Queen of Dragons

by J. A. Armitage

  The fae shook his head. "That isn't true. I knew you were far from ordinary from the first moment I saw you. Magic attracts magic, and I felt a strong attraction to you that had nothing to do with sexual attraction. It was more than that, something magnetic. Now I'm not saying that I don't feel sexual attraction to you too. I do, but this is most definitely something different."

  I blushed at his words. He was so forthcoming. I chose, however, to skip over the sexual attraction part and move back to the magic part of the conversation. "I only have it on your word that I am magic. I don't feel magic. You could have stopped your own magic, and I would have fallen into the snow exactly the same."

  "True," he said, picking up a sandwich, "But I didn't. You did it all by yourself. Only someone of greater power than mine would have been able to do that."

  I shook my head. "Surely, if I was magic, I would have noticed before now?"

  "Not necessarily. Your power is greater than even I expected when I first met you. When you cut those bonds spinning you, I felt the heat in your magic. If I wasn't as strong as I was, it would have sent me flying. It might be worth talking to your parents. There are obviously things they haven't told you. I don't even know all the answers myself. When you were adopted, there was an announcement in the papers. It was only a matter of weeks after they married. They hadn't even gone on honeymoon yet. I asked your father once why they had adopted you so soon. They were still very young, only eighteen themselves. They had their whole life ahead of them. Your father wouldn't say more than the newspapers told me. Then, when they did go on honeymoon, your mother fell pregnant with your eldest brother. They became a family very quickly. I wonder if that had something to do with the questions you ask."

  I contemplated his words. Like any other orphan, I'd thought about my birth parents from time to time, wondered who they were. I'd been told very little, though my mother had been honest with me from the start about it. At least, I thought she had been until today.

  The reason I'd never probed further about my birth parents was that I simply didn't want to know. I was the princess of Draconis, the heir to the throne. How could I have come from better than that? I couldn't. I had two loving parents, three brothers and I lived a good life. I had fine clothes, I traveled a lot, and the pain of being given up when I was a baby? Well, I'd buried that deep long ago.

  "If I'm magic, why can't I do anything?" I challenged. I waved my hand out in the same manner that he had as if to prove my point, and nothing happened.

  "Magic is not just something people can automatically do. It is a learned skill even by those who possess it. You have to learn to channel it. Didn't you feel it when you broke my bonds?"

  I thought back to the warmth in my belly. I had felt something. Something I'd mistaken as anger.

  "Here," he said, throwing me an apple. "Turn this into an orange."

  I looked at the apple. It looked like any other apple, with shiny red skin. I could no more have turned it into an orange than I could have turned it into a horse.

  "No."

  "Look at it and envision the shape of it becoming more spherical. Imagine the color changing. Imagine a citrusy smell. Imagine holding an orange in your hand. And when you can see the orange in your mind's eye, do whatever it was that you did back there when you saved yourself from my clutches."

  "I imagined stabbing you through the heart with my sword," I answered.

  The fae gave a big belly laugh. "If you need to do that to make your magic work, then do it. Once you've mastered it, it will come a lot easier to you."

  He pointed back to the apple in my hand. I did as he instructed. Imagining an orange was easy; what I struggled with was bringing all the energy back to my core. Anger at Caspian hurting me had set me off, but now I was no longer angry. Curious, unbelieving and slightly annoyed perhaps, but no emotion big enough to cause the same reaction as last time.

  I pulled everything I had into myself. Closing my eyes, I could hear Caspian's words of encouragement. I no longer wanted to kill him, but I remembered how I felt when I did. The energy began to build, and this time, I let it, keeping it churning in my stomach. When I could take it no longer, I channeled it down my arm to the fruit. a bang, followed by something wet splattering my face caused me to open my eyes.

  Caspian was covered in mashed up bits of apple, as was I. A black scorch mark was all that was left of the apple in my hand.

  "Maybe you need a little more practice," Caspian said and began to laugh again. This time I joined in. "That's it for today. Learning magic is exhausting work, and you need to rest."

  He wasn't wrong. My entire body ached with the effort I'd put in. He pulled me up by my hand and magicked the picnic, the umbrella, and the wine away. The snow that had been drifting around us, once again, began to fall on our heads.

  "Do you want to go back to the castle or do you want to go on that walk we had planned?"

  I glanced over his shoulder. The castle was not far behind him. We'd barely made it to the pasture where we first met. I surprised myself by answering that I did want to walk. Snow was so uncommon here, and now that I was warmed by both Caspian's magic and the wine, I found I wasn't ready to go back to the castle yet. Exhaustion aside, I wanted to see what else I could do. Exploding an apple was one thing, but it had no practical use.

  "I told you we had something in common," Caspian said, taking hold of my hand. This time I let him.

  "You and I are one of a kind."

  "You said that I wasn't fae." I flicked my hair behind my ear to show him my perfectly normal-looking ears. "Remember?"

  "Maybe, but you are a person of magic. It's up to you to decide if you want to find out exactly what it is you are. Humans don't have the ability to perform magic. If you ever see a human doing that, if you check his family tree, you'll find something in there. Maybe you are a witch."

  "A witch?" A shiver passed through me. Witches had a bad reputation, although there were some known to be good. They used the magic of the earth in their spells. I didn't feel like I was pulling magic from the earth. Whatever my magic was, it came directly from me.

  We walked lazily across the snow-covered fields, and for the first time since meeting him, I felt comfortable in his presence. We walked a couple of miles until we were at the base of the Fire Mountains, close to where I'd been with my father. The fence stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions, disappearing into the white of the snow.

  Now that I could feel the magic, and understand what it was, I was eager to use it more. "I want to do more magic. I want to learn to do more than change fruit."

  "Aren't you tired," he asked, but I could see the amusement in his eyes.

  "Yes," I admitted, "but I want to keep going."

  "Ok," he capitulated. "What is it you want to do? Make me fall in love with you, maybe?"

  I pulled a face, I was sure was not attractive.

  "You can't conjure love, no matter how much you'd like to," he added after taking a look at my face.

  "That's good to know. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to hold myself back otherwise." I replied.

  He gripped my hand tightly before letting it go. "Oh, I do enjoy a spot of sarcasm. What is it you want to learn then?"

  I wanted to learn to fight. If I could learn with magic, the same I could learn with a sword, I'd be an invaluable member of my father's army whether he liked it or not. I didn't just want to learn, I wanted to be the best.

  "Teach me magical combat."

  Caspian sighed, not as excited about the idea as I was. "You could have asked for anything. How to conjure money, jewels...anything."

  "I have all the money and jewels I want. I'm a princess," I said, holding my hands up and waving them down myself. "Jewels hold no interest for me. Knowing how to defend myself in times of trouble. That's what I want to know."

  "Defense?" He sighed again. "I suppose teaching you how to defend yourself is not the worst thing I could teach you. Fine, we'll have a magical duel. Wh
atever you do, do not use your magic to kill. You are stronger than me, and I don't want any accidents."

  "You're good. I'm not feeling as murderous as I was a couple of hours ago."

  "How reassuring. Let's aim to mark the other's skin with paint. That way, no one will get hurt, and a winner will be clear. Pick a color."

  I thought back to the ruby sword. "Red."

  He nodded. "I'll be purple. Stand over there and face me. When I say go, I want you to conjure little balls of red paint and fling them at me." He waved his hand, and a clock appeared from nowhere and hung in thin air. "When the clock counts down to zero, time is up. I've set it for ten minutes. The winner is the one least covered in paint. Do you understand?"

  I nodded and readied myself, getting into the stance that Milo had taught me the night before. I might not have been fighting with swords, but I was most definitely fighting, and I planned to win.

  "I'll give you a few seconds start, to get to grips with everything, but once you take your first shot, it's every man for himself."

  He'd barely finished the sentence when an explosion of color hit his chest. Red bloomed, looking like a knife wound. With a grin, he pulled back his hand and launched his own paint. Pretty soon we were running around, launching paint at each other, giggling like schoolchildren. The snow resembled an abstract painting, but I was having too much fun to care. I screamed loudly, laughing as each blast of purple hit me. It was hard to tell who was the most covered in paint. Battlefield fatalities were less bloodied than him, and although I knew his blood was nothing but harmless paint, it didn't make the effect any less horrific. At least, the paint on me was purple and couldn't be mistaken for blood. If anyone came upon us, they wouldn't know what to think. Not that I was worried, the weather was taking a turn for the worse, and the snow fell more thickly. I was about to declare a tie when Caspian volleyed a number of purple globs of paint at me. I screamed again and readied myself to give back as good as I got, when the sky lit up a deep red, coloring the falling snow. Seconds later, a deep roar filled my ears. Caspian ran towards me and grabbed my hand just as the dragon appeared through the clouds. It's giant wings displaced the snow as it opened its mouth to roar again. The smell of burning sulfur filled the air as we ran, the dragon flying behind us.

  "Do something," I screamed as another dragon appeared in front of us, blocking our path. The base of the mountains was to our left, which meant the castle was somewhere in front of us, but we'd walked so far, and it was impossible to see through the falling snow. There was nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide.

  A blast of fire heated my side as we tried dodging the dragon in front of us. Above us, the snow stopped ominously. I didn't need to look skywards to know it was because yet another dragon was above us, blocking it.

  "I can't," Caspian yelled back. "Dragon hide is thick. No magic can pass through it. If they see us fighting back, they'll barbecue us for sure."

  But what else was there to do? We were surrounded by them. It was fight or die, and I wasn't ready to die yet. Pulling in the magical energy was easier this time. I had fear coursing through me, which was enough emotion to fuel the magic. So far, my magic had only exploded apples and conjured paint, so this time I'd have to dig deep. Neither of those things would save us from a pack of dragons. I wished for my sword. That would be the most useful, but no amount of wishing or trying to conjure it worked. The magical energy burned as it swirled around inside me, getting hotter and hotter with each passing second. It looked like I was going to fight fire with fire.

  I pointed upwards, and a jet of fire rose into the sky, like a beacon, lighting up the snow and showing me just how serious our problem was. There weren't just three or four dragons. There were hundreds of them. The flames rose higher, but then something astonishing happened.

  The dragons on the ground lowered themselves so their bellies touched the snow and the ones in the air came in to land, making the earth move every time one of them landed. Pretty soon, we were surrounded by dragons. When my magic finally gave up, my senses kicked in. We were in the dead center of hundreds of dragons, any one of which could kill us in a second.

  My mind was in fight or flight mode, but my feet wouldn't move, tethered to the ground, not by magic, but by fear.

  Caspian stood next to me, unmoving.

  "What is happening?" I whispered

  "I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before." The dragons nearest to us lowered their heads, and Caspian clasped my hand. We began to walk slowly through them, neither of us daring to run in case it spooked them. As we passed by, more of them lowered their heads to the snow. They weren't sick. Their eyes were open and followed us as we passed, but none of them made a move to hurt us. The ones behind us took to the skies, harmlessly flying upwards and the ones in front continued to bow. It was only when we had the castle in sight, and the dragons were long behind us that we began to run, stopping only when we were at the very edge of the pasture.

  My nerves were wrecked, and it wasn't helping that Caspian was still covered in red paint and melting snow.

  He was a picture of water and blood.

  He waved his hand, and the pair of us cleaned up instantly.

  "Thank you," I wheezed, not knowing what else to say. "Did you use magic on those dragons?"

  He shook his head. "I told you, dragon-hide is impenetrable by magic. The only magic I saw was yours. What did you do?"

  I shrugged my shoulders, aware that I was still shaking. "I didn't do anything either. I shot a flame up into the air."

  "Well, that flame got those dragons to bow down to you. I've never seen that before. It's not natural for dragons to act that way. You need to speak to your parents about where you came from. You are more powerful than even I first thought. Not even the most powerful mages can control dragons, but, sweetheart...looks like you just did."

  He held out his hand to me, but I couldn't take it. I'd enjoyed the day. Well, up until the point a hundred dragons swooped in, but I still didn't want to marry him. Enjoying a day out was one thing. Forgiveness of the things he'd said and done, another, but the feelings that were growing for Milo were something else. I couldn't walk into the castle hand in hand with Caspian in case Milo saw. I'd not given any promises to anyone, but I had a feeling I was giving my heart to Milo.

  "I can't. I'm sorry."

  His face twisted into a sneer. "I hoped you'd changed your mind. We are getting married as per your father's decree whether you want to or not. I just hoped you would actually want to."

  He stalked on ahead, making me run to catch up.

  We were in the entrance of the castle before I caught up to him. I needed to thank him for such a nice day and for telling me something about myself that I hadn't even known. Guilt squeezed my heart, and I knew sorry wasn't enough, but I wanted to say it to him anyway. My mother never gave me the chance. She must have heard the door, and she came to greet us before I had chance to apologize.

  "Did you have a nice day, you two?" she beamed.

  Before I had the chance to speak, Caspian answered for me.

  There is no reason that Azia cannot marry me now. While we were out walking today, she told me that her romance with Milo was fake. The pair of them made it all up to fool you.

  I glared at him with murder in my eyes. How could he do this? Just as I was beginning to like him.

  7th January

  Overnight, the snow had softened, and the sky was clear when I woke up. I'd spent half the night angry at Caspian and the other half waiting for Milo to arrive. He'd not worked the day before, nor had he done a night shift. Therefore, he would be working today. I'd not mentioned anything to my parents about what happened with Caspian the day before. Only he knew about my magic, and only he knew about the dragons. I should have told my parents, at least, that part. My father should know, but I'd gone straight to my room and skipped dinner. After a couple of hours trying to do magic again, I'd finally given up and fallen asleep. I would tell my father abou
t the dragons soon, but it was Milo I wanted to tell first. I wanted to show him my magic too.

  The clock hands moved excruciatingly slowly as I waited for them to tick down to nine am when his shift usually started. The fear of him having been fired because of what the fae had told my mother rendered me almost immobile, but at five minutes to nine, I caught him walking past my room to start his shift. I pulled him into my room and closed the door behind me, locking it in case Dahlia or anyone else came to find me.

  He kissed me, pulling me into his arms and the anxiety I'd been feeling all night melted away.

  "I don't want a boyfriend," I murmured, but it was hard to really push the point home when I followed it up with another kiss.