Warrior of the Moon

19

Serena's address to them was short and simple: the heavens had chosen to lay the fate of the Realm at her feet, and their next steps would determine whether it found ruin or a new golden age.

She told them she planned to fight for a kingdom as unified and as dedicated to preserving the beauty of the heaven's magic as her great-grandmother's, and that Queen Muiress herself, as they had seen, had blessed her on this path. She told them to go back to their regions, their homes, and tell the people living there that she was calling upon them to fight, too. And she told them that she would personally lead them against these Infernals, and then would take up the mantle of queen of all the Realm.

Until then, she was honored to be the queen of the nymphs; but she would be going by a name that nobody would recognize her under:

The Warrior of the Moon.

She had decided on the title as soon as Muiress had informed her of her inheritance. She had known that it would give her a way to deal with the greatest downfall of the plans she and Will had formulated: time. With Muiress' store of nymph magic, Serena had known that she would be a force to be reckoned with as soon as she managed to bring it to heel. She had known that though she still could not fight with as much skill as she wished, she could work tirelessly to master the magic that would flood her veins at her crowning.

What she had not known was that the sheer force of the power would be enough to make her feel as though her blood was on fire.

It took everything in her to get through her short speech without blasting the castle apart - blasting her second castle apart. She had already had a significant amount of magic in her body, but when Muiress' joined hers, when her own mixture of Fae and nymph magic met Muiress', she felt like a totally different person. The instant she could leave the foyer, she did, her attendants following at her heels.

She collapsed into the nearest chair in the sitting room and held her shaking hands up in front of her. Her fingers were glowing with magic, and even when she clenched them into a fist, willing the magic to go back inside, to wait at the surface until she called, the glow remained. Her heart pounded in her chest, only calming when slender fingers wrapped around her own, unafraid of the power that lingered there.

Her mother held her hand tightly. "The heavens allowed this, Serena. The magic will obey your command. You just have to believe you are strong enough for it," she said firmly. "You will never misuse it, corrupt it. So it will not work against you. Just believe in yourself."

They were the words she needed to hear. All at once, the magic flowed back inside of her and she began to take deep, steadying breaths. With each rise and fall of her shoulders, she felt the magic within her stop moving about and finally start sinking into stillness. She experimentally wiggled her fingers and found herself grinning. The weight had gone. The magic had either gotten familiar with its new home or it had obeyed her will for it to grow calm.

"Thank you, mother," she said softly, letting loose a long breath of relief. Triana smiled at her and kissed her forehead before standing.

"We're being called back into our slumber, Serena," she stated then, her eyes a bit sad as she placed a hand on Agros' upper arm. Her father looked frustrated at the words, but his eyes were still glowing as he looked at Serena. It made her heart cave in. She wished she had known him better, had gotten the time she needed to learn from him. She could tell that he wished the same.

She could not complain. This was more than she ever anticipated having, and she knew now that the heavens would not keep them apart forever. "You'll come again if they let you?" she asked hopefully.