Chapter 55
Aurora was not having a good day.
She had thought that she would be safe after the first inspection had been done but she could not be more wrong.
She was sure that the guards had an agenda against her because someone kept on knocking at her door and trying to enter for inspection every few minutes.
-baam
“Open the door. It’s the inspection squad.”
This was the fourth time someone was at her door. They just kept on coming and Aurora had given up at this point.
“How many times are you going to check my room? You won’t magically find something the fourth time you decided to go through my things.”
Aurora tried not to sound as annoyed as she was but her tone could not keep up with her mind.
The guard seemed to find fault with her speech because he pushed Aurora aside and forcefully entered the room anyway.
“Make a full inspection and be thorough.”
The other guards looked exhausted but they followed along anyway.
Aurora had no choice but to enter and make preparations for another game of hiding the egg. This was getting exhausted now.
“Excuse me. Once you are done, can I go out to the gardens? It is getting a little claustrophobic in here.”
It was almost night. Aurora had been in her room for well over a few hours now and the lockdown was beginning to take its toll.
“You are free to do what you want to. But we will advise against roaming around in the hallways. The Cabinet meeting has started and security is at an all-time high.”
Aurora almost cursed at the news.
According to Astoria’s information, the cabinet meeting should not have started until much later in the day.
In fact, it should have been held the next day.
“Did the meeting get pushed ahead of time? Lady Astoria said that the meeting was tomorrow.”
Aurora had to weasel out as much information as she could. She got a feeling that the tower was on to her and Lady Astoria already.
“Pushed ahead? Well, something like that. Someone broke into the tower and stole important stuff. Lady Minerva wants to get her affairs in order before she dealt with those individuals.”
The guard explained. He was being too forward with presenting all this information. He must be confident in his position and Lady Minerva.
Aurora quietly positioned the egg out of his reach and toward the other side of the room.
“Sir, we did not find anything of significance. We combed through the room but nothing looks to be out of place.”
The guard sighed and bowed to Aurora.
“Our apologies for taking up your precision time. We should be getting going now.”
For what it was worth, Aurora did not feel any malice from the guard that had forced his way inside her room. He was just doing the work he had been assigned and nothing else.
“Have a nice day.”
The guards finally left and Aurora quickly slid down to the floor in a fetal position.
This stress of keeping the egg hidden was going to kill her. She was already starting to feel the stress of the position she had been forced into.
“I can’t keep doing this. I need to get fresh air.”
Aurora picked the egg up and decided to flee the room. The lack of guards in the hallway helped her reach her goad – the gardens.
“You are such a trouble magnet. Just stay here for now and allow me to rest.”
Aurora put the egg down for a second and went to relax. She walked toward the water fountain to quench her thirst.
But when she came back to her original bench, she found a surprise waiting for her. The egg had its shell cracked and a pair of shiny red eyes stared back at her.
The egg had hatched.
Of god, the egg had hatched.
“What are we going to do now?”
Aurora whispered as she held her hand out to the small reptile in front of her.
If things had been difficult before, they just jumped to the devastating category for her.
After all, hiding an egg was easier than hiding a small dragon cub in her arms.
“Oh god. What will I tell Astoria?”
===============
“Lord Karan? You allowed Lord Karan to influence you into making such a crucial decision? Lady Minerva, what were you thinking.”
The cabinet hall came to a halt as the tower master’s outburst rang through the empty space.
First of all, no one could believe that someone had the guts to say anything to Lady Minerva. She was one at the pinnacle of power.
Did the tower master not care for his life?
Second, Lord Karan was someone who was too willful and did what he wanted to. If he got angry, then everyone would be included in his revenge.
“Huh? Do you have a problem with my decision? You can just tell me to piss off and I will never see you again. I don’t care about the tower anyway.”
Everyone present cringed at the crude words.
They all knew that Lord Karan held no love for them but did he have to declare it every chance he got? What face did it leave them with?
“No, this is not what I meant to say. I just wanted you to be careful and not make a mistake in the future.”
The tower master was sweating at the clear provocation in the god’s voice. He sounded pissed off and that did not bode well for anyone.
“Good. Know your place or you will not live long.”
The tower master had no other choice but to bow his head.
In reality, Lord Karan was no better than any of the other 6. If he and Lady Minerva fought then he could be gravely injured and easy to fight off.
But this was just a hypothesis. No one had ever seen one of the top 7 ever fight against each other before.
“This is enough. I made the decision based on the information I was provided with. It would suit you well to take it into account before you make any accusations.”
Lady Minerva closed the topic with her last words.
No one could say anything to her now.
“Very well then. I will drop this topic for now. But we have another topic at hand – the recent resurgence of the rebellion.”
“There had been too many cases of attacks against our tower officials. What should we do about it?”
As the tower master, it was his responsibility to look after everyone’s welfare. But the rebellion was not a topic he could poke around.
Especially since they had one of the 7 main gods as their head.
“Leave it be for now. We caught some rats recently and I will be taking charge of it soon. If Alan thinks he can fight against using ants then he is more than welcome to”
Lady Mei sounded confident in her victory.
It stung to see these gods and goddesses toy with human life as they pleased. They did not care for anything other than their own gain and loss.
Thye did not regard human life as important. To them, humans were just like a tool – to be sued and discarded.
“Very well then. Then it was all I wanted to ask.”
The tower master had no other choice but to take a step back.
He had already offended two gods, he could not afford to poke the third one.
And not one as ill-tempered as Lady Mei. She would start causing trouble for him if she felt like she was being mocked. And that was more annoying than anything Lord Karan could do.
“Anyone else has any questions?”
Lady Minerva asked. But no one was foolish enough to ask anything else. They were too afraid of her and her sour mood.
“Cowards”
Lady Mei’s provocation did nothing for the mood of the meeting. She just made the situation worse by dragging attention to Lady Minerva’s mood.
Everyone could tell that the meeting had all but ended already. There was no use staying here any longer.
-baam
The cabinet door was forced open and a shadow guard hurried past the guards.
The poor guards were too stunned to even pay attention to the intruder. They could not react in time when more guards entered the room and kneeled in front of Lady Minerva.
“My lady, we have something urgent to resort to you. We felt a surge in dragon energy rise in the west tower. We are afraid that what we feared had happened.”
The shadow guard kneaded with his head nearly touching the ground.
And instantly, Lady Minerva’s face crumbled in shock and anger.
“This meeting is hereby dismissed. But you all will need to stay here for now. I have something I must do.”
And then she left the mess of a meeting room.
All that echoed in there was Lady Mei’s laughter and Lord Karan’s empty smile.
And a lot of minds filled with questions about her decisions.