Royal Chaos

Chapter Ten: Dragon Stone

Alana gasped when she heard the objection. An objection at a king's wedding was downright unheard of.

She turned to look at Jared, who seemed to be just as confused at what he had done. What would his objection be for? The only true objection could be from Connor's former fiancée, and Zoe had brought news to her the previous night that Lord Frein's youngest daughter, Connor's former fiancée, had gone missing in the night.

"What reason do you have that this wedding shouldn't proceed?" The priest asked sternly.

Oh god. Alana thought. He's going to end up hanging for this.

Looking over at Evan, Alana could tell he was furious. His eyes stared daggers at Jared. Connor, on the other hand, looked disappointed. Alana glanced over at Lady Zoe, she seemed amused.

"I have reason to believe that both parties have not been faithful to each other." Jared said evenly, stepping more into the aisle.

He must be referring to the kisses that he had discussed with her. Alana thought.

"You recorded this in your journal, no?" Lady Zoe whispered from beside her.

"I did, my lady." Alana whispered back.

"Interesting."

Evan looked like he was about to say something, but Connor stepped forward to talk instead.

"Ah, we shouldn't put much weight in the words of a lowborn, knowledge just doesn't lay in their blood." Connor laughed, talking to the crowd. Jared seemed to turn a bright red. "The only person that could hold weight for such an accusation could be my very dear former fiancée. But alas, she never did love me, she told me just a month ago. Her disappearance just the other night was her running off with a farmer boy. This marriage is wholly and truly pure."

He was good at deception, the crowd seemed to believe this clear lie. He was dancing around the subject. Alana pursed her lips.

"My brother was always better at lying." Zoe said.

King Evan seemed pleased with Connor's response, "Send him to the dungeons." He instructed quickly. With that, Jared was toted away and the ceremony continued.

~~~

Jared sat in the cell, miserable. He didn't know what he expected anyway, the outcome of this would never be in his favor. He was lucky enough as it is, Connor's smart thinking saved him from being hung on the spot.

He leaned back onto the cool concrete wall. A guard walked his way up and down the rows of cells, watching the prisoners.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the stone once again. It was his only source of entertainment in the otherwise empty cell, he began flipping it in his hand, watching it sparkle from the small slit in the wall that allowed sunlight in.

"You got a dragon stone!" The guard paused at his cell, peering in.

"What?" Jared stopped flipping the stone, instead looking at it.

"You know, once a dragon sheds a scale it fossilizes over time, they're hard to find nowadays, considering back when dragons were alive their scales were valuable in making weapons and armor." The guard reached into his own pocket and revealed a blue stone. It looked much more weathered than Jared's. "My mom gave me this one, said that it's from one of my ancestors slaying a tuck-mouthed dragon."

Jared got up from where he sat, walking to the cell bars. He held his stone in his palm, "Tuck-mouthed?" He asked.

"Oh yeah, there were lots of types of dragons. The tuck-mouthed dragon was a medium sized dragon with two heads, I hear that they were quite fearsome." The guard said excitedly.