Chapter 18

As they flew, Micky wanted Fleur to explain why her blood was so precious to the mundanes.

At first, Fleur seemed reluctant, but then she realised that she trusted Ricky with her life and the lives of her pride members. She had done so for many decades now. After all, Ricky was their Paladin, their protector.

‘As you are aware, dragons are magical creatures. We have what is called hereditary memories, and they are passed on to our children. However, we do don’t remember our conception as a race as even for us that was too long ago.’

‘I have come to believe from what has been passed on to me and that I’ve learned from other means since my birth, is that the Fayle and we dragons have a lot more in common than the Fayle Royals wishes us too.’

“Do you mean genetically?” queried Micky not sure she understood at all.

‘No, little Lady. I mean in how our races came about. The race called the Pix that came from home planets of Keltria had been around for more than a million years before the end came. Their forefathers liked to dabble with both magic and the sciences and mixed the two.’

‘From what I’ve learnt, their experiments weren’t always successful. Some, like you and me, were considered achievements. My race is much older than the Fayle race is. My ancestors were left on this planet by one of the Star Explorers.’

‘Apparently, the magicians liked to use us as a form of a guardian. I have no idea what it was we were once supposed to guard as that was more than ten thousand years ago, and the information wasn’t passed on to my mother or me.’

‘We had hoped when the settlement ships came here over five thousand years ago, they would tell us why the Queen of our pride is compelled to live on this island. I can never leave here, but members of my pride can under specific circumstances.’

‘Six times now, in my memories, we have split the pride so we could expand across this planet. We can only do this when a Queen dies and before her successor has accepted the Sceptre of Power. At least some of us are free of the curse.’

‘I had been trying to build the pride up so we could do it again. My reign has had a lot more problems with the humans expanding into our territory than any previous queen has had to deal with. The farmers are also less tolerant or our needs.’

‘I was old even then, and I hadn’t produced any viable eggs for some time. I felt it was time to hand over the mantle to my daughter Shale. I’d lived a good enough life and was I was happy to step back and let her youth guide in these newer times where technology was gaining over magic.’

‘In the past, the Queens liked there to be at least a hundred and twenty living members and fifty viable eggs in stasis to replace the genes of those who were leaving. We were close when the Fayle Princes decided they needed a bit more excitement in their lives.’

‘Some idiot decreed that to drink the blood of a live dragon would give them magical powers so they could wield greater magic and it would even let them claim the throne of their province. So, some of them started hunting expeditions to capture and kill us.’

‘This wouldn’t have been bad if they had caught any other dragon other than a princess. They would have learnt that non-royal blood didn’t do as predicted, it actually sent the drinker into a stasis sleep for a very long time.’

‘Unfortunately, they managed to capture Shale with a magically enhanced, braided-steel net. She was my only living daughter at the time. She was only three hundred and still hadn’t learnt to fear humans.’

‘I later learnt that Richard’s great-uncle, Prince Joshua of Spirit City, chained her up and drank a half-cup of her blood every week for the next ten years. He had professed that he did gain magical abilities, but he would have later learnt that he could only retain them if he drank her blood regularly.’

‘I was told that he used her blood to entrap an entity in its ring and forced it to accept him as its master. He was also able to get the entity to accept a four-gemmed medallion to help boost his new magical abilities.’

‘Blood magic is probably as old as the use of magic itself. But it is the way of madness, and the power gained by its use is but short-lived. Only the addition of fresh blood can sustain it. When Shale died, then eventually so would his magic abilities even if he wore magical items.’

‘Shale went insane from her captivity. Unfortunately, even out of her mind, she couldn’t commit suicide. Something that was bred into our make-up stops us. I was told that Joshua had also shredded her wings and then crippled them to stop her from trying to fly. This wouldn’t have helped her state of mind.’

‘Somehow, she managed to coerce one of her keepers to kill her. We are not immune to cold steel any more than a human is. We just have thicker scales on our skin where most people try to hit us.’

‘It was reported that Joshua went on a psychotic rampage when he found Shale dead. He slew the other keepers of the dungeons like a raving madman. Anyone who got in the way was also attacked by sword and magic.’

‘His sister, Angeni, had him restrained. It took all six of her magicians and her Royal Guards to do it. Joshua was then put on a boat and forced from the island. She told him never to return. Killing royal retainers was a big no-no.’

‘Mind you, she didn’t even bother to send her apologies to me. The bitch had ignored all correspondence from me. We had met before, so she knew the letters were from me. She thought she was safe in her shielded castle. The bitch didn’t think so after she breathed in the bottle of paralysis gas, I sent her.’

Micky was surprised by the malevolence of the Dragon Queen towards Queen Angeni. Since she had lost a child in the way the queen had, she didn’t say anything and let her talk as they winged their way to the old crystal cavern.

‘Things settled down for about twenty-five years and then for some reason unbeknown to me, the Princes again started going on hunting expeditions to kill dragons. Apparently, it was a show of manliness to have the skin of a dragon tacked to one’s wall in one’s den.’

‘They turned it into a game. To keep it sporting, only one dragon was allowed to be killed each year. During the high summer, they were to come to the crossroads and participate. The craven fools were even allowed to use a non-magical proxy of the Burgis race to do the actual stabbing of the dragon.’

‘The butcher would be declared the King Dragon Slayer for a year, and he would receive a boon of his asking from the Queen of each province, within reason of course. She would give him six options, and he got to pick one.’