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“What?” I whisper, everything becoming so hazy. I swear I hear echoes of Lysander in my mind, screaming at me.
He walks over, leaning down and touching my chin with a long black nail. “You’re from this world. You are the princess of the Spirit Court, the last living heir.” He says it with disgust in his tone, and I can’t believe him. I don’t…but—“The magic that locked me in here was from your family; therefore, it was only your blood that could get me out. I sent my daughter into the test. I wanted to make sure that she could get close to you, and she did. She told me you even called her your friend. How pathetic and how easily you trust someone. You’re a long way off the great spirit dragon king and queen. They would be ashamed of you.”
I feel sick. “You’re lying!”
“I’m not and you know it.” He pulls his nail off my chin. “Arty was tricking you! This whole time, you had a snake at your side. You don’t have friends here.”
I look at her and my heart hurts. Everything hurts. The sorcerer picks up my bad arm, and I scream in pain as he digs his fingers into my bite. “You’re not going to live long. Not with that poison in your system, not as injured as you are. Even the healers of the Water Court would struggle to save you now. Oh, how fun it is to watch the Spirit Court dying with you.”
“Fuck you!” I growl out, his face spinning in front of my eyes.
“You would have died in that test. I should have just left you there and got your blood later, but I wanted to look at you. I want to watch you die. The last hope of the Spirit Court burning out before my eyes. It gives me great pleasure after they locked me in here for twelve years.”
My heart pounds and everything feels fuzzy as I see him open a portal. The water-like portal is shimmering nearby us as he picks me up by my bad arm, and I scream as he drags me across the room. “Good luck surviving in the West. You won’t be forced to come back here, because there’ll be nothing left when I’m done. You can die alone, far from home.”
“Father, no! You said she—”
I hear Arty’s protest as he roughly throws me through the portal, magic washing over me like a wave as I roll out the other side and land in hot sand. I gasp from the pain, my body feeling so weak. I’m from the fifth court. He has to be lying.
It’s hot, boiling hot as I lie here, my clothes sticking to me as I lift my head, looking up at the burning sun above. “Where am I?” I whisper.
My grandmother might have lied. My parents might have never died in a tragic accident on Earth. They might have been the king and queen of the fifth court, and all these months…I’ve been home. But I’ve lost everything. I’m going to die here, alone, and I won’t be able to save anyone. I hear wings, large wings blowing the sand around me up into the air. All I see is dark black scales and dark greenish black eyes as a dragon sweeps down towards me before picking me up in its long claws and flying us away.
EPILOGUE
THE SORCERER
“No, where did you send her! Bring her back! NO! Ellelin! Baby!”
I turn to face the cell next to me, removing the old magic hiding it from the world. On the floor, in vine chains, is a woman crying. Her crown might be gone, but she has all the elegance of a queen even as she begs in a ruined black dress.
The queen of the fifth court.
Ellelin’s mother.
I lean down, tilting my head to the side as I watch her strange emotions. She loves her child more than her own life; I am proof of that. I’ve been wearing her face for months, hoping her stupid daughter would trust me more with the face of the mother she can’t remember. We’ve been down here twelve years together, kept alive with her magic. What was left of it. It’s gone now, and her daughter hasn’t got a clue how to tap into her powers. She is dead, or at least, she will be soon. The fifth court was never cursed; they chose their own queens, and the dead king chose this weak mortal-turned-queen.
It was a pleasure to see her court, how great it once was, burn down to the ground while its royal family defended their people so they could escape. I slaughtered them all before they could get off the island. All except that small princess. I don’t know how she escaped, but I am impressed. It’s a shame she was kept alive just to die so easily. It’s been twelve years since I escaped the last imprisonment of this world and tried to take over. This queen used the last of her magic to lock us both down here, setting the spell with her blood so it could only be broken by her bloodline. Her daughter got away to Earth with the help of someone while her father fought me. He paid for that fight in his blood. I enjoyed his screams, and I can taste his blood even now. He was so powerful, and Ellelin had the potential to be as powerful as her mother and father. No one could have fought against the fifth court if the princess had her power.
Such a terrible, terrible shame.
I look into her eyes, almost the same colour as her daughter’s as I smile. Winning feels good. “You should thank me. You got to see your daughter again. Her father isn’t so lucky. I still have his bones hidden away in your home.”
She tries to rise, that stubborn fifth court trait showing. She might be weak and locked within her own magic, but she still tries to fight to escape for her child. It would be sweet if it weren’t so annoying.
I glance at my own daughter. She was useless most of her life, but I have to admit, she did well. I might let her live and help me with taking over the courts. Without their magic, it will be easy. Too easy. I will need an heir, and my daughter isn’t male as I’d hoped, but she is smart. I can make a new heir when the time is right.
Finally, I win. I came to this world so long ago, and I was surprised by the dragon kings, who stopped me in my tracks with their magic. They died making the spell to hold me, but I cursed them before I was locked away. I escaped with the help of my wife until this dragon queen outsmarted me. She was the last powerful dragon queen that stood in the way of claiming this world, and her power tricked my own, locking us both down here.
The new dragon kings fell for the fifth court princess, and they didn’t see what was going on right under their noses. Stupid children.
Love blinds all. This is the second world I’ve been to, and the other fell all too quickly. This world was smarter, but they all will fall in the end until I’m the only ruler of the worlds.
The dragon queen is stubborn, the vines cracking. I send a wave of magic to force her to her knees where she belongs. This world will bow to me, or I will bend their bodies to make them. The dragon queen’s eyes are like diamonds, tough and endless as she glares at me. “Wherever you sent her, she will survive. We always survive.”
I sigh, bored of this woman and her company. I’d kill her, but I might need her yet. “I sent her to the dragon riders of the West. She will be tested and die like all mortals do.”
“Father!” Artemis gasps. “You said she wouldn’t be killed! She’ll never live through—”
