Page 2 of Court of Dragons and Ashes

I pause at that. She’s right, of course. Death is what my dreams showed me, and my dreams have always come true. Every single one. But this one felt different, more powerful, more of a warning than I’ve ever had before. There is much to be said about a king who dies protecting everyone. I swore to protect my people when I took my crown, promised to be a better ruler than my parents.

“When your child grows, she will need her people. She will need an army to fight for her, and she will have nothing if this court falls and is destroyed. You know who he is.”

Tears fill my eyes. “So will you.” Though, we do not speak his name, not here, not in my home. I barely even want to think of his name. Time will reveal him to her, to every court. “But if that evil is returning to us, I must inform the other kings, call them to fight.”

“You can do that. At the end. I always foresee the courts being united, but I do not think it’s your generation that will unite them,” she answers, her eyes glazed over with magic.

“My daughter?” I ask, desperate to know she will have a future. Dying for her…I will do it. I will save my people, my wife and child. The Spirit Court must live on, even if there is nothing of me left. We have time, I hope we do. My dream will not come true yet, but when it is time…

The door’s knocked once and we both turn. “Come in!”

A young boy toddles in. The matron’s four-year-old ward. No one knows where he and his baby sister came from, but this young little boy isn’t her son. She just turned up with him as a baby, claimed that he was family to her, and he must be brought up in the castle. His sister turned up a few months ago and is sleeping in the nursery, another mystery. We asked Matron if any more were planning on turning up, but she claimed no, thatthese two are the last. My wife loves him, always buying him gifts, and he has a room a few down from our own.

I sense great untouched magic within his soul, and the dark shadows crawl out of the corners to see the child. To communicate with him. I push them away, not wanting them to scare the child. They can wait until he is older.

“Terrin,” the matron softly speaks, and the boy grins, missing one little tooth he lost when he climbed the castle and fell off, despite all our warnings not to climb alone. His black hair is short, his eyes bright with childhood innocence. “Thank you for coming, my little boy. We have something to tell you about a prophecy.”

I swing my head to the matron. “We can’t tell this boy anything. This must be kept a secret.”

“Agreed,” the matron tells me. “But, my king, the prophecy you heard speaks of my ward.” She cups the boy’s face, who looks warily at me. “Terrin, these are words you must remember as you grow older and guide the army of the Spirit Court.”

“This boy cannot be left to lead,” I say to the matron.

“He can because he will be the mate of your daughter. Shadow, as foretold, is he,” the matron informs me, and I look at the boy. It’s hard to imagine a future where he will be at the side of my daughter, who I have not even met. “He must remember the prophecy as he grows. He must fly the dragons to the west, where I believe they will be able to hide. One day, he will be at your daughter’s side, and he should come with the knowledge of how to help her. I foresee that I will not be able to help, or even recognise your daughter when the time comes. You tell him the prophecy, my king.”

“Whose child is he?” I demand, well aware the boy is watching, taking everything in.

Matron smiles at him. “He was born within shadows, created in darkness just like me, and that is all the truth I can tell you.The answer is for him to find when he is older, when he comes asking, hopefully with his princess at his side.”

I look at the boy who will be the mate of my unborn daughter, and nod. I kneel down at his level, something a king should not do. He is family, and I will protect him as best I can. “I’m going to transform you into a dragon to protect you in the years to come, and I need you to remember something for me. A story, a very important story.” He bows his head. Even this young, he is older than his time. “I’m going to tell you a prophecy about a baby who’s not even born yet, and then, one day in the future, please save my daughter.”

CHAPTER 1

Making the choice to trust a backstabbing liar is one of the worst decisions I could knowingly make. Or at least, that’s what Hope keeps repeating to me, and I don’t think she is wrong. Arty watches me from the living room, her locks of blonde hair covering her left cheek where it’s bruised—and not from my attack earlier. My clothes are dry now, the truth is out, and I should feel more in control, but I don’t. I feel like I’m spiralling into another world, another person, and there isn’t anyone here to stop me from drowning, because the men I love decided to sacrifice themselves and abandon me.

My shoulders drop slightly. They didn’t abandon me; Iknowthat, but the bitter sting is something I’m not sure I can push aside. I chose to be with them, for us to face our battles together, and each one of them decided to leave me on Earth and take on an insane goddess on their own.

My grandmother’s soft voice echoes. “Are you ready, Elle?”

Am I?

Turning to my grandmother, Hera, I can’t help but be silenced by the memories that are still flooding back to me. Hera is my grandmother. I’m the granddaughter of a goddess, and I have powers, strong powers that have been honed by gods. Iwas never much good at the mind control aspect of my powers I inherited from her and my mother, but shadows? They breathed for me, and they still do.

My grandmother is the goddess of marriage, of family and rebirth…and she brought me up to be stronger than I feel right at this moment. My mum and dad brought me up to be a princess of the fifth court, with all the power of an heir of darkness and shadows…and I don’t know what my mother is going to say when she sees me. That is,ifshe’s really still alive.

Hope and Livia watch me from the kitchen door, both of them worried, but they haven’t told anyone what happened to me. I close my eyes for a moment, a flashback smacking into my mind of him, and suddenly I can’t breathe. I step away from them all, facing the back wall of the kitchen and sucking in a deep breath as the memory fades away. When it does, I notice it’s silent and shadows flood the floor, like a carpet made of my magic. They don’t touch my family or friends, who shouldn’t need to fear the darkness. My father’s lessons come back to me, how he took me to the pits of darkness in the base of the castle, of our home, and taught me their ways. “Elle?”

I let the shadows retreat and sink into the cracks in the tiles, waiting for my call. “I’m ready to leave. We should go into the garden.”

My grandmother steps in front of me, cupping my face, her eyes softly glowing in the dim light of dawn as it casts a yellow haze through the windows. Even with light flooding the small room and glowing all around her, I can see nothing but the darkness in every corner, whispering to me, promising me revenge if I seek it. My father once warned me that spirit, the magic of darkness and shadow, is fed by our emotions. It reacts to them, breathes them, and right now I’m not in control. “You’ve grown stronger since you left, but there is a darkness,something you’re not telling me, and it’s hovering over your mind now.”

“I need to get to them and see if Arty isn’t lying about mum,” I answer, stepping out of her grip. I can’t talk to her about what happened, not yet. I reach again for Lysander, for Terrin and the small bonds I can feel with the others now, but nothing. I can’t feel them.

Her troubled eyes stay with me as she opens a drawer in the kitchen side and pulls out a small magical box. The box looks like a normal flatware holder. I’ve passed it a dozen times, but with my memories back, I remember it. She hands it to me, and I place it on the counter. I wave my hand over the box, a gift from my uncle. Several locks click inside before the top slides open. Inside are two daggers, ancient and ornate, possessing their own magic and souls. Uncle Phobos taught me of the legends of these daggers, how they once were people who used too much magic and ended up transforming themselves into these weapons. One blade is black, the other white, and they are diamond encrusted except for the black leather hilts. I pull them out of the box and hide them in the shadows so I can get to them whenever I want.

Livia walks over, looking around like she can see the daggers in the darkness. “I’m never going to get used to you using magic so easily.” Jinks runs into the room, jumping right into Livia’s arms. The white cat with glowing red eyes purrs innocently. “He’s such a sweet cat.”

My grandmother flashes me a grin for a second. We both know he isn’t just a cat, and he isn’t sweet at all. Livia would drop him in a second if she knew. I almost smile.

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