The invitation

The following day I was sitting on Walter's lap while he was reading documents in his office. While going through them, he paused when he saw a letter with a gold seal.

Walter carefully opened the letter, and after he finished reading it, he rang a small bell on his desk, and a butler came into the room, "Yes, sir?"

"Please inform the Duchess to bring Tom and Dan to the living room and wait for me. I have an important announcement."

"Right away, sir." The butler exited the room, and Walter lifted me up and carried me out of the room with him. After a couple of minutes, we arrived at the living room, where Walter sat down, put me back on his lap, and waited for Crimson and my brothers to arrive.

We didn't have to wait long for them to arrive. The three of them entered the room after just a minute of waiting. They all took a seat in front of where Walter was sitting and waited for him to talk.

Taking a deep breath, Walter looked out at them, "I've received a letter from the king summoning me. He wishes to see me three months from now to discuss an urgent matter that he'll reveal to me at that time."

"He would also like to meet Sasha and has invited all five of us to come and visit the capital together as his honoured guests."

Crimson looked at Walter, puzzled, "Do you have any idea why the king wants all of us to go to the capital? Do you think it has anything to do with your brother?"

"I'm not sure, it may very well be, but it could also just as easily be something else entirely. Either way, we cannot ignore the king's invitation."

Crimson sighs heavily, "You're right. So when are we leaving?"

"Since we don't currently have access to an airship, and Tom can't change forms, we'll have to go by a carriage which will take us at least two weeks, even with a magic carriage. So we'll be heading to the capital in just over two months."

After two months of Crimson and Walter preparing to depart, we all started to head down the mountain. I couldn't help but admire the view on the way down, 'This is the first time I've been down the mountain. You can see so far away from up this high. Of course, the view isn't as great as when Dad took me to the top of the mountain, but it's not too far behind.'

When we reached the foot of the mountain, there was a carriage waiting for us. It looked relatively small but had a gold inlaid pattern decorating it, 'Is this really the carriage we're going to take to the capital? It looks fancy but seems barely big enough to seat two people. Not to mention there are no horses attached to it, but Dad did mention it was a magic carriage, so it probably doesn't need them.'

Walter walked ahead of us to the carriage and opened the door for us. Tom and Dan rushed inside, and when Crimson and I entered, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the inside.

The inside of the carriage was more than five times the size of the outside. The carriage's interior looked like a luxury hotel room, and there were doors that more than likely led to more rooms, 'How is this even possible?! This is just as big as my bedroom!'

Walter walked inside, closing the door behind him, "We'll be setting off right away to make sure we arrive on time."

After saying that, Walter put his hand on the wall, where he placed his hand a magic circle formed around it, and in the corner of my eye, I could see the terrain starting to move outside the window.

'I guess I was right, this carriage doesn't need horses, but that's the least impressive thing about this carriage!'

Walter looked over at me and saw I had nothing but pure amazement on my face. Seeing me enjoying myself so much brought a smile to his face, "Crimson, you should take the children and look around the rooms."

Crimson smiled at his suggestion, "Sure!"

As the four of us looked around the main room, I never stopped being amazed by it, 'It might just be a living room, but it looks just as fancy as the one at home. There's even a fireplace inside here!'

When we entered the first room, it was a mTom bedroom, the rooms after that were all average size bedrooms and two bathrooms. There was even a kitchen in one of the rooms. The carriage was basically a house on wheels, 'This entire carriage is bigger than my home in my past life, twice as nice as well!'

We arrived outside the capital after 11 days on the road. When we got close enough, we stopped, left the carriage, and walked to the capital's main gate of the border wall.

All around the edge of the gate were multiple layers of different glowing symbols. The gate itself had what looked like solid steel doors with four guards standing in front of it.

In front of the gate was a large line that I couldn't see the end of. Everyone in the line looked to be waiting for their turn to try and enter the city. From what I could see, each person that went up to the gate had to take some form of examination, while some people who went up simply changed forms into a dragon and were allowed immediate entry.

As we approached the gate, someone seemed to fail the examination and was dragged away by one of the guards. When Tom saw it, he asked Walter, "Why was that man dragged away?"

"Kiddra city doesn't allow anyone other than dragons to enter. Anyone who isn't and tries to enter is taken away to be executed, and anyone who manages to break in and is caught will be executed on sight."

"Why, though?"

"Because Kiddra city is our capital and our most sacred land, no one other than the dragon race has ever set foot here and lived. The reason is that this is our ancestral homeland. All dragons, at one point, lived right here; that was possible because, in the beginning, our kind only numbered in the hundreds. So it's seen as an unforgivable crime for another race to set foot here."

When we arrived in front of the gate, Walter showed the gold seal from the letter he received from the king along with our family seal. Seeing it, the guards let us pass the line and enter directly. To open the gate, all four guards had to use a magic symbol marked on their hands.

Once all four guards unlocked their respective locks, all the glowing symbols faded, and the steel door opened, allowing us to enter. When we entered the capital, the sight I saw inside surprised me.

Despite its very modest and quiet exterior, the inside of the capital was a bustling, beautiful city. Just on the other side of where the gate opened was a large market with countless dragons roaming around both in the air and walking.

As we passed through the market to get to the capital's centre, I looked at everything as we passed it by. Every market stall or shop I saw was selling items I'd never seen before in my life. This only further showed me how different this world was from my past.

The deeper we went into the city, the more crowded it became. We even kept getting traders to come up to us, trying to sell us useless items, "You look like a family that could use a protection scroll! Keep this on your person, and you can protect your family from any bandit without using any effort! It's only 100 mid-rank mana gems!"

We ignored all the traders that came up to us; some who saw Walter's eyes left without saying a word and simply bowed. However, the more people I saw as we went deeper into the city, the more I started to notice that everyone I had seen so far had only one of four eye colours, grey, maroon, lime and orange.

Noticing this, I started to think, 'I thought most dragons only had yellow or magenta eyes? When I think about it, I only ever saw the maids and butlers with maroon and lime eyes, everyone else seemed to have yellow eyes like Mom, and only a few had mine and Dad's eye colour. So maybe it has something to do with nobility here?'

After walking for a few hours, we arrived at a crossroads where a carriage, more ornate than ours, was parked on the corner. Standing in front of the carriage was what looked like a butler.

Walter led us over to the carriage, and the butler opened the door for us, and we all went inside, 'Why are we getting inside a random carriage on the side of the road?'

As we all got on, Walter told us, "The king arranged for one of his personal carriages to escort us to the castle. That's why we left ours outside the border wall of the capital. This carriage will get us to the centre of Kiddra in a matter of hours compared to ours, which would have taken us another day of travel with how large kiddra is."

Once we were on, I looked around the inside. Unlike ours, this one was only double the size on the inside. It was a larger version of a carriage on the inside with just enough space to sit five people on each side, 'It's really plain on the inside for a royal carriage...'

We then spent eight hours on the carriage before finally reaching the king's castle at the capital's centre. Eventually, we left the carriage and headed to the castle's entrance.

There were guards in front of the entrance, so, like at the front gate, Walter showed the guards the gold seal and our family seal, "I've been summoned by his majesty the king. We arrived a day early, so if you could escort us to some guest chambers, it would be much appreciated."

The guard inspected the seal for a moment before responding, "Follow me. I'll show you to where the guest rooms are." we then followed the guard inside, where he led us up several flights of stairs before arriving at the guest rooms, "You can use any of the rooms along this corridor."

Walter handed the guard a strange-looking blue gem from his pocket, "Thank you for the assistance. This is for the inconvenience."

The guard's face looked surprised when he saw the crystal, "I can't possibly accept this! I was only doing my job, not to mention this is a high-rank mana gem! Just one of these is equivalent to one month of my wages!"

"It's fine; take it."

The guard reluctantly accepted it and left. Walter then proceeded to separate us into rooms. He put Tom and Dan into separate rooms and put me in the same room he had chosen for himself and Crimson.