"Welcome back Brother, Arrora" Catalie was standing inside the teleportation array room with a smile on her face in front of Don and Arrora.
"Is everyone at the throne hall?"
Before Don teleported back to the castle he asked Catalie to gather everyone at the throne hall and seeing the girl nodding, Don knew Catalie did her job.
"Let's go"
Arrora and Catalie followed Don towards the hall. The moment DOn entered the room he saw Knight sitting on his throne like a king while the army of elves and dwarves trained by him stood before him in lines like soldiers going to war.Amaryll standing beside Knight as Don saw Arya and Benedict standing on the corner aside from the civilian elves and dwarves.
Seeing Don and Arrora walking towards the hall Uncle Dior came running to greet them.
"How was your journey?"
The moment Uncle Dior's voice came out of his mouth all the people looking at Knight turned their heads towards the source of the voice and saw Don and Arrora.
"It was good"
Arrora said as Don nodded at Uncle Dior and walked forward to his throne. The elves and dwarves line was standing in his way however when they saw DOn coming they made space for Don by moving side by side like soldiers making way for their commander. Don was surprised to see the way they were acting but when he saw the proud grin on Knight's face he knew it was all his devilish works in the name of training.
"Me King"
"My lord"
Stodemar, Dhursir, and Gael stood in front of the line as they came forward and bowed their heads towards Don and greeted him. Don gave them a nod and walked the stairs to reach his throne which was now occupied by Knight.
"I was just getting used to the throne"
Knight jumped from the throne with a smirk on his face, while Arrora was following DOn to stand beside him she saw Amaryll coming towards her with hands spread out but before Arrora could do anything she was hugged by the elf.
Arwen cleared his throat when he saw the way his sister was acting and Amaryll let go of Arrora when she heard Arwen.
"Don"
"Amaryll"
After leaving Arrora, Amaryll said Don's name and nodded towards him and he did the same.
"Where's Reghys?"
Don couldn't see the huge Dragon anywhere in the hall so he asked Knight beside him
"She is out there probably flying or hunting in the woods"
"I am here" just when Knight was talking about Reghys to Don, a female voice reverberated the hall as the throne hall door slowly opened but when the door opened fully everyone was shocked including Don and Knight.
The woman walking inside had fiery red, shoulder-length hair clumsily hanging over a strong, lively face. Red eyes matching with her hair, set tightly within their sockets. If Amaryll was a beauty among the younger generation, the woman walking before Don was a middle-aged beauty, people would not think of her as a Dragon until they could see the red wings on her back.
Seeing the woman walking towards him, Don could feel there is something curious about her, perhaps it's a feeling of arrogance or perhaps it's simply her aura of a Dragon. Nonetheless, she stood taller and had a noble look to her.
"Guardian"
The dwarves knelt on their knees with their heads bowing down when they saw the woman, she let out a small laugh and gestured to them to get on their feet.
"Did you think I've always stayed in my true form"
The woman leaped towards Don and landed beside him and Knight
"Reghys"
Knight couldn't help but show the stars in his eyes when he saw the human form of the Dragon. He was excited and jealous of seeing Reghys because he always wanted to take human form. Reghys gave a wink facing Knight and looked at Don
Even though Don was surprised to see Reghys's human form he had a more important task to do here so he just nodded at Reghys and took out the mirror from his space ring
"So you bought it huh"
Everyone slightly bent their body forward to get a good view of the hand-sized mirror in Don's hand. Don knew how this mirror works from he saw one before.
Arrora saw Don placing the mirror on his chest and started to feel the vibrations coming from the mirror. When the vibration became more violent Don removed the mirror from his chest as a scroll came outside of the mirror and landed on his hand.
However Don didn't open the scroll, he just tossed it towards Reghys.
"It's better if everyone knew how it works" Don realized many elves and dwarves have no idea about the oath-taker so he decided to let Reghys explain how the mirror works because Dragons were a noble race and many races believed they would not lie or trick simple people.
Reghys obviously knew why Don gave her the scroll so she decided to be the mediator between the oath-taker and the oath giver. Reghys saw the ancient writing on it and closed the scroll after reading it inside her mind.
"So it works like this, the possessor of the oath-taker that is you"
Reghys pointed her fingers at Don while she was talking to the people in the hall
"Needs to swear your oath to the people and then the oath giver needs to step forward to face the mirror then the mirror would accept their oath of loyalty if the oath giver was not under pressure or forced simple as that"
Arrora could see she's not speaking loudly but her voice was magically enhanced to reach everyone clearly
After hearing Reghys Don exhaled a deep breath and looked at everyone standing in the hall before him. Don knew the mirror needed to reflect himself while he was swearing his oath so he threw the mirror up in the air and controlled the air element under the mirror to prevent it from falling.
At the moment his reflection landed on the surface of the mirror, a light beam came out of it and shone on Don like a spotlight
"I, Don the ruler of this realm and the successor of Dragon King Dhorfir Thunderbolt hereby swearing that I will protect my people and provide them the life they desire regardless of their traits, ethnicity or race and vow not to betray their trust in me nor make them do anything against their wishes by force"
Seeing everyone nodding towards him, Don knew they agreed with half of his oath especially the dwarves Stodemar and Dhursir looked very excited and happy
"In return, I require loyalty to me and the kingdom and the citizens of this kingdom secondly I expect secrecy about the existence of this realm for a time being and in the event of someone violating their oath or committing a crime against other races, the citizens of the kingdom or the kingdom itself, they will be punished severely according to the rules of the kingdom"
After a few seconds Don stopped his oath, the light covering him slowly faded away indicating that his part of the oath-taking process had ended.
Seeing Don finishing his oath Reghys snapped her fingers as the mirror rotated and showed its reflective face to the people standing below it.
"Now it's time for oath givers"
As Reghys said Don saw Arwen stepping forward towards the mirror
"I was powerless and a coward who couldn't even save his sister until I met Don he saved me and my people from the worst fate I can't repay that debt beside after we started to follow him our lives became so much better than we used to and we are living without any fear or worry here so yes he deserves what he asks and I chose to put my trust in him"
Many elves shared the same opinion about Don as Arwen and it was obvious their gratitude towards Don had increased after they started to live comfortably in this realm away from the outer lands.
When Arwen finished talking a bright light covered him just as it did before to Don and disappeared within a moment.Just when the light disappeared Arwen felt like something merged with him but the feeling quickly faded away.
Don and Knight was happy to see Arwen think this much about them as they saw little Elrond stepping forward
"I follow you because of the promise you made and you have trained me and given me the power to take care of myself and the people I care about So I, Elrond will repay that debt with my loyalty"
Same as before the light covered Elrond and disappeared.
Following Arwen and Elrond many elves including the elves trained by Don and Knight took the oath without any problems but when some elves who were not part of the training failed the oath as the light never appeared from the mirror and some elves refused to take the oath completely.
It was slightly a surprise and shock to Don but he had expected it so he chose to let go of them for a time being.
"we lived wi'out anything now we have everything beside ye be tha successor o' tha dragon king an' our king an' we dwarves give our complete loyalty ta our king"
Stodemar stepped forward as the first dwarf to take the oath, just like Arwen the light appeared and disappeared despite his simple oath.
Just like the elves most dwarves successfully gave their oath to the mirror as some of them failed or refused to give the oath and just like before Don chose to let go of them.
After seeing everyone completing their oaths Arya and Benedict couldn't stay away as they started to walk towards the mirror under everyone's gaze.
"You two don't need to take the oaths now"
Don knew Benedict might have successfully given his oath because of his passion to study the battle energy even further but Arya would definitely fail because even though she was saved by Arrora from Ronan's group she was still captured by him as a hostage and he did or gave nothing to get their loyalty other than having them work under him. However, he was sure to win their loyalty when the next oath-taking event comes.
Just as Don expected both of them let out a sigh and loosened their body.
"Thank thank you"
Benedict didn't want to mess his chance of studying new types of energy in case he failed the loyalty test of this mirror but seeing Don let them go without doing anything made him relax besides only with powerful people like him and the lion could he take revenge on the people who wronged him in the past.
Seeing Arya and Benedict stepping away from the mirror Arrora knew it's her time to give the oath but before she could take a step forward Reghys stopped her
"You cannot take the oath you and him are already bonded with master-slave bond "
Arrora's eyes went wide in surprise when she heard Reghys, she didn't know how Reghys know about the master-slave bond she shares with Don but realizing Reghys is a dragon she sighed and stepped back
Finally, Don finished a crucial step in his plans and he grabbed the mirror as the mirror turned into a ball of light and entered his chest just like the light merged with him when he killed Minister Bryan. Don could feel the mirror's energy within him and he knew if he wanted he could take it out but now he had other plans.
"Cat open the hall I asked you to seal we have work to do"