by Viola Grace
Nole took a few steps up, and he rubbed her nose. “I will be here every day, Aeli. I don’t know how we will convene council matters around you, but Rekker City will be here when you wake.”
She didn’t nod, but her eyes closed as the dragon created a huge, round table out of vines that meshed tightly. She heard his laugh and felt the heat of his hand against the bark of her beaky nose.
She enjoyed a strange sort of rest, awake and alert, but her body was completely at peace, simply existing with the soil of Rekker feeding her.
For the next two weeks, the dragons from the capitol remained in Rekker, and there was a new normal hammered out between the mages and dragons.
Aeli was there for every moment, every argument, and every breakdown in communication. Occasionally, flowers would bloom on her skin when there were children in the council hall for school trips. She was a tourist attraction, scientists studied her, and every night when the councillors had broken up for the day, she smiled inwardly as Nole came and sat in the crook of her elbow and he read her a book for hours.
It was amazing that he covered the range of books from spell books, herbal treatise, dragon histories, cookbooks, and even pulp fiction. He read it all to her and changed his voice for the different characters in the lighter reads. His attention to her was strangely gratifying.
Her body registered the changing of seasons, and still, he came every day and read to her. Some days, he climbed over her and swept her free of dust from nose to tail. When her flowers bloomed and wilted, he took the petals carefully from her and delivered them to the scientists and herbalists who wanted to find the useful properties in her off-shoots.
Time moved smoothly for her. She got what she needed from the soil of the city beneath her, water came from deep under the foundations, and the sunlight came through the new dome in the ceiling above her. Her dragon learned about the new world and modern amenities and politics, fascinated by it all.
The day that Senator Lefarge stood in front of her once more, she observed him with her senses.
“Aelemilial Warrok. Your sentence of one year has been served. Whenever you wish to wake and resume your new duties, you are welcome to do it.”
She thought about it and conversed silently with her dragon. They agreed that it was time to resume interaction with the world. Aeli began the long process of reeling in the roots that had ripped through the soil and stone. She cut off the table made of vines so that the council could still meet around it.
Chapter Twelve
It took Aeli four days to get her life support back in place, but she chose her moment to resume her human form.
Nole had just settled into his spot and was going to read her the new Magical History of Rekker City, as written by Grand Master Mage Norman Warrok. Aeli began by retracting her wings and slowly decreasing her size until he sat up in surprise.
Nole turned, and he watched her as she returned to her human form slowly, standing up from her reclining position on wobbly legs.
She smiled as she looked at him, and to her shock, he knelt in front of her. “Aelemilial Warrok, will you marry me?”
She stared at him, seeing him in all the glorious heat and energy patterns that moved beneath his skin. He was beautiful in any spectrum.
She frowned and tried to remember how to speak. It took a few tries, but she managed, “Yes, but why?”
He smiled and rose to his feet. “Because you are the one woman that I have always dreamed of spending my life with. Knowing that you are a dragon has just made our union easier, but I was always going to propose.”
“Was I not supposed to ask you?”
He grinned. “Technically, yes.”
She looked at him and took both his hands. “Nolesander Kreelo, will you marry me?”
He kissed her and lifted his head. “Definitely. You taste like mint.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Side effect of growing mint on my tongue while I slept.”
He grinned then laughed and lifted her to spin her around. When he set her down, they kissed again, breaking up to laugh. She didn’t know why he was laughing, but it was contagious.
A familiar voice called out, “What did she say?”
She looked past Nole to see her father coming toward them, wearing his grand master mage robes with a thin bit of piping that denoted his place on the council.
He held out his arms, and she left Nole to walk toward him, hugging him carefully and then more firmly as he squeezed her back.
She was laughing again, and there were tears in her laugh. She was back, and the assumption of her new form came with a few attachments, but she was glad to be back on her own two feet.
“Well, if you said yes, and I am guessing you did by the expression on Nole’s face, we have a wedding to plan. The mages will be here by the end of the week.”
Aeli looked at him in astonishment. “You knew he would propose?”
“Of course. I haven’t been stuck as a large garden sculpture for the last year. He asked me if I would grant permission for you to marry him. He won me over by helping me restock the shop regularly, and I will be happy to have him as a son-in-law.”
She snorted. “Has he been buying you exotics?”
Her father looked innocent. “Maybe one or two.”
She sighed. “Does he know you have enough money to buy the city twice over?”
Her father looked toward his shoes. “I may have neglected to mention that.”
“So, why the rush to get me married off? I thought dragons had to take it slow and attend balls and stuff.”
Nole stepped forward. “The senator has given his authorization considering the peculiar situation that we are in. The first thing that the dragons of Rekker did when they returned to the city was to destroy your shop.”
She paused. “What?”
Her father confirmed it. “They shattered every pane of glass and every inch of the shop, including our quarters. I was here, so I missed the attack.”
She groaned. “Or you could have repelled them. Damn it. I had some good books in there.”
Nole snorted. “The books have been rescued, and I was granted Councillor Neeming’s home as he was removed from his post after his attack on your premises. Your father has been helping me arrange the grounds and greenhouses.”
Aeli giggled. “I am glad it is a big house. You two would drive each other mad, otherwise.”
“We moved all of your things into it as well. With some repair spells, we got everything that would be useful out of the shop. All of your clothing has survived, as has your library. I destroyed the notebook in front of witnesses, as per the senator’s request. It is well and truly gone.” Her father gave her a long look.
She nodded. “All written records of the banishment spell died with that particular copy. I never made a copy for my own use.”
Nole exhaled softly. “Good. That was the one thing we needed confirmed. Now, would you like to have dinner at your new home?”
“Is it dinner time?”
Her father grinned. “He has a cook and a butler and everything. It’s very relaxing when you want to get some work done.”
Aeli whispered, “You aren’t supposed to take advantage of it.”
Nole chuckled. “I enjoy it. Your father has remarkable insight into how the council and city should be run.”
He offered her his arm. “The reason for the marriage is propriety. If you are living under my roof for a week as an engaged couple, it is acceptable. If it continues much beyond that, folk will talk, and then, dragons will be colliding over the skies of Rekker.”
Aeli took his arm, still a little uncertain of her balance. “So, we will be living together?”
Nole pressed his hand over hers on his arm. “Yes, from now until we shift from this earth forever, we will be living together.”
Her father cleared his throat. “But separate bedrooms until the wedding and plenty of sound-proofing spells afterward. There are some things I don’t want to hear.�
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Aeli chuckled. “He also doesn’t like alternative ethnic rock, so I am not going to read too much into it.”
Nole laughed, and they walked out of the council hall with its huge hole in the floor. Absently, Aeli waved a repair glyph at it as they walked and wafted it toward the gaping hole in the flagstone where she had been nestled. Stone pulled itself into the hole and earth filled in as they walked. By the time they reached the outer door, it was nearly complete.
Her father casually mentioned, “You didn’t use a known spell there.”
“The dragon has taught me a few other spells. Or other ways of completing the ones we know.” She grinned. “Shortcuts.”
Nole cleared his throat. “Before you transformed, you were mentioning a certain dragon who may have been your father.”
“Ah. Yes. Phillip. Oh, that is new.” She was smiling at the sight of the green space in the centre of the town with a huge marquee being constructed.
Her father piped up, “It is for the wedding. You are going to be primped and prodded so that you will be the poster woman for female mages who choose to wed.”
That got her attention. “A mage wedding?”
Her father cackled. “It is who you are, Aelemilial. You are my daughter, raised to be a master mage. The dragon was in you, but this is what you studied to become.”
She couldn’t argue with that, and she had to quickly explain to her dragon what a mage wedding entailed. She was up for it.
“When your father explained what I was in for, there was some hesitation, but we are going to start our lives together here with everything out in the open. The citizens have already seen your dragon. I agree that it is past time for a mage wedding to be held in Rekker City.”
She glanced at him. “So, part of this is a political move?”
“A large part. If it were up to me, we would take the dispensation and be wed before we cross the threshold of the house.” His hand on hers gave her a light squeeze.
She looked at him, and the light that ran through his body took on a flickering bright hue. He was serious. He had waited a year, and he had waited for her. She tried to hide the fact that she had waited for him as well.
Each kindness, each touch, each book that he read to her well into the dark hours of the night. Each one had worked its way into her heart and lodged there, even more than all the generous acts that had preceded it.
Despite the fact that those acts of kindness had been made with the goal of winning her affections, she accepted them in the spirit with which they were offered. He was proving his worth as a mate, and he was doing a helluva job.
“Am I still under monitoring?”
He sighed. “For the rest of your life, I will be at your side.”
“Threat and promise?”
He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, giving her a bright, “Yep,” before placing it back on his arm and continuing their slow promenade through the city that she had lived in all her life.
Lampposts glowed along the streets, and Aeli felt that it was brighter than it should be. “Are the lights turned up?”
Nole chuckled. “You caught that?”
“Are they?”
“Yes, they are brighter until nine in the evening, and they allow light illumination at night without blazing through windows.” He smiled. “It is one of the new changes to the city that the human citizens pushed for.”
Aeli kept walking, and she nodded. “I remember that meeting.”
“Did you hear everything?” Nole spoke softly.
“I did. And felt everything, enjoyed the sun on me and the taste of Rekker itself.”
“Well, the lights are powered by the rendering of your flower petals. We are walking in the glow of programmable magic.”
She raised her brows. “What? That wasn’t mentioned in the council.”
“There have been many meetings in the new magical research labs that have sprung up around Rekker. The city is alive again, and it is mostly due to you.”
She shrugged that off and looked around. “Folks are keeping pretty gardens.”
“They aren’t. Those gardens sprang up on the day you went to sleep. I am happy to see that they are still bright this evening.”
She looked around. “I did this?”
“Your link to the city did this. The dragons have been going nuts looking into all of the permutations and possibilities of your ability to revive soil and damaged growing areas.”
Her dragon perked up inwardly. “I think that it could be arranged.”
They walked another two blocks, and the gardens and planters were still lush and filled with colour. The large gate on their right swung open at her father’s gesture.
Nole muttered, “Your father refuses to show me how to do that.”
She laughed and nudged him with her hip. “I think we will be able to give you some light tutoring in dragon magic. It is a little different, but it should be useful.”
He stopped on the manicured path. “Are you joking?”
She released his arm and walked toward the house. “Time will tell, Councillor Kreelo.”
She grinned and watched as her father scampered up to the door, having gained at least twenty years of youth from his new place in the council. It was amazing how it felt when one could speak and be heard.
The same butler opened the door that had done it over a year before. He nodded to her father and looked past him, his eyes wide when she walked up the steps and into the house. “Good evening.”
“Good evening, Mistress. Dragoness...”
She patted him on the shoulder. “Miss Aelemilial, or Miss Warrok.”
“Thank you, Miss Warrok.”
Nole walked in and removed his coat. “It will soon be Madam Kreelo.”
She grinned. “But it isn’t today. So, where is the kitchen? I want to make a sandwich.”
Nole took her hand and tugged her to the left. “I will give you a tour, and we will end up in the kitchen.”
She let him lead her around and watched the delight in his features as he showed her her rooms and her father’s next to it with his rooms at the end of the hall.
The library was filled with the titles he had read to her and hundreds more.
She asked him bluntly, “So, the councillor left under hostile circumstances?”
“He did. Fortunately, he had no family, and now, he will serve his time and hopefully make something useful out of himself.”
Aeli chuckled. “Father did a cleansing on this place.”
Nole stared at her. “How did you... you can feel the traces.”
“I can. I know the mark of his magic. I am just wondering why I feel myself in here.”
Nole stopped next to a side table in the hall, and he lifted a flower toward her. “You are all over the city and spreading over the continent. All the finest conservatories are carrying the seedlings from your touch on Rekker.”
She took the flower and smelled it, tasting her own magic in the bloom. “I didn’t mean to leave a mark.”
“Meaning to or not, you have created a mark on this continent that is going to last for centuries.”
She looked up at him over the edge of the rose. “I am getting that impression.”
Her dragon smirked and curled into a happy ball in her consciousness. She was waiting with anticipation. There was more to come.
Chapter Thirteen
Aeli didn’t sleep. She had a year of rest under her belt. She sat in the study and caught up on her correspondence and chatted with the few friends she had outside the city.
It was late on the coast, but Aeli knew that Mirbella kept long hours. She tried her shop number and waited while the screen call was processing.
“Who in the name of sanity would call me at this hour?” A frazzled Mirbella came on screen, and Aeli grinned.
“Hiya, Mirb. I just wanted to touch base and get you caught up.”
“Aeli? I thought you were a giant block of dragon wood.” Mirbella’s ey
es teared up.
“I was. I got better. What do you have going on this week?”
Mirbella raised her brows. “What do you have in mind?”
“Well, I want you as a guest at my wedding. I am having a mage wedding at the end of the week.” Aeli wrinkled her nose.
“Who is doing your gown?” Mirbella was suddenly serious.
“Uh, I don’t know. Probably the local tailor?” Aeli shrugged. “I am not inviting you to get a dress, I just want you there. You were one of the few apprentices that my father had that I ever got along with.”
Mirbella rolled her eyes. “It is called friendship, Aeli. It happens in nature when two people have similar interests. Now, I can get a dragon to bring me there in the morning. Where are you staying?”
“Councillor Neeming’s house. Broken Well Lane.”
“I remember it. Okay, look for me around noon.”
“I will. Oh, if I am not here, I will be at the council hall.”
Mirbella nodded. “Great. Wait, what happened to the shop?”
“Dragons smashed it. I will fill you in when you get here.”
They waved cheery goodbyes and hung up. It was only after the screen went dark that it sank in. Mirbella knew dragons?
She continued the calls to the west coast and smiled when the vast majority of them were already coming to the wedding. Her father had been very wide with the net of invitations, but there was always room for more at the wedding of a grand master mage’s daughter.
She got up, stretched and grabbed a book, walking out into the darkness of the garden, using a touch to turn a vine into a night-blooming flower and settling down under it to read a tale of love, laughter, and revenge gone awry.
As she sat, she noted that the plants came closer, creating a backrest for her and elevating her off the ground slightly. She was very comfortable and settled back to continue her book while the open trumpets of flowers behind her cast light over her shoulders.
She smiled, giggled, and enjoyed the twists of the story. When she finished the story, she got up, stretched, and headed into the house.