The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

It took several minutes for everyone to settle.

Servants brought water and cloths for cleaning wounds. They brought fresh clothing for the three kings. They began the work of cleaning up the devastated training ground.

Captain Rhen was questioned privately by Draeven. The conversation was brief, but it was clear that Rhen would be trusted to keep the secret of what had happened. or at least, to frame it in a way that didn’t reveal the full truth of how out of control Kaelen’s transformation had been.

By the time the main cleanup was underway, the three brothers had dressed and moved to a more private location....a stone alcove near the training grounds where they could speak without being overheard.

For a long moment, none of them spoke.

Kaelen sat with his head in his hands, still trembling slightly, still processing the horror of what had happened. Draeven stood nearby, his arms crossed, his expression grim. Thorne paced slowly, his mind clearly working through the implications of what had just occurred.

Finally, Draeven spoke.

”This can’t happen again,” he said, his voice steady but carrying an undercurrent of fury. ”We can’t risk another transformation like that. Not in the middle of the palace. Not where people could be hurt.”

Kaelen looked up, and his eyes were filled with shame and fear. ”I have no explanation,” he said quietly. ”I was training. I was trying to burn off the pressure from the curse, and then I just... I couldn’t control it anymore. It was like something inside me took over, and I was just... along for the ride.”

”The curse is consuming you,” Thorne said. It wasn’t a question. ”It’s consuming all of us, but it’s accelerating. Your transformation was involuntary....that’s new. That’s worse.”

Draeven moved to sit on a stone bench. His hands were shaking slightly, and he clasped them together to hide it. ”How long do we have?” he asked. ”Before this happens to the rest of us? Before we completely lose control?”

”I don’t know,” Thorne admitted. ”Days? Weeks? The curse is not a fixed thing. It worsens according to patterns we don’t fully understand. But what happened today shows that we’re running out of time.”

”Then we need to accelerate our plans,” Draeven said, and his voice carried an edge of desperation. ”We need to bring her fully into our confidence. We need to stop hiding what we are and what we need.”

Kaelen’s head snapped up. ”Morgana?”

”Yes,” Draeven said. ”She’s connected to this. To the prophecy, to the curse, to whatever is happening to us. We’ve been dancing around the truth, trying to determine if she’s the one from the legend, but the truth is...” He paused, looking at his brothers. ”I don’t care if she’s the prophecy’s chosen one or not. I care that she might be our salvation. And we need to act.”

”That’s dangerous,” Thorne said, pacing. ”If the council finds out we’re desperate, if the nobility learns we’re losing control, if they realize the curse is closer to consuming us than we’ve admitted...”

”I don’t care anymore,” Draeven interrupted, standing abruptly. ”Did you see what I just saw? Did you watch your brother transform against his will and then lose complete control? Did you feel the power in that courtyard, completely uncontrolled and deadly?”

He looked at each of his brothers in turn.

”This is no longer theoretical,” he continued. ”This is no longer something we can manage with careful planning and political maneuvering. This is urgent. We need her. And we need to understand what she is and what she can do before one of us destroys half the palace.”

Kaelen looked up, his expression hardening with understanding. ”You think she can break the curse.”

”I think she might be able to break the curse,” Draeven corrected. ”But at the very least, I think she’s connected to it. I think her presence affects us. I think she might be the key to understanding what’s happening to us and what we can do about it.”

Thorne stopped pacing. His black eyes....still carrying a hint of the dragon within them. fixed on his eldest brother. ”You’re talking about bringing her into the royal chambers. Making her one of ours, at least in terms of knowledge.”

”Yes,” Draeven said simply.

”The council will object,” Thorne said.

”Then we don’t tell the council,” Draeven replied. ”Not until we have answers. Not until we understand what she is and what she means to us.”

Kaelen was quiet for a long moment. Then he spoke, his voice carrying a note of understanding: ”She won’t be happy about being used.”

”I know,” Draeven said. ”But it’s better than the alternative.”

”What’s the alternative?” Kaelen asked.

”The alternative is one of us loses control completely, and we destroy the capital in the process,” Draeven said flatly. ”The alternative is the curse consumes us entirely, and the realm is left without a throne. The alternative is we fail, and everything we’ve built crumbles to ash.”

He looked out toward the smoking remains of the training ground.

”I’m not willing to accept that alternative,” he said quietly. ”Are either of you?”

Silence.

Then Thorne spoke: ”We’ll need to be careful. If we’re going to bring her fully into our world, we need to do it right. We need to make sure she understands what she’s getting into.”

”And we need to make sure she can actually help us,” Kaelen added. ”Before we commit to this course of action.”

”Agreed,” Draeven said. He looked at his brothers....really looked at them. At the fear and determination and desperate hope visible in their expressions. ”We move carefully, but we move fast. We bring her in, we tell her everything, and we find out what she is and what she can do.”

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer, more vulnerable than it had been before.

”Because I don’t know how much longer I can watch you lose control like that,” he said to Kaelen. ”And I don’t know how much longer I can hold my own form together. We need her, brothers. In whatever way that means. We need her.”

Kaelen reached out and gripped Draeven’s hand. ”Then we find her,” he said. ”And we make her understand.”

Thorne joined them, his hand completing a circle.

The three brothers stood together in the alcove, while behind them the training ground smoldered and burned, and the servants worked to clean up the devastation of what had just occurred.