“You... the witch of some lost, meaningless tribe...You really should have died in this Arena. Isn’t this ironic? We are about to set things straight. You’ll finally be dead, as you should have been, and my Brother will go back to being childless.”
Cassandra saw red at those words. The mere thought of that man touching one hair of her baby’s head was enough to turn this gentle woman into the fiercest of warriors. She was never going to step back, as long as she could stand between him and Kassian.
Meanwhile, the dragons kept growling at each other, and Cassandra couldn’t help but glance at them again.
“How could you do such a thing?” she hissed. “To your own sister.”
“My sisters?” he laughed. “Do you know what my sisters are? My sisters are nothing but mistakes. They are useless things, unless they serve me. That’s right, even slaves are more useful than those things you call my sisters.”
“How can you say such things? About your own family.”
“My family? The only woman that ever mattered to me was my mother, and even she was a crazy, crazy bitch. The only thing she did good in her life was keeping me alive. She gave birth to five daughters, and she loathed each. But for me? I was her son. Her only boy, the one she had to protect at all costs to ensure her own survival.”
Cassandra suddenly remembered Shareen’s words. Their mother was a former prostitute. Phetra had gotten furious when Shareen had reminded her of that fact.
The prince kept talking, coming closer and closer to her. He looked like he was strangely calm, or in some sort of trance. He had never been so scary to Cassandra. She wanted to run away, to not be trapped here with him. Yet, she knew she couldn’t. There was no one else left to hold him back from going to the Palace, or to Kassian. Opheus’ dragon was injured, and Cassandra knew he wouldn’t be able to match up to his older brother. He had to take care of Lephys, first. Kairen and Shareen were still stuck with the Red Dragon, and she hoped Anour was protecting Missandra, Lady Kareen, Kassian, and even the poor Phemera. It felt like the end. Finally, this feud was coming to an end. All the hatred that had stayed concealed was coming out into the open, all the brothers picking sides and fighting each other.
“What was it all worth, all this?” said Cassandra, glancing at the monster dragons. “Your sisters, your children, even your father. You’ve sacrificed everyone, simply to become Emperor?”
The Second Prince laughed.
“To become Emperor? No, I did it to survive! My crazy mother went through hell in order for me to survive! Every single day, I had to see it. She killed servants that tried to harm me. She begged my father for his attention, acting like the whore she was, just in the tiny hope he’d give her another chance to give him a son. My father was the worst of them all. You think I used my sisters? That man used my mother as a pawn, a mere toy between him and his favorite woman.”
Cassandra frowned. She had mentioned it... Lady Kareen had talked about something like this. How the Emperor got closer to other women, even got engaged to them to try and get her attention. Cassandra had never thought twice about that.
“She was nothing but a toy he would toss aside whenever he could. My mother was constantly begging, dying for a second of attention, making herself the most pitiable woman. She cried more than any woman can cry, she screamed, she begged endlessly. She was such an annoying thing to see. She was a crazy, crazy bitch... A useless bitch.”
Cassandra was shocked. She had never thought being a concubine was easy. She knew how hard some of them fought to get the Emperor’s attention. How some killed and got killed. Cassandra was well aware of how lucky she had been, in this nest of snakes, and she had always kept in mind those women were mostly fighting for their survival. She had never thought about how one woman could actually lose her sanity over this... Lose herself.
“Can you believe, she was actually stupid enough to love that man you call my father? She believed his lies, she was ready to do anything for him. She taught me one thing, and one thing only. Survival. I had to survive, I had to become his only son. I had to become the Emperor, and she’d do anything for me. My mother dirtied her hands more than anyone, and she taught me everything I needed to know. It was quite fun, sometimes. When she wasn’t completely crazy, she wasn’t totally dumb!”
Cassandra wanted to vomit at each sentence he said. Deep in her heart, she understood. How a woman could have lost herself in her attempt to get the Emperor all to herself. How she could have become absolutely insane with jealousy and paranoia... and took her children down with her.
Vrehan wasn’t born a monster, he had been purely created by his mother’s madness. She could hear it in his voice. He wasn’t crazy. He was just a child born out of resentment and hatred.
“It was so easy, once you understand the rules of the Palace, you know. It was a game for me. Kill, but don’t get caught. My mother let me kill the servants that displeased me, or she’d do it herself. She hated my sisters so much. She killed two of them, and the others quickly understood if they weren’t useful to me, they might as well be dead, too.”
Their mother had killed...her own daughters?
“It was such fun. If I ordered it, my sisters killed anyone. I was already the Emperor of my own Palace, and they were my servants. Phetra was the smartest one. She always did whatever I asked, so I kept her around. She even ordered the others, understanding what I wanted before I even knew myself that I wanted it. It was fun, seeing them thrive, just to keep me satisfied.”
Vrehan looked at the two horrors next to him, suddenly frowning.
“I thought I’d be father’s favorite in no time. Sephir was going to die anyway, and the others were meaningless idiots. I had forgotten about Kairen.”
Cassandra suddenly realized. Lady Kareen had kept her children away from the Imperial Palace to keep them safe. After what had happened to her oldest children, and to the young Kairen, it was a wise decision. It meant they had mostly grown away from their siblings... out of Vrehan’s sight.
The Second Prince’s eyes got darker, reliving some memories he obviously didn’t appreciate.
“I knew the one woman my mother hated most was Kareen. The one woman my father truly loved. My mother killed her eldest, but she killed my mother as revenge. I was... at a loss. I couldn’t understand why that woman couldn’t be killed, like she had done to my mother, killing her so openly. Plus, if that wasn’t enough, that bitch still had managed to have more children, and another Son! That was the one woman I couldn’t get to kill. If our Father discovered I killed one of Kareen’s, I knew I would die. It was the one game I couldn’t play without risking my own life.”
So the Emperor’s love for Kareen had saved them, buying them some time after all. After Vrehan’s Mother’s death, the young murderer had understood he couldn’t kill his siblings and get away with it. Shareen and Kairen were protected, more so than their other siblings. Cassandra couldn’t even begin to understand what monstrosities had taken place behind closed doors at that time. The monsters their Mothers had created, all for their survival or greed... for one man.
Suddenly, Vrehan shook his head.
“So, I finally understood. I had to find a way to be better than him. To have the strongest dragon, the most children. I needed to be the best Prince. The one my father would have no choice but to choose!”
Cassandra was torn. Between disgust, horror, and... compassion. A part of her was hearing Vrehan’s story and seeing it through her own eyes. Once pulled into the Dragon Empire, she had always thought there was something wrong with it. She had thought even more so when she had met Kairen, his mother, and heard their story. This Imperial Palace was the scariest place in the Empire. Filled with beautiful women, treasures, all the food and gold one could want, and endless rivers of blood. This kind of place wasn’t an environment for children to grow up safely. It was a place for them to kill or be killed.
