Dragon Riders
Chapter 1
Princess Relena Peacecraft crossed the royal gardens in long strides, holding the skirts of her light summer dress to prevent herself from tripping. She would have run had she not known her mother was watching. Her father's moments of lucidness rarely lasted long those days so, when he had requested to see her, she had wanted to drop everything and go straight to him. Her mother, however, had forbid it. As a Peacecraft princess she had to keep up appearances even when there was no one around to see it. She had, therefore, finished her meal as calmly as she could manage, though not without feeling guilty for keeping her father waiting.
As soon as Relena was out of her mother's sight, her legs automatically picked up the pace. Pagan – her father's old counsellor – chuckled when he saw her trotting down the corridor and towards him. The king had probably summoned him as well for he stood right in front of the large oak doors that led into the royal chambers. He had been waiting for her.
'Good morning, Princess Relena.' He bowed briefly.
'Good morning, Pagan. How is father?'
'I fear his condition has not improved, Your Highness.' Pagan had a sad, almost troubled expression on his face as he spoke, and Relena put a hand on his arm to assure him he was not to blame. 'In fact, Sally Po is still inside with him. Will you go in now, my lady?'
'Yes. I have kept father waiting long enough as it is.' She nodded, allowing the old man to open the door and announce her before she stepped in.
King Marticus Peacecraft was lying in the middle of the bed, his back and head propped up by a small assortment of pillows. His pale face and fragile body could barely be seen under the covers and his long blonde hair and beard. The sweltering room had all its windows closed, but the sick man still seemed to shiver from time to time. It pained Relena to see her father in such a state. He had always been a strong, healthy man… Yet a simple man he was, none the less. Still it was a mystery how he had all of a sudden fallen so terribly ill.
'Princess Relena.' Sally Po, the only female physician in the kingdom, made a curtsy as the young princess walked in.
'Sally.' Relena smiled, acknowledging the older woman's presence, before turning to her father with an apologetic look. 'Forgive me, father. I meant to come sooner, but mother would not allow me to leave before I finished my meal.'
'It is all right, dear.' The king's voice remained strong despite everything he was going through and he even managed a weary smile at his youngest child.
'I shall take my leave now, Your Majesty. If you will excuse me.' Sally made another curtsy and left at her sovereign's nod.
As soon as the door had closed behind the medic, Relena ran towards the bed and threw her arms around her father's bony shoulders. 'Oh, father…'
'Hush, child.' He patted her dark golden locks. 'You need to be strong from now on… For the both of us.'
She pulled away, meeting his eyes with sadness. 'I will do my best, father. That I promise you.'
King Marticus nodded. 'Your mother has not yet come to terms with the inevitable… But it is not just to support her that I need you to be strong. Another search party returned this morning…and still there are no signs of your brother. I refuse to believe he is dead, but I think it is time for us to make the legal arrangements that will place you at the top of the line of succession. Do you know what that means, my dear?'
'I will be crowned queen… But I am not of age, father, and there are still three weeks before my twenty-first birthday. What are we going to do until then?'
'Until then you will have to be extra careful.' He was serious as he said that, far too much for the young princess' taste. Her father noticed her worried frown. 'There is no one better suited to rule our kingdom then you, Relena. Your brother may have my looks, but you have my heart.'
'That is not what worries me, father.' She smiled at him, though it seemed to pain her to do so, and took his hand in hers. 'Do you trust the people from the Alliance, father?'
King Marticus' eyebrows knitted and he turned away from her. 'No and neither should you. Ever since they pledged fealty to us they have been trying to fool me, electing their men into our royal council so they can eventually try and place one of their own in the throne… You should be wary of them, especially now that the kingdom is so vulnerable. Pagan will be there to offer sound advice should you need it.'
'What about Sally Po? She is a member of the Alliance… Can we trust her to take care of you? Would they not rather see you dead?'
'Sally can be trusted.' The king's eyes betrayed his conviction, and even though Relena did not know how he could be so sure, she did not dare question him. 'Still I would advise you to only go to her as a last resort. They will be keeping an eye on her and that would endanger you both.'
She nodded. 'Anything else I should know?'
'Beware of Romefeller as well. I know we have not heard much from them ever since they cut ties with our kingdom, when your grandfather was still king, but whispers have been going on around the colonies that OZ has got a new leader and new ideals. Those ideals are being well accepted by many of our young men and women. Do not trust them, Relena. Their people have been known for worshiping war and feeding mistrust, and they will lie to you and use you to achieve their goals if they get the chance. Do not let them fool you.'
'I will not, father.' She squeezed his hand, feeling the hard protruding bones.
'I know, I know…' his eyes grew more and more unfocused with each passing minute, overcome by the fever that plagued him. 'I am sorry, child. I am truly sorry.'
'It is all right, father.' Relena pushed his hair away from his forehead as his eyes drifted shut. 'You should rest.'
For another half hour the princess sat there watching her father drift in and out of a restless sleep. She realised whatever dreams his feverish brain was conjuring up must not be at all pleasant and wondered if she would be able to talk to him one last time before he was gone. Ever since the symptoms had started and the unwavering fever, he had been having less and less moments of lucidness. Holding his thinning hand in her own and watching him suffer, she allowed two lonely tears to trace salty white lines down her cheeks. Relena had the fateful feeling that was the last time she would be seeing him alive. She laid a farewell kiss on his forehead before she walked out.
XXX
Leaning on his staff as if it were a mere walking stick, wizard J – ruler of winds – surveyed the enormous throne room. Once, the five colonies had formed together a kingdom ruled by the most powerful wizards of the entire world. That kingdom had been the centre of their civilization. At that time, this one room was ever full of noble men and women who surrounded the five large thrones, offering numerous tributes… No magic or wisdom could even rival the five wizards'. Now, there was little left. The throne room was no longer warm and bright, but moist and dark. A lugubrious tomb. He tightened the hold on his staff.
Wizard G, the vice president of their council and master of darkness, was second to arrive. He took his seat without a word, not bothering to greet his old comrade. Their council had not yet dared to reunite after the collapse of their great kingdom two centuries earlier, but G seemed to have had enough inactivity and had summoned them all there that morning. J could only wonder what his motivations had been…
Wizards S and H ruled over fire and earth, respectively. They arrived together, both looking preoccupied, surely also wondering the reasons behind that sudden reunion. After two long centuries, they reclaimed their own seats without so much as word.
Wizard O arrived last, as the master of water he had always seemed to follow a rhythm all his own. J knew he had not been pleased by what he considered was a disturbance to his daily activities, but his expression betrayed nothing.
Though wizards aged much more slowly than the common folk, they had still grown old and tired. J could see it in their faces as he took his own seat. As the council president, in the past, J had always been the first to speak, but this time he gestured for G to do the honours since he had been the one to bring them all together. He could feel the atmosphere grow agitated as the man prepared to talk.
'The shadows came to me last night. They showed me… Death has come to claim King Marticus. What little time he has left is running out as we speak.' G sat on the edge of his chair, the shadows on the walls growing taller and larger in response to his building tension. He was tired of sitting around doing nothing. The first Peacecraft king had somehow discovered the wizards' true names, the only weapon that could destroy them. They had exchanged their lives for the submission of their colonies, thus dismantling their kingdom. After that, their names had been passed from king to king. Until now. 'He has not had the chance to relay our names to his heir, Prince Milliardo. Therefore, it is time for us to act!'
'What say you, J?' H turned to their supposed leader.
'I knew the moment you arrived you would propose something of that nature.' J smirked at G. Not even they knew each other's names. A wizard's name meant the key to his power. It could never be spoken by any lips but his own, so their names had been written and passed by one king to the next, from generation to generation. There remained the chance, however, that those parchments had not been destroyed, but kept somewhere within the castle of Sanc. Should they take the risk? If they did not, they might have to continue living in fear for many more centuries before another opportunity arose. 'A wind of change is upon us.'
'But, even with the king in his dying bed, Sanc Kingdom should not be underestimated.' It was S who spoke from behind his wooden nose. The real one he had lost battling a foreign swordsman three hundred years before meeting his comrades, or so it was told.
'Without a ruler their forces will be divided. Prince Milliardo is still missing and the young Princess Relena has not yet come of age… Until she does, the kingdom will be without a rightful ruler and shrouded in chaos.' G's arguments were strong, J knew, but there was still a lot to be considered.
'But the princess will be twenty-one in only two weeks' time and as soon as her birthday is past she will be crowned queen.' H reminded them seriously. The ground shook as he slapped his hand against the arm of his stone throne. They all wanted to simply say "aye", but to risk so much… They were far too old to make a hasty decision without examining all possible outcomes.
'Not if we kill her first.' O finally spoke up, one of his hairless eyebrows arching up wickedly as he smiled.
'Kill the princess? That is no easy task, my friend.' S shook his head vehemently. 'Though if we accomplished the task we might grow to be even more powerful than we were two hundred years ago… The Alliance claims to support the Peacecraft's government, but we all know better. I have seen it in the flames… They will try to obtain the crown from the inside, going over the princess' power to place one of their own in the throne through the royal council.'
'The sands have shown me something different…' H cut in, twisting his black moustache between his thumb and forefinger. 'Romefeller's military force – OZ – has a new leader now, and he intends to bring the princess to their side…'
'How do they propose to do that? As if she would turn against her own father!'
'My vision was not clear… It is my personal belief that they intend to kidnap her. However they mean to accomplish this though, they will be attacking the capital with their military forces, making the Sanc Kingdom even more vulnerable.'
'This will be our chance to strike.' G punched the arm of his chair to emphasize his point and the shadows danced impatiently around them. 'With the king gone and the princess not yet crowned, the Alliance will be giving the orders and between protecting Her Highness or the borders…'
'What I have foreseen is much more interesting…' O intertwined his fingers, waiting until all eyes had turned to him. 'A new force is being born… It will be led by a masked man. A man whose revolutionary ideals are, at this very moment, motivating all sorts of unsatisfied radicals from all over the kingdom to join his cause, but that is not the worst part… What they intend is to destroy not only the Sanc Kingdom, but our entire civilization.'
'A threat to us all…' J leaned forward. 'I feel this situation will turn out to be more problematic than we first thought…' There was a long moment of silence in which all smiles were replaced by wrinkled frowns. Then a breeze blew through the window descending over J's staff in circles before spreading all over the floor and up into the walls. All the wizards turned to the master of winds. 'We should act. It is time.' He told them with a serious nod. 'Is your power enough to summon the dragon riders?'
The five wizards exchanged glances, then one at a time they acceded.
A.N.: I'm really excited to be revising this story. It's only been 3 years since it was first posted, but I've grown immeasurably as a writer in the mean time and, because this was the first story I wrote that I was actually happy with once it was done, I felt it deserved a thorough remastering. If you happen to have read the older version or if you are only finding this now, I hope you'll enjoy the journey and let me know your thoughts. :) Thanks for reading!
