SPELLBOUND

Evie did not even take a long while to think about a name as she had noticed the faint colouring on the dragon's chest. Unlike Onyx that had every part of its body as dark as midnight, this dragon has other colours mixed in especially along the edges of its spikes. A colour between rose and red… Evie thought to herself.

Since the dark dragon was named Onyx, she thought of naming these dragons according to shades of other colours as well.

"Alright," Evie breathed and caressed the dragon's snout, "your name from now on shall be Crimson." Evie declared. The dragon did not make any sound, but it remained docile as Evie continued caressing it.

With a smile on her face, she looked at Zanya and her men. "Her name is Crimson." She said and Zanya smiled as well.

Then, without a word, Evie climbed on the dragon's back. She already knew how to command a dragon since she had already experienced it when she had tried it with Onyx. And now, since she already understood the fae language and could speak it well enough since that moment she sat on that throne, she knew that there were no more barriers stopping her. At least when it comes to communicating with the dragons and in the fae language.

But as soon as she was seated on the dragon and before she could speak to it, the dragon already spread out its wings and began to take off. And in the next moment, they were flying above and circling the great castle at a very steady pace.

Everyone on the ground were in awe. The vampires could not help but break out in complaints. "Damn! Our princess is getting more and more over-powered by the minute don't you think?" Luc asked with a pout, as he followed their princess' movements with his eyes. All of them had somehow unknowingly stopped worrying about her now. She was already a force to be reckoned with. And if anyone were foolish enough to be fooled by her petite stature and innocently beautiful looks, they would be in for a rude awakening. The men could only chuckle among themselves as they thought of this.

"Yeah… this still somehow feels like a dream," Elias uttered, "I never would have thought I would live to see the day when this princess riding so valiantly on a flying dragon like this." The butler muttered, as he shook his head slightly, remembering that this was the very same princess he had served and worried about since the first time he had met her. She was a fragile human, he had thought to himself every time he was with her back then, constantly worried that she would end up hurting herself whenever he was not looking. But looking at her now, his heart could not help but just well up in pride and joy. There she was, way up there, flying on a dragon which were almost regaled to fables, looking invincible. She was fully matched up to His Highness Prince Gavriel's magnificence the way she looked at the moment.

However, their awe eventually faded when they saw that the dragon simply continued circling around the vicinity, almost aimlessly. They were waiting for it to breathe out fire like what had happened in the forest before the gate of Crescia. But it did no such thing even after everyone looked on for a long while, just staring and waiting.

The men started to wonder what was going on and when their eyes turned red for them to focus their gazes on the princess' face, all of them immediately began to worry after seeing Evie's face looking slightly troubled.

"What's going on?" Zolan asked, glancing at the light fae, who was a few steps to their left.

"She's having trouble controlling it." Zanya's reply made the vampires to immediately become quite alarmed and hastily looked up to follow Evie's movements in the sky. Nothing must happen to their princess!

Zolan immediately told everyone to get ready in case the princess accidentally fell from the dragon's back. However, something surprising made them all halt in their tracks as they were about to spread out around the castle to carry out their plans in rescuing the princess.

Their eyes widened as an ethereal pair of butterfly wings appeared and unfurled from Zanya's back. The wings were large – almost spanning three quarters of Zanya's body length – and colourful and simply magical. It was something they had never seen before. Faeries could grow wings?!

Before the men could even react to that occurrence, she was already flying up towards the princess until she reached the dragon.

"Princess!" Zanya called out as she landed herself on the back of the dragon as well.

"Crimson's not listening to me!" Evie said, there was no fear on her face but pure confusion. "She's not listening to my command! It is as if… as if she does not understand me at all! I don't know what went wrong!"

"How did you command her princess? Did you envision her in your mind's eye to do what you wanted her to do? Remember, your instructions need to be seen, heard and felt in full by yourself and the dragon you're commanding." Zanya was quick in her questions and statements.

Evie looked at Zanya with questions filling her eyes. "You're saying I should not be commanding her with words alone?"

"Yes, princess." Zanya simply replied.

"But Onyx had listened to my words without –" Evie trailed off, remembering that Zanya said Onyx was different from these other dragons. Evie gave a start at that thought. That was where she went wrong! She had assumed that this dragon would listen to her just like Onyx did! She had totally forgotten that Zanya had earlier on told her about how these other dragons were considered still young as they had only hatched from their eggs after the disaster that befell the fae kingdom.

"Are you saying that Crimson doesn't yet understand the fae language like Onyx?" That was all Evie could guess from what she understood so far.