Draconia Offline vol. 2

93.2. The Truth - Part 2

"She's my aunt?" I open my mouth wide in disbelief. I have another living relative?!

"That she is," he confirms. "Sadly, she didn't inherit the Royal gift. She's my biological sister, but she's not royalty."

"How could she not inherit it when she's your sister?" I don't understand.

"It's not so easy to explain," he sighs and the elevator stops. "We're here."

We're reunited with the rest of my entourage, the Divementis chancellors and also Nyx. Is that why I found her so strangely familiar? Because she's family? How am I going to address her now? Do the Divementis have special names for aunts and uncles? And do I have other relatives?

"Please, leave it for later, son," my father says when he notices me eyeing Nyx. "There will be time for getting to know the rest of your Divementis family."

We pass several corridors until we reach huge open-space laboratories that are full of the latest VR equipment and futuristic-looking computers humans can only dream of. I expected that I was about to meet the real developers of Draconia Online—Divementis scientists. I certainly didn't expect that the person who would rush towards me, pushing everybody aside quite rudely, would be a Celestial.

"Your Majesty!!!" a young woman with grey black-patterned wings and short blue hair cries and bows deeply in front of me.

"Ehm, what?!" I instinctively step back. What is one of my subjects doing here? I'm so confused right now.

"You... don't recognise me, Your Majesty?" the woman panics. "It's me—Uriel."

"Uriel," I repeat and it takes me a few moments to recognise her wing pattern. "One of the missing dungeon masters?!"

"Well, I wasn't exactly missing," she admits nervously. "I'm actually one of the Nebula's VR developers."

Celestial wrath mixed with my Emperor's nature unfolds within me in an instant and I get furious with Uriel. How could she conspire with the Divementis? She knew about their plot since the beginning and left us in the dark for all those months! It feels like betrayal and I have to try hard to remind myself that she was human when she signed the contract.

Still, I need to verify her story. I pull her up, grab her chin and connect to her instantly. I don't bother with being gentle, she deserves to be punished. I decide to scrutinise everything I need to see without mercy or any regard for her privacy. Privacy is reserved for those who have my trust.

"Aefener!" my father warns me, but Uriel isn't in his jurisdiction anymore.

"She's my subject," I hiss. "Besides, you promised no more secrets so I take it you're not afraid I'm going to see something you wouldn't want."

The Divementis Emperor frowns, but he doesn't move to stop me. I dive into Uriel's mind and fast-forward check her memories before and after the transformation. I don't have time to go into detail, of course, but I can get a good overview of what she's been up to.

I discover that she was a brilliant VR programmer and that's how she caught the attention of the Divementis who needed to outsource part of the project. She got hired and proved herself after a year of relentless work so they decided to tell her the truth and invite her to the Nebula headquarters.

She knew from the beginning what she was signing up for. Little did she know, however, how much the transformation would change her thinking. Just as any other Celestial, she desperately wanted to flock to the embodiment of magic and the Divementis had to even lock her up. When my father learned that I was his son, she was promised to meet me eventually which calmed her down and she became reluctantly cooperative again.

"Y-Your M-Majesty, I...," Uriel is shaking and there's shame in her eyes.

"Uriel was forbidden to contact you, Your Celestial Majesty," Nyx stands up for her because she can see how angry I am. "Believe me, she wanted to. She might have started as a human collaborator, but she's a Celestial now. She continued to cooperate with us again only because she didn't have any other option."

"I want her contract with Nebula terminated," I click my tongue.

"Done," my father approves instantly and it's as simple as that.

"My Emperor...," Uriel starts crying. "I'm so sorry... I... really didn't mean... I..."

"You couldn't fly enough," I frown and inspect her wings. They look okay from the outside, but when I touch her wing muscles, I can easily tell that they are atrophied.

"She tried to fly away every time we wanted to let her get some exercise," Nyx explains quickly. "Your Majesty, we assure you that we weren't trying to torture her. We just couldn't let her go because she knew all our secrets. Wiping out one's memory isn't in our power."

"Vermiel, take her to my maids and tell them to calm her down," I order. "She will probably be disoriented for a few hours, I dug into her memories a bit too forcibly. I bet she has accommodation on the premises, but I want her to stay with us from now on. She's not used to being around her kind so assign her a friendly flatmate."

I see panic in Uriel's eyes, but also huge relief. She's not bound to the Divementis anymore and no matter how she started, she's one of us now. Yes, I am angry with her, but I would never give up on my subject.

"Uriel, go with Vermiel, I'll visit you in the evening," I promise because Uriel is hesitant to go and is clutching the hem of my robe. Her hand is shaking, her breath is rapid and she's afraid to get separated from me again. From my own experience, I can recognise someone on the verge of a panic attack.

"It's going to be okay," I say, softly now. I kiss her on her forehead, giving her my strongest blessing.

Uriel faints, but that was my intention. I catch her and give her to Vermiel. When I look up again, I realise that every Divementis in the room is staring at me, shocked.

"His Highness can do THAT without prior training?" Chancellor of Science Sythara, standing with a group of the Divementis scientists nearby, gasps.

"I projected some of my mana as well," I set the record straight because I don't like the way they're looking at me. "My blessings are half-Divementis, half-Celestial."

"I have to thank you, son, for taking her off our hands," my father appreciates. "Celestials are fiercely loyal to their race and almost impossible to contain. We didn't have it as difficult with other dungeon masters."

"Right, one dungeon master in disguise for each race," I recall. "What about them? Will you finally release them as well?"

"We already did, just yesterday," he surprises me. "Their last mission from us is to find their race rulers and tell them what I'm about to tell you now. We need all Draconian races on board to have at least a chance to win. With you, my son, those chances rose even higher."

"Start explaining then," I encourage him.

He nods and makes a hand gesture above some console. The lights dim and a huge hologram appears in the middle of the room. It's a planet that's more green than blue so it's definitely not Earth.

"This is Draconia, our home," my father starts. "Unlike this planet, it was inhabited by five sentient races. We didn't always see eye to eye, but after centuries of conflicts in our early history, we reached fragile peace, established trade and divided our spheres of influence. The Earthborn took over deep rainforests, the Dragonkin claimed mountains, Clawfangs thrived in thinner forests and grassy plains, Celestials ruled the skies and the Divementis took the mildest climates."

"It's admirable that you were able to coexist in peace considering that humans can't even coexist with each other," Liana comments bitterly.

"Draconia is twice as big as Earth and bountiful, we could make it work," my father summarises. "We do have our bloody history, we just had longer to evolve than humans. We coexisted in peace for one millennium until one day a rift opened from another dimension and the Enemy came to invade our home world."