by Audrey Faye
A surprised, and amused, snort that nearly singed her eyebrows.
Jae smiled. “You aren’t a dragon bound by rules.”
::Do you know what it is that you do, sweet one?:: A wry question, and a pointed one.
Not any more than when she had flown off into the bitter-cold dark, following the voice of a star. But this felt just as important. ::I fight so that neither of us are lonely ever again.::
Fendellen hissed—and all the anger inside her died.
A warm blue nose touched her cheek, light as a feather. ::I wish that it were possible.:: Sadness poured through the bond. ::You don’t understand, sweet one. It isn’t the queen who chooses the distance. It is those she rules.::
It took every bit of strength Jae had to push away. She spread her wings again, letting the jewels of an old and perhaps regretful queen shine light into the dark. “I can’t speak for those of the past. I can’t even speak for those of now, except for me. But I can guess.”
She looked down at the gathered crowd. “Kis treats you as a hatchling still, and you allow it. Lotus won’t remember to treat you like a queen for any longer than her next barrel roll. Afran might try to respect you from a distance, but the woman sitting on his head will likely have a thing or two to say about that.”
Karis waved cheerfully.
Jae turned to face her dragon, but she could feel the air currents of support from those gathered below. “I came here as one who had always been held at a distance because of my wings. Not a single person or dragon here ever backed away from me because of them, but I couldn’t see that. Not until you made me look.”
Fendellen blinked.
Jae smiled. “You sent me friends to decorate my wings, and cooks bearing brooms to make me feel useful, and old dragons to help me see wisdom.”
Laughter rang below them, loud and clear.
The ice-blue dragon cast Kis a wry look. “He did his part all by himself.”
Jae grinned. She had guessed mostly right.
Now for the wildest guess of all. She sobered and stretched out her wings and arms, doing her very best to look regal. “We are marked of the Dragon Star. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what we will be called to do. But I see your strength, Fendellen who will be queen. I see your heart, and I saw you set fire to the distance I wrapped around myself like a warm winter cloak.” She gulped. “I won’t let you wear that cloak either.”
Fendellen bowed her head. A dragon acknowledging the only royal command Jae ever intended to make. She closed the small distance between them in the sky and hugged her dragon long and tight and hard.
Saw, out of the corner of her eye, the regal nod of an old queen.
Heard the loud cheering of the crowd below—and then their hushed awe.
Slowly, Jae and her dragon lifted their heads, staring. Green lights and blue ones, yellows and flares of pink danced around them, painting the entire sky.
The breath of the Dragon Star.
Epilogue
Lovissa woke from her dream, jerked awake by a call to battle.
She reached the mouth of her cave before she realized there was no movement in the valley below. No bugling, no dragon trumpeting his alert to the skies. Only silence.
She reached out with the power of a queen, yanking her finest warrior and the leader of her scouts out of sleep. ::There is danger.::
::Where?:: A single word, from a dragon she could already see winging into the skies.
She did not know. ::Look everywhere.::
More fliers in the sky, soundless, that they might not alert the enemy to their awakening. Forms, little more than shadow, heading north and south. Searching for the invading hordes.
She stood at attention, old and useless, and waited for their reports. She did not know what had awakened her, but it had a fierce hold on her still. The looming wings of destiny.
Her breath caught. So might a queen feel at the moment of her death.
She turned to face the Dragon Star, choking back her fire with only the greatest of effort. ::Not today. It must not be today. Quira is so very tiny yet. Do not doom my dragons so.::
A black shape landed beside her in the night. ::It is not the elves. There is no sign of them, and the snow in the passes is still impenetrable.::
Battles had been lost when leaders had been wrong about such things.
::It is not the elves. They could not move around on such a night without been seen. Nor set fires to keep warm while they slept.::
Her heart still beat wildly in her chest, but the rest of her was beginning to listen to reason. ::I was yanked from my sleep, Baraken. I know not why. But the blood of all the queens that have come before lives in me, and it stirs violently this night. Something comes for us.:: She resisted the last words, but he needed to hear them. ::Or for me.::
Alarm—and then a long, steady assessment. ::You look in fine form.::
She felt in fine form, other than the panic trying to take wing deep inside her. ::Then something else.:: Something with the kind of urgency she had never felt in her lifetime.
And then she looked up at the Dragon Star, and she knew.
Lovissa let the knowing sink into her blood and find confirmation there because she had already sent alarm ringing through her dragons without thinking first, and she was deeply embarrassed to have done it once, let alone twice.
Baraken stood, a silent sentinel at her side.
She bowed her head, the weight of what she found in her blood so very heavy that even a queen could hardly bear it. She shook herself and tried to deny. To resist. It made no sense. There were only four. The prophecy spoke of five. They had time yet.
The star’s implacable message did not change.
It was time.
Thank You
We appreciate you reading!
As you might have guessed, there is one final Dragon Kin book still coming. To hear about the final release, head to audreyfayewrites.com and sign up for the New Releases email list. You can also find Audrey on Facebook.
If you’re a reader who likes to graze widely, you might enjoy some of Audrey’s other books while you wait. There’s everything from spacefaring singers to assassins and mermaids.
Shae & Audrey
