Chapter 74

Crown Princess Elora
Furia

Since the day they discovered Crown Princess Elora was pregnant, there had been great curiosity about the gender identity of the child. Although Elora knew she would love and be content with her child no matter the gender, she did not expect to find it out next to the words no mother would want to hear about their child.

"He is not breathing!" The Physician Assistant cried.

Elora watched her mother leave her side at rapid speed. She took the child from the hands of the assistants and massaged his chest.

"Bring a lot of towels and everything we prepared in advance!" Her mother lay him on the small table with the cradle of a warm blanket. "Come on, child," she desperately pumped his chest, "Breathe!"

Li Lian looked up at the roof and said a prayer to the heavens. She uncontrollably shivered due to shock and tremendous fear.

Her worst nightmare was before her.

Abandoning the resuscitation altogether, Queen Elora violently beckoned her hands and summoned her power, and like oil being poured, she emptied yellow rays into the child.

"Where is what I have asked for?" Queen Elora screamed at the servants.

Simultaneously, they rushed in wheeling a small metal table stocked with different types of blades alongside herbs.

Stopping her energy sharing, Queen Elora took a short knife and did not hesitate to plunge it into the child's chest. With great focus, she cut through the chest, careful not to cut the wrong vein and artery points.

Elora did not specifically know the mind of her mother. However, what she did know was that she had carried the child of a dragon and the technique of taking out the heart was a long carried tradition. Whether it would work or not, she could only hope.

Her mother's forehead was a river of sweat the assistants kept dabbing. It was important that her mother did not make a mistake and cut off at the wrong vein or artery point as it would result in bleeding. Cutting at the correct points resulted in the end shutting itself off. The blood would be rerouted to get to the brain and the rest of the body as any normal person.

"I have safely extracted the heart," Queen Elora exhaled in relief. "May the Priestess use her internal skill to blow into his lungs the air he needs while I work on his heart. He is still not breathing and my sustaining energy is quickly sipping out of his meridians."

The Priestess waved and coiled her fingers before a white surge of power flowed from her index finger into the little parted mouth.

Her mother pumped the heart in her hand. "Resilience, child," she whispered. "You must survive."

The first few minutes that passed, Elora was quite hopeful, but when half an hour passed, she started to feel that they were avoiding the inevitable. Maybe it was not meant to be and they were forcing him to live when he did not want to be there.

"Crying will not save his life," her mother snapped. "Pull yourself together or I will have you taken out."

Elora wiped her tears and bit her lower lip to stop it from wobbling.

"I expected many things but I did not prepare for this sickness." Queen Elora kept gently massaging the heart.

"Sick?"

"He has a congenital heart disease, worsened by the fact that he is both Furian and Nevorian. If he was only Nevorian, he would be all right for half of his life as his father."

Yuwen Hong has a congenital heart disease? No one had told her this.

"His heart keeps beating and stopping. He is fighting but the odds are against him. My Priestess, is he at least breathing?"

"No, Your Majesty. It is my breath sustaining him. He has not tried to take a breath."

"This cannot be helped, then." Her mother looked back at her with solemn eyes and Elora knew they were about to take him from her.

"Bring the glass tank."

"Yes, Your Majesty!" The servants hurried out and within a minute they carried in a tank that had a colorless gel. It was the Thousands Valley nectar.

"Is there no other way?" Elora began to uncontrollably sob. "He is the same as dead this way!"

Queen Elora did not respond. They brought her a bowl of fresh Furian blood and she bathed the little heart in it. Thereafter did she return the heart into the open chest.

She took great care positioning the heart correctly. Once his body registered the return of its heart, naturally, it started to knit flesh over each other until the sealing of the chest was completed. His chest area was now a copy of his father's, with the sight of flesh similar to tree roots entangled and engulfing each other.

Queen Elora nodded to the Priestess, silently telling her to stop sharing her breath with him.

Elora bit a loud wail from escaping her. Because she could not take it.

Was it not unfair for tribulation to visit her and Yuwen Hong again and again? They had nothing of their own with their love forbidden and their child being laid to rest before he took his first breath.

Queen Elora carried the child, kissed him on the forehead, and carefully submerged him in the gel until all of his little body floated within the gel.

"Ice freezes the mountain, snow freezes the ground, and the cold freezes the sea!" Her mother shouted as she waved her arms, her wings stretching themselves as if yawning. The spell she initiated created thunder that blasted from the sky and shook the ground. "Let frost cease the time and preserve life!"

The room went extremely cold and the chill coursed from her body, causing an iceberg to form as the roof of the tank; sealing it completely.

Satisfied with her job, the queen stopped. She swayed back and forth, and her attendant ran to her side.

"Your Majesty, you are now pale. You have used too much of your strength and may have internal injury."

"Take me to rest," she weakly muttered in response.

Elora lifted her knees to herself and hugged them. She was beyond grateful to her mother. Greatly had she fought for the well-being of her child.

"Do not despair, Your Highness. Queen Elora has sealed him, and frozen the time in the tank. This will allow us to find the cure while preserving his life," The Priestess comforted.

Elora watched her child floating in the gel. What was wrong with her? She should be grateful that he did not die, so why was her heart breaking?

"You have just given birth, Your Highness. Let us clean you up and make sure you are in good health."

Elora yielded to their request and let them do what they needed with her body. It was as if she was in a dream, and if it was, she wanted to work up from it as soon as possible.

"We have finished our work, Your Highness. We shall take you back to your chambers to rest."

"Help me sit next to him for a while."

The attendants brought a chair and placed it next to the table carrying the glass tank.

Yuwen Hong's child and hers, such a delicate and wondrous creation wrapped in a soft cocoon of vulnerability. He entered the world with a quiet, yet profound presence, and helplessly committed to endure fighting just so he could live.

His tiny form was perfectly sculpted, carrying the imprint of generations past, a testament that from the beginning Nevoria and Furia have been one.

The little fingers were minuscule and delicate, while the skin was porcelain. Absolutely beautiful.

Elora wanted to feel the soft brush of dark hair. She was naturally blonde at birth, so her child chose to take after the dark color of his father's hair. Even the eyelashes were long, just like Yuwen Hong's.

"My child," she swallowed. "I did not get to touch you so I could feel whether your skin is soft as rose petals. And neither did you cry so I could worry for you. You are too filial." A tear escaped her eye and wet her cheek. "It would have been nice to see your eyes open... Just so I could tell if they are also like your father's or you have my amber eyes."

All a mother wishes for their child is to be well. Nothing else did she require from him. What a pity that otherwise was their case.

"Rest well and hold on. You cannot go without meeting your father." She used her sleeve to wipe her tears. "Your father is a great man. You shall like him a lot... so hold on and get better. Some things are not handed to us and we have to fight for them. You have to fight to live."

Chapter 50 - Emperor And I

Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced through his chest and he lost breath. He also lost balance and luckily Luo Meng was there to catch him.

"Your Majesty?" Luo Meng questioned with concern imminent in his eyes.

"Luo Meng..." he breathed, holding his chest but just as fast as the pain came, it was gone.

"This servant suggests that His Majesty has us summon an Imperial Physician." He was worried. Shen Hong could see by the way his grip was slightly trembling beneath him.

"I am alright." He brushed it off. He trusted that his swordmaster, wherever he was, was capable of looking after his heart.

Chapter 82 - Emperor and I

The physician took out a cotton swab and dabbed it on the swell of skin. "Does His Majesty's chest still hurt?"

"Not recently, but I have occasionally experienced a piercing chest pain." He remembered the time he almost collapsed when he came out of jail.

"His Majesty is not a pure royal blood, therefore the incubation of his heart with Furia blood is not as easy."

Grand Consort Shu was a low-born commoner. Because of this, he suffered a lack of dominance as a warrior spirit that the other dragons before him easily possessed. Most of his achievements were out of hard work rather than heritage advantage. Other dragons could easily tackle without trying, while he worked hard to attain speed. Others easily mastered sword techniques, while he practiced for it. All that he had was from blood and sweat.

Outsiders called his lineage, blood suckers, which was not far from the truth. The royal bloodline relied on Furia's blood to preserve their life into longevity. Instead of a mere 50 years, they could live up to a tripled amount. But in his case, it was unknown how long he would survive considering his tainted blood. It could be more than expected or quite less than the normal life expectancy.

Author's Note

In the end, all the way from the Emperor and I, it is all coming together.

S.V