When he landedat the mouth of the cave, Midas moved deeper and laid them down gently.
Elowen first, nestled against the soft bed of furs. She hadn’t spoken once since he’d untied her, not even when her feet bled or her arms shook so badly she nearly dropped the children. Her eyes had been glassy, far away, and her breath was shallow and quick, caught high in her chest. She did not respond to his voice. She did not respond when her sons whimpered for her. Her hands fluttered once, then fell still.
Her lashes trembled, and then her body collapsed entirely, her breath caught in a half-sob before silence overtook her. Midas froze.
Elowen?he asked, voice thick with fear. No answer.
He shifted down into his human form, barely breathing through the pain of it. He knelt beside her and pressed a hand to her cheek. Her skin was clammy. Pale. Her body too limp. Too still. The attack had sent her into a panic, and she had gone someplace inside herself that he could not reach.
For a moment, terror gripped him in a way even thedeath of his kind never had. This was a wound no salve could heal.
He reached for the bowl of springwater they kept near the hearth and soaked a strip of linen in it. Gently he dabbed her forehead, her temples, her wrists. He bundled her close with another fur, wrapping her trembling body as one might swaddle a wounded bird.
“You are safe,” he whispered, over and over again, though he wasn’t sure if it was for her sake or his.
He turned next to the twins. Auric was curled into a ball, hiccuping small cries into his fists. Midas touched his back and murmured in dragon-tongue, the words sacred and old, made of warmth and earth and firelight. Slowly, Auric shifted closer to his father, burying himself in the crook of Midas’ folded legs.
Kalen whimpered, still bleeding, his tiny hands twitching with pain. Midas bent over him like a prayer. He wrapped the child’s head with a cloth soaked in salve—Elowen’s teachings serving him well now.
He remembered her teaching him which blend soothed pain, which one sealed wounds. His fingers were too big for such delicate work, but he forced himself to be careful. He worked with trembling, reverent hands, coating Kalen’s wound with the salves mixed together.
It was like caring for embers; one breath too harsh and they might go out.
When Kalen's bandages were secured, Midas lifted both boys into his arms. He sat with them cradled against his chest, Elowen beside him, unmoving but breathing now—slow and steady. He rocked his sons gently, his voicehumming again in that ancient cadence only dragons remembered.
His lullaby was low and melodic, a song of caves and fire and hoarded love.
But inside his heart, Midas felt that bitter agony of failure, and would never forgive himself.
Thirty-Six
The cave wassilent but for the breath of the fire and the soft, choked sounds of the twins crying in their sleep.
Elowen lay between them, one arm curled protectively around Kalen, whose bandaged head rested on her chest. His small face was blotchy, cheeks wet with salt and blood. His twin clutched at her other side like he no longer trusted the world.
She hadn’t spoken much since the forest. Her voice was cracked, her throat too raw. Her wrists were bruised, her back bloodied again. But her body was still here, and so were her sons.
Midas had not left their side. He’d returned to his smaller human form and sat motionless on the stone floor, just beyond their nest of furs. His hands were clenched tightly in his lap, as though he didn’t trust himself to touch them.
Elowen stirred.
Her head turned toward him. Her voice was nothing buta whisper. “They hurt my boys.” He looked at her then, eyes bright with molten gold scorching beneath the surface. “They took his horn,” she said, her voice ready to weep again.
Midas moved closer, watching her gently trace patterns on Kalen’s tender brow. She didn’t flinch when Midas reached out—only leaned into the hand he placed on her shoulder. He was steady and warm against the frigid chill of fear and anger in her veins. She closed her eyes and exhaled through cracked lips.
“I didn’t know people could be that cruel to children,” she murmured.
“I did,” Midas said.
She stared at him for a long moment. “Is this what they did to your siblings?”
Midas nodded. “Our horns were their trophies. Some humans still wear them around their necks like jewelry.”
Elowen shuddered at that, her mind racing with the thought that her own kind would slaughter her children and wear their bones around their necks.
Midas placed his hand on her back, fingers feather-light, brushing over the welts there, raised over healed flesh from the last time they whipped her. She didn’t react, her mind and body too lost in concern for her son to register the pain.
Elowen ran her fingers gently over Kalen’s hair, avoiding the fresh bandage across his temple. She hadn’t looked beneath it since Midas applied the salve and wrapped it. She couldn’t. She was not ready to see what they had done to him.
