Princess Aelwen groaned as she smacked her book closed. The castle library was simply too quiet. Sure, it was supposed to be quiet - after all, it was a library - but usually there was at least some sound, such as the swishing of pages being turned, the librarian briskly stamping books, or the hushed whispers of gossiping servants.

But... there was no one inside the giant library today except for the princess. Almost everyone else was attending the Queen's important meeting-- a meeting that children were not allowed to attend.

"But I'm not a child anymore!" Aelwen complained to her mother, Queen Lirial, with a pout. "I'm fifteen now. I'm practically a grown-up!"

But her mother didn't listen to her arguments. Instead, she sent Aelwen to read in the castle library and told to stay out of trouble. As a proper young lady, Aelwen had listened.

However, she was feeling quite lonely in the empty library. Even the book she read—one of her absolute favorites—did not comfort her. She simply could not sit there and read whilst an exciting meeting was being held just a few rooms away. It was not the duty of a princess to sit and read while important matters were likely being discussed, after all.

Aelwen sighed. She rested her head upon the reading desk before her. Even the castle servants and staff had been ushered to attend the meeting. Why was it so important and why was she banned from it? Surely it was her right to know something when even the maids were beckoned to hear.

The princess glanced at the closed book she had set aside. There were several cracks and dents along its spine, and it looked very torn after being handled for so many times by Aelwen. When had she read this book for the first time...? She strained to remember... and then immediately began to think about the mysterious meeting again. She couldn't keep her mind off of it; the whole situation was driving her crazy. She tugged at her brown locks of hair, and her foot began to tap under the table with increasing tempo.

Perhaps her mother was punishing her for something she had done? She reflected on the day's events, which began with her being goaded out of bed by her nurse, before promptly getting dressed. Breakfast had come next, blueberries and cream with scones. It was delectable. Aelwen recalled with some confusion that while her father had been present at breakfast, her mother was noticeably absent. When she had inquired the whereabouts of the Queen, her father simply replied that she was busy.

Now that she looked back on it, it was pretty strange. Mother hardly missed breakfast. After all, that was the time of day when the small royal family could really talk with each other. It was a tiny tradition but an important one nonetheless, since was difficult for Aelwen to get to freely speak with her parents when they were working. What had her mother been so busy that she would miss such an important time?

Aelwen continued to consider what had transpired throughout the day. After breakfast she departed for the stables to begin her weekly horse riding lessons. However, that day her instructor had ordered her to practice in the indoor track, nervously saying it was due to the rain outside.

Aelwen knew that was absolute horse manure--since it wasn't even raining-- and she did not appreciate being lied to in such a condescendingly feeble manner, though she did not say so. A lady does not confront others unless necessary. But she certainly wanted to.

There was something strange going on today, that much was certain.

A dull knock sounded at the door. Aelwen leapt from her chair and sprinted towards the library's exit. She pulled open the huge oaken door and peeked around its edge to see who had knocked.

"Mother!" she exclaimed, leaping into Queen Lirial's arms. "Oh please, tell me what the meeting was about! I have been sitting here in a dreadfully bored state for who knows how long!"

Queen Lirial chuckled, brushing away a strand of her daughter's hair from her face. Lirial was a beautiful woman, tall and lean, with blonde hair rippling in long waves down her back. Her eyes sparkled like gold - yellow irises being typical of a master sorceress. For the meeting, she had worn a purple dress with long flowing sleeves and amethysts around the collar.

"Aelwen, the meeting is not over yet; I am simply letting your father take over to say his part," Lirial said, taking Aelwen's hand in her soft grip.

"Then why have you come to see me?" Aelwen asked, a small pout forming on her face. "And, in case you haven't noticed, I really want to know what this whole thing is about."

"Because I need you to move up to your room," Lirial said, ignoring Aelwen's second question. "A few of the meeting attendees need to use the library for some important research... I had to come because I knew you wouldn't have listened to anyone else."

"Oh, Mom, please tell me what all of you are discussing-"

"Shhht!" Liriel put a finger over her daughter's lips and smiled. "No need to worry, I will tell you once it is over. For now, I need you to get to your room quickly. And please behave in doing so, because I have a very special surprise for you up there," The Queen winked.

"Ooh! What is it, what is it?!" Aelwen squeaked as she gripped her mother's hand tighter

"Well... it may or may not be a new wand inlaid with the finest in enchanted gemstones... and I may or may not be giving you your second lesson in magic after the meeting..." Liriel said as a corner of her mouth turned up.

Aelwen gave a loud squeal. She wrapped her slender arms around her mother and gave tight yet loving squeeze.. "Are you serious?! Oh, I can't wait! Thank you so much!"

"Hush now, I did say 'may or may not,' didn't I?" Liriel laughed. "Now run off to your room and check to see if the wand is actually there."

"Yes, oh yes!" Aelwen cried "Thank you, Mother!"

With that, the princess dashed off down the hallway towards her chambers. She passed room after room, past every place she had memorized since a child. She'd been living here for so long that she drifted through the halls almost without thinking. However, she slowed down as she came into the main hall. The gargantuan double doors that had sealed the castle from the rest of the capital city lay to her left. She felt her heart skip a beat as she heard sounds from outside.

Aelwen stopped running. Usually the doors and walls of the castle were too thick to let much noise in. What was loud enough to penetrate them? She curiously pressed her ear to the crack between the double doors. A piercing sound reached her ears. Was that... a scream? A roar? Aelwen could not tell...

With a sigh,she brushed it off. Surely it was nothing. If there was a problem, the guards would have told her mother of it and her mother would have handled it immediately. There was nothing to fear. She had been to the city outside of the castle walls plenty of times. It was well-patrolled by many stalwart guards at all times of the day.

Aelwen took a deep breath and began to run down more halls, eventually coming upon the circular stairwell that lead up to her chambers high up within one of the castle's towers. She took tentative steps upwards, careful not to trip over her cumbersome dress.

As she ascended, her brow furrowed in worry.The sounds from outside had stopped, and now, there was only silence. Except... it wasn't like the calm silence of the library. There was something... off about it. The only sound was the soft steps of Aelwen's slippers upon the hard stone steps. She knew that almost everyone was in the meeting, but why had the halls been so empty? Surely they would have left a few guards to patrol the area...

Aelwen noticed something else out of the ordinary.. The air around her grew warmer as she ascended. At first it seemed like a small annoyance, but soon beads of sweat dripped from her brow and intensified as she climbed. The air was growing thick and stuffy, and Aelwen began to cough rapidly. She stopped her ascent, sniffing the air.

"Is that... smoke?" she wondered. Panic rose within her. Were her chambers aflame? What would she-

An ear-splitting roar shook the tower. Aelwen cried out as the whole staircase rumbled and quaked. The stairway moved around her, and Aelwen suddenly slipped and lost her footing. She tumbled backwards, bruising her back and the side of her arms on the edges of the staircase. She clawed at the walls and stairs, eventually coming to a stop. Just when she felt she had caught her balance, a massive clawed hand larger than her ripped through the stone wall behind her, smashing down on the staircase with a deafening thunder. Aelwen screamed and sprinted as fast as she could up the crumbling stairs. The way behind her was now destroyed, so there was nowhere else to go except toward her chambers.

Aelwen's breath came out in quick, ragged puffs. Pitch black smoke seeped through the newly created hole in the wall, only adding to her labored breathing. She pressed on, choking and coughing as she ran. Unable to see hardly anything, and she ran blindly as fear clouded her mind. What WAS that thing!?

After what felt to her like ages, Aelwen reached her bedroom doors. Her quaking hands fidgeted with the knob before she was able to twist it and let herself into the room. Aelwen stood momentarily perplexed; her room looked almost untouched save for the thick smoke rolling in through the windows. The panicked Aelwen rushed over to the shelf next to the window and grabbed her silver rapier. It was a delicate, amethyst-encrusted weapon intended for light swordplay and by no means a sturdy means of defense nor attack. Aelwen knew it wouldn't do much, but it was something.

Aelwen scrambled under her giant bed and hid, shivering in fear as she clutched the sheathed rapier to her pounding chest. A second roar boomed through the air like a hammer pounding at an anvil. Aelwen yelped and covered her ears. Her lip trembled as a thousand thoughts and emotions flooded her mind.

"What is going on? What is that thing?! Is mother safe? Father? Is the city under attack? Am I going to die?!"

The sound of snapping wood and crumbling stones came from above. Rubble rained down into the room. Pebbles bounced off of the plush rugs and slabs of roofing tiles landed on the bed above her head. Aelwen quickly realized something large and powerful was tearing away at the roof of the room. One part of her wished desperately to be able to stick her head out from below the bed to see what it was, but fear paralyzed her and prevented her from acting..

What am I going to do!? She thought, her mind whirling.

Aelwen's panicked thoughts subsided as new noises were heard. Something like a low rumbling accompanied by the sounds of claws scratching against stone reached her ears.

"She's not here," a booming, gravelly voice said.

Aelwen could now hear a steady gush of wind coming closer and closer. It almost sounded like... wingbeats? She could also detect a great mumbling in the distance... voices crying out... flames crackling... screams...

The wing beats sounded very close now. "Keep looking," a second voice grumbled. "She's probably just hiding."

Aelwen fought to keep her breath steady and quiet. She wondered if they were looking for her, and if so, why?

Huge scaled paws raked across the room, their claws digging into furniture and drapery like an unruly cat. They searched through the area for any sign of her.

Aelwen realized their hunt was drawing closer and closer to her bed, which they would no doubt lift up to discover the petrified princess. Her mind raced, thinking of any possible way she could escape this situation.

Aelwen's eyes widened as she remembered there was a way out of the room. In case of emergencies, a trap-door had been built into the exact center of the floor so the princess could escape in the event of danger. The problem was that it was in the center of the room, right where the searchers were looking.

Her eyes darted around the area, looking for a way out of this horrible predicament. Her gaze settled on an object foreign to her. A beautiful golden wand inlaid with amethysts lay delicately on the bedside chair. It was the wand that her mother had promised her.

She wracked her brain for the spells she had learned at her first magic lesson from a few days ago. A simple spell floated into her mind: a spell to cast a flash of light. It was meant to only flash in a small area, but Aelwen reasoned if she put more of her energy into it, the flash could be bright enough to blind the searchers for the time she would need to reach the trapdoor.

Aelwen covered her mouth and took a deep breath, tears dripping down onto her sweaty hand. Her whole being wanted to stay under that bed forever, cowering in fear, but she knew that would only lead to her capture or possible death. She had to force herself to move.

Inch by inch she silently crept toward the edge of the bed. Her sword hand's knuckles grew white under the tight grip they held around the rapier.

"Dash to the wand, cast the spell, run to the trapdoor." She repeated in her mind. "Dash to the wand, cast the spell, run to the trapdoor." The scaly claws edged closer and closer. "Dash to the wand, cast the spell, run to the trapdoor!

Aelwen leaped out from under the bed, snatched up the wand, closed her eyes, and screamed the incantation:

"ILLUMEN BARAN!"

A huge surge of energy traveled from her body into the wand. The amethysts at the end of the wand crackled and sparked and a wave of light burst forth from them. Two booming voices cried out in confused alarm and pain. Aelwen opened her eyes and dashed for the center of the room. She didn't look back as she activated the trapdoor and slid beneath it.

The cramped tunnel beneath the door was coated from floor to ceiling in dust and cobweb, having been unused for goodness knew how long. Aelwen tried her best to ignore the dirt and dust filling her nose and dirtying her clothes as she frantically crawled.. If she remembered correctly, at the end of the tunnel there was supposed to be a slide that would take her down the tower and into the castle cellar. However, it was so dark she couldn't see if that were true or not.

Giant claws burst through the stone floor behind her and ripped away the trap door from its hinges. Aelwen gasped and crawled faster. She felt her heart jump as her arm dipped into a small decline made of smooth marble. Aelwen realized she reached the beginning of the slide, and with a sigh of relief she pulled her body onto it.

Air rushed past her face as Aelwen quickly raced down the slide. Fear still gripped her heart as the darkness hindered her eyesight. . She pulled the rapier and the wand tightly to her chest, afraid she would lose them in the descent. She tried not to scream, but as the tower rumbled and shook, she could not help it.

Aelwen soon realized she reached the end of the slide, as she was thrown feet first into a pile of cabbage. Pushing the vegetables off of her, Aelwen groaned and looked around. Just as she suspected, she had landed in the castle cellar. Stores of wine, bread, and aging cheese surrounded her. Enormous boxes towered over Aelwen, labeled with things like "wheat" and "sugar".

Aelwen looked down at the wand in her right hand. She had put a lot of her energy into that spell and she could already feel the consequences. Her limbs felt heavy, almost like wooden blocks. But as she gazed into the deep purple gems on the wand, she felt a rising sense of thrill within her.

"I did it," she whispered to herself. A manic grin spread across her face. "I got away, and I'm alive!" A fresh set of tears streamed down her face, this time tears of relief. She had never been so scared. But she had done it. She had done it.

Aelwen lay back in the pile of cabbage, and her deep breaths gradually slowed. The leaves crunched pleasantly under her weight. Her wide grin relaxed into a gentle smile, and her eyes closed as relief washed over her.

Her eyes shot open.

"Oh... oh no..." she thought. "What's happened to the kingdom? What's happened to Mom and Dad? Oh gods, they could be dead! I-I've got to find them!"

Aelwen bolted up and out of the cabbage pile, racing through rows of seasonings and salad dressings. She knew the food-filled maze well since she'd played in the cellar for hours as a child, and soon came upon the stairs that led up to the kitchen. The whole place was empty save for a few mice making off with crumbs. It was like the kitchen was frozen in time, with half finished dishes, baking bread, and boiling soup littered around the kitchen. Aelwen continued onward, bursting into the main castle hallways.

She screamed in horror at the sight before her.

The smell was what hit her first. The metallic stench of fresh blood filled her nostrils as soon as she stepped into the hallway. The worst part was the aftermath, and tears blurred her vision the more she comprehended what she was seeing

Corpses were everywhere. Maids, soldiers, and cooks alike lay dead-eyed in pools of blood on the cold stone floor, their clothes ripped and flesh torn apart. Horrific burn marks patched their skin.

Aelwen couldn't move. Choked squeaks tried to escape her mouth, which was agape in horror. She might have remained that way if not for the single thought spun her to action: "FIND MOM! FIND DAD!"

Trying her best to avert her teary eyes from the floor, Aelwen ran. past the bodies, past the carnage caused by an unknown force. She was tired. She was terrified. She was desperate. All she had to do was find her parents, and she would be ok.

"Everything will be fine," she told herself. "Everything... will be... fine..."

She made a direct beeline for the throne room. They were there. They had to be.

"Everything will be fine..."

She was almost there. The throne room was only a few yards away...

"Everything will be fine..."

Almost tripping on her own feet, Aelwen entered the room.

The whole area was in shambles. Formerly grand and ornately elaborate tapestries were torn to shreds. The once beautiful thrones were now toppled over and broken. Dozens of large cracks spread across the floors and walls.

Aelwen's father lay next to his ruined throne, unmoving. Her mother lay in the center of a carpet of bodies and embers. Her battered abdomen carried a gaping wound which she clutched as she tried to stop the bleeding. Nearby, the body of a huge ebony-colored dragon lay dead, its head separated a few yards away with glowing magical residue coming from the neck. . Blood - likely her mother's- covered its claws and maw. Pieces of a shattered wand were strewn about beside the corpse.

Aelwen screamed and raced to her mother. She kneeled by the Queen and embraced her tightly.

"A-Aelwen..." She said through cracked lips, her eyes growing wide as her gaze slowly fixed on her daughter. "You're... alive..."

Aelwen nodded, her bottom lip trembling as she grasped at her mother. "I-I thought you were dead, Mom," she whispered. Soft sobs soon followed.. "I thought you were..."

She lovingly placed a cold hand on her daughter's cheek. "Shh... I'm alive... wounded...but alive..."

Aelwen looked at her mother's wound. Her breath caught. "No... no no no..." she said. "Is Father...?" She glanced at her father's body.

"He's alive as well. Don't worry, please-"

"Who did this to you!? What has happened!?" Aelwen cried.

Queen Liriel coughed haggardly, her eyelids drooping. "Dragons... the wretched creatures have come for the kingdom...and for you."

"W-what?" Aelwen squeaked.

"You need to leave. Now." The Queen's eyes alit with a cold flame. "Their Queen... will be coming soon. Her husband tried to capture me...but I was able to take care of him." A weary smile flicked across her face.

"N-no! I can't leave you! What will she do to you!?" Aelwen attempted to lift her mother, pushing her upwards. "I can help carry you and father, a-and I brought a wand! You can do some kind of magic to help us get out of here! Mother, PLEASE!"

Queen Liriel's face became grim. "You're right. I can do something," she said, her tone level. "Give me your wand."

Aelwen instantly handed her mother the wand. Her mother accepted it with a weak, trembling hand.

"Listen carefully, Aelwen..." Liriel stated, "The only way to get you out of here safely is a way you're not going to like." She paused to cough, drips of blood staining her fingers. "To get out of here... you'll have to be one of them. They won't suspect you. And once you escape... you must find the witch, Cerubia... she is a friend of mine... she will help you."

Aelwen's eyes widened. "One of them!? Mother, what do you-" she gasped, wrenching away from Queen Liriel's grip and backing away. "Mother, no. Mother, no, please NO!"

Queen Liriel pointed her wand at her daughter's heart, whispering dark incantations. Her eyes glowed a brilliant gold and her hair whipped in an intangible wind.

A bolt of lightning struck Aelwen in the chest. She screamed in agony as pain rippled through her body. Every nerve in her body responded like a puppet to an invisible string, being pushed and pulled in every direction. The rapier slipped from her fingers and clattered on the hard stone ground.

Aelwen collapsed to her knees. Her body felt limp and soft. Her bones seemed to vibrate. She reached out a shaking hand towards her mother, whimpering like a scared puppy.

A loud crack resounded, and Aelwen screamed. A searing pain traveled up her back, like it had cracked in half. She exhaled sharply, the wind forcefully pushed out of her as her ribcage contracted, then expanded. Her spine elongated with a sickening series of pops and snaps. Her hands clutched the ground, and she stared in horror at them as her fingers grew longer and wider, sharp talons emerging from the tips of her fingernails. The bones of her legs moved on their own, her knees rising up and her feet growing larger, her toes curling up and sprouting talons of their own.

Two bony limbs shot up from her shoulder blades, ripping through the back of her dress as they grew long fingers with large membranes between each extremity. Eventually, they became huge, red, bat-like wings. They fell limply to the screaming princess's sides, twitching with a pained energy as blood pulsated within the thin membranes of the wings. An enormous tail now hung from the back of Aelwen's spine, a row of sharp spikes appearing along its top.

Aelwen fumbled and grasped at her face as it began to morph under her clawed fingertips. Her screams changed from a high-pitched wail to a deep, blood-curdling roar.

The pain stopped. Aelwen looked down at the remains of her once beautiful dress that now lay ripped and useless on the stone floors. Her eyes moved to her legs... and then her wings, and her now, slightly smaller mother.

Fresh tears streamed down the newly-formed face of a dragon.