The two men glance at each other and then turn to me. “Dragonmaster, um, we wish to learn from you.”
“And why should I bother teaching you?”
“So we may be worthy of our dragons.”
I press my lips together in annoyance. Curse them for saying the one thing that can convince me to let them stay.
33
Zenevieve
Stesha is pacing up and down the dragongrounds, his normally smooth hair rumpled from pushing his hand through it. He’s been like this for hours, and nothing I say or do can persuade him to rest or go up to the Great Hall to eat. Today is the day. He’s certain of it.
Nilak is curled serenely around her clutch of eggs. Every now and then she nudges them with her snout or bathes them in gentle flames. She’s found shelter at the base of the cliff because she’s too big to fit inside the nesting caves. All the Beta females have gathered around her, both to watch and to protect the Alpha female who has always protected them and their hatchlings. Esmeral has come as well, and beyond the beautiful Omega dragon, her feisty hatchlings romp about.
I sit resting against Omaira, a beautiful raspberry pink Beta dragon with shining rose gold eyes and talons. She’s timid for a battle dragon, but she’s proven again and again that she andher rider, Menelope, can hold their own in a fight, and they’re as swift as a wingrunner.
During the Battle of Lenhale, they worked with the wingrunners to protect the populace from the undead that managed to get inside the city. Omaira suffered a fractured back leg early in the battle, but despite the pain, she never gave up, and she and her rider saved dozens of lives. Stesha and I set the broken bones, and we check on her every day. He has every hope that she’ll make a full recovery.
Because of dragons like Omaira, Zabriel and Isavelle had a home to return to after they finally defeated the lich. When they told us about it, it seems as though the lich put them through an even worse ordeal than Stesha and I suffered. It was determined to make the queen agree to her own possession, but Isavelle was able to drive it out of her mate and his dragon only because her crone managed to gasp its real name with her dying breath.
Caraxmorenas.
That’s the name of the so-called Shadow King whom Emmeric welcomed into his cold heart, and held Maledin in its cruel, bony grip for five hundred years. Names are powerful tools in magic, so we’re told, and the people of Lenhale have taken up the habit of saying, “Caraxmorenas,” as a curse, and then spitting on the ground.
Stesha kneels down in front of Nilak and feels the eggs. “It won’t be long now.”
I smile to myself because he’s been saying the same thing for hours.
This time, however, he’s right. One of the eggs is shaking slightly, and small cracks appear in the surface. Nilak, Stesha, and I watch with rapt attention as the baby breaks its way out of its shell.
It’s a perfect white hatchling. When it opens its eyes, they’re a sparkling blue.
“It’s a male,” Stesha exclaims, taking the hatchling in his hands and examining him, gently fanning out his wings and checking his teeth. “Look how big his feet and wings are. He’s the image of his mother, and he’s going to be an Alpha by the looks of him. Welldone, Nilak. He’s perfect.” Stesha places the hatchling carefully among the trembling eggs.
Nilak is making purring sounds deep in her throat, and with delicateness that’s unusual for her size, she drops a sliver of meat close to her baby. At first the hatchling doesn’t notice, but as soon as his nose catches the scent, he takes an awkward step in that direction, pauses as if to gather himself, and then pounces on the meat and swallows it down whole.
The next hatchling is white with yellow eyes, and Stesha announces that it’s a female.
“I think one of Nilak’s ancestors was a yellow-eyed dragon. Many of the dragonmasters’ records didn’t survive into New Maledin, but I will check when I have a moment.”
The next hatchling struggles furiously inside its broken shell, hissing and complaining that it can’t get out. Stesha breaks off a small piece of the shell, and it’s able to wriggle out. She’s a small black hatchling with yellow eyes.
Stesha frowns. “A black dragon? Now that is strange. I can’t think who could have fathered this dragon, but sometimes there are random variations. Perhaps the father has black eyes or is distantly related to Scourge. Though that wouldn’t explain the yellow eyes.”
The next hatchling is the most confounding of all. A yellow dragon with black eyes. Stesha cups it in his hands with an expression of utter confusion. We’ve seen dragons who look just like this one. Just not in the king’s flare.
I look at Nilak, who’s proudly nuzzling at her little family and greeting the hatchlings with chirrups and feeding them sliversof meat. “Nilak,” I ask her. “The father of your hatchlings, it couldn’t be…Auryn?”
Stesha stares silently at his dragon, but I know they’re anything but silent in their minds as they talk to each other.
“During the Dragon Games?” he suddenly exclaims at Nilak, while the yellow-scaled, black-eyed dragon is gnawing on his fingers and beating his wings. He’s a strong hatchling, and the biggest one of all. Just as I imagined.
Meanwhile, the rest of the eggs are hatching. Three more dragons in various shades of white, blue, yellow, and black. They’re beautiful little creatures. Perfectly formed hatchlings with sharp little teeth and shiny scales. Perfect little replicas of Nilak and Auryn in various color combinations.
My mate doesn’t seem displeased, but he is thoroughly floored as he stares at the little brood.
As a memory comes back to me, I touch Stesha’s arm. “Do you remember that during your final battle with Kane, he was goading Auryn to attack Nilak, but he wouldn’t? Auryn was about to rip Nilak’s belly open. That dragon already made it clear a while back that he had no problem attempting to incinerate our fledglings. So why show mercy to Nilak, unless…” I leave Stesha to fill in the rest.
