Starsong

by Annabelle Jay

  My wedding was the first taste of the event planning side of being a royal, and I must admit, I didn’t handle it gracefully. All of the seating charts and centerpieces and music selections made my head spin, while Nimue relished every rushed decision. “Why does this matter?” I kept asking no one in particular, until most of the staff started steering clear of me and going right to Nimue for a decision.

  Instead of spending my time in the throne room, I escaped to the training quarters of the guards. There I found their leader, an uncharacteristically thick-shouldered man named Serio, “The Gifted,” who met my proposition to be trained in proper fighting techniques with a quiet raise of his eyebrows.

  “I know I don’t seem like a fighter,” I argued, “but Excalibur chose me for a reason. I am meant to be the next ruler of this land, and I can’t be a proper guard of my people unless I have the proper training.”

  For effect, I removed Excalibur from its sheath. All around us, the guards who had been practicing their moves halted and stared.

  “You make a persuasive case,” Serio finally said, “and it’s not my place to argue with my future queen. But if you’re going to train with us, I want you to do it in the proper way, from basic sword maneuvers to broad-scale battle plans.”

  “Of course.”

  “And we’re not going to go easy on you just because you’re a royal, or because you’re a woman. According to your new rules, we’ll have other women in the force in no time, and we’ll need to treat them the same way.”

  “Naturally.”

  Serio sighed. “Fine. Join the group on the far right; they’re our new recruits. Pick a partner from the unpaired men and just practice swinging until I get there.”

  Holding my chin high, I tried to portray a confidence I did not feel. Fighting for my life was one thing; training with the royal guard was another. All around me swords swung, and as metal rung from the impact, I resisted the urge to cringe.

  The man they paired me with was several times my size and quite skilled with a sword for a “new recruit.” As soon as we raised our weapons, he began a series of maneuvers that looked more like a laser light show than a battle strategy. I ended up just standing there, watching, until he finally attacked, barreling toward me like an angry rhinoceros about to impale me with its horn.

  I moved out of the way.

  The man, too large to stop midrun, headed full-force into the wall. With a painful thump, he fell to the ground and lay there, unmoving.

  Recruit after recruit, then guard after guard, I felled them all. Even without Excalibur, which Serio confiscated for the guards’ safety after I almost took one of their heads off by accident, I could still defeat any foe. Perhaps my strange talent was due to the years of fighting for Nimue in the royal yard, or the battle with the robots, or just plain lack of fear after everything that I had been through. No matter what the cause, by the end of the first afternoon, the guards had stopped calling me Princess Sara Lee and now referred to me as “Seria.”

  After training, Serio asked me to stay and discuss a secret matter with him. When I followed him to his office, a small chamber in the basement of the castle full of maps and old training equipment, he handed me a special uniform.

  “What is this?” I asked as I unfolded the fabric. The pattern was much like that of the royal guards, only it had gold buttons and a gold collar.

  “Throughout our history, Draman’s rulers have simply advised on army strategies. For the first time, I think a ruler has the skill to be both politician and army general. Our last general was killed in a recent skirmish, and there is no one else fit to take his place. You are the face of the new Draman, Seria. Will you accept this position?”

  At the sound of my new name, I knew my answer.

  WE CHOSE to marry in view of these visitors so that everyone on Draman could be a part of the festivities, so when the wedding day arrived, all of Draman flooded the main town square. Citizens waved white pieces of cloth decorated with our new symbol, a golden sword, sewn on them, and chanted, “Long live Princesses Nimue and Sara Lee!”

  Seated behind us were the mayors, one for each town, including Mayor Nemo and his son. Out of pity for her almost-suitor, Nimue had arranged a marriage between Aduerto and one of the other mayor’s daughters, a wispy girl who seemed genuinely interested in Aduerto’s training routine and wasn’t outwardly disgusted by the way he ate his chicken. Nimue even agreed to let them marry in a private ceremony in the throne room before they returned to their own town.

  Nimue looked as beautiful as I knew she’d be in her fitted white dress. The seamstress had outdone herself with golden scenes of Arthurian legends along the bottom of the skirt and down the train, as well as the new scene where I pulled Excalibur from the stone. Scribes were working hard on a new book that included this event, The Adventures of the Princesses Nimue and Sara Lee, which would be part of the new public library Nimue insisted on gifting to our citizens in honor of our wedding. Luckily, I had been permitted to wear my army uniform instead of a dress, though the royal hairdresser had insisted on threading golden strands into my hair. After dinner, I vowed, I’d pull them out when no one was looking.

  Skelly bore our rings, two metal replicas of Excalibur molded into a circle, during the service. The child had changed so much in the time since the Naming Ceremony, not in size but in posture and confidence. Something had definitely changed inside of them during our ordeal, though for a long time we never found out what it was.

  “Do you, Sara Lee, take Nimue to be your spouse in marriage?” the king asked, moving ahead with the service. “Will you love her and keep her, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”

  “Even if she’s possessed by evil robot magic,” I said without hesitation.

  “And do you, Nimue, take Sara Lee to be your spouse in marriage? Will you love her and keep her, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”

  “Even if all of her bones fall apart and I have to piece her back together myself,” Nimue said.

  “Then by the power vested in me by the people of Draman, I now pronounce you as Princess Nimue and Princess Sara Lee, wives and rulers of this land.”

  The noise from the crowd was deafening. Rare white flowers picked from village gardens and feathers from chickens cooked in our honor rained on us. I took Nimue’s hand, and together we walked through the crowd of our people, becoming just two bodies in a sea of Dramanian citizens. Now, we were truly home.

  Chapter THIRTY-ONE

  SKELLY

  AFTER WHAT happened at the Naming Ceremony, my parents treated me differently, though whether they did it out of care or out of fear that the princesses would dismiss them from court, I’ll never know. They left me alone, and I was free to come and go as I pleased as long as I was home for dinner. No more lace collars, and no more talk of being a boy or a girl.

  For a few weeks everything was wonderful. Every day I went to the castle to visit Merlin, who told me everything he knew about fairies and taught me about my special powers, as well as advice on how to use them without causing trouble.

  “Just because you can influence people doesn’t mean you should,” he explained. “Sprites flit around the woods and cause trouble, but fairies take their jobs as guardians very seriously. They should always be working for the greater good, even at their own expense.”

  But then one day Merlin asked me to meet him in the orchard where the princesses had shared their first kiss. A bench had been placed under the exact tree, a spot of cultural significance to our people now that the two were married.

  “I’m going back to Earth,” Merlin told me as soon as I sat down. “Something bad has happened, and I’m needed there.”

  “You’re needed here too,” I said, fighting off the urge to grab his arm. Without Merlin, I would never learn the extent of my fairy powers, nor how to control them.

  “I’ll be back,” he promised. “And don’t worry—the key to unlocking your powers li
es with you, not with me. Whether I’m here to guide you or not, you will follow the same path. This is the way of all of the fairies before you, and every one after you. It is your destiny.”

  I sighed and sat back against the bench, my feet rising a foot off the ground in the process. The word destiny didn’t exactly have the same ring to it now that I knew I could influence it.

  “Trust me.” He waved his hand, and an apple fell from its stem and floated down from the tree. “Just remember that people are this apple, and you are the wind. When the apple is ready to be picked, you can blow it off the stem, but when the apple is green, forcing it off can have sour consequences.”

  “I know, I know. Follow my fairy instincts, and remember that everyone still has free will. I get it.”

  Merlin patted my head. “I’ll be back before you know it, little one. And while I’m gone, I have a task for you. Something very important to Draman, and to the world.”

  Now he had my attention.

  “In two years, the princesses will have a child. Before the clock strikes midnight on its first day, you must visit it alone. Make sure you are not followed, nor spotted. Whatever happens, do not tell Nimue or Sara Lee of your plans.”

  “But why not? Aren’t they trustworthy?”

  “Of course they are. But great things are meant for their child, things that will be dangerous and maybe even life-threatening. No mother would willingly choose that life for a baby, especially after all that they’ve been through.”

  I didn’t understand, but I pretended that I did. In truth, I had always been afraid of babies, specifically of their fragility, and unlike other children my age, I never demanded to be trusted with holding one.

  “So what do I do when I visit the baby before midnight?” I asked as Merlin stood up.

  “That is something you must see for yourself when the time comes,” he responded. Leave it to Merlin to answer every question with an answer that just gave me a hundred more questions. “Now, it’s time to go home.”

  He patted me on the head once more, and then he was gone.

  Chapter THIRTY-TWO

  NIMUE

  TWO YEARS after our wedding, after first my mother passed away and then my father soon after her, I woke up in the morning feeling nauseated and stayed that way for the next week. Sick to my stomach and confined to my bed, I finally summoned the royal doctor to see if he could get to the bottom of what ailed me. I worried that many of my troubles echoed those of my mother before her illness took her life, and that perhaps the same thing was happening to me. Merlin had disappeared without even saying good-bye just a few weeks after our ceremony, so there would be no extra time if I did have Draman’s Curse.

  “Interesting,” the doctor repeated to himself over and over again as he checked my heart, eyes, nose, and throat. “Quite interesting,” he said again when I repeated my symptoms. And finally, he said, “Most interesting,” when he gave me a blood test and the results came back positive.

  “I’m happy to inform you that you’re pregnant, my queen,” he reported a few days later with the paperwork in hand. “You’ll need lots of bed rest over the next seven months.”

  “What?” I practically shouted as I hoisted myself up onto my pillow. “That’s impossible!”

  The doctor looked at the dent in the bed where Sara Lee usually lay and raised his eyebrows.

  “I mean, it’s not impossible, but… it’s… inconvenient.”

  “My queen, this is an occasion for celebration. However, it does seem that the future heir to the throne is quite strong, and the baby is sapping your energy. I advise that you do not change forms during the coming months, as scientific research on the effects of dragon transition on children is inconclusive—”

  “Fine, fine. Now leave me.”

  I knew I sounded harsh, but I didn’t care. Sara Lee and I had planned a trip to return to the Cave of the Mother together so that I could meet the Mother for myself, and now I would be stuck in the royal chamber for months, followed by years of changing diapers and wiping spit from a slobbery little mouth. After I swore the doctor to secrecy, I waved him away, craving to be alone again, though all I had been for days was isolated.

  Skelly came to visit me soon after that, bringing books from the new royal library to read to me while I “recovered,” and the teenager did not take no for an answer. I marveled at how little the adventurous child had grown, still barely up to my waist if I had been standing, but Skelly seemed healthy enough nonetheless. They had taken quite a shine to Merlin, and his disappearance had affected them the most.

  “Now, what shall we read?” Skelly asked no one, since I had turned my back and was feigning sleep. “Perhaps the stories about Merlin? I know those are the queen’s favorites. Or the new book created by that same wizard about his mother, Allanah, and her adventures with Grian?”

  Since I would not speak, Skelly picked the latter. The child had a good reading voice for adventure tales, and despite my resolve to ignore the entertainment, I found myself rapt. Plus, the book was written through Allanah’s eyes, and I missed her. If only Merlin could have sent us back in time again… I could have told her all about our wedding and the baby, and asked for her advice. The one problem with being a social trailblazer was that there was no one to ask for guidance.

  “I opened my eyes, still marveling at the weight, and cracked my Egg against the side of the bowl,” Skelly read. “As I poured its contents out, my mouth dropped open and I stared, aghast, at what my Egg had produced. A whisper went through the crowd, and I heard a lot of people saying the name I hoped never to hear again after all of this was over: King Roland. Staring up at me from the middle of the pillow was what I’d first mistaken for a baby chick: a tiny yellow dragon.”

  When Skelly reached this part of the story, my belly glowed a warm yellow light like a spaceship’s beam. I tried to cover the emission with blankets, but when I looked back at the child, I knew Skelly had figured out the truth.

  “Well… that was weird,” Skelly said. “My queen… are you pregnant?”

  “No,” I lied. Skelly’s eyebrows rose. “Okay, fine. Yes, I’m pregnant. No, Sara Lee doesn’t know. Yes, I’m going to tell her. I just haven’t figured out the right way to do it yet.”

  “And the glowing? Has that been happening a lot lately?”

  “Never.”

  Skelly thought for a minute. “Maybe the baby recognized the word dragon?”

  “At this point in my life, I’d believe anything was possible,” I muttered, then turned to the wall for real this time. Skelly crept out of the room, leaving behind the book, and once I knew the halls were empty I sat back up and continued reading the story of Allanah and her days in the Mansion. Sure enough, my belly pulsed and glowed with every word.

  EVENTUALLY, I had to tell Sara Lee. Not just because she deserved to know that she would soon be a mother, but because the glowing in my belly wouldn’t stop. Certain factors seemed to set the glowing off, like any stories about Allanah or Merlin. Also the words dragon, Excalibur, and battle. Luckily I had always spent most of my time in my room, so now that I had confined myself to it, no one noticed the difference.

  As soon as Sara Lee returned from a visit to Mayor Nemo, I did something uncharacteristic and threw her a banquet. Normally I skipped all public celebrations, even on my birthday, but I knew that Sara Lee loved bringing the people together for a meal. On the menu was a rare salad grown in the royal garden for special occasions, freshly caught fish from a distant lake, and s’mores—though I could only stare longingly at my plate as I fought off fits of nausea.

  “Thank you for doing all of this for me,” Sara Lee whispered.

  “It’s nothing. You’re the one who should be thanked, considering you just spent the past week visiting government officials and listening to complaints.”

  Sara Lee shrugged. “I enjoy it.”

  “I know. That’s the amazing part.”

  During the salmon entrée, my wife finally not
iced the empty chair placed directly across the table from her. Unlike most of the chairs around the dining room table, this chair was the perfect size for a small child and barely reached the table’s edge. I had asked the best artisan in town to craft it from the wood of an apple tree, and he had sketched small apples along the border of the headrest.

  “Are we expecting a very tiny guest?” she asked.

  “Not yet, but they’ll be here soon enough.”

  I patted my belly, and Sara Lee’s eyes went wide. Her fork clattered to the floor, and she made no move to retrieve it.

  “You can’t mean… you’re not… is this true?”

  “It’s true. That mysterious illness I’ve been suffering from? Apparently, it’s pregnancy. If you read the words on the back of the rocking chair, they say We will never stop caring for you as long as we live.”

  Sara Lee emitted a loud whoop, and the whole table turned to stare at what had upset the queen. I signaled to our kitchen staff, who brought out a cake decorated with a child-sized crown, and everyone cheered at the sight of the Dramanian tradition: when a new royal was to be born, the queen always presented the king with a small crown that he would later present to their child on their first birthday.

  “Don’t worry, little one,” Sara Lee whispered to the chair when no one else was listening. “We’re going to love you so very much. And about your bedtime stories: we’ve got enough to last you a lifetime.”

  With Sara Lee’s hand in mine, I finally exhaled the breath I had not known I was holding. Everything was going to be okay. In fact, it would be more than okay—it would be happily ever after.

  “Oh,” I said, remembering one last detail I’d forgotten to mention. “One more thing. For some unknown reason, our baby glows.”

  Chapter THIRTY-THREE

  SKELLY