Midas looked down at the boys, his gaze almost painfully tender. “You choose.”
Elowen’s lips parted. “Me?”
He nodded once. “You carried them. Brought them here. To name offspring is an honor only mother dragons carry. A tradition we shall keep.”
She looked down at the first boy. He shifted in his sleep and let out a tiny grunt.
“Kalen,” she whispered. “It means light.”
Midas repeated the word slowly, tasting it in the back of his throat. “Kalen.”
His voice was rich with approval. She turned to the second, the smaller of the two. He slept without sound, his mouth slightly open.
“Auric,” she said, softer this time. “It means golden. Fitting, I think.”
A flicker of something bright crossed Midas’ face. “Kalen. Auric.”
He repeated their names as though they were ancient spells. His tail curled around all three of them in a loose, protective circle.
Elowen smiled, even through the soreness, even through the fading aches in her limbs.
“Kalen and Auric,” she whispered again, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “Our boys.”
Midas leaned closer. With a clawed hand far gentler than it had any right to be, he traced a line between her shoulder and neck—a silent expression of awe. “Ours.”
He said it like a vow. Like a prayer. Elowen exhaled shakily, her gaze flickering between the newborns, her dragon, and the fire.
Thirty-Two
Midas had never beenafraid of his own strength.
Not in war. Not in hunger. Not when he roared loud enough to shake the snow from mountaintops or snapped an ancient oak with a swipe of his tail.
But now, the ancient, powerful beast that he was, trembled at the sound of his sons breathing.
They wereso small. Frail and soft, with fluttering hearts and paper-thin cries. Their hands were barely bigger than the tip of his claw, their bones light as dry leaves. When they lay beside Elowen’s chest, curling into her warmth, they looked like nothing more than petals.
Petals he could crush without meaning to.
He stayed at the mouth of the cave. Watching. Waiting.Protecting.But never close enough to touch.
Elowen had asked him once, “Would you like to hold them?”
He had stared at her. Panicked. Then looked at his human-shaped hands.What if he dropped them? What if histalons snagged their skin? What if his fire, ancient and deep as magma, was too much for their delicate bodies?
So he had shaken his head, though the pain of that decision weighed on him every day.
Instead, he watched them sleep from the shadows. Watched as one curled his tiny hand around her finger. Watched the other stir and coo softly in dreams. Elowen sang to them in a voice so soft it felt like prayer. When she looked over at Midas, she smiled.
“You don’t have to be afraid of them,” she said one night, her voice gentle.
But she didn’t understand. It wasn’t them he feared. It washimself.
“You are their father, Midas,” she pressed. “I trust you. You won’t hurt them.”
Still, he could not bring himself to risk it yet. He shifted back into his natural form to avoid the conversation, and kept a distance from the three of them until she fell asleep. The twins were nestled between her arms, one resting just beneath her chin, the other splayed like a starfish across her stomach.
Midas crept closer, each step slow and deliberate. He folded his wings in tight. Tucked his claws beneath him. Lowered his head to the cool stone floor.
