193: Moonspeaker

193: Moonspeaker
\[Carnelia\]

"I refuse," I hold my head high. "Allies do not treat one another like prisoners. If you wanted my help, you should have asked rather than chain me to this realm."

"We're sorry, Your Majesty, but we feel it is necessary with your history to keep you contained. It is for your safety as well as the safety of all gathered here," an elderly drake steps forward, the starflower jasmine glowing blue throughout his long tendrils of hair.

"It took three of us to bring you back from the shadows when you unleashed your small nightmare," he explains. "We must keep you powerless or risk your wrath. We know the pull of a mother to her children. Why did you try to flee? You are safe here?"

"Why would any mother feel a need to leave quickly with her children and family--fear for their safety." I glare directly at my uncle. "As you say, I am too powerful. If someone were to threaten their lives," I refuse to remove my eyes from my uncle, who matches my gaze with his steely hardness, "I might tear down the world to get them back."

The blue crystals flare with my words. Ah, so I might be chained like a slave, but I still have some bite.

Good.

"Are you saying you felt your family was in danger?" another elder speaks up. "This is your home, Stella, as much as the Solar Kingdom."

"If it were my home then you wouldn't need a collar to keep me here. I'd be here because I want to be," I growl, snapping my teeth. "You are no better than Luxandria. They also felt a need to chain my people because they were too powerful. Is the Moon Kingdom just a Terran army in disguise?"

There are murmurs through an unseen audience. Others are here hidden behind a deep shadow. Only those illuminated with crystal lamps can be seen--the very elderly sitting on stools, and their younger acolytes framing them on either side. How much of the Moon Kingdom is here, watching me, judging me, deciding my fate?

"You are about as much a Sun Dragon as I am a child of Earth," Thalan spits. "Yes, you were born of the sun, but the shadows call you. You are a child of both the light and darkness, one able to manipulate both. That makes you one of the most powerful of us. If we let you go, you could remake the world." He pauses, his gaze softening. "Which is exactly what we need you to do."

A hush falls over the hall. Then dead silence as everyone waits to hear what their king has to say. The air is tense, full of potential as if what he says could alter all of our futures.

"About a century ago, the Kingdom of the Moon noticed something that terrified even our most powerful Scientists. A tear in our world--an unraveling."

Seeing my confused look, he pauses to explain. "Sometimes the world we live in tries to...disappear. This planet was never meant to sustain us indefinitely. The Celestial Kingdom is more than just a place for the Star Dragons to lord over us, it was always meant to  an escape pod, a method to leave when we needed before the universe lost all of its...viability." He pauses. "This world is no more real than your nightmares, Stella. If properly harnessed, you could be a world builder like Carnelia the Great."

"I'm not a weapon," I remind him, "Or a tool. But you are treating me as both."

He gives a nod of his head in acknowledgment, "Perhaps. But you also could have come to us willingly while we plead our case. Instead, you attempted to flee."

Attempted? Primus.

The crystals overhead shatter and the shadow is lifted. An auditorium housing thousands of moon dragons appears before me. I'm on a raised dais, just a bit of entertainment for the gathered throngs. I begin to reach for the shadows.

A sharp sting in my ribs brings my attention to the assailant, a young drake holding a rod tipped with crystals that radiate with blue lightning that cracks and sizzles. My glimmer robes are singed, leaving a hole the size of my taloned fists burned along my ribs, that now burn with pain.

"WHERE IS MY MATE?" I gnash my fangs, my power shorting the collar at my neck. "Where are my children? You monsters, I will tear apart your world and then I will watch you burn in your beds if you touch even a single scale on their bodies." I pull my arms forward and the chains holding me to this place tense and flex, slowly giving way.

"Queen Stella!" one of the elders gasped. "Your family is safe, they made it to safety. They are in the Celestial Kingdom now..."

My nose flaring, I take a deep breath.

"I'm done with your storytelling," I hiss, my head swiveling from side to side. I just need to push a bit harder and I'll be able to short this collar and break these chains. I can feel it. "If you could please release me, I'll be on my way."

Thalan laughs. "You will help us, Stella. You have no choice. The world will unravel without you and my brother. You have no choice but to go into the void and..."

"You mean for me to undo myself to save all of you?" I laugh as I realize exactly what they are asking for. "Into the void--the very place of making and unmaking?" My laughter grows harsh and cruel as I glare back at him. "Tell me, is that what happened to my father? Did you spin him this fairytale and feed him to the darkness to give you another century?"

The council members look at one another with shaking hands and large eyes. I have hit a bit too close to home. My guess was far too accurate.

One councilwoman didn't look away. Imperiously she rose in her seat and replied for Thalan, her voice as clear as a bell. "It is your duty and your honor to give yourself to the darkness for the sake of our world. You are but one dragon, but you could save billions. Your father, our loyal son, went headlong into the void without reservation. He knew that as a shadow walker, he was the only one who could weave the darkness whole. Queen Stella..."

"MY NAME IS CARNELIA," I roar. "Stella died the day she watched her siblings harvested as food for the other dragons in containment. Stella died after almost a century of living as a lost and abused human child. I had no one and nothing, and now that I have everything you dare tell me I must sacrifice myself for you, for your world. I care not for any of you and I refuse to be a sacrifice any longer.

"You are just as bad as the humans that put me on that mountain for Primus' amusement just to save their own skins. Worse, because you do so while calling me kin. At least they had enough honor to admit it was because I was so different I deserved to die."

I pull on the chains and they begin to bend and twist as my body strains against confinement. A few council members move their chairs back.

Three young drakes step forward, each of them holding a crystal staff that crackles sharply, the blue lightning burning the air.

"Contain yourself, Your Majesty." 

I pull harder.

"I think this conversation is over. You told me my options, I considered them, and I have decided that it is not worth it for me to enter the shadows just to save you. If the world is unraveling, as you claim, then maybe we deserve to be unmade. I'm sure our world disappoints our ancestors. Oestra the Original crafted this world for the love of her mate and her clutch. You can't remake a thing born of love with fear. You need love to rebuild love."

A gag fills my mouth, choking me as a drake pulls a mask tightly around my face. I can barely see through small slits as a second and then a third collar is added to my neck with new shackles added to my wrists.

"I don't think you understand, Stella," my uncle steps forward. "You are traveling south and you are going to face the shadows. Whether or not you survive depends on you."

Three figures step forward. Each has a face almost identical to my own. "Nieces, meet your sister. You'll be helping her on her journey to the rift."

A sharp burning against my skull knocks me to the ground. As strong arms lift me, I lose all ability to fight.

In the end, I guess it doesn't matter that I am a Queen.

Once a sacrifice, always a sacrifice.