by G. A. Aiken
Sizing the monarch up almost instantly, Dagmar dropped to one knee and bowed her head. “My liege. It is a great and overwhelming honor to meet you.”
“Hhhhm,” the Dragon Queen said. “One who knows the proper ways of things.”
Long legs, one of them branded, now stood in front of Dagmar. “Rise, Northlander.”
Dagmar did. “What is thy bidding, my liege?”
“Yes,” she said. “This one has been taught well.” She motioned toward the castle. “Take me to Annwyl.”
Dagmar headed back to the castle, the two dragons behind her.
“We need to put clothes on,” her consort told the Dragon Queen.
“I don’t have time for that.”
Dagmar stopped right inside the doorway leading to the Great Hall. “Your daughter left you clothes for your convenience, my liege.”
“Honestly! Humans and their weakness.”
“I couldn’t agree more, my lady.”
The queen sniffed and held her hand out. “Just give me the damn things.”
Once the queen had slipped the simple sheath gown over her head and Bercelak had pulled on black leggings and boots, Dagmar led them up the stairs and to the back of the hallway. The room had been set up specifically for when Annwyl was ready to give birth. Supplies had been stocked and at the ready and the bed had been much smaller than her own so that the healers and Morfyd could move around it easily.
As soon as they stepped into the hallway, the Dragon Queen’s offspring pulled themselves up from the floor.
The queen’s blue eyes swept across the group before she stepped next to Briec. “Where is Keita?” she demanded softly.
The silver-haired dragon shrugged and rolled his eyes. “I have no idea.”
The queen let out a sigh. “Foolish brat. I should have known…Never mind. I’ll deal with her later.” She leaned over and kissed her son’s cheek. “Briec.”
“Mother.”
She moved down the hallway, greeting each of her children.
Smiling at Éibhear, she brushed his blue hair off his worried face. “My baby boy.”
“Hello, Mum.” She went up on her toes and he came down a bit so she could kiss his forehead. She greeted Gwenvael next, kissing his cheek. “And my brat.”
“Mother.”
She stopped in front of Izzy, placing her hand on the girl’s cheek, wiping a tear with her thumb. “Hello, my little Izzy.”
Izzy choked on a sob. “Grandmum.”
The queen leaned down and kissed her cheek, then whispered something in the girl’s ear. Izzy let out a breath and nodded.
Several more steps took the queen to the front of the door Annwyl lay behind—and her eldest son.
“My son.”
“Mother.”
She petted his cheek, and Dagmar saw more affection in that single gesture than she’d ever seen before. The queen turned away from her son and grabbed the handle on the door. She snapped her fingers. “Northlander. With me.”
Gwenvael’s eyes widened and he reached for Dagmar. She shook her head. “It’s all right,” she whispered as she passed him and followed the queen.
The door closed behind them, and Dagmar saw the relief on Morfyd’s face at the sight of her mother. She stepped away from the bed and motioned her mother closer. The two began to speak in soft whispers while Talaith held Annwyl’s hand and wiped her brow. Three other healers worked with herbs and roots, creating different concoctions they hoped would help.
Dagmar looked down at Annwyl and she felt suddenly cold all over. The strong—albeit crying—female she’d met just yesterday in the library was gone. All that remained was a pale, sweat-covered body lying in soaked furs. The only sign of life was when her body would stiffen as another bout of pain shot through her. It would last twenty or so seconds, and then she’d be still again.
For the first time in years, Dagmar thought of her own mother. Had she looked like this before Dagmar came screaming into the world? Did she seem so weak and near death to Sigmar? And would these children spend their lives blaming themselves for their mother’s death as Dagmar secretly did?
Would they be right?
The Dragon Queen stepped away from her daughter and over to Talaith’s side. She took Annwyl’s hand from Briec’s mate and closed her eyes. Dagmar had no concept of how long the queen stood like that. A few seconds, minutes, days? She didn’t know. They all crowded around the bed, waiting for her to say something. Anything.
But she didn’t have to say a word. Not once she opened those eyes. Those blue eyes that had been so cold only minutes before when she’d looked at Dagmar, now appeared…devastated. She was devastated. Devastated because there was absolutely nothing she could do.
Dagmar knew this even before Talaith turned away and walked to the window. Even before Morfyd shook her head and said, “No, Mother. You have to do something. There must be something.”
The queen gently laid Annwyl’s arm back down, placing it carefully. “You already know there’s nothing I can do. That you can do. Nothing except one thing.”
“No.” Tears flowed freely down Morfyd’s cheeks as she stepped away from the bed and her mother. “No. I won’t do it.”
“Tell her what she told you, Northlander.”
Dagmar’s head snapped up and both Talaith and Morfyd turn to stare at her. “My liege, I—”
“This is no time for games, little girl. In fact, we are running out of time quite quickly, so you tell them. Tell them what she said to you and Bercelak when you brought her back here from the stables. Tell them what she made you promise her.”
Dagmar had never planned to say anything about what Annwyl had said, hoping it was merely the words of a scared, first-time mother. And when Bercelak had only grunted at Annwyl’s words, Dagmar had assumed he’d say nothing either. And perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps his mate knew him so well he’d not had to say a word for her to know the truth of things.
Dagmar cleared her throat, wishing for the first time in days she was back at home with her idiot sisters-in-law and her dangerously stupid brothers.
“She…um…She told us that no matter what, you were to save the babes. Even if it meant her life, you were to save them.”
Morfyd’s head bowed at Dagmar’s words while Talaith’s gaze moved to the ceiling.
“She knows the price,” the Dragon Queen explained. “She knows and she’s made her choice. We can not ignore that.”
“But Fearghus…”
“Has to know before we start.” The queen nodded. “I will tell him.”
“No.” Morfyd wiped her face with the palms of her hands. “I’ll tell him.” She headed toward the door, but stopped long enough to tell the healers, “Prepare everything we need.”
Gwenvael looked up from his place on the floor as the door slowly creaked open and Morfyd stepped out. She kept her eyes down and immediately reached for Fearghus. She took his hand and walked him down the hall a bit, pulling him into the doorway of an unused room at the very end of the hall.
The rest of them got to their feet, pulling themselves up off the floor and watching as Morfyd placed her hand on their brother’s shoulder and stepped in close. She kept her voice low, but whatever she said, whatever she told him, had Fearghus sitting hard on the floor, the door slamming against the wall as his back fell into it. Morfyd dropped in front of him, both hands now on his shoulders as she spoke to him. He shook his head and pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes.
Gwenvael immediately looked at Briec and he saw the same shock and pain in his brother’s face that he felt. Éibhear simply kept shaking his head, as if refusing to believe what he knew was truth.
But it was Izzy, Izzy who loved Annwyl as more than a favorite aunt, who burst into hysterical tears. She pushed herself away from the wall and tried to run. But Bercelak grabbed hold of her and swept her up in his arms.
“It’s all right, Izzy. It’s all right,” he whispered as he stroked her back and let her sob u
ncontrollably into his neck, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her legs around his waist.
Gwenvael looked back at Fearghus and Morfyd. His brother finally nodded to something his sister said. She kissed his forehead and stood, walking back toward them. She reached out and grasped the door handle. Before pushing it open, she said to them all, “We’ll let you know when we’re done.”
Then she slipped inside, the door closing behind her.
Fearghus sat on the castle roof, staring out over Dark Plains. He’d stayed human, knowing he’d have to go back inside at any moment. But he’d discovered this particular spot long ago that he could easily reach while human or dragon.
He sat and stared, his boot-shod feet pressed against the slats all that kept him in place.
He’d always known that any time Annwyl went off to battle, she may not return to him except on the shields of her men. They both knew it was a risk they took because they were monarchs who did not hide behind fortress walls waiting for wars to end. They fought alongside their kind. And with that choice, they risked death.
Yet this had not been their choice. They’d never sat down and discussed having children and when. Instead the gods had chosen for them, taking away any choice they had.
And because of the gods, Fearghus was going to lose his mate. The only female he would ever truly love. Even when they were thousands of leagues apart from each other, Fearghus always knew Annwyl was part of his world, part of his life.
Now he’d no longer have that comfort, that certainty.
He heard two strong cries ring out through the castle and he shut his eyes, trying so very hard not to feel resentment toward innocents who had even less choice in all of this than he and Annwyl had.
He knew he should go down to be with his twins, but he simply didn’t have the heart. The pain tore at him like knives.
As he sat, relieved when the crying eventually stopped, he felt his mother sit down next to him. He wasn’t surprised she’d tracked him down. The only other who could have was Annwyl.
“A boy and a girl,” she said. “Beautiful. Healthy.” She shrugged. “Seem human.”
“And Annwyl’s dead.”
“No. Not yet.”
Fearghus looked at his mother. “But you’re the only thing keeping her alive.”
“For as long as I can.”
“And how long is that?”
She took a breath. “Three days. Perhaps four.”
“Three days.” Three days out of what should have been another four- or five-hundred years at least. “Is she awake?”
He knew each answer she had to give caused his mother more pain, but he had to know. “No.”
“And she won’t be again, will she?”
“No.”
He gave a snort that couldn’t possibly pass for a laugh. “Then why bother keeping her alive?”
“Because you’ll need to say good-bye. You all will.” She cleared her throat. “Now, I’ll stay until—” She cleared her throat again. “I’ll stay for as long as you need me. And I’ll do what I can.”
Which, at the moment was nothing, but instead of saying that, he simply said, “Thank you.”
Briec stared into the large crib holding his niece and nephew while around him healers and midwives bustled about.
They were both extremely—he frowned—well-developed babes. They didn’t look like newborns at all. They seemed older. In fact, they seemed to be more like dragon hatchlings in many ways. Both had full heads of hair—the boy with his mother’s brown hair with light brown streaks and the girl with her father’s pitch-black hair—and their eyes were open, able to focus. Already they reached for things they wanted and could grab with their small hands.
Truly, if Briec didn’t know better, he’d swear they were nearly three months old, rather than born no more than an hour ago.
Annwyl is dying. That’s what his sister had told him a few minutes before. They’d cut the human queen open to get to her babes and then sewn her back up again. It wasn’t the procedure that was killing her. It was rare but had been done before by well-trained healers and witches, including Morfyd who helped most women in the nearby village through easy and hard births.
No, it wasn’t the procedure. It had been the babes. They’d literally sucked the life from their mother, growing too fast and becoming too powerful for her human body to contain them. Now Annwyl was almost skeletal on her bed, the skin that was always taut around powerful muscle sagging on her.
Unintentionally, the babes had drained her of her life’s energy, and now the only thing keeping her heart beating and her lungs breathing was the Dragon Queen. The most powerful Dragonwitch that Briec knew of.
He finally tore his gaze away from the sleeping babes and looked at one of the midwives. “Talaith?”
“She went to fetch the nursemaid who will feed the twins, my lord.”
He nodded, but Briec had already seen the nursemaid outside the room, talking to another healer.
With one last look at his niece and nephew, he slipped from the room, glad to see the guards placed outside the door. He checked his room and the kitchens, the Great Hall, and the library. He went outside and eventually caught her scent. He followed it through the woods to a small lake that few thought about because it was hidden by the trees and several large boulders. Many a night they’d come here and Briec had spent hours making Talaith sob his name.
Now his Talaith sobbed for a different reason.
She kneeled by the lake, her torso bent over her legs, her arms around her waist—and she wailed. She wailed as he’d never heard her before. This woman, who’d been through absolute hell and back, wailed for a friend she’d come to love as a sister and for the heartbreak of a family she now saw as her own.
Briec kneeled down behind her, his knees spread so he could pull her into his body. He held her tight in his arms, leaning over her so she could feel him surrounding her. So she could know that she didn’t have to go through this alone.
Her hands gripped his arms, the small fingers digging into the chain-mail shirt covering him.
And he let her wail. He let her wail not only for herself but for all of them. Because Talaith no longer had to be anything but what she was. She was no monarch. She had no kingdom to rule. No politics to concern herself with.
She was simply a woman whose heart was breaking. And Briec was grateful that at least one of them could show it.
Dagmar had learned very early in life that animals felt and understood more than humans ever gave them credit for. Knowing this, she went to the stables where they kept Annwyl’s horse. As soon as she saw the powerful stallion, she knew he knew. He was pushed up against the back wall, the mare in the stall beside him, pressing her majestic head against his neck.
Cautiously, Dagmar opened the gate to his stall and stepped inside, making sure to close the gate behind her. This would definitely be one of those times her father would yank her by the hair and tell her not to be stupid, but when it came to animals, Dagmar always followed her instincts—and they’d never failed her.
She approached the enormous beast, wondering how Annwyl ever sat, much less fought, on top of such an animal. She moved carefully, doing her best not to startle him. The mare watched her closely, wanting to see what she might be up to.
Once she stood next to him, Dagmar reached out and brushed her hand against his side. The stallion moved restlessly but didn’t strike out.
She held up the fur blanket she had in her arms, showing it to the mare. Soft brown eyes blinked at Dagmar but the mare didn’t do much of anything else.
Dagmar really wished this was a dog. Dogs she understood so easily. But horses were different and she knew that. She also knew that the horse would be forgotten for the next few days, even though he loved Annwyl as much as anyone else. The bond between a horse and rider was the same as between dog and handler. It went beyond being a mere pet. It was a partnership where one trusted the other and vice versa. Of all the bonds she knew, it
was the most indestructible and the most unappreciated.
Taking a deep breath, Dagmar lifted the fur blanket she’d nicked from Annwyl’s room and slowly placed it over the stallion’s back. She adjusted it so it rested high on his shoulders and he could catch her scent.
The stallion’s head lifted up and over his mate’s, his black eyes looking down at her. After a moment, he lowered his head, his muzzle near her. She reached up and stroked him there.
“I am so very sorry,” she said softly, and his eyes closed.
She walked away, making sure to lock the gate behind her. Once outside, Dagmar looked around. It was late and she hadn’t eaten, but she wasn’t very hungry, truth be told. Nor was she tired.
With a sigh, she started back to the castle, but stopped when she heard sniffles. Following the sound, she came around the stables and what she’d always considered a painfully hard heart melted right inside her chest.
She crouched down beside him, but didn’t know why. He was so large, she wasn’t that much bigger than him when she stood up.
Dagmar placed her hand on his knee, smiling into the teary silver eyes that peered up at her beneath long dark blue lashes.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, knowing words would do nothing at the moment.
“I’ll miss her,” Éibhear said while trying to wipe the tears away. “I’ll miss her so bloody much.”
“I know. I’ve barely known her and I know I’m going to miss her.”
He shrugged sheepishly. “Guess your kin don’t blubber, though.”
“My father cried once. He doesn’t know that I know, but my old nursemaid told me before she died.”
“Why did he cry?”
“Because my mother died while having me. She made the choice to save me. Just as Annwyl did to save her own babes.”
He nodded. “I know it was her choice and that she’d make no other. Not Annwyl. She’ll risk everything for the ones she loves.”
The great blue dragon in human form relaxed his head back against the wall behind him. “But Fearghus…He’ll never recover from this. Not really.”
