Over the next week, Terry kept visiting the library, looking for any helpful books, shelf by shelf. Finally, as Terry finished searching the left bookshelf, a man came up to him, "I've noticed you coming here for the past week. Are you looking for something specific?" Terry looked at the man. He had lime eyes and normal brown hair, wearing common clothes, "I'm afraid that's rather personal." "Please, allow me to help. I'm rather knowledgeable. I may be able to help you find what you're looking for." Terry thought it over for a minute before he asked, "Have you ever heard of an egg being born with an odd-coloured shell?" "I have, actually. I believe it was in a village outside the capital. I heard a rumour that a woman there gave birth to a black-coloured egg." Terry's eyes grew wide as he dropped the book in his hand and walked over to the man, "Which village was this?" "I believe it was the Simoa village." "Thank you!" After the man told Terry the village name, Terry rushed ou
Terry walked me into the living room and put me on the settee. Seeing that I couldn't stop crying, Terry crouched in front of me and held my hand, "Sash, we'll get our child back, I promise you. But right now, I need you to stay here. I'm going to call the guard. While they're on their way here, I'm going to go to the incubation room and see if they left anything behind we can use to find them." I was too emotional to talk at this point, so Terry reached into his pocket, gave me his handkerchief and then got to his feet, "I'll be back soon..." Terry then left me to calm down in the living room while he went upstairs to the incubation room. He looked around the room and couldn't find anything, only some scratches on the floor from where they had placed something heavy down, "Looks like I was right. They were smart enough to bring a transport box for the egg to keep it warm." He then went out of the room and checked on the guards. Unfortunately, they were all severely knocked out and
The next day, Terry called Dan, "I need you to come to the estate today." "I'm a bit busy with work today. I can come down tomorrow evening if that's fine with you." "I'm sorry, but we need you to come down today. It's an emergency." Dan started to get a bad feeling, "What's happened?" "Late in the evening yesterday, our estate was attacked, and our egg was kidnapped. Not being able to deal with it, Sash's shut down and hasn't said a word since yesterday." "I'll be there as fast as I can." After a while, Dan arrived at the estate, and Terry escorted him to our bedroom as he told him, "Like I told you, she's completely shut down and unresponsive." "If I'm being perfectly honest, I can't blame her. I wouldn't take it well if my children were kidnapped." When they entered the room, Dan walked over to me and started to check my state, "Sash, can you hear me?" I didn't respond or open my eyes. After Dan finished examining me, he said to Terry, "She's in shock. She could wake up tom
Terry and I spent the next month working together, combing through everything we could find on the three noble families we were looking into, but we couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. While Terry and I were looking through documents in his office, I finished reading the one I had and threw it on the desk, "Nothing! I can't find a single thing that can help us!" "Sash, please, we'll find something. It'll just take time." "Terry, it's been nearly two months since our egg was taken from us. I want to get it back." "I do too, but we have time. The child won't hatch for nearly five years. So we have all that time to search." "From what I've seen, we're not even close. It's obvious after looking through all this these families didn't do it!" "Then we start again and look for something else to help us." "And how long will that take? I don't want to leave our child's life up to some ruthless bastards who stole it!" "What do you suggest we do then? We've been doing all we can.
While we were still in Walter's office, I asked him, "Can we cast disguise spells on ourselves before we go to the masquerade?" "Spells like that will be broken the moment you walk into the castle. You'll have to wear a wig to hide your hair, but I'm not sure how we'll hide your eyes. Terry doesn't need to change his since magenta eyes are still relatively common among nobles, but pink eyes are rare enough that dragons will know any noble with them." "I can just change the colour of my eyes." "That won't work. Like I told you, spells like that will be broken when you walk into the castle." "Dad, I can change the colour of my eyes through my own will." Walter looked at me, confused, "What?" I leaned in towards Walter as I slowly changed my eye colour to grey, "I can change my eyes to resemble that of any natural dragon eye colour." "And this isn't a spell?" "No, it's one of a pink eye dragon's abilities, but it's apparently kept secret." "I can understand why. An ability like
As I slowly started to come to, I opened my eyes and looked around the room. I noticed I was in what looked like a cave. After completely coming to, I sat up and had a proper look around. I was inside a cell built into the corner of a cave with guards standing just outside the door to the cell. Feeling groggy along with a headache, I took off my wig and mask and threw them on the ground, "What the hell happened? Where am I?" "You always ask a lot of questions, don't you?" I looked over to my left and saw the man in the crow mask standing outside the side of my cell, "Who are you? Are you the bastard that kidnapped my child?!" The man smiled as he took a few steps to the side, allowing me to see the rest of the cave. As I looked behind him, I saw a pedestal in the middle of the room with my egg on it, "My egg! What the hell do you want?!" "You never stop asking questions. That's something I really couldn't stand when we were together." "Just tell me who you are!" The man faced me
Larry would come back to the cave every week to try and convince me to sign the contract, but I refused every time. Finally, after three weeks, Larry came into the cave carrying a stale piece of bread, "You've been in here a month now. Aren't you hungry?" "I went two months without eating of my own choice. You really think I'll cave after a month?" Larry smiled at me, "I have to admit, I do admire your spirit. I think you've earned this much, at least." he ripped the bread in half and threw one of the halves into my cell at my feet, "I'll give you the other half next month." He then left the cave. I reached over, picked up the piece of bread he gave me, and took a small bite out of it, 'Tastes awful, but it's better than nothing. But I should ration it for the next month.' After taking just one bite, I put the bread down beside me and started practising my mana control, 'He said I can't use my mana, but what about the mana in the air?' Concentrating, I was able to see the faint gl
Over the next month, the guards set up the barrier like Larry told them to, which kept me from collecting the mana in the air. Finally, after that month was over, it came that time when Larry would normally give me some small amount of food. One of the guards in front of my cell received a call from Larry. When he finished talking, he turned to me and said, "His Highness said he won't be able to make it until later today, and because of your previous attempt to escape, he won't be bringing you this month's ration." I let out an amused huff, "He barely feeds me already. So why do I care if he misses one?" The guard didn't respond and turned back around to continue standing guard. Finally, after a few hours, it came time for the guards to change, but no one came in to relieve the current guard. After a few minutes of waiting, the guards in front of my cell became restless, "The next shift should be here by now. Those two in the evening shift are normally more punctual than this." "J