Princess Ahira (37 page)

“I don’t know! My cousin was always more of the researcher! I prefer experimenting!” Azmaveth laughed, before choking on, I suspect, his own blood.

“Azmaveth,” I warned.

“Putting that aside, Ahira, there’s something I-I have to—,” He broke off, choking again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m not sorry I love you, but I’m sorry for causing you su-such pain.”

“Apologize to me later,” I soothed as the Grand Master rattled on and on about world domination.

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to,” Azmaveth said, laughing a little.

“Yes, you will,” I countered.

“Ahira, I’m dying.”

“No,” I stubbornly wiping away the tears in my eyes. “We’ll get you off the field. Someone
will be able to heal you.”

“It’s too late, Ahira,” Azmaveth gently said before coughing.

“No! I love you,” I said. The words were much louder than I meant for them to be. (Truthfully speaking, I didn’t even mean to let them escape from my mouth.) Everyone in our area heard it, Grand Master included.

“Aww how cute, they’re confessing their undying love together,” the Grand Master cruelly laughed.

I hopped off Azmaveth’s head and walk in her direction.

“Ahira, Ahira stop!” Azmaveth wheezed.

I was too busy trying to remember how I broke Tuggles curse to notice. Only the Guardian Charms could have broken that pony’s curse. If I could do it once, I could do it again.

“Curse STOP!” I shouted, pointing in the Grand Master’s direction.

Nothing happened.

“Curse BREAK!” I tried.

Everyone stared at me.

The Grand Master erupted into giggles. “She’s finally lost it!”

“Break curse?” I continued.

“It amuses me to see that one of the dukes fell for such a dingbat,” a valkyrie laughed.

Apparently my love life had become the stuff of enemy gossip. “BREAKER!” I tried.

Nothing.

My mind whirled as I thought of the possibilities. I didn’t have to say anything when I broke Tuggles’ curse, which was weird. Generally with dragon magic you had a keyword or two to start it up.

There was an explosion behind me, but I ignored it and kept trying. “Crush the curse! Curse Crusher! Freeze! Halt, crack, disband?”

The Grand Master covered the distance between the two of us and grabbed my arm. “Shut up, girl.”

“Shut up,” I mimicked, kicking her in the shins, quite possibly the only place that wasn’t covered in armor. “Break, break, BREAK!” I shouted, thinking perhaps I had to want it enough.

Then again, I didn’t even know what curse I was trying to break. All I knew is that Shammah and the other dragons had mentioned how the valkyrie had the power to cast curses which the dragons had no defense against.
I remembered it was somehow tied to their voices, but I didn’t know how that knowledge would help.

“You little witch!” the valkyrie shrieked, rattling me with one arm while she reached for a dagger with her other.

I was ripped out of
her clutches by human hands.

I whipped around to stare at a human Azmaveth with wide eyes.

He looked terrible.

His hair was disheveled, he was bleeding all over, and a black eye was clearly forming. His clothes were torn and dirty. He looked more like a peasant who had gotten in a drunken knife brawl than a duke, but to my love addled eyes he was the most wonderful thing on the face of the planet.

“Ahira,” he said, leaning on me.

“Huh?”

He abruptly tipped and sloppily kissed me. I
can’t say it was a fairy
tale wonder. He was half dead and I was desperate. But when he finally pulled back very little was on my brain.

“Holy freak,” I said in a way that was very unbecoming and not at all princess-like.

Azmaveth managed a grin. “Gotcha. That’s the third time now.”

I stared at him before exploding. “I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT ALL ALONG! YOU SNEAKY LITTLE JERK KISSED ME THAT TIME WITH THE APPLES AND THE DWARVES WHEN I FELL ASLEEP!”

The
plateau
literally exploded in light after when I finished my tirade. Wind blew across the surface, creating giant dust clouds, pelting everyone with dirt and pebbles.

After one minute the clouds and wind instantly evaporated, dropping dust everywhere.

Everyone coughed and shook themselves off.

The Grand Master hacked as she stumbled towards Azmaveth and myself. She brandish
ed
a finger in the air and opened her mouth to speak. Nothing came out. She looked shocked and tried to talk again. Still nothing.

Around her
all
of the valkyrie
found themselves unable to speak a single word.

The Grand Master clutched her throat and stared, with dread, at the dragon’s and their toothy smiles.

“What was that about taking over Tsol again… hmm?” Zerah smartly asked, standing up with help from fellow dragons.

Azmaveth sat on the ground, completely exhausted and sapped. Somehow he managed to rally enough strength to shout “Push our army back to the forest and guard Tsol. The second
we have our rearguard in place
take to the skies and rain magic down on them. They don’t stand a chance anymore.”

The dragons and their al
lies cheered while the valkyrie
released silent screamed.

I blinked twice and unexpectedly blacked out.

Happily Ever After

I woke up a few hours later
and opened my eyes to find myself nose to nose with human Azmaveth
. “She’s awake,” h
e announced before smiling
and pulling away.

I blushed and shyly smiled until a giant dragon head filled my vision
.
It was t
he
Dragon K
ing.

The King wryly smiled.
“
How strange. One day I find you in my courts, facing a possible death sentence, and only a short time later I find myself utt
erly in your debt
and grateful that you love my stupid cousin. Princess
Ahira, I must thank you on behalf of the dragons.” 

“Wh-what?” I stuttered.

His smile turned gentle as
I went pale. “You,
Ahira, saved us.” 

“Uh-huh?”
I
said. My mind was
more than a little fuzzy
.

“
The Guardian Cha
r
m
s,” the K
ing said, glancing at my wrist. “You got them to work.”

“How?” I
asked.

The King laughed.
“
Sheer, dumb luck.”

“
Please
, I had it all planned. Maybe,” Azmaveth snorted
.  “
The bracelet, we
think
allows its user to use their own emotions to crack and break curses. The stronger the curse, the stronger the emotion needs to be. The Keeper, or Tuggles, has been cursed for decades. His curse has been weakened through the ages, all he needed was a quick outburst of emotions. The valkyire use their voices to cast curses. It wouldn’t be unfounded to say that their voices
are
a curse. There were so many
of them at the battlefield, and they were so strong that you
really
needed a powerful emotion to counter that.”

“So you ticked me off on purpose,” I
blinked
.

“Well, I would like to think it was a combination of your love for me and perhaps a little bit of your anger,” Azmaveth said with a winning smile.

“You said you didn’t know how the bracelet worked,” I accused, slowly sitting up.

“He didn’t,” the King dryly said. “He went on a hunch.
Speaking of responsibility,
Azmaveth, if this is how you treat the treasures I give you, you aren’t exactly encouraging me to give you more.”

“Oh please! When you gave it to me it was a tarnished trinket. At least I made it look better,” Azmaveth said, swatting a hand through the air.

I leaned back on my hands. “Let me guess, the Dragon King is that cousin you always played with when you were younger?”

“Yep. He’s my favorite cousin,” Azmaveth nodded.

“I’m you’re
only
cousin you nitwit,” the King insulted.

“Which is the only possible way you could be my favorite. If Zerah was related to me I would chose
him
over
you
.”

“What?”

“You sent me to the FRONT LINES! What do you expect?”

“Oh that’s it. No magical boon for you!” the King hissed.

“Like I care!” Azmaveth snarled in the face of his much bigger relative.

The King sniffed, elegantly twitching his tale. “And to think. I was going to give you Haven, that dreadful island the valkyrie used to live on, to rule with Ahira.”

“Cooouussiinn!” Azmaveth sang, throwing his arms open wide while cheerfully smiling.

“Oh no. Sucking up will get you nowhere this time,” the King said, shaking his beautiful head.

“Azmaveth,” I thoughtfully started. “Why are you still human?” As funny as it was to watch a human and dragon argue like siblings, I was curious.

Azmaveth turned to face me

“Right… hah-hah, about that.”

“When he kissed the bajeebies out of you he decided he was going to become a human, permanently,” the King extolled, tattling with the eagerness of a four-year-old.

“You didn’t,” I said, staring at Azmaveth.

“Oh I did! Because I’m
a wonderful scientist I was able to create a permanent potion last week!” Azmaveth laughed. “Now we can be together forever!”

“AZMAVETH!”

“I love you too
, cupcake!”

             
In the end the King gave the
i
sland
of
Haven
to Azmaveth and I as our wedding gift. Haven is a beautiful land that is now filled to the brim with magical creatures and humans alike. It’s almost like a mixing ground of
Somnio
and Tsol.

             
Azmaveth had a large castle built there, which we live in. Tuggles came with us, along with a few dragons.

             
Zerah drops by frequently. He’s the self styled ambassador from Tsol to Haven. He still occasionally turns into a human when it suits his
mood, usually only when there are
parties and he can purposely tick Azmaveth off by sweeping me around in a dance.

Behemoth is as obsessive compulsive as ever. I enjoy having him stay with us at the castle occasionally. Whenever he leaves our grounds are sparkling clean. He managed to dump Cinders off in an abandoned castle after feeding her a sleeping potion. Together he and Zerah spread rumors about a “sleeping beauty”. If any of us ever need a laugh we swap stories about the horrified princes who ride and battle their way to Cinder’s room, only to discover that she isn’t sleeping, nor is she a beauty.

I soon suspect that Blacksford and Rose will be getting married. Rose and I have managed to patch things up between us, and she recently confessed that she finds Blacksford
’s
wild temperament delightful compared to Azmaveth’s odd eccentricities.

Caspian is officially King of
Ardeo
. Azmaveth and I attended his crowning ceremony, and in turn he attended ours.

My father is still alive, but he very gratefully turned over his kingship to his son. Instead he travels the sea in his private ship. He visits us often, usually Mother comes with him.

Jezbell has thankfully stayed away from me. I have not seen her since the dinner incident, which is probably just as well. Maybe one day I’ll mature enough so I can face her without wanting to scream, but I fear that day may be a long ways off.

I’m not exactly sure what happened to Aaron, but I do know he’s alive. Azmaveth alluded to perhaps
forcibly
marrying him to Cinders. Zerah told me several weeks ago he’s still under the custody of the Dragon King.

And Azmaveth and I?

We just finished celebrating my
twentieth
birthday. We don’t have any children yet. Honestly I’m not sure the world is ready for little Azmaveths to be running around in it, bu
t Tuggles is trying to persuade
me otherwi
se. When we finally have a brat
he will be its faithful honor guard.

Life is pleasant. We still have the occasional outburst of renegades left over from the battle. Haven is generally peaceful, filled with unicorns, griffins, fairies and more.