Chapter 1
Present, 2015
“Help me!” a male voice pleads to me mentally, igniting my internal fire.
I open my eyes, my heart pounding, looking around in a panic. Young women of different Mystic fractions wearing different variations of white, modest long sleeve dresses sit criss-cross applesauce beside me, eyes closed appearing to be in deep concentration.
Oh yea, I’m still here!
My sleek, high ponytail is wet, a few strays hairs have escaped and are plastered messily to my forehead. The white dress I too am wearing is wet and sticking to me.
“You’re burning up, Solange,” Renea, a Dwarf, whispers as she elbows me in the side, yelping when my flames burn her.
“Sorry Renea,” I tell her as blue flames seep through my white dress. Usually a fire elemental such as myself, flames are red, but for the past year, my flames have been blue. One positive thing about the blue flames is that they aren’t painful like my old red flames, and for that I’m thankful. I take several deep, calming breaths, bringing the escaped flames back to the core of my body.
“Eyes closed!” Princess Matcher screams, looking directly at me.
I roll my eyes deliberately before I shut them. That’s right, I remind myself, you’re at the Preparation Retreat in the Emerald Kingdom. Another thing on a long list of other things you have no say in.
I detest being a princess.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I detest the responsibilities that come with the title. When you reach a certain age, they expect a princess to marry a prince to create a union between their two kingdoms. This ensures aid in case either kingdom went to war. It would also provide discounted supplies, produce, and miscellaneous items. Needless to say, I don’t want to go through with it. I do not want to marry a prince.
In two months, I’d go from princess to a princess bride, meaning I’d wed my intended husband. In other words, I have sixty days, only sixty days, to come up with something to get me out of this.
This means I don’t have time to help the annoying guy who’s been mentally asking for my help. Nor do I have time to worry about how he’s able to speak to me mentally, although I contribute it to some sort of spell. If me not wanting to assist this unknown Mystic makes me selfish, then so be it.
“You all should think pure thoughts,” Princess Matcher yells, forcing me out of my thoughts. “Some of you—” she snorts loudly—“will need to think a little harder.” I know that dig is meant for us three princesses sitting in the front of the room. Numbers mean everything in Mercury’s Realm, the realm that contains our twelve kingdoms.
The older princesses like myself, ranging from twenty to twenty-three, sit in the front. We are old compared to the other princesses. Age nineteen sits behind us, age eighteen behind them, and age seventeen at the back of the room.
The ideal age for us to marry is seventeen. Some of our marriage arrangements happen as soon as the princess turns one month. Other arrangements happen on the princess’s fifth birthday.
Both Mother and Father have failed to disclose which prince from which kingdom in Mercury’s Realm I am marrying. Of course, none of that matters, I must still marry.
“Some of you may need an additional purity cleansing, since you’ve gone and pursued other avenues, neglecting your responsibilities,” Princess Matcher yells as she purposely bumps into me. I sigh.
Me going to college did not make me any less pure. Nor did it mean I was fucking every Tom, Dick, and Harry. My true purpose in life is bringing all Mystics in all the six realms together, regardless of power or preconceived notions. I’ve always been interested in other Mystic factions, their abilities, history and culture. I find it all amazing. Which is why I went to school and graduated just a month ago with a degree in Supernatural Ethnic Studies.
“I can’t feel my yoni egg anymore,” a younger princess cries out. She should count herself blessed. I definitely felt mine. I must have inserted it in wrong, again.
“Good!” Princess Matcher snaps. Eyes still closed, I listen to the loud tapping of her high heels as she walks to each princess. Freezing cold blessed water is thrown over their heads, purifying them.
“By all that is holy, how is this water still cold?” a younger princess yells. Princess Matcher cackles. Either an enchantress spelled the water cold or a water elemental with an affinity for ice froze the water.
“Who told you to stop chanting!” Princess Matcher yells rhetorically.
“Grant me, Mercury—” We start back up.
“Louder!” she yells. “With belief!”
“Grant me, Mercury, with pure spirit, body, mind, and vagina!” we shout together. Why am I praying to Mercury for a pure vagina? Out of all the things in the world. A pure vagina for a prince who hasn’t been pure since his adult christening at fourteen!
“Solange!” Princess Matcher calls out to me. I grit my teeth as the tapping of her heels approaches, but I keep my eyes closed. If I ignore her, maybe she’ll go away. “Are you ignoring me Princess?”
Apparently, we’re doing this. I open my eyes and turn my attention to her.
She comes from a long line of powerful Enchanters, Mystics who can perform magic. Usually a princess doesn’t oversee the Preparation Retreat, but rumor has it Matcher got herself into some trouble three years ago, and her punishment is this. Needless to say, she doesn’t want to be here any more than I do. You would think she’d be sympathetic towards me, but you would be wrong.
“No–” I begin, answering her, just as she snaps her fingers and the ceremonial cleaning bowl pours the cold water on me.
I splutter, choking, not expecting that. A shiver overtakes me as my fire awakens warming my body.
Oh no!
I blink several times, and the water evaporates from my eyelashes, leaving them dry. When I look down, I notice the blue flames have turned my white dress black. Crap. That’s the only side effect of these new flames. Fire Elemental designers make clothes with the purpose of withstanding red fire, not my strange blue flames.
“You embarrass me, you embarrass your Father, your people, yourself, and your future prince.” Princess Matcher points to the door. “Get yourself changed and report back here! If I see any additional blue flames, your Father will hear about this.”
I mentally snort at that.
When I told my mother, the Queen, about my new blue flames, she told me to talk to my father, the King. When I told him, he waved me off, saying it was nothing but a growing thing. That was nine months ago. I haven’t spoken about the flames since.
“Help me,” the same male pleads to me mentally again. I ignore him, now making my way back to Matcher, wearing a new long sleeve white dress minus the yoni egg. I’d better hurry back to the retreat or Princess Matcher will find some creative way to punish me.
A heat, foreign and new, washes over me and consumes my senses. Immediately I stop walking.
Oh no, please don’t tell me this is another form of my magic.
I turn around intending to go back to my assigned room, about to fake sickness when I notice an open portal of orange and brown flames as long as a door and wide enough to fit two of me inside.
I’ve seen these flames somewhere before, I realize, thinking back to the books I studied in college, drawing a blank. The flames swirl around the portal before they extend, creating fire tentacles, almost as if the flames themselves are alive. I stand there, knowing I should get to a safe place but don’t, it’s not everyday you see a portal in real time. The Mystic who created it has to be crazy strong.
“Help me!” the voice pleads again, just as a tentacle wraps around my leg, burning me. With a yank, the tentacle pulls me where I fall forward, landing on my hands. Damn it, if I had fallen on my face, I could have broken my nose at least and delayed this marriage process another year. Fuck. Think Solange, think!
I turn over on my back as the tentacle pulls me across the cobblestone closer to the portal. Wait! Why is it pulling me into the portal? Immediately I call forth my flames who surprisingly answer. Ever since they’ve turned blue, they have not been responding.
Small fire balls, blue, form in my hands. I throw both fire balls at the tentacle that somehow disappears. The tentacles expand turning a bright red color before returning to their original size and color.
How? Better question: who is this?
I try again and again, throwing one fire ball after the other and each time my fire merges with the tentacle fire. Another tentacle shoots from the portal and wraps itself around my other leg, burning as it pulls me closer to the portal faster.
“Help!” I scream, not giving a damn about princess decorum.
The servants performing their daily duties outside abandon their jobs and rush toward me. More fire tentacles shoot from the portal, as if conscious of what’s happening around it, and wraps around my torso, forcing my hands to my side.
“Ahhhh!” I scream in pain from the new burns as tears fall down my face.
“The sun and the sky …” I hear Princess Matcher loudly chant as what looks like glitter falls from the dark sky and the ground beneath me shakes. Half of my body is inside the portal as Princess Matcher, who has abandoned her heels, and tore the skirt from her dress is running toward me. Her eyes glow just as the tentacle pulls me all the way through the portal.
Mercury Help me!
