Tales of the Frog Princess #6: The Dragon Princess

Tales of the Frog Princess #6

The Dragon Princess

By E.D. Baker

218 pages

Published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books (2015)

Millie is a beautiful 15-year old princess, but she will turn into a fire-breathing dragon whenever she was upset or angry. Millie’s mother Princess Emma is a witch who had the power to turn herself into a dragon whenever she wanted. And when she became pregnant with Millie, Emma just loved to transform into a dragon so much that it had had a side effect on the baby she was carrying: Millie was born a human with dragon magic.

People were frightened when Millie turned into a dragon, although she had not been violent enough to hurt anyone so far. Even castle staffs who had been working with her family for years ran away when Millie transformed into the dragon.

As Millie grew older she found her condition exasperating as it had frightened away several princes who came to court her. She wondered how she could ever find a life partner if she kept driving those potential suitors away. Even if a prince was not afraid of dragons, he turned out to be a dragon-slayer instead, which will not do any good either.

For her 15th birthday celebration, the family was forced to change the venue of the party from their castle in Greater Greensward to Upper Montevista, where her father Prince Eadric’s parents lived. As the story developed, readers will encounter more characters who attended the party, so I personally advise you to keep your mind sharp in order to remember all the names which kept adding up – it might be helpful to recall which ones will be relevant in the story later.

Actually, Millie’s grandmother on her father’s side, Queen Frazella never knew that Millie could turn into a dragon. So her parents had been reminding her now and then that she should control her temper as good as possible in Upper Montevista so as not to frighten her grandmother.

However, in view that her father’s side of the family were a bunch of annoying people who also invited a bunch of annoying guests to the party, Millie eventually lost her head and turned into the fire-breathing dragon right under Frazella’s nose. All hell was let loose and as expected, Frazella was completely shaken by the shocking revelation. 

***WARNING!!! SPOILERS BEYOND THIS LINE!!!***

Millie was only able to return to her human form once she had cooled down her anger. So when her temper subsided, she was approached by a witch named Mudine who suggested that Millie go find the Blue Witch who currently lived in the Icy North who might be able to teach Millie how to control her temper.

Millie was determined to go, but her best friend Zoë and cousin Francis would not let her go alone: they were adamant that they will join in Millie’s journey to the Icy North to keep her company. Along their journey, they met a two-headed troll named Simon-Leo who had nothing to do and was determined to join in their adventure too. They struck up an awkward friendship with Simon-Leo – the troll did, after all, prove himself worthy as his physical strength was badly needed at times.

Together, the party trudged treacherous mountains, outsmarted sinister will-of-the-wisps, got caught by villagers who wanted to sacrifice the girls to a terrorizing knucker (which, in turn was frightened away by Millie in dragon form), braved through freezing snow, threatened by a leopard (which was easily handled by Simon-Leo), and attacked by a bunch of violent, abominable snowmen.

They finally reached the snowy, Icy North, and there they encountered a young frost dragon named Audun. Audun was looking for his family whom he believed had been held prisoner inside the ice palace where the Blue Witch resided. The ice palace had only one entrance that could not fit someone as big as a dragon, and Audun could not simply melt the palace with fire. As a frost dragon, Audun and his family could not breathe fire, but only able to exhale poisonous gas instead. Thus his helplessness in the situation. Audun implored the four to search for his family members who had gone to see the Blue Witch and had not returned. Millie agreed to help Audun.

When Millie and her group met the Blue Witch inside the ice palace, the latter actually turned out to be a nice, unsuspecting old lady. The Blue Witch, whose real name is Azuria, lived with a bunch of abominable snowmen who served her well albeit in a suspicious manner. The abominable snowmen were unfriendly and looked disturbing to the eyes of Millie and her friends.

Millie soon learnt that Azuria herself did not trust the abominable snowmen in her palace – they served her nicely just because they wanted to get something from her. Azuria suspected that the abominable snowmen were looking for a way to steal her magical powers someday.

When Millie told Azuria about her condition, Azuria assured her that she was perfectly normal; it’s just that Millie had not been able to properly control her magic. Azuria also informed Millie that she was never the ill-tempered teenager she had thought herself to be – all these while Millie had, in fact, only lost her temper during situations that warranted it (it turned out that when Millie had lost her temper while spending time with potential suitors, it was because the princes had been a total jerk). Azuria believed that Millie was able to control the dragon magic inside her.

As to Millie’s inquiry about the whereabouts of several missing frost dragons – Audun’s family members – Azuria had no knowledge about it, although they had a suspicion that the abominable snowmen had something to do with the disappearances.

Azuria then decided that she would love to leave the Icy North and reunite with her childhood friend Mudine. And while Azuria was preparing to leave – and Millie and her friends went to search for the frost dragons – the abominable snowmen attacked. Everyone were knocked unconscious and sealed inside the icy walls of the castle.

When Millie gained consciousness, she realized what was happening and knew at that moment, she and her friends, and Azuria and Audun’s family members were all trapped inside the ice and would be left to die if nothing was done. And Millie also realized that she was the only one who could help them all – if only she could turn into a dragon and breathe fire on the icy walls!

In the cold compounds of her prison, Millie recalled what Azuria had told her about her dragon magic – she could control the magic, as long as she was mindful about it. She tried concentrating on her inner powers and finally, she discovered that she was able to tap into the magical powers inside her and transform herself into a dragon willingly, consciously. As a dragon, Millie then melted her icy prison with her fire breath and quickly freed her friends, Azuria and the frost dragons.

The party wasted no time to escape the abominable snowmen: Azuria had a magic carpet that could flew all of them back to Upper Montevista quickly. They quickly parted with Audun and his family, who were very thankful for Millie’s rescuing of them.

This book ended where Millie’s party arrived safely at Upper Montevista. And Millie was thinking of letting Simon-Leo ‘live’ with her grandparents there for awhile so that they will realize that having a behaving dragon as a granddaughter was much better than having a troll in their household!

For the next book in the series, there will be more on Millie’s relationship with Audun – although Audun knew Millie was not really a dragon, he could not help admiring and falling in love with her. Could Audun be the life partner Millie was looking for all these while?