The Dragon's Last Fae Queen

Aerith's POV

The flame trembles, throwing restless shadows across the cracked walls like ghosts too tired to leave. I sit hunched beside our flickering lantern, grinding a handful of brittle herbs into paste. The mortar is chipped, and my fingers are stained green from days of use. The rhythmic scrape of stone against stone almost drowns out the sound of Nana’s cough, which was coming up more frequently than before.

A harsh, wet sound tears through the air. My hand freezes mid-grind, my heart twisting. The smell of decay and damp wood presses heavy in the room, thick as fog. Our roof leaks again; I can taste mildew on my tongue, and the iron tang of sickness fills the air.

“Nana, please,” I whisper, setting the mortar aside. The floor creaks as I cross to her straw bed, the boards cold against my bare feet. I kneel beside her and lift the bowl of bitter tea I brewed hours ago. “Try to drink a little.”

Her eyes, once sharp as frost, are dull now, glassy with fever. “It won’t help, child,” she murmurs, voice rasping. “The herbs are too old. The fever has taken root.”

I press the damp cloth to her forehead. The heat burns my fingers. “You’re getting worse,” I whisper, panic rising in my chest. “If I don’t get the tonic tonight…”

"You know you can't find that around in the local stores." Her voice was almost too low to be heard.

“I’ll find a way,” I breathe, barely aware I have spoken aloud. “The dragon’s pharmacy sells fever tonics. It could work, and you know there is nothing that couldn't be found there.”

Her eyes snap open suddenly fierce, cutting through the haze of sickness. “No.”

The word slices through the air, startling me. “You will not go out in the dark, especially not near the royal district.”

“But Nana,” I protest, “you’re burning up! If I don’t go, you will...”

“Enough!” The command hits me like a whip crack. She tries to sit up, her frail hands clutching the blanket as if it’s armor. “We don’t have the money, Aerith. And even if we did, the dragons’ servants would skin you alive if they found what you are.”

I go still. What I am.

Those words always hang between us like smoke. I’ve heard them all my life, whispered with fear but never explained. Sometimes I feel it, the shiver under my skin when moonlight touches me, the way my blood seems to hum when I’m angry. But Nana never lets me ask.

“I can sell something,” I say quickly, desperate to push away her fear and my own. “Mother’s silver pendant, maybe… or the old clothes in the shelves, it's not like we have..."

“No!” Her voice cracks, and a fit of coughing follows. When it finally eases, she grips my wrist with surprising strength. “That pendant is not for sale. It’s your bloodline’s seal, the last thing your parents left you. You must never show it, do you hear me?”

I stare at her, my throat tightening. The pendant, a small crescent charm etched with strange runes, has always sat in the chest by the window, untouched. I’ve never understood why it scares her so much.

“But Nana,” I whisper, “if it can save you, why don't..."

“It can doom you.”

The fear in her eyes chills me more than the night air creeping under the door. Yet again, I shove it aside. I guess she was only trying to scare me. “Even the dragons would recognize that seal if they saw it. Your mother’s bloodline was hunted for a reason.”

Hunted. The word lodges like a thorn in my mind.

I bite my lip until I taste copper. The room feels smaller now, the shadows pressing close. “Then I’ll find another way. I’ll work at the bakery, or the market, that way..."

Her head moves weakly on the pillow. “Even the air listens in this city, child. You forget where you live. You forget what watches from above.”

Drakenhold. The kingdom of dragons. A place where the sky burns gold by day and secrets die by night.

Her voice softens. “You’re turning eighteen tonight. That’s when your magic will stir. You must stay hidden till dawn. Promise me.”

I look down at her hand in mine, thin, trembling, the veins like threads of blue glass. Eighteen. The word hums through me. I’ve waited for this day my whole life, dreaming of what it would feel like when the magic came. But now, seeing her like this, I don’t want magic. I want her to breathe without pain.

“You’ve kept me safe for so long, Nana,” I whisper, blinking back the sting in my eyes. “Let me do this one thing for you.”

Tears glisten in her lashes. “Aerith, please..."

I smooth back a strand of her silver hair and force a small smile. “Sleep a little. I’ll be back before the next cough.”

"Where are you going?" She asked in a barely whispering voice.

"Just over there." I mouthed

Her lips part to argue, but the words dissolve into another fit. She knew I was lying. I can’t watch anymore. I move before my courage falters.

From the chest, I pull my mother’s old cloak, a soft gray thing frayed at the edges. It smells faintly of lavender and smoke. I tuck a small pouch of coins into my belt, grab the empty medicine bottle, and glance toward the window where the pendant lies in the moonlight.

The silver gleams faintly, runes pulsing as if in rhythm with my heartbeat.

“I’ll be careful,” I whisper, slipping it beneath my tunic until it rests against my skin. “I promise.”

The latch clicks softly as I open the door.

The night meets me like a breath of ice.

Mist curls around the narrow cobblestone streets, ghosting over the puddles that reflect the moon’s pale light. From somewhere below, I smell salt and smoke from the harbor. Above me, the royal towers burn with golden fire. The dragons’ district, where their kind sleep on piles of gold and rule over the rest of us, sleeps on a muddy bed and under a leaking roof.

I pull my hood low, clutching my cloak tight around me. The city sleeps, but not peacefully. Shadows shift where no one walks. A low growl echoes from an alley, answered by the clang of armor.

Just get to the pharmacy, I tell myself. Get the tonic. Be back before dawn.

My boots splash through shallow puddles as I keep to the edges of the street. Every creak of a shutter makes my heart jump. The dragons’ guards, half-wolves, half-men prowl these streets. And if any of them catch my scent…

I shudder.

I pass the baker’s shop, its shutters drawn tight. The smell of stale bread lingers, sweet and sad. Sweet because the aroma was mouth-watering, and sad because I will never get to taste it. Even if my nana and I have enough to buy one on some days, we can't even go inside to purchase it. Nana said it's forbidden to go anywhere too close to the dragons, and that place is more like a dragon's den. Farther up, the glow of blue lanterns flickers, dragonfire trapped in glass. They burn cold instead of warm, lighting the way to the royal quarter.

I’m almost there when a strange sensation ripples through me.

At first, I think it’s fear. But then my fingertips begin to glow, faint, silvery sparks dancing beneath my skin like tiny fireflies. I gasp and pull my hands into my cloak.

“No,” I whisper. “Not now.”

The air around me shivers, bending like heat over flame. The mist stirs in lazy spirals, as if drawn to me. My pulse quickens, terror and wonder tangling inside me.

Is this what Nana meant? My magic… stirring?

I press my hands hard against my sides, forcing the light to fade. It dims, but the hum remains alive, whispering, awake.

Somewhere, a bell tolls thirty minutes before midnight.

My eighteenth year will begin soon.

I lift my chin toward the bridge that separates our quarter from the dragons’ district. Beyond it lies danger and the only chance to save her.

"Should I go back?"

I shake my head, aborting the thought.

I can't go back; if I do, Nana wouldn't survive, and I would have no family left. I would be left in this hellhole all by myself.

“Hold on, Nana,” I whisper into the mist. “I’ll bring you back at dawn.”

And as I step forward into the fog, I swear I feel it, eyes, crimson and cold, watching from somewhere behind me, but I didn't stop, and then the light of the pharmacy came into view.

And I let out a breath of relief.