21. Yrsa

21

Yrsa

The Crags

Twenty-one years ago...

T HEY WERE DYING. NOT TODAY. NOT TOMORROW. BUT eventually.

Eventually.

That made the end sound as distant and elusive as the fog circling above them. And yet death would be sooner than eventually for some. For most.

So many were already gone. Too many.

If she were honest with herself... the days were numbered for her pride. And yet being honest with herself was not something Yrsa was very good at doing. Not anymore. Not in a very long time. Not since the Threshing had begun all those years ago.

She preferred to hope and dream of a future. A future where she did more than cling to existence like it was the last leaf of fall on the branch. A future where she thrived. She still hoped they could go back to the times depicted on the walls of their dens and chronicled in their histories. A time when dragonkind flourished, when they teemed in the sky like banners in the wind, when their troves were overflowing with gemstones.

She had been a young dragon when the Threshing began. Little more than a hatchling. Just a dragonling when her life had become a haze of war. Blood and fire. Death and smoke. Dragons falling from the sky like rain. Entire prides wiped out in a single day.

She was over five hundred years old. She'd spent centuries committed to the fight, devoting herself to surviving the Threshing. Always on the move. Hiding. Striking like a serpent in the grass. Doing her best to use her talents and protect members of her pride from those hunting them. It was exhausting work. Ceaseless struggle. But it was the only thing to be done. Do or die. Die or do.

There was time for nothing else.

And yet amid it all she had taken a mate. Not just any mate. Asger, the heir apparent of their pride, son of the alpha. When his father had fallen in the Hormung, Asger had risen to the role.

They were already mated by then. She had not looked for it. Had not wanted it. And yet it had found her... And when love found a dragon, it could not be denied. Before she knew it, they were bonded. There was no severing them. For as long as she lived, there would be no other for her. Like a seed to the pod, they were a set, a duo, a pair.

Not that there were a great many options for mates these days.

Their population had declined dramatically, dwindling down to sixty, maybe seventy, since the Hormung. She couldn't know every pride in existence. Hopefully there were others out there, more prides with more dragons. But they might be it. The only pride left. The only dragons left. It was grim to contemplate. Especially considering they had once filled the sky with their vibrant colors and the clapping beat of wings. No more.

Now the skies were silent.

The labyrinthine tunnels and caves they called home were still, too. Hallowed and hushed as graveyards, their tread and voices no more than whispers for fear of giving away their location to those still hunting them.

Survival depended upon how well they hid. They came out only at night and only when necessary. They were safe as long as the world thought them gone. Dead. Extinct. They had once ruled this world, but now they were reduced to this, scurrying about like rats on a sinking ship. The Butcher of the Borderlands was determined to pick off the last of them. Most humans believed them all long dead, but the Butcher was ever cautious even these many years later. He had eyes on the skies, giant catapults capable of slinging enormous scale-tipped arrows of dragon bone into the air aimed and ready. Ironic. The only thing that could break through dragon hide was... dragon.

Which was why this day was all the more significant. Hatchlings were rare. A gift. A blessing to a dwindling species, to a dying pride. A gift when so many of their kind had been slain, struck down from the heavens, torn apart by wolves, cursed by witches.

With their numbers on the decline, each new birth was cause for celebration. Yrsa had longed for a hatchling for years, ever since she had bonded with Asger. Even in their war-torn world, she had wanted that.

A dragon could only expect one, perhaps two hatchlings in a lifetime, but in the chaos of the Threshing, few hatchlings had been born. Not nearly enough to replace the dragons lost. They were well on their way to extinction, just as humankind had wanted.

Yrsa functioned, fought side by side with Asger, using her talent as a shader to muddle the minds of many a hunter who discovered dragons deep in the caves of the Crags. Her efforts, combined with the skills of other dragons in her pride, had saved them on more than one occasion.

So busy surviving, she almost didn't realize she was spawning until Eyfura looked her over and proclaimed it. As a verga and one of the oldest dragons in the pride, she would know. A verga dragon knew all about healing and herbs... and spawning.

It was a miracle. Yrsa was bringing new life into the pride.

For months, Asger hovered and fussed over her, plying her with food, covering her with furs, stopping her from leaving their moss-shrouded den, insisting it was safer within and that others could perform her duties, patrolling the tunnels and hunting for food aboveground when darkness fell. To be fair, Asger wasn't the only overprotective one. She had no shortage of visitors. Everyone checked on her, sat with her, brought her meals. Yrsa didn't mind, though. There had been little happiness for them. A dark cloud had dimmed their days and nights long enough. They needed this, and she would gladly share her joy.

Even when she began to labor, she was still in high spirits. With pain ripping across her distended abdomen, she felt only anticipation. As Asger's great form paced their den, she panted. The pressure tightened, radiating through her.

"Is this normal?" she asked Eyfura after several hours. "It's... taking... so long," she gritted out as another clenching wave rolled over her.

She was not weak. The Threshing had killed all that were weak. War had taught her what pain was in all its names and forms. This was a good kind of pain, a pain that you didn't mind, because it brought reward. She told herself that, reminding herself that she would have a hatchling of her own at the end of this.

The excruciating tightness released with a snap. Relief came in a rush. She fell back, her muscles immediately loosening.

There was a gasp—Eyfura's—followed by several beats of silence.

Asger's great muscled form crouched beside Eyfura, his fire-gold eyes gleaming anxiously.

"Well?" Yrsa attempted to peer down her body. It was the lack of response that bothered her. There were no exclamations of delight, no congratulations, no reassurances given. In fact, Eyfura looked... worried, which was not something one wanted to see at a moment such as this.

And then...

A high-pitched wail. Decidedly un-dragon-like. Never had such a sound echoed through the deep caverns of the Crags. Hatchlings sounded different than this.

This sounded like...

No. She couldn't even think it.

Everyone outside her den had to have heard it, too. Even beyond that. It would serve as a beacon for any humans within range—a fact that should have alarmed her, but she could not even summon concern. She could only gaze in bewilderment at...

It.

"Impossible," Eyfura breathed, lifting the bundle in her arms and setting it on the waiting bed. Leaning forward, Yrsa looked down into the basket she had so carefully and lovingly readied for this moment.

"What in all that burns is that?" Asger asked, baring his teeth with a snarl.

"A... baby," Eyfura supplied, her bright green eyes wide and unblinking in her face. "A human baby."

His snarl turned into a growl. "It's a monster."

The declaration struck her like a blow. A monster. She shook her head. "No."

Asger didn't hear her. Or at least he didn't acknowledge her. His sleek skin flickered like firelight through stained glass, amber struck by the sun.

"Destroy the thing." He lifted his great taloned hand toward the baby, his talons glinting and ready to slice the little body to shreds.

"No!" Yrsa moved quickly, unthinking. Purely reacting. She flung herself before the fur-draped basket that held the naked child wiggling its plump little legs.

Asger's narrow pupils vibrated and throbbed within his red-gold eyes. She knew what that meant. He only ever looked that way before battle.

"Yrsa," he chided firmly. "I know you're feeling things right now, but this is not right. It is a human child."

A human. The enemy. Responsible for the ruin of dragonkind.

"It came from me. From us ."

He shook his head, his fiery skin catching the light cast from a wall torch, making him look feral and dangerous. "It's not natural. It must be a curse..."

Eyfura nodded. "Aye. A witch's work, no doubt."

"We cannot keep it. Cannot allow it to exist." Asger sent a wary glance toward the opening of their den, his voice falling to a hush. "We shouldn't let the others see it either. It will not help morale." He shuddered as though the shame of that terrified him.

She swept her gaze over the rosy-cheeked newborn, confirming what she suspected. From the beginning she had thought she carried a daughter. She'd felt it deep within her, as certain as she was that the sun would rise on the morrow. She had known it. So why had she not known this ?

Why had she not known there would be no hatchling? Why hadn't she known that she would give birth to a human?

"Stop calling her an it . She is ours. Our daughter." Yrsa didn't know where her fierce determination came from, but it throbbed within her like a heartbeat that wouldn't quit. Short of death, she would not be stopped from saving this child.

Asger growled. "Don't say that." He flicked his hand out at his side, his talons snapping wide and flashing in the air like sun striking steel. "Now stand aside, Yrsa."

A growl awoke and stirred in her chest. It was instinctive. This need to defend, to protect what was hers. Be it dragon or human, this baby was hers. As essential as air, as necessary as bones to a body. She could not hand the child over for death. To kill this baby would be to end her.

"I'll make it quick," he added, as though that would be a comfort to her.

Yrsa loved Asger. They belonged to each other. There had never been a moment of strife between them. They had worked together to build a life, to survive, to protect their fading pride. A hatchling had been their dream. Their hope for the future.

It was her dream still, even if no longer his.

Swallowing, Yrsa carefully modulated her voice to reveal none of the desperation trembling inside her, bubbling magma deep beneath the surface. "I will do it." She placed a hand on his sinewy arm, his sleek scaled skin tensing under her touch. His fiery gaze locked on her, but he permitted her to ease his arm down.

He studied her doubtfully. "Are you certain?"

"She came from me." Yrsa paused at the sight of the ridges along the bridge of his nose contracting. "I will be the one to end her," she insisted. "It should be me."

He nodded. "Very well."

Turning, she gathered the basket up into her arms.

"Where are you taking—"

"I will do it," she cut him off. "My way."

The firelit skin of his face glinted, the strong lines of his cheekbones appearing more pronounced, sharp enough to cut stone and as unyielding as the mountains shrouding them.

Either he was worried for her... or he did not trust her. "Yrsa—"

"I will not spill blood in our den." She had to convince him. He had to let her go.

He nodded again. "Very well. Then I will accompany—"

"No. I will do it alone. I will see to this... business myself."

Eyfura held her tongue, but the way she looked at Yrsa made her wonder if she believed her. Perhaps it was female intuition. Eyfura was a mother. She knew what it was like to spawn a hatchling, to bring life into the world and love that life, nurturing it as carefully as one did a garden, feeding and tending and watching with anxious eyes, always searching the horizon, wary of the storms. For there were storms aplenty in this life, ready to break loose and take all you love. Eyfura knew that firsthand. She'd lost her son in the Hormung.

With her babe bundled close, Yrsa swept from the den. Asger didn't stop her. He trusted her. Through generations, they had never been anything but honest with each other.

Until now.

She avoided the gazes of her brethren as she passed through caves, angling her basket away from their view, slipping into tunnels that dripped with water, winding her way up to the surface, and bursting from the mountain like a geyser erupting from the earth.

She lifted up, leaving behind the Crags like they were a great slumbering giant in the night. She took to the dark sky with her daughter in her arms, turning south.

She flew through the night. When morning dawned, she went higher into the clouds for cover, the thick vapor matching the silvery gray of her skin. She clasped the basket to her chest, using her body heat to keep the baby warm and dry as she navigated through the dense air.

By the time night rolled around again, she was close. What would take a horse and rider weeks, she could accomplish in two days, flying fast and hard in a direct line, like a dart through air.

She knew where she was going. The safest place for a human, where no one would ever see her child as a monster. A place where her daughter could be accepted and loved. The enemy's lair.

The hour was late. The palace asleep. Her wings worked effortlessly, thoughtlessly, holding her aloft. Hovering over the City, she peeled the basket away from her chest to look down at her daughter for the last time, memorizing her face: the sweet curve of her cheek, the big eyes, the barely there thatch of red hair. Be well, little one.

Yrsa landed within the palace grounds and set her precious cargo down on the cobblestones. A quick glance around confirmed that no one was about. The baby shook her fists wrathfully in the air as though to announce herself to the world. Yrsa knew she needed to go, but she could not stop herself from standing over the child, her child, gazing down at her with a heart that felt like bursting.

The baby opened her little mouth full of pink gums and let loose a howl.

Silent and swift as a phantom, Yrsa launched herself up into the sky, losing herself in the dark.