Queens of Wings & Storms

by Angela Sanders et al.

  It was hard watching her face the moment the fire went out, even harder when she backed out of his arms.

  “A betrothal is a contract in our region. If the betrothed can uphold his end of the contract, marriage will follow. It might as well already be a marriage, because the contract also means an alliance between the communities the couple is from.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” he said.

  “Lych is our Chief of Commerce. What’s ours is his.”

  Zenon had a feeling this Lych fellow wasn’t going to simply give up his position. He was upholding his part of the contract, which also meant there was something of value he wanted. Jerryd and Lissa said they were going to propose buying him out, but Zenon wasn’t so sure how well that was going to go.

  A problem for another day. For now, he needed to get back to his mother.

  Movement on the far side of the room catching his eye, he looked up to see Jessa walking towards them, smile on her face, holding up a small bottle.

  “I have the Nora Potion,” she said.

  Perfect timing.

  Alazne’s parents weren’t far behind. “A feast is prepared,” Jerryd announced with a smile.

  Not wanting to be dismissive or rude, Zenon wanted to get back to Karr post haste, now that they had the potion.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “But we must return to Karr immediately.”

  “Then you can take it with you,” Lissa said. “The journey will be long.”

  “I have already sent the ship away,” Zenon said. “The journey will only be a few minutes.” Did they not know what their daughter could do?

  Turning to Alazne, Zenon added. “If you will?”

  Alazne hesitated only a moment before pulling her wand. “Mother Universe, Grant me a gate to the Far Expanse.”

  Jerryd and Lissa’s eyes grew along with the glowing, swirling portal that opened up before them. Zenon surmised that they had no idea what their daughter was capable of.

  “Stick, come,” he commanded, holding up his hand.

  His wand came flying from some space overhead, zipped a circle around the King and Queen of Adamar, then landed soundly in his palm. Slipping it into his side pant pocket, he thought he might have to help them pick their jaws up off the floor.

  As they entered the portal, Lissa suddenly called out, “It’s your choice, Alazne, but this man would be a great choice!”

  Chapter 20

  Alazne sat in silence outside Queen Ariad’s suite, her mother’s last words playing over and over in her head. Zenon had a fated mate. Choosing him would mean taking his choice away and she knew all too well what that was like. Heart so heavy it might pull her over any moment, she would not do that to him.

  Zenon paced the floor between her and the door to the suite, Ariad the squirrel staring at her from her lap. Déjà vu.

  The door creaked and Jessa’s head popped through. “Ariad wants to see you,” she said, looking straight at Alazne.

  When Zenon made a move to go through the door, Jessa held up her hand. “Not yet. Alazne first.”

  The squirrel ran around his feet, darting into the room, the look on his face the most unhappy Alazne had ever seen.

  Not knowing what to say, she ducked around him, allowing Jessa to shut the door once she was inside.

  Birds chirping outside the window, Alazne could see the prone form of the Queen in her blue-canopied bed, the squirrel sitting on her chest.

  Jessa came around her, blocking her view of the window and the bed.

  “There is nothing that can be done,” Jessa said. “I knew it before we went to Adamar. The Karrian doctors know it too.”

  So, Jessa knew. But went to Adamar to get a potion anyway?

  “Ariad knows, too,” Alazne said, voice soft.

  “You don’t have to whisper, dear,” the Queen called from the bed.

  Jessa smiled, looking back at the form on the bed before turning back to Alazne. “She’s something, isn’t she?”

  “Zenon won’t accept it,” Ariad said before going into a coughing fit.

  “So why did we go to Adamar?” Alazne said, feeling deflated.

  She was thankful for what Zenon did, but he tied Karr to Adamar for nothing. Just for her to have a choice? That was nothing—

  There was movement on the bed, followed by more coughing, then an outstretched hand. “Come here, dear,” Ariad said.

  Alazne slowly shuffled forward, grasping the outstretched hand, zip of shock passing through her at how cold it was.

  “Choice is everything,” Ariad said. “Our choices make us who we are. Choosing your mate will determine the rest of your life.”

  But if it was a fated mate, would that mean there really wasn’t a choice?

  “There is always a choice,” Ariad’s cold fingers patted her hand.

  “But who is my mate?” Alazne’s temples throbbed. Too much was happening too fast.

  Ariad chuckled, looking at Jessa. “She still doesn’t know.”

  The Queen went into a coughing fit again, fading with each breath it took from her. The squirrel on her chest drooped.

  Jessa pulled the bottle of potion from her pocket. “Ariad has a plan. The Nora Potion was my idea.”

  Why did this plan have to be so cryptic?

  Because you have a choice.

  Not fully grasping why this choice thing was so important to Ariad, she focused on the potion. “What is Nora Potion for?”

  “It will ease her passing,” Jessa said, pouring a couple of drops in the Queen’s mouth, the coughing easing immediately.

  “Ease her passing?” Alazne said, alarmed.

  “No, not like that. I mean, she will not be in pain.”

  “Alazne,” the Queen said, voice scratchy and weak. “It is time.”

  “I already got the spellbook,” Jessa said, hefting the giant book onto the edge of the bed.

  So, Jessa knew everything. Couldn’t Jessa perform the ritual? What if it didn’t work?

  “It has to be you,” Ariad said through the squirrel, body shutting down to the point she could no longer talk. “And it will work.”

  Reading over the spell, Jessa handed her Lern’s jar of moon dust, which she sprinkled in a circle around Ariad’s body.

  “But, Zenon—” Alazne’s said. Zenon didn’t get to say goodbye.

  “We have to do this now,” Jessa said.

  “You must hurry,” the squirrel said.

  “Body to body,” Alazne chanted, heart heavy. “Spirit to spirit.”

  Zenon briskly paced the floor, patience completely shot. Why had his mother not asked for him, yet? Why did she ask for Alazne? And why was the damn robot allowed in there?

  A flash of light shot through the cracks in the doorway. What the hell?

  Forget waiting. He was going in—

  Bursting through the door, he stopped in his tracks at the sight of glowing, wispy light passing from the mouth of his mother into that of the robot squirrel. Alazne’s voice was monotone, chanting something, and Jessa stood with her arms raised towards the ceiling, eyes closed.

  What the hell?

  Charging towards the bed, he grabbed the squirrel from his mother’s chest.

  Alazne jumped to her feet, screeching, “You must not interrupt!”

  The squirrel wriggled in his hand, saying, “It’s okay. It worked. Thank you, Alazne. You have saved me.”

  As it moved, he noticed how warm it was, the feel of its fur in his hand. The way it moved—

  Holding the squirrel’s belly up to his face, he saw no telltale signs of tech. “This is not a robot.”

  Stick came flying from his pant leg pocket and promptly slapped his hand, causing him to drop the squirrel onto the bed.

  “Of course, I’m not a robot,” the squirrel said as he flung his hand to ward off the sting, his stick hovering protectively over the woodland creature.

  “What in the universe is going on here?” he demanded.

  “Zen
on,” his mother said softly from the bed, looking like death incarnate. She waved her hand weakly. “Come closer.”

  As he knelt beside the bed, she looked at Alazne. “There is enough animate energy left to use my initial body.”

  Zenon glanced at Alazne. What the hell did that mean?

  “My spirit is now in here.” He jumped when the squirrel spoke from beside his arm.

  “What? No, that doesn’t make any sense.” Zenon’s head swam, his very eyeballs throbbing.

  “There is no cure for what I have,” his mother said. “It is just my time.”

  He looked from the body of his mother to that of the squirrel, as both were talking at the same time.

  The doctors were right. She was dying anyway.

  “All that running,” he said, letting his head fall to his chest. “The quest to find a Healer. It was all for nothing.”

  The room suddenly felt hot, the walls closing in, Jessa and Alazne too close, the robot— No, the actual squirrel, with his mother’s spirit? Alazne’s familiar?

  He couldn’t breathe.

  Jumping to his feet, he fled the room, bursting out on a balcony on the opposite side of the suite, emptying the contents of his stomach onto the flowering garden below.

  Zenon. That voice again, the one he heard when the squirrel first appeared, running laps around his clothing, causing Alazne to take back her offer to help him, back when he thought he’d lost his last chance at finding a Healer—

  Zenon, sweet boy, I will always be there for you. Only his mother ever called him ‘sweet boy.’

  Glancing at movement out of the corner of his eye, the squirrel slowly, tentatively, approached along the railing.

  “And I’m still with you now, sweet boy,” the woodland creature said as it stopped on the railing right next to where he leaned over.

  “It was you,” he said. “The voice and the familiar. It was always you.”

  The squirrel smiled and he could almost see his mother in the gesture. So, the squirrel didn’t simply have the same name as his mother. It was his mother, Ariad.

  Throat burning, he tried swallowing several times to ease it. “How is this possible?”

  “My great grandfather, your great great grandfather, was from Adamar,” the squirrel said. Was he supposed to think of her as a squirrel or his mother? “I developed magical powers in my early teens. That’s when I found out I’m part witch. My power is to see through the eyes of animals. Looks like some magical ability has passed to you too, hmm?”

  He had magical abilities. That’s what Alazne kept telling him, anyway.

  “Why, though?” he said next. “You knew you were dying anyway. Why send me away?”

  “I also have the gift of foresight,” she said. “I saw that if I sent you to find a Healer, you’d find your Lifemate.”

  The moment the words came out of her mouth, he knew she was talking about Alazne.

  When the squirrel smiled this time, he definitely saw his mother, right down to the mischievous glint in her eye.

  So, she knew. All the things the woodland creature had been doing, it was his mother trying to get he and Alazne together.

  But at what cost to her?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “No matter what, I will die anyway. There is a time to go for all of us. My time is now, Zenon.”

  Watching the tranquil mountains, his chest tightened, tears stinging his eyes. He swiped at them with his shirtsleeve.

  All he wanted was a Healer for his mother and all she wanted was for him to find his Lifemate. Even knowing certain death, she wanted what was best for him. He only hoped he could be half the parent she was.

  “I am in this body now,” she said, raising on hind legs. “You can still talk to me any time.”

  Eyebrows also raised, he blew out a breath. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

  A bird landed on the railing next to them, chirping a cheerful melody as a breeze rustled the bushes in the garden below.

  “My bipedal form is fading,” Ariad said. “It’s not goodbye, but I want to look at you with my own eyes one last time.”

  Sitting with Zenon, Jessa, Ariad the squirrel and Queen Ariad, Alazne’s heart was full. A doctor sat at the end of the bed, waiting to record the time of death. Though it was a somber occasion, there was no sadness in the air.

  Queen Ariad also demanded there be no shedding of tears. She lived her life and was dying a happy woman.

  “That’s a good portrait of him.” Zenon had been glancing at the portrait of his father since he reentered the room. “We need to tell him.”

  “No, he shouldn’t see me like this,” Ariad said, still able to manipulate her bipedal form with some residual magic from the spirit-transfer spell. “He gave me what I needed. He’s done what he could.”

  “Mother—” Zenon’s tone was stern.

  The contents of Ariad’s secret room of spells and potions flashed through Alazne’s mind, candlelight and the bent form of the Queen flickering in her memory. Lern always gives me what I need.

  Staring at the moon dust still surrounding Queen Ariad’s prone form, she looked at the portrait.

  That familiar gaze—

  The look in those eyes—

  It was Lern! No wonder the man in the portrait reminded her a little bit of the desert hermit. He was the desert hermit.

  Forcing her legs not to propel her to her feet, Alazne whispered, “He knows.”

  “What was that?” Zenon said, clearly not hearing her.

  “Lern already knows—”

  Thousands of lights rose into the air as horns sounded, ships appearing above the mountains, lighting the sky with flares. The twinkling stars danced for the Queen, welcoming her body home.

  Watching the glow of the celebration of his mother’s life, Zenon stood on the balcony, spirit heavy, but heart renewed with purpose.

  There was movement behind him, then beside him as the woman of his dreams joined him. Alazne—

  His one and only mate, his Lifemate.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, face aglow as she watched the sky.

  But he only had eyes for her. “Yes, it is.”

  Her head bowed from the glow. Gaze meeting his, she said, “I’m sorry it ended this way.”

  Turning towards her, he said, “She made her choice.” Alazne trembled as he cupped her face in his hands. “And I made mine.”

  Zenon’s soft lips were upon hers in a searing kiss that ignited a fire that started at the end of her toes and blazed through her entire body. When his arms wrapped around her, Alazne thought she might spontaneously combust then and there.

  Alazne was his choice? Deepening the kiss, she melted in his arms. This was too real not to mean one thing: Alazne was Zenon’s Lifemate.

  And Ariad knew it all along.

  Why didn’t you just tell me? She thought at her sneaky familiar.

  Because the choice is yours.

  Epilogue

  Zenon and Alazne stepped from the portal into a dimly lit room her parents designated in the castle on Adamar. As the space bridge collapsed, her parents standing with their mouths open, Alazne looked at Zenon.

  “See? I can be accurate,” she said.

  Throwing her a sidelong glance with a smirk, he said, “Sometimes. When there isn’t the added pressure of us possibly dying.”

  Alazne put her hands on her hips, returning the smirk.

  “Wow, that’s amazing,” Jerryd said as the portal completely winked out, once he’d gotten his jaw closed again.

  “We got your message and returned right away,” Zenon said.

  “Let me guess,” Alazne said. “Lych isn’t leaving without an argument.”

  Her mother stepped forward. “He refused the offer to buy him out of the contract.”

  “Leave that to me,” Zenon said, taking his leave from the room, Stick buzzing in his pocket.

  As soon as he was gone, Alazne turned back to her parents. The fact that s
he might not have ever met Zenon if they hadn’t done what they did wasn’t lost on her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Thank you?” they both said at the same time, twin looks of confusion crossing their features.

  “Yes.” Alazne smiled. “I never would have found the choice if it wasn’t for you. I will marry Zenon and hopefully give you a grand baby, or two.”

  Her mother squealed like an excited teenager. “You have chosen well!”

  Zenon heard the worm’s voice a moment before a voice full of static squelched from an intercom. When he rounded a corner, he saw that Lych was talking in his wrist.

  “I can’t hear you. The signal is bad,” the man was saying.

  Zenon pressed himself into the shadows, something this place had no shortage of.

  Lych looked around, his stance suggesting he was up to something and didn’t want to get caught. He continued walking, Zenon following until the man disappeared into a side room at the end of a dark hallway, a medieval suit of armor standing there.

  Darting forward as quietly as possible, he ducked next to the suit of armor, looking into the room. It was a comm station.

  “She will marry me,” Lych was now saying into a comm unit he procured at a large desk. “And then we will have complete control of their shipping commerce.”

  The worm’s head shot up when Stick flew from his pocket, buzzing loudly. Dammit, he was going to have to have a talk with his wand about always giving away his position.

  Lych pulled a wand out of his shirt. Of course, the worm had a wand; this region of space was full of witches.

  Stick flying into his hand, Zenon rolled his hand in a circle.

  Vines sprung from the desk, grabbing and fusing Lych’s wand until it was one of many branches.

  “What the?” Lych yelped, springing away from the new vegetation.

  “You will leave this planet at once and never return,” Zenon said.

  “Alazne and I are betrothed.” Hearing the worm say her name made Zenon’s skin crawl, but there was a satisfying waver in the man’s voice.