And what if their grief was older than their lethality?
I think. . .this is working. . .
I kneeled with Kenji beside the altar for his mother, my hand resting on his back, my eyes on the sway of candlelight along the wall of faces. His shoulders were still trembling under my palm.
My Dragon was not finished with his tears just yet, and I would not rush him.
I glanced behind me and saw Hiro on the floor beneath Nura's frame with two monks on either side of him and Daisuke soothing Hiro and brushing Hiro’s hair away from his face. I watched Reo on his knees before his mother, Kaede with his jaw finally unclenched, staring at his grandfather.
My heart pounded.
The violin notes softened to a long, tender lullaby that a mother would hum over a sleeping child.
I raised my view to the dragon-shadow and grinned. The beast was flying along his mother's picture. Its long body was wispy,shadowy, and now for the first time shimmering black. Thin curls of darkness trailed behind it in rippling ribbons, breaking off at the tail and dissolving into the air before new ribbons formed along its spine.
Now I could actually see scales. My heart almost stopped. The scales were this deep black with a faint edge of silver where the light slid across.
Over and over, the dragon-shadow slowly flew around his mother’s picture. When it turned, sparks scattered. Little flecks of light, like crushed diamond dust, drifted down from the underside of its belly and disappeared before they reached the floor. Every beat of its wings released more of them.
In fact. . .the air around the altar had become a slow snowfall of shimmer.
Wow.
And the dragon-shadow’s eyes had gone from red to gold.
In my arms, Kenji silently cried and up above us, the dragon-shadow glided along their mother’s frame. Next, it flew right through the picture.
I parted my lips in shock.
The beast's body passed clean through as if the photograph were a doorway.
Seconds later, the dragon-shadow came back around again on the other side. Smoke trailed behind it in long graceful curls.
I watched it circle her.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
And each pass the dragon-shadow grew larger, sparks multiplied at its tail, and more ribbons of black smoke broke loose and drifted upward to pool against the ballroom’s ceiling.
This has to be a good thing. Right?
When Kenji had first walked into the ballroom, the dragon-shadow had been smaller than I had ever seen it. No bigger than a large cat, curled tight against the tension of Kenji’s muscular body.
I had watched it shrink further during the altar reveal, drawn in close to Kenji’s huge shoulders.
Now it was growing.
Lengthening.
Scales appearing.
In fact. . .minute by minute. . .I witnessed the beast go from two feet to four and then six to ten feet.
Now. . .it looked to be close to twenty feet at least. Gigantic and imposing. Very similar to the night when I’d first seen the dragon-shadow at Hiroko’s club in the room with the queening chair.
