Kingdom of Dragons

by Melody Rose

  “But it was the gathering place for all the clans,” Irena continued. “At least, until Reon came to Andsdyer. When he bonded with his dragon, he recognized the power that held, and he didn’t want it to go to another human.”

  “Right,” I stepped in. “I know this part. So he went on a killing spree and killed nearly all of the dragons.”

  “He found Rictorus and supposedly destroyed it,” Irena expanded on my original small idea of the story.

  I cocked my head, interested. “Supposedly?”

  “Rictorus, one day, stood tall and strong. It overlooked the whole of the land.” Irena leaned forward, breaking her posture as she whispered conspiratorially. “The next, it disappeared. Everyone thought Reon destroyed it, but he, instead, made it his home. His headquarters to hide from my grandson and develop the contamination.”

  “So the mountain palace isn’t destroyed, it’s just hidden?” I double-checked. “Why can’t my clan find it, then? If they knew where it was originally, shouldn’t they be able to just get there?”

  “Not in the way they are accustomed to,” Irena explained.

  A lightbulb went off in my head. “There’s a back door.”

  Irena’s lips spread into a wide grin, and she nodded. “There is.”

  “Where?” I jumped in my seat a little at the excitement of having a lead.

  “I don’t know,” Irena admitted.

  I slouched back into the armchair for the first time and allowed myself to be eaten by the comfy cushions, though their fluffiness did nothing to deter my dismay at Irena’s let down.

  “How can I find it then if you don’t know where it is?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer. “It’s going to be unnecessarily complicated, isn’t it?”

  “There is a key,” Irena said. If she heard my annoyed comment, she ignored it. “But you have to find the pieces and put it back together in order to open the back door.”

  “Okay,” I said as I drew the word out. “Do you know where the pieces are?”

  “Yes,” Irena said definitively.

  “Great,” I replied, excitement rising again. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Beasts of old

  Ruled under one

  Forced apart

  Til the war is done

  One went west

  To the sea beyond

  Now it is gone

  For someone is conned

  The other traveled east

  Where knowledge is buried

  In myth and legend

  Tales are varied

  Together these two

  Open the gates

  Of a kingdom once lost

  To the darkest of fates”

  I lowered my chin and glared up at Irena through hooded eyes. I pushed all of my annoyance into that glare. “You have got to be kidding me. A riddle? Really?”

  “That’s all I know,” Irena said with an innocent shrug.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised.” I frowned. “There had to be a riddle in here somewhere.”

  “Are you complaining about my help?” Irena asked, offended.

  “A little,” I admitted.

  “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” Irena threw the idiom in my face.

  “Another fortune cookie?” I said sarcastically.

  “Hey,” Irena said as she stuck a boney finger in my face. “I’m not used to the mentor role, okay? I know how annoying it is because I was once in your shoes. I tried to make it as easy as I could.”

  I took a moment to gather myself. Irena had a point. If what she was saying was true, and I had no reason to doubt that it was, then we were way farther ahead than we had been even a couple of hours ago. The former queen helped me tremendously with this new information. Even if I didn’t know what the riddle meant right away, I had seven dragons and seven companions that might be able to help me decipher it.

  Once we did that, we would have a direction. We would be closer to defeating Reon and saving Andsdyer.

  “Thank you,” I said. I softened my face and uncrossed my arms. “Really.”

  “You’re welcome, Eva,” Irena said, the corner of her mouth lifted into a smile. “I know you don’t think it, but by the end of this, you’ll make a great queen.”

  “I’m glad someone thinks so,” I said doubtfully.

  “I know the dragons wouldn’t have picked you if they didn’t think so,” Irena assured me.

  Something about that statement held me up, though, so I voiced my concern. “But they also picked Reon. Look how that turned out.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to go all power-hungry on them, though,” Irena chuckled.

  I bit the inside of my lip and stayed silent. The burning anger that rose up in me when I had control over Jae and how I hurt her because I wanted more information stirred in my stomach. I tapped into that power and had a taste of it. Yes, it terrified me, but I knew I wasn’t completely immune to it.

  “Oh,” Irena said suddenly. “I do have one more piece of advice I wanted to give you.”

  “Okay,” I answered, happy to be distracted from my worrisome thoughts. “What is it?”

  “The right one will choose you,” Irena recited as if from a piece of paper. She nodded after she finished the sentence, like a dog proud of herself for completing a trick.

  “That’s almost as bad as the riddle!” I protested. “You are a walking jar of fortune cookies.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Irena said with an annoying smile.

  Something that Irena said earlier in the conversation pricked at the back of my mind. I wanted to ask her about it but didn’t know how to broach the subject. I opened my mouth a couple of times, a little gurgle noise came out, but no words until prompted by the former queen.

  “You can ask me anything, you know,” Irena admitted. “I might not be able to give you a straight answer, but you can always ask. There’s no need to be nervous.”

  I licked my lips, stalling. “Is there… is there anything you want me to say to Elroy? I mean, he’s your great-grandson, after all, and your family, and I just thought, since you’re here and all, that I could pass on a message. If you wanted, that is.”

  The sentences felt tangled together, I wasn’t sure Irena understood me. Also, I wasn’t sure how comfortable I was with playing medium, but it seemed like the right thing to say. Something small I could do for her.

  Irena cocked her head and looked up to the sky. She slouched for the first time this whole conversation and rested her elbows on her knees. Her fingers laced together naturally, fitting into place like puzzle pieces. The queen popped her lips a couple of times, thinking. I waited because I knew this message, whatever it was going to be, would be important, and I had to get it right.

  “I would tell him…” Irena said, but she paused again. She cleared her throat and started again. “I would tell him to not be so afraid of change. If he does not adapt, he will lose his kingdom.”

  “That sounds like the perfect fortune cookie for him,” I teased. I thought back to some of our first encounters when he thought I was threatening his crown when, in fact, it was the last thing I ever wanted.

  “Oh!” Irena exclaimed, remembering something else. “And tell him, Knight to E4.”

  My eyebrows shot up into my hair. “A chess move? Seriously?”

  “It was the only thing I took credit for having invented,” Irena defended. “Everything else, I left well alone. Well, maybe not some card games.”

  “Doesn’t that mess with some time equilibrium or something?” I asked, thinking too hard about the science of it all.

  “We fell through a well and landed in an alternate universe with dragons and magic,” Irena said skeptically with a perfectly arched eyebrow. “We’ve already messed up whatever equilibrium there might be in this universe.”

  I sighed in defeat and felt a wave of tiredness overtake me. Inadvertently, I yawned and tried to cover it with the back of my hand.

  “That would be my cue,
” Irena said as she rose to her feet.

  Once again, the former queen seemed to float rather than walk. She glided to the center of the white space, and her chair disappeared behind her. I tucked my feet underneath me and nestled into the side of the chair. I knew if I stayed like this, I would have a stiff neck in the morning, but right then, I didn’t care. It was comfy, and I was sleepy.

  “Goodbye, Eva,” Irena said, her voice a fading whisper. “Fate will have its way with you, but destiny will prevail.”

  “Fortune cookie,” I mumbled as my eyes closed, and the white space dissolved into darkness.

  5

  I woke up at sunrise to the sound of Kehn bustling about the room. My eyes cracked open and took a second to clear. I blinked a couple of times to get the sleepiness out of my eyes.

  The soldier crept around my room, holding various items. He dumped them into assorted bags. Kehn seemed to have his own system because it didn’t make any sense to me. Maybe I was simply too tired to figure it out.

  “Good morning,” I said through a yawn, announcing my conscious presence.

  Kehn froze, and his gaze immediately fell on me. His long face broke into a smile. I noticed he shaved his blond beard and only left a pointed goatee. His green eyes brightened at the sight of me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “You slept,” Kehn announced.

  “I guess so,” I said as I stretched across the whole bed, my long limbs enjoying the room.

  “No, you really did,” Kehn said definitively. “You snored.”

  I sat up and slammed my hands into the mattress on either side of me. “No, I did not.”

  “Yes, you did,” Kehn chuckled. “Like a rhino.”

  Kehn took that opportunity to make an obnoxious snoring noise. I couldn’t help myself, I laughed. Kehn took my laughter as a sign of encouragement and snored again. He approached the end of the bed and crawled towards me on all fours, snoring the whole way.

  “I don’t sound like that,” I protested through a fit of giggles.

  “How do you know?” Kehn asked as he hovered over me. His hair flopped down over his eyes, but he didn’t move it out of the way. “You are asleep, so you cannot know.”

  Kehn made the noise one more time, right into my ear. I playfully pushed him away and turned so that I didn’t face him anymore. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that move gave him access to my neck which he promptly bent down and kissed repeatedly.

  My back arched, and I swooned. Instantly, I swallowed my giggles, and they transformed into moans. His lips felt so good against my skin as they maneuvered from the crook of my neck up to my jawbone and onto my cheek. I leaned into the sensation and turned so I could kiss Kehn properly. My hands ran along his newly smooth cheeks, beckoning him closer to me.

  I sank into his kiss, consumed the sensation of him pressed against me. The weight of him steadied me as we molded into one another. My energy reinvigorated from a night’s rest, a new desire beat in my chest. It hummed to the same tune of my heart, and I wanted to feed it quickly.

  However, a knock at the door interrupted all consumption. Kehn leaped off me, as if I suddenly developed leprosy, and crossed the room in a matter of seconds. I also rolled out of bed and grabbed my robe that hung off the corner of my partition.

  With my back to the door, I called, “Come in!”

  Just as I slipped my arms through the robe and tied the cloth belt, I heard the door open and probably one of the last voices I wanted to hear this after making out with Kehn on my bed.

  “Eva.” Hannan poked his head in the door. “I was coming to check on…”

  The caretaker stopped mid-sentence, and I turned around to see why. Hannan and Kehn stared directly at one another, daggers shooting between their gazes. Like an American housewife clutching her pearls, I clutched the top of my robe even though I was clothed beneath it. I didn’t know why my first reaction was to hide from Hannan. Yes, my and Kehn’s sexual relationship had been a secret at one point, but that wasn’t the case now since there was no sex or relationship. Well, at least for now.

  It didn’t help that Hannan and I had grown closer over the past few weeks, leading to a passionate kiss of our own. I didn’t anticipate to be attracted to Hannan like that. He was more on the nerdy side, with a tall and lanky body. But he had a kind face and sexy brown hair that he let grow long. More than anything, though, my conversations with Hannan ran deep and memorable. They were honest and open, and that built strong connections.

  Having both of the men in one room wasn’t anything unusual. Normally, though, there were other people or creatures around. I couldn’t remember the last time it had been just the three of us. Probably because it got real awkward, real quick.

  However, when I looked over both of them, I didn’t know what I had to be ashamed of at that moment. Kehn and I hadn’t been doing anything. Even if we had, what did it matter? It might complicate mine and Hannan’s relationship, but there were no exclusivity rules. In fact, there weren’t any rules because there was no relationship beyond friendship.

  Determined to nip this awkward situation in the bud, I released the top of my robe and let my hands fall to my side. I smiled, genuinely excited to see Hannan, and crossed the room with my arms outstretched.

  “Good morning, Hannan,” I said as I offered him a hug.

  Hannan took me up on my offer and squeezed me briefly but tightly. I liked Hannan’s hugs because he was taller than me, a rare feat, and I could nestle right underneath his chin, which was the perfect fit.

  “Kehn was helping me pack,” I said as I gestured to Kehn, who still hadn’t moved. “Thank you for coming to check on me.”

  “You are welcome,” Hannan replied. He quickly picked up on my cheerful tone and was the first of the pair to adjust his attitude. “I did not sleep very well, so I thought I would get up and get a start on everything.”

  “I had trouble falling asleep,” I admitted, “but once I was asleep, apparently I slept soundly. Well, kind of.” I remembered my dream with Queen Irena and almost spilled the beans to both Kehn and Hannan right there, but I stopped myself because I would just have to repeat everything to everyone later. I decided against it.

  “It is a big day, so, understandably, none of us slept well,” Hannan commented tactfully. He took a large breath and looked at Kehn. “How did you sleep, Kehn?”

  The soldier paused for a moment, and we waited in silence for his answer. I raised my eyebrows and looked expectantly at Kehn. If he couldn’t play nice, I wasn’t going to tolerate him. So I warned him with my eyes to choose his next sentence carefully.

  “I didn’t sleep well either,” Kehn said, his voice a little gravelly. “It was a bit noisy, so I had trouble staying asleep.”

  I pursed my lips and resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I had to give the guy credit for outing my apparent snoring habits outright, but he didn’t need to rub it in either. The smallest of smirks appeared at the corner of Kehn’s mouth. I had to look away before I blushed and returned my focus to Hannan.

  “If you want to stay and help, you can,” I offered. “I want to stop by and see Elroy before we meet the others, though.”

  “Why do you need to see the king?” Hannan wondered. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “I thought we weren’t asking his permission to leave.”

  “That’s not why I need to see him,” I corrected, but I didn’t provide an alternate reason.

  “So why then?” Kehn asked, not letting me get away without an explanation.

  “Maybe to say goodbye?” I suggested weakly.

  “I know you have repaired your relations, but I didn’t think you were friends enough to have to say goodbye,” Kehn said skeptically. He folded a shirt and placed it in one of the bags. “I thought we would stop by the Masons upon leaving town, but I didn’t account for needing to see the king.”

  “It will only take a minute,” I assured him. “I’ll just head over there now.”

  I made a move for the door,
but Hannan blocked me, and Kehn came up from behind. An abnormal amount of heat surrounded me, and my stomach buzzed at the closeness of both these men. I looked from one to the other, confused and trying to ignore the jitters in my belly.

  “You cannot go see the king looking like that,” Kehn said as he gestured up and down to my robe.

  “It will be scandalous,” Hannan explained with a concerned tone.

  “Oh, please,” I scoffed. “I saved his life. Twice. I can visit him in a bathrobe without it being weird.”

  “Might I remind you then that winter is now upon us, and you might at least want some proper footwear?” Hannan suggested sensibly.

  I looked down at my bare feet and wiggled my toes on the wood floor. “Alright,” I agreed, “I’ll go ahead and get dressed, but it’s just going to take more time.”

  As it turned out, Kehn had packed my travel clothes, trying to be helpful. So, the search for my ideal pants and loose tunic and vest ate up even more time. We were going to be late meeting everyone, so I asked Hannan to head to the gates and let everyone know.

  I made my way to the king’s chambers. I knew the route by heart, and when I approached, the guards greeted me cordially.

  “Is the king still asleep?” I asked them.

  “No, Lady Eva,” the guard replied. “He is in his study. You may inquire for him down there.”

  So I went down a level and approached the double doors that led to the king’s study. Elroy and I used to play chess in there, along with other places around the castle. We hadn’t played since his two near-death experiences, and I was out and about healing the court. I didn’t necessarily miss our games since chess was not one of my preferred pastimes. However, I did miss the conversations we had.

  King Elroy and I started out with a rocky relationship since he thought I was trying to take his crown as Reon had tried to take his father’s. It took some serious convincing, including going through the whole introduction process in the court, to prove that I had no interest in the throne. I wanted to save Andsdyer, but I didn’t want to rule it.

  I knocked on the study door, and Elroy’s voice came from the other side. “Enter.”