CHAPTER 186: CHAPTER 186: THE HEARTBREAKING ANNOUNCEMENT

The royal palace echoed with Elystria’s footsteps as she walked quickly through the corridors illuminated by mana crystals embedded in the ancient walls. Her steps, usually light and elegant, betrayed a certain impatience. Something within her already sensed the weight of the news she was about to receive.

Recent visions continued to haunt her mind - those fragments of the future where Mordred appeared sometimes as a hero, sometimes as a merciless destroyer. She could still see those terrifying images where he massacred her people, brandishing a bloodied sword amidst the bodies of fallen dragons. Yet, despite these ominous omens, she couldn’t help but feel this inexplicable attraction toward this particular human. This contradiction had been tearing at her heart for weeks.

Arriving before the great door of the audience hall reserved for elite units, she took a deep breath to calm herself. How could she feel such emotions for one who was destined to become the enemy of her species? This thought troubled her deeply, creating an internal conflict she struggled to resolve.

The door opened slowly, revealing Ygdrasyle standing in the middle of the room, motionless like a stone statue. His face was darker than usual, his eyes fixed and empty. As a human slave, he had long learned to hide his emotions, but today, something different emanated from him.

Elystria raised an eyebrow, intrigued by this unusual behavior.

- "So, Ygdrasyle, what is this news so important that you must announce it to me yourself?"

Ygdrasyle hesitated for a fraction of a second. He had known the princess long enough to know that she held a particular interest in Mordred, though he didn’t understand the reasons. To him, a mere slave, Mordred was just another human warrior among many others. His gaze met that of the princess before he finally responded, his voice low but firm:

- "It’s about Mordred, Princess Elystria."

A slight smile, almost amused, stretched across Elystria’s lips. That name alone was enough to bring forth in her that troubling mixture of contradictory emotions. She shrugged with feigned nonchalance:

- "Mordred? So what? What catastrophe has he caused now?"

Her voice betrayed, despite herself, a hint of affection she was trying to conceal. Ygdrasyle, in his condition as a slave, couldn’t understand why the princess attached such importance to a simple human. To him, Mordred was certainly a formidable fighter, but nothing more.

Ygdrasyle remained perfectly still, his face frozen in an expression of terrible gravity. He observed the princess with that incomprehension that always characterized him when it came to Mordred. Slowly, with caution, he finally announced:

- "Mordred is dead, Princess. He died on a mission in Paris. A pile of rubble collapsed on him."

A heavy silence fell brutally over the room, Ygdrasyle’s words seeming to echo through Elystria’s mind. In her head, visions of the future suddenly collided - all those premonitions where Mordred triumphed, where he became an inescapable force of history. How could these futures exist if Mordred was dead?

Then, suddenly, a burst of incredulous laughter escaped from her throat.

- "Dead? Mordred, dead under a pile of stones? What an absurd joke!"

She shook her head, amused by the ridiculously improbable news. Her gifts of premonition had shown her so many futures where Mordred played a central role - how could he disappear in such a trivial way?

- "Ygdrasyle, stop your bad jokes. Mordred cannot die so stupidly. This human is destined for much more than that. I’ve seen it, I know!"

She stopped, realizing she had perhaps said too much. Ygdrasyle looked at her with that perplexed expression he wore every time she mentioned Mordred’s importance. How could she explain to a human slave that she had seen in her visions this man become both her greatest love and the most terrible enemy of her people?

But Ygdrasyle’s face didn’t change, remaining as serious and impassive as a marble sculpture. He obviously didn’t understand why the princess seemed so certain of Mordred’s destiny, nor why she attached such importance to a simple human warrior. This unbearable calm, this complete immobility, gradually made Elystria’s amused smile disappear, replaced little by little by a deep, insidious, glacial worry.

Her heart accelerated painfully in her chest. If Mordred was really dead, what would become of all these visions? And especially, what would become of these budding feelings she had tried to suppress? This forbidden attraction for one who was both her salvation and damnation in the futures she glimpsed?

All possible emotions flashed at breakneck speed across her face: surprise, disbelief, fear... then an intense, burning pain, like an uncontrollable fire. This pain wasn’t just that of loss - it was that of all these possible futures collapsing, of this complex relationship that could never come to fruition, of this chance to finally understand this mysterious link that connected her to this human.

The pain quickly transformed into pure, uncontrollable anger.

Without thinking, she moved forward quickly, brutally grabbing Ygdrasyle by the throat. Her draconic strength was such that she easily lifted him from the ground, her fingers closing like an iron vice around his neck.

- "Liar!" she screamed with visceral rage. "You dare lie to me, you? I should kill you on the spot for such an affront!"

In her fury, she thought only of the fact that someone dared announce the death of one who haunted her visions, one for whom she felt such contradictory feelings. How could a simple slave understand the cosmic importance of Mordred?

Ygdrasyle didn’t move, didn’t resist. Accustomed to the unpredictable angers of dragons since his condition as a slave, he accepted his fate with that resignation that characterized his enslaved race. His gaze remained as empty and neutral as at the beginning, simply staring at the princess as if he were calmly awaiting his fate. He still didn’t understand why the death of a simple human provoked such a reaction in the princess.

This absence of reaction, this total impassivity in the face of Mordred’s importance, angered Elystria even more. A powerful wave of pure draconic energy suddenly burst from her, violently shaking the entire room. The mana crystals embedded in the walls crackled under the emotional power that poured forth. The draconic guards present nearby reacted immediately, frightened by the sudden explosion of power.

- "Princess! Calm down! You’re going to kill him!" one of them cried urgently.

But Elystria wasn’t listening to them. Uncontrollable tears began to flow slowly down her cheeks, testimony to this internal tearing that had been consuming her for so long. Her breathing becoming rapid and jerky, her hand trembled, still clenched around Ygdrasyle’s neck.

In her tears mingled the loss of all these glimpsed futures, the disappearance of one who obsessed her, and especially this frustration of never having been able to resolve this contradiction between her budding feelings and the terrifying visions of destruction.

She murmured, almost sobbing, through clenched teeth:

- "How dare you remain so calm when you announce the death of such a precious man? Don’t you understand anything about his importance?"

Ygdrasyle, even in this perilous situation, couldn’t grasp why a human like him could be considered "precious" by a dragon princess. This incomprehension could be read in his eyes, adding to Elystria’s frustration.

The door of the hall opened brutally again, letting in King Maelor, her brother. His face, usually impassive, was now marked with deep anger at the chaos caused by his sister. The very air of the room still vibrated with the draconic energy deployed by Elystria.

- "Elystria!" he shouted in a powerful and imperial voice, his presence instantly commanding respect. "Release that man immediately!"

The king’s cry resonated with such authority that Elystria was immediately brought back to reality. She turned her gaze, blurred with tears, toward her brother, hesitating for a brief moment between her rage and her respect for royal authority, before finally obeying, throwing Ygdrasyle to the ground like a useless puppet.

Ygdrasyle collapsed to the ground, coughing slightly but still showing no real emotion at what had just happened, which further irritated the princess. His slave’s resignation in the face of violence only further emphasized his incomprehension of the situation.

Maelor advanced toward her, his severe gaze planted in that of his sister. He had rarely seen Elystria in such a state of emotional distress:

- "What does this madness mean, Elystria? Have you lost all reason? For a simple human?"

These words "simple human" resonated painfully in Elystria’s mind. No one understood - no one could see what she saw in her visions. Mordred wasn’t a simple human, he was a pivot of destiny, a central figure in all the possible futures she glimpsed.

She stared coldly at her brother, her eyes still clouded with tears still charged with barely contained anger, and replied curtly:

- "That’s none of your business, Maelor. You cannot understand."

Without adding anything, she turned on her heels and quickly left the room, taking with her this secret of visions that tormented her, this weight of knowing what Mordred truly represented in the fabric of destiny, and this pain of perhaps having lost him forever. She left behind a heavy silence and two men who could never grasp the true extent of her distress.

King Maelor observed his sister disappear for a moment, then slowly shook his head, frustrated by this eruption of uncontrolled emotion. He knew of his sister’s gifts of premonition, but knew nothing of what she might have seen concerning this human:

- "What a burden you are to manage, Elystria... and what secrets do you still hide?"

He then turned to Ygdrasyle, still on the ground, observing this slave who had just triggered an emotional storm without even understanding the reasons. Maelor coldly ordered the guards present:

- "Pick him up and get him out of here. And let him keep silent about what happened here."

Once alone, Maelor stared for a long time at the door through which Elystria had left, thoughtful. He was annoyed by his sister’s excessive reaction, but intrigued despite himself by the unusual intensity of her emotion.