The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

She began to pace in her own way, mirroring Astraea’s movements, trying to work through the chaos in her mind by moving her body.

”Why did the kings react like that to you in the throne room?” she demanded, her voice carrying an edge she hadn’t known she possessed. ”I watched them and i saw the way they looked at you, watched the way their entire bodies responded to your presence.”

She turned to face Astraea directly.

”I saw how Kaelen reacted,” Morgana continued, and there was pain in her voice now, raw and honest. ”I saw the way he looked at you. If I’m what they want, if I’m what their dragons recognize, then why did they respond to you like that? Why did they look at you like you were significant? Like you mattered to them?”

Astraea watched Morgana with those ancient, knowing eyes, and there was something in her expression that suggested she had been waiting for this question, had expected Morgana to ask it.

”What are you?” Morgana demanded, moving closer, her dark eyes blazing. ”How do you know all of this? Who are you really? And don’t tell me you’re just some random woman Carrick brought to the palace. I can feel that you’re something else entirely.”

She stepped even closer, challenging Astraea with her presence, refusing to be intimidated even as her entire body shook with fear and adrenaline.

”I want answers,” Morgana said, her voice low and intense. ”Real answers. Not riddles, not hints, not mysterious statements that don’t explain anything. I want to know who you are.”

Astraea tilted her head, studying Morgana with what looked almost like approval.

”I’m not the Mother of Dragons,” Astraea said calmly, her voice not rising to match Morgana’s intensity. ”I don’t know what Carrick thinks I am, what story he’s convinced himself of, what prophecy he believes I fulfill. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that it’s not that.”

She stood, her movements slow and deliberate, and Morgana realized that Astraea was being careful not to seem threatening, not to move in any way that might escalate the situation.

”I’m something else entirely,” Astraea continued. ”Something older than the prophecies. Something that recognizes what you are because I’ve been looking for it....for you for a very long time.”

”Why?” Morgana demanded. ”Why have you been looking for me?”

”Because,” Astraea said, ”I needed to know if the legends were true. I needed to know if she actually existed. I needed to know if the magic that had been promised, the magic that had been lost, was truly walking the earth again.”

She moved closer to Morgana, and her pale eyes were burning with ancient knowledge.

”As for the kings,” Astraea said, answering Morgana’s earlier question, ”they recognized power when they saw it. They recognized something ancient and different from what they were expecting. They recognized a being worthy of respect.”

She paused, letting that sink in.

”But they didn’t recognize kinship,” Astraea continued. ”They didn’t recognize their match. They didn’t recognize their completion.”

She stepped so close that Morgana could smell something like starlight and ancient stone and magic so old it predated the world Morgana knew.

”What they felt when they saw you,” Astraea said softly, ”that was different. That was recognition on a level that their bodies understood before their minds could process it. That was their dragons calling to something that completes them, that answers a question they’ve been asking since before you were born.”

She moved past Morgana and returned to her seat, settling into it with the ease of someone who understood that sitting was a show of trust, a declaration that she was not a threat.

”They reacted to me with respect and wariness,” Astraea said. ”I am ancient, and my power is different from theirs. But they reacted to you with hunger, with need, with a desperation that goes beyond simple attraction. That’s why I’m here, Morgana. That’s why I came to this palace. Because I needed to see for myself if the legends were true. If the one the ancient magic has been waiting for actually existed.”

Morgana sank back into her chair, her legs suddenly unable to support her weight.

”What legend?” she whispered. ”What are you talking about?”

Astraea was quiet for a long moment, and when she spoke again, her voice carried the weight of centuries, of knowledge that had been guarded and protected and passed down through bloodlines and dragon lines across untold generations.

”There’s an old prophecy,” she said slowly, carefully, as if speaking the words aloud was somehow dangerous, as if acknowledging the prophecy’s existence might call it into being. ”Very old. So old that many have convinced themselves it’s simply myth, that it’s been lost to time, that the magic it describes belongs only to stories told to children.”

She paused, and in that pause, Morgana felt the entire weight of history pressing down on her.

”But the dragons remember,” Astraea continued. ”We remember. And the memory is not a comfortable one. Because it speaks of something that was lost. Something that was taken from the world. Something that the old magic has been waiting to return.”

She leaned forward, her pale eyes burning with intensity.

”The prophecy speaks of a girl,” Astraea said. ”A girl born with magic that shouldn’t exist. Magic that’s woven into the fabric of the world itself, that predates the dragon lines, that exists on a level that even the ancient magic finds difficult to comprehend.”

Morgana felt her heart beginning to race again.

”The Mother of Dragons,” Astraea said, and now there was a strange quality to her voice, as if she was speaking a name that was both sacred and terrifying, ”was not a person, Morgana. It was a title. A position. An ancient magic that incarnated in flesh and blood once, two thousand years ago, and was lost when the world became smaller, darker, when magic began to fade from the realm.”