Her breath hitched, and though she couldn’t understand his language, she felt every word in her bones as if he had spoken them directly into her ear.
And then slowly,slowly,she began to still with sleep.
Forty-Four
The blood smelllingered on Elowen long after it stopped leaving her body.
It clung to the stone, to the air, to his scales—thin and metallic, sharp enough to sting the back of his throat. Midas did not know how long he had been curled around Elowen after it happened. Minutes, hours, days—time lost meaning when grief hollowed him out.
He could only remain where he was, wings curved protectively around her trembling body, afraid that if he loosened his hold even slightly, she might vanish like smoke.
She lay curled upon herself, small and silent, the steady rise and fall of her breath the only sign of life. Her scent had changed—no longer threaded with the faint, bright spark of new possibility he had sensed before, but muted with sorrow. It was a scent that stirred old memories in him, memories of dragon mothers whining softly over unhatched eggs.
Slowly, he became aware of something wrong inside himself, too.
The flame at the core of his chest, usually alive and coiled like a serpent of heat, flickered weakly. It felt distant, as though buried under layers of stone. When he attempted a breath of fire, only a thin curl of smoke escaped, wavering like a dying ember. Panic twitched along his ribs; instinct whispered danger. His fire was his warmth, his life, his strength. Dragons did not weaken unless wounded—or grieving.
He had not been struck. Not poisoned. Not hunted. But something inside him had fractured when he felt Elowen’s pain tear through her.
He folded a wing more tightly over her, instinctively shielding her from cold, from danger, from the world. His body trembled with the effort and the unfamiliar weight of despair. He had survived centuries alone, but he had never known this helplessness that gnawed at him from within.
Elowen shifted weakly, pressing closer without waking. He felt the soft brush of her fingers against his scales, seeking warmth and comfort. He curved his body around her in answer, though the motion sent a shiver down his spine. His strength was draining like water through cupped claws.
Midas had a suspicion that his condition was due to his constant shifting. His human form was unnatural and awkward for him, even after all this time. Though his sons were born with the innate ability to shift, his changes were marked by indescribable pain and lingering weakness.
But Midas would endure that pain if it meant he could comfort Elowen with words and gestures that were morefamiliar to her in his human form. To move away from her now to rest and replenish his strength felt impossible.
And so he remained perfectly still, wings curved like a sheltering cave around the only creature left in the world who mattered.
He listened to her breath along with his own. Hers was soft and uneven. His grew quieter each hour. He bowed his head over her and let his eyes sweep across her and their children.
All night.
Even as the fire inside him continued to dim.
Forty-Five
Midas noticedthe changes in his body before anyone else did.
A dropped bowl that didn’t quite get caught in time. A wince when bending to lift one of the boys. A flicker of irritation in his eyes when someone asked for something when he was trying to relax.
Midas had been shifting into his human form every sunrise for weeks now—longer than ever before. His horns and tail remained, a tether to his truer self, but the rest of him was soft and tired and wrong. His blood felt slow. His breath shallow. His strength was leaving him, quietly, like steam escaping through cracks.
But Midas was a stubborn creature, and so he did not give himself the time to heal his exhausted body. Elowen still cried in the night. His boys still wanted to roughhouse with him. He still needed to hunt for meat and patrol the skies to ensure his den was safe. These were things only hecould do, and so he forced himself to be strong for his family.
But that strength required the fire inside him that only guttered lower each day with every shift.
One morning, he was near the cave’s entrance after returning from a hunt. The limp deer fell from his teeth and he couldn’t stop himself from collapsing to the cave floor. He told himself he would rest for only a moment.
Just a moment…
The boys were the ones that found him, bounding toward him with their endless energy, ready to beg to take to the skies with him.
Their intuition told them there was something wrong with Midas before they approached. They had never seen him slumped over in this state. Whenever Midas slept, he was always somehow still alert—but this was different. He did not move when the boys climbed over his body, and did not answer them when they nudged him.
Kalen made his way to the top of his head, between his horns, and snuggled into the space where it had always been warm before. This time though, Kalen felt the absence of heat, and his instincts instantly put him on alert.
Auric,he said.Papa is cold.
