Authors: G. A. Aiken
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Romance, #dragons
“Three days.” Three days out of what should have been another four-or five-hundred years at least. “Is she awake?”
He knew each answer she had to give caused his mother more pain, but he had to know. “No.”
“And she won’t be again, will she?”
“No.”
He gave a snort that couldn’t possibly pass for a laugh. “Then why bother keeping her alive?”
“Because you’ll need to say good-bye. You all will.” She cleared her throat. “Now, I’ll stay until—” She cleared her throat again. “I’ll stay for as long as you need me. And I’ll do what I can.”
Which, at the moment was nothing, but instead of saying that, he simply said, “Thank you.”
Briec stared into the large crib holding his niece and nephew while around him healers and midwives bustled about.
They were both extremely—he frowned—well-developed babes. They didn’t look like newborns at all. They seemed older. In fact, they seemed to be more like dragon hatchlings in many ways. Both had full heads of hair—the boy with his mother’s brown hair with light brown streaks and the girl with her father’s pitch-black hair—and their eyes were open, able to focus. Already they reached for things they wanted and could grab with their small hands.
Truly, if Briec didn’t know better, he’d swear they were nearly three months old, rather than born no more than an hour ago.
Annwyl is dying.
That’s what his sister had told him a few minutes before. They’d cut the human queen open to get to her babes and then sewn her back up again. It wasn’t the procedure that was killing her. It was rare but had been done before by well-trained healers and witches, including Morfyd who helped most women in the nearby village through easy and hard births.
No, it wasn’t the procedure. It had been the babes. They’d literally sucked the life from their mother, growing too fast and becoming too powerful for her human body to contain them. Now Annwyl was almost skeletal on her bed, the skin that was always taut around powerful muscle sagging on her.
Unintentionally, the babes had drained her of her life’s energy, and now the only thing keeping her heart beating and her lungs breathing was the Dragon Queen. The most powerful Dragonwitch that Briec knew of.
He finally tore his gaze away from the sleeping babes and looked at one of the midwives. “Talaith?”
“She went to fetch the nursemaid who will feed the twins, my lord.”
He nodded, but Briec had already seen the nursemaid outside the room, talking to another healer.
With one last look at his niece and nephew, he slipped from the room, glad to see the guards placed outside the door. He checked his room and the kitchens, the Great Hall, and the library. He went outside and eventually caught her scent. He followed it through the woods to a small lake that few thought about because it was hidden by the trees and several large boulders. Many a night they’d come here and Briec had spent hours making Talaith sob his name.
Now his Talaith sobbed for a different reason.
She kneeled by the lake, her torso bent over her legs, her arms around her waist—and she wailed. She wailed as he’d never heard her before. This woman, who’d been through absolute hell and back, wailed for a friend she’d come to love as a sister and for the heartbreak of a family she now saw as her own.
Briec kneeled down behind her, his knees spread so he could pull her into his body. He held her tight in his arms, leaning over her so she could feel him surrounding her. So she could know that she didn’t have to go through this alone.
Her hands gripped his arms, the small fingers digging into the chain-mail shirt covering him.
And he let her wail. He let her wail not only for herself but for all of them. Because Talaith no longer had to be anything but what she was. She was no monarch. She had no kingdom to rule. No politics to concern herself with.
She was simply a woman whose heart was breaking. And Briec was grateful that at least one of them could show it.
Dagmar had learned very early in life that animals felt and understood more than humans ever gave them credit for. Knowing this, she went to the stables where they kept Annwyl’s horse. As soon as she saw the powerful stallion, she knew he knew. He was pushed up against the back wall, the mare in the stall beside him, pressing her majestic head against his neck.
Cautiously, Dagmar opened the gate to his stall and stepped inside, making sure to close the gate behind her. This would definitely be one of those times her father would yank her by the hair and tell her not to be stupid, but when it came to animals, Dagmar always followed her instincts—and they’d never failed her.
She approached the enormous beast, wondering how Annwyl ever sat, much less fought, on top of such an animal. She moved carefully, doing her best not to startle him. The mare watched her closely, wanting to see what she might be up to.
Once she stood next to him, Dagmar reached out and brushed her hand against his side. The stallion moved restlessly but didn’t strike out.
She held up the fur blanket she had in her arms, showing it to the mare. Soft brown eyes blinked at Dagmar but the mare didn’t do much of anything else.
Dagmar really wished this was a dog. Dogs she understood so easily. But horses were different and she knew that. She also knew that the horse would be forgotten for the next few days, even though he loved Annwyl as much as anyone else. The bond between a horse and rider was the same as between dog and handler. It went beyond being a mere pet. It was a partnership where one trusted the other and vice versa. Of all the bonds she knew, it was the most indestructible and the most unappreciated.
Taking a deep breath, Dagmar lifted the fur blanket she’d nicked from Annwyl’s room and slowly placed it over the stallion’s back. She adjusted it so it rested high on his shoulders and he could catch her scent.
The stallion’s head lifted up and over his mate’s, his black eyes looking down at her. After a moment, he lowered his head, his muzzle near her. She reached up and stroked him there.
“I am so very sorry,” she said softly, and his eyes closed.
She walked away, making sure to lock the gate behind her. Once outside, Dagmar looked around. It was late and she hadn’t eaten, but she wasn’t very hungry, truth be told. Nor was she tired.
With a sigh, she started back to the castle, but stopped when she heard sniffles. Following the sound, she came around the stables and what she’d always considered a painfully hard heart melted right inside her chest.
She crouched down beside him, but didn’t know why. He was so large, she wasn’t that much bigger than him when she stood up.
Dagmar placed her hand on his knee, smiling into the teary silver eyes that peered up at her beneath long dark blue lashes.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, knowing words would do nothing at the moment.
“I’ll miss her,” Éibhear said while trying to wipe the tears away. “I’ll miss her so bloody much.”
“I know. I’ve barely known her and I know I’m going to miss her.”
He shrugged sheepishly. “Guess your kin don’t blubber, though.”
“My father cried once. He doesn’t know that I know, but my old nursemaid told me before she died.”
“Why did he cry?”
“Because my mother died while having me. She made the choice to save me. Just as Annwyl did to save her own babes.”
He nodded. “I know it was her choice and that she’d make no other. Not Annwyl. She’ll risk everything for the ones she loves.”
The great blue dragon in human form relaxed his head back against the wall behind him. “But Fearghus…He’ll never recover from this. Not really.”
“And all you can do is be there for him. To let him know that he’s not in this alone.”
“I will.” He tried to wipe his face and Dagmar took a clean cloth from the pocket of her dress and wiped his tears for him.
“You won’t tell, will you?” he asked. “That you found me crying.”
Dagmar rested back on her calves and said, “Your secret will always be safe with me, Éibhear the Blue.”
Gwenvael leaned over and stared down into the crib. The girl frowned like her father—no, that wasn’t right. She frowned like
his
father. And that did nothing but make Gwenvael rather nervous. Especially with those bright green eyes watching him so intently as if she were debating whether to cut his throat or not. Her brother, however, had quickly grown bored of staring and gone back to sleep.
Thankfully, his niece and nephew
looked
human. More human than he’d hoped to expect. They had no scales, no wings—no tail, which would have been awkward in the best of situations. They looked like every other human baby he’d ever seen.
Except that they appeared to be three or four months old physically and yet they already moved as if older than that. He’d give them a few days before they could roll over and crawl just like most hatchlings.
Gods, what else did their future hold? As it was, he could feel the Magick surrounding them. No, that was wrong. It didn’t surround them. It poured from them. Out of every pore. They were still weak and terribly vulnerable, but one day…One day their power would be phenomenal.
“How are they?”
Gwenvael glanced over his shoulder. Fearghus lurked in the doorway, unwilling to enter.
“They’re doing well. They’re healthy. Seem to have all the important parts and nothing in addition we have to worry about.”
At least not yet.
“You should take a look.”
“No. I need to go back to Annwyl.”
“I understand.” Gwenvael reached down and scooped up the girl. He’d done that earlier and immediately put her back down. She clearly wanted to be left alone, but he needed the same reaction he got the first time. And he got it. Her face turned red and she began screaming.
“What are you doing?” Fearghus demanded. “You’re upsetting…her or him.”
“Her. And she’ll stop eventually.”
But he knew she wouldn’t. Gwenvael’s arms weren’t the ones she wanted holding her at the moment.
Aye, very similar to how newly hatched dragons behaved.
The boy’s eyes snapped open. Like his father’s and grandfather’s, they were a coal black and at the moment, quite angry. He started screaming too, because his sister was and he was not happy about it.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Fearghus reached over and took his daughter from Gwenvael’s arms.
“Clearly she wants to be left alone!”
“I was just trying to help.”
“That was not helpful, you idiot. That was stupid.”
“She’s not crying now.”
Fearghus blinked and immediately gazed down at his daughter.
“She has Annwyl’s eyes.”
“True.” He sat his brother down in the chair beside the cribs. “But the boy has yours.”
He readjusted the girl into the crook of her father’s left arm and then placed her brother in the opposite arm.
“See? Your eyes.”
“But Annwyl’s hair.”
“Aye. And I can tell by the look in his eye—he already knows he’s trouble.”
“I’m sure you’ll help him with that.”
“Me? Of course not. I don’t need any competition.”
Gwenvael busied himself around the room until he knew Fearghus was comfortable with the children he held in his arms; then he crouched in front of his brother. “You know, Fearghus, I bet they’d like to meet their mum.”
Fearghus winced, his eyes blinking rapidly. “What?” he asked, torn between being confused and angry.
“Just for a few minutes.”
He calmed down, understanding what Gwenvael meant, and nodded. “Right. You’re right.”
Gwenvael helped his brother stand and followed him to Annwyl’s room. It was unbearably quiet except for the sounds of Annwyl’s labored breathing. Together, they placed the babes next to their mother on the bed. Immediately, the little ones clung to her, their tiny fists already able to grab what they wanted.
Fearghus knelt by the side of the bed, picking Annwyl’s limp hand up and holding it between his much bigger ones.
Gwenvael briefly squeezed his brother’s shoulder and started toward the door. It was only a flash, but he saw the hem of white robes pass by. He rushed out, closing the door behind him.
“Morfyd. Wait.”
She waved him off. “Leave me be, Gwenvael. Please.”
He watched her run away, for once unsure of what he should do next. A few minutes later, Brastias stalked around the corner, stopping abruptly when he saw Gwenvael standing there.
“Well?”
Gwenvael started to say something, but really he had nothing to say. He shook his head instead.
“Is she—”
“Not yet. Soon.”
Brastias rested back against the wall, his eyes staring off. He and Annwyl had always been close. A kind of brother and sister who had been through hell together. The general glanced around the hallway, suddenly standing up straight. “Where’s Morfyd?”
Gwenvael watched the human male for a long moment before he motioned with his hand down the hallway. “In her room, I suspect.”