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Chapter 18
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2022-03-22 14:11:55That night, Alcina stays up late once more, organizing the genuinely astounding number of parcels she now has in her room.
And wonders had she indeed purchased this many things.
She's halfway through organizing some of the items on her dressing table when she hears it.
This time, that quiet, muffled whimper all the louder for how acutely her sense is attuned to the sound.
This time, she wastes little time in letting herself through the door.
And she realized, then, that while she can lock her side, Lord Brendan cannot.
She starts wondering what the implications are that the man had prepared an acknowledged cage for himself to be locked into.
When she sees the floors and walls, once more, covered in that endless blackness, again, she can't help the fear that rushes up inside of her as if a dam had broken.
But she cannot leave Lord Brendan as he is, in whatever pained hell he has trapped himself into-
KayraSurprise!!!!! I know a chapter a week is not satisfactory, But I can't help it :(. I'm taking the help of my friend to write this story. He is doing his major in English literature, and he edits the chapter in his free time before I upload it. I'm writing the other two stories on my own, slowly learning how to give you better content to read. So I have every limited time to write all of them. I don't want to compromise with the quality of this story. So please be patient and wait for the chapters. I'll try to make the chapter longer or update twice a week. I mean, I'll convince him to edit the chapters early so that you can get more content to read ;) Also, thank you, everyone, for patiently waiting for the updates... Thank you for being supportive. Love you all<3<3<3
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My little Dragon Queen Chapter 19
Alcina wakes first.This time, she awakens with the immediate and keen awareness of precisely where she is. That is not her own bed, but the one she'd just shared with Lord Brendan.Lord Brendan, who is evidently still asleep when Alcina looks to her right.Alcina can't help but to stare.In sleep, the lord's features seem impossibly young - with none of the heavy presence that bears on him like an ever-present weight when the lord is awake.It's something about his eyes, Alcina thinks; those dark, fathomless depths that speak of years much, much beyond the lord's age of twenty-five.And there's a fascination here, too, of being permitted to observe such a feared man up close like being allowed into a tiger's den when the ferocious tiger is declawed in its slumber."If you leaned in any closer, one would think it ismyperson people should worry about, rather than yours,"Lord Breandan's low, rough timber - pitched mo
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Brendan's never slept so well in the twenty-five years he's been alive, as he does now.Brendan had learned early on that being able to control something did not mean the same thing as being immune to those same terrors. Born with theGiftof being permitted to command all those wraiths, terrors, and horrors that haunt the minds of men, made him suffer the same every day.Most nights, ever since he'd personified his Gift as a young child, he'd found his dreamless sleep plagued by the same terrible things that he can command unto others.As he'd explained to Alcina, these shadows cannot kill him the way he can kill others with them.But it does not change the fact that he nearly dreads sleep with the anticipation of an endless, all-consuming despair each night.Even if the terrors don't visit him every night, the nights when he is given the brief reprieve, he spends trembling in fear, teeth grit and back ramrod straight, bracin
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Alcina wakes up in the morning alone, as she has grown used to in the nights since she'd begun to sleep in Brendan's bed. The lord, it would seem, is an incredibly early riser. She finds out from Mary that it is because Lord Brendan has swordsmanship practice with Commander Lincoln most mornings. As it is, the piece of information sparks the beginnings of an idea in her mind. She can't stop remembering what it had felt like to be so utterly helpless. When all she'd found herself able to do, was clutch desperately at the horse's reigns that had carried her away from Brendan, where he stood fending off the bandits on his own. How even when she'd returned, she'd found herself at their attackers' terrifying mercy (or lack thereof), with nothing to defend herself with. Alcina had never been permitted the opportunity to take up the sword as her elder brother had. A runt like her, after all, could not be permitted anywhere near the ba
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Except, Alcina doesn't quite let the matter rest.The following day, with much effort, she manages to rise early enough to follow Brendan to his practice match with Lincoln.She reaches the courtyard just in time to see Brendan narrowly avoid being skewered by the sharp end of Lincoln's sword and can't help the quiet squeak that flits from her lips at the near-miss.Brendan's eyes snap to her, having just noticed her presence.Lincoln seizes the opportunity to slam the butt end of his sword into Brendan's side, sending him clattering to the floor."Brendan!"Alcina doesn't think she's ever run so fast in her life as when she flits to Brendan's crumpled side, worry pounding in her chest. "Are you alright?"Brendan, where he's sitting on the ground in the middle of sending a particularly scathing look in Lincoln's direction, turns his incredulous gaze to Alcina next.Alcina, who's gingerly grasping his arm and trying unhelpfully
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The human mind, it is said, works by creating associations between experiences, memories, objects, and ideas.Despite all signs to the contrary, Brendan would seem to be a human.For how else could he explain the way his mind seems to have - without his permission - bridged an association between Alcina and the benediction of reprieve from his nightly terrors?Undoubtedly, the way that Brendan finds his gaze and his attention drawn to Alcina like the subconscious weight of a gravitational pull.It can only be explained by the mysterious abnormalities of how the human mind works.She is unlike anything Brendan has ever laid eyes upon before.She is not immune to the fears that plague all men. Still, unlike any man Brendan has known before, she seems impervious to the kind of paralysis that confounds all men in the face of their fears.The comparison of the pretty, delicate features contrasts with the surprising strength of tempered ste
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Under the subtly growing attentions of Lord Brendan, Alcina blooms like a sunflower in the sun.She's never had someone treat her like something special, after all.Sure, there had been her brothers. But given their place in her life - as her older brothers, obligated under their relation to love her. Though, she supposes her parents never seemed to feel that same obligation.It had been difficult for her to find any legitimacy in their proclamations of her worth.A child's first and foremost ideation of her worth, after all, stems primarily from her parents; and then from her peer group.Alcina had lost the affections of the former when she turned ten with no Gift to speak of.Alcina rapidly lost her peer group when the former decided that she was to be hidden away in the hopes that out of sight, out of mind would apply to the significant mark of failure on their House.Having, suddenly, the kind of hypothetical gaze that Lord Brenda
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Brendan, who has undoubtedly noticed Alcina’s presence flitting behind him, keeps his eyes trained on the newcomers.“Must you always arrive in such an abrupt manner?” he sighs, and something about the tone relaxes some of the anxiety that had been building in Alcina’s chest.Alpha Percy’s pale lips quirk into a sharp smirk. The Alpha’s face remains as impassive as ever, though his eyes - bright and curious andkeen, like an eagle who’s spotted a bird of prey - remain fixed, for some reason, on Alcina.Alcina feels as though she’s been pinned to the floor she stands by the cat-eyed stare leveled upon her.She shifts, unconsciously, just an inch closer to Brendan. He brings a hand to curl around her hip, a weight that feels comfortingly likesafety.Like an assurance.The Alpha’s eyes, piercing, zoom in on the minute shift.“There is an urgent manner.”A
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“It is alright,” Darla says, with the kind of snappy openness that accompanies an uncharacteristic honesty for someone of their class.“I am a lot to digest’, or so Brendan says.”Brendan.Alcina wonders, not for the first time, if the semblance of normalcy and familiarity she’d been allowing herself to imagine in her head had simply been that: an imagination.Being suddenly confronted with all the bounds of a life she had no knowledge of reminds Alcina with sharp and bitter acrimony of just how little she knows about the lord.“Have you,” Alcina begins, hesitantly - but unable to help herself. “Have you known Brendan long?”Darla stares at her curiously.In Darla’s piercing and sharp gaze, curiosity feels more like being broken down and dissembled than merely inquired after.Alcina fidgets.“Brendan,” Darla drawls as though testing out the nam
Last Updated : 2022-04-12
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A deathly silence descends on the group, with a violent force; not unlike the swooping blade of a guillotine.It is Percy, who seems to regain his composure, first."What do you mean?" his voice is quiet and soft; dangerously so.Alfred rubs tiredly at his forehead with one hand, expression abruptly dripping with exhaustion."Of course, as these are Stella Lockwood's thoughts," Alfred murmurs, slipping unconsciously into the use of the girl's name, as he'd gleaned from her mind.It is difficult, to maintain a detached sense of unfamiliarity, after one has invaded every grueling inch of another's mind."There remains the possibility that it is not the truth of reality, but merely what she has been led to believe." But Alfred sounds as though he doubts his own words, as he speaks them."But as it is..." Alfred takes a shuddering breath, as though buckling under the physical weight of the knowledge. Nordin presses closer. "Cedrick would maintain a kingdom-wide decree, that any child born
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“And how long has she been here?” Brandon asks, just as the others arrive at the cell.He can hear a sharp intake of breath; Alcina.“Oh, a few days, I reckon,” Lincoln shrugs casually, his hand still holding the girl’s neck to the wall in a brutal grip. “I’m afraid I’ve lost count, as I’ve been down here all the while.”For a man like Commander Lincoln, sleep is but a trifling and unnecessary luxury.When a man like Lincoln has a prey set in his sights, he does not need such a thing as sleep.Even for days on end."I caught her trying to slip into your study," Lincoln says. The girl comes to life momentarily, struggling against the grip on her neck, but grows limp when Lincoln simply tightens his hold anew without even batting an eye.“I’d hoped to be able to have a nice, civilized conversation with our friend here,” Lincoln sighs, sounding as though it were nothing more than a matter of some friendly gossip. “Without needing to call you here, but.”“She has not been forthcoming,” Alf
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There is little time for pleasantries, in light of the note.Brandon does not know what could have possessed Lincoln to send such a note, nor are there any details to be gleaned from its contents: a precautionary measure, given how often such notes are wont to be intercepted in travel.Still, he knows that there is very little - almost nothing at all - that the Commander is not entirely equipped to handle on his own, short of the very war coming to their doorsteps, such that he would be forced to call for Brandon's return.Let alone demand him to bring Lord Alfred, as Lincoln had so alluded.It makes Brandon slip seamlessly into the shadows, for even the scant extra moments it would take to travel by foot is a luxury they do not seem to have.* * * * * * * * * *In the end, it is a lean retinue of the Lords and two soldiers from the Heartlands, that are to make their departure for the Western Plains.Given that the Western Plains are directly en route to the Ranges, Percy and Darla wi
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Alcina wakes up alone.It’s enough to startle her, even trapped as she is in that dull haze of the moment in between sleep and consciousness; enough, that she sits up, blearily rubbing one eye. “Brandon?” she calls blindly, voice rising in pitch to come out just the tiniest bit plaintive.Brandon steps out from the ensuite doorway, then, and Alcina turns her head in his direction, still rubbing sleepily at one eye.Brandon has evidently just stepped out of the shower, clad in a black silken robe, tied loosely at the waist and splayed open around his upper body. Alcina, still dazed from sleep, watches the way water droplets continue to drip down from Brandon’s damp locks, trailing down his neck and splattering onto the floor.When her eyes return to Brandon’s face, she finds Brandon wearing a small smirk, dark eyes intent and amused. Brandon raises a slow brow.Had Alcina been more awake, she might have had the presence of mind to be embarrassed at having been caught staring.But at th
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Alcina gasps violently awake.Her hands fly to her neck.But her neck is fine. There are no hands curled around them, like manacles pressing the very life out of her with each squeeze. There is no soldier, eyes wild with the adrenaline rush of a battle, forcing her onto the ground to choke her into an eternal slumber.But there are, Alcina dimly realizes, soldiers.All around her.They seem to be swarming in, from far away, but bringing with them a panicked sense of urgency, all the same.From-Alcina stiffens.The marble floors, the elegant pillars, the limp body of-Elton.She is-Alcina is in Elton’s fortress.The thought of it brings the immediate, surging terror for- Brandon-!Alcina whirls around, nearly stumbling with the force of it. And then she sees him.Brandon, here this time, strapped to the pillar behind him with massive, heavy iron chains. Brandon, pale and gaunt and dripping crimson, everywhere-“Brandon!” the cry tears itself out of Alcina’s throat, a wild and devasta
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“You would wage a war, For my daughter?”Brandon’s gaze flickers up to meet Duches's eyes, wretchedly amused.“Madame,” he laughs, low and dark, and in it, she hears something ruinous.This man, she realizes then, is one who would wage not one war, but thousands of wars, all in the name of devotion to her daughter.“I would do far more than fight a war, for your daughter,” he says, condescension laced into every word, lips parting to reveal a cold and predatory, calamitous facsimile of a grin. “and I would win it.”And as the Duchess stares into Lord Brandon’s face, she discovers, that there is something frightening like no other nightmare in the world could replicate, in a devotion like this. An ardent, zealous, terrifying brand of devotion, one that is more befitting of a creature they call the Shadowed Beast than a man.For better, or for worse.The man - the monster - to whom she had bartered off her own daughter, with thoughts of a hundred and thirty thousand lives, and hundreds
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Nordin, after all, had been Alfred’s closest friend all throughout their childhood and had been there when Alfred underwent his own grueling training with the Duchess.He had been the one person whom Alfred allowed to see all those cracked and broken parts of himself and had been the person who had mended Alfred and made him whole each time.Nordin has had to put one Clair back together and does not fancy having to pick up the pieces of another one after all this time.Years ago, when Nordin had only been thirteen and Alfred eleven, and Nordin had had to put the broken pieces of Alfred back together after his mother’s training--Thirteen-year-old Nordin had looked at Alfred, then, wearing a soft and kind smile despite the pain that had been wrought upon him by virtue of a terrible and harsh world--And that is the moment when Nordin had decided that he would become strong enough to ensure no man would be able to hurt Alfred again.That for Alfred- the boy who spoke of those mysteries
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In the morning, Alcina wakes earlier than her husband.It is not often she gets to experience such a luxury, given that Brandon is the early riser between the two of them. But occasionally, on mornings like this, Alcina has the privilege of waking before Brandon, and looking over to see her husband’s face smoothed with slumber.Alcina had never thought she’d grow to adore another’s features the way she has Brandon’s.It is an endless fascination for him, one that she could spend hours tracing the lines and dips and curves of, without end. Even now, Alcina turns and shuffles a little closer, pillowing her head on one arm while her other reaches up of its own accord, fingers reaching out to-She stills.Her fingers, still outstretched towards the slope of Brandon’s nose, hover uncertainly in mid-air. They twitch, before she brings her hand back to tuck tightly against her own chest, biting her lip.Alcina stares at Brandon, now, the man who had fearlessly and lovingly grasped the very h
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When Alcina manages to trudge her way to her room in the palace, she has hardly made it past the doorway when Brandon is instantly at her side.Brandon grips her by the shoulders, expression blank but eyes almost frantic in the way they run over her frame from head to toe, as though cataloging any possible injuries. And then, at last, Brandon lifts a hand to rest gently along Alcina’s cheek.Alcina shudders and sinks into it, sighing. “I half feared the Duchess may have buried you somewhere in the courtyard, and I would have to go digging for my wife,” Brandon drawls, teasing and insouciant but with genuine worry in his eyes when Alcina peers up at him.Alcina manages to muster a scowl, though she loses the energy for it right after.Drained, Alcina allows Brandon to help her change into her silken pajamas and guide her right to bed, where Alcina sinks gratefully into the pillows. “I really ought to shower,” Alcina murmurs uselessly, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I’m quite disgust
