The Dragon King’s Substitute Bride
Chapter 102

HERA

I do not know what it is I was expecting when I stepped through those doors.

But it most certainly was not this.

One minute I had been holding unto to him, my fingers wrapped desperately around his as we stepped together through the doors and into the hall of mirrors. And then very next I was all alone in a sea of blinding white light.

The door through which I had come in had disappeared and there was neither up nor down.

Neither left not right.

There was only white.

And for one terrible, incredibly long heartbeat I had felt completely lost.

Lost and alone and so very small.

But then I had blinked and suddenly the space had changed.

Leaving me in the state I am now.

Standing in confusion and wondering why it did not work.

I stare at the heavy door that had been my way in.

I had not seen it reappear.

I had simply closed my eyes for a fraction of a heartbeat and when I opened them again, there it was.

And the longer I stare at the door, the more I arrive at only two logical explanations.

One, that I must have somehow gotten turned around and lost my way.

Or two the hall of mirrors is some made up Fae hogwash trick and that the door does not really take you anywhere.

Midas did say they liked to play games.

Perhaps this is one of them.

Because why else would I suddenly be standing exactly where I had started, in the passage the Fairy queen had led me through and on the wrong side of the door through which I had just come. "Welcome dragon queen!"

"Oh skies above!"

My hand flies to my chest and I turn around heart on my mouth to replace myself face to face with the Fairy Queen Moria and her entourage of council members and elven guards.

A single red lipped smile in a sea of stoic faces.

I focus my attention on her.

"If this is meant to be some sort of jest Fairy queen it is a terrible one."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I am absolutely certain I stepped through that door so why am I back here again...and where is Midas?"

She smiles that smile of hers.

The one she and and her twin sister share and even knowing that it is not Hermani standing before me, I still shudder at the sight.

She floats towards me, reaching out to touch me. "Oh don't you worry your pretty little head about all that. What matters is that you stepped through the door."

I narrow my eyes at her and move my shoulder out of reach.

"Your highness, I mean no disrespect but do you not understand? We have no time for all these petty games and..."

She tsks and there is a glassy shine to her teeth and complexion that I had not noticed before.

"Are you humans always like this?"

"Depends on what you mean."

She moves around me slowly, the large width of her dress brushing against the wall when she passes by me.

"I mean distrustful, suspicious... unbelieving?"

I sigh, deciding to go along with whatever crazy conversation is brewing as long as it means getting the antidote.

"I suppose if you were the weakest, least powerful of all the creatures in the seven realms you would be the same."

She tilts her head, once again in front of me.

"Oh..."

"Oh what?"

"You sound a bit...bitter."

"I am not bitter. I am simply stating the obvious."

"Which is?"

"I do not expect you to understand."

"Please...try me. You think humans deserve to posses magic?"

Maybe it is the persistent, all assuming smirk on her face, maybe it because I do not understand what in all the realms is going on, but for some reason I cannot explain, this entire conversation is getting me angry. Very, very angry.

I glare at her. "If you have had your land ravaged and destroyed, your people slaughtered and killed by other creatures from other realms simply because they were stronger and had more power than you...

if you had to go for days without food, sleeping in the cold and damp while your younger brother nearly freezes to death besides you all because someone who had too much magic and the ability to, decided to raze down everything you ever loved and owned to

the ground, you would not stand there asking me why we are suspicious and mistrustful of all of you and your spells and magic and stupid halls. And you most certainly would not ask me if the people of Averia deserved to have magic to protect themselves." There is a tingling in the back of my neck.

A tiny voice telling me to stop.

Telling me that she is goading me and that I do not truly feel this way.

That this bitterness and rage is not me.

Not anymore.

But I ignore it.

Because the anger fills me with warmth, makes me less afraid.

"So you want magic?"

Somewhere along the line, her entourage had disappeared.

And I am left alone.

Standing in a distorted reflective passage with the Fairy queen who keeps grinning at me.

The odd part is I was facing forward the entire time yet I did not hear or see them leave.

I must have have looked away at some point.

Maybe there is a secret door somewhere that they all went through.

"For our protection yes."

"And for vengeance?"

I swallow, suddenly disliking the glint I can see in her eye.

How did we even get here?

My mouth feels dry and my heart is racing.

"I...I suppose."

"You suppose? Is that not why you are here Hera?"

"What?"

"Oh there is no need to play the fool my dear. I know all about your schemes. Is that not why you agreed to this marriage in the first place? You wanted revenge did you not?"

"Yes but..."

"You wanted to know the weakness of the dragon king, to get close enough to take advantage of it. Isn't that why you are going around pretending you no longer hate him? That you no longer blame him for what he did to you and your family?" She circles me, her voice behind my ears and as she speaks, I shake my head. Over and over again.

But no words seem to want to leave my mouth.

I no longer hate Midas.

There is no room in my heart for that.

Not with all the other things I feel for him.

But what I did not realize was that a tiny part of me, the part that had responded to her goading and her questions with anger and rage...

That Hera who remembers all she had to go through...

The hunger and the pain and the crying myself to sleep after scrubbing floors and washing royal dresses till my hands bled.

She remembers

And she still blames him for it.

I stare at my feet...at my hands... anywhere but at the one accusing me of what I now know to be true.

"You see Hera..."

The Fairy queen moves to stand in front of me again...and that is when for the first time I notice that she looks different. She smiles at me. "I know your secret..."

Her skin glistens and shines, but it does so not like a person made of flesh and bone but like a flat reflective surface.

Like gla*s.

Or like a mirror.

The realization slams into me like a ton of bricks and I gasp.

This was my path.

The path the hall of mirrors had chosen for me.

The path to reveal the one secret I had left.

The Fairy queen in the mirror smiles broadly at me. "You still want vengeance."

"No..."

"Yes. That is why you are staying so faithfully besides the man who hurt you the most. Because you secretly still think that you might replace his weakness...That perhaps the day would come when you might use it." "No. Stop saying those things"

My voice is shaky and there are tears in my eyes but the reflection does not stop.

"The darkness inside of you still wants him dead Hera, still cries for his blood. His life for all the others he took from you. That is why you think you love..."

"No!!!"

The mirror shakes and the reflection within it wavers.

I point my hand at it, chest heaving.

"Don't you dare put words in my mouth and thoughts in my head. You think you know me? Well you know nothing! Nothing at all!!"

I am shouting and shaking but I do not care.

"Yes, he may have hurt me and taken my family away from me and yes maybe it will take me time before that realization no longer causes my chest to hurt or makes it hard to breathe."

I step closer to the mirror. No longer afraid.

"You were right when you said I only agreed to this marriage simply for vengeance. But what I did not expect to replace...what I did not expect to do, was end up replaceing the happiness I had been missing for so long and while I may not have forgiven everything, I no longer want to live my life thinking about revenge."

As I say the words, I realize just how true they are, how much I mean it, how much lighter I feel.

The reflection no longer seems as sharp but she is still there, still smiling at me.

"So you think it will be that easy? You think that you can forget, can just let go of your hate? You would turn your back in your family, the ones you claimed to love, especially knowing that the only reason you were torn apart was because of him."

"You see that is where you're wrong. I do not think it will not be easy at all. But I am willing to try. And you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I love him!"

I step even closer, my breath fogging up the glass.

"You hear that you silly reflection! I love the dragon king more than I have ever loved anything in my life. So you can take your secrets and distortions and shatter into million pieces because I love him and what I feel for him is so much better than whatever guilt and hate and pain you think lies deep inside of me."

A crack.

Then another.

Loud and startlingly.

Beginning from the corners of her smile and spreading out through the entire mirror.

And as I watch, it falls apart.

Watch and laugh as it breaks.

Shattering into tiny fragments of light and dissolving into nothingness until all that is left, is a frame of light.

A doorway.

Without a moment's hesitation, I step through it.

And walk straight into Midas' arms.