Survive As The Brute's Wife-Chapter 65: The Great Fall

As Alexandra looked at the dragon, with its spread wings, the dragon bowed its head before lifting and looking at her.

{Come get what’s yours!}

She heard a pleasant voice of a woman. She looked around to see who was talking but there was no one around. She looked at Maximus to see if he heard that voice, but he had no change in his expression.

[If I am the only one who heard it... then is it the dragon?]

Her eyes ended up back at the dragon.

[Do you mean the Hashomer? Do you have that sword? Are you one of my summoned beasts? Is that why you are guarding the sword?]

She thought in her mind thinking if her thoughts would reach the dragon, expecting a reply.

{What happened to you?}

Alexandra heard the dragon say with her voice filled with concern. All Felixa could do was to shrug.

[I don’t know either, dragon... I don’t know what is wrong with me. How are we connected?]

The dragon didn’t talk to her again and perched back in the tree closing her eyes.

[Who are you, dragon?]

Since that dragon didn’t talk to her again, Alexandra stared at the horizon where the sea met with the sky. She could clearly state now that she has a problem. And she has a lot of memories to get back.

She closed her eyes and thought of that day she held the Hashomer in her hand for the first time. She was called the "Drovarys" and everyone believed her as a boy.

Well, everyone except Luke...

[How come the soldiers hailed Luke as the Drovarys during the war? The war happened years later, but there were a bunch of people who knew that I was the Drovarys and I was the one who held the Hashomer till I died. So how come Luke was called the Drovarys? How did the myth of a sword that was foretold to be carried by the child of Dragon and a legitimate ruler start to distort as the sword carried by the one that supports the true King?

And why was I called the Rose Knight when I am the Drovarys?]

That day, right from when she touched the sword as it transformed and when she was adored as the Drovarys, Tubby was with her, by her side. And all she wanted that time was to hide somewhere.

But...

The stunned Luke watching her closely, among his peers who were not impressed, climbed up the platform afterward with a bright smile.

Her heart fluttered as he approached her. Tubby was happy beyond measures and was shouting with their other friends. His hand was still holding her hand high up.

Luke stood up the platform and the entire place went silent. Everyone respected Luke as he had that aura bout him. Standing by her side, he addressed the Aristocratic students. He pleaded with them to accept the ruling of the heavens and gave an impressive speech that everyone is the same in the eyes of the Dragon King and that everyone is his child.

As he went on, the Aristocrats slowly started to change their minds. By the end of Luke’s speech, almost the entire congregation started to cheer.

She was staring at his face the whole time and that little tingling feeling she used to have upon his appearance in her vicinity turned up several notches and her chest hurt with a new feeling. But that pain brought a certain joy. Everything she felt was contradictory but she loved it nonetheless.

Standing beside him, she forgot everything else. And when he held her hand holding the sword, she almost shoved her sword in his hand.

But...

She only noticed the burnt wound in his palm in the shape of the hilt of the sword a little later. She tried to talk to him about it but he healed it with one of the magic salves almost immediately. And he told her to not mind it when she felt sorry.

She knew what she saw and only later did she find out that her sword, the Hashomer, couldn’t be touched by anyone but her. Her sword would hurt anyone who tried to touch it, even the Principal who tried to touch it out of curiosity, or even if someone touched it accidentally. So she kept that sword carefully with her.

Of course, Tubby was an exception for reasons unknown. He could touch the sword just like her. But the sword didn’t let him wield it. Only she could wield the sword.

And it did cut through diamonds.

And after she was revealed to be the Drovarys, she was shifted to the class of the Aristocrats but she refused to go there without Tubby. And so, both of them were shifted there. The Aristocrats weren’t very welcoming at first. It was then Luke came up with a plan.

Luke with his family’s intervention, got the support of the King to award her the Noble Order of Rose – a chivalry order that made her an aristocrat who could command Knights under her leadership.

She remembered hiring Tubby first under her. But Luke refused to join her because he already was the heir of his family and had his own men to command.

Since she carried the Order of Rose, she was later called the Rose Knight, and the men she commanded were called the Legion of Rose. And slowly people stopped calling her the Drovarys because she preferred it too.

For once, it was something arranged by Luke for her. And secondly, she did not like to be hailed as someone above the others.

Luke used to tell her that he just wanted to make her life easy for her. He insisted that her life would turn hell if others learn that she is female. She, who had experienced the ugliness of those around her, believed every word of him.

Alexandra opened her eyes and she chuckled in her heart. Those days she trusted Luke as he "helped" her. Even Tubby thought Luke had the best of intentions for her in his heart.

[But his intention was never to help me, was it? At least Tubby judged him properly a bit later...]

Maximus turned to his side and saw Alexandra with a mocking smile. He thought that she would ask questions about that island but she didn’t. So he decided to give her a nudge.

"Do you see the dragon, Lexa?" Maximus asked and she turned to look at him.

"You see a dragon?" she asked and he let out a sigh.

«So she decided to hide it from me...»

"There is a dragon on top of that hound’s tree..." he pointed in that direction.

"Is that the cursed island, Max?" she asked.

She remembered the tone of his voice when he screamed at someone that he will get the Hashomer at any cost. And the good feeling she has around him vanished like the light in the candle vanishes after it is blown out.

"Will you take me there?" she asked. "I want to go there... I feel like there is something there... something that might belong to me..."

[Will he push me down to kill me? Or will he take me there... And what reason will he tell me?]

"You want to go there?" he asked, his eyebrows raised out of surprise. But then his face relaxed as if he got relieved. "I will do whatever you wish for!" he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

Alexandra turned to her side to see the controlled smile on Maximus’ face.

[Ah, so this is your reason... To make me happy! Heh! I made you happy by offering myself, huh...]

"What will you do if you find the one they call the Hero, Max?" she asked.

She had a feeling that Max knows who she is and who she was even. But he refuses to talk about it and so she will do the same and skirt around it.

"The Hero?" Maximus raised his brows and looked at the island.

His hand reached his heart and she saw the same smile on him- the one she used to see on Tubby whenever she did something impressive.

Of course, he’d deride her as "coxcomb", but then she knew he was proud of her.

"I will..." he started to answer but then stopped and turned at her with a smirk.

"What do you think I should do?"

"Well..." Alexandra shrugged as she saw the smirk was pretty similar to Tubby’s.

"What do you know about Maximillan Zoros, Max?" she asked. "The other traitor Knight who betrayed the Great King?"

She expected him to get angry at her. Because every time she uttered the word traitor he only got angry. This time shouldn’t be an exception.

Max widened his eyes and he looked shell-shocked. But he held his temples as if he was hurting and bowed his head.

"Max?" Alexandra stepped closer to him and held his arm.

He was shaking.

"Are you hurting somewhere?" she asked and her heart started to race. "Max?" she called out loud.

He looked at her and with his twitching lips, he smiled. That smile was filled with a lot of emotions. But Alexandra was not in the mood to discern the emotions.

"You remem-"

He tried to say but before he finished, Alexandra saw his eyes rolling back. In the dim light, she could only see the white of his eyes, and his feet wobbled.

[No! You cannot fall!]