Tarragon

Chapter Twenty: The Queen's Gambit

-Net

-April 25th, 2024

(Writer's note: Thank you for reading this far. This is a passion project, so motivation sometimes runs low, but knowing that strangers are reading it is actually incredible. Anyways, let your regularly scheduled story climax commence.)

I felt myself dying, even though I couldn't see it, Ankhele had told me what had happened. Tykranaea had sent an icicle through my chest. I was just another casualty of her rampage.

I'm going to die, aren't I? I finally made it back to see Mantis after months, and... I'm gone. Just like that, a memory.

I felt my consciousness peel itself from my body, bonds between my physical and spiritual form stretching, then snapping, as I gave into the afterlife.

I floated, looking at my corpse. I could see again. Ankhele stood there, a king in all his glory. He floated in the air next to me. He extended an open hand. I placed my claw into his hand without thinking about it, and felt something change.

I felt different, like for just a moment, I could see everything.

Down in the woods of the Saharan Rainforest, I could see a tiger stalking an elephant. Except that couldn't happen. There was no Saharan Rainforest.

In the clouds, a Frostforge dragon was fighting a Deeptrench dragon. But Frostforge dragons were myths, and Deeptrench dragons couldn't survive without the pressure of the depths.

In the Amazon Desert, I saw Sycophare, in all his might. I recognized him, but didn't understand how that was possible. Surely, this wasn't real either, he wasn't actually who this vision suggested him to be. The Amazon Desert wasn't real, it was a rainforest.

In the north, I saw Tykranaea being a caring Queen, helping her people, giving them food, and donations for research. That wasn't possible either, Tykranaea was an awful Queen.

In front of me, I saw two branching paths: One, I wither away, dead in this stadium. Mantis loses the fight, and the King goes on to take over the world, ruling it with an iron fist. In the other, I fuse with Ankhele, and fight back against Tykranaea, for a better future.

I followed down the second path. I felt my consciousness snap back to my body, the world infused with a new light, quite literally. My eyes healed in an instant, and I could see once more. The icicle had melted, my chest was scarred, and rapidly healing and returning to a point where you couldn't tell it had been pierced.

Something was new. Or, rather, I hadn't felt it in over a decade. A power, concealed by my grandmother as an attempt to cripple me, and keep me subordinate to her.

My magic was available to me now. I looked out at my wings, and they were different now too. They were extended by light green, faintly glowing, almost incorporeal, yet physically present flesh. My wings were about 25% larger, and my neck vines had similar glowing green spikes present, and were extended as well. My tail was almost twice as long, now, with a similar glowing green extension.

I had fused with Ankhele. I looked at him, floating in the air next to me, smiling, "Good luck. I'll be watching." he told me, before dissipating into the air.

I decided to test out my newfound abilities. I could feel so much now, that was hidden before. I could feel the tree roots, curling in the soil deep below the stadium, I could feel the trees grown by the plant mages, I could feel-

Mantis was in danger, right. I had to act. I launched myself off the wall, finding dormant seeds in the ground deep below me, and bursting a new life into them, pulling gigantic vines from the ground, twisting like braided hair, striking Tykranaea with such a force that they knocked her off balance.