The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

Morgana did not know how long she had been standing at the window.

The sun had moved perhaps slightly in its arc across the sky, but the transformation of time could have been minutes or hours, she had no way of measuring it. She was caught in the space between the girl she had been and the woman she was becoming, suspended in uncertainty and the strange emptiness of having nowhere to be.

The knock pulled her from her reverie.

It was not the formal, announced knock of a palace servant, the kind of knock that came with deference and request for permission. This knock carried familiarity, the casual confidence of someone who knew her, who did not require formal entry.

Morgana’s heart accelerated immediately.

She turned from the window, her mind running through possibilities. Who would come to her chamber unannounced? The kings? One of the servants?

The door opened before she could call out permission to enter.

And in that moment, as the figure stepped into her chamber, Morgana’s breath caught in her throat.

It was Rowan.

Her best friend stepped into the chamber with the confidence of someone who had navigated palace secrets and servants’ passages and the invisible roads that those without status used to move through the building unnoticed. Her auburn curls were slightly disheveled from movement, her freckles visible across her nose in the afternoon light. Her work apron was still tied around her waist, and there were traces of flour on her hands.

For a moment, she simply stared at Morgana.

Her eyes moved over the fine green gown, the intricate braids woven with dried flowers, the transformation that had taken place in such a short time. Her expression shifted from confident to shocked to something that looked almost like awe.

And then both of them moved simultaneously.

Morgana crossed the distance between them in a few quick steps, and Rowan opened her arms. They collided into each other with the desperation of two people who had been separated by circumstance far beyond their control.

”Oh my God,” Rowan whispered into Morgana’s shoulder, her voice muffled against the fabric of the fine dress. ”Oh Morgana”

Morgana could not speak.

She simply held her friend, feeling the reality of Rowan’s presence, the physical confirmation that there was still someone in this world who knew her, who had known her before everything changed. She breathed in the familiar scent of her friend....bread flour and kitchen herbs and something purely Rowan, and felt something tight in her chest begin to loosen.

They remained like that for a long moment, holding each other as if the world around them might try to pull them apart.

Finally, Rowan pulled back.

”Let me look at you,” Rowan said, her voice carrying a tremor that suggested she was fighting back tears.

But when she stepped back fully and actually looked at Morgana, something shifted in her expression. Her eyes began to gleam, and Morgana recognized the particular light that came into her friend’s eyes when Rowan was about to say something sarcastic.

Rowan began to circle her slowly.

She moved around Morgana like she was examining a piece of fine art, studying every detail of the transformation. Her hand reached out and touched the fabric of the gown, and Morgana felt her fingers slip through the silk like it was water.

”Wow,” Rowan breathed, stretching the single word until it contained entire paragraphs of meaning.

Then her voice took on that particular dry, sarcastic tone that Morgana had heard a thousand times before, usually when Rowan was processing something that overwhelmed her, something that defied easy comprehension.

”This dress probably costs more than my da and your ma will ever make in a year.”

The words landed with uncomfortable truth.

Morgana managed a small smile despite understanding the weight of what Rowan had articulated. The smile was her acknowledgment that yes, she understood the cost of the dress, yes, she understood what that meant, yes, she understood the gulf that had opened between them in the span of a few days.

But beneath the smile was something deeper, the understanding that Rowan’s sarcasm was her way of loving her, her way of showing care, her way of saying: I see you. I understand. I’m here despite the distance.

Morgana’s smile gradually dissolved.

The weight of everything pressed down on her again....the trial, the conspiracy, the kings’ attention, the fine dress, the beautiful chamber, the absence of her mother, the distance from her old life, the uncertainty of what came next.

She moved away from Rowan without explanation.

Her feet carried her back to the window seat where she had been sitting before her friend arrived. She sank down onto the cushioned bench, her body feeling suddenly very tired despite having done nothing but eat breakfast and walk through corridors.

Rowan understood immediately that something deeper was wrong.

The sarcasm faded from her expression, replaced by genuine concern. She crossed the chamber without hesitation and settled herself beside her friend on the window seat. She did not ask questions yet. She simply sat, her shoulder touching Morgana’s, and looked out at the palace grounds below.

After a moment, Rowan reached over and took Morgana’s hand.

”What is the matter?” she asked gently.

Morgana’s voice, when she spoke, was very small.

”I miss my mother.”

The words emerged from somewhere deep inside her, from a place she had been holding them back, trying to be strong, trying to be brave, trying to be whatever it was that a ward of the throne was supposed to be.

But the truth was simpler and more devastating than all of that.

She missed her mother.

Her mother was out there somewhere, outside the palace walls, in Ashford village, still coughing, still struggling with the illness that had been slowly consuming her for years. Morgana was here, in a fine gown, eating fine food, being the focus of three powerful kings’ attention. And her mother was dying, possibly, and Morgana was not there.