by L J Andrews
The crowd filled with my friends and family clapped and cheered. The mages blasted the room with what little energy they could muster. Gaia inched toward me, her grin small but proud as she held out her sword still filled with the elemental stones.
“Teagan, this is yours now. These powers are yours to command and protect.”
I shook my head, feeling my face flush as every eye locked on me. Gaia nodded and offered me the pommel again. With a nervous glance at Jade, I took hold of the handle of the blade. The shift in energy was palpable. Wind breathed through the cave, and I felt the burn of power rushing down the hilt and into the bright stones. Everyone gasped as, one by one, the elemental stones molded, their colors swirling around like melted candle wax, until the five stones formed into one golden stone embedded in the steel blade just below the hilt.
“What just happened?” Mitch gasped.
Gaia shook her head, obviously surprised as well, but it was Gumma’s quivering voice that spoke above the crowd. “The Mage of Kings has more power than five elemental stones. Now, he will rise as the defender of all the energies—that stone is not divided. It carries with it everything our people hold dear. No longer will the separate powers stand alone. Just like we should join as one people—mage, lindworm, wyvern, human—all the powers and energies have formed one powerful stone. Just right for the mage who could command kings.
Jade gaped at me, but her emerald eyes were wide as I studied the billowing gold stone. Gumma wasn’t wrong. The power was undeniable. If I focused enough, I could break through every vein of power and use each energy separately, or as one unstoppable force.
I cleared my throat and met the eyes of those who would help change how we lived from this day on. “I wasn’t anyone important not so long ago. I didn’t earn this power alone. The way I see it, we stand together as one. I will do all I can to help lead us, but I promise I will need help. We stand together. We keep traditions we want,” I chuckled, taking Jade’s hand. “And get rid of those we don’t want. I will protect this with my life, and I hope we all do the same for one another—bonded or not.”
Cheers echoed so loudly in the cave, I thought the walls might crumble. Jade leaned toward me, her lips pressing against mine carefully so she wouldn’t wake Malik. I met her eye and wiped away a stray tear. “I love you,” she whispered. “I loved you before I even knew you were a mage. You were somebody to me. Your energy might have changed, but your heart remains filled with the same good I loved from the first moment I saw you.”
I kissed her again, brushing a few pieces of her hair from her face. “You’ve changed me forever, Jade Drake. I will spend the centuries showing you how much I love you.”
She grinned, and in that moment, I knew that as long as Jade, my son, my parents, my family were with me, everything would always be well.
Epilogue
The Mage of Kings
25 years later
There was a brilliant energy rushing around the cliffside today. The sun even beamed a little brighter. I always loved this day every year. The old caves where the warriors had once hidden away in exile were now a gleaming haven for all energies. The caves were still intact—I liked to think all of us were a little sentimental, so we kept them. It was where I’d first met Thane, it was where I’d mated with Jade, where we’d had our first child. But over the tops, on the old sparring fields, now stood a brilliant castle made of gray bricks and white stones. The castle and its neighboring villas, homes, and lawns were concealed behind protective energy. To enemies or humans, it looked simply like a precarious cliffside. But anyone with a valiant heart would be welcome. Human, mage, or wyvern alike.
Glancing at Jade as she adjusted her form-fitting black top so it covered the scar along her collarbone, I smiled. Crossing our large room, I bent low and tugged back the material, pressing my lips along the pink, faded wound.
She sighed, closed her eyes, and leaned against me as my kisses found her jaw and face. “You know, you shouldn’t kiss me like that,” she whispered. “I may never want to leave.”
I laughed softly, staring at her in the mirror she was sitting beside. Jade could possibly pass for twenty now—though she was over one hundred. The day the seal on my back had finished filling in, the bond between us strengthened more than I could have imagined. The golden seal spoke of our lives together—the war, our meeting, our transformation, and our new legacy of dragon mage and queen.
As she locked with my blue eyes in our reflection, I studied my own face and laughed quietly. I could go back to high school and look maybe like a powerfully built athlete. Our faces were young, but hearts and minds had seen more than most. “You know a certain someone wouldn’t let you stay inside all day,” I laughed.
As if on cue, our door burst open, and the shrieks of a young, curly blonde bounced in my head. “They’re here! Daddy, they’re here!”
My eyes widened with matching animated excitement, and though she called my name, she rushed into Jade’s open arms, bouncing excitedly on her lap.
“Saina, you look like a princess,” I whispered, lowering to my haunches and drawing my fingers along my daughter’s face. “Is everything ready?”
She nodded, her small fingers reaching for my chin as she traced the golden marks along my jawline. Her curls draped over the silver tiara placed over her head. The stones along the small crown matched the color of Saina’s first mage markings that trickled around her wrists like green bracelets. She was dressed in the gold dress made especially for the holiday, though already there was a smudge of dirt along her hem. I was certain by the end of the day the girl would be coated in mud. Saina, though seemingly no older than five to the outside world, was reaching sixteen years old, and she was the light of the castle. Her beautiful energy had the power to heal faster than any mage her age. With every laugh or tear she ever shed, my soul was pummeled with the fierceness of her unique dragon mage energy. Though she didn’t have wings, she sometimes opted to speak with Jade or me through the mind like a wyvern. And when her temper flared, her blood heated more than any dragon I knew. As she strengthened, she would undoubtedly be a marvel in our world.
A scuffle at the door drew our eyes across the room, and I laughed when my mother sighed in relief. “Saina, my love, there you are.” Gaia’s gaze lifted to mine. “I tell you, this child will age me faster than all the others. Come now, I thought you wanted to be the first to say hello.”
Saina beamed and reached for Gaia’s outstretched hand. Gaia glanced at us over her shoulder. She spoke of age, and we had just celebrated her three hundred sixtieth birthday, but my mother still looked like she was no older than forty. Her auburn hair hadn’t changed in color since I’d first met her, but the mage markings along her face had faded to a beautiful silver—not the green or ashen colors she once had. I took it as a sign of peace.
Saina bounced out our door, waving her hand to ensure we would follow close behind. Jade laughed, securing the delicate gold tiara, similar to our daughter’s, in her golden curls. “Some days, I would love to have half her energy,” Jade muttered. She wore the necklace that had once held the jade stone before all the separate elements faded into the golden stone. It was made from her father’s sword, and I suspected she liked keeping it close.
Jade straightened the thick leather straps over my shoulders. Soon I would be wearing the golden blades for the entire evening. Once a great comfort against the dark powers that threatened everything, now they were bulky and reminded me how grateful I was they hadn’t been raised in war for almost thirty years. With her palms pressed on my chest, Jade studied my eyes. She was stunning, and when she looked at me that way, my breath still caught in the back of my throat.
“Ready?” I asked.
She smiled, pressing her lips slow and easy along my mouth for much too short a moment. “Always. I love seeing everyone. Besides, it’s your turn to finally tease Athika.” I laughed, letting Jade lead me from our bedroom. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been waiting fo
r this day.”
“Oh, I have,” I scoffed. “I don’t get why she’s been so secretive about it.”
Jade smirked, nodding. “Your mouth probably had something to do with it.”
By the time we stepped through the massive double doors onto the sprawling back lawn, already there were dark specks in the sky as dragons approached. Saina was bouncing wildly when the smallest, youngest dragon landed gracefully, his brilliant, gilded wings folding across his back when the two young passengers slid from his spine. His scales were unique, I’d never seen a wyvern with the same color. Sometimes silvery green, sometimes more white with specks of gold, either way he was my favorite wyvern to see in true form. I grinned when Malik shifted and scooped his younger sister in his arms.
“Malik, you said you would take me with you,” Saina pouted, clutching his chin and tracing the silvery mage marks on his face. Some days his marks were gold like mine, or green like his sister’s. Today, they matched Gaia’s.
“You were so sleepy, and our cousins were being impatient,” he teased, catching my eye. Malik’s power had only strengthened through the last year, now that his mage energy was nearly mature. Like Gumma had predicted, he was a force that seemed to bond all the energies together as one.
Releasing Saina back to the ground, Malik waved his hand over the grass until a flower with petals glimmering in gold and silver sprouted. Saina sighed, touching the petals tenderly until Malik plucked the stem and tucked it in her curls. She pressed her hands along his face, and even I could feel the surge of energy filtering between my two children before Saina rushed to play with the other children who’d arrived. A boy who looked to be Saina’s age (and actually was only six) clapped his hands when Saina drew blue shimmering energy on her palms.
“I kept up and even beat grandfather, but he won’t tell you that,” Malik said when I slung my arm around his shoulder.
Thane pounded on the ground next.
I wouldn’t use the word beat, his voice filtered through my mind, but I knew Malik could hear too. My father billowed a string of flames that caused us both to laugh.
Thane was a lot like my mother and hadn’t aged much, and the weariness in his eyes he’d once had from worrying about his family was long gone. Now, his blue eyes were closer to icy snow than the sky. Jade’s smile was contagious when she rushed to Thane’s passengers. Mitch held open his arms wide, but Jade only patted his shoulder before flinging her arms around the woman and infant next to him.
Mitch scoffed, one brow raised as he looked at me, though he pointed at Jade. “You’d think she didn’t care to see me.”
I laughed, slapping his shoulder. “Don’t let her fool you, she just wants the baby.”
Most of my family hadn’t aged, except Mitch. Though still much younger-looking than what a forty-three-year-old human should look like, he probably wouldn’t pass for a high school student anymore. I brushed my fingers across the few grays in the tuft of his trimmed beard just to agitate him. His wife, Kate, was much the same. Younger than the thirty-five I knew she was, she looked closer to Jade’s youthful face as she passed their new daughter to Jade’s arms. Mitch’s other four children were already bustling around the lawn with mages, Saina and Malik, and other warrior dragons stomping about. I knew Mitch and his family would age and die before us—it was a fact none of us could avoid—but Gaia and I had discovered our energy was enough to lengthen their lives to at least four times the normal lifespan of the average human. Perhaps I might even look old by the time Mitch passed.
I would take all the time I could with my brother.
Saina practically leapt into Thane’s arms once he was standing in human form near the center of all the children. Like Jade had done when we’d first met, my daughter was fascinated with tracing any seal or mage marking on the skin. She laughed, running her fingers along Thane’s shoulders that were now littered in gilded seals. “You look like grandmother,” she chuckled.
Thane smiled and kissed her forehead. “I know,” he added as though put out. “You wouldn’t think I was a warrior, would you? I have too many wonderful grandchildren. Tell your uncle to pace himself or I will be covered head to toe.” I figured when Thane’s mage seals had added Mitch and Malik, with each addition more would come. His shoulders, biceps, and forearms were covered in a unique seal for every member of his family.
Mitch laughed and shrugged. “I keep telling Kate to keep her hands off me, but I’m irresistible.”
“Right,” Kate muttered, wrapping one arm around my neck in a quick hug. Her skin was like snow compared to Mitch’s brown color, but their children’s tan, olive complexions were the envy of many on the castle grounds. “That’s exactly what the problem is.”
“How was the visit?” I asked nervously. Kate’s smile fell as she clasped Mitch’s arm.
“Oh, as good as can be expected, I guess. My mom was happy to meet the baby, but you know my dad…he struggles. They still think I’ve been abducted into some cult or something.”
Mitch’s oldest child, Abigail, scoffed. “Grandpa was fine until Dash told him dragons were faster than his new car.”
Mitch’s second oldest stuck out his lip behind his mother and folded his arms.
“What’s with the face, kid?” I asked.
“I wasn’t trying to be mean, but it’s true. Cars are sort of lame when we fly on dragons. My grandpa says dragons don’t exist.” Dash leaned in and lowered his voice. “They are afraid of Grandfather and Grandmother—and you and Aunt Jade. I don’t like it.”
Kate sighed and met my eye. “My dad was a little more forward with things he said this time.”
Mitch actually looked angry when he wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Kate was offered money to leave me and my freaky family.”
Jade’s brows lifted, and she clutched their infant daughter tighter when Kate gave Mitch a stern gaze. “It’s not the first time,” she admitted, “but Dash overheard. It upset him a bit.”
I felt a hint of sadness for my nephew. It was, and would probably always be, the hope of our people to integrate into normal society someday, but there would always be people like Kate’s family that refused to see what was before their eyes. Kate had accepted the truth easily when Mitch had met her during one of his visits with his biological family only a couple years after the war ended. She’d been fascinated and had molded into our way of life nearly as easily as Mitch had. Her family had loved Mitch at first, but after Kate had finally admitted the truth, everything changed. Gaia had even offered memories to Kate’s mother, but still they hated even the slightest mention of mages or wyverns.
I thought it was still good Kate took her children to visit a few times a year, though Mitch usually stayed behind.
“Hey, Dash,” I said. “You know what, I didn’t always believe in dragons or mages either. When your Aunt Jade told me she was a dragon, I thought she was insane!”
“Hey,” Jade laughed, nudging my arm.
Dash eyed me strangely. “But you’re, like, the head mage.”
I nodded. “So if it was hard for me to believe, don’t you think we ought to cut your grandma and grandpa some slack?”
He shrugged. “I guess, but they shouldn’t talk like that about my dad, or anyone here.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. But if it bugs you, kid, let them know. You’re pretty tough. Your mom and dad are tough—I mean, your dad is one of the warriors, so that’s pretty cool, right?”
Dash flushed in a new pride and nodded. “Yeah, that’s cool, especially since he’s human.”
“Okay, don’t let anything anyone says bug you. Now go play with your cousins before we make you guys dress all stuffy in your nice clothes, yeah?”
“Really,” he moaned. “I thought we could just skip that this year.”
“No, sir,” Kate insisted. “Feasts mean nice clothes. Now go on and get dirty because you are certainly getting a bath before tonight.”
Dash muttered some more under his brea
th before stalking toward Malik and his older sister. Kate mouthed a thank you, which I accepted with a simple smile.
“Did you see your mom, Mitch?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, she uh, wasn’t doing too good last time. So, I didn’t want to bring Lily around, you know,” he offered with a glance at the baby.
I felt his concern, but also his bitterness that his mother refused to change from the difficult way he was raised. Though whenever Mitch returned to us, he was always filled with a sense of home. No matter what happened in the outside world, this was where he belonged. Where we all belonged.
Jade slid one hand into mine, clutching the sleeping baby in the crook of her elbow as we faced the yard. Malik had shifted again and was taking Saina and Mitch’s son, Gavin, for rides.
The herd of human children cheered when a fierce roar erupted from one side of the castle. “It’s Raffi!” Gavin shrieked, leaping off Malik’s back with as much agility as any mage.
Raffi’s large russet body wrapped around the castle tower, followed closely by the remaining royal dragons. He shifted and scooped up Gavin and Saina, propping both children on his bare shoulders as he stalked toward us.
“You always have to make an entrance, show off,” Mitch chuckled. Raffi released the children and smacked Mitch’s shoulder before gently kissing Kate’s cheek.
“They love it,” he said, clasping Thane’s forearm in the warrior greeting before moving toward Jade’s side. “Look at this girl—she already looks bigger,” he muttered, staring at the sleeping infant.
“When are you going to have one of your own,” Jade teased, nudging Raffi’s shoulders.
“I have plenty of time for all that, and I think I’d better have a mate first,” he laughed.
“You and Ivy have spent a lot of time together,” Jade teased. Raffi flushed, but it was true. The earth mages lived in the villas around the castle, and Raffi had spent a lot of time in one particular home the last few years.
