Copyright © Lichelle Slater 2019
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Edited by Maria Rosera of The Paisley Editor
Interior Design and Formatting by Melissa Stevens of The Illustrated Author Design Services
Cover Design by Melissa Stevens of The Illustrated Author Design Services
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
The Forgotten Kingdom Series
Map
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Epilogue
The Forgotten Kingdom Series
Also By
About the Author
Follow Me
To Christina Walker
Without you, I wouldn’t be on this great adventure!
THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM SERIES
The Four Stones of Tern Tovan
(Prequel to The Forgotten Kingdom Series)
The Dragon Princess
(Sleeping Beauty Reimagined)
The Siren Princess—coming fall 2019
(Little Mermaid Reimagined)
Receive the prequel to The Four Kingdom Series for FREE by signing up for my newsletter at:
www.LichelleSlater.com
One
My roar echoed into a scream.
Cold sweat dampened my shirt, and I jolted upright in my bed. Quickly, I searched my body with clammy hands. I pressed my hands against my face, patting each detail, smoothed the hair of my eyebrows, felt the scar on my cheek from when I’d fallen as a child. Next: arms, legs, breasts, toes. Even in the pre-dawn light filtering through a gap in the curtain, I could see nothing had changed.
I was still me.
Still human.
I’d survived another night without turning into a dragon. The nightmares always got worse the nearer I drew to my birthday, and this was the dawn of my seventeenth.
I flopped back onto my pillows and let out my bottled-up breath. “Five … four … three …”
My bedroom door flew open, as it had every dawn of every birthday since I could remember, and my father rushed in with a sword in hand.
I tossed my arm over my eyes.
“Allul!” he shouted.
The torches on either side of my bed crackled as they lit.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Still not a dragon.”
He heaved a sigh of relief.
Being cursed to become a dragon was worse than finding myself standing in a pile of horse manure in the middle of summer.
I couldn’t fully blame my father and mother for overreacting. After all, I didn’t know what I would do if I had a daughter cursed by a sorceress to become a dragon by her eighteenth birthday. I imagined I, too, would try to protect her. I didn’t, however, think I would keep her locked in the castle every day.
“Are you certain you’re all right?” Father pressed.
I nodded. “See?” I held up both hands and turned them to show him the backs as well. “Toes too.” I pulled the blankets back to show him my feet.
“I’m relieved to see you’re safe.” He lingered and calmly walked over to my side. My bed shifted under my father’s weight as he leaned down and kissed my head. “Happy Birthday. I’m certain your sisters have every moment planned.”
“They usually do.” I lowered my arm from over my eyes and gave him a faint grin.
He straightened. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”
When I heard the door shut, I reluctantly climbed out from under my covers, then pulled my nightgown down as I walked to the mirror. The crisp morning air nipped at my toes as I padded across the rug, then onto the polished wooden floor, but I ignored the air’s frigid bite because I needed one final visual confirmation before I could definitively convince myself I was still human.
No dragon horns.
No tail.
No scales, teeth, or claws.
According to my reflection, my hair was still as yellow as the sun, my eyes were still blue, and my skin still pale. No hint of any dragon details.
I’d had nightmares since I was a child of transforming into a gigantic lizard with swords for teeth, red eyes, and vicious claws. As I grew older, the nightmares evolved from merely transforming to devouring my family and burning down the houses and forests of my kingdom. These nightmares had plagued me since I was first told the story of my curse. The curse that ran through my mind almost daily.
A curse upon her head I place,
that all will see her truest face.
The rage of a dragon shall grow inside
until, the truth, she can no longer hide.
When she reaches her eighteenth year,
her destiny will be made clear.
She will hear the dragon’s call,
then she will come and destroy you all.
This was my last year before Selina’s curse would take hold. No amount of pondering or worrying answered my biggest question of all: Why had the sorceress chosen me to curse? What was so important about me that made her hate me so?
I’d done my fair share of research about dragons, but the books I could find in the castle were ancient, and no one had seen a dragon in nearly a century. From what I gathered, dragons were essentially oversized lizards that could fly, and according to the stories, they only had one desire in the world: collect treasure.
The chair groaned softly as I slid it away from the carved vanity and sat to brush through my long blond hair then braided it down over my right shoulder. It’s possible the sorceress who gave me the curse said it wrong. I thought. She could have missed something. Or maybe the faeries have discovered a cure while I slept. I didn’t believe it even though I desperately wanted to.
I got up and opened the curtains to look out over my kingdom. Captured in a perpetual state of springtime, the weather always wavered between crisp mornings and sweltering afternoons. We hadn’t had snowfall since long before my parents were born, and we never got as hot as Terricina.
As I gazed out over the wood-carved town, I knew the arborists would be awake by now. Many would be eating breakfast before going out to their walnut, pecan, or fruit orchards. Their spouses were also awake and fretting over breakfast, comforting a sick child, perhaps cuddling their new bab
y, or being grateful the kids were still asleep at this hour so they had some much needed time together as a couple.
The hole in my chest ached, and I stuffed it with more lies—someday. Someday, when I no longer had to worry about killing my potential friends, I might have some. Someday, when this curse was broken, I would find a husband who would love me. Someday, when I wasn’t controlled by my fate, I might have children.
“Someday,” I whispered.
The door flew open. I jumped and wheeled around, and my two sisters ran in, both still clad in their nightgowns.
Marigold, the youngest at nine, headed straight to my bed and started jumping up and down. Her charcoal pigtails bounced with her. “Happy Birthday, Elisa! You’re still not a dragon!” Her eyes, the same brown as our mother’s, sparkled with her excitement.
Dahlia could have been her twin, even though she was four years older. She walked over and locked her arms around me. “We weren’t expecting you to or anything. Marigold just gets these ideas …” She threw Marigold a glare.
Marigold rolled her eyes and hopped off the bed.
“I’m excited I’m not a dragon too.” I laughed.
“But it is a cool story,” Marigold insisted. She hopped off the bed. “Even if nothing ends up happening. Do you feel any different at all?” She looked me over as if expecting to see horns protruding from my head.
I put my fingertip on her forehead and pushed her away gently. “No, I don’t.”
“Hey!” Marigold objected as she was forced to step back.
I suddenly scooped her up and promptly dropped her onto my pillows. “Maybe I’m a tickle dragon! Fear my claws!” I said in my deepest voice and showed her my fingers before tickling her.
“Elisa!” she screamed. She gasped for air between bursts of laughter and wiggled.
Dahlia jumped up beside us, a candlestick in her hand as if it were a sword. “I’ll save you!” She jabbed the candlestick against my ribs, then in my armpit, causing me to instinctively tighten my arm to my side.
A familiar voice cleared her throat, and we all stopped to look at our mother standing in the doorway. Already in her dress, with her cheeks rouged and hair done up under her crown, she was every bit the regal queen of Griswil.
She raised her ebony brows in disapproval. “The guests will be arriving for your birthday celebration after breakfast,” Mother said in a flat voice. “You should all be getting ready, not fooling around like children.”
The familiar heat of shame crawled up the back of my neck and down my jaw. “Good morning, Mother,” I greeted, sitting up.
Dahlia and Marigold reluctantly climbed off my bed, and Dahlia replaced the candlestick on my dresser where it belonged.
“But we were having fun,” Marigold whined.
I knew what Mother would say before she said it. “The crown princess doesn’t have fun. It isn’t one of her duties.”
“She never gets to have fun with us,” Marigold mumbled as she marched out the door and down the hall.
“It’s okay,” Dahlia added, looking at me. “We get to have lots of fun today. It’s your birthday after all.” She gave me a smile and then also left to join Marigold in their shared room.
I gave the queen a smile of my own, straightened my spine, and held my arms out. “Well, I’m still not a dragon.”
Her eyes moved down and back up, and I could have sworn there was a hint of disappointment in the corner of her cold eyes.
My heart sank.
She took a few steps nearer and sighed. “I know you’re trying your hardest, Elisa. You’re doing the best you can. We are too, you know.”
“Any news about the faeries?” I asked, shifting the conversation. After I’d been cursed, the faeries had vowed to help break it. Yet faeries seemed to be just as scarce as dragons.
Mother shook her head. “The scouts haven’t arrived yet. I was hoping before breakfast, but … it appears that won’t happen.” She reached out and put her hand on my cheek.
I immediately put my hand over hers and felt a rush of joy.
Her cool fingers reminded me of the fever I’d had as a child. She’d stroked my face with that same gentle touch, comforting me, insisting everything would be all right. I wanted her to whisper those words to me again. I wanted so desperately for her to tell me this would be the last day of worry.
Instead, she leaned forward and put her forehead against mine. “I know this is hard for you. No matter what happens, I promise your father and I have done everything we’ve thought of. There is an end in sight.” She stepped back too soon. “We have something important to discuss at breakfast. Hurry up.”
These moments of comfort were becoming rarer, and I longed to throw my arms around her and hold on as I did as a child. But I was growing into a woman. And crown princesses didn’t ask for hugs.
“Get dressed and come down.” Mother turned but paused and looked over her shoulder at me. “And, Elisa?”
“Yes?”
She smiled, but pain wrinkled the corners of her eyes. “You look beautiful.”
I reached up and touched my hair as she left. I grinned broadly.
Whether or not it would be my last, it was still my birthday. I put on my favorite green dress, knowing I would receive a new ball gown that night for the celebration. I suspected it would be rather extravagant, more than any others had been. After all, if this truly was my last birthday, I needed to look smashing.
It wasn’t like the curse clarified exactly when the big transformation would take place. Would it happen all at once the night before my birthday? The morning of? At sunset? While I slept?
I pushed the familiar questions aside—I’d never been able to answer them—and checked my reflection one last time before leaving my room.
I was still me.
I straightened my spine and looked once more at my hands. The pale blue veins stood out against the porcelain of my skin, and I had a small freckle on the middle knuckle of my left hand. My right middle finger had a scar across the first knuckle from when I’d tried to help in the kitchen and sliced it with a kitchen knife.
Selina’s curse echoed in my head with each step I took. The rage of a dragon shall grow inside until, the truth, she can no longer hide.
Two
I reached the dining hall, where my parents stood talking softly to one another. They straightened when I entered, and my father smiled brightly.
“Good morning, again,” I said, curtseying.
Dahlia entered right behind me, soon followed by Marigold.
“Have you heard from the faeries yet?” Marigold blurted. “Did we find one?”
“Hopefully, we’ll know within the hour,” Mother answered. I could see the tightness of worry at the corner of her lips as they tried to smile.
My father studied me with caution—ever-growing as my days wore on.
Marigold tugged on my hand, pulling me from my thoughts, and dragged me to a seat beside her. “What sorts of fun things do you want to do today? We could go out into the gardens!”
“Or maybe a horseback ride?” Dahlia asked, looking at our mother for permission.
Mother rarely allowed me to go on horseback rides. She wanted me in the castle, studying to be the queen, locked up where I would never be able to hurt someone. Both of my sisters knew my birthday and the spring ball, about two months later in March, were the only two days of the year my parents allowed me to go horseback riding. Even when we attended the seasonal celebrations of the other kingdoms, we rode in the carriage.
“And we can have a picnic in the forest!” Marigold gasped.
“I haven’t had a picnic in a long time.” I grinned. “I think those would be a lot of fun. Mother? Father?”
Father shrugged. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“We have your birthday celebration this evening,” Mother
reminded me as though I needed to be. “You’ll need to be home in time to prepare around noon, so a picnic is really out of the question.”
“It doesn’t take me six hours to dress and do my makeup, Mother.”
“I already told you no.”
“Rachel, it’s her birthday,” Father said in a low voice.
My lips tightened, and my eyes scrunched. I didn’t mean to glare and quickly looked away before my mother could see it.
“Which reminds me, there was something important we needed to discuss.” Her gaze weighed heavily on me. “There will be a special guest at your party tonight.”
Luckily the servants entered in the royal colors of green and yellow. I’d never been so grateful to see them in my life. They broke the uncomfortable moment, and their cheery uniforms helped brighten my mood a little.
I resisted the urge to lick my lips as the servants set down trays of delicious food, featuring all my favorites: eggs, bacon, steak, hash, and fresh vegetables.
With the servants in the room, Mother changed the discussion to plans for my celebration that evening. She’d invited many guests, ordered special decorations, planned loads of food, and even arranged special musicians to perform.
I knew she was doing such a big celebration because everything in my future was so uncertain. I didn’t mind so long as I got to have some fun.
We were barely halfway through breakfast when the door swung open and our herald entered. I swallowed the chunk of meat in my mouth before I had properly chewed it and nearly choked.
“Your royal—”
“Skip the formalities,” I blurted after a cough. “What did they find?”
He stepped aside and the head of the scouts entered.
The man bowed so low he swooped his hat across the stone floor. “Your Highnesses. We searched every inch of the kingdom …” His brows were pinched, his face soft, his lips tight, and his eyelashes shifted as if he were trying to keep his gaze away from me.
My stomach dropped.
“The last known city of faeries was found destroyed, and lying in the center was a body with a note on it.” He crossed to my mother and handed over a piece of parchment, dirtied with a dark red smear I knew to be blood. “I’m terribly sorry. It appears there are no faeries left in the land.” His eyes finally settled on me, soft with pity.
The Dragon Princess: Sleeping Beauty Reimagined (The Forgotten Kingdom Book 1) Page 1