31

I dream that I'm flying over Ouroskelle in the dead of night, through starlit space. Holes begin to pop through my wings, one after another, until I'm soaring with only the skeletal frame and the tattered remnants of my wings. Then my body desiccates and I'm only a spirit, a ghostly serpent slithering upward through the icy air, with the ashes of my destroyed body falling around me. I was a warrior once, and now I am alone, undone, nothing but wind and ash.

The stars race across the black night, condensing together to form a long, crooked line of glowing white. A seam in the sky itself, a scar, a glaring flaw…

The glow intensifies, and then the sky splits with a resounding crack —

Crack. Crack .

I blink, still caught in the clinging darkness of the dream. The sun is high already, morning light streaming into the cave.

The cave, my cave, our cave… we're home. No longer trapped in that terrible palace. We defeated Rahzien, and he's been confined. Serylla is free— Serylla —

I lift my head, staring around frantically, searching for her because she isn't beside me, she's…

She's kneeling in the nest across from me, staring at the two eggs that lie between us. When she lifts her eyes to mine, my heart nearly stops. There's so much joy shining in her gaze.

"I let you sleep," she says softly, "but I'm glad you woke up just now. They've been moving around for a while, and look!" She points to the blue-marbled egg.

There's a long crack in the shell, with two more cracks branching out from the central one.

I can barely draw my next breath. My heart is pounding.

This is what I was made for. What I've been working toward. The result of the desperate, primal frenzy Serylla and I experienced together in this cave. She made this possible—the beautiful, precious woman who gave herself to me.

I can't speak any word but her name. "Serylla…"

"I know." She smiles, her blue eyes sparkling with tears.

The cracks in the blue egg spread a little farther, as if the hatchling inside is cautiously probing the limits of the shell, uncertain about coming out.

Then the purple egg shatters so suddenly that Serylla leaps back with a squeal.

In the center of the broken pieces of shell sits a plump lavender blob. It wriggles, then uncurls, revealing two sets of small horns, a ridged spine, and a thick, stubby tail. The hatchling has the tiny jaw spikes all infant dragons possess. As they reach maturity, males grow extra spikes, sharper and more defined. This hatchling has the broad, soft nose and the ridged fold around the neck that mark her as a young female—the gender she chose while inside the egg.

My daughter opens enormous violet eyes and looks straight at me. She's so tiny. So beautiful. So perfect.

"Fuck," I breathe .

"Don't curse in front of the babies," Serylla exclaims with a breathless laugh.

The tiny dragon whirls around with an eager speed that reminds me so much of Vylar my heart nearly bursts. She bounds into Serylla's lap and snuggles there, her damp little wings drooping and her gaze focused adoringly on Serylla's face.

And Serylla bursts into tears. She gathers the little dragon up in her arms, sobbing while the hatchling licks her face.

"Fuck," I say again, because I'm crying too, great steaming tears rolling off the end of my snout. "Sorry—I'll stop saying fuck …"

Serylla laughs through her tears, still cuddling our daughter. "She's so precious, Kyreagan! But her wings… are they alright?"

"They'll dry and expand soon," I assure her, lowering my nose to greet the hatchling.

"How does it work for dragons, with naming babies?" Serylla asks in a quavering voice. "Can we name them now? Or is there a ritual of some kind—"

Before I can reply, a big piece of shell pops up from the top of the blue egg. The piece of shell rises slowly, perched on tiny horns, until a pair of blue eyes peek over the jagged edge of the egg. The second hatchling surveys all of us warily before sinking back inside. The top piece of shell fits neatly back in place on the egg, and all is still.

I stare at the egg, then at Serylla. She covers her mouth with her hand, stifling a giggle. "I think we've been deemed insufficient as a family," she says.

"So it would seem." I peer at the blue egg and breathe on it lightly. It doesn't move.

The tiny girl dragon hops off Serylla's lap and stalks over to the blue egg. She chirps at it.

Nothing .

So she butts it hard with her little horns.

The egg rolls over and our second hatchling tumbles out. This one has pronounced brow ridges and a sharper snout, indicating his chosen gender as male.

He squalls indignantly at being dumped out of the egg, and he scrambles to get back inside. His sister circles him with rebuking chirps, and when he tries to pull the big piece of eggshell back over the hole and seal himself in, she grabs it in her tiny jaws and chomps it into fragments.

"Oh god." Serylla looks up at me, alarm and amusement in her gaze. "Are they fighting already?"

"They are." I lower my nose to our daughter and nudge her away from her brother. She tumbles over in a roly-poly ball of spotted lavender skin.

"No scales yet," comments Serylla.

"Those will grow in soon." I stare down at the girl hatchling, who has pounced on my forepaw and is now gnawing one of my claws with her stubby teeth. "See if you can coax him out, Serylla. His wings need air."

Serylla scoots over to the blue egg and begins speaking in low, soft tones. "We've been looking forward to meeting you, little one. Won't you come out and stretch those pretty wings? I promise it's safe. Your father and I won't let anything happen to you." She meets my eyes again, her gaze warm and reassuring. "We're in this together for good, he and I. We've been through so much to be with you, and we won't let you down, I swear."

She keeps talking for a long time, but our son remains in his egg past noon. With great trepidation, I leave my little family alone for a short time so I can check on the clan. It's a quick flight, less than an hour, and I'm tortured by panic the whole time. When I return, my heart floods with inexpressible relief at seeing Serylla, our daughter, and the blue egg still in the nest. It might be years before I can leave them alone for any length of time without fearing they'll be stolen from me .

"He still won't come out," Serylla says. "Is this normal?"

"I don't think so." I prowl over to the nest and nudge the egg a little.

"Of course nothing is ‘normal' anymore," she muses. "We're certainly not a normal dragon family."

"No, we are not."

"Does it bother you?" she asks uncertainly. "That I'm not the big, beautiful dragon life-mate you were supposed to have?"

Before answering, I shift into my human form. I snatch a blanket to wrap around myself before climbing into the nest and crawling over to kiss Serylla's rosy mouth.

"You are the beautiful life-mate I was supposed to have," I murmur against her lips.

She clasps her hands behind my neck and pulls me in for a deeper kiss. And when we break apart, there he is. Our son, sitting on his hind legs with his forepaws together, surveying us gravely.

"Oh," Serylla whispers, as if she's afraid she might startle him. "He came out!"

The hatchling's brow ridges contract, and he prowls a little closer, cautiously, nostrils flaring. His sister starts to bound toward him in exuberant greeting, but I catch her in both hands and hold her back. She's a surprisingly strong little creature, and the spines along her back dig painfully against my chest, but lucky for me, neither the spines nor her claws are very sharp yet.

"We'll have to have lessons on how to behave around humans," I say.

At the deep sound of my voice, she stops thrashing and goes still. I begin to hum softly, and she relaxes in my arms.

I lift my gaze to Serylla, eager for her to see the effect of my voice on our daughter, but she's entirely enchanted, because the little blue dragon is crawling onto her lap. He's tentative about it, but after a moment he flops down and closes his eyes. At first I think he has fallen asleep, but then he opens one eye just a crack to look at me, before shutting it again.

I chuckle, and the girl dragon chirps with delight.

"About feeding them," Serylla says, wrinkling her nose. "Didn't you tell me that dragons chew the food for their young and then—"

"I'll do that part," I assure her.

"Thank you."

"And as for naming them… there will be a formal presentation to the clan at some point, and a visit to the hot springs when they're three months old… but we can name them whatever you like, whenever you like." My voice trembles a little, fragile with emotion. "I want to thank you for this, Serylla."

"Ky." She shakes her head. "All of this, with you, with them—it's an adventure beyond what I dreamed of. I would have been bargained away, sold into an arranged marriage by my mother, trapped in some distant palace with people who didn't care about me. Instead I have a whole new family—the dragons, the girls—and I have these two adorable, squishable babies, and I have you . And you, just you , would be enough, without everything else."

I move closer to her, until we're side by side, because I need to feel her. I need to have the smooth skin of her arm against mine, to feel wisps of her hair against my shoulder. When she tips her face up, I kiss her tenderly on the forehead.

We sit there, she and I, with our arms and hearts full of the life we created together. The new generation. The promise that dragons will continue to exist in this world.

"They'll sleep soon," I tell Serylla. "Hatchlings spend most of their time sleeping or eating for the first few months."

"Oh thank goodness," she breathes. "I'm still so tired."

"So am I. "

She strokes my hair with a sympathetic murmur. "Too tired to think of names?"

"Not at all. What did you have in mind?"

"I thought we could call this one Violet," she says. "It suits her coloring, and it sounds a little like Vylar."

I clear my throat, willing the tears not to rise. "Yes."

"Good. And him—I'd like to name him Callim. After the stable-boy who tried to help me escape, and lost his life. I know neither of them sound particularly dragon-like, so we can change them if you—"

"They are good names. Those are their names."

"Good." She glances at the lavender hatchling in my arms. "I think she's asleep."

"So she is." I ease Violet onto the grass and climb out of the nest. "I should get dressed."

"Clothes are an important part of being human." Serylla gives me a saucy wink. "And after you're dressed, dragon, I shall relax here while you prepare something for me. You'll find everything you need in that bag, hopefully intact. I wrapped it as well as I could."

"And what am I preparing for you, my Queen?" I ask.

Her smile widens. "A proper cup of tea."