Chapter Text
The wind ruffles her hair and the assembled crowd murmurs, anticipation palpable. Poe is to her immediate left, Finn beside him. Kylo stands to her right, and Armitage beyond. Her Prince of Cats, not lost to her after all, and to all of their surprised, still able to access some small portion of his power, though which part is a bit of a sore spot for him.
Rey clings to her betrothed, her first love, so sure she would never feel his touch again. He shushes her, wipes her tears with his thumbs and then kisses the wetness left behind. “I’m here, Rey, I’m still here.” They rock together, almost afraid to speak above a whisper until the crest of pleasure takes her by surprise, Armitage following quickly after.
She locks her arms and legs around him, trembles with her own efforts to hold him to her even though he’s shown no signs of moving away.
It does not matter. Something is coming, building in a crackly, stinging buzz.
It’s smooth, effortless. One moment she holds her lover, and the next a ginger cat blinks at her, curled up on her chest and she has the sense that he is somehow surprised by it.
Her ears pop and the door flings open, slamming against the wall as her other consorts tumble into the room, half-dressed and followed closely by the Knights of Ren, who seem to have appointed themselves some kind of royal guard detail.
“Well, well, look at you Millie!”
The Prince of Cats hisses at Poe, and Rey feels the bite of static shock across her skin.
Ben’s uncle and mother, Rey’s mother, and the most ancient of the Knights—Vicrul and Ushar—step forward. Each carries a delicate black crown, as if vines and branches wove themselves together and became metal. The gemstone accents taken from shards of ancient dragon eggshells spark and flare with an internal fire.
Ap’lek and Cardo turn to face the crowd, Kuruk between them holding a book so ancient only the inherent magic within the pages holds it together. They speak as one, in a language Rey recognizes and somehow understands, even though she never learned to speak or read it.
Trudgen stands at the end of the dais. “Kneel!”
Trudgen falls behind them all, the group stumbling in the onslaught of unbalanced, elemental magic. “Stolen,” Finn mutters again, frowning at the sky, light and clouds swirling oddly, so that it looks like there’s a hole.
The ground trembles again and Rey stumbles. Kylo hisses in pain behind her as Ushar stops short so as not to trample her. She scrambles aside on hands and knees, crawling to where Trudgen kneels with her mother. The Knight looks at her helplessly. “I can’t take her any farther.”
“Mommy, Mommy, please,” Rey whispers, only half-aware she’s saying it as she approaches. Her mother is pale, a sheen of clammy sweat on her skin. Her breathing is labored, lips too dark and bluish. Rey blinks and it’s as if her mother’s skin is suddenly translucent.
Fading.
“Rey,” Mother whispers, fingers weakly fluttering until Rey clasps her hand. “Go.”
“No, I’m not leaving without you.”
Mother shakes her head, and nothing changes but Rey has the strange impression she’s shrinking somehow.
A tinkling echo of chains.
No.
He will not win.
Rey throws her head back, glares into the eye of the unnatural storm and just…lets go. She calls to the power, the seething magic desperately seeking a vessel.
Stolen Power.
Her grandfather was draining the magic from the very ground. It’s why nothing grows in the wastelands of the thin places, ground parched and bare.
It comes freely, quickly, and Rey rides the Power, lets it guide her hands to her mother’s chest. She ignores the cries of her consorts, the protests of the Knights. There’s no time to explain, only a slim chance…
Rey pulls the magic in, wraps it around herself, around Mother, shields them from the others, and her hands sink into her mother’s chest. Rey screams as the burning pain licks up her arms.
The enchantment breaks, delicate chains of gold and cold iron and a heavy lock suddenly visible to all of them.
The links break, metal tinkling to the ground around them. Rey nods at Trudgen, dropping the barrier and he scrambles forward, hands gentle as he brushes the hair from her mother’s face, traces her features for a handful of precious seconds. “Miramir.”
Rey and her consorts sink slowly down. Luke stands in front of Finn. “By the Power of the Blood, I crown you Alpha Werewolf, Shapeshifter Prime of the First Order of the Dragon.” The air is heavy, thick with magic, and the breeze smells of something green and fresh, like a newly mown lawn.
Vicrul stands opposite Armitage. “By the Power of the Blood, I crown you King of Cats, Shapeshifter Prime of the Final Order of the Dragon.” Thunder rumbles in the distance, and the fragrance of apple blossoms is heavy enough to taste in the atmosphere.
Ushar approaches Poe and smirks, flashing fangs. “By the Power of the Blood, I crown you Supreme Vampire, Defender of the Crossings.” Rey smells black currants, tastes blood and wine in the first, heavy drops of rain.
Her mother stands before Kylo, places another finely wrought crown over his dark hair. If not for the flashing gems it would barely be visible. “By the Power of the Blood, I crown you Dragon Emperor-consort.” There is murmuring from the crowd, and Rey fights to keep her face expressionless. Forked lightning flares in the sky, and the wind carries the scents of lilacs and fire.
Leia steps forward, lowers the final crown over Rey’s hair, pausing just before the weight settles onto her head to offer a small smile. “Aurelia Charlotte Celestine, of the houses of Kenobi and Palpatine, by the Power of the Blood, I crown you Empress of the Melded Kingdoms of the Veil. By trials of Blood and Fire, you have been chosen to lead. Do you accept this burden?”
“I do.”
“Then rise or be foresworn.”
The ground cracks open, swallowing the ruins of the Emperor’s stronghold and threatening to take them all with it.
Rey is locked in place, held fast by the magic seeking a home. The price for freeing her mother, perhaps.
Finn fights against the winds, every step a struggle, until he reaches her. He cups her face in his hands. “Guide the Power, Princess.” His kiss is like a match to a flame, and she scarcely notices when their feet leave the ground. Someone is at her back, and she knows it is Poe even as his fangs graze her neck. Kylo appears over Finn’s shoulder, arms around both of them.
Armitage wraps his fingers around her ankle and the circuit closes.
Together, the five of them guide the power, feeding the magic into the earth below them, the air around them, the water beginning to rain down over their skin. Flames burst forth, licking across the ground in a flash, and the cracked stone foundation is solid when they gutter out.
Specks of linoleum and half a shopping cart shift into view.
Melded.
Forked lightning strikes the dais as she stands, wind whipping around her as leathery wings extend from her back, scales snapping into place on her skin. “My Soulmates, do you accept the weight of ruling at my side, will you carry the burden as Consorts of the Blood of Dragons?”
As one, her soulmates speak their assent.
“Rise.”
They stand and the storm whips into a frenzy, tearing at hair and clothing, lighting crashing around them. Kylo and Poe take her hands, Armitage and Finn taking theirs, and the power settles over them like a mantle.
“This is the price,” Vicrul says, pointing at a page from one of her grandfather’s books. “He stripped the magic out of everything he touched, stole it to boost his own power. With him gone, it needs somewhere to go. Left wild, it will destroy both worlds, the magical equivalent of every kind of natural disaster at once.”
“And if we do this?” Kylo demands, arms crossed over his chest.
“Then there is a chance it can be controlled, channeled into the elements, reinforce the Veil in the places it still stands.”
“A chance.” Armitage says blandly.
“Better than none at all,” Poe snarks, flashing fangs at the Prince of Cats.
“Rey?”
She looks at Finn, bites at her lip. “I never wanted this. In fact, it was the very thing I thought we were fighting against.”
“You can walk away, leave the worlds to it. Others would.”
She shakes her head. “No. No, if it’s in my power, I have to try to fix it.”
“Guess we better get ready for a coronation then,” Poe says.
The Veil, what remains of it, is stable once more, though there is little hiding the portals and thin places now. There are just too many of them.
Still, they do what they can, and she isn’t alone.
“The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.”
Rey stares at the bundle in her arms, enraptured by her half-brother’s sleeping face. She rocks slowly, brushes a fingertip down his tiny nose as Mother reads from the book Rey thought long-lost. Kylo slips into the room and settles beside Rey, arm across her shoulders. Hux, in cat form, is sunning himself by the library window. Finn and Poe are in the mortal realm, ostensibly checking on one of the newer portals that cropped up in a densely populated area, but she suspects there was more to it than that.
Still, they’ve promised to be home by sunrise, and Poe has promised her a date night, just the two of them, which he promises involves cookie dough and bat wings. Kylo’s been pouting about being left out for three days now, but he had Poe all to himself for nearly a week when they went to Supremacy Tower to check in on their old home territories.
The echoes she and Finn got through the bond nearly had her crawling up the curtains. It’s her turn.
“First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms.”
Kylo kisses her crown, and she rests her head against his shoulder. The Wyrm Princess in her mind sighs, content and sleepy for the moment.