The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

Shadow Nineteen and Captain Shadow left after receiving detailed instructions from Queen Carolina. After they left, Bella burst into tears again.

"What's wrong, me dear child?" Queen Carolina asked in a very worried voice.

Bella simply shook her head, too embarrassed to tell them why she was so upset. Now that Jules had clearly asked for her precious stolen dress to be burnt – what was she supposed to wear in the evening? That dress was the most precious one in her boudoir, and there was nothing which was prettier than this one…

And it was so perfectly matched with Jules's outfit as well…

But now she and Jules won't match – and while she could pull out another set of their coordinated outfits from the huge collection they had – and there were three extra sets, so that was not such a big issue…

It was just that this particular outfit was extra special, and the one she had been looking forward to the most. She knew that she and Jules would look absolutely perfect and would be the best looking and best dressed couple in the banquet tonight if only she had her dress…

However, in light of the events right now – and especially considering that one of their imperial shadow guards had been brutally murdered, and the murderer was none other than her long dead father Vir, who had somehow been resurrected as a cursed living ghost corpse – and she had also just found out that her mother had been shielding her from this awful bit of information all these years, that her father Vir had actually betrayed their much treasured Sapphire Kingdom and had actually been an enemy spy. And not only had her mother protected her from this to let her have a happy and carefree life, she had also made sure to brief her fiancé the Crown Prince Jules of the Emerald Kingdom about this – so that if in the future something happened – something like the events of this very morning – Jules would not be too shocked and that he would stand by Bella's side, because he already knew all about it. Bella was extremely impressed and could only marvel in admiration at her mother's foresight.

Besides, all the people in this room – King Jaren of the Emerald Kingdom, her father in law, who had become her Papa, the best father figure she had ever known, Crown Prince Jules of the Emerald Kingdom, her much beloved fiancé and the other half of her soul, Princess Mana of the Emerald Kingdom, the little sister she had gained and she absolutely adored, Prince Raven of the Obsidian Kingdom, again, the little brother she had always wanted but never had before, and the little Royal Dragon Prince Azar of the Emerald Kingdom, the most adorable nephew anyone could ever ask for, and the one little dragon child that she wanted to spoil and indulge to her heart's content – all of these were people Bella would trust with not merely her life, but her honour, her reputation and the welfare of her citizens. There was absolute trust between all of them, and that is why she loved them all and trusted them all as much as she trusted her own mother or her own self.

With all that affection, however, also came the burning desire to make them all very proud of her. Bella was not used to caring about the opinions of other people – she had forced herself to grow out of that a very long time ago, but now that she had this lovely new family, their opinion mattered greatly to her.

And she didn't want to sound childish by telling them right now that she was crying about her ruined dress.

However, Bella seemed to have forgotten that in this very room, the two people in the world who knew her best – her own mother Queen Carolina, and her beloved fiancé, Crown Prince Jules of the Emerald Kingdom – were also present, and that they would be able to guess more or less what was the issue that was making their dear Bella so sad!

"Actually, there is something that I wanted to bring up yesterday, but didn't find a chance," Jules said softly.

Mana, who was in the know, gave a mischievous smirk. "Go ahead, Big Brother!" she said happily.

Jules handed a small magical pouch to Bella. "Please open it and let me know what you think," he said shyly.

"Big Brother has worked very, very hard on this, Big Sister Bella," Mana chipped in loyally. "He has spent a lot of time gathering everything and putting everything together."

"Yes, Big Brother has worked for months and months to prepare this for you, Big Sister Bella!" Raven added quickly, giving a big smile to Jules and Bella.

"Yes, Auntie Bella! Uncle Jules worked a lot and a lot and a lot!" Azar wasn't far behind his human family in rising to Jules's defence on this matter! The little dragon huffed proudly and flew around excitedly in circles over their heads – and after some half a dozen rounds and with additional words of encouragement to both Jules and Bella, he returned to his favourite spot – his favourite spot in the world being his dear, dear Grandpapa's shoulder.

"Azar helped me a lot with this, too," Jules murmured, smiling at the little dragon that was his favourite (not to mention only) nephew.

"Azar is a good boy!" the little dragon said immediately, grinning at everyone. "Of course Azar will help Uncle Jules make pretty pretty pretty present for Auntie Bella! Beautiful Auntie Bella and beautiful Uncle Jules will be super pretty pretty pretty after wearing the pretty pretty pretty things made by Uncle Jules! Auntie Bella, open your gift! Uncle Jules made big big shiny! Very big shiny, a lot of big shiny! Very pretty! Best pretty!" The little dragon got really excited again and started flying around in circles yet again.

Bella was really intrigued and her tears automatically stopped. She clutched at the magical pouch with trembling fingers and opened it gingerly.

The next moment, as the things inside the pouch started to come out one by one, Bella couldn't stop herself from breaking into delightful gasps of pure and unadulterated happiness.

For in the pouch was a complete set of coordinated outfits for both Bella and Jules, complete with every single accessory they would need to wear along with the outfits.

The dress for Bella looked like it was made of gold and silver clouds – the silk was so delicate and so pretty that it was completely and totally unlike anything that Bella had ever seen in her life. The dress was so very beautiful that it would make even the ugliest woman in the entire world look absolutely gorgeous – and with Bella and her exquisite natural beauty, there was absolutely no question of the dress not looking good or not being suitable at all! It was so very pretty that it utterly and completely eclipsed the dress which had been stolen by the huge conspiracy so carefully planned and conducted and executed by the cursed living ghost corpse Vir and the two traitorous maids who had been in the loop to help him, and all the foreign enemies or the hidden enemies within their own imperial palace who had wanted to ruin the precious event of tonight by ruining Bella's exquisite dress.

All of them would fall flat on their faces now – simply because the lost dress couldn't even hold a candle to this absolutely gorgeous piece of artwork that Jules had prepared for Bella!

"How did you even make this?" Bella asked in a low whisper, looking up at Jules with stars shining in her eyes.

Seeing her reaction and perceiving her happiness and delight with the dress, Jules burst into a merry laughter, feeling very relieved, since he had bee really quite worried that his darling Bella, with her classy and impeccable taste, would find this particular dress to be too shiny for her tastes and refuse to wear it. And especially Azar, since the little dragon really, really really loved shiny things and anything and everything made of gold or gemstones or any kind of precious metals or precious stones – in fact, the shinier a thing was, the more attracted Azar was to it, and Raven often remarked that this is where the little dragon's strong dragon genes were coming through – and Mana completely agreed with it, because even in the modern world that she had lived in for more than two decades where dragons were only creatures of legend and myths and not considered to be real, living and breathing creatures, even in that world, in all the myths, both eastern and western fantasies had their own different kinds of dragons – but one thing had always been common to the dragons of both the eastern and western cultures – all the dragons, regardless of origin, absolutely loved and adored anything that was shiny and sparkly, and loved hoard them in their own nests or caves or homes!