The next exhibition was a cave. “The Sacred Cavern.” The detail they used to display the replicas was amazing.
“What is it?”
“A cavern only the brave or the desperate will enter.”
“To do what?”
“To retrieve the most prized possession in all of Paegeia; a millpond so magical that it can show you anything you wish to know. Whether it's past, present, or future, it will reveal all to whoever gazes into its surface.”
I looked at him with a curious expression on my face.
“It's not that easy though. The price is high. If you can't face whatever the cave is hiding, then it claims your life.”
“Has anyone ever made it out alive?” I asked. I couldn't take my eyes off the detail. The million steps made me think of a Chinese temple. The steps led to huge doors molded into a cave, surrounded by a forest.
“Yes, but only a small number. The funny thing about it is that all of them were women.”
I could feel another one of his theories coming, but had too many questions on my mind.
“What's inside?”
“Besides the millpond, no one knows. The five women that did make it out never revealed what they saw or did. No one knows why. It's very mysterious.”
“Wow.” I was fascinated by his story, but we had to keep moving.
As we moved farther into the exhibition we came to a room that explained the sports that the knights used to compete at. Some were jousting on horses and the others were battling one on one. The last one looked like some sort of a team battle.
“It is said that all the soldiers were forced to compete to keep them fit for war. In those times, the war was between your kind and mine,” Cheng narrated.
“Humans can be so horrible,” I said, moping. “Was it any different after the wall?”
“No. The only time things changed was when King Albert's father, King Louie, took over. He fell in love with a dragon, but never knew that she was one. They killed her in the end, but it also revealed one of our secrets, that we could take a human form. King Louie knew from then on that Metallic dragons posed no threat. When he became king, he studied the Metallic dragons and learned a lot from us. He discovered another secret; that we could be ridden. My mom said that these were exciting times, but he still killed a lot of the Chromatic dragons. It was only when King Albert claimed his dragon that things really changed for all of the dragons. He taught the others that the Chromatic ones weren't different from the Metallic ones. I know they look a little scarier and are a bit fiercer, but deep down inside, dragon is dragon.”
“You guys really loved this King, huh?”
“More than you’ll ever know. I wish you could have been here when they ruled. He believed that Chromatic dragons could be rehabilitated by getting the right nurturing. I guess it's why he started Dragonia.”
We went through a couple more individual exhibits. The first one was a blond guy with the most beautiful green eyes with a shade of blue. The era was right after the Vikings. They were a bit more civilized, but still needed Pantene.
“King William,” he announced. “He was the first bloodline of the royals. The sword he carries is none other than the King of Lion’s sword.” He smiled. “His queen was the fourth daughter of one of your French rulers.” I looked at the woman standing next to him with dark hair. She almost resembled the woman in my dreams, but not entirely. The women before me had larger eyes, higher cheekbones, and thinner lips.
We kept walking and went past a room featuring all-important figures that had been part of King William's Council. Surnames like McKenzie, Abbott, Johnson, and Smith had been there since the beginning. I wondered if some of them were Becky and Lucian's ancestors.
We exited King William’s era and moved to a section that had to do with famous foretellings. The first figure was none other than the beautiful woman living in Rapunzel’stower. They weren't very lifelike and a couple of features were way off. Like the wax doll's eyes in the exhibition were incredibly warm and friendly. Hers weren’t.
“Is she really three hundred years old?”
“Yes, still young for a dragon,” he said.
“Was she always into foretellings?”
“Those days it was more like fortune-telling or cup-gazing.”
“What, no crystal ball?”
He laughed. “I think hers is only used for decoration.” He went back to telling me the story about how humans used to seek out Moon-Bolts to tell them their futures, but that sometimes they didn't like what they heard so Moon-Bolts were killed for no reason.
There was a book on a wooden pedestal right next to her that a couple of young girls were flipping through. I smiled. “Is there really stuff written in that book?” I asked, still skeptical.
"Elena, that book is the real deal."
Chapter Twenty-Two
When the girls left their spot in front of the book, I took their place. Flipping through the pages, I read one foretelling after the other.
“Why are some of the sentences red and others are blue?”
“The ones in red have already been fulfilled. The blue ones have expired without being fulfilled, and the black ones, well,they still haven’t come to light.”
Unbelievable.
My eye caught a red one as I flipped toward the end. It belonged to a dragon and said that his Dragonian would be struck by lightning.
I showed Cheng and he smiled. “You think it's George's?”
“It's got to be. Becky was hit by lightning, and they forced her to claim George. The only thing is she feels his isn't important enough and they could've let it slide,” I said.
“Nothing written in this book is unimportant. Who knows, maybe a second part of that foretelling will come soon. It sounds as if a part is missing.”
I smiled and kept paging through.
I found a foretelling about Blake. It was about his Dragonian. Although the text didn’t use the exact words‘spawn of King Albert and Queen Catherine’, it sure implied it. I frowned. ‘Why is this one still black?”
“That’s the mystery. No one knows. It's the only thing that gives us hope,” he said sadly.
I read further. Many were black and my mouth became dry.
“This one's new," Cheng said, and started reading the lines out loud. "A day will come and a day will go, a choice you have to make, otherwise the truth will never be known.” He frowned and looked at it through squinted eyes.
“What does it mean?” I tried my best not to let my voice break.
“I have no idea, but if it's in this book, it's important.”
I took a deep breath and tried to shake it off. Maybe it had nothing to do with me, and the Viden was seeing the foretelling about her next meeting. I had already been on my way out when she said those words.
I closed the book and we moved on to the next exhibit.
It was about Master Longwei. The museum had both his forms on display; the human form as I knew him, and his dragon form. His scales were gold, and he had whiskers sprouting from his nose. If dragons smiled, Master Longwei definitely did the day they made this model. He looked beautiful and majestic, just like Dad had that night. It must be a Metallic thing.
The Renaissance era was boring.
King Alexander, King Louie’s father, ruled Paegeia with the same cruelty toward dragons.
As I walked past another display case,the two axes I’d practiced with a couple of days ago caught my eye.
How is this possible? I found myself in front of the display box as I read what the inscription on the brass plate said. The axes belonged to Queen Catherine and she fought with them in three separate wars. She entered her first war at the age of eighteen, and the crusade was led by King Louie. My eyes scrolled through the boring stuff. The second war she fought in was at the age of twenty-three, and the third war she had fought at King Albert's side for the rights of the Chromatic dragons. The information on the brass plate said that it was the most important battle in the history of Paegeia. The war meant that all the dragons, Chromatic and Metallic, were to be seen as equals.