When Sower of Embers, Reaper of Flame told me to send the humans away, she implicitly commanded them to leave. I expected them to do so immediately. They didn’t. Everyone, Tam and Val included, waited for me to tell them that I wanted some time alone with my mother before they left. Which they did quickly once Instinct had us give the word, but I couldn’t blame them. I was convinced that my mother treasured me, and even then she scared me sometimes. I could only imagine what she was like to a human.

  I didn’t even have to imagine. I quickly looked through Mak’s eyes, her being the smallest of the humans, and… yeah. Gods have mercy and Mercies preserve us, but I loved those people for standing their ground when that told them to leave. And I couldn’t help but think that they would have done the same even without the mental compulsion to love and obey me, the way Tam and Val had.

  “Daughter,” my mother rumbled once we were alone, and our attention was immediately and entirely on her. “There is something strange about you, and for a long time now I have wondered what it might be.”

  Every part of me was instantly on edge. Unfortunately, Instinct was almost entirely in control; I was barely a filter at that point, having given her more and more leeway, and I couldn’t stop us from looking anxious and guilty as hell by cringing. But what was I supposed to do instead? Shove Instinct back down? That would instantly make Mother even more suspicious; she had a connection to Instinct and Instinct alone. When Instinct fronted, that connection was stronger, and Mother was happy. When Instinct receded, the connection was weak. That made Mother concerned. I did not want her concerns to be any worse than they already seemed to be.

  Our mother wasn’t stupid. She would have spotted the pattern sooner or later: the connection being stronger when we met and I let Instinct front, and weaker when we were apart. I’d just hoped that it would take a lot longer, or that she’d ascribe it to distance making a bigger difference than it probably did.

  No such luck. She was here, and she was concerned, and now I had to choose between pushing Instinct to the back and possibly making Mother suspicious and letting Instinct do the talking, which…

  Honestly, I didn’t know if Instinct knew how to lie. And we’d been quiet for too long.

  “Have you nothing to say?” she asked, bringing her head closer to us. And in the best fashion of mothers everywhere, she neither looked nor sounded angry — only disappointed. She knew that we were keeping something from her, and she was giving us a chance to come clean. And Instinct, her number one fan in the world, was in control.

  You can’t tell her the truth, I said, ready to wrest back control at a moment’s notice. We have no idea how—!

  “They did something to me,” Instinct whined pitifully, entirely without going through me. For the first time that I could remember I was entirely locked out, without even a hint of control, and it was…

  Not being in control meant that I wasn’t directly responsible for anything that happened. I’d thought that I understood what Mak meant about how good it felt to abdicate all responsibility to me. I hadn’t. I saw that now. The whole situation could have been relaxing — pleasant, even — if it hadn’t been for my abject fear that Instinct was about to sell Conscience and me out to Mother in a bid to somehow get rid of us.

  But that fear was very real, so instead of kicking back and relaxing I was figuratively kicking at the door between the cockpit and wherever the hell I was in this metaphor. The fact that Conscience calmly sat back and refused to get involved probably meant something, but I wasn’t in a particularly reflective mood.

  Don’t tell her! I screamed, desperately searching for any crack or seam in her control. I know you want to, but don’t! She won’t understand!

  But Instinct was, I had to admit, a bloody lot stronger than I’d ever thought. It wasn’t like she was holding me off without effort or could keep me out forever, but she was holding. And she was using her time, and she was annoyed.

  “Be quiet and let me think, ghost!” she hissed at me. Meanwhile, barely a second had passed, and Instinct was still speaking. “They put me to sleep, and they did something.”

  “What did they do?” Mother asked, with more concern now than disappointment.

  “I do not know,” Instinct said. “There are stones in the pit where I awakened. The Herald says that they have enchantments carved into them. I do not know if they only kept me asleep, or if they did something else, but when I awoke I was… more than I had been.”

  “More?” Mother asked doubtfully, her eyes narrowing in a way that had nothing to do with amusement.

  “I knew more. Understood more. I did not consider it myself at first, but the Herald brought it to my attention soon after we met. Mother, it is less than a year since I awoke. Before then I was barely more than a hatchling, almost mindless. Half the size of a human, no more. I do not brag when I say that I am too clever. You know it as well as I do. I should not be speaking in complete sentences yet, if at all.”

  “My clever little daughter,” Mother said, more an objection than anything else. “Perhaps you take after your father?”

  “Perhaps. But, Mother…” Instinct trailed off, ducking her head and then creeping forward until Mother nudged her with her snout.

  “What, little one?” Mother asked, and there was nothing but concern in her voice now. “Tell me, what is it?”

  “Much of the time I think like a human,” Instinct confessed. “I am only fully myself when I am fighting… or when I am with you.”

  I’d been watching and listening, surprised and anxious and, above all, grateful. Instinct had done a better job than I could have hoped: not quite lying, but telling Mother only what was necessary to make her more protective than suspicious. Now, though, my incorporeal breath caught. This was it. This was where Mother might decide that she had to do something, and if anyone could think of a way to exorcise Conscience and me from her precious baby’s head, it would be a centuries old dragon.

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked, each word a nail being driven into my coffin.

  Instinct curled up right in front of our mother, and even I couldn’t tell if she actually felt as despondent as she gave off or if she was just acting. “I am… compassionate. I could barely hunt in my first weeks. I am overly concerned with the well-being of the humans around me, even the ones I have not claimed, and I cannot abide the weak coming to harm. It has helped me gain allies, and has given me some comfort, but it makes me weak in many ways.”

  Yeah, fuck you, too, mate! I scoffed, but I couldn’t argue with the results.

  “And you think this is why your thread waxes and wanes?” Mother asked as she almost reflexively curled up around us.

  “I only truly feel like a dragon when I am with you.”

  “That is concerning,” Mother said, but I could feel the relief in her. “Whatever was done to you, it was cruel, and unforgivable. But I have not seen any weakness in you. You are big, and strong, and cunning for your age. You have done so well to survive on your own, little one, and you have a long life ahead of you. So, do not worry. We will find out what that enchantment was, and what happened to you, and then we will see what can be done about it.”

  I didn’t love that last part. It sounded dangerously close to “Let’s find a way to exorcise your two headmates” to me. But I really couldn’t complain about how Instinct had steered the conversation. She’d kept to some of the facts without letting on all that she knew, and most importantly she hadn’t mentioned us at all.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Of course she hasn’t, Conscience said, her first contribution since Mother arrived. She sees us as belonging to her. Do you really think she’d risk your mother finding a way to take us away from her?

  “Of course I would not!” Instinct scoffed silently as she let Mother cuddle us. “Yes, Mother is great and powerful, but I doubt that she would understand. I have told you time and time again that you are an asset, and still you doubt me! Let this convince you, then: I will never let anyone take you from me!”

  With that, Instinct apparently felt satisfied and stopped resisting me. It wasn’t like I could take back full control now, anyway. Mother was mollified. Instead of trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with her baby, she was curled around us, chirping and rumbling soothingly. Kicking Instinct to the back of our mind now, upsetting Mother and starting her worrying again, would possibly be the stupidest thing anyone had ever considered doing. So I didn’t. I left Instinct right where she was and let myself enjoy the simple pleasure of letting our mother dote on us.

  We stayed like that until morning. I really couldn’t complain; I had nothing urgent to do, and every time we slept beside Mother like that I felt indescribably safe and comfortable.

  Keeping myself awake was pretty hard when I had no control over my eyelids, so I fell asleep quite quickly. But before I did I checked in on Herald. I focused on her, my idea of her, the way I would in the dreamscape, and then I was there, at the fire outside the longhouse. Only a few of the adults were still awake; the conversation had turned to goblins, and Tinir was asking Mak and Herald to keep their eyes open as we travelled north. Apparently some of the villagers had been out hunting and spotted a small band of goblins a few days ago, but they didn’t know if those goblins were ranging far from home or setting up a new village or what. Besides those three, only Sarina and Marvan were still up, contributing little to the conversation and seemingly content to just sit cuddled together and listen to anything Herald might have to say.

  Then I was there, and a look of confusion crossed Mak’s face before she looked up at Herald. Herald herself gave a soft, pleased little, “Oh!” before smiling down at our sister and nodding.

  “Excuse me, ladies… what’s going on?” Tinir asked.

  “The great lady has joined us,” Herald said, adding a pleased little hum that I wasn’t sure that anyone but she and I could hear.

  “Oh!” Tinir said, looking around for me. “I’m sorry, Great Lady,” she said softly into the darkness. “My eyes do not see so well in the night.”

  “She is not here in the flesh,” Herald corrected her. “Her body is still with her mother, I wager. But she is with us all the same, seeing what I see, hearing what I hear.”

  Tinir looked back, her eyes widening. “Is she watching over us?”

  “More likely she got bored,” Herald said.

  “Or lonely,” Mak suggested.

  Herald remained silent for a moment, but when I didn’t grab onto her clear invitation to speak she did so instead. “Or perhaps she is just worried that the arrival of her mother might have caused a silent panic. In which case: Draka, I will not pretend that no one will lose any sleep, but we all trust that your mother would not harm us. All is as well as can be expected.”

  At those words, and at Mak’s relaxed nod of agreement, I let go. I left Herald and returned to the darkness of our closed eyes and the warmth and steady Thump-thump of Mother’s heart against our side.

  The next thing I knew, we opened our eyes to the morning sun. What little filtered in through and past the gaps around Mother’s wing, that was; large as we were getting, she’d still done an excellent job of covering us up.

  And it really was “we,” and “us.” I could still feel Instinct near the front of our consciousness, already wide awake, but we were back to our normal arrangement where she nominally controlled what we did or said, but everything went through me.

  Good morning, I thought to my two companions.

  Instinct was all righteous superiority. “Good morning,” she replied. “As you can see, you are still here. I have not conspired with Mother to have you destroyed in your sleep.”

  Nah, yeah, I get that, I said. Thanks. I’ll… try to be a little less suspicious of you, yeah?

  I won’t, Conscience said glibly. One of us at least has to keep an eye on Scaly.

  “If I could destroy you, little ghost, and keep the other, I would!” Instinct hissed back.

  No, you wouldn’t, Conscience laughed back, and the relaxed way that her thoughts came across convinced me that she believed that. And the fact that Instinct didn’t insist made me believe that she hadn’t truly meant what she said, either.

  As we had our short, silent conversation, we were carefully trying to get up. Mother was still asleep. I couldn’t remember her ever waking before us; she slept long, and she slept deep. We were being careful, not because we were trying to sneak away, but because even Instinct understood that not waking the one you’re sleeping next to is the polite thing to do.

  Sneaky though we were, our failure was made apparent when Mother simply lifted the wing we were trying to gently push out of the way. “Go on, little one,” she rumbled sleepily. “I shall stay here for a moment.”

  And then do what? I wondered silently, but there was really no reason to worry. If she wanted to come sit by the fire, she would, and there was nothing any or all of us could do to stop her. If she wanted to leave, same thing. I trusted that she wouldn’t do anything worse than cause some major anxiety in the humans, and left it at that.

  Besides Jekrie and Tinir’s daughter Alda, there were two little kids in the village: Trem, who I knew to be six, and Emeri, whose age I wasn’t sure of; she looked about four. They were both hiding — unsuccessfully — behind a bush at the edge of the village, watching the ancient dragon sleeping practically on their doorstep. To my great and pleasant surprise, they didn’t run off as we approached. They didn’t actually approach; they stayed behind their bush, watching in awe as we passed on our way to the center of the village. But they didn’t run off, which was a great improvement from most of my interactions with them. They liked to watch us — or me, usually, since I was generally in full control when I was with the Lady’s Resters — but they didn’t like to have our attention on them. Understandable, really, for obvious reasons, but it was nice to imagine that they were maybe, perhaps, to some degree, getting used to me.

  “You wish to offer them a ride,” Instinct stated. Her tone was surprising. It wasn’t like she sounded on-board with the idea; carrying people around was something she accepted begrudgingly, because she agreed that it was sometimes useful. Even Herald and Mak were only the barest exceptions. But there wasn’t any of the coldness or disdain I’d’ve expected.

  What if I do? I asked

  “You lack dignity and self-respect. It would be an embarrassment, and Mother might see and disapprove. But I would not fight you, I suppose.”

  I didn’t ask the kids if they wanted a ride. They would have just run off, anyway, and they’d have to at least come to me and ask if they could touch me first. But I did send some appreciation Instinct’s way. Her words were rude, and her tone was harsh, but I was used to her, and it was clear that she was trying.

  That short moment set the mood for the morning nicely, and we spent a pleasant half hour with the humans as they sat around the firepit, eating last night’s leftovers and drinking some kind of hot herbal tea. Then Mother joined us, and things got understandably tense. She didn’t seem to mind, if she even noticed; she looked rather amused, if anything, perhaps enjoying the novelty of watching from up close as the population of a small village had breakfast together with their guests and their dragon overlord, and their dragon overlord’s mom. Hard to say, really.

  We saw Barro and the scholars off after breakfast without issue. When the House started getting ready, though, Mother posed a small problem. It wasn’t like it would be any trouble to go around her; the problem was with the animals. They’d been somewhat okay around me, but absolutely refused to leave the simple stables the villagers had put up for them as long as Mother was around. After some nagging, I convinced Instinct that it would be best to very politely ask Mother to take a short flight into the mountains.

  Convincing Mother wasn’t hard; we just had to come along.

  “I am glad that you asked me for this time together,” she said as we took a short rest in one of the high valleys. “I will be patrolling the coast for some days, but before then I wished to speak with you away from curious ears.”

  We were high enough for there to be a dusting of snow on the sparse grass, except for a foot or so around Mother. I’d known that the old girl was warm — delightfully so when I snuggled up against her — but I hadn’t realized that she actually radiated heat like that. I supposed it must have been part of being a fire-dragon.

  “What did you wish to speak about?” we asked, and though Instinct kept her disappointment out of our voice it was loud and clear to me and Conscience. She’d hoped that Mother would stay with us for some time. Apparently not.

  “I worry that things will become more difficult for you on this island,” she said, settling in. “I did not just drive that male off. He was persistent enough that I finally consented to speak with him. And The Might And Splendor Of The Depthless Ocean had some very disturbing things to tell me.”

  Mother was worried. I could think of few things more terrifying.

  We settled in beside her. This would not be a short conversation.

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