Rise Of The Dragon Emperor

" It was the phoenix clan ... ".

From the moment Ronan found out that the phoenix clan was involved he felt a murderous aura build up inside him .

The phoenix clan had a long-standing history with the Draco family and it was not impossible for them to pull of such a vile stunt.

However knowing better than to take a criminal like Irene's words at face value , Ronan cross questioned her about a lot of stuff all night.

Ronan was the most curious about how they contacted her and recruited her into their mission and what her reward was in the end.

According to the plan , Irene was supposed to kill Percy and her husband and sneak out of the palace to meet up with the agents of the Phoenix clan who would evict her to the central empire then.

Irene was infertile and hence her married life was a sham. She faced constant domestic abuse and while her husband loved her a lot , the look of dissapointment on his face every night in bed was too much for Irene to handle.

Her only desire was to get away from the judgemental looks that society Gave her for being a useless noble who could not even further the clans lineage , as despite being the first wife the house of the 20th clan leader placed more importance on the pregnant concubine.

It was only because the concubine was pregnant that Irene was selected to go to the banquet of the first prince's celebration , and it was at that time that the agents of phoenix clan contacted her with the mission.

After all this , she was promised a new name and identity in the central empire with a villa and a mansion full of servants and enough money for her to spend the rest of her life in luxury.

Desperate for a fresh start , Irene agreed to the terms as she steeled her resolve to do the deed at the banquet.

She had little patriotism for the fire nation of Avalon and did not care much about the grander scale of things . However , the agents that had contacted her made it absolutely clear that should she give up the phoenix clans name in all this then all bets were off and she would die a dog's death.

Although she was smart , she wasn't smart enough to get past Ronan and now confined in the second princes room and threatened with death she sang the whole story like a puppet.

Ronan was both angry and dissapointed after hearing the entire tale as Irene turned out to be only a puppet for the bigger players in this situation.

She had no reliable information except for naming the phoenix clan and the agents she was going to contact would most likely have already fleed by this point in time as she had not reached the agreed location at the agreed time.

Initially Ronan had no intention of letting Irene go , but after hearing her tragic tale as an impotent woman Ronan could partly sympathize with her ply.

He understood perfectly well that he was already overextending his authority by restraining a criminal who had murdered in the Royal palace , however now that he had achieved his personal motives he thought of a better plan than to just kill her off.

Deciding to ask council from the smartest man in the kingdom , Ronan put the gag back on Irene and knocked on the doors of prime minister Leif who had just came back from a long meeting with the king.

When Leif opened the door he was surprised to see that it was the returning second prince who disturbed him this late in the night , however somehow he was happy to see the boy as he gave him an energetic smile.

" We missed you here ... my prince ". Leif said with melancholy in his voice as Ronan choked on his words for a second.

Ronan had forgotten how he had not met the soldiers , prime minister Leif and general Sam in years and him coming not even greeting them but dragging them to work was extremely rude.

Deciding to be a little more civil , Ronan smiled back as he said " Good to see you too Leif ".

Leif Chuckled to hear the kid Ronan's voice which now sounded like that of a man as he said " Although Im touched that you came to see me , and i donot mind even if it's at such a late hour , What brings you here at this time of the day? ".

Ronan did not know how to put the situation to words as he said " I have the criminal who the entire palace is looking for , bound in my room .... come have a look? ".

Leif felt stunned for a moment as he stared blankly at Ronan for a while.

The entire elite palace force and general Sam himself were looking for the perpetrator of the assassination attempt , yet out of nowhere Ronan just claimed to have the perp locked up in his room.

Feeling exasperated Leif said " We must inform the king... "

However Ronan just shook his head and said " No".

Ronan did not wish to involve Alexander into this yet as knowing the fiery temper of his father , one more offense from the phoenix clan would mean that he would even risk a full blown war with the central empire if it meant purging that rotten clan.

Ronan knew better than to put the two parties on a collision course as his brain told him that there was a bigger plot a play.

He had a strong gut feeling that whoever the real mastermind behind this event was , wanted to frame the phoenix clan for this attack and provoke the Draco family into entering a war with the empire.

It was stupid of the phoenix clan to reveal their name to a lose end like Irene and as far as he was concerned , the moment she would have met with the agents she would have most likely been killed for knowing too much.

Her death was unavoidable either way , and her dreams of living happily in a mansion were nothing more than pipedreams.

The only question now was that how could the Draco's use the perpetrator to their advantage and take charge of this situation and for this exact purpose , Ronan wanted the help of Leif and his experience as he explained the entire story to him about how he caught her.

Leif was mildly surprised that the perpetrator was the 20th clan leaders wife as the initial estimate of the palace guards was that she had been abducted .

However even he immediately knew that the pheonix clan could not be the real perpetrators of this event as the assassin demon was not something that even the phoenix clan could afford to raise.

Leif had put a tight monitoring on the activities of the phoenix clan in the central empire and although they were doing well for themselves , they were still a far-cry from becoming a noble powerhouse that could raise assassin demons.

As the duo reached Ronans room , they instantly felt surprised as one Percy Draco was sitting on bedside with his sword unsheated as he had a fiery burn ongoing in his eyes.

Ronan felt a slight chill run down his spine when he watched his brother in his room while Leif was only slightly surprised.

Looking at Ronan Percy said " So brother .... first day back and we are already causing a ruckus eh? What's the dead leaders wife doing in your room? and why are you not resting ? ".

Ronan felt a headache incoming , as his brother's temper was not much different than his father's . Telling him the truth was again akin to declaring a war on phoenix clan , but lying to Percy was never his strong suit.

Gulping he looked towards Leif for support , who rolled his eyes at the situation.

Thinking about it for a while , Leif started to cook up a half truth half lie bullshit story.

Revealing the truth about how Irene felt dissatisfied with her husband and she snapped and murdered him tonight , Leif cleared the suspicion about her abduction however he conveniently left out the part about how she was also the assassin who tried to kill him.

Apparently Percy was on patrol duty when he heard muffled crying noises coming from Ronan's room and he barged in to check on the situation only to see a tied up middle aged woman inside.

Looking at her , the first question that Percy had in his mind was ' Has my brother became a sadistic degenerate who kidnaps wives now? '

But shaking that thought soon after he chose to wait in silence for his brothers return to clear up the situation.

Sighing in releif when he found out that he was only tracking down the killer , Ronan patted on his brothers back for a job well done as he went out of the room and back to his patrol duty after instructing him to turn her in to the guards later after interrogation.

As Ronan sighed in relief , Leif bursted out laughing seeing how the two brats had matured.