still lingering inside of me. I promise you now, she doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Another Rubicon, how could this be?” The first Ancient asked.
Didn’t they hear anything I was saying to them? “I didn’t use to be one,” I spoke again. “When I turned I was a Thunderlight, but because of what I really was, and the bond I already shared with my dragon, I changed into his form. I’m neither anymore, your honor. She died a couple of weeks ago.”
“How could you kill her, and still be alive?”
My eyes started to tear up.
“Your honor, maybe it’s better that you ask Tanya Le Frey that. She was the one that sacrificed her daughter in order for Elena to live,” Sir Robert spoke on my behalf.
King Caleb laughed again. “Didn’t you hear? Tanya is dead. The scouts found her body on the borders of the Acker Woods.”
I cried out and Sir Robert caught me before I fell in a heap on the floor.
“Silence.”
“How do you know this, King Caleb?”
“I can answer that, your honor.” King Helmut stepped forward. “I sent out scouts to where Elena said she found the queen’s dragon. We have a witness that can tell you the exact same story as Elena.”
“That witness doesn’t count. Without Tanya Le Frey’s evidence, Elena has no truth to her story.”
“What happened to you, are you so blind that you can’t see who she is?”
“So she claims that she looks like them. She isn’t the first, Helmut. Many had their eyes or the queen’s beauty. None of them turned out to be the Rubicon’s rider or their child.”
“Except for this human right in front of you. Blurting out that Tanya was dead like that, was inhuman and cruel.”
“She didn’t know her.”
King Helmut shook his head. “How much more must she prove? She claimed Blake.”
“That doesn’t count if you’re a Rubicon yourself.”
“I think we’ve heard enough of this. We’ll have our decision in a couple of minutes. Just remember child, what we say is final, unless other proof can be brought forward.”
I nodded, still clutched inside Sir Robert’s arms.
He took me back to my seat.
“How can she be dead, she was alive when we left?” I asked him.
“I don’t know, Elena. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m screwed. A few minutes doesn’t say much does it?”
“You can’t say that.”
The minutes felt like hours and the scenarios of Tanya’s death consumed my mind. She couldn’t be dead.
When they finally came back, they called me to the middle again. The one on the fifth throne who kept glaring at me was missing.
“Elena Watkins, we have heard your claim, we see the resemblance and we can tell most of the time what is lies and what is the truth.” My heart started to jump with joy as he said all those words.
“But we can’t approve your claim. There is no evidence and without real evidence, we are sorry to come to this verdict. You aren’t the child of King Albert and Queen Catherine. No human can leave through the Wall and no human can survive inside a dragon. Your claim over Blake doesn’t count and it’s broken from this day forward.”
I froze as the hammer’s head hit a wooden board, hard.
“You can’t do this!” Sir Robert protested. “She is my king’s daughter and you know it.”
“Contain him,” one of the Ancients said and guards came out of nowhere and took him away.
“No, please, don’t.” My voice was merely a whisper. I fell onto my knees and shifted to my butt as the truth finally sank in.
I didn’t just get stripped of a title, I got stripped of my dragon too.
“Your honor, now that the Rubicon doesn’t have a rider,” King Caleb started to speak again.
I shot him a glare. How dare he do this in front of me?
“By law if a claim is interfered with, that dragon automatically belongs to the rider that first tried to claim it. Elena interfered with my daughter’s claim and I’d like the Rubicon to be returned to its rightful owner.”
The air in my lungs disappeared as he said those words. It felt as if I’d gotten hit hard on the back and couldn’t breathe.
Constance found me and helped me from the floor. “Let’s go, you don’t need to hear this.”
“That’s my son he’s talking about.” Sir Robert came out of the building they’d just taken him through.
“How did… Contain him!” another Ancient yelled.
“There are no guards to contain me.” He laughed a sadistic laugh. “I killed them all.”
The crowd gasped.
“I’m the king’s rider. I’ve been