Queens of Wings & Storms

by Angela Sanders et al.

  “No one will hurt you. I promise.”

  “This is all yours?” she asked.

  He nodded. “You didn't know your dragon was royalty did you?”

  “I had no idea,” said Astra aware that she had rarely spoken truer words. “She seemed different before,” Astra paused, not at all sure how much she could safely say. She had grown up memorizing verses about “Don't ever trust your enemies, for as copper corrodes a ship’s mast, their evil permeates the very ground they walk on.”

  Would they kill her? Linden sensed her panic. “Listen, we need to get help. Otherwise, I think that I am your husband.”

  “I have always heard that if your dragon mates, you are bound to their bondmate. But can we truly be married? We have dragons where I am from, but not many that are bound like Helio and I, and…”Astra buried her face in her hands, and despite herself, began to cry.

  The prince desperately looked around, hoping there was someone who could tell him how best to proceed. There wasn’t, of course, because no one had ever heard of such a situation.

  Running feet made it clear that they were being approached. By turning her head, Astra was able to see just a sliver. She saw several pairs of boots and a pair of velvet shoes.

  She nudged Linden and gave a small point. Linden closed his eyes and sighed.

  “What in all the caverns of the blasted earth do we have here?” bellowed the king.

  Chapter 5

  A Royal Introduction

  Concord was the first to make himself heard. “Your Majesty, it’s a case of which we have never seen the like, I have certainly never heard of such a thing.”

  The king paced, while Astra stayed low to Helio’s back and watched his velvet slippers stride back and forth.

  Concord continued, “Prince Linden, heir of the land and sea discovered that Rout had located a female dragon.”

  “Loose? Who would be so bloody stupid? I will execute that entire idiot family. Don’t they know what could have happened? If the dragons had mated, we would have a new princess. Fill my dungeons with them if you have to!”

  Rout gave a fierce growl deep in his chest. Everyone drew back. Rout slowly moved his wing back exposing Helio and keeping her close to himself.

  The king’s mind changed immediately. “An amethyst, he mated with an amethyst! So she’s royalty. I don’t remember any princesses having an amethyst, but sod all that. Fetch my wizard! Oh, there he is! Mage Permian, change of plans. What do I care for a local marriage with Princess Claris with her boring old emerald! We will throw a feast the likes of which this kingdom has never seen.

  You did it, boy! I never thought you had it in you, but by the creator, you found yourself a match worth having.” The king began to dance a little jig. “Or was she unbound? Could we be that lucky? An unbound amethyst?”

  There was nothing else she could do. Astra sent a thought to Helio to help her down, and Helio bent her knee so that Astra could awkwardly and in a very non-royal fashion, disembark. Her hair whirled about her head. Her gown was disheveled. Only the paths left by frightened tears broke up the dust on her face. Noticing that the women who had gathered in the courtyard dropped into low curtsies to her, she did the same thing to the king. “We have been lost. I’m afraid I don’t look much like a princess.”

  The king was shocked but jovial, “Well, it’s an adventure to tell the grandchildren about isn’t it. I can tell you are a beauty under there. Tell me, my darling girl, how did your family bind you to an amethyst?”

  With his arm around her, he began walking her back to the palace, ignoring his own son. Orders sprung from his lips, every time they passed anyone in the busy courtyard, “Sylpa, she will need a new, well, I suppose everything, don’t skimp. We’ll have the feast late tonight, but as far as the Earth Mother is concerned, they are already married for life. Ebam, shoes, leather slippers, and some silk ones for dancing. My new daughter-in-law strikes me as someone who loves to dance. Izar, she will need the prettiest mare you can find.”

  “Sir, or, Your Majesty, or…” Astra didn’t know how to even address the man.

  “To you, I am Lathyrus, your new father. I must say an amethyst changes everything.”

  Concord had caught up to them and bowed low. “Your affection is obvious, but shouldn’t we inform her kinfolk that she is safe and here?”

  King Lathyrus gave a chuckle, “What would I do without you?” Of course, the parents of this lovely girl must be terrified. How many days have you been lost, my dear? What happened to your guards?”

  Astra feigned ignorance, “A few days, and I am not sure precisely what happened.”

  “Well, do not worry your pretty little head about it, you are safe now. You will find that I have a very good sense about people, and I know that you will be an adored member of this family.”

  Astra was so relieved at his kindness that she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. The old man gave a delighted chuckle. “You will find that this family takes care of its own.”

  Astra turned to Sir Concord, “I am not sure they want to know where I am.” Concern crossed the faces of the kind group of men, king, counselor, prince, and soldiers who surrounded her. “That’s highly irregular, I must say,” the king said giving her cheek a proprietary pat.

  Sir Concord, sighed, “No accounting for morality in these fallen times. However, since it appears the dragons have erm…entered a conjugal covenant we have no choice in the matter.” He withdrew a clipboard, from where Astra could not have guessed, since his jacket didn’t seem big enough to hide such a thing. “Nonetheless, we must do our duty. What is your name, dear?”

  “Astra.”

  “You must be from far away. We pronounce that differently here, it sounds like Aster the way we say it. What house do you hail from?”

  She was unsure how to answer. The cloudtreaders didn’t have individual house names, only a name that identified the kind of work the family performed.

  “Drakesalve, I am Astra Drakesalve.” There was nothing, short of throwing a hand grenade into the corridor that could have changed the reaction of the men surrounding her faster. The king immediately turned a mottled shade of purple, “Battle stations! Armed corps, get this, this…half-breed abomination in the dungeon immediately!” Permian, you moronic son of a dung beetle, how did you not know who she was?”

  Astra was baffled, “What’s wrong?” she asked pitifully. Her arms were being roughly grabbed by the men on either side of her. She called out to Helio like she had done when the breeze hopper was plummeting to the earth and the roars of the dragons echoed.

  “Wait!” called Linden. “What in the name of supernova catastrophe are you doing?” His language brought the court up short, apparently he was swearing at them all.

  An older woman had arrived and began to scold the prince in a sort of twittery, largely irrelevant way, “I say, heart of my heart, no reason to be vulgar.”

  Astra’s feet pumped furiously trying to gain a foothold on the ground, but the men carrying her between them were too big and tall.

  The king was behind them shouting his outrage, “How DARE they send one of their kind to try to steal my kingdom. They will learn what they face when they provoke a Principality of Terran. I never suspected even he would try something so underhanded...

  The king’s rant was cut short because as they bounded through the gates into the inner courtyard, the two dragons caught up with them. Astra was hustled through the door into an inner courtyard, where even more astonishingly, they were met with Pa and Grimmie. Pa stood with his knife in his hand, but he was outnumbered 100’s to one.

  Astra struggled to get away from her captor, but he held tight. “Pa! Grimmie! It’s all right, save yourselves.” Astra could only imagine the terror they felt, standing on the actual, evil earth surrounded by armed enemies.

  Grimmie spoke first, “Lathyrus, this is stupid even for you, and we both know you excel at stupid.”

  “I will clip your wings, and watch you
die a painful death, Grimelda,” he responded. “Glancing at Grimmie’s hair he continued, “Do the zealots make you wear that ludicrous hair style?”

  With a small smile, Grimmie lifted her hands towards her towering hair. Astra was thinking that adjusting her coiffure might not be the best use of time in this situation when she gasped as Grimmie’s hands whipped down so fast that they were a blur. What was not a blur was the two gleaming sabers that she expertly held in her hands. The absurd tightly pinned tower of powdered hair was gone. In its place, silvery, violet hair swirled around her.

  Astra was gobsmacked, who was her grandmother? If the hair reveal had been a shock, what happened next was nothing short of astounding. With a grin, Grimmie reached back over her shoulders and made an elegant swift cutting motion. There was the sound of whalebone being sliced, and as Grimmie’s layers of corsets fall off her body, there was noise like the unfurling of a vast velvet sail. Astra was grateful for the thugs on either side of her because when the wings unfurled and largely filled the room, she well might have fainted.

  Lathyrus stormed to the dias at the end of the room and gestured for Pa to follow him. He immediately turned his wrath onto the drakesalve. “Guthrie Drakesalve, we offered you the chance to become a skilled dragon healer, and you repaid us by corrupting my betrothed and then running away with her child. Your sentence is death.”

  Grimmie lifted from the ground and flew to defend Guthrie. It was a trap, as soon as her foot landed on the elaborately decorated floor, she gasped in pain and understanding. “Iron, this part of the floor is iron.”

  Lathyrus, “Once again, I excel at being stupid...but not too stupid to make sure that if you ever returned, I would be able to destroy you.”

  Astra was able to wrench herself free, and run to her beloved Grimmie who was slowly collapsing onto the floor. A guard pulled her back before she could touch her, laughing in her face at her desperation.

  The king made his voice be heard “Careful, careful. We need to keep the girl intact. I want that amethyst dragon. As for the faerie and the wind walker, do whatever you want. Bury the bodies when you’re finished.” The king turned on his heel. Only the strong clear voice of the prince made him turn around.

  “No, Your Majesty, no one will be killed today.”

  “What now? Idiot boy,” the garrulous kindly father was well truly gone.

  Linden continued, “There is no risk of them getting out of the castle, everyone knows what they look like, and it’s impenetrable. Whether we like it or not, I am bonded with Astra. As her husband, I demand that her family,” he gestured towards Grimmie prone on the floor, and Guthrie surrounded by a number of angry armed soldiers, “be kept under comfortable house arrest until we have decided the best course of action.”

  One of the guards nearest to Linden took a swaggering step towards him. Rout gave a menacing rumble, and the soldier stopped as the walls began to tremble.

  Oh, fuck the Starkindler. Aren’t there enough of you to take out one dragon and one sapling of a prince?” snarled the king.

  This made Astra freeze in terror. There certainly are enough of them, more than enough. If the walls collapsed, she wasn’t at all sure she could rescue Pa and Grimmie.

  The prince had a ready response. He had a small knife in his hand, and he held it to his own throat and addressed the soldier in the front of the phalanx. “Let me talk you through this, you puerile, witless, ale sodden piece of shit. I am bound to Rout.” The guards around him nodded. “Rout is bound to Heliotrope. Heliotrope is bound to your new princess, Astra.” Again, they all nodded their heads, clearly wondering what point he was trying to make.

  “If I die, Rout dies, that makes Heliotrope the incredibly rare amethyst dragon die.” It also meant the sudden death of Astra, but it occurred to her that he wasn’t dwelling on that since his father’s army might not see that as a problem.

  He tried again, “How precisely do you think the queen of the dragons will react to you causing the death of her long lost daughter?”

  Astra was impressed, she could see no way of disputing the arguing with the logical case he had presented.

  “Very well,” the king‘s exasperated voice drifted through the room. “The faerie and the girl stay together. Her father can have a room next door. Guards at each. That will give me time to think this all through.”

  Astra was able to remove herself from the oafish hands of the man guarding her, and she ran to Grimmie. She put her hands under her shoulders and lifted the faerie’s shoulders until her breathing grew easier.

  Linden appeared beside her and bent to lift up her companion. “Please allow me, Lady Grimelda.” Astra hustled along beside him, while a guard on either side brought her father behind them.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Linden’s eyes were cold. “I will do anything to protect my bondmate, even if it means being married to a liar from a family of criminals.”

  He strode through a doorway and laid Grimmie on the bed that dominated the room. There was no doubt that the room was a secure place to hold them. The arched windows were covered with bars. There was the door that they had entered through, and a much smaller door that, oddly, was placed in the middle of the wall. It was suddenly opened from the other side, and Astra realized that it would allow her to speak to her father, while still keeping them in separate rooms.

  “They will bring you water for bathing and a meal, shortly.” The prince turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

  Chapter 6

  The Drakesalve Extraction

  With the small shuttered window in the wall open, Astra could see a sliver of her father’s room, which appeared much like the one she was in. Clean, warm blankets, and absolutely locked down tight.

  “Wind walker, it’s me,” she heard a deep masculine voice whisper.

  “Firth? Is that you?”

  Astra could hear that someone had slipped into her father’s room but was unable to see. There was the sound of two men clapping each other on the shoulders.

  “This isn’t a social call. I need your skills, Drakesalve.”

  “I don’t know anything that you don’t know, you old dragon hand.”

  “I hope you are wrong about that.” The man moved deeper into the room, and suddenly his cragged face appeared in front of Astra’s. She gave a startled gasp.

  “A lot of Hyacinth, that’s true, but you couldn’t deny her if you wanted to.”

  The window was not big enough for more than one face, so while Firth continued to study her, her father kept up a steady monologue. “Firth, here is the dragonmaster.”

  “Yer father was the smartest student I ever had, hated to lose him when he returned yonder.”

  Firth was suddenly bundled out of the window, and her father said, “He’s senile, always has been, stay with Grimmie,” and firmly shut the window.

  With her ear pressed up against the wall, she could hear nothing.

  “Firth wants your father’s help because the dragons down here are getting sick, your father learned to be a drakesalve at the Terran Academy.”

  Astra whirled around, infuriated by yet another layer of lies. “Is anything you have ever told me, in my entire life, actually true?”

  Grimelda used her wings to prop her up and turned to look at the anguished Astra. “That’s not how it was. It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated?” Astra gave an angry sigh. “Let’s start at the beginning, you are not my grandmother.” Her tone was accusing and flat.

  “Not precisely, no.”

  “What’s so complicated about that? It’s a simple question.”

  “Please sit down, sweetheart.”

  Grimelda clasped her hands and then opened them, apparently deciding that a direct answer was for the best. “I was Hyacinth’s faerie godmother. Her dying wish was that I would protect you, and make sure you were allowed to stay with your father.”

  The earlier visions of her mother running around a tree with an unknow
n man swirled before Astra’s eyes. “So my mother was a dirtwalker?”

  Grimelda sighed, “A Terran princess, to be precise. And don’t use such rude terms.”

  Astra was glad she was already sitting.

  “Please, dove, come here, it will be so much easier if I can touch you.”

  “So that's why you could tell me stories, lying in bed without us speaking? You’re my faerie godmother?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Pa is my father?”

  “Of course he is. Who else would he be?”

  “I really don’t think we want to open up speculation about what is and what is not possible right now.”

  Astra stood and slowly walked towards the bed. Sullenly she held out a hand. The velvety tip of Grimelda’s wing settled soft as feather down into the upturned palm.

  Astra saw her mother as a young girl, nestled beside Grimelda, looking at the tiny animals that Grimelda brought forth into the air in front of them. Young Hyacinth shivered when the diminutive lion roared and snuggled in closer to her faerie godmother.

  Astra walked closer and lowered herself to the bed. “I should not believe anything you show me,” she said slowly.

  In response, Grimelda draped her wings around her young charge. Astra saw herself as a baby, nestled in her lovely mother’s arms. Her father was beaming and gently stroking the baby’s curls.

  The trio walked down a path to a cavern. Adult Astra watched as the three paused until a trilling noise from within the cave invited them in. A dragoness was nestled beside a nest containing three eggs.

  “Are you certain?” the young mother asked. The deep purple dragoness gave a gracious nod, and Hyacinth knelt beside the nest. One of the eggs began to tremble and move. Without hesitation, it rolled towards the princess and her baby. Within seconds, a tiny vibrantly purple little head emerged from the silver shell.

  “Heliotrope,” Astra gasped. She watched her father take the infant Astra’s hand and stroke the dragonlet's neck. The tiny dragon began to sing, and her music filled the cavern.