by Sophie Stern
“What’s wrong with my name? Sapphires are a common gemstone.” They’re very popular in Draco Patriam, anyway.
“Not a common name for a girl.”
“It’s a sign of respect in Draco Patrium. The entire royal family is given gemstone names to distinguish us from the rest of the community.”
“And your mates? Were they named at birth?”
“They were given new names when they were chosen to be my mates,” I tell them sadly. I don’t even know their birth names. It’s been so many years since they changed their names that maybe they don’t remember, either. Giving up your name in Draco Patriam isn’t seen as a bad thing, though. It’s seen as a sign of honor, of nobility.
“Weird,” he shrugs. “But I suppose my world has its own strange customs.”
“Like mistletoe,” I point out.
“There’s nothing wrong with mistletoe, love,” he wiggles his eyebrows. “Not when you’re at the right party.”
“Kyle,” I need to get him back on track. “It’s time.”
“I know, love.” He looks a little sad, a little hopeless. What if this entire thing fails?.
It can’t fail.
I can’t fail.
“Okay, walk me through it, buddy. How long is this thing going to take to kick in?”
“Once you drink it, the change will be instant,” he tells me. “You have two hours to get through the border and do whatever it is you need to do.”
“Kill my sister, probably,” I groan, rolling my eyes. That’s not what I want to do. There’s still a part of me that hopes I can talk some sense into her. After all, Ruby hasn’t killed my mates yet. Maybe there’s still a chance at redemption. Maybe there’s still a chance she can be saved.
Kyle seems to sense there’s more to my words than meets the eye because he places his hand on mine.
“Sapphire,” he says. “Once you shift back into your normal self, if the border is still in place, you’ll be trapped on the other side. You can’t bring anything with you. I can’t send a vial with you. It’ll be knocked out of your pockets when you cross the border.”
“I understand,” I tell him.
He looks worried, though.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask suddenly, cocking my head. “Why are you so worried about me being trapped on the other side?” If I don’t kill my sister or convince her to cancel her spell, I’ll be trapped in Draco Patriam, but what’s so wrong about that? It’s my homeland. It’s where I grew up. I love my world: full of dragon-shifters and adventurers and magic and fun.
But Kyle seems genuinely worried.
“You’ve been gone a long time.”
“Almost a year.”
“It’s possible that things have…changed…since you’ve been gone, Sapphire.”
“Kyle?”
“Your sister…” He sighs, running his hand through his long, dark hair. It’s streaked with silver. Still, Kyle looks fairly young for a wizard. I wonder how old he actually is in human years.
“Just tell me.”
“She hasn’t been a kind ruler, Sapphire.”
“What has she done?” My heart sinks as I bite my lower lip, staring at Kyle. I’m trying to be brave, but suddenly, I’m filled with dread. Maybe it really is too late. Maybe there really isn’t a shot at redemption here.
“The people are hungry,” he says.
“What the fuck? What do you mean? What about all of our farms?”
“The border she put in place has affected the climate of Draco Patriam,” Kyle tells me. “A magical barrier like that…it has side effects, Sapphire. Your sister is weak from holding it in place, but the climate has changed so that the weather is always either very hot or very cold. Very little can grow, and what does grow is brought to the castle for redistribution.”
“Let me guess. That ‘redistribution’ doesn’t go far.”
“People are dying, Sapphire. There are rumors of an uprising, but the truth is that everyone is too weak to fight. The only ones who seem to have strength are Ruby’s mates. They fly over the country, making sure people are where they’re supposed to be.”
“And if they aren’t?”
He says nothing.
He doesn’t have to say anything.
So my sister really has gone bad. She’s always loved power, but I guess until now, I’ve still held onto the hope that maybe she could change. Maybe she could be better. Maybe, just maybe, she could find a way to grow as a person. There’s always room for personal growth, right? Maybe that’s all Ruby needs. Personal growth.
Only now, as Kyle fills me in on what’s been happening in my country, I feel sick.
A year.
It’s been a whole year and the place has been destroyed.
I need to get that barrier down.
What started as a way to keep me from ruining her plans at domination has turned into a catastrophic nightmare.
“Kyle, what happens when the barrier comes down?”
“That can only happen if you kill her, Sapphire. You have to either get her to retract the spell or kill her, honey. Are you sure you’re up for that?”
“My people are the most important thing to me, Kyle. The woman on the throne isn’t my sister anymore. If what you’re telling me is true, then she’s too far gone to save. Now tell me. Please. What happens when the barrier comes down?”
“Everything should be restored to normal,” he shrugs. “There shouldn’t be any lasting effects, at least not on the climate of Draco Patriam. I’m not saying people are going to want to stay. They’ve been ruled for an evil bitch for quite awhile now. When you’re suffering, a year feels like an eternity.”
“They won’t leave,” I shake my head. “What are they going to do? Go live with the humans? Obviously, you do, but you’re one in a million, Kyle. Most of them won’t have magic away from the world of Draco Patriam.” I don’t want to ask how Kyle has it outside of the borders, but then, that’s a story for another day. It took me a year to find a wizard like him. I’m not going to pester him with questions about how he manages to live with mortals.
No one knows exactly why it’s such a magical place. There are rumors that the first dragon shifter was born there, that her birth spawned a dawn of magic and wonder. Other people say it was a meteor. No one really knows, but Draco Patriam, when I left, was a lush, beautiful place, full of wonder.
What am I going to find when I go there now?
Anything?
Will there be anything left that I recognize as my own world?
“Two hours,” he says, handing me the vial. “I wish I could make it last longer than that, but I can’t.”
“It’s not a lot of time,” I agree, but I accept the purple liquid and shove it into my pocket. The barrier is a few miles away. If I hurry, I can make it there before dusk and slip into the castle unnoticed. A year is a long time and I’m sure my sister has closed off most of the secret entrances to the castle, but there’s no way she’s managed to close off everything.
I’ll find a way in.
I’ll find my mates.
I’ll save them.
Then together, we’ll defeat Ruby.
We have to.
“I’m ready,” I whisper, but it’s more to myself than Kyle.
“Best of luck,” he tells me, but his eyes look sad, and I know that Kyle thinks this is the last time he’ll ever see me. Well, fuck that. I’m not getting trapped in Draco Patriam. There’s no way I’ll be back before my two hours is up and I turn back into a girl, but I will get that barrier down.
There’s no other choice.
Chapter Four
Chrysoberyl
Ruby is a bitch, but at least she chose someone to do a spell who was bad at magic. I’m not supposed to be able to regain consciousness, well, ever, yet here I am. I’m killing it. It took a long time to come back to myself after that magic-induced slumber, but over the last few months, I’ve become more and more able to hear and sense and feel things
. I can speak now and I can move a little bit.
I can almost sit up.
Unfortunately, the other guys are lagging behind and I’m not quite sure what it’s going to take to get us back to full health. We need to recover as quickly as possible so we can defeat Ruby and her mates. I’ve heard the guards talking. I know they’re planning to murder us in a few more days. On the one-year anniversary of Ruby ruling over Draco Patriam, they’re going to slaughter us.
There are rumors floating around the country that Sapphire went crazy and pulled the ol’ murder-suicide trick on us, but I think it’s safe to say that most of the country knows there’s no way she could. Nothing against Sapphire, but she’s just one girl. For them to think she could overpower four dragons, well, that would take quite a bit of strength.
The reality is that it took four other dragon-shifters, plus Ruby, plus a powerful witch to overpower us, and even then, the spell that binds us isn’t as strong as it was supposed to be.
It was supposed to lock us away for all eternity or until the spell was broken, but something’s been happening over the last year. The spell has cracks in it, little slivers of mistakes that we’ve been slowly breaking through. Maybe this spell was designed for humans and it was never intended to hold the mind and body of a shifter. I don’t know.
But then it hits me.
We’re shifters.
We haven’t been able to completely move our bodies or to break free from the spell, but we’ve also been in our human bodies. What if we shifted? What if we changed? Would the spell still be able to hold us if we were dragons?
“Guys,” I groan, whispering.
Grunts in response.
That’s okay.
It’s better than nothing.
It means they’re making progress, albeit slowly. We just have to keep trying, keep holding on. Just a little bit longer and we’ll be able to break free. I just know it.
“What if we shift?” I ask.
No response.
“The spell can barely contain us in our human forms,” I explain quietly. I don’t know if the guards are close. I don’t want to give anyone the idea that we’re awake or conscious. I don’t want them to be able to overhear a conversation as important as this. “What if we shift to our dragon forms? If we can do it, maybe it will be enough to break the spell. Maybe that’s all we need in order to break free from the clutches of this awful fucking curse.”
Now I hear a grunt.
Then another.
Someone wiggles a finger – I think it’s Emerald.
“Okay, I say. Let’s do it together.”
I try to clear my mind, focusing on the job at hand. Shifting has always come easy for me. Being a shifter has always felt natural and fantastic. It’s the human part of me that has always felt a little bit awkward and uncomfortable.
“On three. One…two…three…”
I clear my mind and focus on changing from my man form to my dragon form. I think of my wings, of my scales, and of my tale. I think of soaring into the sky. I think of floating. I think of being one with my brothers. I think of flying.
And then I open my eyes and look down at my body, but nothing has changed.
I couldn’t shift, and judging by the sounds of despair surrounding me, they couldn’t, either.
Fuck.
Chapter Five
Sapphire
By the time I reach the barrier, I’m exhausted, sweaty, and hungry. Kyle was kind enough to pack me a bag of muffins, which I swore I wouldn’t eat, yet I did. Somehow, despite everything that’s about to happen, I’m starving. Now I’m standing at the barrier and it’s time for me to drink this weird potion and see if it works.
I set my bag and umbrella down on the ground and step forward, reaching for the barrier. It’s nearly invisible. If you aren’t looking for it, you probably would never notice it. Reaching out my hand, I push against the space where the barrier should be.
You know, just in case.
Sure enough, my hand bounces back, and I let out a low growl. Fuck. I was hoping that somehow, something might have changed since my last visit, but nope. Nothing. All right. It’s time for me to drink this slurp juice and go save my mates. I’ve been without them for an entire year, and while it’s easy to pretend that I just want to be queen, the truth is that none of it means anything without them.
I miss them so much.
More than they’ll ever know.
I strip out of my clothes and shove them inside my bag. Then I pull out the potion. I don’t want to be dressed when I drink it because shifting into a wolf will tear my clothes apart. It’s not that I particularly care about the clothes, but I’d like to hide them ahead of time in case someone wandering by notices them. I don’t know if Ruby has guards roaming the inside of the barrier, looking for intruders.
If she’s smart, she does, but this is Ruby we’re talking about.
She’s not exactly your straight “A” student.
I hide my backpack under some brush. Once I’m sure that no one wandering by is going to stumble across my things, I open the top of the potion container and sniff it gingerly. It stinks. Like, it seriously reeks. I hope this thing fucking works because it smells completely disgusting.
“You’re doing this for the boys,” I say aloud, and then I open my mouth and chug the potion. To my complete shock, it tastes like grapes and raspberries mixed together in a soft yogurt. Not that bad. Not that bad at all. Hey, maybe Kyle is a better Wizard than I gave him credit for.
Maybe everything is going to be okay after all.
Maybe…
But then it hits me and I instantly puke, emptying the contents of my stomach on the ground.
“No….” I can’t throw up. What if the potion hasn’t had time to take effect? Only suddenly, everything in my body hurts. Suddenly, I’m a lot closer to the ground. I close my eyes as I puke again. This time, everything hurts a lot less. One last time vomiting, and then there’s nothing left to come up.
And that’s it.
I’ve shifted.
I’m a…
“Meow!”
I’m a…
Again, I open my mouth to growl a big, wolfy-growl, but a soft purr comes out.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I’m a cat.
Judging from my size, I’d say I’m a small little housecat. Maybe I’m even a kitten. I’m not sure.
Kyle, you’re the worst.
Well, I’m not a wolf, but I’m not exactly normal anymore, either, so I jump forward to test the boundary of Draco Patriam. Carefully, I lift a paw out and press it forward. It goes through.
I can’t believe it.
It worked.
I leap through the barrier, landing on the other side, and then my heart sinks.
The place I was standing just a moment ago was lush and green and overgrown with flowers and trees and brush. The area I’m standing now looks like a wasteland. It’s hot and barren and the flowers are all dead.
Ruby, what have you done?
Have you seriously destroyed our home?
I start walking in the direction of the castle. I move slowly because I am, in fact, some sort of kitten. Maybe I’m just a really, really tiny tiger. I’ll pretend that I am because it makes me feel a little fiercer in a time when I could use some bravery.
I have two hours before I shift back to my normal body.
Although Kyle said I had enough time to try to get to my mates and then slip back through the barrier, that’s not going to happen. Two hours isn’t enough time, and I won’t leave them behind. I won’t leave my country behind. Not again. No, I’m planning to use these two hours to find the castle, get to my mates, and save them.
Somehow.
They might still be asleep, but I started feeling…stirrings…a few months ago that made me feel like maybe, just maybe, they’re hanging in there. I’ve always been attracted to my mates. Always. My parents picked them out for me years ago. A princess has to marry fo
ur dragon mates. It’s the way of our country. Four dragons will protect a princess. They’ll care for her. They’ll help her, and they’ll continue leading the country safely.
At least, that’s the general idea.
Apparently, Ruby’s chosen mates are just as corrupt as she is.
Growing up as a teenager, I wanted to be with them so badly. The boys were always lurking around the castle, pre-emptively guarding me. They didn’t know I was falling so completely head-over-heels for them that I couldn’t stop thinking of them.
Still, despite knowing them for years and years, we’ve never “sealed the deal.”
Somehow, that didn’t happen.
I’d bet anything my parents managed to orchestrate us not being alone long enough to make any of that happen, but it doesn’t matter. When I find them, I’m going to have to. I think they’re already waking up, and there are some truth to ancient fairytales that tell of a prince waking his sleeping princess with a kiss.
Only in my case, I have four dragon shifters to wake up.
And I won’t be kissing them on the lips.
I’m going to complete our mating.
I’m going to solidify our bond.
I’m going to ride them.
All of them.
And I’m going to fucking mark them as my men.
That should be enough to break any remaining remnants of the curse, but first I have to find them. While I was talking to Kyle, he filled me in on as many rumors as he could. Most of them sound to me like they really are just rumors, but a few of them ring true. My sister told me she was keeping them in the dungeon, but she didn’t say which dungeon, and that was a crafty thing to lie about.
I probably would have assumed she meant the dungeon beneath the castle, but there’s no way she’s keeping them in the main dungeon.
She’s keeping them in the secondary dungeon, the one hidden beneath the old guard’s tower.
One of the rumors Kyle told me about is that there are certain parts of the city that are inaccessible. There are certain places where dragons, mages, and even ordinary citizens aren’t allowed to go. It sounds suspicious to me and I’d bet anything that’s where Ruby is keeping the men. She’s got them tucked away neatly in one of those forbidden zones: the one with the old guard’s tower.