Page 111 of The Dragon Queen

“Why are you here?”

“Because as much as I want to sit at my husband’s side, I must tend to my people first.” She looked me over. “Are you alright, Calista?”

“I’m fine.” I had a couple of cuts and bruises, but nothing serious. I’d fared a lot better than the elves who had fought on the ground against the dead. I’d felt like a coward on the back of Khazmuda while others suffered.

“Constantine told me what you did.” She looked me over, and for the first time, she didn’t look like a queen, but my aunt. “Your brilliance saved us all.”

A wave of love and affection washed over me, but I felt undeserving of it. “With all due respect, Talon saved us all.”

“But he would have died without your intervention. You didn’t just save the man you love—but all the people you love.” Her eyes flicked past me and steadied, taking in the sight from a distance. A soft smile settled on her lips, lighter than a whitecloud in a summer sky. “The king approaches…” She stepped away and returned to aiding her people.

I turned around and stilled, not expecting him to be just feet away from me. I gasped quietly at the sight of him, seeing a fortitude in his eyes, a strength in his expression that hadn’t been there before. He was my lover, my closest friend, my everything…but I forgot how to speak to him. The end of this journey was so heavy on my shoulders that I struggled to accept it, struggled to breathe like I was deep underwater. It was a blessing, a joyous occasion that I never thought would come to pass, and now I didn’t know how to appreciate it.

He continued to stare at me, his dark eyes locked on mine with a grip harder than any other, as if his fingers were clenched around my heart. He stared like that for a long time, until his hand slid into my wet hair, the rain still trickling down from the branches of the trees. “Marry me.”

Most of the forest was destroyed, a lot of the elves had died, and there was a cloud of melancholia throughout Riviana Star. But there was also peace. Evil had been vanquished, and now good endured.

Instead of spending our time locked away in my tree house, we served the people of Riviana Star. We carried the dead to their graves, we helped the wounded, we cleaned the debris from the forest floor. Stumps were torn out of the ground, and new trees were planted. The restoration would take decades, but at least the seeds were sewn.

My uncle was in the infirmary all that time, and with every passing day, he became stronger. His arm was in a sling because it was broken. He had a cut down his face from the tip of a blade, a cut that would heal into a permanent scar. But he’d survived another battle.

It was two weeks before the forest started to feel normal again, for the shock of the battle to pass.

Talon sat at the head of the table in the tree house, a cup of tea in front of him that he didn’t touch. Whenever I offered him tea, he always took it—but he never drank it. He looked out the window for a long time, minutes without blinking, his mind elsewhere. “I think it’s time.” His eyes flicked to mine. “Riviana Star will be in mourning longer than a human lifetime. The forest will always show scars of what happened here. Every race lost their people, but the elves seemed to have lost more than anyone else.”

Their population had been nearly eradicated. They would have to prioritize reproduction if they wanted those numbers to rise again.

“It’s time we go home.”

Home wasn’t Riviana Star or Scorpion Valley. It was the Southern Isles—with the man who had become my home. I nodded in agreement. “It’s time for you to take the throne and rule over your people.”

“A king does not rule over his subjects—he leads them,” he said. “And it’s time they met the queen who will share that responsibility with me. Who will stand as my equal before our subjects—and bow to me in the privacy of our royal bedchambers.”

Just when I thought my love for this man couldn’t deepen further, it did. “I’m ready to go.”

He turned to gaze back out the window, becoming lost in thought again.

I could read the melancholy on his face, see the way he went from excitement to despair. “What are your thoughts?”

He took a slow breath, the kind that made his chest rise like the belly of a dragon before it released its fire. “If you hadn’t told the dragons to fuse with me collectively, I would have died. We all would have died. I’m the recipient of people’s admiration, the man who will wear the crown, but you’re the one who deserves it all.” He looked at me again.

“If that were the case, then I could have fused with all the dragons myself. But even with their strength, I still would have lost to Bahamut. That plan wouldn’t have worked without both of us.”

He considered that for a long time. “Perhaps…” He looked down at the tea he refused to drink before he looked at me again. “Can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything.”

“I fear you will think less of me for this…”

“It’s impossible at this point.” I was so hopelessly in love, so deep in the clouds that I would never see straight again.

He looked away again. “When I was fused with all the dragons, I was the strongest being that’s ever existed. No one could oppose me, not a dragon and not a god. I released their souls when the battle was over…but I didn’t want to.” He closed his eyes like the void was a better companion than the person who satacross from him. “The power was indescribable. I’d never been so tempted in all my life.” He opened his eyes again but stared at the black tea. “I would live forever, and no adversary would ever challenge me again.”

If those words were spoken by anyone else, I would have been disturbed—but not with Talon. “But you did release them. Constantine asked you to release the magic that bound you together, and you did so without reservation. They trusted you with the greatest magic they possess, and that trust was well placed.”

He lifted his chin and looked at me, his stare uncertain. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

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