Cycle: Land of the Dragon. Selection: Choice or Destiny. Book One. Pazii Anna

Highness, I welcome you and must inform you that the Heir has departed an hour ago for urgent business. It’ll take three days, he won’t be able to attend dinner. The castle gives you access to the castle’s library, but remember that it is strictly forbidden to be unaccompanied, so call the Companion (you will now be given communications bracelets). Tell us in advance of any travel outside the castle. His Majesty has decided not to remove anyone today, you continue to the selection at full strength.

      Thank you for your attention, enjoy your appetite and let me leave you.

      And I walked out.

      After he left the room was quiet. But it was also cut by the sound of the dishes served, by the shuffling of the servants' clothes. The girls woke up, the sound became brighter and louder. I had no appetite for food, which is why I asked to serve me dinner in my room and walk me to my island of safety.

      Chapter 7 Some Rules

      So, I eat a tasty muffin in room, drink milk, enjoying the warmth of the fireplace and the lack of a corset.

      I am concerned that the emperor did not specify why I did not see the dragons, and in fact the magician invented the legend, which would explain the ignorance of this world. Poor Catherine lived on a small estate on the outskirts of the empire, only people worked on the estate. I was cared for, I wasn’t allowed outside the gate. So it happened that I was with a lot of things just do not come across.

      But he didn’t asked, which means that he will start figuring out independently , and that is dangerous for me.

      But back to the selection.

      For me «selection» is such a TV show where the beauties a man comes with roses and every week informs who goes home. At the end of show there are two beauties, and the whole country guesses right or left, left or right… And now he is coming to the left brunette with a predatory smile, and you’re the whole month was a fan of the blonde on the right… and do not know who is more upset, you’re behind a screen or she there, getting royalties … Or like in fantasy, when the rivals poison each other, prove that they know how to rule the country, but the prince chooses tthe same one that in all behind, but was the sweetest and most beautiful.

      So I imagined ’selection’.

      But here in fact a monster instead of a handsome man with a rose…

      Weedon laughed long after my version of the beauty contest and told me what was really coming.

      Okay, first of all, the emperor have the right not to exclude anyone until the last day, just announce his decision when the time comes. There are no requirements for a new member, invariably only total number not more than thirteen participants

      Third, the choice itself lasts six months (in this place I had to accept that I had lost my job, my belongings from the rented apartment will end up in unknown places, and the relatives will go mad with grief, because it is not possible to survive and not be discovered for so long).

      Fourth, only the ceremony of acquaintance (meadow), the ceremony of announcement and the ceremony of marriage are regulated. The selection process itself and the types of competitive tasks depend on the Emperor’s preferences and are agreed only with him. Participants are notified in the process.

      Why is that? He’s choosing a woman he can’t divorce for hundreds of years. Accordingly, the time limit for selection is quite long.

      Now about me. Very tormented by the question, both physiologically and most importantly why a human being should be a wife and, more difficult, a mother of dragons. And I’m still an ordinary person, the portal does not aroused my dragon’s blood, did magician magician and so on… So why would the monster fire-breathing, even greater than the growth of me at least twice to choose me as a couple??

      If in order, first to the question "How?" I was told the following:

      Dragons look like ordinary people. They become monsters only when they want to fly, hunt or fight, generally at will or spontaneously for defense. Children from marriage to humans are born as an ordinary child, the transformation starts from the third year of life. The child must have a mentor by this time. (What about eggs? Magician said that there is an island of active volcanoes, where are living pterodactyls that lay eggs… But the dragons are viviparous) so the argument «I can not lay eggs» doesn’t work.

      On the second question «why, we live much less», Vidon replied that it is necessary to tell about the history of the rulers:

      So, a few thousand years ago, or a little more, an ancestor of the current ruler was wounded in the war, was to the brink of death in the mountains alone, but accidentally fell into my world, where he was found, rescued and loved by the beautiful maiden Feodosius. The dragon fell in love with the maiden, returned, married and lived happily, the soul in the soul, but not for long (people in this world Physically here feel better, the empress had the best doctors and magicians, and yet she lived to her 100 years and died).

      The heir grew up, his father bored, mistresses changed, but one day he got drunk and flew to our world. Villages burned, forests fired, the arrows of the beast did not take, in general for my world catastrophe. But the alcohol weathered off, the dragon calmed and the locals went to negotiate. What can men do to appease a deity? Blood sacrifices and the most beautiful virgins.

      Dragon ate Slaughtered lamb and moved into his world 13 girls of different compositions and appearance (although from tears they were not much like beauties already), settled them in his castle, and went headlong into affairs of state, leaving the girls in the care of son’s mentor.

      The son was by then a grown man, attracted to one of the sacrificial maidens, and after six months, the young dragon decided to announce that he was getting married. The father did not object, the son married, the authority transferred (with headache of War with werewolves).

      Junior loved his Svetlana, but their happy was short-lived also. In one of the battles against the werewolves, he died. Leaving his little son and wife in the care of a parent.

      Senior dragon, having learned about the death of her son burned most of the land of werewolves, those who survived accepted the dragon’s rule and still are part of the empire (the truth is many dream of regaining freedom and power).

      When he returned home with a victory, Dragon was restless, and once again went to let off steam on the other side of the portal… And again the sacrificial lamb and girls. Dragon liked the role of a deity, and he began to fly every 5 years, taking part in the festival in his honor, eating lamb and taking the girls. But what to do with the harem of crying girls so quickly replenished?

      The emperor didn’t planned to marry, mistresses in such an amount dragon did not need, but also but did not want to give up «holiday in honor of «God of the dragon» also. Celebration of it was getting more interesting by the year. People began to prepare theatrical productions with dragon masks, invented technical novelties, the girls themselves gathered different nationalities. In general, the portal has become an outlet of the sovereign. And refuse the victims was impossible refuse because he is a «deity»

      And therefore he gathered a council to develop the rules. They decided as follows:

      1. Before a dragon marries, to give him a choice of 13 maidens. Нe must communicate with them for at least six months, the contenders may live all the time in a castle, the emperor may replace any of the maidens (this is in case he wants to go again to Land of people).

      2. Every five years the palace arranges a ball, to let girls meet a couple.

      3. On the outskirts of the empire to create a settlement Old Believers, to resettle people there are not ready to live among two-faced (dragons and werewolves). (It turned out that not all the girls were able to believe in and get used to a new life, and frankly went mad).

      So I have, first of all, a plausible legend (a human settlement exists, some behind high walls are really completely closed and barely communicate with the world), and, secondly, a right to participate (according to the law, if a person from such a settlement wishes to participate, they cannot be refused but they may be expelled or replaced the next day. However, few people in the settlements themselves know about this, so they do not claim the right.)

      4.