Caden's Comet

by Annabelle Jay

  “You’re not going to do what I think you’re going to do, are you?” I asked.

  Finno ignored me. Using his fingers, he framed the scene of Shull walking toward the portal. Somehow he took this image like a snapshot and carried it over to the canvas, where the image continued to move with Shull’s every step.

  “Quick, hand me the eraser,” Finno instructed.

  No one else was there, so I bent down to grab the tool. It felt heavy and solid, like a brick, but when I passed it to Finno, he held the gold easily.

  Gently, Finno began to erase Shull, starting with his shoes and working his way up the khaki pants. In real life, Shull stumbled but continued forward on what had become leg stumps, seemingly unaware of the erasure. When the eraser got to his torso, however, it stopped making him disappear.

  “His power is stronger than I expected,” Finno said. “Hurry, hand me the knife.”

  “Can they really do this?” I whispered to Merlin as Finno’s assistant removed the tool and handed it to Finno.

  “The Artists are greater than you could ever believe,” Merlin said. “They are the makers of all things in the universe, and that means they can destroy it just as easily. Though I am one of them, I am not trained in their ways, but I know enough to understand their power. Besides whoever created them, no talent can rival their gifts. We are lucky they chose not to interfere with human life.”

  Finno cut into the canvas right on the edge of Shull’s outline, and the real-life Shull screamed. He may not have felt the erasure, but he certainly felt the blade. Finno carefully followed the line of Shull’s arm and neck, then moved around his head and cut at the other arm, as though he were cutting a scrapbook image instead of a man. Shull’s screams grew louder and louder.

  “Stop,” I finally cried. “Just let me finish him off.”

  I took Excalibur from its place and ran the hundred feet between Shull and the Artists. Below me, Shull cowered. The cutting had drawn blood in a line down the whole right side of his body, and the liquid turned the sand below him red.

  “Even after all I’ve done, you would help me die without pain?” Shull asked in a whisper. He was trying to sound sarcastic, but he didn’t quite manage it.

  “Even you don’t deserve such a terrible death. Any last words?”

  “Long live Earth Dragons, the only true rulers of Earth,” he cried.

  Without another word, I plunged Excalibur into his heart.

  “WHAT SHOULD we do about Shull’s followers?” I asked Finno once he’d erased Shull’s remains.

  “Let us see what they do,” said Finno. “It is Artist policy to give every man and woman their own free will in these matters.”

  Lucky for them, the guards shrugged and then turned back in the direction they’d come from. They would never know how close to death they were, nor how close to an Artist.

  “So that’s it?” Honestly, I was in shock; after battling Shull for days, his body had been erased right in front of my eyes like a deleted word on a screen.

  “That’s it,” Finno confirmed.

  Behind us, the sound of footsteps alerted us to new arrivals. Adrenaline rushed through my body, but when I turned around, I saw only my mothers and friends.

  “How did you find us?” I asked them as they rushed in for a hug.

  “Draki tracked Shull here,” Skelly said, “and we figured we would try to stop him once more if you never showed up. Oh, Grian, thank goodness you’re okay.”

  “Well now,” said Finno, who no one had noticed yet, “is this a fairy I see before me?”

  Skelly stepped back. “It depends on who’s asking. And that reminds me, who are you, besides a shoeless wannabe-prophet?”

  “Skelly!” I scolded.

  “It’s all right, Grian,” Finno assured me. “Fairies have notoriously bad attitudes.”

  “How dare you!” Skelly yelled, but luckily, Finno only chuckled at the impertinence.

  “Everybody, this is Finno… leader of the Artists,” I said. “Finno, this is everybody.”

  Skelly’s mouth dropped open.

  “And Blair?” Caden asked. “Could you save her?”

  “Your sister will be fine,” Finno assured him, somehow knowing, without me mentioning it, that the two were siblings. He was a maker of worlds, after all. “And so will all of you. Shull is gone, and besides the people here and his few Earth Dragon followers, no one on Earth is aware of his existence.”

  “Thank you, Finno. Will you send Blair back when she’s recovered?”

  “Of course, Prince Grian. Unfortunately I must hurry off now—new star birth ceremony to attend to, among other matters. Little fairy, would you like to come with me?”

  “Me?” Skelly asked incredulously.

  “Yes, you. I assume you want to go home, don’t you?”

  Skelly looked dumbfounded. “Home?”

  “Well you didn’t think you were the only fairy in the world, did you? Why, there’s a whole planet of you.”

  Skelly looked at me and didn’t say a word, and I knew that my godparent was asking to be released from service.

  “Go,” I said. “You deserve to know where you come from, just as you helped me discover my own origins.”

  “Thank you, Prince Grian. I’ll come back. I promise.”

  Finno put his hand on Skelly’s shoulder, and then they disappeared without another word.

  “So, what now, Prince Grian?” asked Captain. She and the rest of the group looked at me questioningly.

  “Now?” I looked over her head to the remains of the castle, barely visible in the distance. “Now we rebuild Draman, one stone at a time.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  FOR DAYS, we heard nothing from the Artists. Slowly, Draman came to life again, and with Draki’s help, we managed to rebuild the castle and most of the town center in just two weeks. The metal dragon could haul a whole house with just her tail, and her steel jaw and stone-cutting spikes were useful as well. My mothers returned to their queenly routine as though Sara Lee had been gone for a mere day instead of years, and Captain and her crew returned to their ship until I sent them their first orders.

  “I must leave too, my prince,” Merlin confessed when he came to visit me in the royal court. “The Earth Dragons will need help setting up new leadership, and I hope to convince them to put someone in power who will respect your new authority as head dragon. As soon as I know it’s safe for you to return, I will summon you.”

  “Thank you, Merlin.”

  He had brought Caden with him, and now I found out why.

  “I’d like to return to Earth too,” Caden confessed. “I like Draman, but I’m an Earth Dragon, and I belong on my home planet.”

  “I understand.” I looked awkwardly at Merlin. “Would you give us a minute?”

  “Of course, Grian.”

  As soon as we were alone, I stepped down off of my throne so I could look at Caden as an equal. Immediately, he dropped his eyes to the floor.

  “I’m truly sorry that things didn’t work out between us,” I said. “Being soulmates was way too much pressure, and add in a psychotic dragon and a sibling with the same last name and a lot of other things—”

  “It’s not your fault,” Caden said. “I should have been there for you when you needed me, like Blair was, instead of being blinded by my own anger. I think we both have a lot to figure out about ourselves—and each other—if you ever decide to give me a second chance to try again.”

  “Do you mean—”

  “Yes… I mean… if you want to… uh….” Caden looked back down at his feet.

  “You want to….”

  Neither of us seemed capable of forming a cohesive sentence, and we slipped into another awkward silence.

  Finally, Caden whispered, “I do. Maybe when you come back to Earth next, we can go out on a real date? No magic, no vengeful enemies, and no other Cadens. Just dinner, a movie, and maybe some dragon flight afterward. No, wait, scratch that—we should ride
in a car like normal people if we want to make this work.”

  If we want to make this work.

  For some reason, those words stuck in my head. I thought about Merlin and Lup, Sara Lee and Nimue, Allanah and Dena, and all the other infamous couples in history. Had they just “made it work”?

  I doubted it. Sure, every relationship had gone through struggles, but falling in love wasn’t one of them.

  “I want to believe you,” I finally said, “but I also want to be honest with you. During the past few days, nothing that’s happened between us besides that initial spark has indicated that we will ever fall in love. When you talk about science or math, I space out; when I go into selfish prince mode, you don’t even like me, let alone love me. Our flaws are a huge part of us, whether we like it or not, and they won’t just go away to satisfy some grand fairy tale we’re supposedly living.”

  “Well, that certainly was honest,” Caden said. “It hurt, but I think that’s because it was the truth. There’s only one way to tell, I guess.”

  He reached out his hand, and I took it.

  No yellow light beams.

  AFTER CADEN left with Merlin, I sat back on my throne and put my head in my hands. I hadn’t slept in days; even though Shull was gone, my nightmares about Blair had returned, and this time, I remembered them all. I had to relive the stabbing over and over again, and each time, the pain felt so real that I woke up thinking I had been injured too. The skin on my chest still hurt now, and I massaged the tender area with my fingertips.

  “So it is true,” a teasing voice said from the door. “Princes really do nothing but nap on their thrones after all?”

  I didn’t want to look up in case my ears deceived me, but I couldn’t help it. Standing in the doorway was Blair, and she looked even happier and healthier than ever before. She wore one of the Artist’s robes, and gold flowers adorned her hair. Like the others, her feet were bare.

  “You’re okay,” I said, and the words came out more like a question than a statement.

  “Better than I’ve ever been.” She began to walk toward me. “You’ll never believe this, but a guy I’ve had a crush on for ages finally told me he loved me. Then he saved my life, and I got to visit this castle in the sky where pretty much no normal human has ever been. Sure, there are some small complications—he’s not interested in women, and he’s kind of dating my brother—but it’s nothing we can’t work out.”

  Laughing felt so good that I never wanted to stop.

  “You’re insane,” I told her, still chuckling between each word. “But that’s why I like you so much. Oh, and just to clarify…. Caden and I are over. If we ever really started in the first place.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Blair came up the stairs and gave me an impish grin, then sat down in Nimue’s golden throne like a child trying on its mother’s expensive shoes. Technically sitting in a royal chair was a crime, but after the day she’d had, I decided to let the small accident slide. After all, she had taken a sword wound for me.

  “You’re sure you can’t marry me anyway?” she asked. “I just feel like this seat has my name all over it.”

  “I’m sure. But you know what, I can do something almost as good instead: I’m looking for a new ambassador to Earth. Someone who could live here in the castle and fill one of the rooms in our new hundred-room addition in exchange for their loyal service. Do you know anyone who’s interested?”

  “Hmm, life in a palace? An official title? Travel perks? I think I know just the right dragon.”

  She turned to the left and put her feet up on the armrest.

  “You don’t want to do that,” I warned her. “That’s Nimue’s throne, and she cares about her gold more than life itself.”

  “This is real gold?” Blair removed her feet. “I think I want to renegotiate my salary.”

  “Too late,” I said as I turned and put my own feet up. “You’ve already signed the verbal contract. So, now that you’re all better and officially in my employ, how would you like to fetch my dinner as your first task?”

  “Only if I’m serving you my fist,” Blair said as she punched my arm.

  “Hey! Rule number one: no punching the savior.”

  “Well, if you think about it, I’m the real savior here. I got your powers to come back. I took a sword wound for you…. I’m actually a national hero.”

  “Well, national hero,” I teased, “I guess I’ll excuse you from dinner service.” I tensed my muscles. “Want to race to the bottom of the cliff instead?”

  “Now that sounds more like it.” Blair gripped the armrests of the throne. “Rules?”

  “None.”

  “On three or after three?”

  “On.”

  “Good. One, two, three.”

  As we raced through the throne room door, both of us already midtransition, a sense of peace overwhelmed me unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Everything was right in the world, and I finally knew not only who I was, but where I belonged. It was right there, racing Blair down a cliff, the wind whipping at my wings as light emanated from my scales.

  Chapter Twenty

  AFTER BLAIR left to pick which bedroom she wanted, I decided to go into town with Sara Lee to pay my respects to the families of those who had fallen in battle. I figured that after years of staying aloof in the castle, saying that I was sorry for their loss in this time of need was the least I could do.

  Unfortunately, I had let my royal position cloud my judgment again. I was not prepared for the destruction I faced as soon as our party of attendants left the castle grounds. Draki had flattened most, if not all, of the main buildings in town. Unlike our castle, many of these homes were not made of the best stones found on Draman, and they’d been destroyed by the tremors from the main attacks.

  Survivors wandered aimlessly through the streets, calling out for loved ones who had been trapped under the rubble. Blood ran down their arms, and more blood covered the stones that cracked hands pulled from the piles as they searched for signs of life. Many had taken their Bone Dragon forms, and they used their claws to lift large stones into the air and deposit them in a nearby pile. A few of them collapsed from exhaustion, but after a few sips of water, they hauled themselves up and started again.

  There I’d been, racing Blair, while my people died in the streets.

  “We must help them,” I told Sara Lee as tears formed in my eyes. She seemed surprised by my display of emotion, as did the townspeople who stopped to stare at their unknown prince, but eventually she ordered the guard to transform and help find every fallen citizen before sundown.

  After I transformed, I picked the closest building and joined the crowd of people and dragons working to free an old man trapped beneath the main beams of a house that had collapsed on the left side. The three Bone Dragons pulling at the largest beam could not budge it, but I, in my larger Sun Dragon form, shifted it easily and moved on to the next. Splinters bit into my claws, but I picked them out with my teeth and started again. Within an hour, I had raised every large beam in town. Left and right, survivors emerged, dusty and shaken, from the destruction.

  “Thank you, Prince Grian,” the old man whom I had freed first called out as I passed by his collapsed home. In the dust, I spotted a sign peeking through: “Bake—” The bottom half was covered, but I knew what it said.

  “You’re Sren’s father?” I asked.

  “Yes. Were you a friend of his?”

  “Most people around here were, but I knew him better than most. A brave boy, your son.”

  “You are too kind, my prince.”

  “I mean every word. He put up a valiant fight against our enemies.”

  I was about to move on when a young man emerged from the side of the shop that remained. He had the same black hair and pale skin as every other Dramanian, so I couldn’t explain what drew me to him. Perhaps it was the fact that he carried two baby chicks, one in each hand, and had obviously gone into the unstable house to retrieve
them, or the brown baker’s uniform with its short-sleeved shirt and white apron, so similar to Sren’s. But there were differences too—this man had stubble on his face and was much thinner and stronger than his brother. Hard not to be, when Sren walked around with pockets of pilfered sweets between meals.

  “I found them, father,” the man said as he held the animals up for inspection. “Their parents may be dead, but they will grow up to provide many eggs for our new bakery. We should start….” He trailed off when he noticed me staring at him and then sunk into a deep bow. “My prince, I did not notice your presence.”

  “There is no need to bow today,” I said. “On a day as terrible as this one, we are all equal in our pain.”

  “Equal?” the man scrunched up his face but did not elaborate.

  “Is there something you would like to say to me, baker?”

  “It’s nothing, my prince,” the man’s father interrupted. “Please ignore Philip. He’s much loved, just like his brother, but his big heart often flows right into his big mouth.”

  “He’s right,” Philip agreed. “It’s nothing.”

  But I knew he was lying. He kept staring down at the chicks instead of me, and he bit his bottom lip to keep from speaking.

  “Walk with me,” I requested, though we both knew he would not refuse a prince. “Just to the edge of town.”

  After handing over the chicks to his father, Philip accompanied me past the reunions or mourning ceremonies people were holding for the loved ones who had not survived. Smoke filled the air, thick with the ashes of so many burned bodies. The dust settled on every surface like ash from a volcano. Cries of the names of loved ones came from the living, who honored them with the pain. Some sang songs, including the Dramanian national anthem, and Philip and I hummed this while we walked.

  Neither of us spoke for a long time, but at the gate, I finally turned and said, “Out with it.”