Sure enough, a finished pie sat cooling on the counter, while the smell of the berries, tart and semisweet at the same time, wafted through the room. After checking the pantry to make sure a cook wouldn’t find me pilfering, I used the sterling silver pie cutter with my mothers’ initials engraved on either side to cut myself a large piece. As I balanced the bottom of the crust on the knife, pie filling oozed out the sides and threatened to dump onto the spotless kitchen floor, I realized I didn’t know where Cook kept the plates.
Two berries slid from their crust casing and splatted on the slate slab below.
“Prince Grian!” Skelly, who must have heard me wandering past their door, clapped, and a plate appeared on the counter next to me. “Do you want to give the cooks a heart attack? Spills are like national catastrophes to those ladies.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought….”
“You’d have a piece of pie like your mom?”
“Yes. How did you know about that?”
Skelly smiled. “They may be our queens, but they’re also like sisters to me. Why don’t you bring your pie into the royal dining chamber? Believe it or not, Nimue did the same thing about fifteen minutes ago, only she pulled one better and took a whole pie.”
Sure enough, Nimue sat at the head of the table in her favorite sleeping gown, a red velvet thing that had belonged to her mother back before she got sick and passed away. She spooned entire mouthfuls of Draman berries into her mouth and chewed them mindlessly, as though she could not even taste them on her palate.
“You okay, Mom?” I asked as I slid into my chair. Skelly took the seat next to me, leaving Sara Lee’s empty at the other end of the table.
“I’m fine,” she said, but her expression said otherwise. Plus, her long, blonde hair, usually so neatly combed by a maid at least a hundred times every night, had formed a tangled mess down the right side of her body, and she had dark circles under her eyes.
“You can tell me.” I took a bite of my pie, but it no longer tasted as sweet as I’d expected.
“I’m just worried.”
“About Sara Lee?”
“I know she’s always on some mission or another, but this one feels different. It feels… dangerous.”
For a long time, neither of us said anything. By the time Serio, the old captain and Sara Lee’s most trusted diplomacy advisor, entered the dining room, I had dozed off against the hard back of my antique chair.
“Your Majesties.” Serio struggled to move his hunched back into a low bow, and when he rose, he winced.
“What are you doing out of bed, old friend?” Nimue asked fondly.
“I fear I bring bad news.”
“She’s missing, isn’t she.” Nimue spoke this like a statement, not a question.
“Yes, Your Majesty. As you know, we’ve tried to contact the ship a hundred times, but the radio went silent yesterday afternoon and never came on again.”
Nimue’s spoon clattered to her pie dish and then cartwheeled off the edge onto the floor. No one moved to pick it up. What are they talking about? I wondered as I stared down at my own pie crust. Did Nimue already know about the disappearance, and that was why she’d seemed even more distant than usual?
“Five hours ago the tracker stopped sending signals as well. Either someone turned it off, or more likely, it was destroyed.”
“You’ve sent scouting parties to look for her?”
“Of course. The last marker was near the star Gravoria, so we started there and worked our way out.”
“And?”
Serio shook his head. “Not a piece of the ship remains in its last posted location. We used our latest metal detector technology, as well as sent dragons out into the—”
Nimue nodded as Serio droned on, but I could tell she had stopped listening. Her greatest fear had been realized—what more could she need to know?
I, on the other hand, launched into rapid questioning. Where was my mother headed? Who had she met with? What was the last communication?
“All standard procedures, my prince,” Serio explained. “Nothing out of the ordinary. We have two outposts in Bravo Galaxy, and your mother’s ship was supposed to deliver their supplies and return home. Simple point A to point B, if you know what I mean.”
I didn’t. The closest I ever got to diplomacy was attending the many balls thrown in our honor by the town mayors. I avoided everything else, not just because I was twelve, but because patience and the ability to compromise were not two of my strongest suits. Much like Nimue, I preferred to leave that whole business to Sara Lee and her crew of capable advisors. I would fight an adversary if I had to—and I would win, thanks to my mother’s training in the army barracks—but negotiate? Sit through long meetings where men moved game pieces around a table meant to represent our planet? Listen to hours of complaints from old farmers who seemed to have nothing better to do than request audiences with their queens?
Pass.
“Keep looking,” Nimue commanded, her request pulling me from my thoughts. “Send the whole army if you have to. She’s got to be out there somewhere, right?”
Serio did not answer.
More from Annabelle Jay
The Sun Dragon: Book One
Dragons once roamed the skies, as common as our modern-day airplanes but much more beautiful in their gliding, soaring thermal choreography. Until King Roland and his gold-greedy men defeated them.
Years later King Roland reveals that not only did he let the dragons live, but he turned them into humans so that they could enter the population and breed him an army. Allanah, a sophomore in high school, saves her know-it-all friend Victoria from exactly this fate with magical powers she never knew she had. Allanah’s first high school crush, Jason, reveals that he’s been sent by a secret society of wizards to bring Allanah and Victoria to the Council to have their magical abilities tested by The Egg. Everyone, including Allanah, is shocked by what she produces: the world’s first light dragon.
Allanah must save her best friend and all of the rest of the dragons from Roland’s evil plan, but when she meets the beautiful Dena, a member of the native forest-dwelling Igreefee camp, she must wrestle between her feelings for her new wizard crush, Cormac, and her attraction to Dena.
The Sun Dragon: Book Two
Half-human, half-dragon Mani hatched from an egg and was adopted by Allanah, a human woman who discovered him after the death of his dragon mother. He possesses abilities he’s only beginning to understand, and every night he takes the form of a blue dragon.
When Mani’s secret is revealed, he takes refuge at the wizard Mansion. There, he encounters the Animal Guard, a group of people who share his affliction. But the members of the Animal Guard are under a curse by the sorceresses, and they need Mani’s aid to break the spell and resume their human forms. Growing romantic feelings for the wolf-boy Lup convince Mani to offer his help, but Mani’s own developing powers might destroy any chance at a relationship. The world of magic is changing, and as Mani and his friends fight to stop the evil sorceresses from using the deadly North Star, they must figure out what places they will hold when the battle is over.
Readers love The Sun Dragon series by Annabelle Jay
The Sun Dragon
“Overall, I really enjoyed the book, I found it to be a unique idea with very colorful characters no matter how minor they may have been.”
—Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words
“…this is one of those types of books that I actually, and unexpectedly, loved.”
—Lexxi is Reading
Merlin’s Moon
“…this second adventure in the ‘Sun Dragon’ world is as exciting and fantastical as the first.”
—Rainbow Book Reviews
If there’s one thing author ANNABELLE JAY believes with all her heart, it’s that there is no such thing as too many dragons in a book. As fantasy writer with few other hobbies—does being bribed to run with her partner or dancing awkwardly in
the kitchen count?—she spends every day following her imagination wherever it leads her.
A hippie born in the wrong decade, Annabelle has a peace sign tattoo and a penchant for hugging trees. Occasionally she takes breaks from her novels to play with her pets: Jon Snow, the albino rabbit who is constantly trying to escape; Stevie, the crested gecko that climbs glass with the hairs on its toes; and Luigi, the green tree python that lives at the foot of her bed despite her best efforts to talk her partner out of the idea.
During her day job as a professor of English, Annabelle is often assumed to be a fellow student playing a prank on the class—that is, until she hands out the syllabus. When people stop mistaking her for a recent high school graduate, she will probably be very sad.
Website: www.annabellejayauthor.wordpress.com
E-mail: [email protected]
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By Annabelle Jay
THE SUN DRAGON
The Sun Dragon
Merlin’s Moon
Starsong
Published by HARMONY INK PRESS
www.harmonyinkpress.com
Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
[email protected] • harmonyinkpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Starsong
© 2017 Annabelle Jay.
Cover Art
© 2017 Stef Masciandaro.
http://www.stefmasc.com/
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or [email protected].
ISBN: 978-1-63533-246-9
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63533-247-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016914556
Published January 2017
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
Starsong Page 16