Page 34 of Dragon Heir

“Come, open your eyes and look around you.” She motions to the white dragon, which I had forgotten. If that’s even possible. It bends down, its legs tensing before it launches itself into the air, and I fight back a shriek as it swoops off into the darkness above. Seconds later, light appears in one direction, and I can see a long, rough-hewn tunnel. The queen steps into it, and I follow her. At a bend, we step onto a stone staircase, only to feel it buck under our feet. I cry out in surprise, reaching for the walls, but they have fallen away as the stair rises. Seconds later, the stairs flatten, becoming marble tiles in the floor of a large, round room.

Colorful light cascades down from slabs of clear, dragonstone windows set into a ceiling dome. Moonlight streams through them onto a throne made of shimmering, iridescent, translucent white stone. An even bigger, dark gold dragon waits there, lazing on the floor just before the throne. It opens one eye at us, and the queen runs her hand over the top of its head, where a horned protrusion juts out.

“Is this… Is this the dragon palace?”

I know I sound like an idiot, but the only place I’ve been aside from my village is the academy and that one night on the roof with Pax in the next town over. Since dragons were hunted and persecuted for various reasons, the queen hasn’t been seen in centuries. There have been rumors since I was a kid that she didn’t exist, that she was long since dead. So knowing I’m in the dragon palace has me in awe, even if I’m clueless as to why I’m here.

Apparently I’ve teleported to a hidden and heavily guarded palace without having passed so much as a single guard, and that’s the only location I need to know.

“Welcome home,” the queen says with a smile as her hand runs tenderly over the tarnished gold dragon’s head.

I step back, shaking all over. It’s too much. “I’m sorry, your highness, but I feel like you might be mistaking me for someone else. This isn’t my home.”

“It will be home from now on,” she says, never missing a beat as she pets the massive, scaly beast. “I hope your short time at the academy has taught you the traditions of our family, though I’m sorry it was cut short tonight. Did Sinetar teach you all you needed to know about our court?”

I want to laugh. Professor Sinetar offered to teach me how to get punished over his desk, but he didn’t teach me much about the dragon court. He encouraged us to study whichever artifacts and histories we wanted. Professor Mitchel was a little more strict, but it was clearly too little, too late. Between lusting after my professor and skipping classes to hang out with my sister, I’ve been less than an ideal student.

“Allowing you to attend may have been a mistake. Sinetar believes someone there betrayed you to the enemy.” She sighs and steps up the pedestal, taking a seat on the throne. “I’d hoped that your disguise would have lasted long enough for you to get the education you worked so hard for, but fate intervened, and now I need you here with me.”

“Your enemy?” I look down at my body, my torn dress, the gems covering my skin. “There was a guy who’d been following me around and he grabbed me. He tried to kidnap me, said he was taking me to the one true king.”

“Dragons are naturally matriarchal. It is in our genetics. It is essential to our survival.” She sighs and leans back, looking wearied. “The Sun King does not agree. He grew powerful in the Sun Kingdom while I was in hiding, and yet, he knew that I was the true queen of all dragons. He could not bear the thought that he was not the most powerful in the world.”

I nod, unsure if she wants an answer.

“He attacked the palace where I was staying in an attempt to destroy my eggs. Between him and the hunters endangering our kind, I was forced to hide my heirs throughout the lands for safekeeping, my offspring left to the care of strangers and raised as humans, lest they draw his attention. I’m sure you’ve heard tell of the moon dragon, now extinct. I was never able to find a moon dragon mate, so no heir to their kingdom remains. Soon, they will be forgotten, nothing but a legend told to hatchlings as a cautionary tale.”

I remember the lesson about moon dragons Sinetar taught, though it wasn’t my favorite, since it didn’t seem to affect the world of today. I was more interested in learning that some humans and other supernaturals hate the queen, accuse her of hoarding riches while so much of the world suffers in poverty.

I approach the queen, but the tawny dragon raises its head to stare at me, and I stop. “I still don’t understand why I’m here. Whatever you want, you’ve got the wrong person. I’m a human.”

“No, child,” she says. “You are a dragon. You will soon take your dragon form for the first time.”

A hysterical laugh bursts from my lips. “What kind of joke is this? I’m obviously human. Look at me. I must have hit my head and I’m hallucinating.”

“I assure you, this is all quite real,” she says, a sympathetic smile on her wrinkled lips. With a snap of her fingers, the pure white dragon races across the floor, stops at her side, and turns to me. In one smooth, swift motion, it sweeps up into human form. A very familiar, human form.

“True,” I whisper, stumbling back in shock.

“My time as queen has reached an end, my daughter,” the queen says, snapping my attention back to her. “Your time has come.”

Chapter Thirteen

The world sways beneath my feet. My vision blurs and the floor tilts under me, my knees giving way. As I begin to crumple like a discarded page from a book, True steps forward and scoops me into his arms. The world swims out and back in, and then out again.

When I open my eyes, it feels like only seconds have passed, but I’m no longer in True’s arms, and there’s no sign of the queen or throne.

“You’re awake,” says a blessedly familiar voice. Pax sinks onto the edge of the bed and smiles down at me. For a second, I’m so relieved I could cry. It was all a dream, and I’m back home in the creaky old house I rented to share with my best friend.

Pax strokes my hair back from my forehead, and I can’t help but return his smile. His sea-green eyes crinkle at the corners, his sun-kissed hair and skin glowing with a faint sheen. It must be the dampness in the room.

The dampness?

My gaze flies to the walls, to the bed and the unfamiliar room. Not a room in our house. The bed is unbelievably soft, covered in blankets made of a slippery silky material. The walls are some kind of smooth, polished stone that emits a faint, swirling glow, just enough to illuminate Pax’s familiar form, and the fact that he’s the only other person in the room with me. But the room is underground, which means… It wasn’t a dream.

“Pax,” I gasp, sitting up. “Why are you here? Did you fall through that trapdoor with me?”

Pax smiles, but he looks different somehow. Calm and peaceful, not joking or avoiding gazing into my eyes for too long. “I came with you to the Ice Palace, yes.”