IRRATIONAL MEETS ARROGANCE

I am not a queen because I rule, I rule because I am THE QUEEN.

Birthed in my heart. Alive in my veins…

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The idea of hunting was dismissed as he could not trust himself to keep within bounds, and instead, the exhilaration of racing one of his swiftest horses seemed like a better alternative.

It had been a brief while, but that nightmare had returned.

Once he was up, he washed his face and had his hair retired before changing into fitting apparel. But before he could go downstairs, he heard some people clapping and cheering.

He peered from his window and to another groundbreaking discovery, Nadezhda had some fletching arrows strapped behind her back and a bow strung in her hand. Her new chambermaids were a distance away from where she was standing and they were the ones who had been clapping.

She didn’t look like she was shooting for their cheers and applauses and that was evident in her stringent pose and the numerous arrows stuck in the precise mark.

Zorgan was more than impressed. Most soldiers couldn’t deliver arrows that accurately in a frequent sequence.

He watched her release her fingers after some steady seconds and the feathered arrow pierced through another arrow that was stuck at the mark. The chambermaids cheered louder with more rapid slaps of their palms.

He turned from the window and went to get his horse.

As he rode by, Nadezhda switched the direction she was pointing her arrow and aimed at his back. She had always wanted to learn how to accurately land a hit at a moving target and his broad back seemed perfect enough.

Astrid, Aida, and Camille placed a hand on their chests as their minds and thoughts yelled.

Like he could hear her thoughts, Zorgan turned in her direction and shot her a wry wink. She squinted her eyes at his moving frame and a dark unconscious smile swept her lips.

‘He is brave for thinking I wouldn’t do it. Maybe not now Dragon…not now.’

He wrenched at the reins of his horse with a commanding grunt, the trotting horse surged forward.

He ventured for a considerable amount of time.

There were no humans in view and the only moving creatures were rabbits that occasionally hopped out from nowhere and joined in his chase.

The ride chased the representations of his brother’s lifeless body on the cold ground. It partly chased the eternal wrath in his heart at his parents for having appointments the next day after his brother’s death.

It breezily chased the pain he abhorred in his heart at his brother for leaving him behind, for leaving him in such a family. And for placing an irrevocable promise on his shoulder.

He couldn’t even desire death because he felt he would be failing his brother. He was still far from fulfilling his vow.

After a good while of silence, wind, and passing trees, what remained were memories of his brother’s smiles, his brother’s trials, sometimes at imitating training soldiers when he thought no one was watching, and his brother’s last hug.

When he felt better, he raced back to his house, and to his puzzlement, Nadezhda was still firing arrows. The chambermaids were no longer clapping and cheering and the glaring sun was beginning to bite at their backs.

Before he got to where she was, he dismounted from his horse and handed its reins to a guard.

The pain of leaving her mother behind was fresh in her mind and thinking of it felt like a deep injury being poked at. Her hands were now clammy and the mark was now a hole where the feathered arrows now easily passed through, but she just couldn’t bring her mind to stop.

Last night had felt so real…so palpable and she had relieved that moment all over again.

‘Coward! Coward! That’s what you are,’ She kept saying to herself, and it seemed nothing could separate her from the torture loop she had put herself in. She didn’t even realize that the wetness around the rim of her eyes had lost its hold and had rolled down her cheeks.

She twirled the last arrow her finger reached and she fired it harder than she had done the others. But this time, the mark it stopped at wasn’t the one she had been intending.

Zorgan fell backwards.

‘‘Heavens!’’ Nadezhda yelped. He seemed to have materialized unexpectedly before the mark and right before the arrow could fly through.

She discarded her bow and ran up to him.

She fell to his side, her hands on the other part of his chest. The arrow stood erect, the feathered tip flagged and moving slightly with the air. Zorgan’s hand bordered around the sharp end that had supposedly eaten into his skin.

‘‘Zorgan, can you hear me?

It wasn’t my intention in the least. Astrid, get a Physician. Hurry!

Camille get some guards!’’ She bade. She looked from the girls back to Zorgan, whose eyes were now opened and had a grin playing on his lips.

He had caught the arrow with his bare hand before it could get to him and just to stir her out from the need to continue shooting arrows, he had fallen to the ground.

‘‘What? How is it that-’’ Her rapid-fire questions halted when he let the arrow fall by his side, and his smile leveled to a laugh.

The various emotions on her face had him amused. He almost believed she was capable of worrying over him.

There was no blood stain on his chest or any other area of his body and he had tinkered with her. “You bloody cunning vermin Dragon-” She spat angrily as she got to her feet. She tramped towards the house as he called after her, ‘‘Won’t you help me up?’’

He jogged after her and caught up to her parade.

‘‘The King of Valcresh has sent for us” Zorgan said, and she paused.

‘‘You better be telling the truth, or I’ll fire at your head,’’ She said, folding her hands on her chest. ‘‘Relax Rebel. You know I tell no lies-”

Her grey, judgemental eyes were back and zapping, and they could have lasered him to fine dust.

He smiled at her expression. It was better than those stray tears that had rolled down her eyes earlier.

‘‘Tomorrow is judgment for some offenders, and he wants us present. Majorly because he wants to display the verity of my sudden marriage but I’ll make sure it’s as brief as possible.’’ He said, neutral-faced.

Nadezhda closed the tiny space between them as she dimmed her eyes at him. She could sense an underlying topic somewhere, and she was itching to inquire since she could be exposed to it tomorrow, but she didn’t want to probe.

‘He had referred to his father as the King of Valcresh. Strange…quite strange.’

‘‘Just like most royal households, is there anyone or anything I should be wary of?’’ She asked tactically. Zorgan tilted his head to the side inquisitively.

‘‘You know… persons like yourself,’’ She added when he remained tight-lipped.

‘‘Persons like myself?’’ He drawled as he moved almost impossibly closer to her, his colossal figure shadowing her.

‘‘Tell me, Rebel, what kind of a person am I?’’ He re-directed. Without missing a beat, she lifted a brow and replied

‘‘Arrogant and annoying’’

His smirk was the shape of a small boomerang.

‘‘For someone like yourself, you have a questionable gauge for true character’’ Zorgan said as he crossed his arms behind him.

‘‘Do not make me laugh Prince Commander-‘ She chuckled, like his titles were derogatory. ‘‘What kind of a person does your mind perceive I am?’’ She asked in a bid to sound nonchalant.

He bent toward her and mimicked the pattern of her response, ‘‘You know… adamant and irrational.’’