The Dragon’s Treasure Read Free

we’ve had this conversation before when he first came to us. Don’t you remember?”
    “Of course I remember, but that doesn’t change my feelings. Anyone would be a better ruler than him,” she growled.
    “Even your stubborn, arrogant brother?” he gently teased.
    She blushed faintly and forced a small smile. “That was a private conversation between my mother and I.”
    “I understand, I was having one with my mother, too, when he came to find me. Come, let’s go back before it gets to be much later,” he said as he gently began to lead her away from her mother’s grave.
    “One more moment please,” she quickly replied as she pulled herself away from him. He nodded and she sank to her knees in the soft ground.
    “I miss you very much, Mother. I promise, as always, to look after Caden and to take care of him as I have since his birth. When he is better I will tell him of you and make sure that he knows what a wonderful woman you were. Rest peacefully, Mother, and thank you for watching out for all of us,” Isabelle said gently. She wiped a few tears from her cheeks and kissed the cold stone of her mother’s name. She brushed her fingers over a few of the pale yellow roses before picking a small one. The stem broke off easily in her fingers. She met Andrew’s gaze and he helped her up with an outstretched hand.
    “Will your mother mind that you picked one of her roses? I’ve never seen you do that before,” he asked as they began walking back toward the palace.
    “You usually aren’t out here when I am,” she replied. “The rose is for Caden. I think she’d like for him to see her flowers, too. I bring him one every year.”
    “I believe you’re right. Your mother would want him to have one. She did love her flowers. And she loved you very much, Bella.”
    Isabelle smiled and nodded as more tears spilled over her cheeks. “She loved you, too, Andrew. You were not her son by birth, but she did not love you any less because of it.”
    “Thank you, for saying that. My mother, well, I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about her and…” his voice trailed off as he faced the familiar struggle of how to speak of the woman he was supposed to love, but couldn’t bring himself to.
    Isabelle put a hand gently on his arm. “I understand, Andrew. You don’t have to say anything about it to me.”
    “Thank you, Bella,” he said as he patted her hand.
     

Chapter Two
     
     
    Isabelle awoke slowly and, with a slight groan, disentangled herself from the sheets that had tried to strangle her in the night. For a moment she was disoriented in the plain room, so unlike her lavish bedroom a few doors down the hall. But the sight of the warm body beside her quickly brought her back to the present and reminded her of just why it was that she had spent the night wrapped around him. She again took up the same position she had adopted throughout the night and for many nights previous, pressing her body against her brother’s small back, molding herself into place behind his small frame.
    Isabelle took this chance, one of the rare opportunities she was allowed, to see him in such a natural, vulnerable state. Her younger brother, the child she had raised since birth, with his large emerald eyes and mess of brown hair, was the perfect copy of their father’s good looks. Certainly their mother helped to smooth out the harsh lines of their father’s features, adding her own sort of roundness that was just shy of chubbiness on him, but there was no mistaking the boy’s parentage. Instead of admiring his looks and thinking of the handsome man her brother would one day become, Isabelle looked intently at his pale skin, noticing the subtle changes that had appeared overnight.
    To say that her brother was not well would have been a gross understatement to be rewarded with nothing but contempt and loathing. Ill since birth, the sickness that had started off as nothing but a cough and a bit of a fever had ravaged the