Kingdom of Ashes

by Rhiannon Thomas

  “You little witch,” the king said. He raised his sword and swung at her. Aurora dodged away, the air crackling around her. He swung again, shouting for his guards, but they were all caught in the growing riot. Aurora willed John’s blade to burn. It glowed white, and John dropped it with a shout. When she snatched it up, it was cool under her fingers. She pointed it at the king’s chest.

  He laughed. “You won’t kill me,” he said. “You don’t have the nerve.”

  “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

  He reached for the sword. She drove him back, blade swinging, magic burning. He tripped, and his back slammed against the stone, scant feet from the pyre.

  Her sword point rested under his chin. And Aurora felt that whisper of a second heartbeat again, urging her on.

  She looked at the rioting crowd. “Stop,” she said again, and this time the dragon screamed with her, fire bursting through the sky. “Stop!” The air pulsed as she shouted the word, and the square froze, every person caught in place. They stared at her.

  Magic again, she thought. Unexpected, uncontrolled magic. She did not just have fire. She could influence people, as Celestine did. She could control them.

  How much magic did she have?

  She wanted calm, she wanted peace, but she did not want to bend everyone to her will, a magic cage dropped upon them all. “Please stop this,” she said. “I will bring justice to the king, and there will be magic. Things will be better. But this must stop.”

  “Kill him!” One voice from the crowd, but then another, and another, until all the panic and bloodlust was directed at the dais. Kill the king.

  His shallow breaths jerked under the point of the sword. He had tried to capture her, to control her, to kill her. He had killed so many others. He had been about to kill Rodric, his own son. He deserved death. But her hand shook. The sword shook. Could she take a life, even one such as his? Taint her hands with his blood, become as brutal as the king himself?

  “Don’t.”

  She looked up. Rodric had escaped his guards. He looked thin and worn, but he hurried toward Aurora with a determined expression on his face.

  “Rodric—”

  “Don’t kill him, Aurora.”

  “I have to,” she said. “It has to end.”

  “It will.” He shouted louder now, his voice echoing over the crowd. “Lock him up. Give him a trial. He’ll pay for what he’s done. But you’re not a killer, Aurora. You’re not a monster. Don’t do this.”

  She was a monster. Dragon fire, dragon blood. That was who she was. But still she hesitated, sword brushing against the king’s throat.

  “Do this right, Princess. Don’t be like him.”

  Neither of them had been watching the king. He grabbed the sword around the edges and shoved it backward. The hilt crashed into Aurora’s stomach, and she dropped it, gasping for breath. John pulled a knife from his boot, and then he was gripping Rodric, the dagger pressed against his throat.

  “I am the king,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. “You can’t stop me. You can’t defeat me. I am—”

  He gurgled. Blood spurted across his lips to match the red now staining his hands. His grip on Rodric loosened, and Rodric shoved him away. The king fell to his knees. Blood was spreading down his chest. He keeled forward, and his chin cracked against the stone.

  Queen Iris stood behind him. She held a small dagger. Her dress was covered in blood.

  She stared at her husband as though surprised at what she had done. Then she looked up, skin flushed. She nodded.

  The crowd was quiet. They stared at the dais, held still by shock or magic.

  “Rodric?” Aurora rested a hand on his arm. She was surprised at how solid it felt. He was alive. “Are you okay?”

  The prince stared at her hand. “I think so,” he said. “Yes. I didn’t expect to see you.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her toward him. Her hands crashed against his chest and then settled around his waist. Safe. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes.” She pulled back. “I heard you’ve been supporting the rebellion.”

  “Rebellion is my father’s word,” Rodric said. He ducked his head. “I thought of it more as helping people. Things have been worse since you left. The food shortage, the deaths . . . someone had to do something. And my father . . . well. You saw my father.” He looked up at the sky. “Care to explain the dragon?”

  “It will take a while,” she said. “But it isn’t Vanhelm’s. They’re here, but it’s mine. It follows me.”

  “What exactly—”

  Magic crackled in the air, and Aurora felt a rush of heat, a rush of fury and yearning that almost choked her. And she knew what she would see before she turned, knew before the fire ripped across the square.

  A horde of dragons, swooping out of the sky.

  THIRTY-ONE

  THE CREATURES CIRCLED THE CASTLE, THEIR SHRIEKS tearing through the air. One let out a burst of flame, and the west tower buckled under the heat.

  “Vanhelm,” Rodric said. “They’re attacking.”

  “No,” Aurora said. “No, they’re not.”

  “Aurora?”

  She ran to the edge of the dais, reaching for the connection between her and the dragons. If she could find it, if she could calm them, lure them down from the sky . . . but the dragons burned too hot, driven on by vengeance and rage.

  Her dragon was still there, a separate beat from the others, shrieking but not burning, not attacking . . . not yet.

  Rodric ran up beside her. “If it’s not Vanhelm, then who? Aurora?”

  “It’s Celestine,” Aurora said. Another dragon dove over the square. Fire raced across the cobblestones. “It’s my fault.”

  “Celestine?” Rodric flinched from another rush of dragon fire. “The witch? She’s dead.”

  “No,” Aurora said. “No, she’s not.”

  She ran down the steps, but she could see nothing but fire. She did not know where Celestine would hide. She did not know where to look. The screams rattled around her head.

  If she were Celestine, if she wanted Aurora to find her, wanted to make a point, where would she wait?

  And then she knew.

  She looked up at the castle, searching for her own tower. A green light danced around the window. The screams of the dragons distorted, replaced by far-off laughter, and a singing that sent prickles down Aurora’s arms.

  Aurora ran. The light floated in front of her eyes now, brushing around her hair, luring her onward. She ducked around the blazing pyre, around the remaining guards and through the castle doors.

  “Aurora!”

  Rodric’s footsteps pounded behind her. “Stay here!” she shouted. “Get people to the river. I’m going to stop this.”

  “How?” he said. “Where are you going?”

  She ignored him. She ran faster than she had known was possible, tearing through the corridors, her arms catching on tables and flower vases, until she reached her tower door. It was still unlocked. She kept running, around and around, past the tapestries, through the dust, until she crashed into her bedroom. That room was empty too, but the fireplace was open, lights gleaming above the ashes.

  Celestine waited in the room above. She sat on a stool, turning the spinning wheel with flicks of her fingers. The air glowed.

  “It is a pity,” Celestine said, “that a beautiful thing like you spent her whole life locked in this tower. This spindle was the thing that brought you your freedom, in the end. Do you not think?” She turned her head to look at Aurora, and her smile was wide and hungry, like the smile of a dragon.

  “Stop them,” Aurora said. Her voice was hoarse. “Stop the dragons.”

  “Stop them?” Celestine tilted her head. “But you were the one who brought them here.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did not what? You did not take a dragon’s heart?”

  “I didn’t summon them here.”

  Celestine laugh
ed, and the spinning wheel clicked. “Are you really so dim, Aurora? You brought them here. You. I told you that you would regret eating that piece of dragon heart. They are drawn to you. They were drawn to you in Vanhelm, they are drawn to you now. They are following you.”

  Aurora stepped closer. “No,” she said. “I saw you in Vanhelm, when the dragons attacked—”

  “I helped you in Vanhelm,” Celestine said. “You were trying so hard to send the dragons away, but they were not listening, were they? Poor thing, fighting to control your magic, your new link to the dragons, and still knowing so little. You are too weak to handle them all, so I was offering my assistance. We both have that link now, thanks to you, and since I actually understand how to control it, I thought I might help.”

  “And is that what you’re doing now? Helping?”

  “Observing,” Celestine said. “To see what you will do. To see if you will accept who you are after all.”

  But Celestine had to be lying. It did not make sense. “But you brought the dragons back,” Aurora said. “You used my blood, you wanted my magic—”

  Celestine’s laugh was decidedly mocking now, mingling with the dragons’ screams. “You are so ready to put all evils at my feet. I suppose I must find it flattering. Did it flatter you, I wonder, to think your blood awoke dragons, to think you were part of them? I did not awaken them. How could I have? I had no magic in Vanhelm, and dragons know their own minds. They awoke, Aurora, because they awoke, because this was their time. I merely took advantage of the circumstances.”

  “But—the things you wrote in the ruins—”

  “I was weak. There was so little magic left, none I could access in Vanhelm. I saw the potential of the dragons, remembered legends, but without magic to begin with, I could not take the heart myself. I needed you. And since you awoke, I’ve wanted you to do it. I’ve wanted to show you how brutal you really are. So think on that, Aurora, before you judge me.”

  “But my connection with them. My fire magic—”

  “You do not have fire magic. You have magic. But you were too narrow-minded to use it for anything but fire. The dragons were intrigued by you because you are a creature of magic. And you deluded yourself into thinking you controlled them, that you could use them like tools, because that is what you wanted to be true.”

  Celestine stood up and slid toward her. “You could have healed your prince yourself, you know. I did not give you power. I simply told you how to do it. If only you had listened to me, my dear. If only you had joined me when I asked. Think how different things would have been.”

  Aurora’s heart crashed against her ribs. The air stank of blood and scorched flesh, and the dragon’s blood pounded with fury, with a need that no amount of destruction could quench. “What do you want?” she said. “I can make another deal—”

  Celestine laughed. “Oh, you sweet thing. Did you not hate your mother, not so many weeks ago, for bargaining with me? And now you would like to deal with me again?”

  “If you know how to stop the dragons, then stop them.”

  “I do not think so,” Celestine said. “Not yet. These people wanted magic, did they not? And they deserve to be punished, for the way they have treated you. Let them remember how fearsome magic can be.”

  Aurora stepped back, reaching for that connection with the dragons again. If she could just calm this fury, if she could soothe the dragons, guide them away . . .

  Celestine’s nails dug into her arm. “Do you not understand, Aurora? You are not the one to stop this. You should not want to stop this. This is what you are meant to do, what you are meant to be. You tried so hard to be good, to play the little hero, and look where you have ended up. Look what you have done. You are not the good, sweet hero in this story. There is no good, sweet hero here. You are twisted, my dear. Just. Like. Me.”

  “You don’t know me,” Aurora said. “I’m nothing like you.” But she remembered her words to Finnegan, less than two weeks ago. If let out everything I felt, I’d burn the whole city to the ground.

  “But you are.” Celestine pressed her hands around Aurora’s face, crushing her hair. Her voice was gentle. “Do you think I did not want to be good, once? That I did not want to be loved? But I learned, as you learned, that that cannot be done. They will despise you for your power, even as they beg you for more. You were happy to pretend to be the villain, weren’t you, Aurora? To be the witch they feared, if it would help? Too naïve to accept that things are not so black and white. Too stubborn to think I might ever have reached the same conclusion.” She smoothed Aurora’s hair. “I wanted them to love me, as you did. And they betrayed me, as they betrayed you. They dismissed me, feared me, loathed me, when all I did, I did for them.”

  Her nails dug into Aurora’s scalp. “The throne was meant to be mine,” she said. “And I ruled, in my own way. I was the only one who could give them their wishes, for all that they feared me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Aurora said. “What—”

  “You know,” Celestine said. “You must know. I am Alysse, Aurora. It has always been me.”

  No. Alysse had died, hundreds of years ago. Everyone knew that. Everyone knew. She was not Celestine. She was not twisted.

  Celestine brushed a stray hair away from Aurora’s forehead. “You do not want to believe it,” she said. “I know, I know. But it is true. I saved them all. They wove myths about me, but they did not want me. They did not want my power.” Her voice sped up, rising in pitch, the mad smile spreading across her face again. “They made me an outcast. Yet I was still their queen, when it counted. They came running to me, under all my different names, begging for my magic. Begging to make deals with me. They loved me, in their own way, or feared me. Oh, I was queen. And now I will be again. Now I will have you. Our stories are the same, you see. We belong together. We can give Alyssinia the magic it wants, together. Give them what they need. Make them bow to us. Even if they hate us for it.”

  “I don’t want that,” Aurora whispered.

  “Not after they cast you out? Tried to kill you, called you a witch, called you a whore? They tried to kill you, and those you love. They begged you for magic and feared you because you had it. And do I not deserve your sympathy too, Aurora? For what I have suffered? For what they did to me?”

  “You cursed me,” Aurora said. “You took away my life.”

  “I gave you your life. A prick of your finger, and you were free to come here. To see dragons and kiss princes and feel what true power is like. Was that not a gift, Aurora? Was I not good to you?” Her voice was soft. “This was what your mother wished. This is the bargain she made. And surely you see now how tricky magic can be. How bad consequences do not make the witch herself evil. We give people what they wish for, and things fall as they fall.” She cupped Aurora’s cheek, her long fingernails digging around her jawbone. “Trust me, Aurora. I care for you. I can teach you so much. We will save the kingdom from these dragons, together. I meant what I said. I want to return to my rightful place. The people cannot be trusted, Aurora. They need us. And you would be glorious as queen.”

  The words wove through Aurora’s thoughts. So simple. So appealing.

  “I will stop this, as soon as you agree. I will teach you to stop this. To control your power, to control your magic, to be everything you could be. Do not reject me, Aurora, for some ancient grudge. Is that not what people have always been doing to you?”

  Celestine would make Aurora magnificent, as she had promised. Celestine had said it herself: she could use magic, but Aurora was magic. With practice, she could be more powerful than Celestine could even dream.

  And if Celestine was Alysse, if her life had led to this . . . Aurora knew what it was like to be lied about, to have the facts of your life twisted into something new.

  Celestine’s heartbeat thudded against her arm. Not Alysse. Celestine.

  “No!” She shoved Celestine back, so that the witch stumbled against the stone wall. Fire engulfed Celest
ine, and she laughed. She watched Aurora through the flames, her mouth gaping, laughing and laughing, until the spell petered out, and Aurora stepped back, exhausted, uncertain. Celestine continued to laugh, unscathed.

  “Was that supposed to prove me wrong? I am not threatening you. I am doing nothing to you. And yet you want to burn me away, because you are so convinced that you are good. Accept it, Aurora. You know you are meant to be with me.”

  She would not accept it. Celestine was lying, she had to be lying. She had brought the dragons here, she was manipulating Aurora, like she had manipulated her mother, like she manipulated everybody. Aurora had to stop her.

  Celestine’s power had come from the dragon’s heart. She had devoured the heart, and she had found that magic again. If Celestine lost her own heart, would she lose her magic too?

  Aurora lunged. Her fingers scraped against Celestine’s chest, but Celestine grabbed her wrist and twisted, until Aurora turned, her back to the witch, arm contorted between them. Celestine’s nails dug into Aurora’s skin. She gripped Aurora’s hair, close to the scalp, and yanked her head backward.

  “You think you can fight me?” Celestine hissed in her ear. “Do you think you can stop any of this without me?” She pulled Aurora’s neck farther back, and Aurora fought not to cry out in pain. “Shall I show you?” she said. “The final lesson? Do you want to see what your defiance has done? Yes,” she said. “Let us see.”

  Her hand still tight on Aurora’s hair, Celestine dragged her down the stairs, out of the tower, out onto the dais again. Flames swirled around them, the heat so intense that Aurora flinched back. The square itself was scattered with scorched corpses, and a few living people too, injured and unable to run, huddled by the castle as though it would protect them, frozen by fear. The pyre burned, and fire leapt from roof to roof, chasing back toward the city wall.