But love would always win out. Even in this.
Oma hesitated, her eyes pooling and mouth tense.
"I wish you hadn't said that," the Dragon Matron whispered. A decision passed through her, resolve becoming stronger. Oma moved the knife from her neck and Ember breathed a sigh of relief, but one that came too soon.
Oma repositioned the knife over Ember's heart, pressing it into visible scales.
"The dragon part of you, that is honorable. What you have from me, my daughter before she turned from me, and our heritage. This arrogance, this rebellion, the sniveling bits of you that belong to that man," Oma spat the word man like an insult, for her father was more than that. "That part damns you. It cannot survive."
She drew the knife back, arm out to strike a hard blow into her chest. Ember closed her eyes, not willing to see her grandmother's killing blow. Instead, she listened. Listened to the water lapping into their kingdom. She had done her duty. Ember would be free now.
But the blow didn't come.
"Get away from her!" A voice cried in the distance.
Ember opened her eyes to see two figures running toward her. Three others were farther away, two men and a woman. She couldn't see their faces yet, but she recognized that voice.
"Karwyn," Oma said in surprise.
Her mother stepped forward, Jedoriah standing behind her with a sword extended.
Ember reached down while Oma was surprised and took out her hidden blade. She inched back away from them, loosely holding the weapon. She stood in a wide circle with the fateless Queen, Dragon Matron, and acting Knight. Three of the four held a weapon, all but Karwyn. She didn’t seem to notice that she was unarmed and pushed forward. She advanced fearlessly to her mother.
“I will not be shackled. I will not be burned. I do not drown. I am unheard. You hold me no more, mother, for my home is here. My time to rule is now.”
Oma backed up as her daughter kept moving forward. Shocked, disturbed, seeing her daughter act on a clear conscious. As if the breaking of the wall freed her, Karwyn Dragon Queen stood tall and unafraid.
Ember stumbled to the floor, and Jedoriah stood in front of her. He reached for Ember’s hand, taking the jeweled dagger he used to kill Amir. He called to his pretend pair, “Karwyn!”
She glanced back and extended her hand. He tossed the dagger and the Queen caught it effortlessly. She kept moving forward, the Dragon Matron backing away without looking behind her.
Karwyn kept speaking, using her voice as the weapon, the dagger held without malice in her hand. As if a baton. A beacon of truth. Ember recognized the dagger now. As if the surrounding trees pulled her back in memory.
Outside of Azororion on the day of the fateless man’s death, two people stood before her. Cindrea and Wally. Wally held a sword not that different from Jedoriahs. But Cindrea, she held a dagger with a green gem.
“It’s him or her,” Oma had said on the night Amir was murdered. She handed Jedoriah’s Cindrea’s knife. Cindrea had been who was threatened. Now that same knife would be used against Oma. Or would it be needed?
“My destiny no longer twines with yours. Thank you for all you taught me,” Karwyn said. Another tremor jolt through the world as more pieces of the wall crumbled. It shook her foundation, and Oma fell back, not realizing she had brought herself perilously close to the still-burning flames.
With a broken cry, the Dragon Matron fell into the pit of blood fire, and her scream was snuffed out. In an instant, the sea salt air was filled with the smell of burning skin and silver hair. There was no time to feel pain. She felt the fire and was consumed by it. Alone. Karwyn stood staring at the flames that consumed her mother. Tears did not fall. Instead, she stood resigned.
“Em!” A voice called behind her. Ember turned her watery eyes to see Noor running for her. He held a woman’s hand, his sister. She was laughing, finding joy in the run. Her wild orange hair held tighter curls than Noor. She was a flame. Wally ran past them, calling to Zhieve. He was free of the stone but still lay on the floor with bones broken.
“Are you okay?” Noor whimpered, falling down to her level. He let go of his sister’s hand, and she immediately began to wander. Jedoriah placed a hand on Naomi’s shoulder and tried to soothe her whirling mind, used to working with the fateless Queen. The Queen that now stood at the edge of the world, hands touching the gaping open wall and looking beyond. Her shoes were off and in the water. She was searching. Ember now knew for what, but still gestured to Jedoriah to try and watch her too. It was dark, Karwyn would not find her pair tonight – but Hasley must have already.
“I will be,” Ember finally answered. “We will be okay.”
Thirty-Five
A New Tomorrow
It was only two days, yet it felt like weeks.
Ember stood hand in hand with her mother as they watched the waves tumble over debris. Salt air circled towards them, carried on the wind. Ember couldn’t help but take in a deep breath, holding it as part of her.
“How do you know he’ll be here?” Ember asked. The sea rushed up towards the rubble, water leaking into Ashkadance after nearly two decades. She wanted to touch it, but her soul told her to wait. He was coming. She had to be ready to greet him. The kingdom needed her more than her desire to touch what had, until now, been forbidden. This was her first time near the water since the night she brought the wall to the ground.
“Aaleia told me,” the Queen answered with a smile. Ember had never seen her this happy. Karwyn bounced back and forth on her heels, dress swishing with her like a bell. Wraiths flew past them, letters in their claws. The letters hadn’t stopped, the activity hadn’t either. Revealing the Knight of the realm was an imposter and that the Queen Matron had died trying to murder the heir… well, it was enough. And the people didn’t know what Ember now knew, the true Knight was on the way. And he was a merman.
Ember squeezed her mother’s hand tighter, happy that the fresh air was doing her good. If her true father came back, maybe she’d recover entirely. Ember hoped for that, but almost seventeen years away from her pair may have created irreversible damage. Did Aaleia actually speak to her? Hallucinations and voices were a symptom of the Fateless. She hadn’t had a lucid moment since that night.
Noor watched them from a respectable distance away, not wanting to get in the way of their reunion but also not willing to leave Ember alone. Noor had been pulled between many duties these past couple of days: helping the kingdom clear the wall’s debris, to help keep the peace in the fear of what was to come, the helping of the Fateless (his sister included) and that of his Princess. While their love was irrefutable, that didn’t mean it didn’t take work. They would both be overworked for quite a while. They had opened a door to the unknown, now they had to step through it. Her new heritage a big question mark in the dark.
“I hope we get along well,” Ember admitted out loud, rearranging her thoughts back to her father.
“That’s a silly thing to think,” her mother commented before a gasp escaped her lips.
“What is it?” Ember asked, she turned to follow Karwyn’s pointed finger.
Out in the sea was movement. There was a shape in the waves coming closer. It moved just below the water, pushing it up in a curl as it raced faster.
Before she could stop her, the Queen ran toward the waves. Her shoes slipped off, her skirts flew back, hair wild and smile beaming. The Queen pushed through the rising water until she was within feet of the shape. It slowed down, knowing it was almost at its destination. Ember stood frozen, shocked but unafraid, she watched the shape and her mother flinging herself towards it.
Jumping up from the water was a man. Scales covering his body from head to toe, patchier on his face and more dense the farther down his form. As he emerged from beneath the water, the scales receded in uneven lines. Half his body stood covered in the mirror reflection of Ember’s own scales, the rest of him now appeared human. He ran forward to meet the Queen, using powerful legs in a way that Emb
er wasn’t sure he should be able to do. His green hair was long, almost as long as the Queen’s. Their bodies finally reached each other, and Karwyn crashed into his chest with bursts of laughter and happiness. He met them in kind, a deep chuckle escaping his mouth as he pressed his head onto hers. He inhaled the scent of her hair and smiled.
“I found you,” the man said.
“I waited,” she answered.
When they pulled back to look into each other’s eyes, purple erupted all around them. Sparks covered his partially scaled body and jumped onto Karwyn’s. They gasped, the glow surrounding both of them. The smile that filled their faces could not be denied. After years apart, they would now get to experience the blessing together.
A tear fell down Ember’s cheek. That should have been how she was brought into this world, not with the turmoil of a Queen locked in a tower, away from all that made her whole.
As if sensing her tremulous thoughts, the merman looked up. His eyes met Ember’s for the first time.
All her pain and doubt leaked from her chest with a sigh. The peace of meeting her mother for the first time came back to her, and Ember too began to glow. Not in the same way as the blessing, but a more a subtle glow with no sparks. The blessing bound, what she had felt when she met her mother and what Jedoriah claimed to have felt but lied.
Noor walked up behind her and stroked the back of her hair.
“Go meet him,” he whispered, hugging his pair.
“I’m scared,” she whispered back.
“All good things in the world come with fear,” he reasoned.
Ember kissed him briefly and turned back to the water. She took one step forward and then another. She made it to the edge of the crumbled wall and took a deep clearing breath.
“I found you,” the merman said again. His strong arms still held her mother, who looked between both of her favorite treasures with glee.
“I didn’t know I was missing,” Ember replied, in more ways than one. She stepped over the wall and into the water. Her parents began to walk towards her.
The sea—she was finally in the water. She looked down, its cool liquid washing over her linen pants. It filled her with joy. A spark of happiness soaring through her body.
Something was wrong. No, something is right. The happy spark turned into a tingling.
Cold and heat moved up her body, swirling fingertips pushing up from her feet.
“What’s happening?” she called out, fear and exhilaration mixing in her blood.
“Ember!” Noor screamed. He ran towards the water just as Ember’s vision began to blur. The color of the world changed, everything was bright and sharp. Her father pushed forward just as Ember began to fall. Her skin transformed, pain erupting from her chest as her scales grew up her arms and down her stomach. She dropped into the shallow water. Ember looked down, the water held pieces of her clothing, and where her legs should be, there was now a tail. Her legs knitted together into one and her grey and purple scales spread.
Noor and her father reached her at the same time, kneeling before her as she stared horrified at her body.
“It's going to be okay,” Noor responded firmly. He held Ember's scaled hand. Meerandus held Karwyn's.
“I… I’m a mermaid,” she whispered. Her eyes were wide, unable to look away from her bobbing tail and the skin turned scales. All that remained of her human self was her face, the scales stopped in a gradient around her neck. She had known she was part merfolk, but this… Ember had not expected to have a tale. To be a beast, truly.
“I’m a merman,” her father said in answer to her statement. He shifted back into his merman form, his scales mimicking the same pattern with a tail that spanned longer than hers.
Ember looked into her father's gold eyes and said, "Hi. I’m Ember.”
"I'm Meerandus," he said with a smile. He took her free hand and Karwyn took Noor's. They formed a circle around each other: human, dragon, mermaid, merman, all kneeling together in the foam.
"It's nice to meet you," Ember said with a tear.
“We're all together now,” Karwyn said, her dress and hair wet.
A horn blew in the distance. Boats were silhouetted on the horizon as the neighboring kingdoms came to investigate the explosions, the tremor in the world as Ashkadance set itself free. Closer than that, heads began to pop out of the water one by one. Ashkadance was no longer the siloed kingdom. It was part of a whole new world.
"We're together now," Ember echoed.
Epilogue
The Betrayal, as the citizens called it, of Jedoriah Pretender was wide-spread news. Ember knew now what his sacrifices had been and the burden he had to wear each day that he assumed the duty of the Knight. And some of it, she actually understood. But it didn't excuse the murder of Amir Captain or that of the Fateless that came before the community homes. It did not excuse the death of her adoptive moms in his search for her.
For the kingdom, it was seen as an unforgivable crime. They did not deem someone that would fake the will of Aaleia worthy of survival and called for his death.
What Ember did not understand was why he decided to try and reverse the killings of the Fateless. Whether it was guilt or some other reason, she was glad that he had convinced Oma of that change. Could it have been a changing opinion on her mother the Queen? Or was the blood on his hands already too much to bear, and with the heir now found - less necessary?
Regardless, Jedoriah could not be seen in public again. Not if he wanted to live. Sequestered to a small room near the dungeons, Cindrea and their child were with him. It was a willing solitude, one he had to convince Cindrea of regularly. When the time came, they had agreed that his child would be allowed to go to school with the children of the other staff and come and go. Their child would be free. Ember would not punish someone for the sins of their parents.
With Oma gone and Karwyn sick for years, Jedoriah was the only one who held the information Meerandus would need in his role as the true Knight. Part of his repayment to society was his cooperation. Seeing Jedoriah and Meerandus together was confusing to Ember's mind. Her family dynamic had shifted wildly this year.
It was about to change again.
Ember smiled at her mother across the dinner table. Karwyn smiled back, her hand idly running along her swelling stomach. For the first time in Ashkadance history, there were two heirs to the throne. They didn’t know yet what that would mean.
“Are you ready to go?” Meerandus asked. He turned his head to her. His long green hair was shorter and more maintained than when they first met in the ocean those weeks ago. He had grown emotionally too, now more used to being in his human form. The way Karwyn smiled at him was different than the way she smiled at everyone else. She was the clearest when they were together, like Hasley and Arsenio. The time apart had impacted her, and the damage had yet to completely reverse. Meerandus did answer their suspicions about beasts and the fateless, his status as a beast kept his mind safe. As part beast, Karwyn was more lucid than the others affected for as many years. For that, Ember was grateful.
“Of course she is,” Noor said with pride. Ember squeezed his hand under the table. Noor had flourished, brighter and more focused on his task as Knight now that his sister and parents were safe. The resistance was no more, just concerned citizens that were heard and taken care of. The secret spaces beneath the kingdom were being addressed and a council was coming together to see how to best use them. Jade was head of the committee, reporting ideas and requests to Noor on a weekly basis. While they were gone, she would report to Meerandus. The prejudice of merfolk was a new challenge for them to explore, one that was not apparent in those that came off those first boats to visit Ashkadance in diplomacy.
But just as dragons became part of who they were, so would the merfolk.
“I’m happy to represent our kingdom,” Ember answered instead. Ready wasn’t the word she would use. Scared was a lot more like it. Her palm began to sweat in Noor’s, and she let go, rubbing her hands
down her dress.
They were free now. The wall was gone, all debris cleared. To re-open trade, Ember was going to leave with Noor to visit Grydagia and Faeintoo tomorrow. A new start, new purposes, and an exchange of the Fateless. Their hope was that more people would be paired and the Fateless would dwindle, but they knew not everyone would be. The earlier deaths in the kingdom saw to that. Naomi and other fateless would come with them. They hoped her pair would be found at the other end of the sea.
Despite the opening of their kingdom and how much Ember had wanted it, actually taking the leap to leave was more challenging than she had anticipated.
At Meerandus’ inquisitive expression, Ember added: “I will be ready.”
She had to be.
As the curtains billowed from her open balcony that night, Ember curled into Noor’s embrace. From her view in bed, she could see beyond her kingdom, a wall no longer blocking any part of her eyesight. She watched as the ships in the distance slowly grew larger. Where they sailed, there were holes in the darkness. A silhouette within the stars.
Part One
Before
One
Carriages
An anger that was unlike Hasley’s usual disposition boiled in her veins. How could Ember do this to her? They were best friends. In fact, Hasley was Ember’s only friend. Didn’t that mean they should tell each other everything? Hasley's heart hammered in her chest as she walked into the back of the jewelry shop Ember and her apprenticed at.
Her fingers gripped the paper in her hands, crumbling the edges as she stared at her friend's empty workbench. When Hasley had come into purpose apprenticeship that morning, her only care had been to ask Amlin Jeweler, her mentor, if he had heard from Ember. After Ember didn’t come back from her delivery the day before, Hasley had begun to fear the worst. She walked back to Ember’s home and found that Ember hadn’t returned there either. If Amlin hadn’t heard anything, Hasley's next stop would be to report her absence to the province guards. What if one of the Fateless had hurt her?
Royalty Fantasy Boxset: Ember Dragon Daughter & Hasley Fateless (Fated Tales Series 1 & 1.5) (The Fated Tales Series: YA Royalty Fantasy) Page 27
