Free Web NovelChapter 441: Trivial Things
The private jet had barely touched down when Arzhen Vasiliev descended the steps. He was furious, feeling like he had been thwarted by time itself.
His phone was still clutched in his hand, the email from his legal team burning a hole through the screen.
The divorce decree had come through. Finalized. Signed by the judge. Faster than they had predicted, weeks faster, as though someone had reached into the machinery of the legal system and greased every wheel between filing and judgment.
"Explain to me," Arzhen hissed coldly, "how could it possibly be processed this quickly."
Yes, it was an uncontested divorce with no settlement, no alimony, no property disputes, nothing, which usually would go the most smooth and fast. But this was uncannily faster.
Igor and Oleg hurried behind him, their polished shoes clicking against the tarmac in a syncopated rhythm. "Sir, we... we attempted to file the appeal, but the window had already closed. The decree was expedited. We don’t know how. Someone must have—"
"Someone." Arzhen stopped at the bottom of the steps, his dark eyes blazing. "Someone. Of course. Someone."
He had only hesitated for one moment. Yesterday, when he had told Igor to begin the process of reversing the divorce, he had paused just a heartbeat.
But even if he had not hesitated, it would have been too late. The machinery had already been in motion. The decree was already on the judge’s desk. The pen was already lifting.
Who knew that woman would—
No.
To access that much magic power, holding back a reservoir and destroying a rift core, she would have needed a source. A bond. A beast.
And the only creatures in this world capable of granting that kind of power were—
Dragons.
Yes. If she had bonded with a dragon, then everything made sense. The power, the confidence, and the way she had walked out of the hospital without looking back.
She had not been running away, she had been running toward something. Someone. A creature that could give her what Arzhen never could.
He reached the car and yanked the door open. "Oleg. Drive. Home. Quickly."
Oleg didn’t ask questions. He simply slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, his massive frame somehow folding into the luxury sedan.
If Arzhen was not mistaken, Elara hadn’t thrown away Cecilia’s jewelry. The Vasiliev matriarch had been too greedy for that even if it belonged to the woman she despised.
She would have kept the pieces and hid them, waited for the right moment to claim and flaunt them as her own. And among those pieces were things Cecilia had owned before the marriage.
Something... anything must be valuable enough for her, trinkets that held no monetary value but were, to her, irreplaceable.
He would use them to find her, wherever she was hiding, and he would hold out those trinkets like bait.
She would come back. She had always been his, after all.
When suddenly Igor’s phone rang. The tiger accepted it and heard—"What? Miss Ruby is injured?!"
Arzhen’s eyes faltered.
***
The room was dark.
It was a deliberate, oppressive darkness designed to intimidate. The only light came from the massive projection screen at the front of the chamber, its cold blue glow casting long, twisted shadows across the faces of the men and women seated around the obsidian table.
They were arranged in a semicircle, each seat spaced precisely equidistant from the next, each representative positioned so that no nation appeared to outrank another. freёwebnovel.com
The screen displayed footage from the dam. The wall of water, and the blonde woman floating between earth and sky. The dragons descending, a scene straight from mythical legends.
The footage was grainy, shot from a helicopter, but the figure at its center was unmistakable.
Representative Nakamura of the East Asian Federation leaned forward, his thin fingers steepled beneath his chin. His face, illuminated from below by the glow of the screen, looked skeletal.
"The power this woman displayed exceeds any recorded human magical output by a factor of at least forty. Conservative estimates suggest she could level a city. Perhaps two."
"She is pregnant, they said," said Director Fontaine of the European Continental Alliance, her voice cold and clipped. She was a severe woman in her sixties, her silver hair pulled back so tightly it seemed to stretch the skin of her face.
"To imagine bonding with a beast will grant you that kind of power," rumbled General Okonkwo of the African Coalition, a mountain of a man whose uniform was decorated with so many medals they clinked faintly when he breathed.
"A being of that magnitude, she is no longer a person. She is a weapon waiting to be aimed."
"Then aim her," said a smooth voice from the shadows. Ambassador Volkov of the Slavic Republics, his face half-hidden in the gloom, smiled like a wolf contemplating a flock of sheep.
"Damon Iondora must’ve already had his own plans."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the darkened chamber. On the screen, the footage looped again.
"Her relationship with the Saintess complicates matters," said Nakamura. "The Celeste girl has already declared her a Divine Deity. If we move against her openly, we risk alienating the one being capable of purifying the corruption. The optics alone—"
"Optics can be managed," Fontaine cut in sharply. "The Saintess is a child. Children can be guided, as she said. If the deity is kept in a facility adjacent to the Saintess, we can control the narrative. She already agreed to our terms once, now we control public opinion to pull her around."
"And if she refuses to play her part?" Okonkwo asked in a low rumble. "It seems Aro Industry and Nevaeh Gro—"
CLICK—
The lights come on. freewebnovёl.ƈom
The sudden brightness was blinding, making every person at the table flinch and shield their eyes. Someone near the door let out a startled curse. General Okonkwo’s medals jangled. Ambassador Volkov’s wolf-smile vanished, replaced by a squint.
Standing by the light switch, her hand still resting on the panel, was a young woman.
She was blonde and her eyes were blue, the blue of shallow tropical water, warm and bright and deceptively inviting.
She snorted.
"What is this?" Ivy Cassia teased. "Trying to feel mysterious? Do you all dim the lights and whisper ominously every time you discuss trivial things?"
