"Are you ok?" he asked, pulling back, a quizzical expression on his face.
"Yes," I lied. "Why shouldn't I be?"
He glanced around the room. "I can smell burning. Was there a fire?"
I laughed. "Something like that." I lowered my voice. "I went for a walk with Caspian yesterday. My mother insisted," I added when his face dropped. "Anyway, the dragons came down the mountain yesterday. They surrounded Caspian and me."
Milo's eyes widened. "Woah, Azia! Thank the gods that you are all right. How did you escape? Did Caspian help you?"
I could see in his eyes that he didn't want to hear that Caspian had saved me. Luckily for him, he didn't have to.
"I saved us."
Before I could elaborate, the sound of my mother's voice came drifting through the door.
"Azia?"
Pushing Milo to one side quickly, I opened the door a crack.
"Sorry, Mother," I said, feigning a yawn. "I only just woke up."
"Azia, you know I deplore tardiness and breakfast has been laid out for ten minutes."
"I'm on my way," I singsonged, eager for her to leave should she see Milo behind me.
She held a hand to her mouth to cover a yawn, then turned and left, and I closed the door again.
"Sorry," I whispered, turning back to Milo. "I'll tell you after breakfast." I gave him a quick kiss then sprinted down the corridor after my mother.
In the dining hall, only my brothers were eating. "Where is Mother?" I asked Ash. "She only just came to get me."
Ash swallowed his cereal before addressing me. "Mother said she was tired and headed back to bed. Father is busy, and your boyfriend is with him. Something to do with dragons." He went back to his breakfast.
I assumed by boyfriend he was referring to the fae. I guess he told father about the dragons. I was surprised my mother hadn't knocked my bedroom door down to check if I was all right. I suspected that no one had told her. My father never kept secrets from her, but she'd been looking so ill recently that he probably didn't want to burden her.
At least, it solved the problem of having to tell my father about the dragons. Caspian was good for something, after all. When breakfast was over, I ran back upstairs.
"I'm glad you're here," Milo said when he saw me. He pulled me away from Jack and spoke again. "I've just been called to go outside. Your father knows about the dragons and wants most of the guards on outdoor duty today. I volunteered to check out the woods. I thought you might want to join me."
He looked at me so earnestly that I didn't have the heart to say no. Not that I wanted to say no.
I headed out first as not to arouse suspicion. With my mother asleep and my father out with the fae, it was unlikely anyone would see me slip out of the castle, but if they did, I would tell them I was going for a walk. I slipped out of the castle grounds by way of the door in the outer wall. I waited in the area we'd practiced fighting for Milo to arrive. Ten minutes later, and he was there, my sword in his hand.
"I hope you don't mind. I went into your room and picked up this. I thought you might like to practice what with there being dragons around. I still don't know how you survived them, but I'm pretty sure we are safe in here. The trees are too thick for dragons to get through."
He sat next to me on the rock. "So how did you escape the dragons?"
"I know magic," I explained, "I didn't know that I knew it, but Caspian showed me."
Milo's reaction was not what I expected. He stomped his foot down and turned away from me, his fists balled. "I don't trust that man."
I smiled at the ferociousness of his reaction. He'd barely ever seen the guy, and I'd talked so very little about him. This was jealousy. He was jealous because I was going to marry the fae. The smile faded from my lips. I was still going to marry Caspian. After what he told my mother, I would have no choice in the matter. My mother hadn't wanted me to be with Milo from the start, and now that she thought what we had was fake, she would never allow me to marry Milo instead. Not that I was ready to marry him either, but I'd rather share my days with the boy who kissed me first than that duplicitous creep.
"Let's fight," I said, picking up my sword and standing up. I turned him around to face me and kissed him lightly. Immediately his posture relaxed.
"We can't fight the way we did before. I couldn't carry out the armor we need. Today I'll teach you how to block, but we'll work slowly. That way, neither of us will get hurt."
We worked for hours, concentrating on posture before moving on to blocking. With each stroke of my sword, he showed me the correct way to block, first slowly and then when we'd both grown more confident in my ability, we speeded up. I wasn't set on hurting him, so none of my swipes were aimed at him, yet he danced around me, blocking each parry.
As my confidence increased, I began to copy him, until we were practically dancing around each other, the clank of our swords the only giveaway that this was no dance. Our swords were a blur as he threw in some attacks of his own. If we carried on this way, we would have no doubt slipped up and hurt each other, but a sneaky bit of tree root had me stumbling backward. Milo ran forward and caught my wrist. My sword fell to the ground, but I remained standing. He pulled me close until our faces were mere inches apart.
"You won," I whispered, my heart thumping in my chest. "What can I give you as the prize?"
He didn't answer, at least, not with words. He leaned forward and crushed his lips upon mine. All around us, snow began to fall again, but nothing mattered. Nothing at all but the here and now of the kiss with Milo and the realization that despite everything, I was falling in love with him.
Milo took my sword for me when it was time to go. We'd spent the whole morning practicing and then quite a bit of it kissing. I'd almost certainly missed lunch, and I was in danger of missing dinner too. I was surprised that my mother hadn't come looking for me. Perhaps she had but hadn't thought to check the woods. Why would she?
I left Milo and headed back into the castle, simultaneously feeling as light as a feather and broken-hearted at what I'd done and how my future was shaping up.
My heart had never felt so utterly bereft as it did now. How many times had I told myself over the past week that I didn't want or need a boyfriend? Falling for Milo had not been in the script at all, but now that our chances of dating were truly over, it made me want him all the more. Why hadn't I seen it from the start? Why hadn't I seen him? He'd been guarding my room every night for seven months, and it was only at the beginning of the year I'd really noticed him. If I'd thought to look up once in a while, I might have noticed him before. We could have been dating for months, and then, none of this would have happened. After months of dating, my mother would never try to force me to marry another man. Why had I been so stupid to let Caspian know that dating Milo had been fake?
My skin still tingled from where Milo had run his hand up my arm, my lips still felt the caress of his against them.
"Aza!" Remy shouted over at me as I stepped into the castle. He was sitting at the bottom of the main stairway, books surrounding him. When he saw I was looking at him, he waved his huge hand and beckoned me over. "Aza boo."
"Yes, I can see your books, Remy," I said only mildly impatiently. "You've been told about this before. Books belong in the library. You should only take one at a time." I moved forward and began to collect the books, but he grabbed my wrist.
"Aza, boo,"
"I'm picking them up. We have to take them back. Will you help?"
"No, Aza! Boo!" he strengthened the grip on my wrist and began to pull me upstairs.
"Remy stop. We've not picked up the books yet." I tried to pull against him, but he was too strong.
"Remy, let go!"
He shook his head and squeezed. Pain shot up my arm from where he squeezed me too tight. "Unsquash, Remy. Unsquash!"
He lessened his grip but didn't let go entirely.
"Is something wrong, Remy?" I asked, finally pulling my wrist from his hand. Giving it a
rub to bring back the circulation, I looked into his eyes. I saw excitement in them. "Do you want to show me something?"
He danced up and down on the step, nodding his head. "Aza, boo."
"Ok, Remy, let's go." Sighing, I followed him up the stairs. He led me to the library.
The door to the precious books cabinet was open. It was the one part of the library that Remy was not allowed to touch, and he knew that. It was filled with books about the history of the Draconis Royal Family. Fear filled me as I realized the implications of this. Checking the books, I saw a space. One was missing.
"Remy," I said calmly. There was no point shouting at him. It would only freak him out, and I'd get nowhere. A quick scan of the library told me that the book was nowhere in sight. I thought back to the books at the bottom of the stairs. Most of them had been left open. I wondered if one of those had been the missing book, it couldn't have been. The old books were bound in leather. The ones downstairs had all been paper. "Where is the book?"
"Boo," he repeated and took my hand. This time I let him. He led me over to a table at the other side of the library. Under it, was the missing book. Ducking under the table, I reached out for it, breathing a sigh of relief to find it still in one piece.
"Aza!" Remy jabbed a finger at the page the book was open on.
"Is this what you wanted me to see?" I asked him. He clapped his hands together and danced on his feet, a beautiful grin, splitting his face.
Looking at the title, I saw it was one of the older history books of Draconis. I'd never read it before because it was horribly outdated. The section Remy wanted me to look at was about royal laws.
At first, nothing jumped out at me, but then something caught my eye.
Regarding marriages of the first daughter of the king and queen, if she is the eldest sibling, and therefore, the heir to the throne, she must be found a partner to marry if she cannot find one herself. If there are two or more suitors, the law states that a competition must be held to determine the man who the princess will marry. Any man in the land may enter, but usually, it is only the two men in question. These competitions were rare as most of the young princesses found a man themselves, but in one particularly strange incident over three hundred years ago when the monarchy was still young, Princess Bethel chose two men, both of whom died in the usually brutal competition. She ended up marrying a complete stranger. It didn't do her any harm. She went on to have sixteen children with him. For more details on the competition, turn to page seventy-three.
I didn't need to turn to page seventy-three. This was my way out of marrying Caspian that didn't involve going to prison for murder! I pulled Remy's face towards mine and gave him a kiss on the forehead. I was finally free of the madness, and there was nothing my mother or father could do about it. It was the law, no matter how outdated and sexist, and not even they were above it. Changing laws in the twelve kingdoms was a tricky endeavor and could sometimes take years. The king had to put the law forward, and the lawmakers of Urbis decided to pass it or not. I doubted my parents would want to wait years for me to marry Caspian, so they'd be forced into upholding the law. "Remy! You are a genius!"
Remy did another dance on the floor, and this time, I danced along with him. I was free of Caspian.
A noise shifted my attention away from our little soiree. I placed the royal history book back in the cabinet and went to investigate.
Outside the library and all over, the castle buzzed with people. Servants and guards ran this way and that in a state of what I could only describe as panic.
If they were all running in one direction, I could understand it, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the chaos.
Fear gripped me as I thought about the dragons. Had they come back? Were we being attacked?
"What's happening?" I asked a maid who was passing by, with what looked to be a wet cloth in her hands.
"I can't tell you." She burst into tears and ran off towards the main staircase.
Following the maid to the second floor, the chaos was even more pronounced here. A gaggle of people stood outside my parents' room. Most of them worked at the castle. Some, I didn't recognize at all. They all spoke over each other, so it was impossible to tell what any of them were saying. The maid with the cloth practically screeched, making everyone move back. As the crowd moved, those at the back noticed me. A whisper went among them, and suddenly, they were all quiet and looking at me, pity filling their eyes.
"What is it?" I whispered, not daring to move. The path the maid had made between them widened to allow me to pass through.
With each step I took toward them, my heart rate increased, and as I passed, they all lowered their heads. Inside the room, my mother lay on the bed, her face ashen, her eyes closed. Beside her, my father held her hand as the maid mopped my mother's brow and someone I didn't know checked her pulse.
"Father..." I started, walking toward the bed.
When he looked over in my direction, a stab of fear clutched at my heart. He had tears in his eyes. I'd never seen my father cry. Not once in my whole life.
"She's alive," he said, holding out his other hand to me.
I glanced back toward my mother again. She looked like the mother I knew well. Gone were the dark circles under her eyes and the blotchy skin. She looked perfect in every way. Underneath the thin sheet covering her, I saw the rhythmical rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Her eyes remained shut.
"What happened?"
"I don't know," my father said quietly. "She's not been feeling well for days. She came for a nap this morning, and when her personal maid came to wake her, she wouldn't wake up."
At this, the maid with the cloth burst into tears.
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty. Forgive me." She ran from the room, taking the cloth with her. I followed her with my line of sight to find the people still looking in. In my father's worry, he'd allowed the staff to congregate. I let go of my father's hand and marched to the door.
"Please leave us. We will let you know what is happening as soon as we ascertain the situation ourselves. Please carry on as normal. I'll meet you all in the grand hall at seven o'clock and fill you all in. Please pass the word to the other members of the staff and don't let word of this get out to the public." I closed the door. That speech was my very first act as a leader. My father was in no fit state to be a king today. He deserved a day off after eighteen years of service without one. I would take that meeting, and I would tell everyone what was happening. I'd tell my brothers too. Once I knew what it was that was happening myself.
"Do you know what is wrong with her, doctor?" I'd not been introduced to him, but it didn't take a genius to figure out who he was.
"Her vital signs are normal. Her breathing is normal, her heart rate is normal. It would appear that she is just asleep, Your Highness."
A thrill of fear passed through me. My father's face drained of the little color it already had. I'm sure that to literally anyone else, the fact that she was perfectly healthy would be a comfort, but my mother had been in this situation before, and that time, she'd not awoken for a hundred years.
"I've never seen anything like this before," the doctor continued. "I see no reason why she won't wake up. If you let me take her to Zhore, I could have my partners run tests on her."
"She's not leaving this room," my father uttered, his jaw clenched. "Get your partners in here if you must, but she stays."
The doctor nodded, taking his stethoscope and putting it in his bag.
"I'm not sure it will help. I don't want to be the one to say this, but I think this is a little out of my realm. I don't think this is an illness. I think this is a curse."
The anguished cries of my father rang through the castle. After eighteen years, my mother was Sleeping Beauty once more.
Continue the adventure in Heiress of Embers
After the Happily Ever After…
There is more to these stories. You want to know what happens next right? Fast forward eig
hteen years…
Pick up book one now
PREQUEL
SLEEPING BEAUTY
1. Queen of Dragons
2. Heiress of Embers
3. Throne of Fury
4. Goddess of Flames
LITTLE MERMAID
5. Queen of Mermaids
6. Heiress of the Sea
7. Throne of Change
8. Goddess of Water
RED RIDING HOOD
9. King of Wolves
10. Heir of the Curse
11. Throne of Night
12. God of Shifters
RAPUNZEL
13. King of Devotion
14. Heir of Thorns
15. Throne of Enchantment
16. God of Loyalty
RUMPELSTILTSKIN
17. Queen of Unicorns
18. Heiress of Gold
Queen of Dragons Page 11
