“What’s happening?”
“Oh, no…”
Seron put his hands on my stomach. “What’s going on with the baby?” he shouted.
“She’s bleeding!”
“Do something!”
I was too wrecked to scream anymore, and I heard myself sobbing, and then I felt the world fading away. It was different than the last time.
It felt like if I let this world go, I would never return. “No…,” I said. “No…Seron…no…”
I saw him look into my eyes. “I won’t let you go,” he said. “My moonlight…”
His face slowly moved away from me, drowning into shadows…
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ezeru
“The baby turned into a dragon inside her,” one of the healers said. “When the first twin left the womb, it sensed that it had space. This is very bad.”
“I am not going to let her die,” Seron said. “I told her I would give her everything I had rather than let her die.” He climbed into the bed behind her and wrapped her body in his arms.
Himika was unconscious.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Seron,” Aurek said.
“It’s not stupid. We all need her.”
The crystal dragon healers were both touching her carefully, and they looked at each other and exchanged a grim nod. Then they looked at me. I had thought I was nearly forgotten, and I wanted it that way. I didn’t know anything about giving birth or healing. I took a step back.
“King Ezeru,” one of them said. “We…we both sense the same thing. The crystal magic inside the queen was coming entirely from the first boy. The other child…is a rock dragon.”
“Rock dragon?” I repeated the words. I didn’t want to believe them.
“This is your child. We need you to use your magic to convey to the baby that it needs to turn back.”
“A rock dragon…” No. They told me the children were crystal dragons…
I thought I was safe from having to stare my own bloodline in the face.
“It’s Himika’s baby! Do something already!” Oszin pushed me toward her.
My hands were shaking a little as I put them on Himika’s belly and felt the child moving inside her. If my child killed her, I would never forgive myself. I already didn’t want to forgive myself, just for…this. Seron’s child had already healed his own parents, and I glanced over and saw the midwife holding a perfect baby with a head of fluffy fair hair.
“Himika…” I tried to concentrate. “How do I connect with it? I’m just used to shaping rock.”
Aurek put his hand on mine. “In a moment, you’re going to be holding your own son or daughter in your arms. It’ll be a wonderful kid. When Himika sees that she has a little Seron and a little Ezeru, she’s going to be beside herself with happiness.”
His words cut through my panic. Aurek understood that it wasn’t the how of the magic I was having trouble with, it was the how of loving my own. “Yes—”
I sensed the dragon inside her, and I felt the warmth of the crystal dragon magic surrounding her, keeping her alive even as the rock dragon strained her body and tore at her. It made me feel a little sick, thinking about the rough scales of a rock dragon inside of her, even a baby one before it hardened…
“Come on,” I said.
Aurek’s hand was still on mine and I felt his own crystal affinity—citrine, warm and golden.
It would take all three of us, while the midwife handed the first boy to Oszin.
“Come on!” My eyes teared with frustration. “Don’t hurt her anymore…”
“Moth?”
I looked up and saw Himika’s eyes flutter open briefly. “I want to see her…,” she said in a pained little voice that tore at me, before her eyes closed again.
Her?
Did I have a daughter?
Maybe I do want to see her too.
I felt the dragon inside Himika make another abrupt shift. She had changed back into a human form.
“That’s it!” Seron said. “Wake up…Himika…”
Himika twitched and writhed and then seemed to come to with another scream of pain.
“You’re almost there, my lady,” the midwife said.
She pushed, her screams filling the room, but before long, my child came out almost all at once.
“A girl! It is a girl. Oh dear, you sure gave us a scare!”
“The queen seems to be stable now,” one of the healers said.
“Ohhh…” Himika clutched Seron, her face whiter than her sheets.
In human form, the baby was quite a bit smaller than her brother. Black hair, grayish skin, intense dark eyes, a strong brow, and a shrill scream that erupted immediately. Until that moment, I held out some hope that she would look like her mother.
But no.
She looked just like me.
Before anyone could give her to me, I left the room.
Chapter Forty
Ezeru
I knew my fatherhood wasn’t getting off to a good start.
She was mine. My responsibility. I was supposed to be happy about it. Himika would want to see me, and I shouldn’t be leaving her all alone to get a look at her tiny, gray, ugly first daughter.
But all I could think of was my own child self. That child was a stranger to me. Izeria had changed me beyond recognition. I could have been left alone to live with the blessed lack of awareness of a rock dragon, but instead I was different and I understood every moment of the cruelty and loneliness I was offered.
I found my way out of doors, just stumbling around trying to avoid anyone who tried to talk to me, and scrambled up the rocks at the highest point of Istim.
I sat down on one of the rocks and dropped my head in my hands. “Gods, and her brother is so beautiful…”
I heard some of the rock dragons moving around the rocks, and a soft chitter as they saw their king with his head in his hand. Pull yourself together. What sort of mate are you? Himika almost died giving you this baby.
I felt a tentative paw brush my hip. Nuru had come up to console me. She would have her own child soon.
“Queen okay?” she asked, with fear in her voice.
“Ah…queen’s okay.” I pulled myself together.
“But king sad? Baby okay?”
“The babies are fine too. One of them is…mine.”
Her eyes lit. “King have his own baby! Our children play together. Best news! Aknu is so happy.”
“Aknu…Aknu’s gone.”
She shook her head. “I know what he feel. His spirit close to watch over baby.” There was no doubt in her voice, and in that moment, I envied her. But maybe she’s right, I thought. Maybe it’s obvious to her that Aknu is still with us and it’s all the thinking that gets in the way.
She looked at me and seemed irritated. “Why you sad? Show us King’s baby! Boy or girl?”
“Girl.”
“I want to see! But first you see queen. Sitting on rocks alone? What nonsense!”
I think she had picked up the phrase ‘what nonsense’ from someone in town.
“Ezeru!” Aurek shouted up the hill.
“All right. I guess it is nonsense.” I took a shuddering breath and jumped down off the rocks.
“She’s beautiful,” Aurek said, holding her, her small body now wrapped in a soft striped blanket.
I looked at her again. She was small and her grayish tone had picked up some weird pink in the cheeks, maybe from being scrubbed off, and she still didn’t look like a beautiful high dragon. “Did…anyone else think so?”
“Why do you think I’m standing here with her? Everyone with working eyes screamed in horror and sent her out of the house. Of course everyone said she was beautiful. She looks like you, and we all love you.”
“But…she isn’t a pretty baby like Seron’s baby…” I let him hand her to me, and I started to soften to her, almost against my own will, the more I looked at the little face that was so similar to my own. There weren’t many ha
lf-breeds these days, so even with Izeria’s magic aside, I rarely saw dragons who looked anything like me. I traced my finger across her forehead, and down to her tiny hands. She had plump cheeks and her newborn eyes were trying very hard to focus on me. She looked almost perturbed. I imagined her in the womb, turning into a dragon the second she had room, taking up space.
Maybe she would be all right.
“I can take her back,” Aurek said.
“No…”
He cracked a smile. “I had a feeling.”
“I’m just…worried for her.”
“We’re not naive,” Aurek said. “I’ve been called names since I was a kid. Weak blind spoiled brat! And it’s not always entirely untrue. But fuck ‘em anyway. We’ll protect her. She needs her father first and foremost. Come inside. Your queen demands your presence.”
I came back up the stairs, feeling stupid now, but Himika’s weary face immediately met my own. She was nursing the boy, and waved me over.
“Hey,” she said.
She looked so beautiful now, I thought, spent and sweaty from giving us children. I could hardly stand it. “I shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “I love her. The longer I look at her, the more fiercely I love her.”
“Good. Because I love both of you and I’m glad she’s yours.”
I moved toward Himika, my beautiful mate, with our daughter in my arms. The longer I looked at her, the more I saw Himika in her stubborn little face, and the more I loved the both of them. I leaned over and kissed her deeply, digging my fingers into her hair, tasting her. She made a little sound of surprise and then melted into me.
“Stars. I guess you do love her,” she said.
“I love both of you and I know you have to heal and tend to the babies but you smell so alluring.”
She laughed and patted my head between my horns. “Oh boy. It’s going to be a long wait for you.”
Chapter Forty-One
Himika
I nursed the babies while the healers bustled around with their balms and potions, thinking idly that we hadn’t spoken much of names. I suppose I wanted to see them first, I thought, and here they are.
Seron’s little boy was like some magical creature brought to life. Right now, he was almost colorless, but in a luminous way. His eyes were a very pale blue and his skin was white with a slight pinkish undertone like a precious pearl. He looked, somehow, like he would be cool to touch. But of course he wasn’t. He was a warm, soft little bundle in my arms and I thought he seemed very happy to be born. This surprised me; it seemed like being born would be quite the shock. I wondered how he would look when he settled into a crystal affinity.
Then there was Ezeru’s girl, and I could already feel that she had a strong personality. I knew Ezeru worried about her because of the trauma he had been through himself, but to me, she had her own charms. She wasn’t a ‘beautiful princess’ of a baby, but she was adorable beyond words with her intent little face and grasping hands, such bright eyes and a lovely little mouth.
“My girl…you’ll get to be whatever you want to be from the start,” I whispered to her. “No one will ever make you swallow a crystal that ruins your bones or tell you to just sit still and look pretty. Still…I wish Father was here to see you both.”
She was already trying to squirm away from me and Oszin took her as I fell into a heavy sleep.
When I stirred again, it seemed much later. Seron was sleeping in a chair near my bed with his hand on the cradle that had been awaiting the twins’ arrival. Oszin was sitting by my bed, reading.
“Are you taking your Himika shift?” I asked. “You don’t have to watch over me. I can scream if I need something.”
“I like being near you,” he said.
“Well, then.”
“You made it, Moth. Whoever would have thought that you’d be the mother of twins yourself.”
“Not me. Goodness. Two dragon babies, at that. I am proud of myself. It’s not quite the battle I wanted to fight, but it felt like a battle all the same. And I bet I’ll have the scars to prove it.” I tried to sit up more, winced, and stayed put.
“Battle scars,” he said. “Of the best variety. Mine and Seron’s come from death. Yours come from life.”
He leaned over and gave me a very soft kiss.
“You can do better than that,” I said. “I feel fine. Mmm…hopefully…a human baby next. Kamiri babies are the cutest of all.”
“I won’t argue with that. If you’re ready for more.”
“Ten years from now.”
We laughed, happy just to be together, and to have made it—me and the first boy I loved, still at my side, and finally, I think, he was content to be there.
Unfortunately, when I asked him to fetch me some food, everyone realized I was up and my bedroom filled with flowers and well wishers while I was still so tired. Then the crystal dragons and the midwife said,
“We’d like to speak to just the parents.”
Fear lanced through me. “Oh? Is something wrong with the babies?”
Now, Aurek and Seron were holding the babies and laughing over some story between themselves and Ezeru insisted on feeding me soup.
“No. It’s that…we all spoke and we all feel that it is our professional opinion that you should not bear another child. This birth was very dangerous. If we had not all been present, and if the little girl hadn’t changed back… Well, these babies were quite large and you are quite small.”
“What about Oszin?”
“My queen, we strongly urge you to drink the tea that will prevent pregnancy and if you should become pregnant, we will induce a miscarriage.”
“You say this to her now when she hasn’t even recovered from the first one?” Seron walked up to them. I could barely see them around his body, especially the way they huddled nervously.
“Well—we thought we should—say something now. It seems no use to lie about it. We’re very shaken as well. Our beloved queen almost died under our watch,” the poor lady crystal dragon said.
“Seron, don’t menace them,” I said. I looked at my daughter and chewed my lip, trying to be practical about it. To not get angry at them for telling the truth.
Once again, I’m too weak. One set of battle scars is all I get. Now it’s back to teas and taking protective measures…!
“Thank you for being honest,” I said in a tight voice.
Seron crossed his arms. “I still think this could wait.”
“Yes, my lady. Very sorry.” One of them pressed a bottle into Oszin’s hand. “That’s her healing potion for this hour. Thank you. Very sorry.” They left the room.
Oszin came back over to give me the potion.
“Oszin!”
“It’s fine,” he said, with a rueful shake of his head. “Really. I’m just happy to have you.”
“Well, I’m not! Ugh, I never did want to learn to heal.”
“You told me it was such a princessy thing to do.”
“But now I get why women want to be healers. If I was a better healer, I could sense what was going on. I could reduce my risk.”
“Not only women are healers,” Seron said.
“Yes…to be a healer and to be a fighter—they’re not as different as I thought.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Himika
Time seems to fly so fast when you’re an adult, I thought.
Before I knew it, I was carrying my children into the palace of Irandal, and all the dragons of the court who had stayed behind were waiting for us. They had already traveled here from Hemara, to make this our permanent home. Soldiers reunited with family members, while a few were left to mourn the fallen, but not as many as we had once feared.
When we left, Vorja was a baby and now he was a toddler. I knew Aurek was protective of the mist dragon boy who had been cruelly blinded by Izeria just to trick him into allowing the mist dragons into the castle. He gave Vorja a parcel and a moment later I saw him helping him with the buttons of a soft new coat.
“Don’t you look handsome!” the nurse said.
“And it has a hood,” Aurek said. “See? Covers your head in damp caves.”
Vorja spent the rest of the night taking the hood on and off. The rock dragon children found it exciting to watch, like peekaboo, and soon Vorja realized he could get them all interested in him if he showed off this feature.
“Aurek, did you just teach that kid to preen?” I couldn’t stop laughing.
Of course, the feasting and celebration that met our arrival was likely to be written in the history books. It was almost a year since we had left the dragon kingdom by the time we were able to make the journey home. We came with a caravan of cloth and books and food and so many other trade goods and gifts that it was like a holiday. The northern passages were large enough even for horses to travel between the kingdoms. So I even had my own horse for good.
The babies were given a blessing before the court, their faces smeared with sparkling crystal dust as they protested with screams. “I now present to the court, Sorekdel, son of Seron and Aurekdel, and Oranu, daughter of Ezeru.”
Sorek was obviously Seron’s—the resemblance in the nose and mouth was more apparent by the day—but it was at Seron’s insistence that he was written in the history books with two fathers. Oranu was given a rock dragon name with a nod to the blood of her high dragon ancestor, Orvenu.
“I’m surprised you didn’t name her after your mother,” Oszin said. “Isn’t that what your family usually does?”
I sighed. “What is your mother’s name?”
“Remia.”
“That’s very pretty. I like that.”
“It means ‘rice farmer’ in Kamiri.”
“It does not! You’re messing with me.”
“It really does. My name means ‘beekeeper’. All Kamiri names are jobs.”
“Your name means ‘beekeeper’? What! Where are your bees?”
The Kingdoms of Sky and Shadow Box Set Page 80