Of course, she wouldn’t have been Einin if she didn’t draw her sword at the deity. Draknart was out flying and not expected to return ‘til dawn. Einin hadn’t gone with him. She’d been tired more and more lately, probably old age catching up with her at last. But she didn’t think about any of that as she stood ready to defend her home and the man she loved.
She faced down the goddess. “Don’t you dare curse him again!”
Belisama chuckled, the sound strange coming from a column of light. “I’m not here for his stubborn arse.”
“Don’t you hurt the people of the village either.”
“I can see what he likes in you. All that fire and strength.” She paused. “It’s what made me decide to visit and give you my blessing.”
“I’d rather you didn’t—” But Einin was too late.
Her skin crawled as if a hundred mice ran up her legs. The terrible sensation cut off the rest of her sentence. Then her sword dropped as her arms twisted and her nails turned into talons. Right before leathery wings sprouted from her shoulder blades! For a moment, she couldn’t say anything, because her mouth was full of giant curved teeth.
“Why?” she roared when she could speak again, her transformation complete.
“You can’t very well birth a dragon pup in human form,” the goddess told her in a condescending tone, as if she’d expected Einin to have more brains, and she’d been disappointed.
Einin dropped to her dragon belly, the air rushing out of her lungs. “I’m a century old.”
“Perfect for a dragon’s first offspring.”
Einin stared. A baby. A baby dragon. Both. Any child she had with Draknart would likely be a halfling. Joy filled her to bursting. A son or a daughter…
“A daughter,” Belisama informed her. “I don’t expect her to become my priestess, but she’ll always be welcome in Feyland. As long as she doesn’t call me fairy godmother.”
“Thank you, goddess,” Einin rushed to say, but the column of light had already disappeared.
A child.
Einin couldn’t catch her breath. In her dragon form, her laboring lungs sounded like the blacksmith’s bellows.
A child!
She gingerly stood and took stock of her new shape. She wasn’t as large as Draknart, but close, her shiny scales more green than black. As she turned, her tail caught on the bedclothes, and she knocked them all to the floor.
“First thing we’re going to need, is another bed,” she muttered, then headed up the wide staircase that seemed to have shrunk since the last time she’d climbed it.
Long before she was ready, she was standing at the highest point of the tower, on a widened windowsill, darkness gaping below her. Yet nothing could scare her enough to keep her from finding Draknart.
A child. A daughter!
She pushed away and spread her wings.
I’m flying!
It took her only a moment to reassess that sentiment as the stone wall blurred by her.
I’m plummeting!
She batted her wings in panic, her great dragon heart hammering, but at last she caught the wind, and she rose. Still, she was over the fields by the time she relaxed. And when she did… Oh, but the landscape was beautiful by moonlight—different from when she’d been peeking around Draknart’s wings and neck. She was in full control now, flying where she pleased. She grinned so wide, she nearly caught a startled bat in her teeth.
She didn’t see Draknart anywhere, but she did see a man walking up the road toward the castle. And in her excitement to see a new journeyman, she set down right before him, forgetting that she was a dragon.
His sharp cry of “Return to the devil, ye great evil beast!” reminded her.
She recognized his robes then, the robes of a traveling priest. He tried to hit her on the snout with his staff, but she stepped back.
“Haunt these hills no more!” he cried, his triple chin trembling. “I order you to burst into flames and die the agony of hell!”
