The Dragon King (12 page)

Aaron

Sophia was a ninety pound swan. She’d shifted into her animal form with no change in mass from her human form, and the mythologies around swans who could do this were legendary. In fact, I’d always assumed they were just that — legend with no basis in truth.

I wasn’t the only one who’d heard the legends, though, and I watched in awe as three swans landed, went to human form, and dropped to their knees saying, “Queen Sophia.”

A mountain lion stepped from the woods, shifted to human, and went to his knees as well, saying, “Queen Sophia. It’s an honor to kneel before you.”

The Eagle King screamed, “Noooooo!” and stepped forward with a knife in his hands, poised to sink it into my beautiful Sophia.

My instincts took over and I shot my wing forward and brushed him off the top of the shiny white quartz boulder before the knife touched my beloved. He turned to eagle and flew to keep from falling.

I sucked in the energy from my mountain and felt it pulling power from everyone standing on the white quartz. Raul’s eyes grew wide as he looked at me, and he said, “This is between my daughter and me, Dragon. I’d heard the rumors this is what you are, and I’m sure you have powers unheard of to the modern world, but this is a family matter and you’d be best to step back and let us deal with it.”

“She’s my mate, old friend.”

He looked to Sophia, the question of her virginity in his eyes. She was still a huge swan, unable to speak, and I wasn’t sure if she had the energy to
change
to human. I touched her, fed her more than enough to do so if she chose, and she did.

She was naked but didn’t try to hide her body. Sophia stood tall and regal as she said, “I’m still a virgin, Father, but only so I could officially break up with Cyrano before I…”

She trailed off, realized she had, and lifted her chin. “If you’ll leave me be, My King, and allow me my own life, my own choices, then I’ll leave you alone. If you force my hand then I’ll take the crown from you, Father. The choice is yours.”

We’d discussed her riding off on my back, holding on while I carried her to safety, but she stepped away and jumped into the air as she shifted into dragon form. She was obviously shaky, but managed to make a circle of the mountain before she headed into the distance. I flew to her, close enough we could talk, but waited until we were several miles away before I said, “The sun will begin lightening the sky within the hour, and we don’t have enough time to get back to Chattanooga. Follow me. I know a place we can talk.”

I flew us to Silver Run Falls and turned to human as I landed. She did the same, and I fed her more energy.

I watched goose bumps rise on her skin, saw her breathe in the energy, her eyes on the falls.

“How can you keep giving me more and not drain yourself?” she asked

“I fed off the mountain,” I told her, “and my mountain drained everyone who was standing on the quartz, and gave me their energy. I’ve developed a huge reservoir and can hold a lot of energy in reserve, Soph, and you haven’t. We’ll work on that, but not today.”

She nodded, her eyes still on the falls, and I marveled that she wasn’t hiding from me as we stood together, naked. Two weeks ago she’d have run into the woods. I could tell she was aware of her nudity but was refusing to let it affect our conversation.

Still looking towards the crashing water, her eyes likely focusing to see the doorway into Faerie, she said, “You lost safe passage when you harbored me from my father.”

“Yes. If we enter the Summerlands in a place you’ve never been, can you teleport us to the Temple of Hecate? A doorway not too far from the temple comes out a few miles from my house.”

“Will I keep your energy when we pass into The Summerlands? Yours will be stripped, but since you gave me mine, will it be stripped as well?”

Damn, I was hoping she wouldn’t go there. I put my hands on her shoulders, pushed a little more energy into her, careful not to hurt her with it. “I’m gifting this energy to you. Take it, make it yours, Soph. If you own it and believe it to be yours, you’ll keep it.”

She nodded and stepped away from me. “I need a few minutes to sit on that boulder, let the spray hit me. I’ll pull in some more of my own energy, mix it all together until it feels like me and not you. Okay?”

I nodded and watched her rock-hop her way to the huge boulder. We needed to hurry, but she needed to hold onto the energy or we’d be sunk.

I watched her as she sat and closed her eyes. At four feet eleven inches and barely ninety pounds, with her snowy white hair she truly looked a fairy princess.

And, in truth, that’s exactly what she was. A fairy princess who, by Fae Law, had been kidnapped from her father, and I was the criminal. The fact she’d run away didn’t matter, the moment I helped her stay away from her father, Fae Law considered me her kidnapper because I was enabling her to stay away from her rightful protector and owner.

I’d been given passage into the Summerlands several millennia ago and had enjoyed my time there. Now? For the first time in thousands of years I was walking into a situation I wasn’t sure I could get myself out of. I was totally dependent on Sophia to get us out, but I believed in her strength and her cunning.

This wasn’t our only option, but was the easiest way to get home today. Still, I considered the option of stealing a motorcycle and riding back as humans. If we stuck to the main roads, her father’s options would be limited, though there was the danger he’d send an animal to collide with the bike and wreck us. A stolen car would be less dangerous as far as animals, but more dangerous when it came to the police. We were in the middle of nowhere, so renting a car wasn’t an option, unfortunately.

When Sophia stood and looked at me, I walked to her and told her our options, ending with, “If you believe you can get both of us through, then — because I believe in you — I’ll follow you and will trust you’ll get us out the other side.”

“It should just be a matter of teleporting near the temple and then walking to the doorway. If we’re fast, we can be in and out before anyone notices, right?”

“This is The Summerlands, Soph. The land will know I’m there and I don’t know how it will react to me. It will have to drain me, but whether it hinders, helps, or stays neutral beyond taking my power?” I shrugged. “No way to know.”

She nodded and said, “It’s important we begin talking to people, explaining our side of things. The sooner we get to your house, the sooner we can begin recruiting allies.”

I nodded and looked at my own nudity instead of hers. “As you go through, use the water molecules combined with the fabric separating this world with Faerie to weave clothes onto you.”

“That’ll work?” she asked.

I smiled, “Yes. Keep a vision of how you want them to look, and use the materials Faerie allows you to have. You’ll be naked again when we leave, but you’ll be clothed while in The Summerlands, at least.”

She nodded and I accepted her hand, looked around, took a deep breath to smell the area for humans, and then followed her into the falls when I was sure we were alone.

My power was drained from me the instant my right foot touched Summerland ground.

Sophia took a breath, wrapped her arms around me, and the landscape morphed, dizzying me until I could ground myself to our new surroundings. I reached for her hand and started walking. “How much energy did it take to teleport us? If it was less than a quarter we can get away with you teleporting us from hilltop to hilltop, where you can see the destination, otherwise we’ll need to walk most of the two miles.”

“About fifteen or twenty percent?”

I nodded and headed for a hilltop. If I did this right we could do it in two jumps, with less than a quarter mile of walking. Maybe.

When we reached the top, I pointed to the next hilltop. “Can you get us there? See the tower? The edge of the meadow, near the woods, would be good.”

She nodded, wrapped her arms around me, but nothing happened.

I looked again and saw the crossroads glowing between us and the hilltop. The Summerlands were going to make us go through them, which meant the land was choosing to throw obstacles in our way. I refrained from cursing, both for Sophia’s benefit as well as the land.

“We’re going to have to go through the crossroads, Soph. Don’t know if it’ll be your decision or mine, but we’ll need to make the decision and move on as fast as we can. Whatever it is, it’ll likely be engineered to waylay us long enough for someone to arrive and attempt to take me prisoner.”

As we neared the intersection of two dirt paths I saw Angelique pacing as I heard Sophia’s indrawn breath.

“It’s my mom. I don’t remember her, but I’ve seen pictures.”

“So, likely your decision, then.”

She nodded and we slowed as we reached the intersection.

“My beautiful Sophia. What have you done?” her mother asked, clearly distressed.

“Taken my life into my own hands, mother. I don’t want to be a pawn. As the Princess, I’m fully aware my life can never be entirely my own, but it can be more mine than father was allowing.”

“Your father is a good man, Sophia Victoria Angelique Siyanko, and you shall go back to him.”

Thankfully, her name had changed, and the power her mother put into the name had no bearing on Sophia, who smiled at her mother and said, “I believe he’s made the decisions he feels are best for our people, but I won’t debate whether he’s good or not, mother. I hope we get the chance to talk later, when I have the time, but for now I need to know my choices so I can take the path that correlates to my decision.”

“The path before you means change for the Swans, change our people can never come back from, and things will never again be the same. The path to your left will take you home to the day before you left, so you can choose to remain at home and marry as you were supposed to. The path to the right will remove you from the equation entirely, so your father can continue to rule and one of your male cousins will be able to take the throne.”

Sophia looked at me, then back to her mother. “I believe change is good, in this instance, so I’m going to continue on the path I’ve already been taking.”

Her mother nodded and we walked on without looking back. I was so proud of Sophia for not getting bogged down with the details. It’s possible the specter was Sophia’s mother, but more likely an image created by The Summerlands. Sophia had chosen to remain on her path without deviating, and without spending four hours talking to her dead mother. She was truly fit to be Queen, and I’d make sure I told her this when we had time for the conversation.

As we walked up the forested ridge, a centaur came at us from the left and a unicorn from the right. What Sophia didn’t know was that this particular centaur wanted me dead.

“Kyrus,” I said to him as I came to a stop.

“I’ve always known you were disgraceful and wicked,” he said with a sneer. “You’ve finally broken the law in a way you can’t worm your way out of, not even by fucking every Royal female in the land, and a few of the male Royals, if the rumors are true.”

Okay, so yeah, I’d bedded pretty much every queen and princess in Faerie at some point in time, and a few dukes and duchesses while I was at it, but I’d had thousands of years to work my way around to them all. And yes, I’d gone through various periods of breaking the rules simply because I could, and I’d gotten away with it when Kyrus had gotten in trouble. I needed to get us past him, though, and out of Faerie as quickly as possible.

“What do you want, Kyrus?”

“Your head on a stick, but if I can’t have that then I’ll do with seeing you rot in the dungeon.”

I shook my head. “We’re going to pass. If you try to stop us I’ll fight you.”

I looked to Sophia. “Stay on my right and two steps back, and if I’m waylaid then go around and wait for me a dozen or so steps away. Otherwise, stay clear of the fighting however you can.”

We walked forward, and when Kyrus blocked me I drew my sword, Durendal. It stayed with me always, though while not being used it was in another dimension while simultaneously on my body, so it couldn’t be seen or felt unless I pulled it.

I brandished it towards Kyrus and he took a step back, his eyes large as he protested, “You aren’t supposed to have any powers!”

“I don’t, and I’ll still kick your arse. The only reason I’ve let you live after the disrespect you’ve shown me is because I knew and respected your ancestor, and I can see some of his intelligence in your eyes. There are so few centaurs left and I hate to wipe out what may be the only hope for your species, but you are trying my patience, Kyrus.”

He thought I couldn’t draw my sword without powers, and I wasn’t going to explain it was a matter of understanding how to draw it, not a matter of having powers. The more mystery I could keep surrounding where my sword stayed when not in use, the better.

I cut his chest a few times as I pushed him back and away, and when he went up to his back legs to try to hurt me with his hooves, I sliced into his stomach enough to bleed him.

I’d seen Solnara coming from the other direction. Unlike centaurs, unicorns have magical powers, and my winning against Solnara wasn’t as sure of a thing as my defeating Kyrus. However, I didn’t know her purpose for being there and chose to mostly ignore her for the time being. If she were having a tryst with Kyrus then she may have just been with him when he came after me. If they were serious though, she’d likely attack.

As she came closer, Sophia stepped in front of her and said, “You can’t come near me if you intend us harm, and I
will
protect him with my life, if necessary.”

I wanted to tell Sophia not to join the fight, but was too busy parrying with Kyrus to get involved in their conversation. Finally, I managed to injure Kyrus enough he wouldn’t be eager to chase us, and ran to Sophia — still in a standoff with Solnara — and asked, “Can you give us two quick jumps?”

She nodded and I said, “Top of this hill, then I’ll point out a landmark about two thirds of the way up the facing mountain so you can jump us again right away.”