by Lisa Rector
The old woman mopped the sweat off Ahnalyn’s face with a wet cloth. Ahnalyn was rapidly becoming too weak—not sure how much longer I can take this.
“That’s right, call to your dragon. Let her know your agony. She flies faster now doesn’t she?”
Caedryn shut his eyes. Ahnalyn heard screaming and commotion outside in the courtyard. Caedryn opened his eyes wide.
“You’ve brought me two dragons!” He rushed to the balcony and threw the doors open, magnifying the yelling in the courtyard.
From Ahnalyn’s view on the bed, when she was between labor pains, she’d seen one dragon fly past. It had shiny, garnet-colored scales and turned to swoop down on the people. Apparently enjoying the chaos, the dragon chuckled gruffly and released a stream of flames from his mouth onto rooftops.
Smoke billowed up into the sky, and thick acrid smells entered the room, making Ahnalyn’s head spin. Horses screamed, men shouted, and metal clanked.
Another dragon coming straight for Caedryn standing on the balcony. This dragon bore the same colors as the stone around Ahnalyn’s neck, and a rider was seated in a saddle upon the dragon’s back.
Caedryn laughed, trembling with joy. “Excellent!”
Then he did something Ahnalyn didn’t think was possible. Caedryn thrust his arms into the air as if he pushed at a heavy object. A subtle ripple distorted the air as it left his hands and pushed into the dragon and rider. As if a boulder smacked into them, they whirled backward through the air.
In alarm, Ahnalyn grabbed at her bed sheets and braced herself. Through the dragon’s vision, she saw the scenery of the courtyard and fiery plumes spinning.
The dragon recovered—the rider barely holding on.
Ahnalyn heard someone speak in a deep cackle. “Quit messing around.”
“Right,” the dragon with the rider said. “You try that next time.” She flew back toward the balcony.
To Ahnalyn, each scene played in her head for her. The pain of her tightened abdomen hit, and what she saw was… Ahnalyn could only assume she saw exactly what her dragon did.
The dragon let out a stream of fire aimed directly for Caedryn.
Ahnalyn gasped. No! The horror! She didn’t want to see Caedryn burning to death no matter how much she hated him.
But Lord Caedryn surprised her. Holding firm with no fear in his face, he still had his arms out as the dragon fire hit, but it glanced off an invisible barrier around him, the flames shooting out like a golden sunflower. “This is too much fun! You have to try harder than that,” Ahnalyn heard him call.
A crash shook the citadel. Throwing her hands over her face, Ahnalyn recoiled back in the bed. From what she could surmise through the tumult, the garnet dragon came up beneath Caedryn and demolished half the balcony. Debris flew in every direction as Lord Caedryn was thrown back into the room.
Ahnalyn panted in the bed. The mayhem had obscured her vision again. Still on her back with a pillow wedged behind her, she breathed through another pain. The old lady had fled when the balcony shattered, but Ahnalyn couldn’t see anything with her own vision, so it didn’t matter. She could only focus on this point in time—her pain in this moment—and hope she wasn’t going to die. Don’t let me die!
Hold tight, Ahnalyn, I’m coming, her dragon said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
COMPLICATED CIRCUMSTANCES
Aneirin leapt into the room from off the iridescent dragon’s back. Having realized why the woman was in pain, he looked in horror at the situation. A tiny, pale woman with a rotund belly was drenched in sweat.
“Seren, she’s having a baby! How did you not see this?” Aneirin exclaimed.
“Oh, did I forget to mention that?” Seren yelled, as she flew away from the balcony.
He had seconds. Lord Caedryn was crawling to his feet. Surging energy burst out of Caedryn’s hands, but Aneirin countered it with a white blast of his own, a loud crash ringing as the energies collided. Aneirin’s barrage was stronger, and Caedryn slammed against the wall, crumpling to the floor.
Calling out to his dragon in the same instant, the rider turned his attention to Ahnalyn. Cephias, are you ready? I’ll have her presently.
In two steps, Aneirin strode over to the bed. He glowed, the light emanating from under his skin because of the energy surge needed during attack. As he approached the girl, Aneirin felt fear rolling off her. Realizing the fear was because of him, Aneirin pulled his light back into his heart-center, his countenance dimming and becoming more like a man’s.
Aneirin peered down at the slight form in the bed.
“I’m Aneirin.” He touched Ahnalyn’s forehead and grabbed her hand to reassure her. “I’m an emrys. We’re going to take you out of here. You can trust me. Do you understand?”
Ahnalyn’s eyes rolled back, and she deliriously nodded her head. She held her arms up like a little child, and Aneirin scooped her up. She feels so light—looks so weak. Aneirin thought he’d break her. Ahnalyn’s arms tightened around his body when another pain wrenched through her. He grimaced as her fingernails sank into his back. I was mistaken. For such a petite woman she had a strong, painful grip.
Aneirin! I’m ready, Cephias said.
Instead of Seren, the dragon Aneirin flew in on, Cephias waited, perched on the edge of the demolished balcony. Aneirin dashed forward, gingerly setting Ahnalyn into the rider’s saddle and slid in behind her.
Cephias leapt into the air and flapped his broad wings as they gained altitude.
Seren flew up behind them from the courtyard and looked at the destruction below. “That will keep them busy for a while.”
Cephias laughed. “Destruction and chaos are my specialty,” he stated with pride.
We must fly quickly, Cephias. Ahnalyn’s situation is dire.
Aneirin yelled over the racket. “Seren, why didn’t you tell me Ahnalyn was in labor?”
But Seren didn’t answer. Aneirin looked behind Cephias. She was behind them, struggling to stay in the air, flapping her wings furiously. Screaming in rage, Lord Caedryn stood at the edge of the broken balcony. Powerful energy snaked from his hands and had ensnared around Seren’s tail.
“No!” Aneirin yelled. This can’t be happening.
“You’ll not flee so easily,” Caedryn raged.
Seren reached the end of a long, invisible tether, jerked sharply, and fell into the courtyard below.
Ahnalyn’s body lurched against Aneirin with Seren’s impact.
“Seren!” Cephias bellowed and turned to go back.
“No, Cephias! We cannot go back for her now. We need help for Ahnalyn. This baby could come any minute. Seren would want us to keep going.” He added, My brother, we’ll come back for her. I swear it.
But Seren, we can’t leave her!
Cephias, do this. For Niawen. For Seren. It’s what we came for. It’s too dangerous to turn around now. We could lose everything.
Cephias growled. I know. You’re right.
Aneirin felt when Cephias relented. Still, his dragon’s pain soaked through him as they turned west to seek refuge.
***
They flew for several hours over the heart of the Great Forest where Aneirin knew they’d find help. Seren was the one who had entered the mortal realms with Niawen long ago, and Aneirin relied on her prior guidance. Seren told him about the tree people they were flying to.
Aneirin had not expected a woman in labor. Seren left this crucial fact out. Did Seren tell you Ahnalyn was in labor? Why’d she conceal this information from me?
She thought you’d be less inclined to help, Cephias said.
Has she lost her senses? Ahnalyn is Niawen’s daughter. I’d been urging the council to come to her aid for months. Why would Seren think I’d go back on my word?
Seren had been following Ahnalyn’s life ever since she was a little child. She knew of Ahnalyn’s marriage, the battle, and Brenin’s death. This was when Seren said contact with Ahnalyn was blocked. Only recently Seren felt the anguish that was
breaking through from Ahnalyn’s imprisonment. Her emotional and physical pain became too much for Seren to bear. This had been the clincher. Seren could no longer stand the fact that Ahnalyn was suffering.
Seren was nervous. She would have never come back here on her own.
I’m sorry, Cephias. We didn’t think this through. Had I known—had he known about the man at the citadel with power to rival his own, he might have coaxed someone else to come with them. His argument to the council would have been at least more convincing.
It’s no one’s fault, Cephias said.
Aneirin felt terrible. He was here because of Cephias, and Cephias was here because of Seren. She’d come to Aneirin with a plan to leave Gorlassar, on her own if necessary, to rescue Ahnalyn, and naturally Cephias would protest this. And where Cephias traveled, Aneirin followed, no question. No one else in the dragon realm had wanted to come along or wanted them to leave. The High Council was set in their old ways. As far as they were concerned, Niawen was dead to them, and so, Niawen’s daughter. Aneirin was slightly annoyed at the whole ordeal, which had taken place before they left—they’d been forbidden to leave Gorlassar. In the end, Aneirin defied his parents and left, consequences or not.
Aneirin steadied Ahnalyn’s limp form. He had wrapped his cloak around her, and her head lay slumped against his shoulder. The only place Aneirin’s arms could go was around her bulging belly. When her stomach tightened, she gripped Aneirin’s leg. Again with the fingernails!
Cephias chuckled.
You try this, Cephias. Seren lays eggs. She doesn’t have live offspring. I’d like to see you labor with a woman you don’t know! Aneirin pried her fingers off and gave her two fingers to grip instead.
Ahnalyn tensed with pain every few minutes, but she never cried out.
If only we could land soon, but they had to fly safely away from Rolant.
A forcible labor pain hit, and Ahnalyn screamed, gripping him again, pinching his flesh. As Aneirin tried to calm her, warm fluid soaked the saddle, his pants, and Ahnalyn’s dress.
Cephias! The bile rose in his throat.
Oh, don’t tell me… Cephias said.
Cephias, we have to land now! Aneirin exclaimed. No way could he deliver a baby in the sky!
Aneirin, a few more minutes—there! Do you see them, the platforms of the Eilian?
“The baby’s coming.” Ahnalyn whimpered. “I need to push.”
“Not yet. You can’t. Hold on. Relax,” Aneirin said.
“You try relaxing with this much pressure in your—”
Aneirin touched her shoulder near her neck. He sent a sedating influence through her body, and Ahnalyn sank back against him, limp.
What’d you do that for, Aneirin?
If she’s not conscious, she can’t push.
Right, brilliant idea.
Aneirin looked into the distance. In the tallest trees were the houses and bridges of the Eilian, the little people, who lived in the upper canopy.
“I cannot land on the platform for long,” Cephias huffed. “You’ll have to jump down immediately.” For such a cumbersome dragon, he delicately set himself onto the grandest platform, which was wooden decking surrounding a little hut huddled against a tree trunk.
Aneirin jumped off Cephias with Ahnalyn in his arms. Waking, she moaned and grimaced from the movement. Cephias flew up into the air, his lift-off shaking the treetop. The wind’s gush from his wings blew everything over on the deck: pots, tables, and garden tools. Two little people, no taller than four feet, ran from the hut.
“Oh my, what a mess!” “Oh how exciting!” “We haven’t seen a dragon in ages!” “Oh this young lady needs help!” They both exclaimed at once, taking in the scene, looking at Ahnalyn in Aneirin’s arms. Aneirin gave them his most pleading look.
The little people ushered Aneirin, carrying Ahnalyn, into their hut. Aneirin stooped under the doorway.
A bed was in the corner of the one-room hut. The little Eilian looked at it and at Ahnalyn with perplexed, thoughtful expressions on their faces. “It’s too short.” “She’ll never fit and will fall off,” they prattled.
One of them grabbed several furs and blankets and swiftly made a pallet on the floor before the fire. Aneirin laid Ahnalyn down on it.
Aneirin let them take over, relieved they were willing to help. One Eilian was a plump lady with a brightly colored skirt and apron. She stood approximately three and a half feet tall, with rich-brown, curly hair and a round, cheery face. She proceeded to boil water and prepare linens, chatting the whole time about men with their ladies on dragons during labor. “Silly,” she said.
Aneirin seriously doubted she’d encountered anyone else with this same predicament.
The other Eilian was a stout little man. He stood a couple inches taller than the little lady and wore a linen shirt and vest with sienna-colored pants. He had chestnut hair, which was straight and tied back into a single braid. He turned to Aneirin and introduced himself.
“My name is Hadyn. It means little flame. My wife says it’s fitting because I flick around and can’t sit still. Her name is Emlyn. It means work. She says because her mother named her this she has to work hard every day of her life and can’t sit still. She never stops either. I guess you could say we’re quite a pair.”
Hadyn added wood to the fire. “There. Now your little lady will be quite toasty after such a cold flight. What were you doing way up in the sky with her about to have a little one? Dangerous—very dangerous. I’m glad you came here for help. We were sitting and saying what a quiet evening it was.” Hadyn said this in one breath.
Aneirin grinned. He had a feeling this would be no quiet night, even if Ahnalyn were not giving birth. “She’s not my lady.” Aneirin blushed. “But thank you for your help.”
He wrung his hands nervously, remembering his manners. “I’m Aneirin of the emrys and this is Ahnalyn half-emrys.” He turned to Emlyn. “What can I do to help?” He was at a loss. In the dragon realm the men were scarce during the delivery of babies. When the water rushed out soaking his pants, he suddenly knew why.
“Sit behind her so she can lean against you. It won’t be long now. You barely made it. See, the baby’s crowning.” Emlyn smiled.
Aneirin didn’t look. He left this up to Emlyn.
Emlyn started right to work. She knelt down in front of Ahnalyn and crooned to her soothingly. “There, there. Almost… now bear down gently.”
Aneirin’s pulse quickened as he slid behind Ahnalyn. She weakly leaned her head against him before taking a deep breath. Her energy was spent. Aneirin’s cheek touched hers, and he grabbed each of her hands.
He whispered in her ear. “Use my light, Ahnalyn.”
Her body enlivened, glowing inwardly, as Aneirin infused a surge of energy into her body from his. Ahnalyn took a deep breath and pushed down. The baby’s head slid out. Aneirin could not help but look, magically drawn by the wonder, to the little face. Wow, look at that hair. The fact the baby was covered with sticky fluid didn’t disturb him. Emlyn caught the baby and eased it the rest of the way out.
Aneirin had never witnessed an event so incredible. The baby was pulsating with pure light. Aneirin yearned to hold him, to feel the light in his arms and against his chest.
The baby let out a tiny wail, and Emlyn muttered it was a boy.
Exhaustion claiming her, Ahnalyn collapsed against his chest.
Congratulations, Aneirin. You lived to tell the tale, Cephias said. Oh, but don’t worry about me. I’m headed north to the ocean. I need a bath.
Aneirin was too speechless to think anything.
CHAPTER NINE
NEW LIGHT
Ahnalyn rolled her head from side to side and forced her eyes open. A fire warmed her. The furs under her fingertips told Ahnalyn she was still lying on the pallet. A bit of clanging and banging at the other end of the room had roused her, and she turned her head in that direction. Her vision was blurred, but gradually it focused on a little woman bustling aro
und in the kitchen area.
Ahnalyn moaned faintly, her body wrung out—utterly exhausted.
Emlyn bustled over. “There you are, my dear. Finally awake.”
The little woman helped Ahnalyn sit up and handed her a cup of water.
“We’ve been watching over your little one, who has quite the appetite. And skeins of dark hair. Aneirin is completely taken with him. He has him out on the deck giving him a bottle. I’m glad you came to us when you did. Almost had the baby in the sky you did! Splendid to have a little one in the house again, splendid! Aneirin! Bring the little one! Ahnalyn is awake.”
Huh? Ahnalyn followed half of what was said. She smiled at the woman with amusement and exhaustion. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Oh, nearly a day. But look! Here he comes,” the little lady said.
Looking up, Ahnalyn saw a young man with fair skin and long, silver blond hair stoop under the doorway carrying a baby in his arms. She vaguely remembered seeing him before as if in a dream ages ago. None of that was a dream, she told herself while touching her loose, no longer round and taut, stomach. My baby? Ahnalyn looked at the infant as the man knelt beside her, the pieces of her memory, at long last, falling into place.
The baby was more angelic than anything Ahnalyn had ever seen. His cheeks were full and round, and dark hair played around his head. His skin was smooth and light—flawless. The baby looked up at Aneirin and smacked his little lips together.
Ahnalyn held her arms out, and Aneirin handed her the baby. This is my son—Brenin’s son. Tears spilled as she realized this was all that was left of her former life.
The occasion was interrupted by Emlyn. “What are you going to name him?” Ahnalyn didn’t even have time for her jaw to open when Emlyn kept right on rambling. “Aneirin, time for you to go. This new mother has to learn to feed her baby. Shoo, shoo.”
Aneirin stood as Emlyn practically kicked him out.
***
Later that day, Ahnalyn was up and moving around. Her son took up most of her focus. Emlyn showed Ahnalyn how to care for the baby, explaining she’d five children, grown up and starting their own families. Emlyn produced clothes and napkins for him and blankets and rattles.
