Chapter 152: The Unfolding Truth XXXII

Third Person POV

Three days of roads that had not been maintained in years, full of stones that rattled the carriage until Helen’s bones ached. Of the cold that crept in through every gap in the curtains, no matter how many times Kai pressed them shut. Three days of their baby against her chest, warm and oblivious, making small sounds in her sleep that were the only soft thing about any of it.

The landscape had changed the further they traveled. The familiar forests of Zanzia gave way to something older and less visited, trees that grew taller and closer together, their canopies blocking out the sky until the light that reached the road was dim and grey and had already passed through too many layers to carry any warmth. The air thinned. The cold deepened. And the sky, when they could see it, had taken on the colour of iron left out in the rain.

Now they stood at the gates of the Dragon King’s territory.

Helen looked up.

The castle was not the right word for it, though she did not have a better one. It had risen from the mountain the way certain things rose, not built so much as grown, the black stone looking like it had pushed up from the earth over centuries rather than been placed there by hands.

The towers leaned at angles that should not have stayed standing and had apparently decided not to concern themselves with that.

Along the walls, torches burned in colours that had no business belonging to fire: blue and green and something that was almost purple, casting shadows that moved without anything to cause the movement.

The baby stirred against Helen’s chest. She pressed her palm against the small warm back and felt the steady heartbeat there, even and oblivious.

Kai kept his hand near his sword.

Guards met them at the gate and led them inside without speaking.

****

The throne room was enormous in the way that cold, dark places were enormous, not grand, not impressive in any way that invited admiration. Just large and dark and very cold, the walls lined with tapestries so old the images on them had faded into suggestions of color, shapes that might have been battles or landscapes or something else entirely depending on what angle the torchlight hit them at.

The torches here burned normally. Orange and yellow, ordinary flame. But they seemed to struggle, like the darkness was not something absent but something present, pushing back against the light.

And on the raised platform of black stone at the center of it all, on the throne, sat the Dragon King.

He was not sitting like a king.

One leg was hooked sideways over the arm of the throne, his foot dangling. His other boot rested on a low footstool that had clearly been designed for something more formal.

His head was tilted back at a lazy angle. One hand held a small silver tool that he was using to pick his teeth with the unhurried ease of someone who had not been expecting company and was not particularly interested in adjusting for it.

His hair was white. Long and completely straight, falling past his shoulders, catching what little light reached that part of the room and holding it. Two horns curved back from his forehead, dark and smooth, disappearing into the mass of white. A full face mask was pushed up on top of his head, resting among his hair at a careless angle, like it had been shoved up in a hurry and forgotten.

Helen looked at him.

Then she looked at the baby in her arms who was now awake, at the small face and the grey eyes currently focused on nothing, the way a baby’s eyes focused on nothing and everything at the same time.

Then she looked back at the Dragon King.

Kai stepped forward. He inclined his head, shallow and controlled.

"Your Highness," he said. "We have come to seek your help."

The silver tool lowered.

Slowly, with the same unhurried quality as everything else about him, the Dragon King let his hand drop to his thigh. His pale grey eyes moved. Kai first, then Helen, then the bundle against her chest, then back to Kai.

He swung his hooked leg down from the throne arm. Both boots met the floor with a sound that echoed. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, looking at them the way a cat looked at something small and interesting that had walked into its space.

"Wolves," he said. His voice was low and completely unhurried. "In my territory."

He tilted his head.

"Why?"

Kai did not flinch. "We need your protection."

The Dragon King’s eyes narrowed. Not with anger. With something closer to interest, the particular sharpening of attention that happened when something unexpected was said.

"There are packs," he said. "Other Alphas. Warriors. Any number of people suited to that kind of work." He spread one hand slightly. "Why come here?"

Kai glanced at Helen. She gave the smallest nod she had.

"This is a private matter," Kai said. "A matter of life. Can we speak somewhere less open?"

The Dragon King looked at them both for a long moment. Then his eyes went to Helen’s hood. To the white strands that had escaped it during the three-day journey, trailing down along her jaw. His head tilted the other direction.

"Curious," he said.

He stood.

He was taller than she had expected. Broader. He moved like something that had never needed to be careful about where it put its weight because nothing in the room could be harmed by it.

"Follow me," he said.

****

The private chamber was smaller than the throne room and warmer, which was not a high threshold to clear but still a relief.

A fire burned steadily in the hearth, real heat coming off it, and the windows on the far wall looked out over a garden that had gone completely wild, plants growing sideways, a tree that had pushed its way through a low wall and kept going, flowers Helen could not name blooming in the wrong season because apparently nothing in this place felt the need to follow the usual rules.

She sat on a low chair near the fire. The baby had been awake since they entered the castle and was awake now, her grey eyes open and roaming.

They landed on the fire and stayed there, the way baby eyes landed on light sources and decided they were the most interesting thing in the room. One small hand reached up and found Helen’s jaw, the fingers spreading against her skin in the directionless searching way that still made her chest pull every time.

The baby made a sound. A soft wet gurgle, followed by a slightly more insistent version of the same, like she had tried the first one and decided it warranted a follow-up.

Helen pressed her lips briefly to the top of the small head and looked up.

Kai sat beside her, his hand resting on her knee. Not speaking. Just present.

The Dragon King stood across from them, his back to the fire, his white hair lit from behind. The mask was still pushed up on his head. His grey eyes moved between the two of them and the baby with the patient calculation of someone doing arithmetic.

Kai cleared his throat. "I have heard that you are in search of a mate."

The Dragon King’s expression did not shift.

"We have come to offer our daughter," Kai said. "In return for your protection of her."

The room held its silence.

The Dragon King’s eyes moved to the baby. To the round face, the black hair against Helen’s chest, the single streak of white at the front of it. The grey eyes were currently pointed at the fire, seeing everything and nothing.

He watched her for a moment. The baby made another sound, more exploratory than the last, apparently directing commentary at the ceiling.

"That is not something one hears regularly," the Dragon King said.

He walked forward. Not quickly, not with any particular intention beyond getting closer. He stopped a few feet away and looked at the baby with the direct curiosity of someone who was not concerned about whether the curiosity was welcome.

"Why," he said, "would you offer your child to a dragon?"

"Because there is a threat," Kai said. "A serious one. And we believe you may be the only one able to protect her from it."

The Dragon King’s eyes came up to his. "You mean Lysander."

Kai stilled.

"I am not unaware of what moves across my world," the Dragon King said. He did not sound pleased or displeased. Just factual. He looked at the baby again. "Protection. That is the reason you are here. Not the other part."

Kai started to answer.

"I do not trust wolves," the Dragon King said. The words came out plainly, without heat, which made them land harder. "You make promises when you need something. Then the danger passes and you return. You ask for the child back. You find reasons why the agreement was conditional. Why it has expired." He looked at Kai directly. "Every time."

"We are not..."

"I will only consider this," the Dragon King said, "if it can be made believable. Binding. In my way."

Helen frowned. "What does that mean, your way?"

He turned to her. His grey eyes were very still.

"You are bringing me your child," he said. "You tell me now, in your fear, that you will honor whatever terms we agree to. But fear is temporary. Lysander can be dealt with. And once the danger passes, you will want her back. You will feel entitled to take back what you gave." He began to move, slowly, not toward them, just moving the way certain people moved when they thought, using the space. "So I will seal this. In a way that makes breaking it too costly to consider."

Helen’s hands tightened around the baby. "Too costly how?"

He stopped. He looked at her over his shoulder.

"If the bond is broken," he said, "it takes the weakest among us."

The warmth of the fire did not reach Helen in that moment. She heard the words. She understood what they were pointing at. She looked down at the baby, at the grey eyes now fixed on her own face with that absolute uncomplicated trust.

"She is a baby," Helen said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "She is just three months old."

"I know what she is," the Dragon King said. He turned back to face them fully. "I am not threatening her. I am explaining the consequences of you breaking your word. Because you will not break your word."

"You cannot know that."

"No," he agreed. "So I am making sure I do not need to know it."

Helen stood up.

The baby gurgled at the change in position, a questioning sound, then settled again with her head resting against Helen’s shoulder. Helen held her tighter and looked at the Dragon King across the small space of the chamber.

"We are not the kind of people who go back on their word," she said. "Whatever we agree to in this room, we will hold to it. That is who we are."

"Then the seal will cause you no difficulty," he said simply.

She held his gaze. It was not easy. His eyes were very still and had very little in them that was soft. But she did not look away.

"If this is the only way to keep her safe," she said, "then we will do it."

Something shifted in his expression. One corner of his mouth lifted.

"Now we are talking," he said.

He looked at her neck. At the pendant hanging there, small and silver, the one Kai had pressed against her collarbone the morning the twins left, the morning that already felt like it belonged to a different version of her life.

"That pendant," he said. "Give it to me."

Helen’s hand went to her chest. Her fingers closed around the smooth silver shape.

"Why?" she asked.

"For the sealing."

She looked at Kai. He gave a small nod. She unhooked the clasp with one hand then the chain slid free. She held it out and the Dragon King crossed to her and took it from her palm, and she felt the absence of it immediately, the small familiar weight gone from the center of her chest.

He held the pendant and his eyes changed.

Gold moved in from the edges, filling the grey, spreading until there was nothing grey left. The same gold as firelight but brighter, steadier, coming from inside rather than from any external source. The air in the chamber became heavier. Not oppressively so. Just different. The fire in the hearth dimmed, as though something was drawing on the same source.

Something appeared.

It materialized in the air in front of him at chest height, small and glowing, turning slowly in place with nothing holding it. She could not have described its shape. It was not a shape she had a word for. It simply was, glowing gold and rotating, present in the way that powerful things were present.

He reached out and pressed it against the pendant.

The pendant flared. Bright sudden light, like something catching, and then it settled into a steady pulse... bright, dim, bright, dim... three times, and then just warm. A continuous soft warmth, like the pendant was breathing.

"Done," he said.

He walked to her. His eyes were grey again. He stood in front of Helen and looked at the baby and Helen held still and did not step back.

He placed the pendant around Azura’s neck.

The chain was too long for her, looping down to her belly, the pendant resting against the front of her blanket. He tucked it carefully inside the fabric, his movements precise.

The baby watched him while he did it, her grey eyes tracking his face with the complete focused attention of someone for whom this person was currently the most interesting thing in existence.

He stepped back.

"If the bond is broken," he said, "it takes the weakest." He looked at Helen. "At present, that is her. This is not a threat. It is the nature of the seal."

Helen’s arms pulled the baby tighter, automatically, before her mind had finished processing the words.

"But the seal also binds me," he said. He said it plainly, like this was information that held equal weight to the rest of it. "That pendant is not only a seal. It will tell me when she is afraid. When she is in danger. When something comes for her."

He looked at the soft pulse of warmth beneath the blanket.

"Even as an infant," he said, "if she is frightened, I will feel it. And I will come."

Helen stared at him. "How? How could you possibly reach her in time if..."

He disappeared.

One moment standing in front of her. The next, nothing. The space where he had been was simply empty. Then Kai made a sound. She turned. The Dragon King was behind Kai, his hand resting on the back of the chair Kai sat in, his expression carrying something that might have been amusement if it had been a warmer face.

"There are things about dragons," he said, "that are not in your books."

He was back in front of her before she had registered him moving.

Helen’s heart was beating very fast. She made herself breathe.

He could be anywhere. In the space it took to blink, anywhere at all. Her daughter would not be alone. Not really. Not while that pendant was against her skin.

"You may take her home," he said. He walked back to his chair and settled into it, crossing one leg over the other with the same unhurried ease he had brought to everything. "I am not asking you to leave her here now. She is an infant. She needs her mother."

A pause.

"But when I feel the need to act in her protection," he said, "I will come. Without announcement. Without waiting for permission."

He looked at them both.

"And when she is of age," he said. The sharp smirk returned, the one corner of his mouth lifting higher than the other. "I will come for my wife."

The word sat in the air of the chamber.

Wife.

Helen had known this was the agreement. She had stood in her bedroom and listened to Kai explain it and she had argued and then she had accepted it. She had stood in this chamber and heard the terms and agreed to them. She had done all of that consciously and deliberately.

Hearing the word said out loud was still different.

She looked at Azura. At the grey eyes, currently back on the fire, the small hand wrapped around the edge of her blanket. She looked at the soft glow visible even through the fabric where the pendant was.

She looked at the Dragon King in his chair with his white hair and his grey eyes and his horns curving back from his forehead, already looking like something that was done with this conversation and had moved on to the next thing in its mind.

She had done this.

For her daughter. For those grey eyes and that small hand and the heartbeat she could feel through the blanket. She had walked into this room and spoken the words and made the agreement and pressed the pendant into this man’s hands with her own trembling fingers.

She would do it again.

Every time. Without hesitation.

She pressed her lips to the top of her daughter’s head and held her.

The baby cooed. Soft and contented and completely unaware that anything had changed.