The Dragon and the Queen by Kaitlyn Davis
The Diary
Twenty-Third Day of the Seventh Moon
I told Zavier my fears—about the dragon eggs, about the aethi'kine avian boy, about what Bastiant intends to do. We both agreed that whatever his plan is, it can’t be good. He's going to talk to Mikhail, but I fear the dove's reaction when he learns Zavier has been spying on him. Will he believe us? Will he think we work for my husband? Will he trust us?
And if he doesn't, what then?
Twenty-Fourth Day of the Seventh Moon
We told Mikhail that Bastiant knows of the boy and is looking for him. I can't tell if he was grateful or furious, though I fear the answer lies somewhere in between. Something has changed between him and Zavier. I don't think their relationship will ever be the same. But he says the avians will take the boy from the city and hide him in a place where my husband will never find him, at least not until he's old enough to understand the power in his skin.
I fear no such place exists.
Fourth Day of the Eighth Moon
Bastiant has been acting oddly peaceful of late. I worry he's coming closer and closer to discovering the location of the boy. He hasn't called me to his rooms. He seems to have no idea I even exist. When I see him, his eyes are glazed over, as though they’re staring into another world, perhaps the one he is on the cusp of creating.
I'm doing everything I can to stop it.
Zavier spies on Bastiant as often as he can, quick peeks, there and gone too swiftly to merit suspicion. We haven't caught him in a private meeting again. For my part, I try to search the future, but my magic remains as stubborn as ever, almost willing me to give in, to surrender, to let it sweep me away. But Zavier and I are the only ones who can uncover my husband's plans. What would happen if I lost myself to the power? To the future? What if time carried me away and never let me return to the present?
No.
I won't let the magic take me—not yet.
Instead, I'll make do with the snippets I've received, small moments in time that form a puzzle I'm no closer to solving. I saw the girl again, a dove like I thought, with ivory wings and dark skin. This time, her palm glittered with aethi'kine magic. Where is she? Is she alive? Is she the one Bastiant will take? I fear she is far away—her clothes too regal and her smile too free to be an avian of this world.
I saw a man too, with pale skin and blue eyes. He has wings, though I can't quite determine which kind. At first, they seemed black as night, the obsidian silk of a raven. But just before the vision ended, they shifted, flashing with orange and changing shape, too fuzzy for me to see clearly. He had magic, though I didn't see what. It was more a feeling of power, similar to his spirit, which was torn and broken yet with unwavering strength beneath it all.
I've seen flashes of the future too. The beasts will come, unless I can stop them, and if they do, my city won't be the only one to burn. They spew fire with each breath. They are difficult to kill, with thick scaled hides and expansive leathery wings. I foresee a battle in the skies above a gleaming city I don't recognize. The air glitters with magic and burns with flames. I see avians and mages alike, but I can't tell if they fight each other or if they fight together. And I can't tell which side wins. There is too much death, too much destruction.
Is this the future my husband races toward?
Does he even understand the game he is playing?
I believe he does.
Worse still, I believe he doesn't care.
Fifteenth Day of the Eighth Moon
More visions. More desolation. More despair. Why can't the future show me things I truly want to see? Happiness. Love. Light. Is that too much to hope for?
Seventeenth Day of the Eighth Moon
Part of my prayer was answered. I saw the girl and boy in a vision again, but this time they were together, their faces close, their gazes yearning, their bodies pulled toward each other as though by strings. Ash fell all around them, or maybe it was snow, I couldn’t quite tell, though the orange glow of flames flickered clearly across their faces. What struck me the most was their spirits. The connection between their souls was so absolute I could feel it across time. They are lovers, and yet all I see for them when I look into their future is pain.
I hope I'm wrong.
I hope it with everything I have.
The vision so affected me, even hours later, that I couldn't shake the image of their desperate faces or the sensation of their breaking hearts. Odd that after so many pictures of death and decay, of blood and gore, of screams and snarls, it is the sight of love that has left me undone. When Zavier came to my room that night, I crumbled into his arms. After all the nights I’ve spent in his room, my husband has yet to break me, but these forlorn lovers in a faraway future have touched me deeply. Perhaps I see myself in them—myself and Zavier. Perhaps I want us all to have the happy endings we crave.
Zavier held me until my tears had passed, not demanding answers, simply providing solace. Then I kissed him with a fervor I didn’t need to explain, one he felt too. Even without chrono'kine magic, he can sense time slipping away from us, from the world. We'll take advantage of whatever stolen moments we have left.
Twenty-First Day of the Eighth Moon
I fear the tides have shifted. My husband leaves in the morning, though he refuses to tell me where he’s going. In my heart, I already know.
He's found the boy.
Our time is up.
Twenty-Fourth Day of the Eighth Moon
Mikhail came to us in a panic. The boy is gone, as I suspected.
Without my husband home, any pretense of covering our tracks is finished. I know the avians would never rat out one of their own, even if he is cavorting with the enemy, and Bastiant's advisors practically ignore me, just as my meek persona allows. We spy for him day and night. We've seen the boy, but they don't seem to be bringing him back to the palace. They're going somewhere else. The avians sent a team to try to retrieve the boy, but all it did was anger my husband and cause ten more to lose their lives.
Aethi'kine magic is unbeatable.
So how in the world are we going to stop him? Won't my magic show me that? What use is seeing the future if I've no way to stop the worst from happening? I wonder if it's time to succumb to the future's alluring pull, but my gut tells me not yet.
So I wait, and watch, as helpless as I've ever been.
Twenty-Sixth Day of the Eighth Moon
The world is ended.
I know it.
We were too late, too weak, too unprepared, too outmatched, too everything. And my husband was too. The enemy is here, and it is unlike any enemy I've ever seen before. Zavier and I are the only people alive who bore witness to the downfall of man, so I will record it here, in the hopes that history won't be lost like all things to time.
By the time Zavier formed the spying window this morning, Bastiant's spatio'kine had already opened the rift and disappeared inside it. My husband stood in the middle of a clearing, staring at it, his hand wrapped around the boy's forearm, gold magic glittering around them like a cage. I don’t know why they opened the rift in the woods instead of coming back home—perhaps to keep other mages from sensing the magic, perhaps to keep the other eggs safely away in case something went awry. Either way, against my husband’s magic there was nothing Zavier or I could do but watch. So we did, studying the rift for any change. Minutes passed. It could have been an hour. I know not. My eyes grew dry. My fingers ached from clutching Zavier's hand. We both jolted when we finally saw movement.
The spatio'kine tore through the rift rolling an egg before him, the surface a mix of black and red, speckled with flecks of yellow and as smooth as the others I'd seen. His eyes were wide with fear and his clothes were in tatters, shredded and burned, still smoldering as he swatted at the edge of his jacket, leaving embers in his wake.
"It's coming!" he shouted. "It's coming!"
"Close the rift," Bastiant ordered.
His power rushed across the distance to wrap around the egg and pull it toward him. As soon as he laid a palm on the curved surface, a smile I fear will haunt my nightmares spread across his face. The boy cried, but there was no way to fight. Bastiant’s magic shifted, wrapping around the boy he held with one hand and the egg he touched with the other.
The soul joining had begun.
Behind him, the spatio'kine struggled to undo his weave, the threads of space growing slippery in his hands, weak and injured as he was. With every passing moment, his back hunched closer and closer to the ground. He wobbled on unsteady feet, his knees trembling as he swayed.
My husband didn't notice or didn’t care. He was too deep in his power, seeing not the world but the two souls he intended to fuse. The egg shifted from black to gold, again and again, magic shimmering over its surface. The boy's transformation was more gruesome. His skin bubbled with scales, wings flashed at his back, and claws hovered over his fingertips. When he tried to shout, the bright spark of a flame erupted from his lips instead. With my husband still clutching his forearm, the boy eventually succumbed to the pain, dropping to the ground as though dead, but he wasn't. He had a worse fate in store.
"My king!" the spatio'kine screamed.
Bastiant was beyond hearing. The boy and the egg oscillated in spirit faster and faster, becoming little more than two blurs, until finally, with a gasp, my husband released them and stepped back. His magic dispersed.
"My king! You need to heal me. I need—"
The spatio'kine dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach and he bent over in pain, a groan escaping his lips instead. Bastiant didn't bother to turn around. His gaze was fixed on the boy and the egg, watching their spirits battle for control.
"What's happening?" Zavier asked by my side.
He was an avian. His body had waged this war once, but he'd been too young to remember, and he’d probably never borne witness to the change the way I had by my father's side. "Their souls are battling for dominance. Only one will win—the boy or the beast."
"How will we know who does?"
"Whichever body is left at the end is the winner," I explained, silently urging the boy to fight this otherworldly creature, to be the more powerful soul. When avians got their wings, the human soul was almost always more powerful than the bird's. We're the more intelligent beings with more commanding minds and a stronger sense of self to pull us through. There were some casualties, of course, but not many. These beasts were different, though. There was no telling what they were capable of, and as I stared at the twitching body of the little boy, I feared the spirit residing in that egg, even if not fully developed, was the stronger of the two.
My fears were confirmed moments later.
An explosion of energy knocked Bastiant back. Zavier and I turned away from his rift as a bright light flashed, temporarily blinding our eyes. By the time my vision returned, it was done. The boy was gone. My husband stood beside a gleaming golden egg, his covetous palm pressed against the surface, a victorious look in his eyes. It was my vision come to life.
"My king!" the spatio'kine screamed again.
Bastiant turned, annoyance twisting his features. "What—"
His words were cut off by a bubbling wave of fire barreling through the rift. Before the blast swallowed him, I saw my husband lift his hand, aethi'kine magic already rising to the defense. When the flames cleared, he was unharmed. I could not say the same for his spatio'kine. The man's skin was black, flaking from his face and his arms, melted in some places and charred in others. Breath hardly stirred his chest. A pained wheeze escaped his lips. Bastiant sighed and knelt beside his mage, sinking his healing magic into the man's skin. For a moment, I thought maybe that would be it.
Then a beast flew through the rift.
It was immense, far larger than I realized even in my visions, its jaw the same size as Bastiant's entire body. He had barely enough time to shift the focus of his magic before the thing was upon him, fire tearing from its throat as its claws reached for his head. Those expansive wings pumped with such force the leaves ripped free from the surrounding trees. When it roared, even Zavier and I flinched where we sat safely in the palace.
Aethi'kine magic wrapped around the beast, encircling it in a web of glittering gold. I waited for it to fly back through the rift, to be gone from our world, to succumb to my husband's will.
It didn’t.
Bastiant stumbled back with his hands outstretched as he sank all his focus into his magic. A grimace slowly spread across his face as more and more time passed. The beast took the onslaught head-on, flapping its wings and stomping its feet, getting no closer to my husband but going no farther away either. The more I watched, the more awed I became, realizing that even Bastiant's magic wasn't enough to hold this beast at bay. My husband stumbled and fell. His skin began to bubble in spots, as though melting from the inside out. I'd seen this once before, in a vision of my father—the vision of his death. I'd wondered at the time what could burn an aethi'kine, and now I knew. This beast and the incomprehensible power residing in its skin.
As my husband weakened, the beast strengthened, as though it absorbed his magic and took his power for itself. My gaze dropped away from the battle nearing its end to the golden egg sitting on the ground. If that was a beast without human magic, I could only imagine what sort of demon Bastiant had birthed with his power—part beast, part aethi'kine, the strongest of two worlds united into one unfathomable monster.
We needed to close the rift.
We needed to close it with that egg safely on the other side.
"Zavier, he's going to lose." I clutched his hand, unable to look away even as the horror of it all fought to steal the words from my lips. "They're going to die."
"I know."
"We need to close the rift."
"Not we, Mira."
I turned to him with a protest on my lips, but it was too late. His hazel eyes were already hardened by determination and laced with apology, a combination that tore the breath from my chest. All I could manage was a soft, "No."
"I love you," he whispered.
Then he fell through his rift and sealed it behind him.
I waited, unmoving, for what felt like an eternity, uncaring as my muscles grew stiff, my mind’s eye not in my room, but still watching those horrors unfold. Horrors the man who had come to mean everything to me had just chosen to face without me. I knew there was little I could've done to help—my magic was useless in battle, my body even more so—but the not knowing was excruciating.
Zavier came tumbling into my room in a flash of white magic. The egg rolled across my carpet as a scream tore from his throat. I spun just in time to see a cloud of flame barreling toward me before the rift sealed, and it was gone, nothing but a cloud of quickly disappearing smoke. We sat in silence for a moment, except for his ragged breathing, as my gaze shifted to the golden egg gleaming in the candlelight.
"What happened?" I murmured softly.
"I couldn't close it," he said, his tone rough, his eyes hollow with a despair I will remember for the rest of my days. "I tried, Mira. I did everything I could, but it wouldn’t let me close it. I don't know why. I'm not trained well enough to understand why. Perhaps because it's another mage's rift. Perhaps the very foundations of that world fight me. Perhaps these beasts do. I know not, but I know I couldn't close it. And I couldn't let them have that thing either."
I nodded, closing my eyes as visions of fire and ash flickered, so many burning cities, so many screaming people. Then I looked at him again. "Them?"
"Another flew through while I was there. I took to the sky and they followed, but I was faster through the thick terrain of the forest, spaces too narrow for their bodies to fit. I led them away then doubled back, getting to the egg just fast enough to make a rift back home and toss us both through."
"We need to destroy it—"
"No," he cut in, placing his hand gently over mine. "Not yet. I think I know what your husband intended to do with them now that I've felt one. His spatio'kine was going to use them as anchors, just as we do living people, for some sort of rift. I know not what, but I pray we can use them to close the one he left open."
"How?"
"I'm not sure. But I promise, Mira, somehow I'll find out."
"I know you will," I said as I closed the distance between us and pulled him into my arms, letting him collapse against my chest as we held each other tight. I pressed my lips to his cheeks, his brow, his hair, murmuring over and over, "I know you will, my love. I know it."
Hours later, we finally moved the egg to where the others remained hidden, stashing it away. We need to take advantage of the next few days, before people begin to suspect my husband's absence for exactly what it is. We will read as much as we can, diving into the most advanced practices of spatio'kine magic ever recorded, and someday Zavier will understand it.
I know he will.
I believe in him with everything I have.
He'll save us.
Second Day of the Ninth Moon
Zavier and I have searched and searched and searched for information on using items as anchors for spatio'kine magic, but we've found nothing. There's got to be a way, something we can use to close the rift. We must keep looking, and we will.
In the meantime, the rift grows.
We spied on the spot, and instead of only two, there were at least two dozen of the beasts that we could see. The once-small door of the rift was now wide enough to easily fit a pair of them through, and the forest around them burned, the skies filling with smoke and ash. They came for their eggs, but now I fear they stay for the richness of our world, a paradise compared to the barren wasteland they left behind. The very earth grows black beneath them, devoid of life, as though they've sucked it into their skin the same way that beast absorbed Bastiant's magic. I fear for the spirit sewn into every fiber of our lands—I fear they will devour it.
Fourth Day of the Ninth Moon
The beasts have come to my city. I don't know how they found us, but they're here. Our mages took them down before too much damage was done, but the battle has only just begun. I know it in my soul.
Seventh Day of the Ninth Moon
Hummingbirds arrived this morning from two of our neighboring kingdoms. The beasts have attacked their cities as well.
I wonder if they're drawn to the magic.
I wonder if they consume it like food.
I wonder a lot about the eggs stashed deep beneath this castle, pulsing with a power this world has never seen. Are they a beacon? Will they be our saving grace or our doom?
Tenth Day of the Ninth Moon
More beasts came, and more hummingbirds too.
Unlike with humans, elemental magic seems to be the most effective against them—puncturing them with metal, burning them with light, dousing them in water. I believe they're drawn to all magic, but they don't absorb it the way they did my husband's power. Maybe they aren't smart enough to know the difference. Maybe animal instinct prevents them from knowing any better. Either way, the most powerful mages in our world, the aethi'kine kings and queens, have been rendered useless in the war to claim it. Spirit magic seems to lure them most of all, and I've already heard of another king falling.
Zavier says the avians are planning to leave now that word of my husband's disappearance has spread. They're fleeing to another kingdom with an aethi'kine still in power, but he won't go with them. His mother begged, but she doesn’t understand. It's not about him choosing me. It's about him choosing the world over his own wants and his own desires. It's about his noble heart.
He won’t leave the eggs.
He's determined to figure out how to use them.
Sixteenth Day of the Ninth Moon
As I look outside, my city is burning. Twelve more beasts came in a pack, and there were heavy casualties as we tried to fight them. Some of our most powerful mages are gone—the best of them, killed; the worst of them, fled. Most who are left have no magic or a weak amount. When the beasts come back, I don't know how we'll stop them.
Twenty-First Day of the Ninth Moon
We haven’t heard from the other kingdoms in days—no hummingbirds carrying messages, no visitors, nothing. Zavier and I peered through spying windows, but it's hard to discern the truth. Other cities burn like ours. Did their mages go into hiding? Will that help or hurt? Half of the skies were free of avians, which makes me think too many of our aethi'kine monarchs attempted to battle the beasts and paid dearly.
I'm slowly losing my best friend. Zavier doesn’t sleep. He hardly speaks. He spends all hours of the day in the library, and no one stops him, because the world has gone insane. The advisors are gone, the avians too. It's just the people outside the palace walls who stay, desperate for aid, though there is nothing I can do to help them.
Twenty-Third Day of the Ninth Moon
More beasts came. They reached the palace, burning the throne room just as my visions showed me. Zavier and I had no choice but to flee as the walls crumbled around us. We barely reached the eggs in time to push them through a rift before the walls caved in.
Now I sit beside the spot where we first made love, the moonlight my only guide as I scrawl across this page, one precious bottle of ink left before my words run dry. Nearly a full moon cycle has passed since my husband opened the rift and the beasts first came. One moon cycle. Who would have thought the end of the world would be so swift? Hardly a blink in time? I see flashes of the future, and I know it will take far, far longer to save it.
Eighth Day of the Tenth Moon
We live on the run now, jumping through rifts from place to place, always on the edge of annihilation. The eggs are a beacon, something within them calling out to the beasts no matter what we do. I think it might be more than just magic—I think it's the creatures my husband made, alive in there, growing nearer and nearer to hatching with each passing day. They don't want to be around us. They know, somehow, that we mean them harm. But the beasts will protect them as their own. The beasts will keep them safe long enough for them to destroy us.
Seventeenth Day of the Tenth Moon
There is no good news. Every time we look to the other cities, they are drenched in fire. Mages have dispersed throughout the kingdoms. The avians stick to the high mountains and rugged terrains where the mages aren’t likely to travel, hoping to remain under the radar and safe. The beasts grow in numbers, more and more of them flooding the rift with each passing day. The forest is gone, nothing but ebony dirt beneath their claws, burned away, its spirit devoured. I begin to wonder if the world they came from was not the first they've wrecked, and if ours is just another in their path of destruction.
Twenty-Second Day of the Tenth Moon
We are running out of time.
We are running out of time, and I know what I must do, though I hate it with every ounce of my being.
The future calls.
I must find the strength to let it take me.
Twenty-Ninth Day of the Tenth Moon
This is my last entry for I don’t know how long, perhaps ever. I thought my hands would tremble. I thought I would be afraid. But I'm not. My head is clear. It's time. So many lives have been lost, so many homes destroyed. I owe it to these people to do what only I can do—to look through time for the answers.
Zavier and I returned to our forest. Though the firebugs were gone, the stars still shone down upon our final hours together. It's hard to believe I have known him less than a year, when it feels as though I couldn't exist without him by my side, as though our souls are so entwined one would not survive without the other. We lay on the sand, every ounce of our bodies and spirits bared for the other to see. It was then, his hand on my cheek and his body above me, his hair falling in waves around his face and his hazel eyes fiercely set on mine, that my first vision came to life. The sight reassured me. We were always meant to be here in this moment together. We were destined for it, which meant somewhere out there, the aether had a plan, and someday, we would see.
"You are my favorite future," I whispered later as I lay in his arms.
"You are my forever," he answered, his strong hands gently caressing my skin. "And no matter how far you travel, I will always bring you back to me."
I hope he can.
I hope he will.
My ink is running low, and I must save some, just in case his words hold true. I pray this is not the end of me, but if it is, I can see no better way to go than carrying the fate of my world in my heart. As soon as I put this quill down, I will sink into my magic and let it carry me away. I will venture into horizons unknown.
Aether be with you.
Goodbye.