Chapter 36

CHAPTER36

Lore knew when her family was coming. She’d woken up that day with a pit in her stomach that was both hope and dread. Hope that she would see them, finally after all this time, and dread that she was dragging them toward their doom.

Everything here was going to plan. Zephyr continually told her that all the mortals who could fight were ready. Magical creatures from all over the kingdom had arrived, sheepishly offering their help in whatever they could do. The dwarves were already wearing full battle regalia whenever they came out of their homes.

And of course, the Ashen Deep were prepared. Their grimdags already whispered for the souls of elves who had gone back on their ways and who needed to taste what it felt like for their souls to whimper and scream.

Lore tried not to listen to the grimdags that much, because she agreed with them. And she would greatly enjoy listening to all those elves cry out for help that would not come to them.

She was not their goddess. She wasn’t even their kind.

Lore was the half elf they had denied and now they would understand just how far that wound would slice.

Now she stood on the original battlefield with her arms loose at her sides. She didn’t know why she’d come out here with Zephyr and Beauty in tow, but she knew that it was an important day to stand out here. With the dwarves. They’d made the entire battlefield into an armory of sorts. And apparently they weren’t worried about Margaret finding out because they continued to tell her over and over again that no elf would ever find them.

What that meant? She had no idea. But Lore had long ago learned to trust the dwarves when they were adamant about something.

Instead, she kept her eyes on the skies.

“Why are we out here?” Zephyr asked, his hands twitching by his sides where she knew he had a small knife that he always kept with him these days. “Isn’t this risky for you?”

“Margaret already knows I’m here,” she replied.

“Then she could send out her armies here. The only reason she hasn’t attacked the Gloaming already is because of the Ashen Deep. Her ravens will find you. Those shadow creatures are always watching.” Zephyr turned his gaze to the sky as well, his eyes narrowing. “Or is that what you’re watching for?”

“I am not.” Lore was waiting for familiar shadows, not those of Margaret’s magic. “Today feels like a good day, doesn’t it?”

Beauty laughed at her side, crossing her arms over her chest as she joined them staring up at the sky. “A good day? I haven’t seen you like this in a while, Lore. If you aren’t careful, someone might say you were happy.”

“I am,” she replied. And then she pointed toward the clouds that had shifted just beyond the sun.

And there, silhouetted in the sunlight with colors gleaming through the thin membranes of their wings, were three dragons. Red, green, and blue. They cast multiple colors all over the ground as they slowly glided toward them.

Her heart caught with the sight of her children flying. She had known it would be glorious and wondrous and overwhelmingly beautiful. She had known that it would feel like her soul had ripped out of her chest as she watched them glide toward her.

But she hadn’t realized how much she would feel her love for them. She hadn’t realized that her soul would fly off to be with them as well, when she damn well knew she couldn’t, or shouldn’t, fly.

And still, she felt every bit of anger and fear inside of her settle into a resounding silence that she hadn’t experienced for ages. Just peace in her heart, mind, and soul.

They were here.

They were all finally here.

A few dwarves looked up and let out a round of pealing laughter. They pointed up toward the sky, ripped off their hats, waving up at the dragons who made their way down as though giving everyone a chance to get used to the sight.

But ah, they’d all been waiting for what felt like years to see dragons like this. Three massive dragons that filled up all the spaces of the very sky. And those dragons didn’t inspire fear. No one was running from the sight of them.

Tears pricked Lore’s eyes as the three of them landed and a dark figure leapt off Abraxas’s back.

Beauty choked. “Was Draven just... riding Abraxas?”

Oh, how the times had changed. Lore ground her teeth together, so she didn’t burst into laughter and then she was moving. Running. Racing across the grass toward her mate and her children and her future, all wrapped into one.

Abraxas was the first to change out of his dragon form, and maybe that was because he knew these people. None of the dwarves threatened him, but no, it wasn’t that. Of course it wasn’t.

He met her with a hard thud of their bodies striking against each other. He gathered her up into his arms, both of them breathless as all the fear of the past few weeks melted out of them. They were together again. They were both alive, and they’d both done what they said they would.

“You are well?” he asked into her hair, his lips pressed tight against her head.

“I am well.” She held him harder, her fingers digging into the muscles of his back. “Everything happened as expected?”

“Nothing happened as expected, but we will have time for me to tell you about it all.” He drew back to stare down at her, his eyes missing nothing as they narrowed. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

“I’ve been gathering an army.”

“Or eating.” He pinched her thin arm.

Lore rolled her eyes. “I’ve been eating when I can. Do you think it’s easy to gather everyone up in two weeks?”

“I think you can do anything you set your mind to.” He dropped his face to where her shoulder and neck met, inhaling her scent deeply before sighing. His voice was low, only for her ears, as he growled, “As much as I’d like my time alone with you, your children have been clamoring in my ear for hours now about how excited they are to see you.”

“Our children,” she corrected with a snort, but he shook his head with a wry grin.

“When they annoy me, they are your children, elf.” And obviously they had annoyed him far too much because she could see the anger still simmering, cold and quiet underneath his usually calm demeanor.

“Ah, well. Then I better gather them up.” Flashing him a bright grin, she strode around him and opened her arms wide.

And just as they had when she’d first arrived on the dragon isle, her children swarmed her. They were much larger than they’d been back then, and all she could see was a flash of scales and thin wings, their bodies coiled and tangling around each other as they both tried to get closer to her.

But they were never so close that they might hurt her. They never miss-stepped or tromped on her foot or even so much as nudged her off balance. Instead, they were aware of their mouths as they shouted at each other about who would tell her what they’d learned in the crystals first.

Lore tilted her head back and laughed. The sound ripped out of her form, joy and happiness and utter bliss that they were here and they hadn’t changed even though she’d had asked the impossible of them. Her children were still just as ridiculous and wonderful as they’d always been and, oh, she had missed them.

“Enough!” she said, clapping her hands loud to get their attention. “You are both far too large for such antics! Change, now. So I can hug you and then hit you both over the head for annoying your father.”

“That wasn’t me!” Nyx insisted, pulling away from the tangle of dragons to glare at her brother. “You know Hyperion doesn’t ever shut up! It was him the entire time. All he wanted to talk about was trees and forests and saplings that leak syrup in the spring.”

“It wasn’t me!” Hyperion reared up, his beard twitching with anger before he snorted a ball of fire out at her. “Father likes to hear my stories about the forest and he was the one who came with me to get my new memories! Of course, he wants to hear about what I found and what good that will do all of us.”

“He wanted to hear about battle tactics and what you learned from your ancestors, not how to grow more trees!” Nyx stomped her foot on the ground, and then flared her wing wide and knocked her brother over.

Ah, so it wasn’t that their children had been annoying Abraxas, but that he was tired of getting in between their squabbles. Clearly, even though they had found more crystals and absorbed those memories, her children were still very much... children.

A deep sigh echoed beside her, and she felt Draven step up beside her. His arms crossed over his chest, his eyes ruefully watching the two siblings lunge at each other so hard that the ground shook with their anger.

“They’ve been like this the entire journey,” he said, shaking his head with amusement. “They knocked each other out of the sky twice and Abraxas had to help them out of the sea. The man has an impressive amount of patience.”

“You knew that.” She nudged him with her shoulder, a grin on her face. “He had more than enough patience with you.”

Draven tsked. “He had to have patience with me. He knew someday I’d end up marrying his daughter and if he wasn’t nice, I wouldn’t let him see his grandbabies.”

“Babies?” Lore arched a brow. “I’m not sure it works like that.”

“Eh, adopted children are still children.” Draven shrugged and his eyes turned back toward Nyx who currently had her brother pinned to the ground by the throat while she still somehow snarled more insults. “She has to grow a lot more before then, though.”

“You’ll be waiting a long time.”

He nodded. “It’ll be worth the wait.”

And her heart cracked right in two. This elf had done so much for her family. He’d trusted her, traveled with her, kept her safe, fought by her side, and now he was willing to wait years for her daughter to grow.

Damn it. Those tears were back, and she didn’t know what to do with them now.

Wiping a hand underneath her eyes, she wrapped an arm around Draven’s waist and tugged him close. “It’s good to have you back. To see you alive and well. I told your mother what you asked me to, and I thought she was about ready to snap. What in the world is a knife in the shadows?”

“A forever kind of mate,” he replied, tossing an arm over her shoulder. “The other half of my soul, I suppose you might say. Was she surprised?”

“She didn’t know whether to kill me or kiss me.”

“Sounds like her.” Draven gave her one more squeeze before laughing and releasing her. He held his hands up, backing away carefully. “I should go see my mother, anyway. Give the old bird what she’s been waiting for, I suppose. Thanks for the ride, Abraxas!”

Ah, of course. Lore’s confused expression cleared as she looked back toward Abraxas to see him glaring after the elf. “You let him ride you. I assumed that meant you had fixed things between the two of you.”

“He couldn’t ride either of them unless I wanted to see him dunked into the ocean.”

“Not too long ago, you would have enjoyed that.”

Abraxas snorted, but there was a softness in his eyes that she’d come to expect. Even though Draven would never be his best friend, or even close to a person that he favored, Abraxas saw the use in the elf now. And perhaps he’d seen how gentle Draven was with their daughter, and how precious he thought she was.

Her dragon shrugged. “He gets testy when wet. I have no interest in listening to all three of them complain for the entire trip, and why would I?”

Hyperion let out a squeal that made even his sister stop and step back. Nyx’s eyes had turned dark with worry. “Did I hurt you?”

Her brother sat up slowly and his dragon form melted away. Instead, he was just a handsome young man sitting there, glaring at his sister with a bruised eye. “What do you think, Nyx?”

“Oh, it’s just a black eye.” Her daughter melted into her human form as well, her lovely dark hair a waterfall at her back. She shook out her hair with a huff. “Don’t get in a fight with a lady if you’re going to complain about it.”

“A lady?” Hyperion shouted, hopping up to his feet with his fists already raised. “You are so far from a lady—”

“Enough, you two,” Lore called out the words before she could stop herself. Obviously, they should fight out whatever disagreement they might have, but the two of them had a lot of people to meet. “Introductions must be made, and I’d rather you not meet everyone with dirt all over you and twigs in your hair. Yes?”

Like the good children they were, the two teens walked over to her with chagrined expressions and eyes that didn’t quite meet hers. “Yes, Mother.”

“Good.” Lore released Abraxas to insert herself in between her children and wheel them toward the wall of dwarves that were waiting. “The dwarves are making all our armor and our weapons. They are very good fighters on their own and look at me like a goddess. Let’s be nice to them, yes?”

She pointed to where Zephyr and Beauty still stood at the edge of the forest, their eyes alight with glee. “Those two met you when you were just baby dragons. Hopefully you remember them. If not, their names are Zephyr and Beauty. He’s the brother of the previous king, but the good version of him.”

And then she moved her hand just to the trees beyond. “We’ll eventually end up in that forest right there to meet Draven’s family and the rest of the humans. I’ll need you both to be on your best behavior and impress everyone with how much you know. Got it?”

Though they both swallowed and nodded, it was Nyx who seemed to have more nerves than her brother.

Lore released the both of them, but held Nyx’s hand in her own and squeezed. “They’re all going to love you,” she added. “How could they not?”

Both her children meandered off with all the confidence Lore had never had. They strode up to the dwarves, introducing themselves, laughing and smiling at the antics of the dwarves and...

Oh.

Lore leaned back against Abraxas’s chest and pressed her hand to her heart. She felt full. Happy. This was everything she’d wanted and even though they were on the brink of yet another battle that would decide the fate of this kingdom...

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered right now while she watched her two worlds collide, meld, and then bloom.