Blood of Dragons

‘Well, you seem to shimmer more brightly to me. But perhaps that is a question better asked of your husband, who knows best how you usually look.’

Politeness ruled Alise. She would not say what Malta knew was true. She had been so unkempt from her constant vigilance over little Ephron during the journey that Alise could not tell if the changes in her scaling were merely that she was clean now, or if her dragon characteristics had advanced. Malta found she didn’t care and smiled wearily. Look what it had taken to erode girlish vanity, she thought to herself. Merely threaten my son’s life and none of it mattered any more.

She looked down into his little face. He was silent but not asleep. His face did not look like the face of any baby she had ever seen before. His little mouth was pinched up as if he were in pain, and his breath whispered through his narrow nostrils. She tried to see him impartially; was he an ugly child, doomed to be rejected by other children as he grew? She had found she could not tell. He was Ephron, her little boy, and his differences were part of who he was, not points to be compared with others. With a forefinger, Malta had traced the fine scaling that outlined his brows, and he closed his eyes. She had handed him to Alise who wrapped him in the waiting towel, while she waded wearily out of the water.

Her skin had dried quickly in the warm chamber, and Alise had supplied her with an Elderling gown of shimmering pink. The gleaming colour reminded Malta of the inside of a conch shell. At another time, she would have longed to see herself in a mirror, to admire the supple fall of the soft fabric. But at the pool’s edge all she had wanted was her child back in her arms.

Now she stared numbly down the hall of closed and opened doors. Choices, some she might make and others closed forever to her. How did one ever know how one small choice might forever change the course of one’s life?

‘Let me show you a chamber I think you’ll like and settle you there for the night. In the morning, after you’ve rested, if you don’t like it, you can change it.’

Malta realized that she hadn’t moved nor spoken in several minutes. Had she fallen asleep standing up? ‘Please,’ she said faintly, and did not mind when Alise took her arm and guided her down the hall. It was a relief to be away from the keepers’ noisy and joyous welcome. When they had introduced themselves, several had seemed stunned. ‘The King and the Queen of the Elderlings!’ someone had whispered.

Malta had shaken her head, but it had not seemed to affect their awe. They had pelted them with hundreds of questions and Reyn, knowing her exhaustion, had tried to answer them. The girls had seemed entranced by her baby and even the boys had come to look on him in amazement.

‘Like Greft,’ one of them had exclaimed as he stared at her boy. A taller keeper on the verge of manhood had bade him hush and pulled the scarlet-scaled boy aside. Reyn had read her anguished look and drawn the keepers off, while suggesting strongly that Alise help her find a place to bathe and rest. Now here she was, barely able to make sense of things as the evening drew to a close. She had come all this way, hoping to be greeted by dragons. None had appeared. Now all she wanted was Reyn back, wanted her little family close at hand again.