Torion nodded. "Because when you worry, you always plan."
I sipped the tea. It was still warm and minty, and it soothed my hoarse throat and was fresh on my tongue. "We should make the announcement as soon as possible. Word might be traveling already if the servants talk. But if we have any chance of dragonkin not rejecting the idea of a…a girl with…"
Torion frowned at me as I stumbled over the words. "It disturbs you?"
I shook my head quickly and then hesitated. "The idea of there being some sort of communal rejection of her disturbs me. At the moment, I am only… Is she an omega? A beta because she has wings? If we don't understand, how can we make others?"
"I'm not sure this is something that needs understood. More is possible than we'd known before, that's all," Torion said, smiling down at a whip curl of black hair.
I stared at him and wondered what it might feel like to be so assured, so self-confident. It wasn't naivety. Torion was simply open minded, flexible, able to embrace change in a way I'd never managed.
"They'll want something, some kind of reason that gives an explanation for how she exists. And that's…the best of what will come," I said.
"The mating," Torion said, smiling. "Rumors about Bleake Isle, about Mairwen, have spread far enough now. Mating allows for women with wings, even daughters. She's an omega or a beta. Who knows now? She's just a baby. She's a perfect little baby with wings."
He was grinning now, and I didn't know if it was his joy or my own or the picture of Torion laid back on the bed with our daughter bundled against his bare chest, smacking her lips in sleepy mouthings, but I was smiling too.
"She needs a name," I whispered, taking another sip of the tea before falling back into the pillows, giving up on effort and worry, probably because my body simply lacked the strength to bore on with them any longer.
"Mmm, I suppose we'd better keep it traditional. The best we can do for her against the stodgy old dragons, hm?"
I smiled. He was mumbling now, eyelids heavy, speaking to her rather than me.
"Name her after your mother? Name her after you?" he continued, one huge palm almost entirely covering her.
"Give her her own name," I protested, rolling toward them as much as my exhausted body would allow me. Someone would be in soon to check on us all, to put her in the little bassinet next to me.
"She's a dragon," Torion whispered, turning to beam at me. "Let's give her a name they can't refute. One we were raised to respect."
"What are you suggesting?" I asked, brow furrowed.
Torion's sleepy eyes lit up. "Name her after one of the old dragons. Tylane of Dagger Hill."
I chewed on my lip as a stared at my daughter. She was so small, so beautiful. There was a sense of foreboding in giving her a name that had belonged to a warrior dragon. But if it gave her strength for the fight ahead, one that might last longer than I could wage it for her, then that was for the best.
"Tylane," I whispered, stroking her soft cheek.
Chapter Thirty-Five
TORION
“How did it go?"
I stopped in my tired tracks and found my body lightening, my weary bones regaining energy, my scowling lips turning up once more. Brigid stood just inside the keep doors, her braid unraveling, dark circles under her eyes, and a wailing little beast of a beauty bouncing gently in her arms.
Tylane. My little sun, and unfortunately, the reason the local betas were causing me so much strife at present. Grave Hills had welcomed eleven sons by harvest. Eleven sons, and one daughter.
"Let me hold my girls," I rasped out, spreading my arms wide.
Brigid huffed, but she tucked herself and Tylane into my embrace. Within moments, Tylane's cries settled into little grunts of appeasement.
"She prefers you," Brigid muttered.
I laughed, and Brigid softened and rested her head to my shoulder. "She prefers when her mother is calm and content," I corrected, trying not to sound smug.
Brigid let me get away with it, making a similar little grunt as our daughter, which I took as some acknowledgement of the truth.
"Tell me how it went. Honestly," Brigid said.
