Chapter 23: The Dragon’s Tantrum

"My King," the woman purred, her voice dripping with what she clearly thought was seductive honey.

Drystan, Ruler of the Dragon Faction and undeniably the most magnificent creature to ever walk the Zyleria continent, was currently staring at his own reflection in the polished silver mirror across the bed. He was admiring the way the morning sunlight caught his jawline.

Honestly, it was a tragedy that he wasn’t a woman. He would have married himself in a heartbeat.

Beneath him, the concubine, a copper-scaled beauty named Lyra, or maybe Lira, he genuinely couldn’t remember and didn’t care, arched her back, trying to grind her hips against his. She was beautiful. Flawless skin, full lips, eyes that looked at him like he was a god.

But she was sweating. And her elbow had just accidentally knocked over his expensive bottle of imported rosewater.

Drystan’s jaw snapped shut, a feral growl tearing from his chest and rattling the bed beneath them.

"My King?" she whimpered, freezing in place. "Are you... is something wrong?"

"You’re breathing too loudly," Drystan snapped, not even looking away from his reflection as he brushed a white lock of hair out of his eyes. "And you’re ruining the furs. Do you know how much these pelts cost? Get off me. You’re ruining my morning."

Lira blinked, her emerald eyes widening in panic. "B-But My King, I was just trying to—"

"I said get off," he hissed, his eyes flashing with irritation. "I’m bored. You’re boring. Your technique is mediocre, and you smell like cheap lavender."

Before the poor woman could even process the cruelty of his words, a sound echoed through the lavish bedchamber.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Drystan’s head snapped toward the door. The ambient temperature in the room instantly spiked by ten degrees, and the silk sheets beneath them began to smoke slightly at the edges.

"WHAT IS IT?!" Drystan roared, his voice so loud and laced with draconic magic that the crystal chandelier above them chimed violently. "If whoever is on the other side of that door values their internal organs, they will explain this interruption right now!"

"M-My King!" a muffled, terrified voice squeaked from the hallway. "Please! Forgive the intrusion, Your Majesty! It is Daemon, from the intelligence vanguard! I have urgent news from our spy in the Empire!"

Drystan squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. He hated mornings. He hated being interrupted. And he absolutely despised his spies for lacking the basic decency to wait until he was fully dressed and had eaten his breakfast.

"Make it quick, Daemon!" Drystan snarled, throwing the silk sheets off his legs. "If you have wasted my time with trivial border disputes, I will roast you and feed you to the baby wyverns!"

The door creaked open just a fraction. Daemon poked his head in, took one look at the Dragon King’s murderous, glowing eyes, and swallowed hard.

"N-no, My King! It’s not the borders! It’s... it’s about the Empress. Karina."

Drystan paused, one leg out of the bed. He let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. "What about her? Did she finally starve herself to death? Did she trip over her own pathetic tears and drown in the imperial fountain? Do tell, I need a good laugh."

Daemon flinched, gripping the doorframe. "N-no, My King. She... she left the capital. Our spy confirmed it at dawn. The Empress has followed King Leonidas to.....to his kingdom. Shadow’s Edge."

Silence.

Deafening silence descended upon the bedchamber.

Lira blinked, looking between the frozen Dragon King and the trembling messenger.

Drystan’s brain simply stopped working. The gears in his head ground to a halt, sparked, and caught fire. He stared at Daemon, his jaw slowly unhinging.

"WHAT???????????????"

The force of his bellow blew the doors completely off their hinges. They crashed into the hallway outside, splintering into pieces.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE FOLLOWED HIM?!" Drystan shrieked. He scrambled out of bed, completely naked, his chest heaving, his eyes blazing like literal furnaces. "BUT THEY AGREED TO AN ANNULMENT! WE ALL AGREED! LEONIDAS SAID HE WAS HANDLING IT! WHY IS SHE GOING TO SHADOW’S EDGE?!"

"M-My King, the spy reported that they left three days ago," Daemon stammered, pressing himself flat against the wall. "In the same carriage. With the Panther Prince."

Drystan felt a vein in his forehead throb so violently he thought his skull might crack open.

Karina?

That Karina?

The weak, simpering, spineless little doormat who used to cry if he so much as looked in her general direction? The pathetic, clingy, utterly useless waste of royal oxygen who had the audacity to breathe the same air as him?

"She doesn’t have the spine for this!" Drystan exploded, pacing furiously around the room, his bare feet slapping against the marble floor. "She doesn’t have a brain! She doesn’t have a single independent thought in her head! She’s supposed to be rotting in the imperial gardens, weeping into her silk pillows, begging Leonidas to look at her! She is weak! She is pathetic! She is a leech!"

He grabbed a solid gold goblet from the nightstand and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the stone wall with a satisfying crash.

"Why is she going to his kingdom?!" Drystan ranted, his hands pulling at his hair. "What is she playing at? Is this a trick? Is she trying to manipulate him? No, she’s too stupid for manipulation! She probably just tripped and fell into the carriage! Leonidas probably dragged her there out of pity! Or boredom! Or maybe he just wanted someone to polish his boots!"

"My King, perhaps—" Lira started, sitting up on the bed and attempting to reach out a soothing, copper-scaled hand toward him. "Perhaps she just went to beg him to stay. You know how desperate she is for—"

"SHUT UP!" Drystan whipped around, glaring at her with such intense hatred that Lira instantly recoiled, pulling the sheets up to her chin.

The divine, flawless morning he had planned was now tainted by the very mention of that pathetic, weak, annoying little Empress. Just thinking about her simpering voice and her tear-stained face made his stomach churn with disgust.

He despised her. He despised her weakness. He despised that the late Emperor had forced him, a magnificent, powerful Dragon King, to be shackled to a woman who couldn’t even hold her head up without someone holding it for her.

"Get out," Drystan hissed.

Lira blinked, her eyes welling with tears. "M-My King?"

"GET OUT!" he roared, a puff of actual smoke billowing from his nostrils. "Get your clothes, get your pathetic, useless body, and get out of my sight before I turn you to ash! GET OUT!"

Lira didn’t need to be told twice. She scrambled out of the bed, grabbing her discarded silks and practically tripping over herself as she fled the room, sobbing quietly into her hands.

Drystan didn’t even watch her go. He was too busy hyperventilating, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he stared at the shattered gold goblet on the floor.

Shadow’s Edge.

Leonidas had kept her. That arrogant, overgrown feline had lied to them all. He had changed his mind and kept the Empress.

An insidiuous smile spread across Drystan’s face.

"Guess I’ll have to pay them a visit."