“They’re alive. Adria’s children. They might still…”
He didn’t sound relieved. Terror painted his words.
And Francine understood. He’d accepted being the last of the shadow dragons. Maggie’s existence was a miracle.
But the more life there was ahead of you, around you, the more you could lose if everything went wrong.
“What do I do?” he asked helplessly.
The egg rocked again.Crack!A line appeared in the shell, split by a filmy meniscus. Francine’s lioness peered out through her eyes, entranced. This wasn’t how cubs wereusuallyborn—but it was a birth.
A baby.
Slowly, gently, she lifted the egg from under Maggie’s foreclaw. Maggie snuffled in her sleep, twisting into a tighter ball.
And Francine laid the egg in Julian’s hands.
“Don’t let go of it,” he said quickly as she started to pull her hands away. “It might—it might need both of us.”
The egg was warm. Julian’s hands were cold. He stared down at the egg as though whatever happened, his heart might break.
Crack!
The egg shook again.
Crack!
The crack widened—and then a section of shell split off entirely. A long tail whipped out, a scrabble of claws kicked away another splintered piece of shell, and a tiny dragon baby wriggled right-side-up.
Golden eyes stared up at her and Julian, blurry but excited, and something like firecrackers popped against her mind.
“Hello,” she burst out, laughter bubbling up as the tiny creature stared from her, to Julian, and back. “You’re—you’rehere.”
“Ee-oo?” the baby crooned. Its tail whipped again, and it stretched, extending its filmy wings one at a time and almost overbalancing. “Ee!”
Julian steadied it. His hand was the size of its entire body. The tiny dragon inspected this enormous incursion on its personal space and promptly snuggled up to it.
“Ice and shadows,” Julian breathed. “A … a baby.”
A baby. And suddenly his terror made sense.
The Soul-Eater might be dead or dying. And his sister’s child had hatched just in time.
Francine put her hand on the little dragon’s back. It whistled at her, inspecting her fingers until it decided that she, too, was an acceptable piece of furniture. Its scales were soft. More silvery than Maggie’s gaudy gold, but still a bright and shining treasure.
She could feel its heartbeat through its ribs.
Her lioness purred.
*It isn’t the Soul-Eater.*She pressed the words to Julian’s mind like a kiss, and he shuddered out a breath.
*We don’t know that. The Soul-Eater’s powers might not emerge for years. He might be—Adria’s little boy might be…*
*Shadow dragons are different from other shifters. You should know that. Maggie could shift from birth, and I’m sure this little one could, too. If he were the Soul-Eater, we would know by now.*
The fully grown Soul-Eater absorbed souls with a touch. But they were both holding the hatchling, and their own inner animals were intact.
She looked down at their hands, still holding the remnants of the shell and clasped together over the little dragon.
