The Dragon's Kiss

In the days that followed, things slowed down significantly.

Thanks to Lucy's insistence, Kel's meeting with the emperor had been pushed back by a week and she'd been given free access to roam around the palace.

"I had no idea Lucy held this much sway," Kel commented to the maid guiding her through the main palace.

"I believe it was the general consensus of the west building that moved His Majesty's will," the maid replied.

"Wait, you mean, everyone..?" Kel trailed off.

The maid smiled. "You've worked hard, Princess."

.

Before long, they reached their destination, and the maid gave Kel a courteous farewell. Kel watched her go before eagerly pushing through the doors into the room she'd been led to.

The library.

Unsurprisingly, the rows of carefully stacked books lining the walls were shabby compared to Mevani's grand library. The empire certainly had the longest history out of all the nations on the continent, but those centuries had been marked with upheavals and coups. Books, no matter how carefully preserved by the old ruler, were nonexempt from the new ruler's purge.

Kel was curious to see which books had escaped the Dragon Emperor's censorship. Considering the other measures he'd taken to wipe out all traces of his predecessors, she didn't expect to find many history books.

"Hmm." After searching through countless books and scrolls, Kel finally came across something interesting.

It was a scroll, ancient-looking and singed around the edges. Some parts were too damaged to read. It looked as if it'd been desperately grabbed out of a burning stack long ago.

"For the Dragon Emperor to keep something that another emperor had deemed controversial…" Kel wondered aloud, gingerly lifting the delicate paper from its shelf.

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"Either someone risked their life to save this," she pondered, gently cradling the scroll in her palms, "or someone changed their mind at the last minute."

"It was the first case you mentioned," a voice responded to Kel's musing.

Looking up, she saw a middle-aged woman peeking at her over the low shelf she was standing in front of.

"Oh, hello there," Kel greeted the woman.

"Nice to meet you, Princess," the woman replied, dipping her head. "My name is Lila. I take care of this library."

"It's nice to meet you," Kel returned. "You said that someone risked their life for this scroll?"

"That's correct," Lila nodded. "It was my mother."

"Your mother?" Kel gasped.

"My family has been charged with keeping this library for generations," the woman continued. "We've seen many things over the years and served many emperors."

"It must have been difficult to see so much destruction," Kel responded sympathetically.

"Indeed," Lila smiled bitterly. "Most of the time, it was futile to even think about saving any books. But in some cases…"

Kel followed Lila's gaze to the scroll in her hands.

"What made this different from everything else?" Kel queried, tilting her head.

Instead of answering, Lila pointed to a set of wooden chairs nearby. "Why don't we sit down?"

For the next several minutes, Lila told Kel the story of the scroll.

By the order of the emperor two generations ago, it had been tossed into a fierce blaze along with several other valuable historical records.

Lila's mother, Karina, had dived into the fire to rescue the scroll after distracting the soldiers with a flurry of yellow flowers.

"I suppose those flowers have become a sort of symbol now," Lila mused, rubbing her chin.

Kel hesitated, torn between fear and curiosity.

"Were those flowers called marguerites, by chance?" she finally caved.

"That's right," Lila smiled. "Yellow marguerites."

Had that been the origin of the Yellow Marguerite then? Kel wondered. Why was it that this woman was the only person she'd met so far who said the name with such casualness?

Kel was dying to know more about Lila and her mother. It might be her only chance to learn the truth behind the unmentionable organization.

"So," she probed, "what happened to your mother after that?"

"Fortunately, she wasn't caught," Lila explained. "She delivered the scroll to her brother, who fled the empire in secret."

"If he fled, then how did this end up here?" Kel questioned.

"It was decades later, by the time a new emperor had been enthroned, but he came back," the woman replied. "He passed it off to the Dragon Emperor before he'd even been crowned."

"He was connected with the Dragon Emperor early on then.." Kel speculated.

"Of course, dear!" Lila chuckled. "He was that boy's teacher!"

"No way.." Kel was taken aback by the sudden news. Lila's uncle had been the Dragon Emperor's teacher. So that leather-bound book she'd found before in the mysterious room was… his.

"Ah, back then he was still known as Young Lord Calix," Lila reminisced, "The secret lovechild of the queen that nobody expected would rise up the way he did."

After pausing for another laugh, she added. "I suppose we have my mother's brother to thank for that."

"C-Calix," Kel stuttered, feeling the blood drain from her face. The emperor had lied. That book was written for him after all.

"If you're curious," Lila continued, "why don't you take a look at that scroll. The emperor himself still often comes to study it. Though, he's probably long memorized the contents by now."

With trembling fingers, Kel unrolled the fragile parchment. A three-word phrase immediately caught her eye.

'The Dragon's Gift'

"So this.. This is…" Kel's voice was shaking too much to form a coherent sentence.

"It's the story of the ancient dragon's gift to the first emperor," Lila answered, eyes filling with concern. "Are you alright, dear?"

Kel clenched the scroll in her hands.

The Dragon's Gift.

She recalled the passage in the book written by the emperor's mentor. It talked about the gift and how the first emperor used it to unite the continent.

Did this scroll have the answer to what that gift was, then?

"Can I ask you one more thing?" Kel said quietly.

"What do you want to know?" Lila questioned.

"What was the name of that man? The one who gave the Dragon Emperor this scroll?"

"Oh, that's easy!" Lila smiled.

"His name is Itzae. Well, to me, Uncle Itzae."