Chapter 583: The World Before

Angela’s teacup slipped from her fingers.

CLINK!

It hit the saucer loudly, tea sloshing over the rim and pooling on the polished wood of the table, yet she didn’t notice. Her violet eyes had gone wide and glassy. The color had drained from her face, leaving her looking like a ghost in her own skin.

She was there when Cecilia had her breakdown over this exact thi—

Beside her, Damon’s reaction was more subtle but no less profound. Now his face was carved from marble. Completely pale. His jaw was set so hard it looked like it might crack, and he didn’t speak.

The Dragon Lord. The remains of a god. Forged into a weapon.

This was the first time Damon heard any of this.

Arkai wasn’t much different. His arm had gone rigid around Cecilia’s shoulders. His face had gone slack with shock, and his dark eyes were fixed on Ruby, but they weren’t seeing her.

In the wolf’s eyes, something akin to despair bloomed forth.

But the most shocked in this room, of course, was Roarke. The very man himself.

His face had gone completely blank. It felt like his entire world had just been upended, his understanding of himself had been shattered into a thousand pieces.

What—

His eyes darted to the back of the head of Ruby, and then flickered toward the Luna.

No. More importantly, wasn’t the Luna the divine white dragon herself?!

And this damned Saintess was saying that six years from now, Roarke would desecrate the remains of the Dragon Lord? Someone who was surely related to the Luna?!

Roarke felt blood rising to his head. He had poured so much effort trying to prove himself to the Luna, showing her that he could be trusted, that he was more than just the monster the world and herself once thought he was.

He had given everything to be worthy of her regard.

And now Ruby was telling them all that in six years, he would become the thing the world most despised. A heretic. A desecrator, a man who would take the remains of a god and twist them into a weapon of destruction?

Roarke silently extended his claws.

They slid out from the tip of his fingers, gleaming in the daylight. His breath came in short, controlled bursts, the only outward sign of the storm raging inside him.

To be called a heretic was one thing. He had been silently shocked for a while now. But to be accused of something he would never, ever do, on top of that, right in front of the woman he wanted approval from, who was a dragon herself?

No matter what, Roarke wanted to rip Ruby apart before she stepped out of this room.

He could see it so clearly. His claws across her throat. Her eyes going wide with surprise, then fear, then nothing.

It would be so easy.

Because what if this became an official prophecy?

If Ruby’s words were recorded, if they became part of the official record, they would have power. People would believe them. People would act on them.

And Roarke would be branded a heretic and a graverobber before he ever had a chance to prove otherwise.

Roarke’s eyes found Cecilia’s.

She was looking at him from behind the veil. He could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands had curled into fists on her lap.

He didn’t know what she saw in his eyes. Desperation? Fury? Fear? All of it, probably. All of it and more.

But then, suddenly, Cecilia spoke the things that had caused the others to turn to her.

"Saintess," she called, her voice cutting through the tension. "You dare say all that knowing who I am?"

Out of everything Cecilia could say to react, she uttered a warning. But then again, it wasn’t an empty one.

Lady Sees’s name might’ve been synonymous with the Black Wolf King’s Luna. The consort of the most powerful Alpha in the continent and the sovereign of the North. That alone would have been enough to make people tread carefully.

But that wasn’t the only thing she was known for.

She was also known as the Dragon’s Physician.

Ruby’s eyes widened. She had been so focused on the assassin’s threat to her life that she had forgotten.

"I-I.." Ruby stuttered. How could she forget?! This woman was rumored to be a dragon herself for a while now!

Yes, it had never been confirmed. Lady Sees had never acknowledged them. But no one could deny that it was an intriguing theory. Not only the elixir she produced could be said to save people from the mauling jaw of death, she also didn’t quite fit the mold of a normal woman.

Everything about her.

Ruby realized that she was sitting in a room with her, just hastily claiming that the best assassin that could be targeting them would desecrate the remains of a dragon lord.

Her King, if the rumors were true.

"I-I’m just telling you what I know about him... Just like you said!" Ruby protested at last, her voice rising in desperation. "I truly am telling the truth now. You’re right, what if he hurts someone else? But this knowledge is something bestowed to me by the gods!"

She clutched at the last shred of her defense, the one thing that had always protected her. The gods. She was the Saintess. She was their mouthpiece. No one could question that, could they?

Cecilia suddenly stood up.

Even Angela and Damon were startled from her move, worry burned their eyes like flickering coal. Even though they didn’t see shock in Cecilia, how painful must it be?

But even now, she still took a closer step for the sake of the world.

One step. Then another. Her heels clicked against the marble floor demurely before stopping in front of Ruby.

"For now on, Saintess," Cecilia said, facing Ruby, "you will write down everything you see about the Dragon Lord and report it to me."

Ruby, knowing that she already blurted out something she shouldn’t have, didn’t have a choice. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for an escape, a distraction, a miracle. She found none.

Damon was watching her with cold, unblinking eyes. Angela had recovered from her shock and was now studying her intensely, making Ruby’s skin crawl. Arkai was still as a statue, his dark gaze promising retribution if she so much as blinked wrong.

And Cecilia was right in front of her.

Ruby realized that the rumors must’ve been true now. This woman must’ve been a dragon herself.

Ruby’s heart, already racing, threatened to pound its way out of her chest. The temperature in the room seemed to drop, the shadows in the corners growing longer and darker.

Now, terror filled Ruby’s eyes.

Even in her previous life, never had she glimpsed a dragon’s robe’s hem, let alone the dragon themselves. They were myths, stories told to children to scare them into obedience.

But now, she was sitting right in front of one?

But why—

Why must it be this woman?!

This infuriating, eerily annoying woman!

Ruby’s fear curdled into something that was almost like hatred. Of all the people in the world, why did it have to be Cecilia?

Now, she couldn’t even be upset about her without feeling this primal fear only a dragon could inspire. But there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

Cecilia turned to Damon. Now, in the room, only the two of them were on their feet.

"I know this one is your Empire’s Saintess. But upon the oath of the founder and that era’s Dragon Lord, you should still allow the dragons to know everything about this matter, right?"

Damon didn’t think it was something that would ever come out of Cecilia’s mouth. To him, she was still his sister’s best friend, and their beloved Saintess.

To them, she was still the woman who had guided them, protected them, saved them from their own worst impulses. This, meanwhile...

Her presence was of a true divine being, similar to Dragons.

Could it be... there’s a secret magic out there that could transform a normal human to a dragon?

Damon too never had a hand in this room in the first place. He inclined his head. "The oath stands," he said quietly. "The dragons should know."

Cecilia nodded once, then turned back to Ruby.

Contrary to what people expected of her reaction, Cecilia was actually the most calm in the room.

There was no tremble in her hands. No crack in her voice.

How?

That was the thing about Cecilia. Because beyond anger, right now, at last, she completely grasped what kind of world Ruby came from.

In her mind was one thing.

’So that’s what happened after Arkai supposedly died in the volcano.’

The realization settled into Cecilia’s bones like frost creeping into stone.

Because in the end, if he was alive... nothing like that would happen.