Page 17 of To Claim a King

She just frowned, confused.

“You have plenty of magics in you, little girl; not just mage blood, but dragonfire, too.”

As he spoke, Vincent walked forward, invading her personal space like he belonged there, and grabbed her hand.

She was a second away from kneeing his groin, but he did something she hadn’t seen coming; something she didn’t quite understand. He touched her hand - the one marked by that strange rune - his own palm ablaze with dragonfire.

“Holy shitty dragon fucking scale.”

That came from Demelza, but had she been able to talk, Xandrie agreed. Her rune shone, and all of a sudden powerdidradiate from her entrails, she felt it in her bones.

“Do you know what dragons are?”

She had no clue what Vincent talked about - dragons were dragons, and that was it.

“One of the first kinds of great Beasts - they roamed Eartia long before humans, before Elves, and any such things. They lived alongside gods, monsters and creatures of legends, in complete chaos. Then, our time came, and the monsters disappeared. Aether swallowed them all, so that Eartia may be at peace. Dragons, however, never disappeared. Instead, they were sealed inside the strongest and wisest of men. Dragons are a gift of Aether to mankind. The fire inside us should consume us, but Aether blessed it, and molded our bodies to withstand the flame. We have the lifespan of our beasts, and their powers, too.”

“You speak of Aether as though it was a person, not an entity.” Vincent shrugged.

“Aether is conscious, that much has always been clear. What I mean to say, little, supposedly human, gal, is that you have dragonfire, and are Aether blessed, just like the rest of us.”

That didn’t make any sense.

“Now, Elza, you will stop holding back. And Xandrie, make use of that magic if you want to see another day.”

Because Demelza was her friend, she did what she had to do, and obeyed their trainer. Xandrie felt the all-consuming, heavy, oppressive source of power rush towards her, ready to strike.Fuck.Here goes nothing.

Lies

Holy fire, she was a vision. Seeing the human - or supposedly human, as Vincent rightly said - take on his very well trained, extremely lethal, fully fledged dragon friend, Rhey was so stunned he came out of the dark alcove where he’d been lurking, joining Vincent.

Alexandria didn’t all of a sudden develop superior skills and kick Demelza’s ass - but shedidhold her own. The first assault, she dodged, using a speed that shouldn’t have been possible. The second, she blocked, her katana blazing with golden flames as she withstood the dragoness’ attack.

“This makes zero sense.”

Vincent nodded his agreement, but there was a humongous smile on his lips, telling him he didn’t quite believe that.

“Talk.”

“You know I use to have a thing about stealing books from the Elders’ archives…”

He had - and Vincent had never been caught.

The two cousins had grown up together - Vincent was only three years his elder; he’d been the studious, serious one, up until the incident no one talked of occurred. Then, instead of breaking, as some might have, Vincent started to make light of any situation, using humor to make up for his pain.

Vincent had lost his dragon - or sealed it inside him; no one knew. The gist of it was that he couldn’t shift. He could have crumbled; instead he survived it.

Before that change, Vincent had amassed his fair share of forbidden knowledge, though.

“Go on.”

“This didn’t come from me. And for the sake of everything that’s holy, don’t tell the Elders you know of it, either.”

Rhey nodded his agreement.

“I don’t know much, but the book this came from was extremely well guarded - under lock, key and magics. I couldn’t even take it out of the archives. It’s actually just a history book…talking about the Rift.”

Rhey turned to his friend. The Rift? No one talked of it. They learned, as dragonlings, that humans, Elves, Fae and other races blessed by Aether lived together in peace, a thousand years ago. Then, all of a sudden, the Dragons had separated themselves from them. The end. No one was allowed to ask questions; the teachers didn’t even know the answers.

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