Kingdom of Dragons

by Melody Rose

  “Hang on.” I held out my hand like a traffic guard. “This is his decision. Don’t go influencing him like that.”

  “Oh, and you were not doing the same thing not two minutes ago,” Arabella countered. “You were guilting him into it.”

  “I was not!” I protested. I took a step towards Arabella and used my height to my advantage. “I just didn’t want to stick around while he thought about what should be an easy decision.”

  “The easy decision would be to pick me,” Arabella said as she stood strong against my intimidating glare.

  “Please stop,” Monte begged. He closed his eyes and shook his head as much as he could in the confined space. “Your bickering is not helping.”

  Shame washed over me, and I stepped back from Arabella when I saw the anguish in Monte’s face. His scales rippled back into harsh angles with tight lines. The hair on his head flopped about in random directions as if he had just run a hand through it, though the dragon didn’t have any use of his limbs.

  We were woefully unfair to Monte. Neither of us was in his mind, at least not in a way that would help. We didn’t understand what he was going through and why this was so difficult for him. A sense of doubt wormed its way into my heart. It snuck into my stomach and hardened. My throat closed and made it difficult to swallow my spit.

  There was no way that I was going to be able to compete with Arabella. The two of them had such history. They had been together years and went through such tragedy. Monte and I had been bonded for less than a year.

  When looking at the simple math of time, I lost every time.

  They had been reconnecting while I was either repairing their home or knocked out recovering. I was practically allowing them to cut me out, to solidify all the reasons why he should stay with her. All of their shared memories, laughs, and experiences. They outweighed mine and Monte’s a hundred to one, if not more.

  There was no way he would pick me.

  As this realization hit me, my mouth dried out. Conviction centered in my mind until it was the only thing I could see. I retreated from Arabella with weak steps. My eyes shot from the dragon to the girl and back again. My heart ached.

  “I see,” I breathed. “I see what needs to be done.”

  “Eva,” Monte said, practically scolding me, “there is no clear answer here.”

  “There is,” I said, my voice wobbly. “You need to pick Arabella.”

  “What?” Arabella and Monte chorused.

  Even Opala, from her place on her stool, raised a curious eyebrow. I shifted my gaze back to Monte and lifted my chin, showing more confidence than I had.

  “You never asked for this,” I began with a small shake of my head. “When we first met, you wanted to take revenge on Reon for destroying your home, but now? You have your home back. There is no need for revenge.” I swallowed, hard and loud. “Andsdyer is not your responsibility. You never wanted to be a part of the council of dragons. You have the opportunity now to live the life you once had on the Coast of Teine and with Arabella.”

  Monte’s eyes grew watery, and I had to look away from them to stop my own tears welling up.

  “What about the light?” Monte asked, his voice tight. “You will lose the gift of light if our bond is broken.”

  “I’ll heal her first,” I promised, putting a sense of vulnerability in my voice that sounded foreign even to me. “Once she is free of the contamination, we’ll break our bond. And I still have the sword and my bonds with the other dragons,” I said with a shrug, in an attempt to make my words lighter than they actually were. “We will find a way. But this is what you want, right? This is your home, and I don’t want to take that from you.”

  Arabella stepped forward, then, and approached me. I shrunk back from her, but she took my hands before I had a chance to avoid her completely.

  “Thank you, Eva,” she said with kind eyes and a small smile. “Thank you for giving Montgomery and me a chance to be together.”

  I couldn’t say anything. The words clogged in my throat. So, I simply nodded and peeled my hands out of her grip. I took a step back and put a hand on the hilt of my sword.

  “So, that’s that, then?” I asked. “That makes your decision easy. Just tell me where to cut, and I’ll do it.”

  “Eva,” Monte said my name like a prayer, and my heart thumped faster. “I cannot let you do this without me.”

  “What do you mean?” I wondered. I cleared my throat to stall. “I just told you it would be okay.”

  “It is not,” Monte said as he lifted his head as much as he could under the restraints. “It would be wrong, dishonorable to abandon our mission now.”

  “But it wouldn’t,” I interjected sharply. “I just told you, we would figure it out somehow. If you break the bond with Arabella, she will have no one. I have the other dragons. I’m not going to lose my title if we are separated, right?”

  I realized then that I was taking a huge gamble. I still wasn’t as educated as I should have been on the rules of being Queen of Dragons. The whole thing was a little ambiguous and malleable. I hoped my guess was correct in that I had bonded with the other dragons since they chose me. If Monte decided not to choose me, that wouldn’t undo their decisions.

  “You will not,” Monte confirmed.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and lifted my chest. I pulled out my sword and held it with two hands, the tip almost scraping the ceiling.

  “Then what are we waiting for?” I tightened my grip on the hilt until my knuckles turned white. Then a thought occurred to me, and I turned to Opala. “So, I’ve never seen the connections on my own. The last time I did this, I was attached to someone who could enhance my abilities. I don’t really know what I’m aiming for.”

  Opala blinked up at me. “I may be blind, but I do not have any advanced abilities to help you in this situation.”

  “Great,” I grunted as I lowered the sword.

  “You said someone enhanced your abilities before?” Arabella said with a cocked head, like a curious bird.

  “Yeah,” I said tentatively, careful not to mention Kehn by name, even though she didn’t know who that was.

  “What if you healed me now, and then maybe two humans who can control the light could reveal the bonds?” Arabella offered as she held out her palms to me.

  I stared at her pinkish hands and the deep, blackened lifelines carved into them. Before I took those hands into mine, I gave her a single nod. Then, my eyes closed and searched for the darkness inside her.

  The contamination surrounded her organs. It pulsed through her blood, like a guest that had stayed too long. I called to my own piece of the light living within me. It seemed eager and ready as It flared out across my own hands.

  My inner eye pictured Arabella whole and beautiful. I cleared her veins and made them rich and lush. I rounded out her organs so that they could do their job with ease. It took some time and energy as she had been fighting the contamination for so long. However, I took a sense of pride in being able to shoulder that burden with her.

  With a final push, Arabella breathed in a whole, fresh breath of air like she burst from the depths of the ocean. She was the one to pull away from me first. We could see the light glow a familiar white. The power radiated around her fingers like an aura.

  Jealousy reared its head again. I had worked really hard at separating myself from the light, not allowing myself to call it my light as it was something given to me. Something outside of myself. That said, it still hurt to see someone with the same connection to the light as I had been building over the last year or so.

  My version was different from Arabella’s, I noticed seeing the two side by side. Mine appeared in coils like tattoos around my skin while hers glowed outward from her, like a soft outline of light. It was fascinating to see such stark contrasts of the same ability.

  With a deep inhale, I reached out and took Arabella’s hand. The two light sources connected. More light surrounded us in a flash, as fast as a bullet
firing from a gun. We could see two beams of light, glowing gold, radiating from us. One connected Monte and Arabella, whereas the other connected me and the dragon.

  Once again, I found myself comparing myself with Arabella. This time, I looked at our connections with Monte. Mine was brighter, but Arabella’s was thicker. My brain quickly assimilated these characteristics with signifiers in our relationship. While my bond with Monte was newer, her’s was older and strengthened by time. Hence its thickness.

  A weird thought crossed through my head. I was kind of glad I wasn’t going to have to chop that thick of a bond. Mine and Monte’s thread-like connection would be much easier to slice. However, that was the only consolation I could find as bolts of hurt, sadness, and fear shot through me.

  Arabella moved her hand up my arm to my shoulder so I could resume my two-handed grip on the sword. I chanced a glance at the girl, and she gave me a slight nod. I shifted my gaze to fall on Monte.

  I wanted to say something to him, a sort of goodbye, but the words wouldn’t come. So, I clutched the sword for dear life and raised it over my head. I leveled my eyes to the shining thread stretched between me and the dragon. I lowered my shoulder and prepared to strike.

  “Wait!” Monte cried.

  My muscles jolted from the sudden stop. The sword stayed over my head, and I felt the weight of it for seemingly the first time. There was a tightness in my shoulder as Arabella gripped me with a clenched fist.

  “I choose Eva,” Monte announced to the room.

  “Choose me for what?” I asked, confused by his ambiguousness. “To break the bond with or…?” My voice trailed off. I didn’t dare hope that he was saying what I hoped he would.

  “No,” Monte said with a slight shake of his head. “I choose to stay bonded with Eva. I choose you.”

  Warmth burst through my chest, and I nearly fell to my knees with relief. Any bravery I had used as a front fell away, and I exhaled a breath I didn’t know I was holding. The tip of the sword touched the ground as I lowered my hands. The visible bonds disappeared as well as Arabella let go of me, breaking our connection.

  “But Montgomery…?” Arabella said, her voice shaking and full of hurt. “What about us? We only just found each other again. I thought… For so long, I thought I would never see you again.”

  “I spent so long mourning your death and the life taken from me,” Monte said, seeming to speak only to Arabella. I even took a step back, as if knowing they needed a minute.

  “It was the worst thing to ever happen to me,” the dragon continued, “when I flew back over this island and saw it destroyed. And it has been the most wonderful gift, getting to reconnect with you and relive our memories. Unfortunately, that is all we have.” Monte’s voice caught in his throat, and he cleared it before proceeding. “We have memories of the past, but we are such different beings now. We have been through so much without one another. I do not believe we will ever be able to bridge that gap.”

  “Do not say such things.” Arabella shook her head violently. It was then that the tears came. “We could pick up right where we left off.”

  “We cannot,” Monte said definitively. “I am not the same dragon I once was. I was narrow-minded then and did not care for the plights of others. My apathy cost me so much. Since bonding with Eva, I have found a purpose that I never believed possible.”

  The warmth in my chest blazed into a fire, and I couldn’t help but smile at Monte’s words.

  “Eva saved me, and I intend to help her save the rest of the world from the false king.” Monte lifted his head ever so slightly, showing a sense of pride. “You may be my past, Arabella, but she is my future.”

  Arabella put her head in her hands, and a small sob escaped her lips. Monte pulled forward in an attempt to comfort her. However, the door prevented him from going any further into the room. I took up the mantle and approached Arabella. Surprisingly, she turned into my open arms and cried onto my shoulder.

  My eyes widened as I looked up at Monte with a little fear and bewilderment. Monte offered me a half-smile as a consolation and as a thank you. I awkwardly patted Arabella’s head.

  “Take care of him,” Arabella whispered to me through her tears. “He is the greatest djer and deserves the world.”

  “I know,” I agreed. Though I spoke to Arabella, I never took my gaze away from Monte and his deep eyes.

  Arabella’s hands began to glow again, even though she shook into my shoulder. Once again, the bonds between the three of us appeared. The girl’s words were muffled and almost incoherent as she spoke them into my collarbone.

  “Do it,” she mumbled. “Just do it already.”

  For the briefest of moments, I hated myself. I had to tear this woman and her djer apart. It was a punishment they didn’t deserve. For a weird moment, I felt like the other woman who had ruined a perfectly good relationship.

  I looked over at the older woman who remained on her stool like a statue. I pleaded with my eyes as I asked, “Is there no other way?”

  “I am afraid not,” Opala said as she shook her head. “You cannot subsist in this way. The light cannot remain split like this.”

  I gritted my teeth and righted my sword in one hand. It was normally too heavy for me one-handed like this, but I felt it was important to comfort Arabella as much as I could. So, with one arm wrapped around the girl and the other clutching the sword, I reached up.

  My eyes met Monte’s for one last time, asking if he was sure. If this was the cord that he wished me to cut. If this was the route that he wanted to take. If he made his final choice.

  The dragon’s gaze never faltered. He simply nodded.

  The sword fell swiftly and assuredly. It sliced through the thicker of the two cords as easily as if cutting through the air. There was a small spark as the bond shriveled and disappeared.

  Monte’s eyes closed, and he hissed with a bought of pain while Arabella simultaneously cried out. She went limp in my arms, and I dropped the sword to catch her and make sure she didn’t fall to the ground.

  The sword clattered to the floor and then laid still, illuminated in the light of the one bond still remaining. That of mine and Monte’s, a little thicker than before.

  28

  We left an unconscious Arabella in Opala and Yerti’s care. Then the older woman told us the location of the mermaid kingdom, as promised.

  “You will find the entrance below the crossing tides,” she said ominously. “Whichever way the wind blows, these waves always collide, always at war. Head north, and you will find what you seek.”

  Thankful it wasn’t a complete riddle, I ushered Monte down the volcano and back to our jungle camp. We didn’t waste any time finding the other members of our group. The humans sat around a dull fire, eating, while the other two dragons looked on protectively.

  “We got it,” I announced with glee. “The mermaid kingdom, we know where it is. Well, kind of, but we need to head north and find these crossing tides or something like that.”

  “You do not sound very sure,” Gideonia countered dully.

  I paid her no mind. “Who’s coming?”

  “I do not do well underwater,” Zulu said. “I shall remain here until you return with the key. Then we can head back to Andsdyer.”

  “I am with Zulu,” Freja said as she jerked her thumb back in the direction of the black and orange dragon. “I cannot swim and fear I would be more of a hindrance than a help.”

  “I do not wish to go underground again,” Julei said, her voice a little shaky. Freja rubbed the young girl’s arm in comfort.

  “Technically,” I said, “it’s not underground. It’s underwater.”

  “Under anything sounds like a bad idea,” Julei admitted.

  Gideonia didn’t even honor us with a verbal response. She simply laid her body out and crossed her front legs together, as if settling in for the evening.

  A surprising level of disappointment sank my stomach. I felt rather distant from the group over the past
couple of weeks as I healed the island. I spent so much of it knocked out or out with the citizens of Teine that I hadn’t had a chance to check in with them often. I hoped that retrieving this information would set us back to our merry band of adventurers.

  I reached out for one last lifeline. “Hannan?” I asked. “What do you think? Do you want to come with us?”

  The caretaker paused, considering. “I think coming with you and Monte could be beneficial,” he decided.

  “Exactly!” I exclaimed, a little too excited for my own good. “With your history with the mermaids, it could be really useful.”

  “You have a history with the mermaids?” Freja asked with a raised eyebrow. “How?”

  “That’s a story for another time,” I said urgently. Adrenaline pulsed through my veins now that we had a direction to go in, now that we had another step to take to find the key. “We should head there. Now.”

  “Now?” Hannan asked hesitantly.

  “Now,” I confirmed with a sharp now. I spun on my heel and nearly ran smack into Monte, who hadn’t moved. “We should be going.”

  “I will give you a ride,” Monte said, “but I will not be going down there with you.”

  “What?” I said in surprise. “Why not? I thought you were a water dragon. I mean, not like Myels is, but that you were okay with the water.”

  “I am,” Monte said lightly. “It is the mermaids I am not okay with.”

  “Seriously?” I rolled my eyes. I inhaled sharply. “I didn’t know you had such an aversion to them.”

  “They do not take kindly to unwelcome visitors,” Monte warned. “I think they would find a dragon much more intimidating than two humans. Plus…” The dragon’s voice softened, and I filled in the blank.

  “You want to make sure Arabella’s okay.”

  “I do not know if she will want to talk to me ever again, but yes, I do want to ensure she is alright,” Monte said with a quiet voice.

  I put my hands on my hips and turned to Hannan. “Guess it’s just you and me then.”