Chapter 4 - Queen Ember

"What is a fire elemental like you doing here, hiding in a forest? And a dark elemental - How did you even get here from Nocte?" Lifting her claws from the unconscious creature beneath her, the dragon tucked her wings in and transformed into a woman in a magnificent red dress that looked like blazing flames as she moved.

She frowned and said, "This hasn't got to do with that stupid prophecy everyone's talking about, has it? Just last week some random air elementals - those scoundrels - waltzed into our hall and claimed to be the ones. Such a shame, they weren't seen after." She snickered.

A shiver traveled down my spine.

I looked at Elena and was about to open my mouth, but she shushed at me and whispered, "Queen Ember - she's the royalty of fire!"

"So that you know, you better let Shine ascend the throne safe and sound. She's the only competent one and with none other queens will the fire empire flourish under!" She said with an intimidating stare, and as I exchanged glances with the other people, I could see that it was working and they were frightened as well.

However, that did not affect Valerie in the slightest bit, or at least that seemed like it. She replied swiftly with a slight hint of challenge in her voice, "The prophecy is meant to save the world from tumbling into an abyss of chaos. It is meant to stop the war before too much blood has been shed, and too many innocent lives have already been taken away. Only an ignorant beast would disagree, wouldn't you say so?"

"Ugh, you hermits never fail to disgust me." Queen Ember snarled, "No use trying to argue with mindless fools - but you bunch of kids better put Shine on the throne, I don't care the means you use to do so. Pay it at the cost of your lives if you have to, then maybe you'll actually do something useful for once."

She allowed flames to twirl around her which grew from her feet until she had been engulfed in flames. As the flames dimmed around her, she was the magnificent dragon that we first saw her as. She looked up to the starry night sky, and with two powerful booming flaps of her wings, she soared off back in the direction of where she came from.

We went in the direction of Ignis, hoping to be able to successfully find Ashley's parents. Walking towards the Fire Empire took the whole night, and we were all drained of every single last drop of energy by the time morning arrived, especially as we didn't dare let our guards down during the night as it was rumored that kidnappings often happened in the woods at night.

As soon as we stepped out of the woods, our eyes were met with a ginormous scarlet castle that couldn't be mistaken for anyone's home except the royalty.

But as we walked further into the city we were left in total shock. We realized that most of the civilians only had a home just enough to shelter them from storms, and some barely even had a roof above their heads. I heard a sigh coming from my right. "Self-absorbed and inconsiderate, that's Queen Ember for you," Willow shook her head in frustration. Ashley hung her head and nodded as she replied, "I hate to say this since she is the fire queen after all, but I have no choice but to agree with Willow."

Sensing the strong annoyance directed towards Queen Ember, I decided to change the subject and ask more about Dawn, since everything seemed strange and confusing to me anyway. "Hey, what was all that about? I thought everyone here had the looks of a human, except they were of different elements?" I pondered, "But Queen Ember just transformed into a dragon! How is that even possible? Is she even an elemental?" This earned a few giggles from them, and as Elena gradually stopped laughing, she said, "Seems like we have a lot of explaining to do. But for now, don't worry too much, I'll explain everything later. Let's get to the villages first, yeah?"