116 The Secret of the Silver Dragons

The four young dragons were shocked with the history that Lanhuo was revealing to them. For thousands of years, they had been kept in the dark about their own shameful past.

"Whatever happened to Queen Mulong?" Hulong asked curiously.

Lanhuo snorted, "no one knows, she and some of her retainers were on the way to the royal nest, only a few shadow dragons accompanied them, when they were ambushed. When Queen Mulong failed to arrive at the royal nest, guards were dispatched to investigate. They came across a battle scene with the corpses of the few shadow dragons guards, but Queen Mulong and all the silver dragons that had accompanied her were missing — they nor their corpses have been seen since."

Sighing Lanhuo said: "Many believed that the humans arranged the ambush, and all the silver dragons were slain and their bodies butchered. Queen Mulong had been heavy with eggs, and as with any pregnant dragon she was at her weakest. I always believed that there must have been a traitor among us that divulged her whereabouts and her condition — those f*cking animals couldn't have chosen a better time to attack her."

"By the gods!" Huifu exploded. "How could our ancestors have been so dishonorable?"

Shrugging helplessly, Lanhuo didn't know how to answer his young grandson's question. He had hoped to never divulge these secrets to these four young dragons. They had enough burdens on their shoulders, especially with the way shadow dragons were scorned today, he had always wanted to spare them this shameful burden.

"Huifu, let grandfather continue," Xingteng said gently, she could see what a strain her grandfather was under telling them this.

Hulong who had always shared a closer tie with his brother and he could feel the rolling emotions from Huifu, gave him a soft nudge to gain his attention. Once Huifu glanced over at Hulong, Hulong gave him a long look, his eyes showing that he understood what Huifu was going through, but now was not the time for emotional outbursts.

Huifu nodded, then turning to his grandfather he said apologetically: "Sorry grandfather for my outburst, please continue."

Lanhuo was proud of his grandchildren's behavior, compared to his reaction when his own father had told him these shameful secrets of the shadow dragons past, his grandchildren were acting a lot more mature than he had.

"Hmm, so where was I... oh yes, Queen Xueteng was handed over to the elders to raise, only two of her trusted shadow dragon guards accompanied her. Since these two guards died alongside her, we have no idea what she experienced under the 'care' of these elders. But a few years later Queen Xueteng announced that she would take the son of the elder of the red dragons as a mate.

Thank the gods our ancestors hadn't abandoned all decency. They did try to stop her mating ceremony, she was still a fledgling had hadn't even had her first mating heat. While it is common nowadays for female dragons to mate prior to the first mating heat, in those days it was unheard of."

"No dragon worth his wings would mate with a child." Lanhuo spat out with disgust.

Shadow dragons were the only sect in the dragon realm that refused to allow their fledglings to mate. Only after a female dragon had come into her full power, and experienced her first mating heat was she considered an adult. This was another bone of contention between the shadow dragon sect and the other sects.

The shadow dragon deplored the mating of fledglings, while the other dragon sects accused the shadow dragons of refusing to carry out their duty to procreate, and that they were pushing the dragons to their extinction.

"The young queen refused to listen to the shadow dragon elder's counsel, although who could blame her, we had abandoned her first. Long story short, the shadow dragons had lost favor with the young queen, and with trying to stop the mating, lost favor with all the other sects."

"Our ancestors instead of staying and fighting to regain Queen Xueteng favor instead scurried away with their tails between their legs, and the whole shadow dragon sect retired to Shadow Mountain."

Shaking his head at his ancestors' foolish behavior Lanhuo carried on with his narration.

"Due to her young age, Queen Xueteng only conceived three eggs, one of the greatest gifts Ala gave the silver dragons was the ability to chose the sect of her hatchlings."

"WHAT?" Yinglong cried out in shock.

Realizing how loud she had shouted, Yinglong lowered her head in embarrassment.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

Chuckling softly at his grandchild's look Lanhuo waved off her apology. He didn't blame her for her outburst, he had been just as flabbergasted when he had been told the same thing eons ago.

"This is just one of the secrets of the silver dragons, that has been hidden from all dragons since the sundering. Silver queens not only can choose which sect her wyrmlings can take after, but she also has the power to combine different sects, that is how we were created. All shadow dragons are direct descendants of a silver queen."

"So not only did our ancestors betray their queen, the betrayed their own family," Huifu growled angrily.

"Huifu!"Laolong hissed.

"No Laolong, don't scold him, he is a hundred percent right, and he is entitled to be angry, or have you forgotten how you reacted when you found out?" Lanhuo said.

Grimacing at his father's reminder, Laolong just shrugged helplessly.

"So Queen Xueteng only had three eggs, what happened afterward?" Xingteng asked, trying to get her grandfather attention, she hated it when her family bickered.

"Well, of course, that red dragon sect elder not only forced her to ensure that all three eggs were red dragons, but the bastard also made her engender a red queen."

Lanhuo bombshell, had the four wyrmlings reeling. For nearly a minute the room was deadly silent.

"Did you say, that she created a red dragon queen?" Huifu asked his voice trembling with disbelief.

"Yes," Lanhuo sighed deeply. "This is the greatest secret of our race, only a silver queen can create other queens, not only that but there use to be a common path that all dragons used to communicate with each, and the silver queen was the anchor of this, she was the repository of all dragon knowledge — when we lost our silver queen, not only did we lose the ability to have other queens, we lost access to all our ancient knowledge as well."

"But how is that possible, the other sects all have queens?" Hulong asked confused by what his grandfather had told them.

"Bah, those decrepit old things aren't real queens, those weak females are just female dragons who have been forced to inherit some of their predecessor power." Lanhuo spat out.

Hulong back legs gave out from the shock of his grandfather's statement, his mind was reeling from the multiple shocks he had received today. Normally his siblings would have teased his merciless about his undignified look, but the other three were in a similar shape.

Xinglong gave each of his siblings a sympathetic look, he remembered when his father and grandfather had told him the same story just how blown away he had been. It had taken him weeks to recover from the devastating news the two had dropped onto him.

At least the five of them will now share this terrible secret, in a small selfish way he was happy that his brothers and sisters had been bought into the loop, at least now he had someone to talk to about all of this.

"But how?" Xingteng asked. She had always been bought up with the story that queens were the god's gift to each sect. When she and her sister had to attend school with the other dragons their age, they were often bullied and one of the things that were continuously branded about, was that the shadow dragons weren't real dragons as they didn't have a queen.

That they had no queen meant they didn't have the gods favor. A part of her had believed those horrible classmates. Now finding out that this wasn't true was too shocking for her to comprehend.

"When one of their sect 'queens' is about to die, they gather some of their strongest females, and they dying 'queen' will use her remaining strength to force a bond with the young females, most times the bond fails, those young females who can't bond are the lucky ones. The few you can bond, through the use of forbidden magic — their young minds are ripped open by the elders and the dying 'queen' will share all her knowledge with them. The strongest who can maintain her sanity then becomes the new 'queen' and she is forced to eat the corpse of the dead 'queen'," Xinglong stated matter-of-factly.

It took a couple of seconds for Xinglong statement to penetrate the young dragons minds, they stared at him blinking foolishly, trying to digest his words.

"Oh my gods," Yinglong whispered brokenly.

"I think I am going to be sick," Xingteng said gagging and she rushed from the room.

Like Hulong, Huifu back legs gave out, as he just sat there his mouth open and closing like a fish, too shocked to say a word.

"How long have you known about this?" Hulong asked his brother.

"Since the day I was declared heir," Xinglong answered.

"Why did you never tell us?" Hulong asked accusingly.

"Firstly I was sworn to secrecy and secondly, what good would it have done," he said tiredly.

Thinking about what his brother had just said, Hulong for the first time felt sympathy for his eldest brother, he had to carry this awful burden on his shoulders for so many years all on his own. For years he had been envious of his brothers status, but he now wondered just how many times their brother had protected them from the truth.

He swore to himself that from now onwards he would be a better brother.

"I'm sorry Xinglong, I shouldn't have lashed out. I am sorry that we were there for you to help you with this burden."

Just then Xingteng entered the room, looking extremely embarrassed. Apologizing profusely to everyone for her weakness.

Xinglong walked over to his sister, rubbing her head gently he said: "It okay little star if anything your reaction shows just what a decent dragon you still are."

Smiling gratefully at her big brother, Xingteng looked at her grandfather.

"So what happened next grandfather?" she asked, her voice a little firmer.

She wanted to find out everything that had happened in the past, right now her emotions were very conflicted, she felt betrayed and angry with her parents, her grandfather and most of all by all the other dragons in the Dragon Domain.

Nodding at his granddaughter, Lanhuo carried on with his history lesson, there was still much to reveal to these young dragons. After today, these four would never be the same, the innocence that had protected them from the world would be stripped from them.

But it was time, these five youngsters were going to be the leaders of the shadow dragons, and they had the most vital mission to perform, to find their new queen and protect her, not only from hunters from the other races but from her most dangerous enemy - the dragon race itself.

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Quote of the day

Every man dies. Not every man really lives. --William Wallace