XV
Fire & Ice

I was told to stay put no matter what happened. So knowing better, I listened to my sister because I would be a suicidal idiot not to listen to my older sister. Kígyó and I decided that we would stay at least near the castle; there is an open field in the "backyard" of the castle. Kígyó lays down on her stomach, I lean up against her midsection, in between her front and back legs. She keeps her wings above me and holds them up just in case something that does attack on the off chance. I am currently eating a cucumber sandwich and have a bag of fish next to me just in case she does get hungry.

'Fish please.' Speaking of the hungry devil, I reached into the woven basket, I grabbed a few pieces of whitefish and placed them in front of her. She licked and ate it up within a gulp.

"Is that better?" I ask her with a smile and she uses her muzzle to rub against my head. I laugh and scratch her scales on the underside of her chin. She makes a happy grumbling noise, and I smile at my gentle giant.

'Much. What do you know of the border?' She asks me and I look at her, wondering how the hell she picked that up.

"I'm not even going to ask how you pieced that together, Kígyó, but, if you must know, I know Orion, my father and my sister are meeting with the Bely Glacier Royals." I tell her and her tongue slithers out in disgust. "Not fond of the White Dragons?" I ask her and she huffs white smoke out of her nostrils.

'Less of our kind, cowards of our race.' She speaks into my mind once again and I just laugh at her. Red Dragons always had this cocky stance about them so hearing that just seals in those rumors about them.

'Let's go for a ride Kígyó.' I tell her and climb onto her saddle as she lays down. I grab onto the saddle horn and whistle, 'Hegan.' I tell her and that's when she stands up, flapping her wings and bringing us into the air. Her majestic wings spread out with every flap as she glides through the air. She doesn't get high in the clouds but she doesn't almost touch the ground either. She stays right above the tree line so we don't get caught in the woods again.

'Let us use spells.' Kígyó grumbles into my mind and I smile, the magic even making me itchy since we haven't used it in a while.

'Bero Ikusmena.' Heat sight, it's one of the spells I can use and see through Kígyó's eyes, using her thermal sight. All Nova has told me about it is that our eyes turn to a yellow cat eye, I can't feel a thing but it's better beyond words on what I can see through Kígyó's eyesight. I can see the trees, they're blue and purple. The small living animals are orange or red depending on their body heat. I laugh in excitement when I look at the world below me, dragon riding could never bore me, and I don't know how the hell I survived without it before now. Kígyó and I fly around the Red Blaze Kingdom, staying close to the Castle just in case. Its a few hours before we land back in the grassy plain behind the castle again. She lets me down and I lean up against her when she lays down again. I give her some more fish and she gratefully takes it. I dig through my bag and find the egg salad sandwich that I made this morning. I gratefully take big bites and don't waste a bite. While Kígyó and I eat our dinner, Kígyó does a little too much wandering through my brain.

'What is this?' Kígyó pipes up and she throws us into a memory.

"Tell him the truth. Now. I'm sick and tired of these half-truths. Tell Pluto the whole truth now, father. I'm sick of this shit." Nova says to my father and my father's thick jaw tightens in annoyance.

"Nova, we spo-"

"No. You spoke. I listened. Tell him the damn truth, it's about damn time that he knows why our mother got taken from us." Nova snaps at my father and I don't think I've seen my sister so enraged with my father. It's the one time I've seen that Kardos' temper ignited so brightly. Maybe the Wind Princess does have some fire in her veins.

"Fine," My father told her and he faced me, taking a deep breath before he spoke. "It was the year 4453, 180  years before your mother was born. In the Silver Air Kingdom, the current King, King Alexander, your great-grandfather was in rule. They named him the Silver Tyrant King, he was barbaric, cold, and was absolutely cruel in the worst ways, Pluto. He had no prisoners because when he got in rule, he executed them all. He threw them in the ocean with rocks tied up with them or he would use his Aeromatic powers to slice them open, to tear them apart. He was a cruel man, who believed that any Silverian could only produce with other Aeromatic Half-Fae's. That rule even went for his two daughters, Selene and Elena. Selene is your great-aunt, your grandmother's sister. That year, your grandmother would find her Mate, Lucas, he was a High General for the Kingdom. King Alexander was ecstatic, his heir had found the most powerful half-fae as a Mate, even if he wasn't of royal blood. Now Selene, she was an ambassador for the Kingdom, in the Black Soul Kingdom. King Alexander didn't really care what Selene did, she was the second born, as long as she didn't embarrass the House. Selene had caught the eye of a certain Prince, the Crown Prince Hyunki Cha," My father looked down at his hands as he continued, playing  with his hands in his lap. "They were Mates and when they both came to the Silver Air Kingdom, they went to King Alexander to get his blessing. They had already completed the Bond, their Markings clear on their necks, smiling, laughing together. A beautiful pair. King Alexander forbade it, he used his powers to fling Prince Hyunki against the wall and Selene ran. She went to your grandmother's cabin, and your grandmother ushered her in. Your grandmother had protected her when the Guards stormed her house, and even knocked out a few soldiers with her powers." My father said, chuckling as he scratched the back of his neck.

"King Alexander would then come into the house and knock both of his daughters out completely," My brother spoke up, taking the reins from my father. "Princesses Elena and Selene would wake up in the dungeon, chained to the floor, chains on their ankles. They would also see Prince Hyunki chained to the floor as well. King Alexander would then tell Selene and Hyunki they wouldn't be able to be together, that the Gods were wrong, and that he would kill the both of them if they refused. Our grandfather didn't want the stain of a crossbred child to carry his blood. Selene refused, she refused and told him that she would rather die than to live without the love of her life. So King Alexander granted her wish. He went behind her and tore out her spine. He would leave the two Heirs in their grief as he would go back to the Castle. In her grief, she tore the chains off and tore Prince Hyunki's off as well. Hyunki would cradle his dying Mate in his arms, and Elena would end up holding her face. Selene didn't have any last words. She was dead the moment her spine got ripped out." Orion told me and Nova sighed, looking at me.

"In her rage, Elena would leave Hyunki and her now dead sister, leaving the door open. When asked where she was going, Elena told Hyunki she was going to kill the Tyrant King. She stormed into the Castle, bruises, dirt, and mud in her hair. She had told the Court of Wind what she just endured, that her father had just killed his own daughter. She told Alexander while staring him down, 'I am here to take my throne.' The Court and the Soldiers had stood behind Princess Elena. All it took for the Kingdom to be done with their Silver Tyrant King. Elena would then kill her father, the King. She would choke him and take all the air out of his lungs. Once he couldn't no longer breathe, she tore his spine out with a smile on her face. Queen Elena would then rule till the Black Death would take her Kingdom. Prince Hyunki stayed to watch Elena become Queen, bury her father and her sister. He would go back home and find a second-chance Mate, she would become Queen. They would have two sons down the line, Crown Prince Minjun and Prince Minwoo. In 4738, the year that the Silver Air Kingdom burned down, King Hyunki would find out he was dying, and as his last dying right as King, he got his army and would fly to the Silver Air Kingdom. He let his Dragons acid spit it to ashes, and when mom and King Hyunki faced each other. Both battled and bruised, Astraea was forced to kill him. Hyunki never forgived Elena for her father's actions and Minjun would never forgive Astraea, for killing his father. So when the Kingdom was burnt, the Air Kingdom would stay with the Bronze Costa House, and they stayed with them for two months." My sister told me and then my father spoke up again.

"Dragons sometimes spew prophecies and that's when your mother's dragon and my dragon spewed a prophecy, on different sides of Eclia. It was the Fire and Ice prophecy, to combine both houses and for us to create a new Kingdom, which is what happened. We took the Royal family and the families that survived the attack, and when your mother came to the Kingdom, she was a royal pain in my ass," My father smiled, remembering my mother, "We knew we had duties to our Kingdoms and it just sealed our fates even more when that mating bond snapped in place. Your mother and I would seal our bond, get married, become the King and Queen of the Red Blaze Kingdom. She would get pregnant three times. She would bring a light to my life that I never realized how much I missed till she was gone. During yearly Eclia meetings, Minjun would threaten an eye for an eye. He came through with it when you were three Pluto, and you know what happens after that." My father finished, tears in his eyes. He never stopped feeling that hurt of my mother being taken and now, King Minjun should be scared. He should be scared because if it's an eye for an eye he wants, he has no idea what I am truly capable of.

"You mean to tell me, instead of ending the bad blood, he made it even worse?" I asked my father, my teeth grinding against each other, and my fists balled up.

"Pluto, at the next Eclia Meeting, if he tries to spew anything we can stop him," Orion stares at me, the cold-blooded look of the Ixen Sventar, "We are ending this feud. It has gone too long, don't you see? With you being Mates with the Crown Prince, we can finally stop this. We can finally end this bad blood after we demand King Minjun's spine."