by Jade White
“What do you mean I am running out of time?”
It was as if this whole day seemed to be showing me how my whole life had changed. I thought for sure that my life was secured. I knew I would become king and I knew one day I would have princesses and princes running around in the castle.
I never realized that I would be hiding a secret that could end my life or my child’s life. It was as if everything was going fine and suddenly I had to pretend it was going fine.
The only good thing at the moment was the fact that none of them knew that I was Maelyss’s real son. My son would be the one who killed King Athalos in the prophecy, which meant they would kill me all the same.
I had'nt heard about the prophecy until it was too late. There was no way I could move away after my studies and pretend that I wanted to go on an adventure.
My mother decided to tell me just as I was getting ready to take the crown. It was as if she understood completely what she had done, but in the same breath, she had to warn me that my life was in great danger if King Athalos or any of the other royal subjects found out.
“I haven’t told you, as you were doing your studies, that we have successfully conquered four more kingdoms, which strengthens this one. Each of my sons will have their own kingdom, but my eldest son will also have controlling power of this kingdom. This means there are new places to which we have not yet ventured.”
Although there were new lands, nothing seemed to take away the sinking feeling within my soul. The ‘new’ kingdoms couldn’t take away the fact I was a dragon shape-shifter and I had to hide it if I enjoyed living. Everything that led up to my discussion with my father wasn’t just confusing, but it opened my eyes.
I realized that I was turning more and more into someone and I wasn’t sure who I was. I understood why I felt as if I didn’t fit in with my brothers.
I also fully understood where King Athalos stood on the whole subject and the prophecy that he took to heart. Although he thought that it would be my son who would have the child that was part dragon, he still admitted strongly that he would kill any dragon.
Perhaps the prophecy was just a story that should have never been told. I did know that everything seemed to be happening all at once.
“You were speaking of having to get married before a certain time. How long do I have?”
“You have exactly thirty nights before we choose a bride for you. There is no way we are allowing the prophecy to come true. You must marry a woman with royal blood,” King Athalos replied.
Lord Crewe, my uncle, looked over at me. “We are sorry to have to hide this from you, but we thought it would be best you didn’t worry until you were ready to take over the kingdom.”
My mind was indeed locked on the prophecy. It was something that I wasn’t sure how to deal with at the moment. I knew if I had a son and there was any evidence of him being a dragon that King Athalos would have him killed.
I understood in several ways why my mother had covered for me my whole life. She hid my identity out of love, although at the moment, she put me in a very hard spot. I felt as if I was being torn with what King Athalos expected from me and my true identity.
I never pictured that my mother, Queen Bethany, had ever hid this from me. I guess that explained why she used to tell my father strange reasons why I would draw pictures of dragons.
Now, I wanted to go in the attic and go through my belongings of when I was a child.
I really desired to speak with my mother, but it seemed at the moment she was traveling to visit her family on the Sarvon Isle. There were the moments in my life where she was traveling that the king pretended she had left completely and was gone.
She was only a memory that was fading away, although she was fine and would be returning in two weeks.
My uncle, Lord Crewe, was a thin man who looked a lot like my three other brothers. He had the shaggy style blond hair, except his had silver and white streaks in it. He always seemed to be scowling. He had a scar that went from his eyebrow straight down his cheek and his dark eyes were filled with hate.
Rowan once told me that Lord Crewe had gotten in a fight with a man in the pub. As the fight got heated, the man turned into a dragon. With one claw, he marked Lord Crewe, giving him a scar as a reminder of how he lost.
“Stop dragging your feet about marriage, Merek! There is a lot to do in a kingdom that a queen would do.” Lord Crewe snarled.
I let out a sigh. “I understand, Lord Crewe. I just want the right woman to become my wife.”
“Time is a virtue, Merek. In thirty days you will be moving to the new castle,” King Athalos pointed out.
“I will begin to sort through things that I would like to take with me. If anyone asks where I will be, I will be in the attic.”
King Athalos sighed. “Can you at least pay attention for a second, Merek? The most important thing here is getting you married.”
I nodded. “I understand, Father.”
“There is nothing in those boxes that are so important compared to courting a woman.”
“I still don’t fully understand why I have to be married before I move to the new kingdom. I honestly thought I was taking over this Kingdom when you were no longer able to fulfill the duty as king.”
“This is why I waited to tell you. I wanted to surprise you; you get both my kingdom as well as your own.”
I already had a bad feeling that with Rowan, Terrain, and Sadon being kings of their own kingdoms, I could sense a war in the making. My brothers were quite greedy when it came to the power and control they wished to have. I could care less. All of my life, I had used clout and arrogance when I didn’t get my way.
I could always ask people if they knew who I was and I would inform them that I was Prince Merek. Of course, this was short-lived. Now, my pompous brothers, whose cold hearts seemed to be in love with killing everything they didn’t like, would be ruling as well. This didn’t make me feel happy at all.
“I want you to go out and find yourself a princess or a lady you can court. You don’t need to pack your things. There will be enough time for that later. We will have everyone help you and the carriages will bring you to the castle.”
“Father, today I just want to stay here.”
“For heaven sake, listen to yourself! You need a wife and that is the final answer! I expect you to start finding one and not to hang around the castle or the grounds. You can’t just hire someone to marry you. There is no way I am going to allow you to stay here until you find yourself a good wife. I am telling you, as the king, to go find a wife and that is an order.”
“What would Mother say?”
“Your mother isn’t here right now! Do you see her here? I didn’t think you did! Your mother isn’t your only parent! If the queen was here, I would surely have no problem blaming your actions on her. I knew what trouble we were in once you started to grow as a child.
“It seemed pointless to keep explaining everything to you, but she told me you would grow out of it. You haven’t grown out of it and I am stuck with a son who refuses to get married.”
“I didn’t ask for you to order me to get married. I am sure, with time, I would find the right girl and marry her.”
“If that was true, Merek, then you would have gotten married a long time ago. You are twenty-five years old. I think it is time for you to face responsibilities. It is time for you to face the fact that you must get married and start to rule your own kingdom.”
The words that King Athalos said seemed to stab at me. I knew that it was true, that it was time for me to marry. I also knew it was hard at the moment to live my life with such a secret that could end it in a matter of seconds.
My mother always tried to tell me that the king loved me, but I never could believe the truth behind it. I always saw him favoring the other three. I was just the oldest one.
Of course, this argument was one that I was going to lose. I always got in fights with King Athalos, but I could never win. He always
pointed out to anyone who actually listened that I was too much like my mother. I was a “thinker” and he didn’t like that about me. I fought in battles before, among my brothers, but there was something about me that was different. I wasn’t like my brothers; they would declare war on a falling leaf if it startled them.
Chapter 2
I walked out of the study, knowing that although I had to face the horror and cruelty of this world, there was no way of escaping the marriage. I wished for a second that my mother was here so I could ask her in person what I should do. The king refused to listen to any of my requests and it seemed in thirty days I was to get married and have a son.
Rowan looked at me as I was walking down the corridor to my room.
“Where are you headed?”
“I am going to finish up the letter I was writing and then I am headed off to town. There must be a beautiful bride known by someone, just waiting for me.”
“Do you wish for me to join you?”
I shook my head. “No, I think I can find my own way of getting a bride before Father orders someone to marry me.”
“Merek!” Rowan said as he started laughing.
For all of my twenty-five years, I addressed King Athalos as my father, but now as I watched him plan to kill every single dragon to save his own skin, I felt sickened. It was as if I realized in a second that I never belonged in this family and they were killing my people.
I didn’t want to speak to anyone, but it seemed as if I couldn’t stop that from happening. Every day, it seemed as if I meant less to the royal family compared to the other three princes.
I used to stand beside my father proudly as we greeted the people of our kingdom. Now, we were hardly in the same area at the same time.
I wondered often if the kingdom even realized that I didn’t really exist any longer. My mother, on the other hand, tried hard to keep me in hiding. I wasn’t surprised to know that she had a secret, since I recalled that in my childhood, how she was quite protective of me.
“When Mother gets back, I am supposed to already be courting a beautiful bride to be the next queen. I am surprised King Athalos hasn’t pressured the three of you into getting married.
100“This isn’t how I imagined I would ever get married. I thought that I would get our mother’s blessing. I guess with Father thinking that this prophecy is real and the world is against him, he needs me to get married.”
Rowan stared at me.
“What?” I asked.
“You don’t think the prophecy is real?”
“Why would the prophecy come true after so long? You don’t see any of us becoming dragons and taking out our father. It was probably just a hoax to scare our great-grandfather, King Berinon Athalos. He wasn’t the purest of hearts and did quite cruel things to the people in his kingdom.”
“You do have a point! The way the prophecy was spoken, it would have meant one of us would have been dragons. None of us show any symptoms of being a dragon. I have been reading what it is like to hunt them, even if they have a human form.”
“Does Father know you are reading about dragons? I am surprised he even allows books like that in the library.”
I had to figure out a way to get my hands on Rowan’s book without looking obvious that I was trying to hide my own identity from the world.
I didn’t know the first thing about being a dragon, but I knew my life was in jeopardy, especially living in the castle. I knew my mother was right, and I needed to find a way to venture out to meet with Maelyss. I didn’t know yet how I was going to go on such a journey when I was going to have to come back with a bride.
“Do you think if I hunt a dragon and come back with proof, that Father will give me a little more respect like he has for you, Terrain and Sadon?” I asked.
Rowan shrugged. “Father hates dragons more than anything in the world. It is worth a try. Just remember that isn’t going to get you out of marrying, though.
“You have to find yourself a bride! You promised you would go into town in search of a bride. Father is going to keep you to your word.”
“I know and after I finish my letter, I will go to town.” I closed my bedroom door behind me.
Something inside of me twitched as if it suddenly turned on and I was deeply disturbed and unsettled by everything that was going on in this kingdom. It could be the fact that I had to find a bride or the fact that I was the dragon from the prophecy.
I knew there was more to the story. I was unsure if they were trying to figure out how much interest I showed in dragons or if I was the dragon in the family.
I knew that I needed to get to Maelyss or find an oracle who wasn’t one of my father’s loyal subjects, to tell me about the prophecy. No one could ever find out about my secret.
I began thinking of packing my belongings and disappearing, but I was sure that King Athalos would send his army to search or me. I wasn’t sure quite yet how to disappear as if I never existed. I would neither be alive nor dead and would never be found.
I looked in the mirror. My whitish-blue eyes stared back at me. My shoulder-length dark curls that matched the midnight sky seemed to bring out the strange color in my eyes.
Although I was a prince, I had none of the king’s facial features. My brother’s features seemed soft, but I had a sharp jaw line and a pointed chin. The women of the town, however, thought I was the better looking prince out of the four sons of King Athalos.
I wasn’t going to argue since I had to find a bride.
I began to wonder why my mother, Queen Bethany, ran away in that time. What made her turn to the mountains where Maelyss’s dragon lair was? I knew she told me often about stories of dragons, but never did she explain them.
I wished that I could recall some of the stories she told me during my childhood. It might have made it easier for me to grasp that she was telling me about my own heritage.
King Athalos also recognized I looked visibly different. He often said that I got my looks from the Servon Isle bloodline and looked like King Tristan, who was my grandfather.
King Athalos didn’t care for the king and queen of Servon Isle, which meant I didn’t see my mother’s family often. Rowan, Terrain and Sadon didn’t seem to care that we didn’t see our family, but I had a feeling there was a reason why we didn’t.
The last I remembered of my grandmother, Queen Alys, was when she was holding me on her lap.
All I had were a couple books, leather bound and gold-corded, up in the attic from that family. My father never allowed me to read them.
I continued to look in the mirror. Perhaps my life would have been different if I knew Maelyss personally. It at least might have made it easier to swallow the fact that I was part dragon. Now, here I was, battling the fact I was supposed to be Prince Merek, son of King Athalos. I wasn’t supposed to be the beginning of a bloody ending to a prophecy.
The door squeaked as it closed behind me. I looked up to see one of the chambermaids look up at me as her feet scurried across the floor.
“I didn’t realize that you were here, Prince Merek. I apologize, but I have orders to make the bed.”
I smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Cedany, I was just leaving for town.”
Rowan stopped me as I entered the corridor. “Are you ready to find yourself a bride?”
I started laughing. “Of course, I am ready to please Father. Are you going to accompany me on my journey?”
“Are you joking? I think this one you have to do on your own! You have to find the truth of who you are before you run away with some good looking girl and forget about all of us.”
I had to admit that Rowan’s wording was quite odd. I actually found it quite disturbing after my surprise letter from my mother. Rowan however, never was one to be normal.
I looked at Rowan, shocked and confused. “What are you babbling about? I know who I am! I am Prince Merek, son of King Athalos. I think I can boast about that all day and the battles in which I led and won.”
Rowan didn’t answer me. He looked up at me and shook his head.
“I really would like to know this one, Rowan.”
“You are always running away from the idea of being married and having children. That is all I meant by what I said.”
I had a feeling there was more to what he meant, but I was hoping that wasn’t true. I just didn’t want to deal with any of this at the moment.
“Are you kidding me, Rowan? You have been the worst liar since we were children! I am unsure what you are hiding, but whatever it is I will find out. Don’t you dare jump to conclusions on why I never got married and had kids!
“Before Mother gets home, I will be courting or married to the most beautiful woman. Even you will want to get married right after I bring her home.”
