As Aria opened her mouth to agree, a bolt of pain shot through her hand. She screamed and both Delcan and Roimas rushed to her side.
Like a spark, the initial sting ignited a fire of pain deep inside her arm that travelled up to her shoulder. It spread quickly to her back and to her bosom. The rushing ache enveloped her as if it were alive and had arms—enormous arms burning with fire—that aimed to squeeze her in a deadly embrace. She felt, for a moment, as if her very breath had been taken from her. She tried to scream out once again but this time nothing but a dry breath of fire emerged.
The fire-pain burned furiously within her and she began to glow just as the diamond had done with the orange-red light of a thousand sunsets.
While trying to reach for Aria, Delcan and Roimas were forced back by the blinding light that radiated ever stronger. They raised their hands in front of their faces to shield their eyes. Behind them, Orsak screamed as if in agony.
“Blind!” the King bellowed. “I am blind!”
Aria trembled as her body filled with the scorching light. It was consuming her and, at once, she thought she would explode in the same way the diamond had. But then, just as a storm, the pain passed through her and the fire stopped burning.
The light faded into the corners of the room and she fell to her knees.
When she opened her eyes, she found Roimas and Delcan on the floor with their backs to her, their faces against the stone floor and their palms pressed against their eyes. Orsak still sat at the foot of the throne, weeping.
After a set of calm, slow breaths, she felt her mouth moisten again.
As calm settled upon them, she said, “It is done.”
Delcan stood and turned to Aria. “The fire—it has passed.”
He ran to her and held both her hands in his. Her once-deep-brown hair was now highlighted with strands of copper.
“You,” Delcan said as he looked into her eyes. “You are beautiful.”
Aria blushed as she turned her head in a questioning gesture.
The longer he gazed into those eyes, the longer he felt he would be lost within them. They drew him in and for a moment he felt his feet lose their touch with the floor.
He released her hands and knelt before her, bowing his head in reverence.
“What are you…?” Aria asked as Delcan knelt before her.
Behind Delcan, she saw Roimas approach her and, after a moment of gazing into her eyes, went down on his knees and bowed as well.
“Please,” she said softly. “Please rise.”
Delcan raised his face to her. “Your eyes,” he said. “They are—” His voice trembled. “Your eyes have changed. They are blue. They are a blue unlike any… They are like the dragon’s.”
Aria smiled.
She had felt the changes within her—the changes in her body; in her heart; in her very soul. She had thought them to be known only to her and none to be visible to others. It appeared that was not the case.
She gestured with her hand for him to rise. Delcan stood.
Roimas opened his eyes and looked at her. “The key,” he said. “What happened to it? What was it?”
“Paraysia,” she said. “The kingdom—the kingdom once held prisoner by my grandfather is now free.”
“It—” Delcan whispered. “It is within you now.”
She nodded.
Aria held her hand out to him. In the center of her palm was branded a mark in the shape of a golden key.
Chapter Forty-six
Sandrion ran into the Throne Room with a sword in each hand. He stopped at the threshold when he saw Aria standing before the King’s throne. Her face, her hair, the whole of her seemed to be glowing. At the far end of the room, directly across from him, King Orsak sat on the floor, slumped at the foot of the throne, with his hands upon his face. The sight took him by surprise and at once gladdened him; he had expected blood on the King’s throne.
“I do not suppose you need assistance here,” he said, with a grin.
Aria turned to him and smiled. Her face had changed. It was one unlike any he had ever encountered, or would hope to ever come across. It was as gentle a face as that of the princess Aria had once been, but also as stern and unwavering as that of any king’s.
“The fighting must end now,” she said.
“It already has,” said Sandrion. “Listen.”
He walked to the large windows and pulled back the drapery. Outside, cheers that none of them had surely noticed while in the throes of their battle, exploded and poured in through the windows. Below them, Paraysians rejoiced.
“I am pleased to inform you that the guards have surrendered. And the knights have been defeated—those who did not flee the castle.”
He heard the pride in his voice and accompanied it with his signature smile. Delcan immediately recognized the boastfulness and laughed.
Sandrion told them of the battles that had ensued throughout the fortress and the casualties received among the commoners. He told them of the small victories within the castle that together led to their triumph.
“In the end your plan worked,” he told Aria.
Looking at Orsak, he added, “And what about a King? The kingdom will need a new crown.”
“And so we have one,” said Aria.
She looked at Delcan and held her hand out to him. As he put his hand in hers, she said, “And we have a queen.” Her smile was radiant.
“We shall rule this kingdom together,” she said to Delcan. “You and I.”
Sandrion walked to Delcan and Aria and bowed before them.
“Your Majesties,” he said.
It was the sort of thing that would have normally caused them to laugh, coming out of Sandrion, but at that moment they were the most poignant, most appropriate words Sandrion had ever uttered.
“Your Majesties,” Roimas said smiling as he too bowed before them.
As Sandrion continued to lighten the mood, Roimas turned to look at Orsak.
This man, now reduced to a bag of skin and bones on the floor, was once his brother, even as much hurt, anger, and hatred had passed between them. They had become men together. Side-by-side, they had once changed the world; and when faced with darkness, each had taken a different path through it. And yet, it still rang true—the beaten and blinded man before him was once his brother.
Roimas approached Orsak and by his arms pulled him to his feet. The former King did not resist. He did not react at all.
“Come,” Roimas said. He rested Orsak’s arm upon his shoulder and wrapped his own arm around the old king’s waist.
“You know, you and I have become rather rusted swordsmen,” he said as he led Orsak out of the Throne Room. “Too many wasted motions, if you were to ask me. We were good once.”
Orsak did not respond, and Roimas did not expect him to do so. In time, he hoped, his once-brother would come to find a way in which to go on living in this new kingdom that was rising.
When Roimas was knighted for the second time, it was along with Sandrion during the coronation of his son as King, and of Aria as Queen, of Paraysia.
As Aria lowered the steel blade upon his shoulder, he glanced at the quiet man seated at the far end of the raised platform that faced the Valley of the Sun and again he hoped.
He will live a quiet life, whispered that soothing, familiar voice in the back of his mind. He will learn to move on. And he will change. In time, don’t we all?
With a reluctant sigh, Roimas accepted what little comfort that knowledge gave him and he turned to his son.
On the day he had left the farm for Castilmont, Delcan had been only one half of himself. On this day of the kingdom’s rebirth, with Aria at his side, Delcan was whole and the days to come were bright.
He rose and bowed to his King and Queen with his right hand proudly pressed against his breast. He stood back and admired them both.
It is a wonder, he thought, how in this land where kings and magic rule, a farmer’s son and a princess who dreamed of be
coming a knight took a stand and forever changed the course of their world.
The End
About the Author
Pedro L. Alvarez is a Cuban-born writer who immigrated with his parents to the United States at the age of 8. He grew up in West New York, NJ where he first discovered the joys of reading and writing short stories. Dragon Fire is his first novel.
Address comments to the author to [email protected].
Dragon Fire Page 32