51. Flying to His Queen
Rodgardae finally takes to the skies...
The Queen’s Aerie is a MMF fantasy romance (romantic fantasy?) in 57 parts that I serialized throughout 2023/2024! If you are just now joining the story, you can catch up by starting here. Full story ToC here.
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Previously: Agadart started to come back to her senses...
Rodgardae needed to shift back into his flying form, the pull of it primal and grating. The only thing keeping him from going feral and taking to the skies in desperation was that his connections to Mani and Agadart were, for the most part, calm. Agadart was confused and furious, but not hurt or irrational (at least, not by dragon standards). Mani was unhurt, if annoyed. Together their feelings twined through Rodgardae’s soul, colorful threads of a deep love connecting them.
It meant that, for the moment at least, they were not in immediate danger. Rodgardae had time to marshal the resources needed to rescue them from the Iskaryyvan navy, which would not hold off from attacking the urshvalkin in order to retrieve their emperor for too much longer.
His sister needed his help to organize the assault against the Iskaryyvan forces, most of which were still preying out off the coast, even if they were not actively trying to engage. Their brother, Prince Tonae, had arrived, lacking the pomp and ceremony that usually accompanied the prince of Watt wherever he showed up. His brother at least looked sympathetic to the fact that Rodgardae’s consort had been kidnapped.
What they all did not talk about directly, because it was still far too overwhelming, was the sensation of the queen in the back of their minds. She was incessantly, if gently, calling them to fight with her against their enemies who had dared tried to breach the borders of her realm.
A queen of Watt lived, in his own generation… it was almost too much to bear.
They were all on a deadline, because whether they admitted it or not the pull of the call was too strong to withstand for very long. They were slowly losing numbers of fliers who could not resist and shifted to take to the skies to answer their queen, and more were showing up at the coast every minute that passed, military and civilians alike.
Rodgardae was not entirely sure that they weren’t flying to their deaths, since it was already known that the platform Agadart was holding the emperor prisoner on was surrounded by almost the entirety of the emperor’s massive ships of the line. Agadart was a queen now, but even a queen could fall, as every citizen of Watt knew too well. The dragons of Watt had to get out there and get to the fight en masse as a unified assault because there was no way any single one of them could do it alone, not even Rodgardae.
His sister and his brother the prince demanded that Rodgardae plan with them and organize his own troops so that they would all know what role they were to play in the upcoming battle. He was technically the king of Watt, outranking his brother, the prince, but they still worked together to fashion the flights under their command into an attack force. They had started the morning with eleven hundred seventy-four military wings numbering over ten thousand dragons, but with the surging numbers of dragons arriving, they had created an additional three hundred wings by early afternoon. The plan was to launch at dusk, a bad time for naval engagements but a good one for dragons who all had both enough night vision to fight by and inner eyelids to protect them from the flash of cannons.
They would not be able to hold them back long, but they were betting against the clock with the hope that it would be long enough to get everything in place.
In an ominous turn of events that morning, most of the Iskaryyvan navy had turned away from Watt. Some admirals cheered at the news. Rodgardae and his sister did not, knowing that while it meant there was no immanent invasion, it suggested that the forces were headed to help reclaim their emperor.
Agadart and Mani were out at sea, alone except for the few Wattish dragons who managed to follow her and perhaps the half-feral rogue, Consort ver Kleelan, with only Agadart’s hold on Emperor Rhezv keeping the mighty forces of Iskaryyva at bay.
Finally, as the sun settled on the western horizon, Admirals Leonteinparre the Elder and the Younger stood in their flying forms next to their brother — two princes and a princess of Watt at the head of two hundred and fourteen fighting ships and thousands upon thousands of fliers. The very land under their claws vibrated with the power of a manifested queen, as if even the flora and fauna of their country was reaching out for her.
Rodgardae took to the skies, all the forces under his command either at his back or riding the waves. At last — at last — he was flying to his queen and his consort; flying to Agadart and Mani, the beloved of his heart.
