Page 49 of Dragon Eye (Rise of the Dragon Master)

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“Are you serious? You are from New Zealand?” Surprise colored his words, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from what looked like a replica of my world. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”

Blinking, I glanced at him, finally understanding why this was the Mirror World to ours. It was not because of where we were right now, but because of that place. It was the vivid image of my land.

Unable to stop it, emotion brimmed in my eyes, and I lowered my head to my arm again. The only thing missing in those stunning images were the ruins of the Lost Kingdom, a place I longed to one day see whole again—and the towers of the Crimson Fortress threatening everything its shadow touched.

“Hey, no. Don’t cry, Evie,” Braxton whispered, turning on his side and caressing my cheek.

A single tear left me as I glanced at him, bewildered. My heart squeezed with the forgotten endearment. “Why did you call me that?”

“It just felt like the right moment for a nickname. I can call you Eva, or just Evanna if it bothers you.”

“It doesn’t… It has just been so long since anyone called me Evie,” I confessed, giving in to the craving growing inside me, and sliding closer to him.

“Who called you that?” The question came at the same time his arms wrapped around me, guiding my head to his chest, and holding me to him.

“My parents… and my aunt. But they are all dead now.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Evie.”

A small smile curved my lips as he wiped the tear that had fallen. It felt nice hearing that name again.

“I’m the only one left of my family,” I whispered, not truly knowing why I was telling him that. “Amma, my aunt, died last year and it felt like I had lost everything. I was forced to leave the last place where we were safe and find a new one as refuge.”

“Why did you have to leave?” he inquired, the steady beating of his heart soothing under my ear.

“There’s a war in my home that has been going on for years; caused by a tyrant who wants nothing but power. He wants to take our lands; to break us. My parents died because of him, risking their lives to defend us. I was just a girl then, so Amma raised me after they were gone. We have been fighting that evil man ever since, losing more and more each time. The people left became our new family, so my aunt and I did everything we could to keep them safe after that. Then the war took her too.”

“I’m truly sorry. I can’t even imagine… Is that why you came here? Looking for help?”

The irony wasn’t lost on me, so I nodded.

“He’s taken everything I care about; I can’t let him win. Those are our lands by birthright. Those people are the only semblance of family I have left, I won’t let him take them too,” I vowed, fueled by pain and resilience. “After Amma died, it took a while before we found a new place to settle and build a home, but we did it. Together. Were it not for the impending evil threatening to destroy us, we would be perfectly happy. Well, maybe notperfectly, but at least we would live in peace.”

“I wish I had something else to offer. But I’m sorry you’ve had to endure all that in your life.”

“Thank you. It was hard for me to accept what my aunt entrusted me to do before she died. I spent months carefully weighing the risks, and the consequences leaving could have on my family… Yet, I did it. I travelled all this way, and I have nothing to show for it. I was supposed to protect them. Instead, I failed them.”

“Don’t say that,” he argued, lifting my chin so I would look at him. “You tried, Evie. You put everything at risk to come here and find that man.” Braxton’s gaze softened, and his thumb gently caressed my cheek. “I’m sorry I wasn’t the one you were searching for. I would have done anything I could to help you.”

Sincerity shone in Braxton’s green eyes, and I believed him. The way he looked at me in that moment, with fierce determination, said if it were in his hands, he would do anything it took to save my kingdom. I briefly wondered how having such a selfless heart, he could be the son of the same man who had betrayed us so coldly.

“I watched my father burn alive.”

My eyes filled with both horror and surprise at Braxton’s confession, and my hand instantly went to his chest, as though my touch would somehow stop the pain clawing at his heart. His hand landed on top of mine, and he held it fiercely.

“I don’t know how it happened, a gas explosion I think. All I know is I woke up in the middle of the night to my parents yelling, and the house engulfed in flames.”

Gods…. “I am so sorry, Braxton.”

He nodded, grateful for the emotion reflected in my eyes.

“I was only nine at the time. I tried to get out of my room, but I couldn’t with so much fire surrounding me. Mom told me to hold on, Dad said he would get to me, but even when I believed him, I didn’t know how he could. Flames had carved a barrier between my parents and I, separating us. When the second explosion came, the back door flew through the house, but my dad stopped it with his bare hands, holding the fire raging on the other side and threatening to consume us all.”

Tears stung my eyes again while I listened to him, unable to even grasp how a kid could go through that and be the man he had become. The man who held me now.

“Mom and I screamed our hearts out, but there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t get to him. We were helpless but to watch as fire flew from the sides of the door onto his arms, engulfing his entire form, but not before he yelled at my mother to get me out of there.”

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