Starlight (The Dragonian Series Book 5) (45 page)

Both Emanual and I just stared at her.

A deep breath Elena, you can do this.

Just then, she took a deep breath as if she could hear me.

“So I’m begging them one last time, please stand with us.”

My body was on alert and I felt Emanual getting ready too. My father just stared at the screen.

“We can’t overrun Goran on our own. We can’t kill the Saadedine on our own, and we can’t bring peace to Paegeia on our own. If you don’t want to fight for me, then do it for my father.” She stopped. It didn’t have the impact she needed.

She knew it too as she looked around her and it was as if her entire body deflated. I could see her taking another breath. Her body straightened. She was going to give this another try. “I don’t mean by what he stood for, who he was, I mean for the man… he still is.”

The entire audience gasped. So did a few of the dragons in this room.

“Wait, what?” Kevin was caught off guard. “You want to tell me that King Albert is still alive?”

She nodded. “I figured it out the day I ascended. He didn’t want me to say anything…” She kept talking about it.

I froze as she said it.

“… I promise you he is still alive trapped behind those Creepers.” She started to name a few of his men that were barely hanging on too, saying Etienne Johnson’s name as well. I told George to be there for Becky when she heard her father’s name. He would make it better.

The entire audience was in utter shock, everyone in this room too.

Everyone in the audience on his show started voicing their concerns. Kevin tried to hush everyone. My only concern was my father standing next to me. He was frozen solid as he just stared at the TV screen.

“Dad,” I spoke softly.

He didn’t answer and I closed my eyes.

In one second my father leapt over the table and ran for the door.

“Emanual!” I yelled and we both ran after my father. He wasn’t thinking straight. Elena had been scared of this, she feared this and I wasn’t prepared at all.

He took flight and I followed. He was heading straight for the Creepers. I flew faster and gained on him in no time.

I pushed him back with my body.

He grunted but didn’t say anything. He fought like he’d never fought before as I pushed him down toward the ground.

“You can’t do this, you know the Creepers will kill you and Elena is not going to take you inside. We have a plan and you will ruin this.”

“Don’t, I beg you, don’t. Just let me go to him.”

We were almost on the ground now.

“Dad, please,” I begged as we touched ground. Both my front paws held him down. His one wing was secure under my paw. “You know the plan. Your actions will let Goran know that we have found a way in, please, there are so many people that are counting on you.”

“He is my rider.”

“I know what he means to you, but if you go in now, you will kill him. Don’t be stupid. Think, please. I know you can do this,  you are his dragon. He’s still alive. I promise you, we will get him out that way, but you have to stick to the plan.”

I didn’t know if my begging was getting through to him He had so much fight left, fight that I hadn’t seen for a very long time.

“Calm down, please, Dad. Remember the plan. It’s your plan and it’s good and solid.”

Emanual landed, with a couple of other dragons, and my father finally succumbed. He wailed and I knew he was crying.

“A small part of me knows how you feel. I promise I will get him out. Just stick to the plan.”

“Okay,” he finally said after a soft wailing song.

Reporters were going to bombard him again and I had no clue how that was going to end.

“Is he okay?” Emanual asked.

I turned my head and looked down on his dragon figure.

“He’s fine.”

I let one of my paws off my father and watched him turn.

I did the same and both of us were handed robes.

“You get him out of there, alive.”

I nodded. “You know I will.”

“I will stick to the plan, on one condition, Blake. We speed this up.”

ELENA

I FOUND BECKY sitting against the wall with her head between her legs. George crouched next to her, rubbing her arm.

“Becky,” I spoke and went down on my haunches in front of her.

She looked up at me. “This was your big secret, Elena. That our fathers are still alive.”

I nodded and silence lingered around us as she stared past me. Then something in her mind went off. She looked at George with concern. “My mother. George, we have to go to my mother.”

“Will you guys…”

“Go,” I said to George and they both left. I felt even worse now as I imagined what Lucille was going through with only Rosa at her side.

I should’ve prepared them for this. They were my friends.

I clutched my hair.

“Elena,” Sammy’s hand was on my shoulder.

“I suck at this. I’m probably the worst friend out there.”

“You are not, okay? You are the princess and we made peace with the fact that sometimes there will be things you won’t be able to share with us immediately. It was just a lot to take in.”

I hated it when Sammy did that.

“He’s really alive.”

“It’s why your brother isn’t here. He stayed with your father, to who we have to go to now.”

“So he knows.”

“Yes, he found out when we were in Etan the first time.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

We left on Sammy’s back and she flew as fast as she could back to the Dragon League.

I slid off her wing when she landed and had to endure all the stares that most of them gave me.

I didn’t care if any of them understood why we kept this a secret. I know the media was going to make it sound as if it was a tactic I’d used to make Areeth fight with us, but there were many that could confirm this, A hundred and fifty people to be exact.

I entered the door and found Emanual leaning against the wall right in front of Sir Robert’s office.

I touched his arm softly and he looked at me.

“I’m so sorry.” It hardly came out and he gave me a faint smile.

I opened the door and could hear the sobs coming from Sir Robert. He was sitting in his chair. Blake sat on top of his desk in front of him, with his hands on his shoulder, speaking Latin to him.

He looked at me and back at his father.

“I’m so sorry about this,” I said to Sir Robert.

He looked at me for a few seconds, closed his eyes and shook his head.

He inhaled deeply and exhaled before he spoke. “A part of me always knew that he was alive. The worst part of it now is that for some reason,” his voice rose, “I can’t get the last time I saw him out of my head.” He got up and started to pace.

“Dad,” Blake said.

“No, son. I should’ve been there, but he forced me away from him. He used the binding spell against me!” He yelled and then he stopped as he remembered something else and started to smile, but it was one of those smiles you get when you just realized how stupid you were. “I taught him that, and he used it to order me away, because of you, because of what we all promised. To keep you safe no matter how hard it was going to be.” He looked at Blake.

“What?” Blake said.

“I thought about that night a million times. He knew that you would be claimed one day, and all we had to do was to keep you safe until that time.” His face hardened. He walked over to his book shelf and threw the contents to the floor. Books scattered everywhere.

I flinched. Blake was at his side at once trying to calm him, but he slipped past him and threw the contents from his desk too. I flinched again, wanting to leave as Blake closed his eyes.

“What pissed me off the most was that he’d told nobody about her. I’ve lived eighteen years thinking he thought that I was behind his betrayal. That was why he forced me away from him that night. For fifteen years.”

“He didn’t…” I started.

“I know, you told me that. But it doesn’t change the fact that I left him when he needed me the most.”

“Dad, he used the binding spell. You just said that.”

“I could’ve fought harder Blake. When I saw the Creepers jumping out of the ground, I knew it was something out of this world. I could’ve found a way to control the spell, use it against my rider. I gave him my oath that I would keep him safe…”

“And he broke it when he bound you, Dad. He is alive, you will see him again. I promise. When the right time comes…”

“One month, Blake.”

“Dad, we told them two moons from now.”

“One month. They are men of King Albert. Men I fought wars with for a long time. They know the signs of war. They will be ready no matter what you told them. Four weeks. Whether you are ready or not. In four weeks she will take me in.”

WELL THAT WAS unexpected. To hear Sir Robert giving us an ultimatum of one month to get everything ready for war, was hard to swallow.

Eight weeks was doable. Four weeks, was a suicide mission.

But Blake nodded and I knew we had no choice.

I went back to the Academy without Blake, who wanted to make sure that his father was really okay with all of this and wasn’t going to do something stupid the minute we left. He would never reach my father in time. He would die in the Creepers.

Media crews were already waiting for us in the courtyard. I could see Constance and Master Longwei trying to get rid of them but the minute we got near, flashing lights bounced off Sammy’s scales.

They bombarded me with questions.

“Princess, you said that you promised your father is still alive. Is that a tactic to get Areeth to fight?”

“No comment,” I said. No matter what I was going to say, they would turn my words around and use them against me. I had nothing to prove to them that I was telling the truth. They either believed me or they didn’t.

Sammy and Dean followed after me as more reporters’ yelled questions.

Professor Pheizer was waiting inside for all of us.

“We will get more guards here in the next few weeks, Elena,” she said. “I’m so sorry that you had to keep that all to yourself for so long.”

I smiled. She was kind, had always been kind and it was hard to imagine what Blake  had gone through when he’d discovered that she was on to him a few years back.

“I’m sorry. I know I still have a lot to learn, and it feels like I’m doing everything wrong.”

“That is what will make you a brilliant queen one day. It’s knowing you are not ready, when you are.” She winked and left as we climbed up the stairs to our rooms.

The rest of the night I watched reporters questioning the families whose names I’d mentioned today. I even saw them bombarding Becky as George landed with her close to her home.

“Rebecca Johnson, how does it feel knowing that your father is alive?”

“Show some respect!” she yelled. “You just don’t know when to stop, you scum.”

George, who was buck naked, was pushing her through the door that Rosa was keeping open.

I lowered my head into my palm and just shook my head. She was never going to forgive me.

Then I listened to the interviews they had with random people, how many of them questioned Just Kev’s interview today. They were completely pulling me to shreds because I said no comment.

A knock on the door came and Sammy switched off the TV. I got up and opened the door.

It was Master Longwei.

“The Council wants to see you, Elena.”

“Now? It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“I’m sorry but as you can imagine, today’s revelation…” he didn’t finished. He didn’t have to finish.

I nodded and left with him.

THE RIDE TO Town Hall in Elm was silent. Master Longwei didn’t say a word. He didn’t ask any questions. He just stared out of his window.

We landed at the palace in Tith. Everyone was waiting for us in King Helmut’s meeting room. I was glad that it was just the Council and not the Ancients too.

I walked in and found the long, oblong table. Master Longwei and I sat down on the only two chairs left way at the end.

“Thank you for joining us on such short notice, Princess,” King Helmut started the meeting.

I nodded.

“So this morning with Just Kev,” he asked. “Elena, is that the truth?”

I stared at him and shook my head. “You’re seriously asking me this?”

“We need to know the tactic behind this revelation you spewed all over us today,” King Caleb started.

“I’m not lying. I didn’t make any of that up. If you don’t believe me, ask the hundred and fifty people I brought out.”

“Easy to…”

“Stop interrupting me. I’m so tired of your constant belief that I’m trying to fool you or trying to trap you into fighting a war you absolutely do not believe in. I didn’t lie in order to get Areeth to fight. I never wanted to tell anyone the truth about my father, but it wasn’t just my destiny. Blake was the one that said I had to tell the truth. He’s carried this knowledge, along with me, for a couple of months now, and if you think that it was easy keeping it from everyone, you are making a huge mistake. Fight if you want to fight, don’t fight, but know that I will free my father and then all of you will have to look him in the eye. And I hope you’ll have a really good reason of why you didn’t want to help him. I’m really not doing this for me. I’m doing this for my father. Because he deserves to be free.”

I got up.

“I’m done begging. Those of you who want to fight for my father, fight. Those of you who feel that I’m lying, don’t fight. Nobody is forcing you.”

I turned around and left.

Master Longwei was still sitting in his chair when I opened the door. Flashes went off in my face again as I stormed into the castle. They hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. How did they know about all these private meetings?

The guards kept them at bay, but the palace was sort of a free for all. It served as a sort of sanctuary so the gates were open until midnight.

“What do you want from me?” I yelled at them and as one by one they all stopped and lowered their cameras.