Three Weeks Later.
I’d heard that Hades was a horrible fate for any soul, full of constant torment and pain in the afterlife. Well, I’d gotten a taste of it over the past three weeks under Regina and Cal’s constant “care.” It was like they were trying to bring me to the brink of death each and every day, and only when I was ready to meet the Maker did they allow me to go home and rest. My leather hunting suit no longer fit. I’d bulked up in every area due to the constant hefting of heavy weapons and eating of rich foods. The palace seamstress was going to take it out for me and add a side panel today.
Despite the constant practices, bruises, and even stitches, I’d never been stronger, faster, or more lethal. I’d learned to wield a sword in combat and spit fire on my enemy. I even learned that I had self-healing powers. A wound that would have taken me weeks to heal before was now gone within a day.
I had three practices a day, one with Regina and my pup squadron, one with Cal, and the other with the king himself. The king and my practices were secret, where he taught me to use my dragon magic.
Joslyn and the king were officially engaged to be married in a week’s time. Sometimes she came to the practices, which was a little awkward. I’d gotten a front seat as I watched her fall in love with the king, but it was clear he did not share her affections. He was respectful to her, cared for her needs, but he did not hold her hand, didn’t kiss her, and she’d confided in me that she feared it was going to be a marriage of convenience.
I had also grown close to her, considered her one of my good friends. She was kind, strong, and thoughtful, and we spent nearly every evening taking a walk around the gardens and talking about our day. It was good to have someone else who knew about your situation, and both Joslyn’s and my situations were unique. She was going to be the future queen of Embergate, and she’d been let in on the secret that I was the Lost Royal. The king killer. All those titles I shunned. I’d rather be known as a good hunter or even a pup in the Royal Guard.
I stood in the training field waiting on the king as I bit into an apple. Joslyn was sunning on a nearby rock with her dark hair splayed out behind her.
“Your mom and sister are coming for the Fall Moon Festival, right?” Joslyn asked.
I nodded, unable to keep the grin off my face. I hadn’t seen them since I came here nearly a moon ago, but I’d sent home a letter with a royal courier telling them of my new job, and my mother seemed happy with my new position in the Royal Guard. “Drae said that she and my sister could stay in the palace.”
The king and I were on a first-name basis, and I hated to admit it but I considered him one of my closest friends. We saw each other every day for practice, and he was so patient in teaching me new things and so easy to talk to. Ever since I joined the Royal Guard and took that pledge before everyone, it was like he fully trusted me. Gone was the stuffy king with an unreadable gaze. Now, he was just… Drae.
“What a nice king he is to have done that.” Drae’s voice came from behind me and Joslyn burst into laughter as I rolled my eyes.
“He’s okay at times,” I admitted, causing him to lightly shove me in the shoulder.
“Hello, Drae,” Joslyn said awkwardly, sitting up and waving too eagerly at him.
“How are you today?” he asked her kindly.
She gave him a small smile. “Good. I got a new dress made.” She spread her hands over the bright yellow silk and looked up at him expectantly.
It was clear she was fishing for a compliment.
Drae sighed, reading into her need for attention. He sidestepped me and faced her, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “You look beautiful,” he said.
She did look beautiful; it wasn’t a lie.
Joslyn placed her hands over his, beaming up at him, probably desperate for his touch, and a small ache formed in my chest as I watched Drae hover over her while she gazed up at him with adoration.
I wanted that. I wanted someone to touch and hold and… kiss.
I hadn’t kissed anyone since that day in the interrogation room with Drae, and now that I knew he was marrying Joslyn I wanted to move on. My sword trainer, Cal, and I had become close, and there had been multiple near misses where I thought he meant to kiss me, but something was holding him back. I decided that today I was going to ask him about it.
After my training with the king.
Drae pulled away from Joslyn and faced me. “You can spit fire in a stream of forty feet, throw fireballs from your hands five at a time. I think it’s time we mastered flight.”
Anxiety churned in my gut and Joslyn stood abruptly.
“My king, last time she—”
He cut Joslyn off. “If she is to fight beside me in battle, I must know she is a capable flier.”
Sick unease washed over me. I’d transformed a grand total of three times.
Once at my magic test. The second time in practice with Drae and Regina, and that time my arms and legs had transformed too. The third time was last week, when my entire body had transformed into a blue dragon and Drae had convinced me to go flying with him. It had been windy outside, so my wing caught the air wrong, buckled, and I fell in a dead fifty-foot drop. Although my dragon magic afforded me advanced healing, it took two days for me to walk again without pain, and I was not keen to relive that.
“I… I’m scared to. I can’t,” I admitted.
He shook his head. “You can and you will. If you let the fear take hold, you will never fly, and what use is a dragon who cannot fly?”
I groaned, looking up at the sky for any hint of wind.
There was none.
The Nightfall queen was constantly threatening our bridges at the Great River. They said it was only a matter of time before she broke through our defenses there again. She wanted the king and all the dragon-folk dead, not to mention to take over our fertile lands. Rumor had it that the majority of the Nightfall lands were hot and desolate in the summer months, and nothing grew there.
“You can do this,” Joslyn encouraged me. I could hear the shakiness in her voice.
She’d been there to witness my fall, seeing me lying broken and bleeding on the ground. At night, when I lay down to sleep, I could sometimes still hear her screams for help in my head.
The king stepped up to me, forcing me to meet his gaze. “I will fly under you so that if you fall I can catch you.”
Looking into his green eyes, hearing his promise, it made my stomach warm. I instantly felt guilty for these feelings, especially with Joslyn right here. The heat between our bodies was so intense that he stepped backwards. This happened often between us but we said nothing about it, ignoring it.
“Fine,” I growled. “But if I break a single bone, you owe me five hundred jade coins.”
He grinned. “Deal.”
“I would have gone for a thousand,” Joslyn told me as I walked over and handed her my sword, coin purse, and belt.
I smiled at her. “Your bones are far more valuable than mine,” I informed her, and then walked towards the creek where the brush was thick, so that I could change in privacy.
The king simply faced a tree and began to disrobe out in the open. That man didn’t care who saw him naked, and I was again currently transfixed by a view of his butt cheeks. With a chuckle, I peeled off my training clothes, which were covered in mud from my sparring session with Cal earlier, and when I stood fully naked I looked down at my body.
A variety of purple, blue, and yellowing bruises marred my hips and knees. I was proud of every single one of them. The muscled indentations in my stomach and thighs were the most pronounced and I was proud of that too.
Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath and felt for my magic.
Transforming, as the king had taught me, was a different compartment of magic than throwing or breathing fire. It was deeper, and needed to really be pulled out with confidence. Reaching for my transformation magic, I pulled on it hard with as much strength as I could muster. Pain laced along my spine and I hunched forward as the sound of cracking bones began to ring throughout the bushes.
“He’s already done!” Joslyn trilled.
“Well, he has to wait!” I bellowed back in a painful growl.
The king was an impatient man, I’d learned, but that only made me want to make him wait longer on me.
After I finished my transformation, I stepped out of the thick bushes, breaking some of the branches on my way.
‘Perfect day for flying,’ the king said when he saw me.
I gave him the equivalent of a dragon snort and eyeroll. ‘Remember, my Royal Guard contract states that if I die, you must bring my body back to my mother in Cinder Village.’
He chuffed, ‘I would never let that happen, Arwen.’
I sidled next to him, giving him a long side look. ‘Now you care whether I live or die? You’ve come a long way, my king.’
A month ago, he’d imprisoned me and threatened to kill me. I was determined to never let him live that down.
‘I told you, I regretted my actions from when we first met. I thought you were here to kill me!’ he snapped.
Shooting my wings open, I pumped them as I fast as I could. ‘Nope, just a girl from Cinder Village who can’t fly!’ I kicked off the ground at the last word before I could lose my nerve.
Terror shot through me as the wind resistance pushed against my wings. I faltered, but Drae’s voice was in my head to comfort me.
‘You’re doing great, just breathe and focus on your wingbeats.’
I sucked air in through my dragon nostrils and then looked down to see Drae directly under me.
‘I’ll catch you if you fall.’
Shaking my nerves off, I focused on what his wings were doing. Up, pause, down, pause, up, pause. I mimicked what he was doing, which was a lot slower, smoother, and controlled than my frantic fast flying.
‘That’s it,’ he said.
“Go, Arwen!” Joslyn’s voice from down below reached me and I grinned.
Drae veered to the left, heading for the farmland outside the palace gates, and I swallowed.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked him.
Only select members of the Royal Guard and house staff knew about my transformation powers. To fly over farms would get people talking. Only a full-blooded royal dragon could transform.
‘I’m prepared to address questions about you and your abilities,’ was all he said as we flew over the castle gates.
I’d never flown this far, or this long, but I pushed away my anxiety and followed him. We glided over rows and rows of wheat, then the golden fields turned to purple lavender, and finally he began to descend over a group of willow trees.
We were maybe a half hour walk from the castle. It had been a nice short flight. Not too long for me, but just enough that I felt confident and wanted more. As we lowered, I peered down to see where he was taking us and my heart leapt into my throat.
Between the circle of four giant weeping willows were a handful of gravestones. One was large, as you would have for an adult, and the other four were small.
Four children.
This was where Queen Amelia and his unborn children lay.
‘I don’t know why I brought you here,’ he said suddenly in my head as he landed before the small graves. A basket of clothes was beneath one of the trees, and I wondered if it was because he flew here often and then shifted into human form.
I swallowed hard, landing roughly next to him, trying not to fall over as landing was not yet something I had mastered.
I didn’t know what to say yet, so I just stood beside him, staring at the solid green jade headstone with gold engraved writing.
Her Majesty, Queen Amelia.
Beloved wife and mother.
Best Friend.
A sob formed in my throat, but it sounded like a hacking growl in my dragon form.
The king looked over at me, his black shiny scales in such contrast to his yellow burning eyes. ‘Don’t try to cry in dragon form. It sounds awful and will scare the local villagers nearby.’
He rarely joked with me, so it startled me and I snort-laughed, which again sounded awful in dragon form. Black smoke leaked from my nostrils.
His lips peeled back, displaying all of his dragon teeth. I was hoping it was a smile and not that he wanted to eat me for laughing at a time like this.
‘Amelia would have liked you. She liked to practice her sword with Regina any chance she got.’
‘Really?’ I asked, I never knew that about her. I’d only ever seen her in a dress with a delicate wave and feminine makeup. Imagining her practicing sword with Regina brought a smile to my lips.
‘After we lost our first child, Amelia ran from the castle crying and I found her here, in the center of the trees weeping. I asked her to come back and that I would build a mausoleum for our lost little one that was bigger than a house, but she said no.’
‘Why?’ I stepped closer to him, hanging on his every word.
‘She said that the trees looked like they were crying too, and she wanted to share her grief with them to lessen the burden. So we buried our first one here.’
My chest ached as sorrow overcame me. It was a beautiful thing to say. The trees did indeed look like they were crying, hence the name “weeping willow.”
What he didn’t have to say was that another child passed, and another, and finally another, along with his wife. And he’d brought them all out here.
‘Thank you for bringing me here. It is a very special place.’
He started to shift into his human form then and I turned, giving him privacy as he put on clothes. Walking over to a field of wildflowers, he pulled a handful of them and placed them on Amelia’s grave. Then he pulled another bunch and I decided to shift as well. Shifting back into my human form felt like pulling the plug on a bathtub drain. You were holding everything in and suddenly it all rushed out. It took me a moment to transform, then I ran over to the basket, putting on a long tunic that hung past my knees and smelled of Drae. It hung well past my knees so I didn’t bother with the trousers.
Drae was laying flowers on the third child’s grave when I pulled a bunch of purple and white blooms, bunching them together, and then met him at the fourth. Without a word, I handed them to him and he placed them on top of the little mound.
We stood there quiet for a long time, just letting the light breeze move the long ropelike branches of the willow, until finally he turned to me with a storm brewing in his gaze.
“I don’t love Joslyn,” he declared, and my entire body went rigid.
Why was he telling me that? Because I was now good friends with her?
“I respect her, I care for her well-being… but I don’t love her.”
My heart rattled my ribs like a cage. I genuinely feared it would leap out of my chest and fall onto the ground, exposing my nerves.
“You must have an heir or the dragon-folk people would die.” I tried to assuage his guilt and he nodded.
“But I could have chosen you,” he said boldly, stepping closer to me, and it was like the entire world had been tipped on its axis.
Why is he saying this? My brain was so befuddled I didn’t even know how to respond. Was he saying he wished he had picked me? Simultaneous excitement and sorrow ripped through me. The king took another step closer. My breast pressed against his chest with only a thin piece of cloth between us and suddenly it felt as if I had stepped into an inferno. Heat like I’d never felt before rushed through me and my upper lip broke out in a sweat. He took in a deep breath, his chest pressing harder against me, and then exhaled a shuddering breath. He leaned forward, licking his lips to wet them.
I wanted to kiss him—Hades, I wanted to bed him right now, but there was one thing flashing through my mind in this moment.
Joslyn.
He might not love her, but she was falling in love with him. They might not be married yet and it might only be a marriage of convenience, but I couldn’t do that to her. She was my friend.
I turned my face quickly. “I can’t,” I muttered, and he froze, taking a giant step back from me and pulling all of that delicious warmth with him.
Swallowing hard, he nodded, a conflicted look washing over his face. “Maybe this is for the best. If I don’t love anyone, then they can’t destroy me when they die.” He spun, stepping out of the circle of weeping willows.
Emotion tightened my throat to the point of causing me pain as I worked hard not to cry. I wanted to run to him, pull him into my arms and tell him he could love me. That it would be safe, that I would love him back. But surrounded by those loved ones he’d watched die, I just wasn’t sure it was the truth. Like Dr. Elsie had said, we didn’t know what kind of child our pairing would create—Joslyn was the safer choice. While I was collecting myself, he tossed off his clothes and gave me another view of his royal ass.
I groaned, hating the perfect detail of his butt cheeks, and then spun to give him my back. I yanked off the tunic in anger and then started my own shift.
Why did he do that? Why did he say that?
I don’t love Joslyn.
I could have chosen you.
Those words would haunt me until my dying day.
When I was fully shifted into my dragon form, I turned around and he took one look at me and kicked off the ground, heading for the sky.
I followed him, still dumbfounded at his confession. Did he regret not choosing me? Did he want to change his mind? I wanted to know, but I decided to say nothing. For Joslyn’s sake. For all dragon-folks’ sake.
He made his bed and he was going to have to lie in it.
The flight back was quiet and slightly awkward. Drae flew below me just as he promised, and with each beat of my wings the fear of flying left me. When we made it back to the training field, Joslyn was there, ever the good betrothed, waiting on her man in her new yellow dress.
Guilt wormed through me at the sight of her excitedly waving at us.
“You did it!” she screamed.
I don’t love Joslyn.
“Go, Arwen!” She pumped her fist into the air.
I don’t love Joslyn.
I snuck off into the bushes and changed, feeling the ball in my stomach growing heavier and heavier. When I stepped out, Joslyn was pulling a leaf out of the king’s hair and smiling up at him.
“Do you want to have dinner together tonight?” Joslyn asked him.
“I have… a lot of work to catch up on,” he said, looking at me guiltily.
My heart simultaneously broke for Joslyn, and cheered that the king didn’t love her. It was horrible, evil, and yet I realized in that moment that I wanted him for myself. I wished he’d chosen me, but that kind of daydreaming would eat away at a person. Not to mention Joslyn was my dear friend and this wasn’t right. I needed to remedy it immediately.
It wasn’t fair to Joslyn.
Walking in a rush, I took off for the horse barn in search of Cal, telling Joslyn and the king I had somewhere I needed to be. Cal had been flirting with me for three weeks straight. I would kiss him and we would both see that we could be happy together and I could forget about the king. Drae in turn would see me with another man and then move on happily with Joslyn. It was a win-win.
Passing droves of soldiers, I screamed Cal’s name and finally found him saddling his horse on the side of the barn.
He looked up with a grin when he saw me approach. “You still sore from that—?”
I crashed into him, pressing my lips to his. His arms came around me, pulling me closer to him. He groaned as our lips touched and I immediately felt the gravity of my mistake.
The world did not tilt on its axis. This kiss was not earth-shattering. It felt like I was kissing my mother goodnight.
He pulled away abruptly, looking at me with wide eyes, as if he too did not enjoy the kiss.
I was such an idiot. I prayed that the Maker would strike me dead with a lightning bolt right then and there so that I didn’t have to experience this.
“Sorry,” I muttered, stumbling away from him. “I… have no idea what I was thinking.”
He reached out and took my hand. “No. Don’t be… I want to but… I’m not allowed.”
I stilled, his fingers in mine as I stared up at him. “You’re not allowed to kiss me?”
His cheeks pinked and he looked left and right as if making sure no one was close enough to hear us. “The king has told the entire Royal Guard that none of us may have you.”
That. Bastard.
“Why?” My heart hammered in my chest. I could physically feel the color draining from my face.
Cal chewed on his bottom lip. “In case something happens to Joslyn… you’re his backup.”
Actual bile crept up my throat. The king ordered none of the Royal Guard to like me so that he could keep me on the side as a backup?
I was no one’s backup.
That bastard.
I nodded, walking briskly away from Cal as he called my name. Tears started to well up but I blinked them back.
Don’t let them see you cry.
I’d been training nearly a month. I’d broken bones, cut myself, been knocked out, and not shed a single tear in front of these men. I would not cry now over an invisible heart wound.
Passing Annabeth, I gave her a curt smile, my throat tightening the faster I walked. When I finally pulled the door to my quarters open, I threw myself inside and then slammed it shut behind me.
“Arwen?” Narine’s sweet voice came from the kitchen and then everything broke inside of me. Sobs wracked my body as I crumpled to the floor. I couldn’t hold it together anymore.
“Oh Maker.” Narine rushed forward, picking me up and scanning my body as if looking for wounds. “You hurt?”
“Not physically.” I sniffled. “I never wanted to come here! I didn’t want to marry him. I didn’t ask for any of this.” I wept.
Understanding dawned on Narine’s expression and she nodded, her curls bouncing around her face. “Matters of the heart hurt more than bodily injuries. I’ll make you some tea and run a bath.”
“Thank you,” I whimpered, allowing her to take me to the couch and deposit me there.
The longer I sat there, sipping my tea as Narine ran the bath, the angrier I became. Drae proposed to Joslyn, he chose her, he should not be making passes at me. And then telling the Royal Guard not to touch me so I could be his backup! It wasn’t fair. I wanted to punch him right in his pretty little face!
“You’re smoking,” Narine said, and I froze, looking down at the curls of smoke floating up from my nose.
Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself.
If I don’t love anyone, then they can’t destroy me when they die. The king’s haunting words came to me then and I deflated. All anger at him fled from me and just became a ball of sorrow and pity. He was in a horrible position, bound by duty for his people. Joslyn was the safer choice for him to have a child with and I respected that. If the situation were reversed, I would have made the same choice—denying my heart for the betterment of my people.
After my bath, I read for a while and then planned to turn in early when there was a knock at the door. I hoped it was the king, but by the lateness of the hour it would be inappropriate.
When Narine pulled the door back, Joslyn stepped inside, red blotchy eyes the hallmark sign that she had been crying.
Hades.
“Can you go for a walk?” she asked.
No.
“Sure.” I slipped into my sandals, and tucked my hunting knife into the back waistband of my trousers out of habit.
We were quiet walking down the hallway. I waved to a passing maid and then to the Royal Guard stationed at the door that led out to the gardens. Only when we were alone in the garden, peering at the purple lilacs, did Joslyn look at me.
“He will never love me,” she said and my heart broke.
“What?” I tried to act surprised.
Joslyn wrung her hands together. “I just spoke to him. He made it clear this will be a marriage of convenience and he isn’t sure he will ever love me as I deserve to be loved, and he told me I can get out of it if I want.”
Shock ran through me at that. “Get out of it? End the betrothal?”
She nodded. “He said he would make sure my family name was not tarnished if I chose to walk away. I would still have highborn status and he would pay a monthly stipend to take care of me for the rest of my life.”
My heart pinched at the king’s kindness. I blinked back tears several times as my vision blurred. “What are you going to do?”
She chewed her lip. “I’m going to stay. It’s my duty to provide a royal heir and save the people of Embergate and so I’ll do it. Love or not.”
So he also told her about needing an heir to save his people. Her people. Our people. Ninety percent of the people in Embergate carried dragon magic in their veins and would succumb to death as the king’s magic eventually faded away.
I was suddenly flooded with so much respect for Joslyn. “You’re a good person. You’ll make a wonderful queen,” I informed her.
I pulled her into a hug and she wept on my shoulder. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my heart broke for the fact that I would never have Drae to myself. But I vowed right then and there to never again see the king as an object of desire. Out of respect for Joslyn, who clearly loved him.
When she pulled back, she wiped her eyes. “Tell me a story. Take my mind off of this.”
I nodded, starting to pace the garden, trying to think up a story from my childhood that would make her laugh. “When I was young, my father had just died and we didn’t have coal for the fireplace. Ironic considering where we live, but coal had to be bought just like everything else. Without my father’s wages, my mother feared it would be a terrible and cold winter.”
Joslyn looked at me with concern. “What did you do?”
“Well,” I murmured, pacing the grass, “I had heard that the people of Gypsy Rock kept warm by burning dried cow dung patties… except we didn’t have any cows in Cinder Village. Only dogs.”
Joslyn suddenly burst into laughter. “You didn’t!”
I grinned, turning to face her, delighted that I’d gotten her to laugh and lifted her spirits. “I am happy to report that dog shit burns pretty hot when—”
The words died in my throat. A man suddenly appeared behind Joslyn. His one hand went around her mouth and his other held a knife to her throat. He wore the Nightfall crest on his armor. The glint of steel from his mechanical wings flickered in the moonlight.
I stood there shocked for a split second and then reached for my knife at the back of my shirt. Then leaves rustled behind me and someone grasped my wrist, clenching it hard until I dropped the blade.
“Not so fast,” a male voice like scratchy wool said.
My heart hammered in my throat as I looked at a terrified and shaking Joslyn.
“Which one is the wife-to-be?” the man holding Joslyn asked whoever held me.
Small tendrils of smoke leaked from my nostrils and I pulled on my dragon power.
The male behind me squeezed my hand tighter, immobilizing me. “Yours.”
It happened so fast.
One second Joslyn was standing upright and the next the man was dragging the blade across her throat and her life blood was dribbling all down her gown before her body hit the floor.
“Take that one too. She’s the backup.” A man I recognized stepped out of the woods.
Bonner. A Royal Guardsman. A traitor.
I’d never liked him.
The man holding me pulled out his blade. The crushing grief and realization that Joslyn was dead slammed into me, tearing me in two.
An inhuman wail ripped from my throat as heat, and rage, and anguish, consumed me. A burst of blue fire exploded outward, and then everything went black.
