“You were right, love,” he said. “My curiosity was nearly my undoing.”
Tavish shook his head. He cupped Albie’s face, careful to avoid the ruined socket. “No,” he said in a voice gruff with emotion, “your curiosity is what I love most about you.”
A sob tore from my throat. I couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t stop shaking. Albie had given up his eye for our people. Magical injuries were different. Da said some never healed. Albie might go the rest of his life in pain. For an immortal, that could mean thousands of years.
And I was supposed to just accept that?
No.
My dragon stirred, and this time, she was lithe and quick. Controlled and steady.
Heat flooded my veins. My vision sharpened. And then the tears came. Not the helpless, grief-stricken tears I’d been shedding. These were different. They burned as they fell, and when they splashed my arms, they bounced and rolled into the grass.
Diamonds.
Healing tears.
“Portia…” Mum murmured in a thick voice.
My hands trembled as I gathered the tears. They were small, no bigger than raindrops, but they glittered in the moonlight.
I cupped the diamonds in my palm and held them to Albie’s lips. He opened, and I placed them on his tongue.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then light bloomed beneath the hand he still held against his face. My mother gasped.
The light grew brighter, fat beams of blue shining between Albie’s fingers. At last, he lowered his hand.
Flesh knit together. Tissue reformed. A white bubble swelled, filling the socket.
Tavish found my hand and squeezed hard. We breathed together, watching the white bubble grow into an eye. A black dot appeared in the middle, and then color spread around it.
Behind me, Dad said something softly in Gaelic so old I couldn’t translate it. Da answered him in the same language, laughter in his voice.
The transformation stopped, and Albie stared back at me and Tavish with two healthy, whole eyes. But the new one was different. Instead of brown, the iris was a brilliant, vibrant?—
“Green,” Tavish whispered, brushing Albie’s blood-crusted hair away from his face. He grinned. “You carry a part of our female with you now.”
Albie ducked his head. He rubbed at his new eye with his thumb.
Panic gripped me. “What’s wrong? Can you see?”
He lifted his head, and fresh tears sparkled in his mismatched eyes. “I can see.” He took my hand and kissed it, then grabbed one of Tavish’s and tugged us both close until the three of us rested our foreheads together.
“And I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you two.”
Epilogue
PORTIA
Four years later
“Girls!” I called, fighting laughter as two small bodies scrambled ahead of me down the corridor. “You can’t run forever!”
Sorcha’s long black pigtails bounced as she raced past a suit of armor, her chubby three-year-old legs pumping. Dragon scales rippled over her calves in shimmering blue waves before disappearing.
Evie was just behind her, golden curls catching the sunlight. She wouldn’t stay behind her twin for long. Evie had always been smaller, but she’d inherited Albie’s speed. Chocolate-brown scales briefly appeared on her plump arms before both girls rounded the corner.
