Medea’s skin was flushed from the blast of heat they’d endured, but her head didn’t bend at all as she answered. “I won the book fairly. It is mine.”
“Insolent girl!” Hera hissed. “Living in my garden without my permission, using my book, wooingmydragon.” Fury rolled off the goddess in bright, hot waves, her body growing to seven… eight… nine feet tall.
“Hera…” Tavyss said, but the goddess was livid. He’d never get through to her.
“If you want the book so much, perhaps you belong in the underworld with it!” Hera snarled at Medea, raising her hands above her head as if to strike his mate.
Tavyss had often heard talk of Zeus and his lightning bolt, but he wondered why Hera’s weapon wasn’t similarly feared. A great ring of celestial fire appeared in her hand, its edges razor-sharp and molten red against the blue sky. Medea’s expression morphed into terror as the goddess aimed for her head.
Tavyss’s dragon tore from his body, transforming so quickly it felt as if he’d exploded from a shell. He’d placed his dragon scales between Hera and Medea before he even had time to consider if they’d be strong enough to withstand the goddess’s power. Dragon scales were fireproof and laced with inherent magic, but Hera’s weapon was charged with celestial fire. Would they stand the test?
The ring cracked against his scales. Searing pain radiated through him, but his scales held. Uninjured, he coiled and snapped, his teeth passing harmlessly through Hera’s form. She reappeared a few yards away, her eyes wide in surprise.
“Anaktó,” Medea called from behind him. The gem flew from Hera’s hand and landed in her own. Her sisters were there, flanking her, wands drawn.
Hera’s eyes flicked to his, the fire forming again in her hand. “You can’t win this, dragon. You’ll never defeat me in battle, and there is nowhere you can run that I can’t go.”
He growled, low and menacing, but even his dragon brain understood that only half of that statement was true. Hera released her ring of fire, hurling it at the three sisters with a vengeful hiss. Tavyss knocked it from the air, then swiped, his claws slashing through the goddess. In a flurry, he transformed back into his two-legged form and grabbed Medea’s hand. Her sisters clung on, Circe to Medea’s elbow and Isis to his own.
Tavyss’s ring radiated gold light. He slashed anxthrough the air, opening a portal to Paragon even as Hera formed again, shrieking behind him. Heat from the goddess’s weapon flamed against his back, but they had already stepped through to the world she was forbidden to inhabit. His feet touched down on rocky soil, and the portal closed quickly behind them.
Epilogue
Six months later…
The day Tavyss had brought her to the world of Ouros, the land of the five kingdoms, Medea had believed the trip was temporary. After all, he’d explained to her that he’d abdicated the throne and that his siblings would murder him if he ever set foot in Paragon again. But Tavyss rightly warned that they could not return to the garden. Hera would likely be watching. And while they’d managed to get a message back to her parents using magic—they were well, thank the stars—she had no desire to call unnecessary attention to them living right under Hera’s nose.
Fortunately, the kingdom of Paragon was only one of the five kingdoms of Ouros. Although Paragonians were the only ones to worship the Goddess of the Mountain, all five fell under the protection of the goddess Aitna, the daughter of a titan whose affair with Zeus had bound her to this island realm. Once Isis, Circe, Tavyss, and she had discussed their options and the most likely places to take them in, they settled on Darnuith, the kingdom of the witches. Notoriously isolated, it was the perfect place for Tavyss to avoid detection by his siblings.
Darnuith was a mountainous territory, and Medea and her sisters had made a perilous journey to the capital city of Mistcraven. There they beseeched the leader of the coven, Queen Ferula, an ancient but powerful presence dressed in purple robes, fur, and bones, for a home among the witches. Queen Ferula’s advisor, Zelaria, insisted she and her sisters perform a display of strength to prove their magic was strong enough to warrant a home among the witches. Together, the three sisters stopped the snow from falling, caused the sun to shine on the people of Mistcraven, and enchanted the clouds to perform a short, silent play in the sky above about a turtle who fell in love with a fish.
“And what of you, dragon,” the queen had asked Tavyss. “Can you serve your kingdom and Darnuith?”
“I have no intention to serve Paragon, my queen. I am mated to Medea. My service and protection belong to her and her people.”
“Hmm.” Queen Ferula tapped her chin. “A dragon is a powerful gift indeed.”
“My queen, we do not know—” Zelaria began, but Ferula cut her off with a dismissive wave.
“You are welcome to stay. You will take over the Fatsed Orchard. The wizard has passed away, and we’ve had no fruit since his death. Make the trees grow and you’ll be welcome here always.”
“It would be our pleasure,” Medea said.
“There is only one thing. It is our custom, for our citizens to have a surname. I am Ferula Northstar. What name shall you take as your second?”
Medea thought for a moment, her gaze drifting to her sisters. “Tanglewood, my queen.”
Ferula gave a crooked grin. “Hmm. Fitting. Welcome Medea Tanglewood.”
They’d moved into a simple cottage, and through the steady use of magic brought to life peaches, apples, bon bon fruit, and the most delicious figs Medea had ever tasted. And then, in a feat of magic she wasn’t at all sure would work, each of the three sisters clipped a segment off the end of their wands and planted the pieces in a common hole. Watered with blessed rain and fed with their own blood, the pieces rooted and grew into a new tanglewood tree.
At night she’d lay next to Tavyss and drift to sleep, blissfully tired from a day of meaningful farming.
“Do you regret becoming my mate?” he asked her one night. The solemnness in his tone made her lift her head from his chest to look him in the eye.
“Not for a moment. I think my life began the day you flew over that pool in the garden.”
“I know mine did.”
