“Out with what, my prince?”
“Whatever it is that you want to say. A prince’s skin should be thicker, not thinner, than his subjects’. So tell me what troubles you, and I will listen. I promise.”
“It’s just….” Philip brushed at the dried dough on his apron. “Something you said earlier about everyone’s pain being equal today. What can a prince know of a subject’s pain? Tomorrow you will return to your life in your castle, selecting napkin colors for the next royal ball, while we will starve as we rebuild your kingdom from rubble.”
Philip’s words cut through me the way his knife might slice through a loaf of bread, but at the same time, I knew he was right. My life would return to normal—unless I did something about it.
“You must hate me,” I said finally, thinking of the distaste in Caden’s face whenever I said a princely thing.
Philip looked confused. “Hate you? Not at all. I just don’t know you yet.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said after I successfully held back my smile. “I will return at this time tomorrow and help you and your father rebuild the bakery. The next day, I will do the same with the schoolhouse, and the blacksmith’s, and the market, until every square foot of this town is rebuilt. That way I can learn from the pain of every townsperson, instead of just claiming that I understand it.”
“You mean that?”
“Every word. I have been a terrible leader, but with some help, I believe that I could be a great one.”
“Of course you can,” Philip said. “You certainly have the impulsive confidence down pat.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I—”
“No, don’t apologize. I like it.”
Night was coming, and Philip looked back toward town. I suddenly realized I didn’t want him to leave. “So tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow.”
I held out my hand, and Philip shook it. Our eyes met, and I realized, with surprise, that he had hazel eyes growing dark in the oncoming dusk.
The light that shone from our clasped hands made the dust in the air sparkle like stars.
Epilogue
“KING GRIAN?”
My head butler, Frederick—named, as all royal butlers were, after the butler Shull had beheaded so many years ago—startled me out of my memories. I had come to visit the tomb where my mothers’ bodies lay, together in death as they had been in life, and often during these times spent hours just remembering our life together. The flowers around the tomb reflected the time that had passed; once seeds I had sprinkled on the ground the day of their funeral, the roses now grew tall against the golden bricks.
“Yes, Frederick?”
“There’s someone at the castle here to see you.”
“Is it an emergency?”
“Yes, my king.”
I turned away from the tomb. Both of my mothers had passed away at the ripe age of seventy, and both had gone within days of each other. I missed them terribly, but after the time Sara Lee had been held prisoner, I knew that neither could have survived without the other. Now I was officially King of Draman, though for years I had made most of the decisions anyway through my rule as King of the Dragons.
The castle—returned to its original splendor after Shull’s attack and then enlarged for the staff of ambassadors I employed—was close to the royal cemetery, and the walk was short. Frederick and I hurried back through the apple trees, where so long ago my mothers and then I had spent so much time with those we cared about.
“Did you have a good visit?” King Philip asked as he met me at the door.
I really did have the best husband in the world. He was physically strong, emotionally sturdy, and best of all, a normal man. He cared nothing for the crown, and even now, he rarely participated in more than the royal dinners and ceremonies, preferring instead to spend time in the kitchen with his father or in the orchard helping the farmers collect the apples. Though neither of us was perfect, we were perfect for each other.
“I felt their presence,” I said after he kissed me and helped me remove my cape. “One of those unexplainable secrets of the universe, I suppose.”
“I’m so glad. And you have another visitor from the past who I think you’ll be quite pleased to see again.”
“Is it Blair?” Still head ambassador to Earth, Blair and her family split time between the two planets. She had married a wizard, and though she had not inherited magic from her grandparents like Caden, her children were a lucky combination. On her last visit, she had told me both of her children were attending school at the Mansion, where they were happily learning spells and incantations that they liked to use on her for pranks. Ruthless rug rats, she called them, though I reminded her that she had been just such a rug rat in her youth too.
“Better than Blair.”
Better than my best friend? I ran through my list of acquaintances from the past, but most of them I’d kept in touch with over the years and would not have been surprised to see. Captain and her crew now worked for our space guard, along with Draki and Bernard, and Merlin was living out his retirement in his cottage outside the Mansion. According to the sorcerer, he had about forty years before his next rebirth, when he would finally rid himself of his ancient body again. Dragons on Earth were at peace, and Little Earth was now a playground for all dragons, regardless of type.
“Daddy!” My three children rushed to secure holds on my legs and arms, and only with Philip’s help could I pry them off. Yet another benefit of marrying a Bone Dragon: though I did not have the ability to birth children, he did.
“Hello, my darlings. Daddy has some friends visiting, but after I see them, I promise I’ll tuck you all into bed.”
“Fine.” Six hands detached themselves from my body and found new grasps on Philip. The children were growing up so fast; our youngest was already four years old, and the others six and eight. “But please hurry. We want to hear the story about when Grandma Sara Lee pulled Excalibur from the stone.”
After Philip led the children upstairs, the servants opened the doors to the throne room, revealing a hunched old person in a tattered cloak. Parts of the cloak were missing, and the skin underneath was covered in blisters. Next to the old person was a young woman in a matching cloak but without the wounds. Beneath the cloak, she wore a white robe, and below, her feet were bare.
“Do I know you?” I asked, addressing the elder.
“Perhaps not,” said a familiar voice. “It has been so long since—”
“Skelly?” I took the cloaked shoulder and turned it.
Sure enough, the elder in front of me was none other than my godparent… and yet, it wasn’t. Completely gray to the point of being ashen, Skelly had both aged and paled to an unfamiliar hue. The blisters were everywhere, red and puffy as a recent burn.
“What happened to you?” I asked incredulously. “Why didn’t you ever come back?”
“I couldn’t, Prince—I mean, King—Grian. After I arrived in the fairy realm, we were attacked by escaped incubi.”
“You were what?”
“Our planet is unimportant to them, just a pit stop on their way to the Artists’ mountain. After our eventual defeat, the demons reached their true goal. They’re like lions, attacking the young of other men and eating them to get strength. Again, the war waged for years, but finally the incubi consumed all of the Artists except this one girl, whom I and a few other wounded fairies saved with the last of our strength. Please, King Grian, will you promise to protect her as I swore to do for you? I know I have failed you, but you can do better than me.”
“Of course I will protect her, but Skelly, where can I hide her? They will suspect you brought her here, so she can’t stay on Draman.”
“Take her to Earth, to the Igreefee camp where she can be protected. The Igreefee have ancient practices to help them defeat the incubi, and they’re the ones who imprisoned the demons in the first place.”
“Then I will take her right away, I promise. Can I please summon you a doctor
now?”
“There’s no point.” Skelly slumped to the floor, all energy spent now that the message had been delivered. “Oh, their eyes, Grian… you cannot imagine the fear that comes from looking into their fiery red eyes. It would scare even a Sun Dragon like you.”
“Hang on, Skelly, please,” I begged.
“I can’t, I’m sorry. I love you, my godson, and I am happy your face is the last I will ever see.”
“No, come back. Help! Somebody help!”
The girl in the white robe knelt beside Skelly and put her hand on Skelly’s forehead.
“This fairy is in pain,” she said. “We must end it now.”
“No,” I said, but my voice lacked force. I knew from the marks on Skelly’s skin that a doctor would do no good.
“Good-bye, fairy.” The girl used her fingers to close Skelly’s eyes, and with their closure, the life drained away. Skelly’s skin and organs disappeared in one final transformation, leaving only the bones behind.
My godparent, my protector, and my friend was gone.
“What’s going on here?” Philip asked when he came to answer my call for help. He still carried the pajamas of our youngest, and toothpaste was smeared across his royal vest.
“It’s Skelly… I….” My words would not come.
“His godparent is dead,” the girl informed Philip. “It is a great loss.”
“What happened?”
“There isn’t time to explain.” The girl looked at me. “Grian, I can travel across the universe, but I do not know this Earth planet Skelly spoke of. If you can bring it to the front of your mind, I can take us there.”
I managed to rise and hug Philip good-bye. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
“But—”
“Hurry,” the girl said. “There is no time.”
I closed my eyes and thought of Earth, my second home. I pictured the green hills and wide oceans, the tall cities and flat plains. Earth, the most fought-over place in the whole universe. Then I zoomed in on the Igreefee camp, which I had visited several times for diplomatic missions. Yes, there it was, the slice of paradise the Igreefee had managed to protect for so many years.
“Very good,” said the girl. “Now look.”
I opened my eyes. The castle was gone, and in its place was the forest where the Igreefee dwelled. I found the path where symbols marked the trees and followed it, with the girl trailing behind me.
“Can’t you fly me there?” she asked.
“No dragons allowed over the Igreefee camp. There are spells to protect them from us, and for good reason.”
As we walked, everything reminded me of Skelly, from the branches like those of the orchard where we’d played together, to the berries like those my godparent and I had tossed at each other until our clothes were ruined. Never again would we fly together over the desert of Draman, nor would we travel into the never-ending expanse of space.
The loss compounded with the death of my mothers, reopening a wound I could not bear, and to distract myself, I struck up conversation with the girl.
“What is your name?”
“Shayla.”
“I’m sorry about your home, Shayla.”
“Thank you, King Grian. I understood that you visited it once upon a time.”
“You make me sound ancient.”
“Trust me, King, I am much more ancient than you.”
We struggled along the path as the trees grew denser and the underbrush more stubborn. Several times we encountered tree trunks too large to move, and these obstacles we climbed when we could. To go around them would take time, and that was one commodity we did not have.
“So these incubus creatures…. What do they want?” I asked.
“What they have always wanted: to bring down our Maker and take control of the universe. With the Maker gone, the incubi will be able to change anything about the world they want—or add things to it, like demons and their devil magic.”
“And who is the Maker, exactly?”
Shayla smiled. She was beautiful, the kind of girl who could have had any boy or girl she wanted, with her golden hair and skin that marked her as an Artist. From a distance she looked more like a metal figurine than a real person, but her eyes—there was something different about them. Something… unsettling. Like the hole atop a well, they were the kinds of eyes where secrets hid deep underground. Plus, I felt like she could read every thought I had before I even knew I was having it.
“You know I can’t tell you anything about the Maker,” she said, pretending to scold me. “Even if you are a king. All I can tell you is that if the incubi ever found that person, they would kill them and take over the universe for themselves.”
“I see. So it’s the usual desire for world domination, then, with a side of infanticide?”
“That’s exactly right.”
We laughed, though nothing was funny about demons taking over the world. Sometimes you just have to laugh when things seem so terrible you can’t handle them.
“We’re almost there,” I said. The marks had grown more frequent, and in the distance, smoke billowed out of the trees. “Any minute now, there should be—”
“Halt, King.”
“Ah, there they are.”
Igreefee guards surrounded us and performed their usual weapons check. Old-fashioned, considering most weapons these days came from the inside, but the tradition nonetheless. Once the guards were satisfied we had come unarmed, they led us the rest of the way to the camp.
The new Igreefee leader, Chima, great-great-grandcousin of Chava, greeted us by the fire. Night was coming, and I welcomed the light that battled the darkness of the woods.
“Who have you brought with you?” Chima asked. The old woman squinted at Shayla, and then her eyes went wide. “But it can’t be…. Is it you? Is it really you?”
“You know this Artist?” I asked. “But how?”
“Shayla,” Chima whispered as she sank to one knee.
“Shayla,” the other Igreefee villagers repeated as they followed Chima’s lead. All motion in the camp came to a halt as even the small children bowed.
“I don’t get it,” I said as I turned back to Shayla. “I know the Artists are important and all, but—”
“Artists?” Chima snorted. “That’s no Artist you bring with you.”
“But then who are you?”
Shayla bowed her head at me. “I’m sorry I deceived you, King Grian, but I had to get to Earth and no one could know of my existence but you. If I’d said my true identity, your family would have been compromised.”
A weird feeling came over me, like I was space traveling again only this time my feet were planted on the ground.
“You’re not… you can’t be….”
“I am the Maker,” Shayla said, “and these are my children—as are you and all others, even the incubi. From me you were born, and for me, you will die.”
“From you we were born, and for you we will die,” repeated the Igreefee. Apparently, this was an ancient ritual I was not privy to.
“You have done well, saving all of your magic for my return, and now I call upon you to use it to defend this world and all others.”
“Wait a second,” I said, “are you telling me that whole ‘No magic for harm’ Igreefee mantra was all a lie?”
“Not a lie,” said Chima in a grumpy voice. “Just a stretching of the truth. We do believe in only using magic for good… but there are exceptions. Shayla cast the spell that removed our magic from us to help us save it for when we needed it. Much like our beautiful Earth’s resources, magic is not unlimited.”
“Well said, my daughter.” Shayla pressed her hand to Chima’s head.
“So King Roland wasn’t an exception?” I asked, calling upon my knowledge of Earth’s history. “The robots weren’t an exception? For goodness sake, Shull wasn’t an exception?”
“Those were schoolyard bullies compared to what’s coming,” said Chima sharply. Apparently, she did
not appreciate my second-guessing of Shayla’s decisions, though Shayla herself did not seem to mind.
“Now rise, my warriors,” called Shayla. Her voice echoed through the forest, waking birds and startling them out of their nests. “A war is coming, a war that will unite all the magical people of this world against the demons that seek to destroy it, and we will need every magical hand in order to triumph. I release you from your spell. Rise up! Rise up!”
And rise they did. First on their human legs and then, as they transitioned, onto bird ones. Covered in leaves that functioned as feathers, these hawk-like creatures flew into the air more gracefully than even a Sun Dragon could imagine.
“Go fly with them,” Shayla told me.
“I don’t understand.”
“You will, King Grian, I promise.” She put a hand to my cheek, and her skin smelled of dirt and river water. “You were one of my most beautiful creations, and when the Artists painted you into existence, I was as proud as a mother can be. Naturally I can’t have a hand in all of the Artists’ work, but with some of you—Allanah, for example, and Merlin—I make an exception. And one more, who at this very moment is just an egg waiting to be born.”
“One more?”
“Yes, but I cannot say anything else. When the last one comes, she will bring the war with her. Until then, we must prepare. And I hope you will help us, Grian.”
“Of course I will.”
“Good.” She looked up proudly into the sky, where giant Igreefee birds flew in joyous circles around the fire smoke. “Now fly, Grian. Fly with your brothers and sisters.”
And I did. Up I went into the starry sky, where I danced a dragon dance I could not remember learning. I danced for Earth, and for Draman, and for my mothers, and for every part of the universe that had been born, like me, to play a role in a production without its ending written yet. I flew for Skelly, and for Philip, and for Blair, and for my children, who I knew would travel across space and time to play their own part before this all ended.
When the sun came up, the brightness blooming on my scales and turning me into a burning fire of light, the Igreefee circled around me. Down we flew, down toward the place where Shayla had stood and where now, in that same place, was a huge sequoia tree that burned with the same fiery yellow light.
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