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Chapter 1
Sun shone through the cross-hatched wicker window of the young girls' room. The younger of the two sat upright in her bed, gazing over to her sister's bed only to see that she still lay sleeping. The little girl grinned as she leaned over the feather bed, scraping her nails gently across the floor as she searched blindly for the book which was hidden beneath it. Her nails traced backwards across the wooden slats of the room, causing a soft tapping sound which echoed throughout the room in the early morning silence each time that she moved to a new slat.
"One, two, three…" she muttered, not more than a whisper, "four." The child breathed a sigh of relief when her fingers pressed up against the worn leather binding of the book's spine. She wrapped her fingers gingerly around it and gently pulled it from its hiding place, sliding it back across the slats with several light thuds.
After the book was freed from the darkness of the bed's shadows, the girl leaned back into a more comfortable position and pulled it up into her lap, making sure to set it easily upon a large clump of her blanket. She ran her fingers across the words etched upon its face. She imagined as she did so, that at one time, they'd surely been painted some glittering colour like gold or silver - now, they were simply dull carvings upon an old and withered bit of leather. The prospect of something beautiful and extraordinary caused her imagination to run wild though as she opened it to its first page, looking over the numerous pictures which had been placed within it.
The biggest and most vibrant picture upon the first page, and which all the others seemed to be centered around was of a man, woman and child which read, 'Madam Dreeter Moxcagrav and her partner, Lord William Moxcagrav as they celebrate the birth of their first daughter, Princess Roselin Moxcagrav.'
The girl smiled as she brushed her fingers lightly across the faces of the family before flipping to the next page which showcased the same couple, but with a slightly older girl of either four or five now replacing the newborn baby. 'The Moxcagrav family as they celebrate Princess Roselin's birthday.'
The next several pages showcased similar pictures, all depicting the journey through time and life for these three Moxcagravs. Upon the eighth page, however, the pictures changed to solely depict the young Moxcagrav Princess. The next three pages of the book were exactly the same, showing her age alone and without a smile upon her face. However, once she appeared to reach somewhere around the age of forty, a much younger man was painted into the picture with her. 'Madam Moxcagrav and her first husband, Lord Dmitri Moxcagrav.'
The next page showcased the new couple, but within the arms of the lady was swaddled a newborn child. 'Madam Roselin Moxcagrav and her partner, Lord Dmitri Moxcagrav as they celebrate the birth of their daughter, Princess Kandace Moxcagrav.'
The little girl smiled at the picture of the baby named Kandace, running her finger across the child's face as if she were trying to cherish the moment with the genuine article. The child stared for a few more seconds at the baby before flipping forward a large number of pages, reaching one which shed marked previously with a fold.
The pictures had changed drastically within the passing pages, having gone from strokes of paint upon the thick yet brittle paper to pictures which moved themselves as if they were alive. The pages had tidied themselves as well, the memories being confined to individual boxes rather than floating about the pages randomly as if they were put wherever space could be found.
The little girl flipped the page once more, her smile slowly fading as she knew that she'd find nothing more past this page but tried in vain to find whatever it could possibly have been. With a quiet sigh, she returned to the previous page, silently watching the moving picture over a dozen times, despite the fact that shed already seen it nearly a thousand times before.
"Mom…" her voice was quiet and weak. Her eyes filled up with tears as she watched the woman in the picture dance around in the clouds with two little girls.
'To my precious daughters, Lynne and Rayne Moxcagrav. No matter what happens to our family, I'll always love the two of you.'
The young girl wiped the tears from her eyes and then closed the book, gritting her teeth as she read the words on the front, one last time. 'Legacy of the Royal Family of Moxcagrav, Heirs to the throne of the skyborne city, Jenoha'
"Some family…" the child's face grew red with anger as she set the book down on the ground and slid it back under her bed.
"Rayne? Did you say something?" The elder sister sat up slowly in her bed, wiping the crusted sleep from her eyes as she let out a yawn.
The younger sister shook her head. "No, I didn't say anything Lynne."
Lynne rolled out of her bed and kneeled on the floor, inhaling the aroma which was still exuded from the wooden slats. "That's good… that's good…" after a few more deep inhalations, the older sister rose to her feet, her nightgown brushing against her knees as it had grown too short for her body. Lynne shifted from side to side, watching her dirty gown as it caught the small breeze that her body created. "Almost too short… oh well, we can't be too picky about these things now, can we?" Lynne spun around with a toothy grin on her face as she looked at her sister.
Rayne shook her head and pulled her blanket up to cover it. "you don't have to force yourself… neither of us are happy about this and you know it… I'm not a little kid anymore…"
Lynne sighed, her grin returning to a normal smile as she walked over to the side of her sisters bed and took a seat on its edge. "You know, Rayne, this isn't all bad. Just because we don't have all the luxuries that we were once afforded that doesn't mean we can't make the best of this, right? We can make the best of this… I know it… we've got time still…"
Rayne shot up in her bed, nearly butting her head against Lynne's as she did so. "Time? Time?" Rayne shouted at the top of her lungs, causing her sister to scoot away from her and avert her gaze. "What do you mean we have time? We don't know what time we do or dont have at all!"
Lynne's eyes darted towards the window as she motioned for her sister to quiet down.
"Quit pretending that everything is going to be okay! Quit pretending that you're happy! Just… just quit it all! Dang it! I hate trying to pretend to be happy all the time! I just… I just want to cry… I just want to see mom again… ever since that day, nothing has been alright… I don't know how much more I can handle… so dont say that we have time… we had everything before, but now… now we have no clue what we have or what can or will be taken away from us when tomorrow comes."
"We have each other," Lynne stated flatly, "and we have the egg." The girl dropped her hand from her mouth and scooted closer to her sister.
Rayne shook her head. "It's because of that egg that all of this has happened. It's because of that egg that we're here."
"It's also because of that egg that we can still look forward to tomorrow. It's because of that egg that we at least still have each other."
Both sisters fell quiet as the room slowly began to warm with the rising of the sun. The morning dew which had been drawn in through the window began to make its it's way back out as a much finer mist.
"Let's go, Rayne." Lynne stood up from her sisters bed and walked over to her single outfit which hung from a nail on the wall. "You're right. We don't know how much time we have left and we don't know when they will find us either. We already wasted so much time struggling to find a way back, now its it's time we start making a safer place for us to stay here."
"You don't think this shack will be too close to them do you? I know we agreed on this spot, but…"
"That's why we need to prepare ourselves."
Lynne pulled her gown up and over her body before pulling down her daily outfit to recover from her nakedness. The girl pulled the tights up her slim figure first, securing them in place just below her belly button with a worn leather belt which had just finished drying a few days prior. Lynne then pulled her top down over her arms before navigating her head through the opening at the shirts top. It was a loose fit, but for a day of work the way that the top hung loosely just below her belt line was at least somewhat comfortable.
Rayne followed the same routine as her sister, first pulling on her matching black tights and then finishing with the woven wool top.
"So itchy…" Rayne muttered as she scratched at her shoulders where the top naturally rested on the most of her skin.
"It beats straw though, doesn't it?"
Rayne nodded her head and then started pulling her silver hair up into a rather large and messy bun, securing it into place with a few scraps of leather and a number of long, thin wooden shavings.
"Don't you think you'd be more comfortable if you cut that down like I did? Its nearly reached your bottom by now."
Rayne shook her head. "Mom was always the one that cut our hair… I wouldn't want to mess it up…"
Lynne fell silent for a few minutes and then sighed. "I know what you mean, but down here it's going to get much hotter than it did in Jenoha. Mom usually let us grow our hair out at least half that length because the heat wasn't as much of an issue, but now things are different, Rayne. You and I both need to learn to adapt if were going to live here on the surface."
Rayne stared down at her feet and then curled her toes a few times before slipping on her shoes in silence.
"I'm going to go check on the egg."
Lynne nodded her head. "Keep your eyes out for them while you're out there. If you see them, yell for me. I'll come running."
Rayne nodded her head and then swung the straw door blocking the entrance to their shack open, causing it to smack flat and lifeless against the wall of the abodes interior. The child walked through the opening and braced herself against the harsh morning sun. There was a slight breeze, which in itself could have been pleasant if it hadn't been for the sand that was swept up in it. They'd been lucky to find this plateau. They were surrounded on all sides by massive dunes of sand which blew apart and fell once more, forming into new dunes as they did. The sun radiated off of the grains, making it feel several times warmer than it would have normally been.
Trees dotted the horizon, poking out of the sand sparingly. The sand blasted against them, tearing away what bark they would hope to protect themselves with, and if they weren't subject to the buffetting of the winds, then they were doomed to be buried beneath the dunes. Rayne dropped to her knee and ran the palm of her hand gently across the stump of a recently felled tree which was practically oozing an orangish coloured sap.
"Sticky."
The girl sifted her hand through the sand before rising to her feet. Rayne paced around the perimeter of the house, looking out over the dunes, searching for them. After ensuring that they were nowhere close at the moment, she raised her top slightly so that when she sat on the sand the top wasn't caught beneath her.
"Now... " she whispered to herself, "where did we bury you?" Rayne scooted herself along the perimeter of the shack, digging up piles of the sand every few feet. "Ah, found you." Rayne brushed away the last of the sand from the top of the egg that they had buried the day before.
As the girl unearthed it, she couldn't help but feel somewhat inspired by its color and design. It was an even lighter blue than that of the sky, and exuded a feeling of softness and purity. The bright blue was broken only by a few slivers of white on opposite sides of the egg, giving it an almost regal feeling.
Rayne admired the egg for several seconds and then placed her ear gently up against the shell.
"It's warm." She smiled, quietly feeling the subtle movements of the creature within. "I guess we really dont have much time left…" Rayne placed the egg back on the ground and then stared past it with a distant expression. "Its all because of you, and yet… when I see you, I can feel no anger…"
Lynne placed her hand gingerly on her sisters shoulder. "You're both growing. Soon the day will come when the decision must be made, but for now… for now we can live. We can stay like this, as we are now… like sisters." Lynne dug her fingers into rayne shoulder as she bit her lip and fought back tears. "I'm really trying, you know? For both of us - for mom, too. I'm still just a kid too though. I still rely on you more than you know, even if you are younger than me."
Rayne dropped her head and nodded knowingly. " I know sis. Its It's just hard sometimes. I still don't understand anything that's going on. These past few months have been so incredibly hard…"
"Rayne… Rayne!" Lynne squeezed her sisters arm harder as she got closer to her ear and whispered loudly into it. "Look!"
Rayne pulled her head up and fixed her gaze on the egg, watching as it wobbled ever so slightly. "N-no. I'm not ready."
Lynne rose to her feet, pulling Rayne up with her. "There's no time to worry about that now! You remember what the elders said, right? We have to do this now! Quick, before it hatches! We have to decide which of us it'll be or our kingdom will be lost forever!"
Rayne shook her head vigorously. "No! It doesn't have to be this way! We can figure it out if we work together, I just know that we can!"
"This is it! We've wasted so much time already, there can be no other way now! The egg's about to hatch! We've only seconds to spare."
"But… but… what if we found another egg? Huh? What then? We could work it out then, right?" Rayne pleaded with her sister as Lynne kicked the sand around her furiously.
"Quickly now, there isn't much time. We can't argue about this any longer." Lynne kicked a long, sharpened piece of wood over to her sister and then bent over, retrieving her own stick as well. "Pick up your sword, rayne. We must decide this now. Before that egg hatches, it must have a worthy master."
Rayne stared down at the weapon in front of her and folded her lips inside of her mouth, her eyes running with tears as she then shifted her gaze to the egg and then to her sister. The girl reluctantly grabbed the sharpened stick and touched her finger against the uneven edge which had been coated in the thinnest layer of steel in Hope's of making the tool at least a bit more effective.
"I don't want to do this… it doesn't feel right…" Rayne whimpered as she wrapped both hands around the rough wooden hilt of the sword, pointing its tip towards her sister.
Lynne smiled weakly. "I know you don't. You're still pure and innocent… this should have never been forced on you, but yet, that is the way in which these things must go. None of that matters now though. We both know what must be done…"
Rayne bowed her head and then started to speak softly. "There can be only one to tame the egg."
"There can be only one line for the blood of Moxcagrav," Lynne joined in, matching tones with her sister.
As the girls spoke, the egg began to shake more vigorously. It freed itself from the sand's hold and began to float up into the air, glowing brilliantly as it rose higher.
"There can be only one master of the sky…"
"There can be only one master of the dragons."
The sisters ran at each other. Their wooden swords clacked as they brushed against the other. Rayne spun around her sister, brushing her sword along the length of Lynne's as she used her somewhat smaller stature to get the upper hand and slip away from their engagement.
Lynne kicked at the sand surrounding them, causing a small cloud to form. Rayne leapt back, covering her face so as not to inhale the particles. Her sister had disappeared into that cloud as she continued to kick up an ever growing storm of sand, dust, and wood shavings.
Rayne pulled her top up to shield her mouth and nose, then jumped back into the cloud. With a lucky slash of her blade, she caught Lynne on the hand, causing her sister to drop her weapon.
"Ow!" Lynne stepped backwards and reached out with her opposite hand in an attempt to retrieve her dropped weapon.
"I don't think so!" Rayne stepped on the wooden blade and then swung wildly with her sword at her sister, catching her in the hand once, and then another time in the ribs.
Lynne fell backwards as she tried to dodge the flurry of blows. Rayne pushed forward, her face awash with tears and her mouth fixed into a frown as she struck at her sister time and time again with overhanded blows.
Lynne managed to dodge a couple of the powerful vertical strikes, but she was soon backed up against the straw wall of their makeshift shack. The girl smiled softly as she realized her fate. After dodging the final blow possible, she pushed her head out in the direction of her sister, allowing Rayne to catch her with a clean crack to the skull.
Rayne dropped her sword after she realized what she'd done. The child dropped to her knees and scooted over to her sister whose head was already starting to gush blood.
"I-i-i I didn't mean it! I'm sorry! I thought you would have dodged it! Lynne! Please don't leave me! Lynne! You can be the Queen! It doesn't matter that much to me! Let me be with mom instead, alright? Please, please don't leave me like this!"
Lynne shook her hand weakly at her sister. "It's what we melted down Mom's locket for, isn't it? My head… it's much too painful… I'm sorry, but I'll need you to hurry and finish it. Please, sis. You always were better at swordsmanship than I was, so I put a bit of extra metal on your sword just for this moment. So please, don't let me down. "
"But I can still fix you up! We can still find a doctor! I'm the Queen now. Right? So i can make the rules now too, right? Which means… which means that…"
Lynne wrapped both of her hands around her sister's."Rayne… even if you are a queen, there are some things that you'll never be able to change. But those are the things that will make you far stronger than you would have thought possible." Lynne reached out and grabbed Rayne's sword, pulling it over to her sister. "Don't you think we've put this act on for long enough? You can reminisce later, but now there's a job to be done. The egg…. It's nearly time already. If you wait, then it'll be all for naught."
Rayne's lip quivered as she let go of Lynne's hand and wrapped her fingers tightly around the hilt of her makeshift sword, turning it so that the metal edge faced her downed sister.
"No matter where we go, or whatever happens to us, we'll always love each other, right? We'll still always be sisters even if everyone else forgets about us?"
Lynne nodded her head. "I'll always be your sister, and I'll always love you. I'll be waiting for you. Whenever you end up making it to wherever it is that I'll go. I'll be waiting for you, Rayne."
The little girl stared down at her sister, her eyes gushing with tears as she closed them and swung down with all of her might. And she swung again, and again, over, and over again. She swung the sword so many times that she lost count until at last the sword in her hands began to split in two.
Rayne fell to her knees next to the pile that was Lynne. She cried and threw a violent tantrum, pounding her fists into the soggied garments of her sister. The girl kept her eyes sealed shut the entire time, knowing full well that when she opened them again the image that she had of her sister would be gone forever, tarnished by the sin that she'd committed.
Rayne turned herself to face the opposite of her sister and then began to undress. Protected by the darkness of her closed eyelids, she began to roll what remained of her sister across her own clothes, hoping to wrap her up even a little bit better.
The child walked into the shack and pulled down her night gown from where shed hung it and pulled it over her shoulders before sticking her head through. Rayne returned to her sisters side, now able to only see the short golden hair that topped her head. The girl painstakingly rolled Lynne into the hut that they'd built together, pushing her corpse through the flimsy door that they'd tacked onto it.
Once Rayne got her sister to the center of their floor, she walked over to her own bed and pulled the book from beneath it. The girl stared at its cover, tracing her fingers over its lettering one final time before placing it on her sisters corpse.
"Driii?"
Rayne turned slowly towards the entrance to the shack. There, in the doorway, hovering ever so slightly and still covered in bits of its shell was the beast that had been sealed within the egg.
"Drii? Drii tii tii." The beast moved over to Lynne's bloody corpse and nudged at it with its round, white orb of a nose.
"No. I am your master now. My name is Princess… no, Queen Rayne Moxcagrav. You shall be my faithful servant. Being your master, I shall be the one to name you as well." The girl's eyes were dull and lifeless as she stared at the creature in front of her. It held the same colors and a similar pattern to that which adorned its egg, but their meanings no longer held any weight. "you shall be named after my great ancestor, William."
"Drii, drii!"
Rayne rose to her feet and then moved to the opening of the shack. Without looking back, without any tears or wavering in her voice, she called back to William. "Burn it to the ground. That is within your powers, isn't it?"
The creature flew out to Raynes side and nodded happily. "Drii drii tii!" William turned to face the shack. The creature closed its eyes and focused intently, building up an electrical charge on the white fins around its head before releasing it upon the makeshift home, catching it ablaze almost immediately.
"Very good. William, let us go now."
The Queen stared out over the horizon that they'd chosen just a short while ago. To the East was the tip of what she assumed to be a towering city. To the West, a barren wasteland and the direction of them. To the South was a vast ocean, dotted with massive ships which were visible even from this distance. And to the North, the mountains of Algeion.
"Somewhere deep in those mountains, there's supposed to be a tower that we can use to ascend back to Jenoha… however, legend tells of a dangerous beast which resides within those mountains. A beast which supposedly feasts regularly upon the flesh of young dragons such as yourself who make for that hidden tower. My ancestors supposedly fought that beast and struck some sort of deal with it, but I never could find the relevant book in the library which explained the nature of their bargain."
"Drii?" The dragon bopped its nose against Rayne's leg, causing her to look down into its worried eyes.
"Worry not. We're nowhere near that part of our journey yet. There's a number of other trials we're supposed to go through first… at least, as far as I know. North, South, East, and West - in each direction lies a settlement of the earth dwellers, and in each of these settlements is supposed to be an ancient relic of Jenoha. When all four pieces are combined, an amazing power is supposed to be released before it breaks apart once more and resumes its rest. Of course, I could never find the book relevant to the description of this mysterious power either."
William wriggled around in a circle, stopping momentarily to let out a little cry in each direction. "Drii! Drii! Drii! Drii!"
"You know, you're kind of cute… for a murderous monster… of course, I suppose I'm not much better myself at this point. Anyways, what do you think of going to the city first? Chances are they'll have a library, and I can't wear this gown forever. I am a Queen after all, I should start attempting to dress myself as such."
"Driii tii nii!" The dragon did a number of flips in the air before circling around Rayne and draping itself across her shoulders.
"I guess that's a yes. Well then, let's get a move on."
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