Page 19 of Court of Dragons and Twilight

My heart is racing. “Wait!” I shout to stop her opening the door. I’ve never thought about having children before, but suddenly I want to hear what they would look like, what they might be like. Twins…boys. I don’t know why, but something in my soul screams that it’s right. “The twins…were they? I mean, tell me something about them. Please.”

She touches the handle of the door. “Both of them have black hair and multicoloured eyes, which reflect the powers they have. One power from every court as they are the children of you all, magically bound.” She walks out and shuts the door behind her, leaving me standing and watching nothing but my imagining of them. Imagining a future where I would feel safe enough to even have kids. I know it’s completely and utterly mad to go with her into the darkness alone. The answers to releasing my people are down there, the magic to be able to do so.

“Your heart is racing. Are you well?”

Terrin’s voice in my head makes me jump, and I know I can’t tell him anything. “I’m fine,” I lie even if it makes me feel sick to say it. “Just a bad dream.”

“Come and ride. The fresh air will clear your mind,” his soothing voice offers. Things are weird between us at the moment, and until now, I didn’t realise what it is like to keep a big secret from my mate. I know deep down he did it because itwasn’t the right time, but I hate that there is something like this hovering.

“I will soon. You know I love you and who you are. It changes nothing for me. You can decide whatever you want: be a tsar and rule, don’t. I just want you and that won’t change,” I whisper back to him.

He is quiet for a moment. “I love you too. I don’t know what I need to do, but with you at my side…we will find the answer.”

“We will. Speak soon.” I block him out as best I can. I know he’ll be suspicious of that, but he’ll stop me, and I can’t control how I’m going to be scared. I choose some comfortable black clothes and go to the bathroom. My long-sleeve top sticks to me, and I tuck the end into my high-waisted, tight dark jeans before putting my boots on. I throw on a cloak, one hanging on the back of the door, because it might hide who I am for a moment longer.

Before walking out, I catch my reflection in the mirror. My hair is down, falling in purple waves down my chest to my waist. My eyes sparkle blue and remind me of Lysander’s element. I’m doing this for them. Before I get to the door, it opens. Instead of the corridor outside, it opens straight into the corridor at the bottom of the castle, right opposite the doors to the darkness. I glance at the matron standing next to the doors. “You’re going to have to teach me that trick with the castle. It would make getting around a lot easier.”

She flashes me a secretive smile, suggesting she will not be doing that. The doors to my bedroom slam shut behind me, and with a wave of her hand, all the doors lock, except for the ones in the darkness. “I will wait here until you return, princess, but you will come out as queen. The titleprincessends. I will stop the kings from entering if I must.”

“Do not hurt them,” I warn her, and she nods once. “Tell them it was my choice and to wait for me. That I’m sorry.”

My heart races as I go to the door. I feel like I’m being called here, like I have been called here since I was a baby. This dark place was waiting for me, and I’ve avoided it long enough. The darkness. I straighten my back, standing in front of the doors, and grab the handles. I know everything will change when I go in here. Maybe I want it to be that way. I don’t have enough power to save this world when actual power has been sitting down there in my castle the whole time. I turn the handles, and I push the doors, which open for me, revealing a cloud of glittering black dust. I feel like it wraps around me, pulling me inside. A scream echoes out of my mouth as I’m thrown forward into nothing but glittering black darkness that has no end, no smell and no feel to it.

I’m thrown to my knees, invisible pressure pushing down on my shoulders. My arms are yanked out in front of me, and the dragon marks on my wrist begin to glow the colour of the element they are from. The red dragon for Arden, my fire king. A blue dragon for Lysander, my water king. A silver one for Emrys, my air king, who I will not lose. The final one glows a vibrant green for Grayson, my earth king. A new one appears, right below Lysander’s, a black glittering dragon marking outlined in yellow. The yellow and black glow for Terrin, my king of the West.

I drag my eyes up and around, looking at the moving fog that seems alive, like it’s real and far more than a fog or darkness could be. The song of the fifth court starts playing, loud and humming. The beat vibrates the floor under my knees, and in the darkness, I relax. Slowly, a room starts to appear around me, the darkness fading away, until slowly, I realise I’m in a very plain room with white walls and dark black square tiles across the ground. There are no windows, no doors, nothing but the walls.

A man stands in the middle of it, a man who I wished I’d never see again, and instantly fears slams into my chest. The commander. He doesn’t look right. He looks pale…and dead.

He’s dead.

He holds a sword in his hand, and the force pushing my arms up and holding me in place disappears. I reach for my powers, but nothing happens. I have no one to stop me as he runs at me with his sword raised high, a battle roar coming from his mouth. I scream, barely rolling out of the way. He slams the sword straight onto the stone, and it clangs. I reach for my powers again, but they don’t come. “Fuck.” No powers, great.

The commander swings his sword at me again. This time, he hits me straight through my leg, and I scream as I fall onto the floor, blood pouring out of the wound. As he looks down at me, I freeze. I’m back on that bed, those drugs in my system, and I can’t move. I can’t fight him. I need my mates. I don’t know why Arden comes to mind first, but he does. The minute I think of him, fiery flames appear in my hands, like they’ve been carried in on the wind for me to use. Arden’s flames burst from my fingertips and blast over the commander. He screams and begs, but the flames take on their own life, burning and destroying, taking and taking until there is nothing but ash and dust. The sword clinks onto the ground in front of me. My eyes widen as I look down at my hands, the flames still rolling around my fingertips before dancing down my wrists and into the dragon there. The feeling of a fire burning hot through my blood is so different from my shadow power. “What was that?”

“You. You are connected to them all, Queen of Ayiolyn. You faced your greatest fear alone.” The glittering darkness appears again. I see nothing more than a cloud of sparkling black dust in front of me, playing the fifth court song again and again, a haunting melody echoing in my ears, but I know it’s a lullaby. It’s our song.

I stare at the darkness, the magic bound down here, and how endless it actually is. It is pure power, like nothing I’ve seen or felt before. “Thank you for saving me. I was born here, and you never gave up on me, did you?”

“Never,” the darkness whispers back, the male voice old and ancient. Soothing, like a grandfather speaking to his grandchild. “I saw your birth long before you came into my castle, kicking your little legs and screaming. You were prophesied to save the world I love. Ayiolyn. I did everything possible to save you and make sure you have a life, a future. What do you want?”

“I want a better world. I want a world where people are all free, united and equal. Earth has its problems, but in some places, it’s like that. I think Ayiolyn can be the same. Everyone can have their magic; we can be united under one ruler. I want my mates; I want the future that I have tirelessly fought for, and one that I can have my children grow up in. Safe. You said I was chosen to unite this land, to make it better, and I felt like I couldn’t do it. Now I realise I will do anything to make a world where men like him are not in charge. I was born here, in this castle.” I smile at the darkness. “You’re like a parent I didn’t notice, and I’m sorry. I belong here with my family, and that is you, isn’t it?”

The darkness was always my home. It moves to me, the cloud of sparkling darkness spreading around my body like an embrace. It’s more than that, it’s power. I feel the weight of the crown nestling in my hair, and the endless power that bursts throughout my body. I feel every bit of the castle. I find my mates and direct them to me. Terrin, I find outside and then my people. Each one has darkness wrapped around them, and it’s easy enough to pull it away, one by one. I see them shift back into people, thousands of them, but they can shift when they want. My people of the Spirit Court. I leave Terrin till last, watching as the spell is broken on my mate.

“Connect to your elements,” a male voice commands me, an ancient voice of power and darkness. A voice I will never forget. “Fire.” Red fire shoots out of the wall, but I don’t fear it. It’s Arden. It’s Arden in every way. The fire begins to slowly spin around me in circles. “Water.” Blue water shoots out of the floor and does the same thing, spinning around, dancing with the fire almost. “Earth.” A vine bursts out of the ground before wrapping in knots, before making circles, spinning in the air around the water and fire. “Air.” A cold gust of air blows into the room. The silvery sparkling magic joins the circle until it’s spinning around me so much that I can only just see the darkness.

“Darkness.” The cloud itself spins, joining the elements, spinning around so fast my feet are lifted off the ground and I’m floating in the air as the darkness pushes and wraps tightly around all the elements, blocking out all the light before slamming them straight into me. I gasp, feeling the power burning through my veins, but it hurts. It feels like it’s ripping my body apart and making it anew. I light up with each element, glowing from head to toe, and when I open my eyes, I see my mates. All five of them are standing in the room, the glow of my light across their bodies, and they are in awe.

One by one, they kneel and bow. Their crowns appear on their heads, one by one, the crowns I saw with my father. They each glow, and only Terrin is left without a crown, but he is glowing yellow. Gold almost. It’s the darkness’s voice that echoes. “Bow to the Queen of Ayiolyn, the elemental queen of the dragons.”

CHAPTER 12

TERRIN

Elle kisses my cheek before leaving with her other mates. It’s been five hours since she went into the darkness on her own and somehow bonded herself to it, becoming far more powerful than any ruling queen of any court. She has every power now, and it was an honour to be able to witness any of it. She was glowing with every colour of the elements, and they were bending to her will.

I don’t remember the moment the dragon spell broke, but it snapped like a broken branch, and then I was standing with the others in that place. Time seemed to just stop, and after Arden mostly told her off for doing this alone, we just walked out together. I think they are all just as amazed as I am and so proud of our mate. She is ours, ceremony or not. We can have some royal ceremony to mark her as the queen if she wants, but I’m not fussed about any of that shit. I want her soul, her heart, and I don’t want anything else. My mate looks back, her eyes finding mine. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

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