The Queen's War

The War Begins

Leif's POV

Sylrie twisted and muttered something under her breath, then settled back into my arms. She looked so lost and innocent when she slept, but I couldn't bring myself to wake her. It was almost midnight and we were on a HoverTrain, travelling to an abandoned spaceship port in London. We had left our hideout in Paris with a group of mysterious teenagers who called themselves the Draconian Rebels. Twyla, the leader of the group, stood in the open doorway, her red and black hair whipping around her sides. Zander and Ivy were leaning back against some of the empty storage crates near the back of the cart, while Aroim and Moira, the mirror twins, lay on the floor next to each other, sleeping. I looked back down at Sylrie, who was leaning into me, her hazel eyes closed and her mahogany hair falling in soft waves down to her waist. Halfway her hair faded into a snow white colour. It was an after-effect of the Draconian poison that she had been injected with when she was stabbed in the shoulder. I toyed with the ends of her hair, threading it through my fingers. The jostling train cart, whistling wind and soft snores coming from the twins faded away as Sylrie yawned and stretched, scrunching up her nose adorably. She opened her eyes, blinked, and stared at me.

"Morning," she whispered.

I smiled at her, still fiddling with her hair.

"It's night," I whispered back.

She stuck her tongue out at me and lay back down on top of me. I was sitting down in the corner of the cart, hidden from view of the others by a tower of boxes. Sylrie curled up next to me. I could still see the little girl she used to be, the eight year old who was lying on the floor of the bakery my parents owned. She had seemed so weak, but I soon knew that she was strong, stronger than me, braver than me. But it was still so hard to believe that she was the heir to the throne of Draconia, and that she had a twin sister who was the queen of Draconia. She reached up and lightly tugged on a lock of my spiky black hair.

"What are you thinking?" she mumbled as I tugged her closer.

"About when we met," I replied, gently pulling on her hair in response. "And hands off the hair."

She raised an eyebrow at me and ruffled my hair up. I let her do it for a few seconds, then grabbed her hands and held them together in front of her, mimicking handcuffs. She twisted around in my hold for a second, then leaned forwards to kiss me. I let go of her hands immediately, wrapping my arms around her waist. Her lips moved against mine, warm and soft, and she buried her hands in my hair. After a few moments we both pulled back a little. She rubbed her nose against mine.

"Touched your hair," she whispered mischievously.

I trailed my hands up under her t-shirt and pulled her in for another kiss.

"Hey guys, can you do that later?" said Twyla, staring down at us from where she was perched on top of the stack of boxes. "We're here."

Sylrie started to crawl off of me, but I kissed her one last time.

"Like Twyla said, we're going to do this later," I told her

"M'kay," she said, practically radiating joy as we emerged from behind the boxes. 

It was still night, but moon was full, so we could see all of what was spread out in front of us. As the others joined us at the door, their mouths fell open, just like ours.

"What the..."

Ivy trailed off, not able to finish her sentence. I felt the same. Instead of an empty street leading to and empty shipyard, as we had all expected, we were greeted by quite a different sight. The street leading to the shipyard was littered with scraps and chunks of metal and concrete, the buildings on either side of it ripped and torn to shreds, covered in what looked like claw marks. 

And there, in the shipyard, standing on top of the very ship we were looking for, was a huge, ruby-red dragon.

It looked straight at us and screeched, blowing out a jet of fire at us.

Hey guys! Long time no see. Sorry for not updating sooner. Just hang in there! Just to recap, Saki, Jakania, Hallie and Star are all travelling in the next cart. They haven't been left behind or gone somewhere else. Hope you enjoy the second book, and sorry for the cliffhanger.

Cakey4