“What happened?” she asked once I had transitioned too.
“Let’s just say you tried to save the day,” I told her as I hugged her. “Things just got a little messy after that.”
A little? She almost brought the whole building down, the Lady of the Lake corrected.
Noticing our company for the first time, Nimue’s jaw dropped. “Is that…? It can’t be….”
“It is. If not for her help, you’d still be a raging robot dragon.”
“Wow. I’m… I can’t even… wow.”
The Lady of the Lake looked pleased, and perhaps because she had found a fan, she decided to help us one more time.
Assuming you plan on returning to your own world, you don’t need to look far to find someone to send you. As a Secret Keeper, Sara Lee has the knowledge to move through time as long as she has one of my sister’s stones.
“But where would we find such a stone?” Nimue asked.
Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps a certain water sorceress who happens to be on close terms with the Mother?
The Lady of the Lake raised her hand, revealing a small stone in her palm. Then she sent it forward in the water, through the glass, and into my palm.
Use it wisely, the Lady of the Lake said just to me as she turned and began to swim away. And remember that time has become fluid for you, but fate is inevitable. If your princess doesn’t love you, no travel through time will ever change her mind. A second later, she faded into the deep blue water.
“Come on,” Nimue said as she put her arm around me. “It’s time to go home.”
Chapter TWENTY-NINE
NIMUE
LEAVING ALLANAH and Dena was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. In the time we had been on Earth, they had become great friends to me, and I didn’t want to bid them farewell forever. Plus, I dreaded returning home for fear that I might not see my mother again if we didn’t travel to a time before her death, and even if we did, her death was not something I could stop with magical powers. Eventually, I would have to say good-bye.
“Thank you for all of your guidance,” I told Allanah while Dena gathered flowers for Sara Lee to take back to Draman. “I don’t think I could have gotten through this without you.”
“Of course you could have,” Allanah said as she pulled me in for a hug. “You just need to learn to be more confident in yourself and in your decisions. But you’ve come a long way, even in the brief time I’ve had the honor of getting to know you. You’ve made your people proud.”
I hoped she was right. I suspected that Sara Lee would take us back to the day of the Naming Ceremony, and I felt no more prepared to make those decisions now than I had a few days ago. Allanah had convinced me that the practice was wrong, but shy, introspective Nimue wasn’t just going to disappear with the wave of a Secret Keeper’s hand. When I arrived back on Draman, I would still be me.
Sara Lee and Dena were still in the garden, now talking in whispers about something, so I decided to visit Grian one last time. His lack of human personality still surprised me—I had never met a real dragon before—but I also found him comforting, the way Earth’s humans probably felt comforted by their dogs.
I rubbed my hand along Grian’s back, then up to his head. We Dramanians had no scales, and I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to fly with such weight.
“Ouch,” I said as one of his scales came loose and bit into my hand. “What was that for?”
Grian looked at me blankly, and I knew the cut had been an accident. When I looked down at my hand, the blood dripping from the wound was yellow and orange instead of red.
“What in the world…?” I asked as I plucked the scale from my skin. In just a few seconds, the blood stopped instantly and healed into a scar the shape of a circle. I tried rubbing the circle off, but the yellowed spot still remained. I should have asked Allanah what the meaning of the scar was, but at that moment, Sara Lee said we were leaving and distracted me.
“Do you really think you can send us back?” I asked Sara Lee as Allanah and Dena waved from the front step of their house. I clutched Dena’s bouquet of flowers in my palm, and completely forgot about my scar.
“I have no idea. But the Lady of the Lake seemed pretty confident, so I’m going to give it my best shot.”
We both stared down at the stone. Then Sara Lee closed her eyes tightly and held her breath.
Nothing happened.
“So… what now?” I asked finally when it seemed we weren’t going anywhere.
“How am I supposed to know?”
“Are you concentrating on home?”
“Of course I am,” she said, but something in her voice betrayed her true feelings. Like me, Sara Lee was probably afraid of what waited for us on the other side of time, and she wanted to delay our return as much as I did. “I just need some practice, that’s all.”
“Want to send us back even further just to give the thing a whirl? Maybe visit Merlin’s great-great-grandmothers while we’re roaming around time?”
She hit me on the arm, and then we both exploded into laughter. It felt good to just be together that way, happy, one last time before we met whatever waited for us on the other end. Then Sara Lee closed her eyes, held up the stone, and blew on it.
Everything spun, and then a second later, we were home.
I SAT on my throne while the little Dramanians shuffled into the room in a single line. At the very end a familiar face appeared, and though I tried to make eye contact with Skelly, the child kept their eyes on their shoes. The master of ceremonies placed the large book on the podium, followed by the white quill.
“Children,” the master of ceremonies began. “The time has come for you to choose: red or black. Girl or boy. Do not take this choice lightly; this new robe will not just change you on the outside, but on the inside too.”
I couldn’t breathe. As child after child stepped forward, my robes felt suffocating, bringing back memories of the general as he crushed my neck. In the background, Sara Lee clutched the back of a chair, and her eyes flitted frantically between the master of ceremonies and Skelly. The past lay on top of the present like dirt on top of a grave, pressing down on us until it buried us alive.
Skelly came forward, and the room spun. I looked desperately at Sara Lee, who began to step forward as soon as Skelly whispered the fateful word we both waited for: “Neither.”
As Skelly moved back toward the line, Sara Lee put her arm protectively around the child. From the way Skelly seemed to recognize Sara Lee, I knew that somehow they remembered everything that the people around us had forgotten. Something was different about that quiet Dramanian, though there wasn’t time now to find out what.
“You must choose,” my father demanded on cue.
I tried to speak, but no words came out of my mouth. Perhaps because I did not have the strength, or because deep down I still did not know what to say.
“No. I am not a boy or girl. I am a Dramanian,” Skelly said.
The words echoed in my mind, and with each repetition, I found a little more strength in them. I am a Dramanian. I am a Dramanian. I am a Dramanian. Before I knew what I was doing, I stood up from the throne and moved to where Sara Lee and Skelly stood by the window.
“Nimue, come back here,” my father ordered, but his words only strengthened my resolve.
“I’m sorry, Father,” I said, “but the child is supported by a true ruler of this world. We must listen to their argument.”
“The maid?” My father looked back and forth between Sara Lee and me. “And why should the king listen to the girl who scrubs the floors?”
I nudged Sara Lee, and at my prompting, she removed Excalibur from underneath her robe. The crowd gasped, and the children, who had moved up to see the excitement better, fled back to their parents.
“This is Excalibur, made by the Lady of the Lake and pulled from the stone by King Arthur. I could not remove the sword, but Sara Lee needed no effort to do so. Our right to the throne is noth
ing but a blood bond; Sara Lee is the one who really deserves to make these decisions.”
The master of ceremonies scoffed. “And how do we know that sword is the real thing?”
“Because I sent it to them.” The voice came from the very back of the room, and when the crowd parted, the speaker stepped forward and removed his hood. Standing in our throne room, as old and white as ever, was Merlin. “You here in this room will never know the trials these two women went through to save you, but I have watched their journey with growing admiration. Together, they are quite a force to be reckoned with.”
“So you’re saying you’re just going to move aside and let your maid take your throne because of an ancient wizard and a sword?” the king asked me.
“Exactly, Father, and I stand by—”
“No,” Sara Lee interrupted. “That’s not right.”
“It’s not?” I asked her. Everyone else might as well have disappeared for how little I cared about them at that moment. “And why not?”
“As Merlin said, we’re a force to be reckoned with—together.” She sunk to her knee and placed her hands on the hilt of her sword like a man accepting his knighthood. “I know that this might not be what you want to hear, but I have to speak my mind. Ever since I met you in the garden, you have been my whole world. Every minute of my life has been dedicated to serving you, and not out of duty or guilt or even appreciation. I am in love with you, Princess Nimue. And if you’ll accept my hand in marriage, I will never stop caring for you as long as I live.”
The throne room had never been so silent. The master of ceremonies dropped his quill onto the podium, and I thought my father was going to faint and fall off the throne for how pale he looked. All of the parents and children turned to stare at me, and my hands shook from the attention.
“I… well… uh….” Everyone stared at me, their eyes making my skin burn, and I wrapped my arms around my waist for strength. After hiding in the castle for most of my life, I had still managed to become the center of everyone’s attention. And unlike standing up to the robots, this time, I would have to share my emotions.
I looked to Merlin, who nodded encouragingly. If I didn’t follow my heart, I would never get the chance to live like he had: loving someone and being loved in return. If there was one thing traveling through time had taught me, it was that we were all dispensable, like brief bursts of flame from a time dragon’s mouth.
“I accept your proposal.”
I KNEW that Sara Lee would want to speak to me privately after her public speech, but she had not been around for what came after the original Naming Ceremony—my mother’s death.
As soon as the children and their parents left for their homes, I rushed to my mother’s side. She dozed, her mouth open slightly, and she looked beautiful even in her pain. Nothing about the room had changed, though it felt like ages since I had last visited her. Even the book about Merlin lay open on the table at exactly the same page.
“I can’t lose you again,” I whispered as I knelt by her bedside and wrapped my hand around hers. “Doing it once was bad enough.”
I sat down in my mother’s chair and put my head in my hands. When Merlin entered the room, I didn’t even need to look up to recognize the slow creak of his footsteps.
“How did you know to come?”
“Sara Lee sent me. What ails your mother?” Merlin asked as he approached my mother to inspect her.
“No one knows. It’s a mysterious illness we call Draman’s Poison, and every year hundreds of our people die from it. No doctor has ever found a cure.”
Instead of the usual doctor’s routine—lifting my mother’s eyelids, pressing on her lungs and organs, and taking her pulse—Merlin put his hand around her wrist and closed his eyes. A blue light glowed from the place where his hand pressed, and then the light traveled through each of my mother’s limbs, her chest, and up to her head.
“You might call this Draman’s Poison,” Merlin said finally without opening his eyes, “but on my world, we call it cancer—melanoma, to be exact. Your people are so pale, and the UV rays from the sun mixed with a genetic mutation could be having an even stronger effect on you than they do on Earth.”
“Can you cure it?” I asked hopefully.
“I’m sorry, Princess. I can teach your doctors about our world’s findings, including radiation and chemotherapy that would save some of the patients, but at this stage, your mother is too sick to recover. All I can do is make her comfortable, and give her enough time to witness your wedding.”
The blue light in my mother pulsed, then retreated back to Merlin’s hand. My mother looked around, trying to get her bearings.
“Nimue?”
“Yes, Mother, I’m here.”
“Oh, I had the strangest dream. You and Sara Lee went back in time, and Merlin was….” She finally noticed the old man clutching her hand and stared at him. “Merlin was… I’m sorry, Doctor, but you look just like him.”
“Mom, I’d like to introduce you to Merlin. Merlin, this is our queen.”
Merlin attempted a bow, though his old bones only bent a few inches.
“Merlin?” My mother looked between us. “Then my dream…. How could it…. I don’t understand.”
“It’s okay, Mom. Thanks to Merlin, I’ll have a few days to explain everything.”
After Merlin left us alone, I climbed into bed with my mother like I had as a kid. I knew that our time was finite, and I wanted to enjoy every second of it. Only when my head was propped safely on her arm, comfort radiating from her skin the way only a mother’s touch can comfort a child, did I break the second piece of news.
“Mom… I’m getting married.”
“You are? To whom?”
I told her everything. Well, not everything, but the parts about Sara Lee and I. The moment we met in the garden, and the first kiss, and the incident with Skelly. She listened patiently, as though this was just another Merlin story, until I came to the current day’s events.
“And I love her, Mother,” I confessed, the words already starting to seem familiar. “I’ve always loved her.”
“Oh, Nimue,” she said as she stroked my hair. “I know.”
I sat up on my arm so that I could look at her.
“You do?”
“Of course. When you’re the mother of a shy girl, you always notice every friend your daughter makes. As soon as Sara Lee started working here, I could tell that she brought out the best in you. I worried that you would get hurt, that her friendship was just that of a servant doing her job, but that was before my seamstress at the time told me about her fierce loyalty.”
“What do you mean?”
“Apparently, she’d been fighting any of the servants who complained about you, boys and girls alike. She even padlocked the head butler in the pantry for saying that we spoiled you.” My mother laughed at the memory. “We had to chop through the door to get him out. Naturally, everyone wanted her fired, but I refused. Any girl willing to get in trouble to protect my daughter is a girl worth her weight in gold.”
Sara Lee had always come to my chambers bruised and roughed up, but I had assumed it was from playing knight with the boys. Never had I realized that my whole life she had been fighting for me, making new friends and then battling them when they turned on the person she loved. Even my mother had seen the truth, when the answer was a few feet away sweeping the floor. I had lived my life with blinders on, too concerned with myself to notice anyone else’s pain, but I would never fall into that trap again.
“It’s all in the past,” my mother said. “We must look to the future. Now that the matter of your engagement is settled, preparations must be made for your wedding.”
“But you’re too sick to worry about such things.”
“Hush, child. I can’t imagine a better way to spend the last days of my life than planning for my daughter’s wedding.”
“But, Mother—”
“Not another word.” She pressed a finger to my l
ips. “Now go send for the seamstress, cook, butler, and the officiant. We have work to do.”
Chapter THIRTY
SARA LEE
NEEDLESS TO say, my first order of business as a ruler of Draman was firing the master of ceremonies. Dramanians could still choose a gender, but never again would they be forced to do so. Banned from the castle, the old man would spend the rest of his days declaring that we had singlehandedly ruined Draman with our relationship, but no one would listen to him.
My second order of business, with the help of my father as our officiant, was marrying the woman I loved.
“But what should we wear?” Nimue asked me as the royal seamstress finished showing us all of the red and black options. “None of the traditional dresses are appropriate anymore.”
“I know!” I said as I leaped from the throne and paged through the seamstress’s fabrics. “How about we take a page out of the earthlings’ book and wear white?”
Finding the swatch I was looking for, I held up the white satin.
“White?” Nimue’s face scrunched. “It’s just so… plain.”
The seamstress and I shared a look. “Don’t worry,” I said, trying to hide my smile, “I’m sure the woman who’s been making your dresses your entire life won’t forget all of the gold thread and fancy accoutrements that define the princess’s style.”
“Quite right,” the seamstress agreed. “With a fitted waist and a train that flows behind you like water, your white dress will be the talk of the town.”
“Then I’m sold on the idea,” Nimue agreed finally. “In fact, I quite like it. We will go down in history as the first royals to wear white dresses—they’ll never even know about the Americans.”
“I have a feeling there might be other things you’re remembered for,” I teased, but Nimue wasn’t listening. She had stood up and was walking toward us slowly, feigning a wedding train and a bouquet as she hummed the traditional Dramanian wedding song.
Starsong Page 13