The part Elowen couldn’t forget was that Midas did not come closer after that, he simply turned away as if he believed he was truly a danger to them.
Now, sitting beside him, Elowen reached for his chest in the dark. “They need time. They are afraid of pain, Midas, not of you.”
He turned his head slightly, his horns catching the dim firelight. In the dragon tongue she could not understand, he admitted his greatest grief:
They will grow into fierce dragons and still fear the dragon who raised them.
Thirty-Eight
Midas learnedwhat it meant to make himself scarce around his children.
He timed his movements so he passed through the cave when the twins were asleep. He waited until the boys were well out of sight before shifting forms, careful not to startle them with the painful sounds that came with it. It was in the way he kept his voice low when he spoke to Elowen, even when the ache in his chest threatened to crack him open.
From the far edge of the cave, half-hidden behind a column of stone, he observed his sons as one might observe a fresh wound that refused to heal.
Kalen paced more than he used to. His movements were sharp, restless, as if he no longer understood what it meant to exist in his own body. When frustration struck, it struck fast. His growls came more than his laughter now, rising from his chest without warning, smoke feathering at his lips before he even realized he was angry.
Auric, by contrast, had gone quiet. He watched everything. Measured it. When Kalen lashed out, Auric moved first—always standing between his brother and the world that scarred him.
And both of them together always seemed to glance toward Midas with an uncertain gaze that broke him in half every time he caught them looking.
They also seemed to both be growing into their dragon forms quicker, if it were even possible. A trauma response—the desire to grow in order to protect themselves and each other better.
Elowen noticed the way their bodies warmed unnaturally when they slept, causing her to break out in an uncomfortable sweat almost every night. There was also a faint glow that sometimes pulsed in their throats when they were upset. Their eyes had begun to turn more draconic, and the circular pupils narrowed into vertical and sharp lines when they wrestled each other.
Midas could feel their dragon blood stirring—old instincts surfacing too early. Fear had curdled into anger and pain sharpened into blame.
At night, when the cave was quiet and the boys slept tangled around Elowen, Midas lay awake at the mouth of the den, wings folded tight, tail wrapped around his own body like a restraint.
He remembered being young like them, where those same feelings had plagued his heart after the fall of the dragons, developing into fire without guidance or context. There was a time, when he was their age, where the fire in his throat had not yet learned cruelty and sufferingand survival.
No one had been there to teach him what to do with the rage. No one had told him how to control it.
Midas had wanted to be better for his sons. Wanted to be the kind of father who couldguidethem with the fire instead of letting it act solely as a means of protection like it did for him.
But now Kalen and Auric were so afraid of pain that their entire worldview had been shifted from a single instance of Midas’ failure.
Now, his own children saw the dragons through the same lens the world always had: monsters that would be punished for existing.
And if the world had taken his son's horn, their innocence, their sense of safety—then surely it was his fault for bringing them into it at all.
One evening, when Elowen had taken the boys further back into the cave, where the washbasin rested to wash their hands and feet in the fresh water, Midas remained in the main chamber. He lowered his massive body to the stone floor and bowed his head, pressing his brow against the cold rock, inhaling the scent of his greatest treasures: his family.
A dragon’s hoard was meant to be a place of pride and a testament to his survival. But surrounded by gold and jewels and artifacts stolen from a world that hated him, Midas felt only hollow without them.
None of itmattered without them.
He exhaled a slow, shuddering breath, and something hot slid down the bridge of his snout and splashed against the stone.
Later, when the boys returned, Elowen ushered thempast him with gentle words and steady hands. Midas watched them go, resisting the instinct to reach out—to pull them close with his tail and promise them safety.
But promises meant nothing if the fear remained.
That night, Elowen joined him at the cave’s mouth when the boys were asleep and the stars were high.
She sat beside his great head and rested her forehead against his scales. He turned his head slightly, careful not to jostle her, and rested his snout in her lap. She held him there as if he were small like the boys, and he leaned into her touch like it was the only thing keeping him alive.
She felt the grief in every breath he took, but held him anyway.
