Chapter 17

My dress is the darkest black, falling at my feet in layers of silky, glossy waves. It might be the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen, let alone had the honour to wear. I’ve never been a dress girl; I much prefer jeans and a top, but this dress could change my mind. I eye the woven-in elements throughout that look like stars, but up closer, they’re for my mates. Flames for Arden, trees for Grayson, dragons for Terrin, water for Lysander and tornadoes for Emrys. In the centre of my stomach, almost like a belt, are rows of silver held by a black crown made of shiny onyx. The middle part of the dress drops deep, dipping down and showing the sides of my breasts. Sheer black fabric holds the dress up at my shoulders, falling into a cloak at my back that pools on the floor at my feet.

My mother fusses around me, designing my hair with her gentle touches. My hair isn’t down like I usually have it, but right now, with only a hairstyle and a dress, she has turned me into a princess of the Spirit Court. Wearing this dress, with my hair pulled up into a delicate bun with beautiful braids, makes me feel so much more like the title I have. She has done the braids so that when I put the crowns on tonight, the crown from my father, it will sit nicely on my head.

We each will wear a crown before we leave the darkness, and everything will change after that. They will be my mates and I will be queen of all the courts. There has never been just one queen before, and I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but we chose each other and that can’t change; it is permanent.

She steps back, smiling at me in her own dark midnight blue gown. “I always dreamed of being here at your mating ceremony and crowning. Your father did too. Seeing your mating ceremony, becoming Queen of the Spirit Court…it was a fond imagination of my mind in the years I waited. I didn’t exactly dream you’d become the queen of every court, the queen of Ayiolyn. You deserve the title, and there is no one else who could rule like you.” She tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “My mother knew of you, long before you existed. She said that you were destined to be great, that any child we had would be destined for amazing things. She had a vision when she was younger of a little girl with long black hair and beautiful sea-blue eyes. That she would change an entire world for the better, uniting a race of dragons. She was right, as usual.”

I sadly smile. “I wish she were here.”

She nods. “As do I. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank her enough for bringing you up as beautifully as she did. Even when I am slightly jealous that she got all that time. We’ll have time. Endless time.” What a gift to have time with my mother again. “Do you love them? Are you sure this is what you want? If it isn’t, you can say it now and I’ll make sure to stop it all.”

The protectiveness in her voice warms my heart. “They are who I want. Forever. I know you haven’t had much time with them, but they…they are mine. I am theirs. We fought for each other every single day, and they even gave me up to protect me. They gave up their world to keep me safe…and I’d do the same for them. Love is messy, and our life has been full of challenges, but I would not be alive if it wasn’t for them. Not just breathing”—I touch my chest—“but alive. Happy. They make me feel like I can breathe on the bad days, and they light up every single good one too. They are my dragons, and I happily choose forever with them.”

She smiles brightly. “Your father made me feel the same. When I was with him, the buzzing just stopped. I was calm, and I’d pay any price for another second with him.” Tears fall down my cheeks as I wish she had that second. She reaches into a pocket in her dress. Her dress has pockets, that’s cool. “Here.” She hands me a bracelet with black onyxes wrapped in silver to be shaped like raindrops. It’s almost like a bangle with no clip or end. “It will help boost your powers enough to keep your hold on Terrin…for perhaps an hour. It’s not tested, so I can’t guarantee how much time, but it’s better than you facing the darkness already weakened.”

I know she isn’t happy about the darkness, knowing what it did to my father and his family. My family. I never wanted to be different from everyone else, but right now, I’m glad I have goddess blood in my system to help. Mum helps me slide the bracelet on, and it feels heavier than it should on my wrist, like it’s containing magic it can barely hold. She runs her finger over my knuckles. “I can’t wait to show you all the royal jewellery, as you inherit them tonight. Only kings or queens of the Spirit Court can enter the treasury. A silly spell by your ancestors. You will love it in there.”

“I have to admit, I’m curious.” She laughs with me. My eyes drop to the bracelet, which feels like it’s dying to have me use it. It’s not a massive amount of power, not like holding the staff was. It doesn’t feel bad either, just enough magic to cause a boost. “Let’s go.” I hook my arm through my mum’s and head into the balcony at the bottom of the corridor.

Terrin is lying down on the balcony, taking up nearly all of the space, and I smile at him as his dragon eyes burn into me. “Hello, my very beautiful mate. Turn me so I can kiss you.”

I hold my hand out with the bangle, and my shadows wrap around my forearm, around the bangle too, and then my fingers. They dance off my hands into the air and immediately crash into Terrin, forcing him to shift into his human form. Naked. My mum averts her eyes as Terrin winks at me before putting on a tuxedo suit left out for him by Arden. When he is buttoning up his shirt, his tie hanging from his fingers, he walks to us. “You can look now, mum.” I can’t even look at her as my cheeks burn as I stare at my mate, who looks ridiculously hot. I blurt out. “You’re very handsome, Terrin. I mean in a suit…and?—”

He kisses me to stop me, and my mother clears her throat. Only then does he pull away. “There are not words to describe how you look on this night, my rider.”

Oh Terrin. His words always, always make me somehow fall for him more. He continues tying his tie like he didn’t just say lovely romantic things to me.

“You best protect my daughter well,” my mother casually warns. She touches up his tie slightly, and Terrin makes sure to look at her.

“I would die to keep her safe, without an ounce of regret in my soul. She is safe. We all would never, ever let any harm come her way if we could stop it.”

My mum nods.

It’s the first time he has spoken for them all. Terrin has been an outsider to the kings, but I think that is changing. Terrin kisses me on the cheek. “As for you, tell me when it’s too much magic, and I’ll immediately go outside to shift.”

Always thinking of me. “We have about an hour. Let’s not waste any of it.” I link my hand through his, and my mum stays on my side, my elbow hooked through hers. We walk through the castle, which isn’t a long walk at all, down a single staircase. The castle has made black roses wrap all the way around the banister, and they hang from the vines on the ceilings with warm lights floating between them. The fifth court song plays clearly and softly on a piano. “Thank you for decorating for me.” I tell the castle out loud. It grows warmer for a second in response.

My mum touches the stone wall. “This castle always sang that song to you. Any time you cried, it would be sung. Almost like a lullaby.”

I had a magic castle as a nanny—I’m not sure there is anything cooler than that. The doors to the very bottom of the castle appear before me, and my kings are waiting right in the middle of the gigantic black stone doors. Each of them is in tuxes matching the colour of their courts. Arden’s in a striking dark red suit, almost the shade of blood. Lysander’s suit is a very dark blue, which brings out all his features. Grayson is in forest green, and Emrys is in pale silver. My element kings. I speak into all their minds at once, a gift we have been working on. Opening the channels to all our minds so we can freely speak is difficult to hold for more than one line here or there. “We finally got here. Our night together.”

Their eyes devour me as I step closer, and I can’t help but do exactly the same back. They look incredible; I mean, they always do, but right now they look like dragon gods that have been sent to worship me. I’m far, far too lucky to have them at my side. I love each of them, and we have conquered so many battles to get to this point. We deserve tonight and will fight for every day that comes after this.

Hope, Xandry, Livia, Jinks, Arty and Kian are waiting at the side in lovely black gowns and dark suits with a black dragon symbol of the Spirit Court on their clothes. They are my court, my people who have chosen to be here and fight for the Spirit Court, too. The Spirit Court isn’t lost, it isn’t gone…and I will breathe life into it by restoring my people. My father saved them so I could free them, and I won’t stop.

They all bow to me, which I still find very strange, and I doubt I’ll get used to it anytime soon. I’m surprised to see Hope here, considering she has been avoiding me since we got back, avoiding me asking any questions, I suspect. Livia is on the other side with Jinks, who is looking at her. It’s obvious to everyone but Livia that they are mates. Arty and Kian are holding hands, and if they are together, wouldn’t that make her my sister-in-law soon?

I’m glad I forgave her. I can’t imagine what choices I would have made in her shoes if my parents were evil and raised me to be a weapon. I look at all my girls. Somehow, we became a sisterhood, the four of us. It all started in that room. It all started in this castle. It’s where we found everything. I found my mates. I found my destiny, my friends, and right now I feel unstoppable. The darkness is a battle, and I’m going to win it.

Just as I get to them, just seconds away, the castle shakes under my feet. A violent shake, an unnatural one. I look up as the ceiling crashes in, rocks spitting at me as Terrin jumps over me, covering me with his body as the rocks pummel him. I scream, throwing up shadows to protect us all like a shield, but it’s too late. The ceiling wasn’t just crashing in; it was being ripped apart by a dragon. A swift night-black dragon swoops through the gap with its snarling teeth, snapping right at me as I back away. The dragon hits Terrin first, sending him flying into the kings right before his other claw wraps straight around my waist. Something about his touch nulls my magic in a heartbeat, and I feel human as I’m dragged into the gap above. Grayson desperately sends vines to grab me, Emrys using air to help pull me away, but the magic dies when it touches the dragon too. It just disappears. What the fuck?

My heart is in my chest as I think. Terrin. I rip the bracelet off my wrist, letting go of the hold on Terrin to let him shift. It’s too late as the dragon climbs up through the castle, breaking wall after wall. The castle tries to stop the dragon before it gets outside, walls appearing out of nowhere, but it’s no good. Even the castle’s magic can’t stop this dragon. Who is it? I glance around as the claws dig into my stomach and thighs, seeing Terrin’s sister dragon, Scathitine.

She moves fast the moment she is in the sky, swooping up high, only for a ball of fire to slam straight into her face from another dragon—one of my people. I scream as she drops me in shock. The air whistles in my ear as my magic comes back, and I pull shadows around me, trying to make a dragon as quick as I can, but I’m so close to the top of the castle, to the deadly spikes that line the towers. I brace myself for the hit, hoping I’ve wrapped enough shadow around me, when Terrin unexpectedly smashes out of the top of the castle tower, and I land straight onto his neck, sliding down his scales and pulling myself into place between his spikes. He roars loud, possessive, and fierce as we both look up.

His sister wasn’t alone. We land on the castle top, and Lysander is there first, tugging me off Terrin and into his arms. Arden, Grayson and Emrys crowd around us, but none of us say a word as we look into the distant sky. The ward around the island is gone, and the sky is full of dragons.

Just not my people.

It’s no better on the ground behind the castle. My eyes widen at the sight of the human army that seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Rows and rows of them, hundreds of thousands of men, and in the sky, a sky full of glittering silver and gold dragons, the West. The West are invading us. They’ve come too soon. I look at my mates. Arden touches my cheek. “We’ll hold them off. You sort out their ruler, and the rest will give up soon enough. The tsar dies tonight.”

“He is riding on my sister dragon. I see them and I am ready,” Terrin speaks to me, watching the sky.

Grayson touches one of Terrin’s scales. “Do not let any harm come to our mate.”

“I’ll be okay…but my people. The castle,” I whisper.

“You’re the princess, Elle,” Lysander firmly reminds me, getting ready to shift with the others who have already left. “Tell your dragons to fight for the Spirit Court, for their princess, and they will. Connect to them.”

Clouds thick and heavy scatter across the sky, rain instantly pouring along with heavy winds, lightning smashing across the sky as the water king goes into battle. He dives off the castle, and I only see all four of their dragons as they aim right for the army. They crumble away, Grayson’s power destroying a quarter of them in a blink of an eye. Fire spurts out from beneath the cracks in the ground, like pure lava, spreading over the ones who try to escape. Their screams ricochet in my ears, and I swallow the thick terror I hear.

On the other side, a tidal wave is chasing them from the sea, the thick waves being pushed by harsh winds. I can’t focus on them all and the destruction they are making—the deaths in the name of the Spirit Court. I close my eyes, reaching out to the darkness in the shadows around the dragons and make one simple command echo. “I am your princess, and I command you to fly for the Spirit Court. Protect our people.”

Roars echo loud and far, answering me as I climb onto Terrin and ready myself. We don’t have more than a second before his sister finds us, and she is swooping down from the rain clouds in a heartbeat. She is fast, but my dragon is too. Terrin snarls as he jumps off the castle before she gets close, and flies right to ruins nearby, his sister and the tsar hot on our heels.

I pour shadows around us to protect Terrin, almost like a coat of armour, and he snarls once more when we swerve around the ruins. I hear him loud and clear as he speaks to his sister. “Why are you doing this?”

Her voice cracks with anger. “You know why! She killed my rider!” Her voice only grows with fury until it’s clear she won’t be convinced any other way. She hates me and wants me dead. “He was mine! My family! Yours! She killed him.”

Family? I don’t understand, but Terrin’s reply is vicious. “Do you know what he did to her? He deserved every second of it, and death…it wasn’t enough. It will never be enough.” We dive up into the clouds, and for a second, I see the tsar on Terrin’s sister’s back.

He looks at me with pure hate as he screams into the sky. “You deserve everything that’s coming into you!”

“I’m sorry, Terrin,” I whisper to my mate. I never want to hurt his sister or her new rider, but this has to stop. I throw my shadows at him, expecting to knock him straight off her back so we can deal with them alone, but instead, he puts his hand up, and a bright burst of yellow light stops my shadows clashing with it. My eyes widen, looking at that strange power. He didn’t have magic before, and I don’t see it as he slams magic straight into my side, tearing me off Terrin. That light wraps around my dragon in a vice, stopping him from catching me as the clouds swallow me whole. I scream, hurtling through the air to the ground, pulling shadows, but I instantly slam into another dragon, and I grab onto its thorns, sliding onto its silver back. I don’t know this dragon, and it turns back, its mouth dripping with blood and its eyes narrowing.

Fuck. It snarls, twisting in the air and throwing me off within seconds. It’s all the time I needed to pull enough shadows into a sphere around me, and I slam evenly onto the ground in the middle of the chaos. In the middle of a bloody war of dragons. Death lies heavily and thick in the air as I breathlessly search around me, unsure of what to look at first.

Dragons fill the sky, my dragons like shadows crashing into the silver ones, fire ringing out in thick streams between them all. The rain still pours thick and fast, and my dress is soaked to my skin, ripped all below my knees and burnt in places. Thick smoke spreads around my feet, and the scent of blood fills the air until I’m nearly choking on it. Soldiers run past me like I’m not here, only for me to realise I’m standing on a pile of burnt, charred bodies. A scream rises in my throat as I skitter away, my stomach turning.

I need a weapon. I reach into the shadows and drag out my father’s sword, the runes now lighting up on it like stars of darkness. “War, at last.”

I blink at the foreign female voice in my mind. It’s the sword. I don’t dare speak back to it as I search for my mates. They have to help Terrin. I can’t even sense where he is now. Emrys is not far from me, and I run to him first. Two soldiers see me coming straight at them, in this stupid dress, and smirk like they think they have already won. I smile right back at them as I pull my shadows around the sword and meet them with one hit that sends them both flying back in the air with screams. Three more come at me, and I make a trap of darkness right below their feet, pulling them under the ground in a blink. They scream for a second before they are just gone. One after the other, I remove, using shadows, darkness, and pure magic to move them out of my path, destroy or kill them. I don’t care. They came into my land, my home, to murder my people, and is it wrong to think they deserve to die for that choice?

Maybe.

But I’m sure my uncle and grandmother, who shaped who I am, would do far worse than a quick death I’m giving them. My other mates are alive, I can sense that, but they are on the other side of the castle, and there’s a whole war between us. How is Emrys so far from them, and is it safe for me to be near him? Someone must have taken his handcuffs off so he could fight and shift, but that makes him dangerous.

He is still my only hope to save Terrin. I need the air king. I need my mate. I pray that Emrys can fight off Ares for a few minutes longer around me to save Terrin and get away. How did the tsar get that magic? He never had magic before, and how did my magic not work when his dragon was touching me? It doesn’t make any sense.

When I get to a clearing, I see Emrys on the other side, his back to me. His silver suit is gone, and a strange red cloak is covering him up, but it doesn’t matter. My heart leaps as I run to Emrys. But he isn’t alone. Aphrodite steps up from his side, and when Emrys turns around, he is holding a dagger to his own neck. I freeze right in the middle of the clearing, my blood going cold.

Aphrodite looks too perfect to be standing in a war. She has a red dress on that matches Emrys’s cloak in colour, and there isn’t a stain on it. It matches the ruby red lipstick painted on her as she smiles at me. “Princess, about time you greeted me. The Spirit Court was always my favourite land.” She touches Emrys’s shoulder. “I fixed him. Aren’t you glad?”

“Get the fuck away from him!” I snarl, the panic in my chest leaking out into my words. “Stay away!”

“Why would I do that?” She rests her head on his shoulder, her long blonde hair falling down his arm. It makes me feel sick. I reach for Emrys, but anything I say is just met with silence. “It just took a little magic to push one soul out to make room for another. I know you were fond of this one, but he is mine now.”

“He will never be yours!” I pull shadows around me. I’ve had enough.

She tuts. “Come near us, princess, and Ares will slit Emrys’s throat. He will find another soul to attach to on this battlefield, and you will lose either way.”

I shake my head, desperation filling me. “That’s not how it works.”

“How would you know how it works?” She laughs. “You’re nothing but a granddaughter of a useless goddess and so clueless it’s pathetic. I will always protect Ares’s soul—he’s my husband. You are playing in a game of gods when you’re nothing but a little girl who doesn’t know the rules. How could you? Did you really think I’d ever let you kill my husband and win? No, it was always our plan to make sure one of the elemental families killed him so he’d gain their power. I knew love would be the decision at the end that ruined your great families, and oh, how Emrys loved you. Ares looks much more handsome now, and I will thank you for that. This body doesn’t have as much power as the one he had before. That one could shape shift, change his features, but it didn’t have inherently elemental magic, not like the air king does. How about he reminds you?”

Emrys blinks, his eyes burning with magic. The air around me begins to tighten, like it’s disappearing, and I gasp, unable to breathe. My dragons, my people, start falling from the skies, like they’re choking too. He is killing them. He is killing me. “N-o!”

I can’t do anything to help him, or my people, as Aphrodite makes a portal…and takes my mate with her just before I pass out.