Page 29 of A Book of Royals and Deities

Page Sixteen—What have I done? Why are the dragons lost?

My mama’s laugh echoes loud enough for the entire apartment block to hear, and I turn to watch as my papa’s face lights up at the sound. Many people mistake my mama for my sister because she stopped aging only ten years older than what I am now, and my papa is the same. They both have dark hair the same shade as mine, but I often wish I inherited my papa’s gold eyes. They shine brightly as he watches mama continue to giggle at whatever joke he must have told her. When she calms, she smiles at him in a way that sometimes makes me feel jealous. Do I want that? Yes. The simple answer is yes. I’ve read a thousand romance books in the library, lost myself in the heat and passion of strangers on paper, but I just know it wouldn’t compare to something real. Someone real. Is that even possible for someone like me to have that? I’m not beautiful, notin the way my mother is, and I’m not funny like my father to make up for my too many curves.

Story sighs. “Five hundred years stuck in here, and they are still love-sick puppies. I really love coming to lunch with your parents.” She looks away and to me. “All the laughter reminds me of my mother and the meals we used to have. She believed laughter and unhealthy foods are key to happiness.”

“Maybe I’ll say the same to you in, like, fifty years about Ziven.” She blushes like a teenager in love.

I smile at her, bumping her shoulder with mine. “I’m happy for you. But in all seriousness, are you okay? We haven’t had much time alone to just talk.” She told me about everything, everything that’s happened, but usually there is a Moon Dynasty guard a few feet away or our dragons are waiting for us to fly. Learning to be a dragon rider has no doubt been the most rewarding part of my life, and I don’t ever want to stop riding through the skies. I know war is coming, I know the vampyres are going to come after us, but when I’m on my dragon, I feel invincible. For a girl who has always had every one of her weaknesses written across her body, I feel like I’m let out of my cage on my dragon when we are flying. I’m grateful to Story; if it wasn’t for her and the Moon Dynasty, I wouldn’t have had any instruction on how to ride. The Sun Dynasty is a mess, and our king…well, he is licking his wounds and not ruling like he should be.

“When I’m with Ziven, I am. I can see us having a future, but then I see someone from the Sun Dynasty, and it stings. I trusted him.” Daegan. She means him.

“That was the bond, not just your judgment, and you shouldn’t doubt yourself. Entwined mates are literally bonds between souls, a deep connection that cannot be felt by anyone but eachother. King Daegan made the choice to betray the deities’ wishes and you.” I rest my head on her shoulder, my long hair falling down her arm. She rests her head on top of mine. “There is a reason most fae here fear entwined mates as much as they desire to have one as their own. Entwined mates are power, and they are destructive with love.”

“You’re very poetic sometimes, Catherine. Maybe you should write a book about all of us.” She lifts her head. “Any chance we can escape before your parents ask me any more questions?”

I wince. They have asked her a lot. “I’m sorry, they?—”

“Don’t apologise. It’s not them, I’m just tired. My monthlies have been especially hard,” she whispers. “I need to rest.”

I wish I could magically heal her, make it better. I suspected she wasn’t feeling well this morning because she looked so pale, but she waved me off, and she is very good at pretending to be okay when she is not. I’m her best friend and I have to get better at seeing the signs. I watch her climb to her feet and go to hug my parents goodbye. I know the deities have a plan for us all, but what is mine? Why is hers so complicated? She has been through hell, and she told me everything that happened to her, from the professor to the evil prince who kept her captured. If anyone deserves an easy life, it’s her.

I always suspected the kings were her mates. I’ve read so many books on the history of entwined mates. Most are love stories, but also there were warnings of the most devastating tales too. It doesn’t always mean a happy ending just because they are mates. The impact on your life will always be gigantic when you find an entwined mate. You don’t walk away from them, and Daegan will regret what he has done. With how depressed he is seeming at the moment, maybe he already does.

After I say bye to my parents and promise to be back for dinner later, we leave the apartment. The corridor is surprisingly quiet, and I wonder if it has something to do with the Moon Dynasty twins standing by the doors waiting for Story. “Can you ever forgive Daegan?”

Her eyes sharpen. “I will never forgive him. Not ever for what he did, but I’ve decided I can’t be the one to kill him. I won’t let him die in front of me, but I won’t be the one to take his life, and neither will Ziven unless he comes for me. The deities put this bond here between us, but he ruined it. He ruined everything I ever felt for him.”

“Did you ever love him?” I genuinely question.

She shakes her head, her answer instant. “No. I loved Ziven, and he was all I saw. I claimed to everyone that I hated him and he was a monster, but my heart shouted another word. I should have listened to my instincts.”

“I’m sorry for all the questions. I live through you.” I tuck my hair behind my ears as we get to the twins. They open the doors as Story says hello and thanks them for waiting for her.

Her eyes sparkle with life. It’s one of the reasons she is my best friend, that sparkle that never dies even with the life she has been given. She finds the strength to continue, and I admire her for it. We stop at the conjunction of the apartments. “I think my mum would like your parents. Thank you for inviting me over. It helps me feel like there is a chance I’ll see my mother again.”

“I hope I get to meet her one day. Wherever she is.” My brow furrows. If her mother loved her so much, why didn’t she come after her? I guess I don’t think there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my child.

“I just want to see her again,” Story admits, tugging on her bottom lip with her teeth. “She did everything for me, you know. I look back, and I realise that literally everything she did, even with a broken heart, was for me. She kept going. If I lost Ziven…” She pauses, her voice thick with emotion. It’s like the thought of losing him can’t be something that crosses her mind. To love like that—it’s extraordinary. “I don’t know how I’d keep going and fighting forever. But she did, after losing my father. She just kept going even when she told me she loved him so much. She told me I looked like him, and yet she smiled at me every single day. The breeding camp was cruel to her, and she took many, many lovers to try for another child. I remember staying at my mothers’ friends and seeing how tired my mother was each morning. Sometimes there would be bruises all over her, too.”

She shakes her head and my stomach sinks at what I am forced to imagine. Story doesn’t speak about it, but I know she went through similar—if not worse.

“I want to thank her. Just once, I need her to know it wasn’t all for nothing. That I’m here and a dragon rider she can be proud of.”

“Story.” I wrap my arms around her. “I might not have met her, but I know she was proud of you regardless of if you have a dragon or not. Just for being you. For surviving.”

Her cheeks are wet with tears, and so are mine when we break away from each other. “Deities, I didn’t plan on crying today. I’m going to go to the library with Mazzis. He is teaching me a new card game today, and he has baked a cake for us to eat. Are you coming?”

“No, but it is tempting,” I chuckle. Mazzis knows more card games than anyone alive, I’d bet. He is also a brilliant cook. “I’mgoing to go out into the forest for my walk. I like to go out every day for at least half an hour just?—”

“To get out. Ziven goes flying once a day with me for the same thing,” she offers. I nod. I know that she will understand the theory at least. I’ve been trapped in here my entire life, so many years, and it felt like an endless existence until Story arrived. I don’t remember anything from when I was a child, only the after. The trap. The years all seem to have blurred into one endless mess. Yet, in all those years, I never called anyone my best friend. I’ve never had a lover, never had anyone to call mine. But I have my family and I have my best friend now. I consider myself extremely lucky for both.

She pulls me into a tight hug one more time. “Be careful out there. Do you want me to send a guard with you?”

“I’m okay and I like being alone with the forest,” I tell her. Being alone is rare and I cherish the time I get. It’s always quiet this time of day because the lunch is being given out at the front of the mansion, and the huge queues there take a while. The food will run out in a matter of weeks, and I don’t know what anyone can do about it. There are always a lot of fae out there in the forest and many guards walking around too, but I get the false sense of being alone, anyway. Daegan has left some guards doing rotations of the forest, but I doubt they are doing a good job when their king is slacking at everything else.

Leaving Story with her guards, I head out of the apartments and into a pathway that is pretty silent. I will see Story later when I go to work. I love my shifts in the library, the quiet, the stillness that I find there. After I take the side door out, the brisk cold air slams hard into me and the wind whistles. The clouds are grey and thick. A storm is coming. I head out through the tents and the crowds of fae who are eating in silence. Some smile at meand others don’t make eye contact. I’ve spoken to a few of them and heard their stories, enough of them that it makes me agree with what my parents have always said, that we were the lucky ones trapped in there.

So many of these fae are covered in bite marks. They are broken and trodden on like used and discarded dolls. I can see it in their eyes, whether they’re powerborn or lessborn. Disgusting titles, and I hope the kings get rid of them when this war is over. The powerborn have slight powers that don’t remotely compare to some of the powers I’ve seen in the mansion. They’re all slaves and I hate that for them. The few babies that cry are the only ones that have a chance of knowing a world that the vampyres don’t rule in. I saw how broken Story was when she first arrived, yet she ran with me into the Decidere.

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