Himika

The next day I was not only sleep deprived but…achy. I was really tempted to ride in the carriage, but pride forbade me. During our dinner, Ezeru caught me a rabbit and insisted on seasoning and roasting it himself as I yawned and then took a nap in the sunshine.

“He acts as if he owes you something,” Aurek said, eventually stirring me awake as he ran his hand across my hair. “What happened last night when I left you kids alone?”

“I found out what tails do,” I murmured.

“Ahh.”

“It was good. I’m just tired.”

“So I see…well, maybe you owes him something, in that case.” He laughed. “The tip of a tail isn’t sensitive. Except on the receiving end.”

“Mmhm…he seemed to be enjoying it plenty.”

The scales on the tip of a dragon’s tail are actually quite soft, I learned. They get harder the closer to the base you go. As I napped I was still dreaming of last night. Ezeru all by himself had almost been more intense than the other three combined. I would not soon forget the way it felt to have his arms and tail wrapped around me, holding me tight, the tip of it wriggling inside me, wildly stroking spots I barely knew existed, testing my limits. Ezeru was very attuned to that moment pleasure turned to pain. I didn’t even have to tell him no. But until that moment—

He was merciless. I was in in his hands. Entirely in his hands, surrounded by scales and talons and fangs, and limitless hunger. He didn’t even get tired. His muscles felt like stone against my skin. It was the only time I had ever really enjoyed feeling small and weak and helpless. Only against him.

I knew that when it came to his heart, I ruled him entirely. Maybe more than any of the others. He hardly even knew what it was to be around people who weren’t cruel. I took that responsibility seriously.

“Hmm. I think I’m jealous,” Aurek said.

“Wha? I was sleeping.”

“And while you were sleeping, you were sighing and fondling your own breasts.”

I suddenly realized that he was right. One of my hands was cupping my own boob. “And where was your hand, Aurek, that you knew that?”

“The general vicinity…” He grabbed my hands and I battled him off, laughing.

Ezeru came walking over with the rabbit on a wooden platter with some vegetables. Kajira was standing on his shoulder gauging whether she could put her paw in it. “For you.”

“It smells wonderful. Thank you.”

“I think I made enough for Aurek as well,” Ezeru said.

“I would say so. This is one huge hare you’ve caught us,” I said.

“If we get going early, we can probably reach Capamere tomorrow night,” Aurek said.

“I can’t wait.” Soon I would see my brother again, and he was living in the palace where the emperor once held me captive. “Although I don’t have the best memories of that place…”

“Bad memories are meant to be banished,” Aurek said. “We’ll work on that.”

“Oh, I just bet you will. I suppose the twins might be born there, depending on how long all of this takes.”

“You think it will take that long?” Aurek didn’t sound happy about that.

“I mean, I hope not, but I just thought of it now. Are you homesick?”

“No,” Aurek said, but I could tell he was. I could see that travel was stressful for him. That was obvious even in the dragon kingdom. He couldn’t keep up a commanding appearance as well, so his blindness became more apparent, but he had as much pride as I did. Even when I could see that he was uncertain, he put others at ease. He talked to the locals with his smooth command of human languages, and reassured his people when they got nervous about strange animals and foods.

I felt so safe with these two men. But I hoped they could handle whatever was to come. I got very scared when I thought about it; the sort of scared that no one could protect me from. Our world was just one wrong turn away from shattering.

The next night, after a long hard day of travel, we made it Capamere just as Aurek promised. I tamped down the bad memories stirred by the sight of its walls and towers. Capamere was the largest and wealthiest city in our realm. For over a century, Gaermon had lived in fear of its Black Army coming for us. Now, my brother ruled this city.

There is certainly some satisfaction in that!

I was jittery with excitement as we reached the gates. I made sure Aurek and I were on horses when we entered. The king and queen of the dragons couldn’t be on foot as we entered the city. Aurekdel might prefer not to ride a horse, but he looked like a born rider, lifting a kingly hand when people cheered our arrival. It was dark outside, but people swarmed the streets with so many lanterns that I could see very well.

“Seron would have hated this part,” I said wryly. “You look like you’re soaking it up.”

“It sounds like a huge crowd,” he said, with slight wonder. “There are so many humans.”

“Yeah…well…the dragon women, being warriors, also seem to have much better birth control measures.”

“We don’t have space or food for so many dragons,” Aurek said.

“We don’t either! At least, we didn’t. But people have babies anyway and figure it out later. Or…not. There have been famines…”

“Humans can be quite stupid.”

“Hey! But, now that the monsters are nearly gone and people can live outside the walls, we’ll have an explosion of babies, I’m sure.”

“So this is the least amount of people I’ll ever encounter?” He shook his head. “Seron really would hate this.”

Ezeru wanted to stay on foot so he could keep watch over his rock dragons, and that seemed like a good idea. The people saw them as monsters and screamed at the sight of them until they saw that the rock dragons were just following Ezeru and not making any trouble. Actually, the rock dragons seemed a little scared.

As we approached the palace, I saw a white horse riding down the main boulevard from the palace to meet us. Even from a distance, I knew my brother’s riding posture and the shape of his head and shoulders.

“Rin!” I screamed.

He leapt off his horse and tried to get to me to help me down, but I leapt off myself. He cringed. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine! I’m really not made of glass anymore!”

We grabbed each other in a fierce embrace. Then he grabbed my cheeks. “Himika…the last time I saw you, you looked like you were dreaming of putting slugs in my bed.”

“I’m so happy now,” I said, swiping away some tears. “I’m sorry I got so angry at you.”

“I don’t blame you at all. I hated sending you away. Especially to—” He broke off, looking at Aurek. “—somewhere so far away and dangerous.”

“And someone, eh? Good evening, Emperor Raio,” Aurek said, faintly bemused. He knew he had a bit of a reputation with the priestess and her guardians. He dismounted smoothly, too. I was always impressed with Aurek’s physical skill. His blindness made him awkward sometimes but once he had a sense of things, he was almost peerless. He gave the horse an absent pat and took his cane from the saddle bag, then bowed to Rin.

“Thank you for hosting our weary band,” he said. “I know the timing is a little sooner than we were all prepared for. We’ve brought some deer for a feast.”

“All I really care about is that you keep my sister happy,” Rin said, bowing back.

“Oh, we do.”

Rin gave me a funny look. “Don’t let Aurekdel fool you,” I said. “He’s really very sweet.”

“Don’t tell other rulers I’m very sweet,” Aurek said. “Even if he is your brother, there’s no need to be so honest.”

Ezeru caught up with us. “Where can I put the rock dragons? The townsfolk are very rowdy and they’re not used to all the bright lights in the darkness. It’s making them throng.”

“Throng?” I asked.

“You know, they cluster up defensively. Aknu has enough sense to stay calm and he’s keeping them calm but I don’t want any of the young ones to attack.”

“You must be Ezeru,” Rin said. “Himika told me there was a leader of the rock dragons in her last letter.”

“Ezeru is the king of the rock dragons,” I said, linking my arms with both Aurek and Ezeru’s arms. “He is also one of my champions.”

“Ah, so that’s the ‘we’ that makes you so happy,” Rin said, smirking. “Let’s find a place for the rock dragons to go. I’m so happy to see you, sis, even if it’s to plan a war.”

We didn’t make it much farther before Gilbert and Phoebe came running out to meet us, and Niko and Peri made their way forward.

“Niko!” Phoebe cried.

“C’mere, you,” he said, looking like he would rather not have such an audience. Phoebe threw her arms around his neck and gripped him tight. When I last saw Phoebe, she was in the early days of her pregnancy. Obviously, she’d already had the baby a little while ago. I was relieved to see how quickly she was back to running around.

“Where’s my kid?” Niko asked.

“So you really did sense me calling you,” Phoebe said.

Perina walked up to Niko and smacked him, then signed a few things at him angrily.

“She thinks that was a rude way to address your beloved,” Ezeru said.

“I got that,” Niko said. “She’ll get used to me.”

“Niko, Phoebe’s baby is yours? Did you know?” I asked. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Phoebe knows I don’t talk about that business.”

“The baby isn’t business,” Phoebe said.

“You didn’t even tell Himika about the baby?” Gilbert said. “She’s family. Hello, darling…” He brushed past Phoebe and kissed my cheek. “You look wonderful. Is he treating you all right?”

“Sacred stones,” Aurek said. “All I did was set up one little test to make sure you were the real guardians and you all really seem to think I’m some tyrant.”

“It’s okay,” I said, before this turned into an argument. “Aurek won’t be doing anything like that anymore.”

“I had to make sure the priestess’ sexual magic was real,” Aurek said.

“But you enjoyed it,” Gilbert said.

“This is my mother, Peri,” Niko said, introducing Peri to Phoebe, Gilbert, and Rin. “As you know, the mist dragon king and queen robbed her of her voice, for the most part, but I’m starting to learn her signs. Ezeru knows them.”

“Oh—wow. Your mom is so adorable, Niko!” Phoebe said. “I really expected you to be haggard.”

Peri nodded like she, too, was surprised.

“Welcome! I’m so excited. My mom’s with the baby. Your granddaughter! Abel and Forrest are—somewhere. We have a feast waiting, so let’s all go enjoy ourselves.”

Rin took Ezeru and his rock dragons off somewhere to get them settled while Phoebe showed us into the palace. I had a pang of dread, walking through the main doors, but the atmosphere inside was so different it didn’t seem like the same place.

“You’ve done some redecorating,” I said.

“Mostly we got rid of the heavy wood and the gold,” Phoebe said. “It seemed very ‘Big Important Man Rooms’.”

“We moved all that to Abel’s wing,” Gilbert said, chuckling.

“Well, he didn’t even notice,” Phoebe said. “I didn’t want to get rid of it completely because I know someone would get angry at us for like, defiling the imperial palace. So…it’s still not changed too much. If anything else, we’ve been so busy. But I added a lot more color and we put up banners for all the kingdoms’ noble families. When Emperor Leonidas was here, it was all about him, but now we’re all ruling together and we all come from different places. We’re trying to welcome everyone.”

An older woman I assumed was Phoebe’s mother came out with a baby in her arms. “Here he is!” Phoebe’s mother cooed. “It’s your daddy! Say hi to Daddy. ‘Hi, Daddy!’”

Niko looked like he enjoyed hearing an older woman talk to him in the voice of his child as much as he would enjoy someone plucking out his fingernails, but that expression only lasted a second before he looked at the baby. He went completely silent as Phoebe’s mother handed the bundle to him.

“This is Rina,” Phoebe said gently, tucking her blankets a little closer around her.

“Rina…”

Rina wrapped her hand around one of his buttons and tugged.

“I’m glad your mother goes by Peri. No one will get confused.” Phoebe looked at him. “Sometimes, she turns into a dragon. It freaks me out every time. But she’s a really cute dragon.”

He very carefully protected his button. “Hey, kid…”

Peri signed something, but no one was there to understand what it was. She had a notebook to write in if it was really important, so maybe she just had to say something to herself. Sometimes I caught Ezeru signing to himself.

Phoebe met his eyes with shining affection. He shifted Rina in his arms so he could brush his fingers over her forehead. “Good job,” he said.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

I’m pretty sure Niko wished we weren’t all here to watch this moment, but I was glad I was. It made me really excited and full of love at the thought of holding my own babies in my arms. Aurek squeezed my hand.

“I hope Vorja’s all right,” he said.

“I’m sure they’re taking good care of him at the nursery. But I like that you worry about him. It would probably mean a lot to him when he’s older. I don’t want any child in our kingdom to feel outcast the way Ezeru was treated by Dvaro and Izeria.”

Ezeru rejoined us as we were finding our places at the huge dining hall. Forrest and Abel joined us around the same time and everyone was standing around talking, trading stories and catching up while the servers set out wine and appetizers. The eyes of the ladies of the court were all on Ezeru. Emmaline du Barien was there, and she shamelessly approached him even though she was old enough to be his mother. “My goodness, who is this?”

“I’m the king of the rock dragons,” Ezeru said.

I cleared my throat. “Mine. He’s my champion.”

“Oh, little princess. But I thought you married the king of the crystal dragons. This one,” she said, waving a hand at Aurek.

“This one is the sharing type,” Aurek said. “And this is Her Majesty, Queen Himika. Address her as such.” This was hilarious coming from him, because his court was so informal that no one called him ‘Your Majesty’, even before it turned out that Seron was the true king. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced?”

Emmaline looked chastised. “I am the heir to the du Barien banking fortunes,” she said, but she left Ezeru alone.

“You embarrass me a little,” I said to Aurek. “But at the same time, I really do love you.”

“But…is Ezeru really that good looking?” Aurek asked. “Sorry, Ez, but—”

“I’m not good looking,” Ezeru said. “I don’t understand it at all.”

I snickered. “Aw, poor Aurek. You really want to know why they’re not flirting with you.”

“A little bit. Just…casually.”

“You’re getting your fair share of admiring looks,” I said. “But it’s obvious that you are the king. You look a bit untouchable. Ezeru, on the other hand… It’s more of a primal thing. There’s something about Ezeru that looks so intense. I mean, you’re wearing jewelry and embroidered robes and looking like a sun god. Ezeru looks like—”

“In the sunlight,” Ezeru said, “I look like a corpse. Like a twisted, brutish corpse.”

“Aurek, give Ezeru half of your ego and we’ll have balance in the universe.”

“I’m actually very insecure. You said so yourself,” Aurek said. “But, I think I get it. Ezeru looks like he would kill, skin and roast rabbits for you…”

“Yes.”

“…after he spent all night fucking you with his tail.”

“Ezeru has very nice eyes,” I said. “Sit down and eat.”

Ezeru stared at us but seemed to be pretending that his mind was somewhere else. Hell, maybe it was. There was enough to think about. “Himika, did you want to sit next to your brother?” he asked.

“I can sit across from him. You definitely should sit next to me. You belong there.”

He frowned slightly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t save you from feasts! Anyway, Peri might like you to interpret for her.”

Somehow or other we finally settled down and if only Seron and Oszin had been there, it would have been the happiest feast of my life.

“This is really a momentous occasion,” Sir Forrest said. “For the first time in living memory, the entire land is united by a marriage and alliances. Two young rulers sit on the thrones of the realm. Our armies are preparing to fight side by side. Humans and dragons. The first child has been born into a new era of peace…”

“Make it a toast already!” Rin said.

Forrest lifted his cup. “A toast,” he said solemnly. “To peace and unity, winning our last great battle and saving those who have been lost.”

“Toast!” Our glasses crashed together all around.

Soon we were talking about the battle to come. Aurekdel, Forrest and Abel dominated the conversation, asking each other a slew of questions. Sometimes I caught Aurekdel quickly turning to his side, where Seron always sat, and then catching himself. Ezeru brooded, and I knew he was thinking of revenge against Izeria. He watched Peri’s hands and mostly, he only spoke for her.

“Would that mist you have that aids in learning languages work with signs?” Rin asked Aurek.

“I’m not so sure. It’s fairly rare, so I’ve been hesitant to try. We used almost all of our supply teaching dragons the human language and vice versa. We do know the mist doesn’t work very well unless you’re surrounded by speakers of the new language. So I’m not sure it would work at all, because Peri and Ezeru invented the sign language on their own.”

“We have a sign language here,” Rin said. “It’s spoken mainly by people between Capamere and Rungenold. There is a school for the deaf and mute with tutors. If Peri is interested, I could get a tutor here and offer some books so everyone could learn something standardized. You could teach it to deaf dragons.”

“A school?” Aurek looked incredulous. “A language? How do you find enough people to speak it?”

“Well, out of a million people, I suppose—there must be a couple thousand or so,“ Rin said.

“There are simply too many people here,” Aurek murmured. “A million. I’m not sure we have a tenth of that.”

For all that, I thought our armies were similarly matched, but I felt a scrap of human pride and decided not to remind Aurek that one dragon could take on ten humans.

“Peri says she’s interested,” Ezeru said. “She struggles to come up with signs for many things. We’ve been trying to teach the language to Niko, but it’s difficult… If I interpreted her words strictly, it would hardly be comprehensible to everyone else. I know what she really means because I’ve known her for so long.”

“I’d learn too,” Niko said.

“We can all learn,” Phoebe said. “I think it’d be fun. We can teach Rina as she learns to talk.”

“We won’t have time for that until the war is over,” Abel said.

“Well, some of them do,” Forrest said, ruffling Phoebe’s hair. “Better to keep idle hands busy.”

“Idle? I’m holding a baby. I’m sorry, Peri. Abel just has no sense of…”

Peri signed with a shiver and a nod.

“She says she knows how ice dragon are,” Ezeru said.

“Then, I’ll send for the tutor right away,” Rin said. “Meanwhile, Phoebe and Gil have started their own performance troupe, the Imperial Rose Troupe. When the war is over, we’ll need some thriving entertainment to lift everyone’s spirits and attract tourism to the continent. Right now, we don’t have anyone coming from overseas. They think all we do over here is fight.”

“Will we see a show?” I asked. “I want to take Aurekdel to the symphony.”

“That’s perfect,” Rin said. “I’ve planned a show for your arrival. The Imperial Rose Troupe will perform, the opera company will do a shortened version of The Northern Merchant, and the Gaermoni symphony and sword dancers will perform the suite of the Lotus and Lily.”

“I can’t wait. Also, thank you for dinner. I can tell you were thinking of me.”

“Well…I’ve been wracked with guilt for months over sending you away. All for nothing, as it turns out.”

“It could have been bad, so you should still reward me. I also have a little announcement of my own.” I lifted my voice to attract the attention of the table. I had not yet told anyone outside of my own mates about my pregnancy, but during our weeks of travel, I had been noticing some symptoms: nausea if I missed my daily tea, tender breasts, and general tiredness. Not to mention, weird dreams about babies. “I’m pregnant myself. And one of Phoebe’s handmaidens said it was twins.” I repeated it in the dragon tongue, since many of the dragons didn’t know any of my language.

Rin’s mouth fell open. “Nieces and nephews?”

“Yes.”

Everyone cheered. The dragon ministers—except for the stoic ice dragons—were toasting us loudly. Aurek squeezed my hand again.

A very happy feast indeed.