When my girl let out her first cry, and when she was put into my arms a moment later, I started crying.
She was beautiful. She had fine dark hair and golden eyes. Eyes that seemed to faintly shimmer from within.
She wasn’t human, this one. I could tell that right away.
All the guys gathered around me, and I was so weak, and there was a handmaiden hovering around with a jar looking expectant. It was probably some healing thing, but I didn’t want it. I wanted them to leave me alone. They were caring, but the handmaidens also had a job to do. They had to get me back in shape quickly so I could continue to serve the kingdom as the priestess. The priestess’ body was just a channel for magic. I already knew what was expected of me.
This girl would be given to a wet nurse; one of the handmaidens. This girl might be a future priestess herself. And my men needed me and my power. The sigils that we shared demanded attention; they would desire me before long. I made them strong, I gave them the mysterious power that came from the gates between the worlds. I had no time to just recover and be a mom.
I started crying harder, thinking of what I had told Elena just before this happened. Sometimes…I just wanted a normal life.
“Give us a minute,” Abel said to the handmaiden in a voice that allowed no argument. She nodded and left the room.
“I’m sorry…guys… I know you were all hoping it would be yours. Except Gilbert, who was hoping it would be Rin’s…but this is Perina. This is Niko’s…firstborn…and he’s not even here!”
“Phoebe, are you kidding?” Rin said. “This is amazing. Our first baby.”
“The last thing you should do is apologize for anything,” Gilbert said. “You just went through hell. Anyway…she’s very pretty.”
“Yeah…I’m just emotional. She’s—she’s mine, and—they’re going to take her away. I love all of you, but…” I started shuddering silently.
“Take her away?” Abel said, in a hard tone. “What do you mean by that?”
“To a wet nurse. I—I have to be the priestess first, I can’t just—”
“No one is taking her anywhere unless you say so,” Abel said. “You don’t have to be the priestess first. We were pretty strong without you. And we’re even stronger as a group. We’ll survive without you. Do you want me to tell those handmaidens to go back to their cave until you summon them?”
“You don’t have to go that far.” My tears calmed down.
The truth was, I knew Abel was only half right. We had a war going on, and my magic would be needed. I had responsibilities. I couldn’t take all the time I wanted to be Perina’s mom.
But…they had my back. I could decide the timeline for myself. Abel had made that crystal clear and the other three looked like they agreed.
It was enough.
“Can—I hold her?” Forrest asked.
Just that made me melt. I knew, in those four words, that Forrest didn’t see the baby as ‘Niko’s baby’. He saw it as ours. “Of course you can.”
“Perina,” he said gently. She looked up at Forrest with unfocused little baby eyes and made a little contented sound. “You look like your father, except you seem much too agreeable,” he said.
“Well, I doubt Niko was an obnoxious baby,” Gilbert said. “He was always quiet. Crafty.”
“Oh, dear.” I laughed and then I started crying again. I guess there would be a lot of that until my body calmed down. “I—I just wish he’d been here.”
“Well…we did capture a projection,” Rin said. “One of the handmaidens knows how to do it.”
“Of—me—having a baby?” I was horrified. “You didn’t tell me that!” Projections captured about a minute of an image of something happening inside of a stone, which could then be played back over and over, cast large against a blank wall. “Burn it.”
“It’s not from a bad angle,” Rin said. “It just shows the midwife holding her up and Forrest is crying.”
“I didn’t cry,” Forrest said.
“You did cry. I also cried. It’s all right,” Rin said. “I just made sure to stand behind.” He laughed.
“Was I in it?” Gilbert asked. “I was a mess! Rin, why didn’t you tell us?”
“Sometimes I like to exercise the imperial prerogative,” Rin said.
“Damnit. Niko wouldn’t cry,” Forrest said.
Was that really true?
Later, I was alone for the first moment, with Abel sleeping in a chair at my bedside, Rin and Forrest handling business, Gilbert getting me food. Perina was nursing.
Niko…I did it. I had a baby. And her name is Perina. You’re not here to stop me. But we’ll call her Rina if you want.
Niko…please hear me… I know you don’t like to open yourself up to this kind of thing, but she’s beautiful. So far she’s been a really good baby. She’s really alert and she hardly cries. I hope you can come home soon.
There was nothing, at first. Rina suddenly detached herself from me and gave me a bleary look.
Across the miles…I felt him brush my mind. I sensed that he was alone in a bedroom. Probably in the palace of the high dragons.
Phoebe…I’m so happy…
Maybe, for Niko, it was good that he was far away, and he could cry where no one else could see.
Chapter One
Himika
I was in my own world again, with the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. We trekked down the mountain, with Gaermon castle frequently visible in the distance at first. As we descended, trees blocked the view. Soon, I would see my home again.
But I also had to admit, it didn’t feel like my home in the same way it used to. My brother had taken residence at Capamere Palace, appointing a lord to rule over Gaermon in his stead. I was adapting to my life underground. The crystalline caverns of the dragon kingdom had their own beauty.
It was bittersweet to be here without two of my mates. Oszin, my head guard and oldest friend, and King Seron, my sweet strong Seron, were both in the hands of the enemy.
I felt like I was missing a piece of my own self, but I refused to succumb to sadness. We had a fight ahead. Besides that, Aurekdel and Ezeru would only have one “first time” to see my world of the sky.
And I had a wonderful secret to tell them.
“Thank goodness this is all downhill,” I said. We didn’t have any horses to make the journey easier. I had Aurek’s arm. He was probably having the hardest time with the path. His blindness wasn’t too much of a problem back home. He was so familiar with all the places where we lived our daily lives, and often didn’t even need a cane. I knew he didn’t have too much experience navigating unfamiliar, rocky, uneven terrain.
Aurek wasn’t one to complain, though. “This is probably good for me,” he said. “I’ve been soft and this might be the battle of our lives.”
“Still, you and I aren’t actually going to be in the thick of battle,” I said.
“Mm.”
“You’re not planning on it, are you?”
“All I know is, I’m getting Seron back.”
Ezeru was quiet, taking it all in. He had a couple of his favorite rock dragons with him, while the rest were in a herd behind us. Aknu kept verging off the path to sniff things. Nuru scurried off the path and came back with a huge rabbit in her mouth.
“We cook now?” she asked.
“No, no, we have to wait until we make camp,” Ezeru said. “Don’t kill any more of those, all right?”
“Long eared tunnel weasel,” Aknu said, poking the rabbit corpse.
I was laughing. “It’s a rabbit.” I called my cat Kajira to my side, as she was flying around overhead. “Don’t you get any ideas, okay?”
A stream ran down from the rocks and met the road. Everyone stopped to rest, eat rations—no time to grill rabbits—and fill their water skins with cool, clear water from the mountains. The rock dragon children were splashing around in it. They were the only children on the journey, because all the rock dragons followed Ezeru everywhere. I
found a clean patch of grass to sit with Aurek and Ezeru in the shade.
Aknu found some nuts in the grass. “Can we eat?”
“Yes,” I said. “I don’t know if they taste good raw, but—well, okay, you’re already eating them.”
Aknu handed one to Aurek. “Can blind king see nuts?”
Aurek flushed a little. The rock dragons had been mocking him for his entire life. The Traitor King called Aurek a weak, blind king and when they were under his rule all the rock dragons spread the message, so whenever they saw high dragons, they started jeering about Aurek.
“I’ve been trying to, um, change the message,” Ezeru said. “Seems to be working.”
“They idolize you,” Aurekdel said.
“I can’t help it.”
“Don’t help it. Embrace it. What about these two? They’re really getting attached to you,” Aurek said, sniffing the nut. Then he popped it in his mouth. “Not bad.”
“Ack! You would say that. You and your terrible food. Isn’t it too crunchy?”
“My teeth must be stronger than yours, my gem. It has a nice buttery flavor.”
“We soak them to make milk,” I said. “And then grind them to add to pastry. But I’d never eat one straight.”
“Aknu is special,” Ezeru said. “He also has the blood of King Orvenu.”
“So, do you think those two are becoming mates?” Aurek asked. Aknu and Nuru were foraging for more nuts together, making a pile.
“Maybe so,” Ezeru said, watching them more carefully. Nuru walked past Aknu, giving her tail a little swish. Ezeru’s eyes widened and he turned back to his ration. “Yes, maybe so.”
I nudged him. “Is that a sexy move?”
He coughed. “Well, it’s—my tastes run more to human form.”
“Yeah, okay.” I smirked. “It must be strange to have two forms and be attracted to dragon women who also have different forms. Do you ever see a dragon girl in human form and think she’s cute and then you see her dragon form and it’s like, ugh? Or vice versa?”
“I know that happened to Seron once,” Aurek said. “Of course, he always pretended he had no interest in women, but I could always tell just by the way he told the story. He met this woman on the battlefield…an ice dragon from Ikra, and they were fighting together and she was a gorgeous dragon. As a woman, she didn’t look anything like her dragon side. He kept telling me how strange it was.”
“It is strange,” Ezeru said. “Usually everyone looks exactly like you would expect.”
“How can you tell?”
“Well…hmm. I guess it’s personality. If you put Dvaro’s personality in Aurekdel’s body, he wouldn’t look like Aurek anymore.”
“That’s nice to know,” Aurek said. “I’ve been under the impression that sighted people are easier to trick. Voices don’t lie. I knew it…about those damn mist dragons.”
“Mist dragons can do terrible things,” Ezeru said. “It doesn’t matter if you can see or not. I think Izeria is…pretty exceptional, at finding mist and blending them. A sorceress. No one really talks about just how talented she is.”
“How reassuring. Our poor enemy doesn’t get the credit she deserves.” Aurek glowered.
“Well…I just think you shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened,” Ezeru said. “I’ve seen what she can do. She can make people forget everything, or make them feel rage, and even hate the people they love most. I once saw Dvaro capture a husband and wife and instead of executing them, Izeria made them kill each other over an argument they’d had. She can do all that stuff because she’s better at using different mists than anyone else.”
“Enough,” Aurek said. His mood had turned, and he stood up and picked up his water skin and his cane.
“Do you need help?”
“No.”
I frowned. Poor Aurek…he misses Seron as much as I do.
And he hadn’t really known, about the mist dragons. He was more suspicious than anyone else, but he hadn’t been sure if it was justified. Now he blamed himself for losing Seron, and I knew he wouldn’t quite be himself until we got Seron back. I felt the same way about Oszin. Had I driven him away? He said he had to prove himself. How could I have stopped him?
Ezeru was looking at me with those intense eyes of his. Generally, even after we had been together and I had acknowledged him as my fourth mate, he held back. But I had sensed things were changing. Maybe being alone with me emboldened him, because now he put a hand on my hair and sort of petted me. His touch was reassuring and strong. He filled a little of the void Seron left behind. I knew Ezeru could protect me against anything, just as Seron could.
“This is a strange and beautiful place,” he said.
“I feel the same way about the dragon world,” I said.
He pressed his lips to mine, and claimed a deep, delicious kiss that seemed to wipe away all my fears.
“My tastes do run to human form,” he said. The breeze stirred his dark hair.
“Good,” I said. “Mine too.”
Chapter Two
Himika
We camped for the night at the foot of the mountain, and were met by Gaermoni scouts, so as we reached Gaermon castle by early afternoon, they had a feast prepared for us and all the people expected the dragon army—and the return of their princess.
I was overwhelmed by the cheering. Everything had changed in my world so quickly. I sensed relief and the joy of freedom in the village. Now that the gate to the dragon realm was properly managed, the world was much safer. Many of the rogue dragons outside the walls had been killed, and the old alliance between the dragon realm and the human realm was restored. I was given more credit for this than I deserved by the townspeople cheering my name.
Inside the palace, we sat down to a splendid feast of all the foods I had missed terribly. Seasoned fish grilled on seaweed, buckwheat dumplings stuffed with minced pork and ginger, pork belly and pickled plum, chicken and mushroom soup with black vinegar, fermented bean cake, lychee syrup on sweet rice…
Aurek poked at his plate. “You thought our food was weird?”
“Your food is weird!”
“This soup smells like something died.”
“It’s delicious.” I sniffed. “Maybe that’s the mushrooms? I guess they’re a little funky. Taste.” I lifted up a dumpling in my spoon and handed it to him.
“That’s a little better,” he said grudgingly, and I put my dumpling bowl in front of him and took his soup instead.
“It’s much better than eating eyeballs and snake meat.”
“This is better than eyeballs?”
“Ezeru cleaned his plate.”
“Well, Ezeru has had a difficult life.”
Most of the meal was spent talking to the new lord of Gaermon, my father’s cousin Sohka. I didn’t know him very well, but he gave us a warm welcome.
“Your father would be so happy to see you well,” he said. “It’s hard for a man to raise a daughter without worrying whether he’s doing it right. He may have been an imperfect king in some ways, but he loved the two of you so much. I never got a letter from him that wasn’t bursting with pride over you.”
I nodded, tearing up. “Thank you, Uncle. I wish he’d been able to see me well.”
“Me too. But he was a man of faith in our ancestors. I think he knew this day would come.”
Yes, my father was an imperfect king. I knew too many of the shadows in our family history now. I was sure I would never have trusted my daughter’s health to an ancient prophecy. I still held some bitterness over it. But I did always know how much he loved me. And soon I’ll know what it’s like to make decisions about my children’s fate. Someday I might have to force my children to rule, or choose between them. Who knows what will happen.
After dinner, we still had plenty of daylight, especially since it was near to the summer solstice. “Do you want to see the ocean?” I asked Aurek and Ezeru. “I have something I want to tell you.”
Chapter Three
I could never have imagined such a place as the sky world. ‘Sky’ was a word I had heard, in legends, but that failed to capture what it was to actually see a sky and all the vast beauty of it. I couldn’t stop staring at the clouds during the day and the stars at night.
What are they? They don’t even make sense, I thought. The rock dragons couldn’t stop looking either, and I could tell they were just as confused as I was.
Himika’s palace was also beyond compare. It was full of color, in the ladies’ gowns and the scrolls and tapestries decorating the walls, and the painted eaves of the castle roof. There were too many unfamiliar things for my eyes to even begin with. The ladies, meanwhile, were so demure and quiet. They wore long gowns and carried parasols, but they still stared as us.
But nothing in the sky world captivated me as much as the girl who had been born of this place. I thought maybe my desire for Himika would become less unbearable with time, but it didn’t. Whenever I heard her voice, even in the distance, the world seemed brighter. In the mist dragon kingdom, I only had one person who cared about me, but Peri was dealing with the crushing burden of all of her sorrows and the need for secrecy.
Peri was happier here, too, of course. I’m happy to see you with a girl, she said, sitting beside me after dinner. While the others were enjoying music and dancing, I was sitting on a wide stone wall that looked out over the harbor and the courtyard. I could see the rock dragons making their camp in the courtyard and the ships, with their numerous sails to catch the wild winds of the sky world. She’s always looking at you.
I shook my head. I’m always looking at her!
It’s both, then. That’s the best way. She motioned to my hands. You can speak here. It’s safe.
I don’t care to be overheard. My brow furrowed. I want her so much it’s embarrassing. You warned me, if I should go into heat…
Don’t be embarrassed. She likes you too. I can see it clearly. I don’t think she’s sorry you want her so much. And why wouldn’t she? You turned out handsome. Everyone says so.
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