Page 23 of Dragon 7

Maybe, it was my unwavering decision to make this sacrifice.

Am I doing the right thing?

The Silent Ones surrounded me. Over thirty. They wore long, deep red robes with deep red hoods. Most of the fabric pooled at their feet in the dirt and the dead leaves.

I couldn’t see their faces. Shadow filled the hood where each face should sit, and the flame refused to enter it.

Four torches stood planted in the dirt at the outline of the circle, and their flames bent sideways in a wind I could feel nowhere on my skin. Yet, their fragrant smoke came to me in threads—pitch, resin, and burnt oil—and under those smells, the wet rot of dead leaves and turned earth.

In the surrounding torchlights the Silent Ones looked like figures standing in their own spilled blood.

Another group of six of them remained near the slab, standing so still that twice I mistook them for carvings cut from the dark. Then one would shift, and the red would move, and my heart would slam against my ribs hard enough to hurt.

I can see why no one ever knows who they are. They’re good at hiding, even when they are right in front of you.

My breath curled above me and vanished. Leaves shifted in the high dark. An owl called once, twice, and then went silent.

After that, the whole forest held still around this clearing as if it knew what we had come here to do, and how all would be changed forever.

Dear God. . .

I stared up at the moon. It hung full and white over the trees. Light poured down through the gap in the canopy and silvered everything it touched.

This will change everything.

I held that thought the way a drowning woman held a ragged rope, praying it could save her.

I needed home. The animal part of me wanted to roll off the slab, run into the black trees, and never stop running. That part of me screamed under my skin.

This is the only way. . .

And then just like that. . .a baby girl appeared in my arms.

She came without warning and her scent rose to my nose—fresh roses and honey, clean skin and a hint of powder. And I dragged her scent into my lungs like it was air and did my best to hold it there for as long as possible.

God, she was so warm.

The heat of her tiny body bled through the thin robe and into my frozen chest. My baby girl was the only warm thing in this whole cold clearing.

She had my brown skin and Kenji's eyes, dark, sharp, and already too clever for her own good. She fit against my chest like she had grown there. Like she belonged nowhere else. Her small hand closed around my finger and squeezed. Her whole fist barely made it around the one finger.

I would have let her hold it as long as she wanted.

I would have rocked her all night.

Still. . .

she looked up at me.

And she knew me.

And she trusted me.

I’m sorry.

Then, a warm hand settled on my shoulder.

I looked up.