Julie was in the middle of eating breakfast when she heard about the incident.
"The dragon suddenly appeared in the Mcrose mansion last night?", she asked bewildered.
That.....sure was a big change from the original storyline... wasn't it?
"Not only that. Apparently young Lady Mcrose has been hurt. They say she fell down the staircase at night, during the time of the dragon's arrival", her father explained reading the piece of newspaper report.
The two incidents seemed oddly suspicious. According to the storyline, the dragon and the blood witch arrived only a day before the Annual Ceremony. Julie decided to visit Lily in person and figure things out.
"Oh and Julie dear", her mother called out as she stood up from the breakfast table in a hurry.
"Yes mum?"
"You didn't thank Sir Reeland yesterday for lending his book"
Reynolds was here yesterday?
Ah that must be how the Silver book ended up in her bedroom table. It had a clear account of details on sand prisons and physical maps of where they could be located.
Julie nodded suddenly feeling weird.
There was a dull ache from both her temples.
She realised that she had no memory of the encounter with Reeland.
That was impossible... How could she forget meeting him so quickly?
Maybe he just brought the book and left without showing his face. Yeah that must be it.
She sure had been in the library yesterday but she had been all alone.
Julie suddenly caught Lady Emore looking at her with a fierce expression.
"Did you need anything mum?"
Lady Emore smiled. "No dear. Go on"
**************************************
Canien sat in between a bored looking dragon and his sister who looked like she wanted to reach over the table and strangle it. Clearly it wasn't a happy evening.
The dragon had arrived late last night 3 am approx and apparently only Lily had seen it arrive. Not to mention how a blood covered dragon had knocked on his door in the middle of the night holding his sister in his arms, who also by the way was covered in blood.
Caine suspected it must be because of his memories as 'Canien' but he remembered that he had wanted to strangle the dragon at that moment.
Which was an ultimately stupid decision considering that the dragon was twice as tall and bulky as he was.
Later he came to know that the blood was from some random cattle Reirs had picked up on his way here.
He had felt stupid wondering whether he had developed some sort of a sister complex. The rage he had felt then was something hard to describe. Then there also the matter where he immediately punched the dragon and grabbed his sister in a jiffy closing the door on him.
That also was a very very stupid move.
After much pleading and talking and threatening the three of them had managed to arrive at a peaceful situation sitting outside the sun kissed gardens in his Mansion.
Lily as he saw, was still angry at the dragon. She seemed even more mad often touching her forehead where a sharp cut had been covered with bandages.
The doctor said that it wouldn't scar. What was she still whining about?
"Have you informed the Emperor yet?", the dragon asked breaking his silence.
Canien glanced at his golden jewelled eyes.
"You hurt my sister the moment you arrived. Pretty sure the whole country knows by now"
The dragon grimaced. He put both his hands on either side of his temple. His action seemed oddly like something Rex would do and Canien found himself reaching over and swatting his hand away.
"Listen....you two", he murmured leaning back again. His face showed zero look of worry. If Canien had thought that the dragon was worried about his appearance then he might have been wrong.
This man sitting in front of him didn't care about anything in this world.
"I came here early to find a woman. A woman who saw the prophecy"
"Are talking about Lady Julianna?", Lily asked curiously.
"Yes the one with those weird eyes", he murmured tapping his fingers on the table. He leaned over the table suddenly his blond hair spilling over the table.
"Where does she live?"
Lily looked at him with a disgusted expression. If she had any fear against the dragon it had soon evaporated after waking up from yesterday.
"Why do you want to threaten her in the middle of the night too?"
The dragon smirked at her comment. "Still bothered about it, are we. We've talked it over haven't we Lillian?", he asked leaning a bit over towards Lily.
Canien did not like the way he talked
to his sister.
He pulled back Lily's chair a bit away from the dragon's side. "What business do you have with Lady Julianna? As far as I'm concerned, you haven't even met the emperor yet. You should see him before doing anything."
The dragon tsked loudly and suddenly brought out both his legs on the table with a bang.
'Stupid nobles', he heard him mutter under his breath.
Canien looked at him with a numb expression.
"Explain to me why you folk are abandoning the Annual Ceremony", he commanded.
"There's going to be an attack on the nobility", Canien replied flatly.
"Oh?", the dragon asked raising an eyebrow.
"Of course who would want to harm the Emperor's jewels?"
"Shut up", Lily whispered under her breath.
The dragon shot her a look that said 'I'll deal with you later' and continued. "Who's attacking?"
"We don't clearly know. She said it's a sandstorm"
"Did the head Bishop look into this?"
"He did. Apparently he couldn't see what happens during the ceremony. None of the priests nor visitors could."
"Huh. And this woman is the only one who can see the ceremony?", the dragon asked using more fingers to rap on the table.
Canien hesitated. Julie could probably see the vision as she came from another world and had an idea about what was to happen. The same thing could happen to him and Reynolds too. She had in fact forbade them to visit the temple after her vision was declared public.
"Yes. She's the only one", Canien answered.
The dragon clicked his tongue loudly. "She's a saint?"
"N-No"
"Is her family religious?"
"I don't know"
"Are they mages?", he asked again.
"They are responsible for keeping the phoenix hidden under their underground maze....but no, I don't think so", he muttered hoping to be as vague as possible.
"Ahh the maze owners. They're an old family but I haven't heard of any mage lineage among them..", the dragon muttered to himself. "Does this woman have a twin? If she's a twin, there's a possibility that she possesses magic"
"No."
"Then...", he said standing up suddenly. His liquid golden eyes seemed to look down on Canien. "How is a normal woman from a normal noble family with no religious or magical influence able to see visions like that?"
Canien shrugged.
The dragon growled slowly disappointed by his response. Canien sort of felt happy ticking him off.
But his happiness was short lived.
"Oh by the way, I'll be taking your sister with me when you leave", he said pulling Lily to her feet from her chair.
Lily chocked on her tea. The teacup in her hand rattled.
"Excuse me?", Canien asked feeling the anger resurface again.
"Your sister seems to be immune to my dragon's flute", he said gently taking the teacup from Lily. She started at him with an open mouth.
"So? That doesn't mean you can kidnapp my sister, You beast-
"You don't seem to have the power within you, seeing how you were sleeping like a baby yesterday", he continued pulling a strand of Lily's hair.
Canien's mind exploded. He was going to kill this bastard-
Lily's hair strand suddenly began to glow under his finger.
"See that? That's power right there", he said placing the glowing red hair strand on the backside of Canien's palm.
"Whatever. If she's a mage then I'll send her to a mage school.", he said pulling Lily towards him.
"Umm can I say something?", Lily asked but was cut off by the dragon again.
"I don't think you seem to understand the situation. This girl is immune to my dragon's flute. If she were to become a mage she would be a potential threat to me. Rather then sending her to Saule I'll rather train her power under my own reign."
"I have absolutely no intention in letting her leave this place", Canien said loudly standing his ground.
The dragon's eyes darkened. "Then you leave me no choice"
The atmosphere around the table darkened. Canien could see those golden eyes gleaming, ready to attack-
"Uncle Reirs!", someone called from the end of the garden.
Canien craned his neck and found a wisp of blond hair approaching the garden.
Canien's eyes widened. The emperor had said that he would send someone to pick up the dragon today. He was more surprised to see the crown prince come by himself.
Reirs's head turned quickly at the sound of the voice and he suddenly disappeared from their table and moved towards the sound. He suddenly appeared in front of the crown prince and put his hand on the Prince's shoulder hugging him tightly.
Lily sat down in her chair muttering a string of curses.
"You listen to me carefully Lily.", he said sitting on one knee so that they were face to face. "You are not leaving this place"
Lily raised an eyebrow. "I think I'm more surprised that you suddenly want me to stay. For the past few days you've been acting like you would want to avoid me. I thought you would agree with him"
"Stupid", he muttered messing up her hair. "You're my only family here. Why would I want to get rid of you?"
**************************************
Julie was sad to hear that the dragon had left.
She had arrived at the Mcrose mansion a week late as the crown prince's procession had arrived at her mansion to get things ready for checked for his stay there.
The thought of living next door to the crown prince made her skin itch and she was forced to move out of her room as the prince had taken the entire southern wing as his residence.
He was not going to stay there immediately and Julie could feel that it was his way of mocking her. He was avoiding the whole moving business on purpose and his staff seemed rather slow at setting up things.
Frustrated, Julie had sent over some of her own staff to get things done quickly. But even after working a whole day they had only managed to get a quarter of work done.
Tired of meddling she decided to set up her new room instead. It was quite smaller than her older room and had a tall balcony with long transparent curtains that billowed in the wind. It faced the garden where she and Canien and Lily had sat earlier, scheming.
The bed was moved here and so was her dresser and wardrobe. Just then she noticed that they had forgotten her silver book on dungeons. She asked a maid nearby and she explained that it was still in her own room.
"I'll fetch it for you my lady"
"No wait here. I want to see my room for one last time"
Her room was being converted into a storage chamber. As if that wasn't insulting enough Kale had decided to stuff the room with ornaments and presents that were brought for him as gifts from foreigners.
She made her way back to her room and found that it was filled with boxes and stuff wrapped in expensive wrapping paper.
The sight hurt her eyes so she quickly looked for her silver book and found it on her candle stand attached to the wall.
She frowned noticing it there and took a few steps towards the candle stand when her heels suddenly rapped against the floor.
Julie's breath paused. She looked down and tapped the floor again.
It made that sound again. The sound of hollow wood beneath the floor.
Frowning again she made a mental note to ask the builders to take a look at it later and took her book from the stand when she suddenly noticed the engraving on its wax coating.
The letters looked like they were written by a sharp tool and it was crooked and kind of pointy here and there.
It was hard to make out the words but she was sure that they were written in Ancient language.
Her heart pacing, she ran a hand over the letters reading what it meant.
"T...he Ma...make? No wait the k looks like a z..... The Maze!?", she whispered out aloud.
Ahh....the Emore family maze? That's it?
She sat down on a box nearby wondering why anyone would go through any extend to write about the maze holding the phoenix underground.
But then, something suddenly came to her mind. A memory of something....
She touched the candle stand, running her fingers over the candle stand once again and gasped when one of the letters sunk under her touch.
There was a loud click in the air as a drawer suddenly opened from underneath the stand scaring the life out of Julie.
She peered in and found a jewel fastened key and a small note inside. The key was decorated in golden streaks and a deep blue jewel attached at its end. Her fingers traced over the key mesmerized when her eyes suddenly caught the words on the note.
She slowly read the note her stomach coiling as a bitter taste suddenly appeared in her mouth.
"𝘋𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘴, 𝘑𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘦. 𝘔𝘶𝘮 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘳𝘶𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮"