Chapter 89

The world tilted.

It wasn’t subtle. Not dizziness. Not fatigue. It was as if the floor itself had shifted beneath us.

“Did you guys feel that?” I asked.

I released Elise and pushed to my feet. The others glanced at one another, brows furrowed, then back at me. They shook their heads.

The world lurched again.

This time it knocked me sideways. I slammed into the wall, barely catching myself. My pulse thundered so violently in my chest I thought it might rupture. Fear flooded me - raw and electric. Anger followed close behind. The colors in the room drained away, blues and yellows bleeding into nothing until all I saw were shades of red.

“Yveth,” I called, breath hitching. I hadn’t seen her leave, but that didn’t mean she was still here. “Yveth!”

I shoved off the wall and staggered toward the door.

“Seth, what’s wrong?” Mirri asked.

“I- I don’t know. Yveth!”

The goddess appeared in the doorway as if she’d been waiting just beyond it.

“What’s happening?” My voice cracked.

Ashlara grunted - then screamed, folding in half as if something inside her had torn loose. Serah gasped a heartbeat later and collapsed into a chair, clutching her stomach, her face draining of color.

“Grams!” I shouted. “Mirri, help them!”

Mirri hesitated only a fraction of a second - torn between me and them - but pain made the decision for her. She rushed to Ashlara.

“What is wrong?” Yveth asked, her pale blue gown slowly regaining color as she crossed to me.

“My Faith feels like it’s on fire,” I choked, dragging in lungfuls of air that did nothing to cool the blaze inside me. Heat poured off my skin. I tore my shirt off, sweat already slicking my chest.

Grams burst into the room and hurried to Serah. Yveth steered me into a chair away from the chaos, her hand firm on my shoulder. Across the room, Ashlara and Serah whimpered and cried out - low, guttural sounds that made my stomach twist.

Then I saw it.

Their bellies were swelling.

Not slowly. Not subtly. Their stomachs distended before my eyes, skin stretching tight and glossy. Ripples moved beneath the surface as if something inside them pressed outward.

“What’s wrong with them?” I demanded.

By now the children had gathered in the doorway, wide-eyed.

“Issa, clean towels. Now,” Mirri ordered, her voice steady despite the fear etched into her face. “Brinja, kitchen - paring knife. One of the sharp ones. Elarion, blankets. Mak, Serah’s sewing kit. Torvek, keep Tib and Lilae back.”

Torvek ushered the younger two out of the room, though they hovered where they could still see.

I tried to stand.

Yveth’s hand on my shoulder was immovable, like a slab of granite. “What do you feel?” she asked.

“I need to help-”

“Seth.” Her voice sharpened. “Examine your Faith. Tell me what you see.”

My gaze flicked between her and the women writhing in pain. I wanted to be there. Needed to be there. But I had no idea what was happening.

I ground my teeth and closed my eyes.

“There’s fire,” I whispered. “Angry fire. And blood. It’s not me - but it’s part of me.” Smoke filled my nose, acrid and ****.

When I opened my eyes, Yveth staggered back.

“Your eyes,” she breathed.

Ashlara screamed again, dragging my attention back to her. “Mirri! What’s happening?” Fear clawed up my throat.

“They’re giving birth,” Mirri said.

My mind went blank. “What?”

“The babies are coming. Now. Way too fast. And way too early.”

Brinja returned with the knife, handing it over before retreating again.

“Get two sticks,” Mirri called after her. “Something they can bite down on.”

The others rushed back with towels and blankets and thread. The room filled with frantic motion.

I stared at Ashlara and Serah in disbelief.

Pregnant? I mean - I knew how - but it had only been a month. Maybe. I didn’t know they were pregnant. They hadn’t shown at all. Not even a hint.

Their stomachs swelled further, skin stretched so tight I was certain it would split. The ripples grew stronger.

I couldn’t sit still anymore.

I slipped from Yveth’s grasp and hurried behind them, crouching between the two chairs. I took their hands.

That’s what you were supposed to do, right?

Their grips clamped down immediately - painfully tight - and tightened further as contractions seized them. The sticks were pressed between their teeth, but it barely dulled the agony.

Mirri and Grams worked with frightening efficiency - calling instructions, trading supplies, speaking in calm, practiced tones as if this were simply another delivery and not some impossible acceleration of life.

Minutes. Not months.

Contractions wracked them both. I was certain my wrists would snap under their grip.

“Push!” Mirri urged. “You’re doing great - almost there - keep pushing!”

Ashlara’s came first.

A final, guttural roar - and then a cry pierced the room.

Mirri lifted a tiny, slick form into the air before moving swiftly to clean and cut the cord. A girl. Flushed red from effort, crowned with bright copper hair startlingly similar to mine. When her mouth opened to wail, I saw small, sharp teeth lining her gums.

My heart forgot how to beat.

Serah cried out next, her body arching as another wave hit.

Grams caught the second child.

Another girl.

Her skin was scaled - deep blood red. Copper hair clung damply to her head. A thin tail twitched weakly behind her, and small wings folded limply against her back. When she cried, it was sharper - almost a hiss.

Grams cleaned her gently and placed her in Serah’s trembling arms.

Ashlara cradled her daughter, staring down at the bundle in shock. The baby’s eyes opened - irises a vivid, unearthly red. She tracked the movement around her with unsettling awareness and snapped weakly at any finger that ventured too close.

I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Ashlara’s sweat-damp forehead.

Then to Serah’s.

I never let go of their hands.

* * *

Nyssira studied her reflection in the sheet of smoking obsidian, the black glass still warm beneath her feet.

“It’s time for you to become useful for once in your life, dear sister,” she murmured.

Her parchment skin began to pale, then thin - fading until only a translucent, glasslike shell remained. The script that crawled across her body sank beneath the surface, its sharp black sigils bleeding into molten gold. The letters softened, their edges rounding, their meaning shifting into something gentler. Open. Accessible.

Ivory hair spilled from her scalp in soft waves, cascading down her back. The constellations that drifted endlessly across her face slowed - flickered - and stilled. Two brilliant stars flared where her eyes had been, swelling into opalescent orbs that swallowed the surrounding darkness whole.

A simple linen gown unfurled over her form, draping along balanced curves, pinned at the shoulders and belted with a slender chain of gold. No parchment. No ink. No stars.

Only radiance.

Only Elyndra.

She tilted her head, studying the transformation. The goddess of written truth stared back at her from the obsidian mirror - serene, luminous, painfully earnest.

Her lips curved into a smirk.

“Oh, help me, my king,” she whispered in a trembling falsetto. “Seth killed the Beast of Battle and now he’s coming for me. I am ever so frightened. He swore he would become the god of everything. We must stop him.”

Her composure cracked.

Laughter burst from her - sharp, delighted, teetering on the edge of madness. It echoed across the glassy wasteland, skipping over the cooled magma like thrown stones.

She placed a delicate hand against her reflection and leaned closer, eyes glittering with venomous joy.

“I’m going to have so much fun.”

Then Elyndra vanished. And Nyssira went to start a war.

* * *

Ashlara and Serah weren’t lactating.

We tried anyway.

The babies refused what little goat’s milk we had, turning their heads stubbornly away. Instead, they weakly nipped at any finger that strayed too close to their mouths - small, sharp teeth testing everything.

“I don’t understand,” Serah said hoarsely, cradling her daughter against her chest. “Dragons and humans can’t have children together. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Nor can gods sire children,” Yveth added quietly, her pale gaze fixed on the infants. “Except under the rarest of circumstances.”

It was nearing dawn. Gray light crept through the windows, and I could have sworn the babies already looked bigger - rounder limbs, stronger movements. They fussed and squirmed, and I did what I could, sitting between the two exhausted mothers.

Ashlara’s daughter wrapped both tiny hands around my finger and tugged it toward her mouth. She stilled once it brushed her lips.

Then she bit down.

Hard enough to draw blood.

She stopped crying immediately.

I hissed and jerked my hand back as she sucked and slurped, licking at the smear of red that had reached her tongue.

“Aw, hell no!” I barked. “I make bloodsucking babies?”

Yveth had been watching in silence. “Not you,” she said, something distant in her tone. “I must confirm a suspicion. I will return.”

She vanished before I could stop her.

Both babies reached for me now, their red eyes tracking the blood beading on my finger with unsettling focus.

“They’re growing fast,” Mirri said, her healer’s voice calm but tight. “And they’re going to starve if we don’t figure out what they can eat.”

Grams nodded slowly. “I can kill a chicken if Mirri takes me home. Never seen a babe drink blood before. Never delivered a dragon neither.” She sounded almost conversational, as though this were merely another strange day.

“You want to feed them blood?” I demanded. “None of this is normal. What happens when they grow up? Are they vampires? Are they monsters? Are they going to attack one of the other kids?”

“Look, kid,” Grams said, fixing me with a steady stare. “No one knows what kind of child they’re gonna have. No one knows what they’ll grow into. We just do the best we can. You can raise ‘em right, or you can leave ‘em for the wargs. But if you’re gonna do right by ‘em, they’re gonna need food. And right now, the only thing that settles ‘em is blood. Don’t know if it’s permanent. Don’t know if it’s healthy. But do you want me to get a chicken or not?”

I dragged my hands down my face, smearing a thin line of blood across my forehead without thinking. I looked at her through my fingers.

“Go get the chicken.”

The bite on my finger sealed within seconds, flesh knitting clean. Only the streak above my eyebrow remained.

Mirri stepped to Reedwatch with Grams.

They were gone longer than I liked.

The babies cried the entire time.

****, I pricked my finger and squeezed a single drop into each tiny mouth. The reaction was immediate. Silence. Little tongues flicked, savoring. They settled.

It didn’t last.

When the wailing began again, I gave them another drop.

Then I stepped to Reedwatch myself.

I found Mirri and Grams in chaos - two more carnivorous infants screaming in a small cottage. Same red eyes. Same flushed skin. Same tiny, needle-sharp teeth. Their hair was dark like their goblin parents’, but they were too large for goblin babies.

I didn’t ask questions.

I gathered them and stepped back to the keep.

Mirri and Grams fanned out to the other villages Grams oversaw.

By mid-morning, we had nine. Nine red-eyed, blood-hungry infants laid out in blankets in the spare room.

And they were no longer the size of newborns. They were closer to one-year-olds.

I’d forgotten about the chicken entirely. Instead, I sat at the table and opened a vein. Not deep - controlled. Measured.

I filled small jars with my blood. They drank it like milk. An ounce. Two. Sometimes more.

Then, one by one, they fell asleep. We laid them side by side in neat rows, the room heavy with the metallic scent of iron.

Exhaustion finally claimed us.

We collapsed wherever we could and for a few blessed hours, the house was quiet.