I ran up the staircase to retrieve Marigold and Dahlia.
I’d barely made it halfway when the shadows along the wall began to move. I jumped over the first shadow that snatched at my ankle and somehow managed to avoid the second, but the third caught me off-balance, and I hit the stairs hard.
“You’d burn down your own castle with your family inside?” Gerard yelled at me from the foyer below.
“To save them from you!” I planted my hands, allowing ice to spread from them and toward the shadows, hoping they would shy away from the cold.
Instead, a tentacle of shadow wrapped around my wrist like a vine.
“Don’t fight me, Elisa.”
I glared down at him. “How dare you think you can own me!” The space wasn’t large enough for my dragon size, but no one had told me I couldn’t summon my dragon wings while in my human form. I’d already called upon my claws.
Gerard muttered a curse as my wings grew from my back.
I lifted my body away from the shadows and, with another explosion of fire on the stairs, sent the shadows screaming into hiding.
Gerard shouted in anger at me.
I flew to the top of the landing and sprinted down the hallway. I knew Gerard would be close behind, that he would somehow use his powers to find a way up, and I needed to use every spare second I had to get my sisters to safety.
I dug my feet into the rug lying on the hardwood floors in the hallway and slid to a stop in front of Dahlia and Marigold’s door. I slammed my shoulder against the solid wood twice before my dragon strength broke it open.
Marigold and Dahlia screamed. They were cowered in the corner of the bedroom, wedged in the gap between the wall and Dahlia’s bed.
“Are you both all right?” I asked as I ran over and knelt in front of them. “It’s me.”
Dahlia stared at me only a moment before she crawled over and threw her arms around me. “Elisa! You came back! You’re … you’re alive!”
“Gerard said you died. He said the faeries killed you,” Marigold added. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I held on to them both.
“Clearly, I’m not. We haven’t much time. He’s making his way here. I need you to trust me and jump out the window when I say to.” I ran to the window and threw it open. When I turned and looked at my sisters, I noticed the black veins across Marigold’s left arm. “What happened?”
I realized the answer as soon as I asked the question.
“Gerard,” she said. “He did this to me so Mother would sign the paper and give him the throne.” She cradled the arm and put on a brave face. “He said it was poison and it would kill me if she didn’t. But he hasn’t taken it away yet.”
I shook my head and jumped out the window. Both of my sisters squealed and rushed to the opening, but I caught myself far from the ground with my wings, not letting myself transform into my full dragon. I didn’t want to draw the attention of the dark soldiers. I flew back up to the window and held my arms out.
“You first,” Dahlia said. She helped Marigold through and into my arms.
As I suspected, Dormir had heard the roar, but so had the others, and the faeries had rushed toward the castle with their swords drawn. However, Gerard must have called upon his black magic, because more skeleton soldiers surrounded the castle than I’d seen when I entered.
“I’ll be right back for you, Dahlia!” I said.
“I know!”
I flew Marigold safely over the battlefield, though I heard twangs of arrows. I flew to where I knew my mother stood, still hidden in the woods, and landed in front of her.
I set Marigold on her feet. “This is my real mother,” I explained, turning her to face the gorgeous dragon in front of her. “She’ll look after you. I have to get Dahlia.” I looked to my mother. “She’s got some kind of magic infecting her.”
“She’s a dragon,” Marigold said in wonder. “So you’re really a dragon?” She spun and faced me, smiling like the excited child she was.
I winked and nodded. “A dragon shifter. There’s a prophecy about me too. But that will have to wait for another time.”
“What’s going on at the castle?” my mother asked.
“I accidentally set the throne room on fire. Hopefully, it hasn’t spread, but the entire building is made out of wood … I have to get Dahlia.” I spread my wings, this time allowing myself to transform fully into my dragon self.
“You’re beautiful!” Marigold shouted from behind me.
I made it back to the castle only to see some of the faeries carrying away the injured, and one of them looked dead. My stomach sunk even further when I arrived at the castle. Dahlia wasn’t at the window. I transformed back into my human form while in the air, and as I dropped, I caught myself on the ledge of the window and pulled myself in.
I froze.
Dahlia wasn’t in there.
Black smoke billowed down the hall. The castle was still burning, or at least part of it was.
“Dahlia!” I shouted. I ran down the hallway only to skid to a halt when I spotted Dahlia standing at the top of the stairs.
Her beautiful blue eyes stared wide at the fire crackling below.
Gerard stood beside her, one foot propped up on the banister rail, and he had a dagger in his hand. He ran the blade deliberately down Dahlia’s arm, and then his eyes flicked to me. They were dark. Full of hatred. “I warned you, Elisa,” he said coldly.
I felt like such a fool. I should have taken them both at the same time! I should have taken the time and transformed into a dragon! I could have carried them both! I stepped forward. “Gerard, she has no part in this,” I said cautiously.
“She’s your sister. This is your last chance. Say no to me again …” He turned the tip of the dagger between her shoulder blades and pressed.
Dahlia cried out. Shadows tilted her forward, toward the flames.
“Stop! Gerard, please don’t hurt her!” I cried, but I didn’t dare move.
“You stay with me, as my wife, and I will let your family go. But I am not giving up my throne.”
I tightened my jaw. “You have the northern kingdoms. Why take ours?”
“Conquest, kiddo.”
“Stop talking down to me!” I growled. “You’re barely older!”
He raised his finger, and Dahlia screamed. “Mind your anger. We wouldn’t want your sister to catch on fire right now, would we? Poor little Dahlia will burn right up.”
Tears came to my eyes. “Why are you doing this?” I choked.
“You think you’re the only one who wants a special destiny?” he snarled.
“I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t ask to have a prophecy about me. I didn’t ask to have a purpose, to make decisions that mean life or death,” I said, not daring to move.
Gerard sneered. “You were just born into it. I wasn’t born into anything. I’ve had to fight my whole life for respect. My throne was taken from me long ago. This will make me important. This will make Selina proud.”
“Selina?” I asked, startled. “The sorceress?”
“Is it yes or no, Elisa?”
Dahlia was still balanced precariously toward the flames, and tears streaked her dirty face. She was watching me. Waiting to see what I would do.
“You didn’t have to do any of this.” I held my hands out. “You could have married me without ever revealing …” I let the sentence fall.
“That I’m actually a cruel person? Sorry, beautiful, life isn’t rainbows and butterflies,” he said dryly.
I tightened my lips. “You’re right. Life is about being locked up in a castle your entire life, never really having a true friend, disappointing your mother with everything you do. It’s being raised by humans who’ve convinced you that you’re cursed and you’re going to turn into a monster and kill everyone you love, when in fact, you
are a dragon with parents who love you. Life is about putting trust in one person, just one for the first time … and having him leave you to die on the mountains, take your throne, and threaten to kill your sister.”
Gerard scoffed. “This charming debate is over. Do I kill your sister, or do you marry me oh important dragon?”
“Please, Elisa. I don’t want to die!” Dahlia sobbed.
I knew I had one shot. I ran as fast as I could to Dahlia.
Gerard growled and Dahlia began to fall.
I leapt and snatched the back of Dahlia’s dress, managing to pull her back so she landed on me, and we both tumbled down the first few steps. The fire nipped at Dahlia’s feet. I grinned at her.
She scrambled to her feet behind me, and I put my body between her and Gerard.
“Wrong choice,” Gerard said with ice on his words.
Dahlia gasped.
I wheeled around. A shadowy sword protruded through her chest. Her blue eyes looked at me in confusion and pain, then looked down.
“No. Dahlia, no!”
The sword pulled away with a sickening squelch, revealing a skeleton soldier behind her.
Dahlia fell forward. I dropped to my knees and caught her in my arms. “Hold on. It will be all right.” I pressed my hand to the wound, knowing in my heart it was useless. “I’ll take you to the faeries. They will help you.” I tried to get up.
“I … love you, El,” she whispered.
“No, no, no,” I whimpered. “H-Hold on. You’re strong. Just a little longer. I can get you outside. The fae …” I stifled a sob and half-carried, half-dragged her a few feet.
She coughed and blood speckled my clothes. “Mm. Tell … Marigold … sh-she can have my … acorns.”
I choked on a laugh. Dahlia had collected acorns for years and painted them to look like woodland creatures. She had a box of them in their room and Marigold wasn’t allowed to touch them.
“I will,” I promised, smearing ash across my cheek with the back of my hand.
“You’re the … best big … sister.” The light in her eyes faded, her head lolled to the side, and her body went limp.
“Dahlia?” My voice cracked.
She didn’t move.
I would no longer sneak off to the kitchen with her for a midnight snack because she couldn’t sleep. She wouldn’t roll her eyes at Mother because I was forbidden to do something. She wouldn’t be there to look after Marigold and help her with writing lessons.
I clutched Dahlia’s body to my chest and screamed as my heart was torn from my body. Ice exploded across the floor and walls, smothering the fire on the stairs instantly. The building shook violently. The glass in the windows exploded.
I held on to Dahlia’s body as I got to my feet, glaring at Gerard. “You … monster,” I hissed.
For the first time all day, he looked genuinely frightened. Gerard’s face had paled, and he had taken a few steps back. “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he blurted. “It was just … you were supposed to give in! You were supposed to agree—”
The comfortable and familiar tingle of scales rippled across my body.
“I have the fae,” Gerard suddenly said. He motioned his hand to the hall behind him.
A shadowy pool appeared on the floor, and two skeleton figures stepped out. Between them, they carried Dormir. Dormir’s blue hair was a mess, and blood poured from his nose and a wound on his cheek. His shirt was in tatters and also bloody.
“Oh good,” I said. “Let him go and I’ll let you live.” I stepped forward, forcing Gerard back farther. I caught my reflection in a nearby mirror and saw that, while I was still human in shape, I was covered in my dragon scales, with my dragon horns on the side of my head, and my dragon wings and tail behind.
“I can kill him too,” Gerard warned.
“But you won’t,” I growled. “Because then I’ll tear you apart limb from limb.” Gerard only had this last card to play. I could call his bluff.
Dormir lifted his head and his lavender eyes focused on me. I would save him. I couldn’t save Dahlia, but I wouldn’t let Dormir be killed too.
“Last chance before I burn you,” I growled.
Gerard tightened his lips, clearly not about to admit his defeat. He faced Dormir and used words I’d never heard before while moving his hands in sharp patterns.
I ran at Gerard while he was distracted.
He finished the last word before I reached him, and dark light wrapped around Dormir.
“Elisa!” he screamed.
The darkness fell like sand, and Dormir was gone.
“What did you do?” I roared.
“Easy!” Gerard said, holding up a lantern in front of him. Inside the lantern stood Dormir, his hands pressed on the glass. “One wrong move and he dies. I would hate to drop him.”
A soft rumble radiated from my chest, and I bore my teeth at the monster I’d once trusted.
I didn’t know what to do. I thought I had won this, but Gerard had already murdered Dahlia and Dormir was about to be killed. I’d already proven I couldn’t make decisions. If I had just accepted Gerard’s demands, Dahlia would have still been alive. I opened my mouth, fully ready to admit defeat.
But a familiar voice said, “Yes, your sister might still be alive if you had submitted to him, but he could have killed her after you made your arrangement.”
I turned and saw Quist. We stood in the meadow again, like in my vision before. I fell to my knees and sobbed. “She’s gone! She died because of my selfishness!”
“You did what you thought was right.” Quist crouched and touched my cheek. I looked up and saw him, a handsome man with golden hair, bright golden eyes, and a dashing smile. “You know who you are. Elisa, or Aura as you choose, the Favored Light. But you don’t believe in yourself yet. You still have the dragons and the faeries nearby. You can defeat Gerard once and for all. Remember what I said about you?”
I wiped away my tears. “You said I was brave.”
He nodded. “How many girls would have run to save their sister? And how many others would have given into Gerard’s demands the first moment he threatened? You can do this, Aura. Call upon Tao.” He pressed his lips to my forehead like my father used to when I was sick.
Warmth spread across my body.
The king and queen of Griswil had stolen me and raised me, but there had been so much good in my childhood. Mother had taught me to paint. Father had taught me to sword fight. I played with my sisters. Even now, I wasn’t a different person.
Braver, perhaps, but I was still me. I knew exactly what I would do.
Twenty-Four
I ran.
I picked up Dahlia’s body, slid down the ice-covered stairs, and ran out the front doors and onto the battlefield of skeleton soldiers.
I opened my mouth and roared as loudly as my body would allow. I drew the attention of nearby skeletons but swiftly spread ice on the road from the main gates to the door. To my surprise, the skeletons were unable to rise up through the ice. I froze the ankles of the nearest skeletons, creating a sort of wall with their bodies to protect me from the oncoming group before I laid Dahlia gently on the surface.
My heart wrenched, looking down at her face.
Tears blinded me, but I transformed into my dragon form and roared again, then turned as the skeletons broke through and breathed fire on them.
I heard the beating wings of the dragons before they came into view. They landed on top of the skeletons and turned to me.
“I left Marigold with one of the fae. A few are injured and have set up a place of healing,” my mother explained.
“Gerard killed my other sister, Dahlia.” I looked in the direction of her body. “I don’t care if we burn the entire castle down, but he also has Dormir and the king and queen are in the dungeon.” I turned back to the dragons.
My father shook his head. “Dormir managed to get them out. He’d gone back in to help you with your sisters and didn’t make it back out.”
I bore my teeth. “Gerard is clever and controls the shadows and skeletons.”
“He’s a necromancer,” Nicholia stated, swishing his tail and wiping out a flurry of skeletons behind him.
“What does that mean?”
“He can summon the dead,” my father explained. “Hence, the skeletons.”
“I need your help,” I admitted. “I need to take Dahlia to the faeries.” My words caught.
My mother rubbed her head against my neck. “Do that. We will keep the skeletons at bay and when you return we will save Dormir. Together we will end this once and for all.”
I nodded and tenderly carried Dahlia in my claws. I knew I was giving Gerard time to think of something, but Dahlia deserved to rest with respect. I couldn’t live with myself if Gerard turned her body into a monster too. I landed in the small clearing and set her body down. After a quick scan of the group, a good handful were wounded, and the man and woman I once called my father and mother stood holding Marigold.
I swallowed hard and stepped back. “He killed Dahlia. I haven’t any time. Please take care of her.” I flew back into the air, and Queen Rachel’s scream of anguish followed me.
There would be proper time to mourn once Gerard was gone.
I arrived back at the castle, and the four of us entered through its main doors.
“Gerard, we need to talk!” I called.
“I suppose now isn’t the time to point out the scorch marks and ice?” Rowen whispered.
“My dragon magic,” I explained.
“Fire and ice?” he said, clearly impressed.
I smiled in spite of myself.
The lantern with Dormir inside slid up from a dark pool in the middle of the floor. The pool stretched and rippled like spilled ink. Dormir pounded against the glass with his fists and his mouth was moving as though he were yelling, but I couldn’t hear what he said even with my keen dragon hearing.
The Dragon Princess: Sleeping Beauty Reimagined (The Forgotten Kingdom Book 1) Page 20
