The queen was next to him. Younger but still breath-taking beautiful, wearing the same tiara as his mother. Her hair cascaded down in curls and she smiled. The first painting that smiled. I liked her hair down. They engraved her name on the golden plate and my eyes stuck on her birthdate. I didn’t get past the 18 in her birth year. It was one thing my mind struggled to process was how old they were, but they didn’t look that old.
A lot of princes and princesses followed. All of them carried features that either belonged to the queen or the king.
Were all of them their children?
I looked at their brass plates, and they engraved their birthdates with departing dates on all of them. All that loss? Some were born two hundred years ago and the dates vary from a hundred years to eighty, seventy, sixty, and so forth. The couple had to endure a lot of deaths. Didn’t they have dragons that gave them essence? One was not even thirty.
A beautiful girl was next. She was young and looked like the king, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She had her mother’s soft curves.
“Beloved Princess Desiree McKenzie.” My fingers brushed on her plate. Beloved?
“She passed away about eight years ago.”
I jumped out of my thoughts, and the queen laughed. It sounded like chimes.
“Sorry, Elena, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She came closer and put both her hands on my shoulder, sort of standing behind me, but still next to me. She wore jeans today, with ankle boots and a beautiful floral blouse. Her brown hair sat in another French twist. A sharp floral scent, the expensive kind, caressed my nostrils.
“How did she die?”
“Wyverns.”
I looked at her. “Wyverns? As in more beasties?”
Her lips curved. “They are part of the dragon race, but nothing like dragons. They are worse than the Chromatics, if you ask me. It was one of your father’s goals to unite with them.” She pinched off some invisible dust from the painting. “One of their best friends could speak their language.” She sighed as she brought her hand back and covered her chest. Her smile wavered. A memory she didn’t want to think about.
One of their friends betrayed them. Was it him?
“It was the wyverns that killed your mother and father. It’s funny how the ones we try to save becomes our doom. We can never trust them. We learned that the hard way with Desi.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault she passed on from this life. But I miss her with all of my heart.”
My eyes skidded past the twenty paintings before Dezi.
“Were all of them your children?” It sounded so far-fetched.
She smiled. “If you are as old as me, you will have many kids too, Elena. Some were a blessing, others kept us up at night. But yes, they were our pride and joy. And here is the baby.” She took me to the last painting of a handsome guy. He had blond hair, blue eyes, laugh lines but didn’t smile in this photo. “He will take over from Helmut one day. It’s been a long reign.”
His brass plate read Prince Lucian McKenzie.
“It took a lot of attempts to give birth to a masterpiece.”
I giggled.
“He is a few years older than you, and he reminds me a lot of your father. Had that same passion, just wanted to do good, change Paegeia for the better, which scares the crap out of me as the others who carried similar goals, all died young. I can’t imagine my life without him.”
“That must be so hard to say goodbye to so many children?”
“It is, but maybe this time, we don’t have to. He is one of the few ones that is born with the mark.”
We stared at the prince for a few minutes longer. He was hot. I didn’t see him roaming the hallways yet, but then again, this place was so big. “He lives here too?”
“No, he is a student at Dragonia Academy, but you will meet him soon. We are waiting for him as we speak. Two weeks is more than my heart can take.”
My lips formed a grin at the way she spoke about her son.
“He tried to claim the Rubicon a few times already and every single time, I prayed he wouldn’t die.”
