Hmm, it seems that the half brothers are more alike than they think. Jade is just as blunt about how he views things, the only difference being that he likes me. Acton made a fair point, but he was missing half the story in his narrative which led me to make the choices I did.
“If things had happened as you say, I could easily see your point,” I mused aloud.
“Let’s get a full perspective on this situation, though, before you choose to die by your beliefs in this matter.
Picture living a life where your role was set, you knew your place in life, and you believed everything you’ve ever been told about who you are as a person.
Then one day, you get paired with a black dragon, having no idea what that means to the world, only knowing you now have disrupted the plans so carefully laid out for you all your life.
“Sometime later when you think life couldn’t be turned even more upside down, a group of mysterious men show up and tell you that your dragon means you are queen to a group of people you’ve never really heard about besides the idle gossip.
At the request of people you don’t know, you decide to go with them, leaving behind everything, never knowing if you’ll see your family again or if they’ll want to see you after abandoning them.
When you arrive at this new life, you discover it wasn’t quite what they said.
Now I have a year to learn a whole new skill and prove I can be queen.
I do as they ask, spending day after day learning what you all spend a lifetime learning.
Then I get betrayed by the very people I’m supposed to be proving myself to.
When I’m rescued and have no place to go, I return to these people I don’t really know and haven’t proved myself to yet, so they try to kill me.
“Somehow, this leads me to becoming crowned queen along with calling eight guardians to protect me. I’m lost, overwhelmed, and floundering, trying to keep up with everything that has happened in my life up to that point.
I hear there are clan leaders, and I’m overjoyed to have people I can lean on to help guide me through what it means to be the queen to a people I was still learning about.
Only they prove to be someone I can’t lean on.
Instead, they are questioning me on everything, making me feel small and insignificant.
They claimed to be looking out for their own people, but I discovered within my first two days there was a traitor among you.
This leads to more hostility from you all, even when I offer olive branch after olive branch, trying to work with you.
“The final straw came when you decided to use the people you claim to care so much about as a means to undermine me and lie to them. So tell me, Acton, would you trust them to guide you in this new era? Because I most certainly wouldn’t.
That is why I am dissolving the role of clan leader on top of the fact we don’t have multiple clans anymore.
We are united once more, and that is what is going to make us stronger.
Due to your actions here tonight, you will no longer be part of what I am trying to do with the clans.
” I was so worked up by my rant that my heart was beating rapidly and my breath was shallow and quick.
My anger at them for pushing me to make this call coursed through my veins, making my hands shake.
“Why couldn’t they see I didn’t want this but left me with no other choice?” I demanded from Vasin, needing to know I wasn’t wrong in my thinking.
“Cass, we can’t change how people see us, but what we can do is show them who we really are. You have given them chance after chance to show you a different way to end this. It’s their doing that we ended up here.”
“Am I doing that bad of a job they just won’t give me a chance?”
“This is about power, not about you. They do not want to give up the control they have, and the clan leaders know that the longer you are in power, the more the people will grow to love you. When they lose that last trump card, they lose everything. You are doing the right thing by removing them from power and starting fresh with this new way you want people to interact as one.”
Even though what Vasin was saying made sense, I still wasn’t feeling any better about this position they put me in.
“Your Highness, what would you like us to do with them?” Alsten asked, his face neutral as he awaited orders.
Taking a moment, I looked at my guardians who all stood just behind the clan leaders, and I met their eyes, praying they would understand what I had to do.
“I, Queen Cassarah, sentence them to death for acts of treason against the Crown and the people of Sheca. They will not receive a hearing and will be put to death by beheading at dawn tomorrow.”
“So it shall be done,” Alsten stated as he bowed. “Men, take these prisoners to the cells and lock them up for the night. They have an appointment they can’t miss tomorrow.”
“General,” I called out. “Please allow them to say goodbye to any family members as long as it is supervised.”
Alsten nodded and headed out with his men, taking Acton, Garold, and Xio with them none too gently.
I watched them fly off, and a part of my spirit broke the farther they got, knowing this would affect so many more people than just me.
Tomorrow, people would be losing a son, father, brother, or lover, and who knows how they would respond to the event.
“Dayson, Izel, May, do any of you feel the need to head back?” I asked, refusing to look at them as I spoke.
I knew there was no love between Jade and his half brother and that neither one of them would welcome a visit from the other, so I didn’t offer.
Plus, Jade had Tahir if he felt differently than I assumed.
“There will be time later to speak with them,” Izel answered first, sounding much closer to me than he had been moments ago. “Are you all right, little warrior? You didn’t get hurt in the fight, did you?”
This caused me to snap my head in his direction, shocked he would be asking me that right now. “I’m fine. Vasin and Dayson made sure I was protected.”
“I’m glad to hear that. It would have been worse if they managed to harm you with their asinine idea,” Izel muttered, his face lined with anger. “How could they be so stupid to pull a stunt like this?”
“That’s what I want to know. My father might be a loose cannon, but he isn’t one to make rash choices unless there is something else we are missing in all of this,” Dayson interjected.
Watching them all, I couldn’t get over how calm everyone was acting, even Gavin and Phillip as they sat with their mother who refused to let go of her husband.
For all that they were an arranged marriage, it seemed they had found a way to find love.
This made the whole thing even worse. Now the queen was never going to see eye to eye on anything after my people killed her husband, whether we were in the right or not.
Unsure of what to do, I walked over to the queen and her sons, needing her to know I never wanted this to happen.
“Your Majesty.” I started, kneeling across from her but with plenty of space between us. “I am so sorry,” I whispered, tears pooling in my eyes and my throat constricting with held-back tears.
She lifted her face streaked with blood and tears, a look of devastation written on her face as she gazed at me. “You’re sorry? My husband is dead because of you, and you dare to apologize to me?”
“Mother, that isn’t fair. Father attacked her first. She had every right to defend herself,” Gavin explained as he touched her arm.
The queen shoved him away, knocking him to the dirt in his surprise.
“Don’t you dare try to justify this, you traitorous bastard.
You turned your back on our family and your role as prince for her.
Why should I trust anything coming out of your mouth!
” she snarled. Phillip made a move on her other side, but he got the same treatment from his mother.
“Both of my children have betrayed me, leaving me with no husband or sons to call my own. I am alone and will seek revenge on those who have hurt me and destroyed my life along with my kingdom.”
Even though she was screaming at all of us, I could see in her face that her pain was talking.
She’d just lost her husband and wasn’t in any place to be reasoned with about what she was spouting at all of us.
We needed to get her someplace safe and kept under a watchful eye so she didn’t hurt herself or others as she grieved.
Standing, I walked over to her dragon who was as distraught as her pair-bond, but she didn’t lash out at me, knowing I wasn’t the one who started this.
“I need your help. We need to get her and her husband back to the village. Would you take them there? I know your pair-bond wants to run and hide away from all this, but that isn’t what’s best for her right now.
All I want to do is keep her safe.” The queen’s dragon nodded in agreement and sent me some emotions to let me know she was worried about her pair-bond.
“I will do everything I can to help her, but it will take time.”
The dragon hummed in agreement, and I turned back to Gavin and Phillip. “She will take your mother back to the village along with your father’s body if she won’t leave without him.”
Gavin nodded, giving me an appreciative look as he grabbed one arm of his mother and Phillip the other, helping her to her feet.
“No, we can’t leave him,” she cried, fighting against them.
“Mother, we are not leaving him. We just need to get you on Petra’s back first, then we can figure out the best way to get Father back as well,” Gavin assured her.
Abbott and Dayson stepped forward and hefted up the king’s body, following after the queen.
They set him back down beside the golden dragon and stepped back, available if needed, but I appreciated they didn’t push the matter, not knowing how the queen would react.
It didn’t take Gavin and Phillip too long to get their parents settled, and once that happened, the rest of us climbed onto our dragons, ready to head out.
Gavin climbed up behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and buried his head in my neck as we took off.
He didn’t say a word, but I could feel his tears against my skin as Vasin took his time flying back to the village.
When we landed, the queen was put in a room with the windows locked from the outside and two guards posted outside the door.
I hated to have her as a prisoner, but there was no telling what she would do right now.
Each of the boys offered to stay with her, but she didn’t want to even look at them, so they let her be.
I’d also made sure the room was cleared of anything that could be used to harm or kill herself, knowing it would help me sleep better tonight I had done all I could for her.
The rest of us were split between two rooms with beds enough for each of us if we doubled up.
May and Becka decided it was best to stay in my room so if anything did happen, they were close.
The guys all argued one of them should be in the room too, but May put an end to that with a firm look.
Instead, one of them slept in front of my door while the others tumbled into their beds just as drained as I was after the day’s events.
All this trouble and I wasn’t even truly crowned their queen yet.
What does that mean for the coming days ahead?
Guess I was just going to have to trust my guardians and take it as it comes.