by Oxford, Rain
He sniffled, but I knew it was the loss of his family, not his wounds that broke the old king. “I do not want to die, but why should I live?”
“You can still do good as king. Instead of making the throne more powerful, how about trying to make life better for the people? That would include your son, now. Someday, you will be with your wife and daughter, but Mordon is immortal, so you will probably never be with him after you die.”
“My son despises me,” he said.
“No, he doesn’t. He worked his whole life to make you proud. You spent his whole life trying to trample part of him. Rojan never wanted to be king of the dragons; you were trying to flame a part of Mordon that wasn’t there, and he knew you felt he was lacking. I can save you, but I need to know now if that is what you want.”
His breathing was labored as he nodded. I put one hand on his chest and the other on his forehead, then concentrated on my desire to save a person and pushed aside my disapproval for the man who mistreated my best friend. Sure, I could have punished him and wanted to, but that would not have helped Mordon. Mordon’s father still had a chance to make peace. The internal damage was so extensive that if I had waited an hour, I would have been too late. As it was, my magic was so efficient that it only took a few minutes to heal him. He would be on his feet by the end of the day.
Before he could say anything, I flashed back to my home on Duran.
Sammy and Divina were playing on the floor with his blocks. Nano sat at the table and Vivian sat in his lap, watching the baby. She obviously wanted to go to him, but Nano wasn’t going to let her. Edward and Ronez sat in the other two chairs at the table. Mordon was leaning against the table and his expression told me he knew what I had done. He could probably smell his father on me. I expected him to look away; I didn’t expect the relief on his face.
Divina looked up at me and climbed to her feet, picking Sammy up as she did. Edward and Ronez went downstairs and Vivian and Nano went outside. Divina put Sammy in the large basket laden with blankets that we used as a cradle.
“Mordon, would you give us some privacy?” she asked.
He hesitated before going outside. Shinobu bounced up on the table and curled her tail in front of her.
“You have asked me several times to marry you,” she said tentatively.
I froze. “Did you make a decision?” While I really wanted her to say yes, that she would marry me, I wasn’t mentally prepared to be turned down. Of course, my fear was apparent.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Do you really think I would reject you? I love you. You’re the only one I know who can put up with me for days at a time. Of course I will. But you need to know… I didn’t want to keep it a secret, I just wanted to make sure I was right and that I didn’t… lose it.”
What could make the most powerful woman I know so afraid to tell me something? “Anything you have to tell me, it’s okay. We can handle it.”
“I don’t know that I can. Dylan…” She wrapped her arms around me and pressed her forehead against my neck. “I’m pregnant.”
Obviously, I had to respond with decorum and wisdom. “What do you mean?” I asked.
She took my hand and pressed it to her stomach. Shock was the only excuse I had for taking way too long to realize that her stomach wasn’t completely flat. There was just a hint of a distention.
“Are you… What is that?”
She laughed. “I’m pregnant.”
“You… that’s a…”
“That’s a baby you feel.”
“A baby… Are you pregnant?”
“Yes,” she said.
I gaped at her and she laughed again. I’m glad she was enjoying herself, because I could have been knocked down with a feather. “With…”
“With a baby!”
“My baby?”
“Yes, you stupid pillock!”
“My baby… That’s my baby in there?”
The door opened and Mordon stuck his head in. “I don’t want to interrupt or anything, but Vivian and Nano are arguing out here, can I come in now?”
“Mordon, look,” I said, not letting go of Divina’s abdomen. “There’s a baby in there. My baby. Look. That’s my baby.”
Mordon smiled at us. “Congratulations. I’m going downstairs. Let me know when you wake up from the shock,” he said, going downstairs. When the door closed behind him, I just stared at the slight baby bump.
“Is that why you told me to wait a few months so that you could help me go after Mordon?” I asked.
She nodded. “There’s never been something like this. Honestly, I know your Iadnah magic has something to do with this, but I have no idea how it actually happened. Anything I do could be dangerous, from flashing to… heavy lifting.”
“Why would you risk the baby to go into the void and get Mordon?”
“Because you would have gotten yourself killed trying to save him. There is one thing I fear more than raising this child, and that is raising him without you,” she said.
I wanted to ask her if she was okay, but I couldn’t stand to hear that she wasn’t. Luckily, she understood.
“It still scares me, but spending time with Sammy helped, and knowing you will be there to fix my mistakes and keep the kid healthy, I can deal with it. Being able to give you a child, though, makes me happy. I don’t have faith in my mothering abilities, but I am excited. I am happy about this.”
“I’m glad. How far along are you?”
“I have no idea. I only found out a month ago. I don’t want to go to a physician because I have don’t know if it’s a normal sago pregnancy.”
“You do need to make sure everything’s developing correctly, though. I think there are prenatal vitamins and stuff. And chocolate. I heard that pregnant women need chocolate. Maybe Vivian still has some from when she was pregnant with Sammy. Oh! You have to keep off your feet. I read that in a book once,” I said. I gently pushed her to sit in the chair and put her legs up on the other chair.
She teased me about how I would become more and more overprotective as the months came along. Sammy started fussing quietly and we both looked at him. He was sitting up in his basket waiting patiently for our attention. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Hungry,” he said.
“I put some berries in his baby bag,” Divina said, starting to get up.
I put my hands on her shoulder to make her stay in the seat. “I will get it. You’re doing enough work growing our child.” She shivered at my poor choice of words, but remained sitting. I figured that in order to make her feel better, I would have to speak as if we were picking the baby up at the store.
The bag was on the floor next to the basket, where he couldn’t reach into it and throw something. It took a few minutes to find the small plastic bag of fruit. When I pulled the bag out, the contents shifted to fill the space and a dark red object caught my eye.
“Why is there an apple?” I asked, pulling the fruit in question out. Sammy gasped. Divina shrugged. Something was wrong. “Where did you get it?”
“I don’t know. I like apples, but I didn’t put it in there,” she answered. “It must have been there when you two met him and got the bag.”
I shook my head. “No way. He’s been with us for days and I’ve been through that bag several times.”
“Apple, Dada!” Sammy cried.
Before I could respond, the door burst open and Vivian stomped in, steaming. Nano followed her, not much calmer. “You have to do what’s best for him!” he demanded.
“What’s best for him is to stay with his mother! If you try to send him to the monks for even the weekend, I will take him and leave you. We’ll go back to Earth and I’ll raise him myself!” He tried to say something, but she cut him off. “Don’t even talk! I don’t care how powerful he is; he’s my baby and you’re not sending him anywhere!”
I was flabbergasted and still holding the apple out for Divina to see. Vivian took the apple from my hand and threw it at Nano… unfortuna
tely, Vivian has always had terrible aim. The apple missed him and hit the lit lamp on the table. Predictably, the lamp shattered to the floor. Unpredictably, there was a towel where the lantern fell and it instantly caught fire.
Sammy cried, not in an upset way, but in a terrified-out-of-his-mind way. Mordon opened the door and reacted instantly. With a gentle pulse of nominal energy, the flames died and the room was dark. Instead of calming, Sammy cried harder. I never knew what horrible sound a terrified baby could make.
“It’s alright, Sammy. He’s afraid of the dark,” Vivian said over his crying.
“I’ll get the spare lamp,” I said.
“Just leave it; it’s time for bed, anyway,” Vivian said. Sammy outright screamed.
I ran downstairs, trying not to trip in the dark, and pulled the spare lantern out from under my bed. I lit it with nominal energy and ran back up the stairs. Sammy slowly calmed down until he was sniffling. “Better, honey?” I asked, rubbing his head and keeping the lamp just out of his reach.
He nodded.
“He will have to get used to the dark when he gets older. I let him use a nightlight, but he’s usually fine in the dark until it’s bed time,” Vivian said. “He can’t sleep in the dark. You try to get him to sleep while I finish chewing Nano out.”
She dragged Nano out and the rest of us just stared after her. “I guess it’s bedtime,” I said. “Sammy, I can’t leave the lamp on all night.”
“I don’t want to be in the dark, Dada, he’ll find me.”
“Who will?” I asked.
“I hide and he comes. In the dark he finds me. I don’t want to hide.”
“You said that before, honey, but we killed the demon. You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore, remember? He can’t hurt you,” I said. I thought Sammy understood that the demon had been destroyed, but he was clearly still scared.
“Not the beast. I’m not scared of the beast.”
“You weren’t talking about the demon? Then who? Who will find you in the dark?”
“Vretial.”
Epilogue
Tiamat
Many times in my life on Duran, men have asked me to marry them. I said yes more often than not. It wasn’t that I liked them, knew them well, or even intended to follow through with it… It was because from the moment I said yes to when I ran off, never to be seen again, the man would do anything I wanted. There was no more coercion or persuasion, just simple obedience.
For me, the fun was in lining people up exactly where I wanted them and watching it play out for a while. Then I would clear my board and start over. Erono had created me an exceptionally beautiful body and I knew how to play the role of any type of woman. After many years, I started to forget who I really was, but never what I was. I was a god and I could shed this mortal form at any time.
I never did. A god has no age, of course. There was no time for us, so true life began when I was “born” a sago. Still, I feel like there was life before the unending existence of us. Dylan never asked me about the war or life before it.
Vretial told us that gods were not meant to be alone, that we would each find someone to live our immortal lives with. I disbelieved it immediately, but several of my brothers liked the idea. When Erono gave me my sago life, Regivus was the first to warn me that I was never allowed to find that someone. He said I was not old enough or responsible enough and that nobody but another god could keep me happy. The others talked about finding their mates as if there were more gods hiding somewhere outside the universe, because no person was good enough.
I was fine with this and placated my brother. I found the idea of a mate to be unnecessary and impractical.
Before I took a mortal form, the demons got out of control and we decided to close the gates. Vretial was against it, but Regivus argued louder, so we took his side, and created books instead. It worked for us because we had more power for ourselves, until Vretial acted out. He attacked Avoli and took over his world, which had been easy to do with Avoli’s book. We forced Vretial out on his own.
Enki was the one to suggest the Noquodi. Noquodi means servant, and that was what they were supposed to be. We made them powerful enough to do our work for us, but not powerful enough to be a threat. Erono picked two infants on his world, twins, and gave them the power they needed. I volunteered to take one of them as mine. We watched them grow up and learn to use their abilities. They succeeded at any test we gave them. Any challenge they faced just made them stronger. So I sent Ronez to my world and Erono kept Kiro for his. The other gods created their Noquodi.
It wasn’t until everything settled down that I decided to change things up by taking a mortal form.
When Ronez met me, he knew I was more than sago. I enjoyed having something to distinguish the days. He was fun to be around and I saw my world through his eyes. We were too close, though, so he figured out who I was and I had to demand that he never told anyone, not even his brother.
Ronez came to me one time and told me he slept with a woman. It was not like he betrayed me; instead he was upset because he disliked her. He asked me if I had compelled him to do it, but of course, I hadn’t. When he found out she was pregnant, he told me something beyond human destiny was taking place. I didn’t understand it until his child was born. We all knew that the baby had Iadnah abilities. He was not a god, but he could eventually become as powerful as us. Most of my brothers wanted him to be killed, but Ronez begged for help from a few other Guardians. He never told his brother, which I didn’t understand at the time. Ronez knew what would come to pass.
I convinced my brothers that the baby’s powers were too unstable and would kill him before he came into any substantial abilities. They left him alone, but Ronez had to leave him to be raised with the mother.
It made me wonder, though. How could a mortal be born with our power? I wanted to ask Vretial, but my brothers made me stay away from him. If they had let me speak with him, things may have turned out very different.
When Ronez was killed by Vretial’s hand, my book found its way to Dylan. I knew it would have and told Kiro to find and train a new Noquodi. Just as he was supposed to, he brought Dylan back to become my new Noquodi. When I met him in person for the first time, I was surprised. I had been expecting him to be like the mother I had heard about; ignorant and uneducated. He looked just like his father. He was sarcastic and silly, but his soul was good, better than almost anyone.
Dylan had been raised in darkness. Everyone around him was selfish and cruel, but he never took any of it inside himself. He never let the darkness influence his soul. I should have known I would be changed by him. There was something so strong about him… His soul was strong and there was more life in him then there should have been.
Dylan had hidden depths, as well. He could be incredibly wise. Even when he said something that sounded stupid at the time, it turned out to be right. I couldn’t bring myself to leave him, but I made matters worse by finding myself in love with him. It had to be love, brought on by my pathetic mortal body, because it made me weak to him and strong to others. I found I could stand up to my brothers to defend his moral dilemmas, but I could never refuse him anything.
He became more powerful all the time. When I became a little sick, I worried that I had worn out my mortal body. Having never been sick before, I feared the worst, but I would not let that stop me from living my life.
I was in a castle village on a sort of holiday. Dylan was taking an exam in Anoshii or he would have been with me. It was always a game for me to manipulate people into doing what I wanted them to, so I was trying to unveil a slave trade. While the slime in charge was babbling his misdeeds to the authorities, trying to cleanse his soul, one of the maidens pulled me aside. She told me I needed to be more careful, and asked when I was due. I was clueless and confused, which were still fairly new emotions for me. When I asked for clarification, she told me I was pregnant. I told her that was impossible and left.
And it was impossible. Dylan ha
d asked about children before and I explained to him that my body was created, not grown naturally, and so I could not have children… but I was wrong. Dylan came back from his test and we celebrated his victory as if my life was not completely tilting on its axis. I had no idea what to do, but I knew the woman had been correct. A mere mortal had brought my world to a screeching halt with her unholy truth.
I had to know for sure, but I could not turn to the one I knew would understand. Vretial would have been able to explain it to me. Instead, my remaining brothers discovered my secret and their suggestions ranged from discarding my mortal form to killing Dylan. I knew Dylan could change their minds about him. He proved himself to them and only afterwards did I tell them that Dylan was my mate. When Regivus sighed and accepted it, the others followed his lead. It helped that Dylan defeated the Ancient. Regivus knew Dylan was powerful enough to be a threat and that I would not let him kill my mate, so he had to give in.
I opened my eyes and turned to see Dylan sleeping beside me. I usually had to cool my body temperature at night because he would wake up on the floor otherwise, but this was winter and he could stand it when the room was cold. Instead, in the winter, I would find the blankets on the floor and him wrapped about me. He was careful when he was awake to be gentle near my stomach. I hardly had a baby bump, but he acted as if there was a ten-foot around egg protruding from me. What a horribly grotesque thought.
Dylan’s face was relaxed as he slept. A Guardian’s brain went through the same thing a normal person’s did when they slept, except for dreams. For some reason, the combination of their power and immortality kept them from having something so simple. Dylan once told me it was like he was only half-asleep; while he was rested in the morning, he felt like he was constantly waiting to be attacked. No matter what stage of sleep he was in, he could sleep through usual loud noise, but any sort of scream or something breaking, he sprang awake instantly. I liked it because he always enjoyed when I gave him dreams.
