Having slipped in and out of fitful sleep for more than forty-eight hours, Dragura was torn out of slumber yet again, but this time to the sound of a set of emerald chimes outside of the bedroom window.
With her heart in her throat, Dragura shot up in bed like a living corpse-- the Heavens knew she certainly looked like one as of late-- and strained in the direction of the window.
*tink-tink-tink-tink*
There it came again. Her experiment had worked! The potential to turn her miserable luck topsy-turvy bloomed anew in Dragura's belly.
Like a child eager to ravage a tower of birthday gifts, she shoved her satin sheets aside and hopped onto the cold stone floor. Dragura snatched a robe off of a lopsided rack and hastily threw it around her shoulders, donning her favorite slipppers on her way to the mirror. The answer to all of her hopes, prayers, and dreams sat wrapped in one of Dragura's own quilts on the Sacrificial Ledge just beneath the lattice, and it simply wouldn't do for her to look like the un-dead when she hauled in her prized catch.
Long gone were the anxious, globe-eyed maid-servants Dragura had kept employed in her downstairs chambers for so many years. After a mortifying defeat which saw her beloved fortress fall and her carefully crafted reputation crumble like so much powdered granite, most of the maids had either perished from the cold (Dragura's glass windows had been destroyed) or fled into the night, joining the long streams of refugees abandoning Hidden Well and DayBreak for the safety of Looks Thrice Village. Two of the older maids, too weak to travel, had been discovered by Dragura dead in their beds, glassy-eyed and still foaming from the arsenic they'd swallowed. And not even the Draca she'd kept chained to the castle-top turrets remained for Dragura's cause. Her crafty, good-for-nothing maids had suceeded in their 'training program' to domesticate the brutes, fleeing the fortress grounds on the creatures' scaly backsides...and after all she'd done for them.
"Help...help! Is there anybody out there?"
Dragura's frozen heart skipped a beat when the stilted English words reached her ears.
A spluttering cough resonated. "Please-- it is cold, too cold..."
Dragura knew there wasn't any time to lose. She'd have to reel in her catch, and quickly, before the feeble thing collapsed on the Ledge and perished.
But first things first.
Shuffling to her once-luxurious vanity, Dragura peered into the glass and tried with monumental effort not to cringe at the reflection radiating back.
What she saw in the mirror resembled more of a witch than any respectable queen. Swollen bags interwoven with burst purple blood vessels sagged beneath both eyes. Dragura's mouth was peaked and her skin deathly pale, but what was most difficult to reconcile with was the state of her hair. Gone was its vibrant jade lustre. Each strand was as dry as hay, giving Dragura the appearance of a vain scare-crow, and she'd gone grey almost overnight. Her cheeks were sunken. Her forehead was lined with the deep grooves of faltering worry. And were those...crow's feet?
*TINK-TINK-TINK*
"Someone! Anyone!"
Dragura blinked and rubbed her eyes furiously, dissociating herself from her daze. Rushing to the lattices, she flung them open and was nearly blasted off her feet by the force of a frigid gale.
"Don't fight the ropes that bind you, or you'll fall and catch your death in the moat!" Dragura called. Grabbing hold of the rope and pulley she'd notched into the left lattice hook, Dragura pulled laboriously and heaved the water-logged rat off of the ledge. Slowly, surely, she worked the rope until her bait was near enough to grasp. In one smooth motion, Dragura snatched her prisoner's hair and hauled her over the ledge, allowing the terrified young woman to tumble to the floor in an ungainly heap.
This was her future mate's pathetic 'true love'?
"What- what is this-"
"Leave the foreign babble and speak in our own tongue," Dragura instructed sternly. "Do you know where you are? And more inportantly, do you know who I am?"
The tiny waif, still on her hands and knees, gave no indication that she understood the question. She could only stare blankly at the walls of this new confinement, mouth agape and with crystalline tears rolling down ruddy cheeks. Even wrapped in Dragura's sheep's-wool quilt, the young maiden still quivered from the bitter cold.
This particular frosty gale had roared to life more than seven days past, increasing in intensity the night Dragura had pulled the snow-haired wretch out of the moat. When she realized that the woman was still drawing breath, Dragura's first instinct was to smother it once and for all. And why not? Who was this meager commoner in relation to the Chosen One, who was meant for her, Dragura, the Queen of both Draca and of Weema?
But no; that wouldn't do, she'd realized, staring in utter jealously at the woman's lovely countenance. Dragura had no hand-maidens to help her. Hell, she didn't even have the Draca on her side anymore. She had no sheep left to farm and no clothes, flour, rice, or supplies to support her dilapidated castle grounds. Even Ma, the sole Draca who reluctantly kept watch over the beacon-turret, had spread her wings only days prior and soared away into crimson night.
The only way, Dragura knew, to lure the Chosen One to her fortress would be to capture the special someone who dared call him her 'love'. Upon seeing Dragura, what choice would he have but to abandon his attachment to this swollen-bellied commoner?
Dragura needed him. The Chosen One didn't know it yet, but he also needed her. And so, without fanfare, Dragura had wrapped the young woman in a woolen quilt and stored her on the Sacrificial Ledge until such time as she could regain consciousness.
Then, she knew, it would begin...and he would come.
"...are you the one they call 'queen'?"
The prisoner's voice pulled Dragura back into the present. The woman was staring at her now, large eyes probing like inquisitive spheres. She had drawn herself onto her knees and shrugged off the quilt. The prisoner was also unafraid.
Dragura could sense it. That was her biggest fear of all; what power did she really contain if even the lowest among the low dared look into her eyes withour terror? Had her reputation been that soiled?
"I am not 'called queen'. I am the queen," Dragura snapped, with stinging irritation.
"Do you know where I am from?" ventured the prisoner haltingly.
"What do I care about it?"
"I am from Hidden Well. I am proud of my family and my village, and my people are fleeing your kingdom. No longer will you have power over us. And keeping me here will only make things worse for you. Jool-yan will come back for me!"
Dragura tittered airily, trying not to give way to the turmoil of emotions in her heart. This trollop would not be her undoing. She would not allow it!
"Furthermore, I'm not just your common prisoner!" the young woman continued. "My name-- is---"
Overcome by a cramp in her bulging belly, the woman faltered. She fell foward, breathing heavily, with sweat beginning to bead at her forehead.
"Ha!" Dragura pointed a finger. "Did you forget? You're not just a forgettable commoner. You've been defiled by the earth-draga and are therefore outcast! You'll be giving birth to a monster within hours. Do you think your handsome husband-to-be wants to mate with a common, defiled whore?"
"I- am- no such thing!" The prisoner's breaths now came in gasps. "My name-- is Luchek. Jool-yan knows my condition. He loves me anyway...and I'm keeping it."
That revelation struck a dagger into Dragura's throat.
The man I've dreamed of for so long, the man I love, wants to marry this fat-bellied flink? He'd choose her...over me?
In a fresh fit of rage, Dragura lashed out and raked her nails across Luchek's cheeks. The frail woman gasped in pain and shuddered, but her eyes never left Dragura's.
"Do what you want with me," Luchek panted, "but Jool-yan will come. And the world is changing. There will be no more sacrifices. There will be no more pain. The Draca will not be our enemies, and your position has been filled."
Filled?
Dragura collapsed and gripped Luchek's shoulders, shaking them violently.
"Who?!" she demanded. "Who is this person who dares think I can be replaced? Who? Who? Who?!"
Luchek's poor, thin body trembled in Dragura's grip. "She is called Ziuta," Luchek managed, "and she has come to Weema from another star. It is Ziuta whom the people now love. You will not be able to contend with her."
Dragura's own shoulders slumped.
A different star? Was that even possible? And if it was, could this Star Woman extend her rule to all of Weema?
From the direction of the lattice, there came a puff of cool air, trailed by a familiar whooshhh.
At once terrified, Dragura left Luchek to struggle on the floor and dashed to the window. Clutching at her robe with fluttering hands, she looked out into the night and immediately discerned her new company: Ma's intimidating wings were slicing through the nocturnal atmosphere like a blade.
In that moment, Dragura felt an unwelcome chill clattering through her ribs.
Ma, the lone Draca, had apparently returned. And in her talons, she grasped something.
Dragura did not see Luchek staggering to her feet behind her, or the heavy, long-handled mirror that the young woman now wielded as a weapon.
"You'll not keep my love from me, bitter 'queen'," Luchek whispered quietly.