Chapter 55:

  Ael awoke with dawn’s light on her face. She sat up in a panic. They were on the ground, deep in the forest. Ael’s hair was full of leaves and sticks. They had their clothing, but it was strangely torn, poorly put on, their corsets hanging open. Her jacket and Nereida’s overdress were tossed in a pile. Her skin no longer prickled with magic. Beside her, Nereida slept, curled up around a strangely smooth rock. Ael took a breath, trying to steady herself before she woke her wife. Every part of Ael’s body ached, likely a result of sleeping on rocks and sticks. She fidgeted with her bracelet, trying to focus herself.

  A bird call sounded nearby. It was a shrill sound, not one Ael had ever heard before. She tried to remember how they had gotten deep in the woods. She remembered making love to her wife in the ruins, then she recalled Nereida acting strange, dizzy. There had been an overwhelming sensation of magic, and Ael had felt like she was drowning. And then… then she remembered nothing. Ael took a moment to check herself for wounds, but aside from a love bite, and a yellowed bruise on her arm from being struck with the wooden swords during the tournament, she couldn’t find anything wrong. They both had their bracelets still, but the circlets were not among their clothing.

  Convinced that she was unharmed, Ael moved over to Nereida to gently wake her.

  “Ner?”

  “Love?” Nereida sounded confused, sleep still heavy on her face. “I had such a strange dream.”

  “We are having a strange waking, love.” Ael said. She helped Nereida sit. The princess looked around, confusion and worry on her face as she took in their surroundings, their rumpled clothing that was on when the st thing she had recalled was them being naked next to a bed. The siren drew closer to her wife, shivering in the early morning chill. There was a dampness in the air that promised rain ter.

  “Were we drugged?” the princess wondered out loud. “Do you think the water was drugged? Or the goblets? We don’t know if anyone else drank.”

  “Not with anything I know of, love. There’s no strange taste in my mouth, my head is not filled with cotton, and other than not recalling how we got here, I don’t have any strange symptoms or bruises. No, love, I think they maniputed us with magic. Didn’t you feel it?”

  Nereida looked at her, her brow furrowed as she tried to think back on it.

  “I… I remember thinking the water was too sweet, and feeling… bubbly. I don’t have a better way to describe it. I remember feeling a deep magic in my bones, and then we were married and it faded.” She closed her eyes. “But I don’t think it was ever gone.”

  “And then we repeated the vows,” Ael whispered. “When we made love, we repeated the vows. Could that have… triggered something?”

  “Yes,” Nereida whispered, sounding broken. She leaned into Ael, holding her tightly. “I just don’t know what.”

  They spent a few minutes in silence, getting properly dressed, tying each other into their corsets, straightening everything. Among their clothing were two cloaks of heavy undyed wool, cloaks that Ael did not recognize. She frowned. Where had they gotten new cloaks? The wool was thick, warm and felted and waxed against the rain.

  “Ael?”Nereida was looking at the rock she had been curled against, a strange expression on her face. “I… I found something.” The rock, about the size of a housecat, was sitting atop their two circlets. Nereida pced her hand on the rock.

  “What is it?”Ael asked. She knelt beside her wife, and reached toward the perfectly smooth grey and blue swirled rock, touching it gently. Her fingers buzzed with magic as she touched it, the rock warm to the touch, as if it were alive.

  Dragons’ balls.

  She looked at her wife who had a strangely fond smile on her face.

  “Ner?”

  “It’s an egg.” The princess’s voice was quiet, almost reverent.

  “Ner?” Ael’s voice rose with her concern. She could feel the magic in the stone, the warmth of it, the life in it. Her stomach twisted in worry, and then a second feeling washed over her, a memory of the first story Nereida had told her. The words came to her as if Nereida had just told the story yesterday. “It is said that the final battle of the Twin Dragons will occur when the Scions of Moon and Ocean come together in love, and the Dragons return to cim the world.” She knew in her heart with terrible, terrible certainty, that somehow the words were true. She swallowed. “But I’m not… I’m not a scion. I have no magic. I…” Her throat closed up in panic, her heart pounded. She sought breath but could not find it. The air was too wet, the once gentle breeze now seemed impossibly loud and she was drowning in fear.

  Nereida was suddenly touching her shoulder, whispering things to her. She tried to concentrate on her wife’s soft, insistent voice.

  “I have you.” Ael heard the words her wife said, over and over, until she could breath, until she was safe. “It is going to be alright, love.”

  “What did we do?” Ael asked, still feeling tightness in her chest. Nereida’s hand was on her face, gently cupping her chin.

  “We didn’t do anything,” Nereida whispered softly, “except love each other.” She touched the egg, with regret on her face. “We could stop it, if we smashed the egg. Have a life without the interference of the Great Dragons. But… I think… I think we made this. With our magic.”

  “I don’t have magic,” Ael protested weakly, feeling like the air had come out of her sails completely.

  “Love, I think you must.” Nereida pced her hands over Ael’s heart. “You can feel magic, right? In the air, in my touch?”

  “Yes.” The word bubbled out of Ael, her voice shaking in a way it had not since she was small. She felt close to crying, but she couldn’t, not now, not now, not now.

  “It’s not shameful to be Dragon-blooded, love.”

  “If I am, then everything I know about my family is a lie!” She broke on the st word, falling to pieces in Nereida’s arms. Her love held her tight, did not offer her empty words, just was there, a warmth, a strength, as her world crashed down around her.

  They stayed like that a long while, until all of Ael’s tears of frustration, pain, and betrayal had leaked from her. Nereida was ever calm, ever caring.

  “I love you,” the princess decred softly. “And nothing we decide here and now will change that.” Ael kissed her, a chaste, gentle kiss. She couldn’t use her wife for comfort either. It wouldn’t be right.

  “Can you tell if it is alive?” she asked the princess softly.

  “I can,” Nereida replied. “If it is?” Ael felt the weight of the world on her shoulders, felt the tightness return to her chest. There was no good answer here but also….

  “I can feel magic in it,” she said softly, pcing her hand on the shell. “Your magic, and another that ebbs and flows…. I’ve only felt it a few times before… usually before something terrible.” She swallowed, grief crashing into her again. “It might be mine… my magic.”

  They sat in the dirt, each of them on either side of the egg. Nereida hummed softly, a child’s lulby from the gentleness of the melody.

  “It is alive,” she confirmed. “I can feel a heart, a body, inside.”

  “Dragon?” Ael felt her mouth go dry.

  “I’m not sure…They are too small.” Nereida made a face of frustration. “They are peaceful now.”

  “We need to get back to the ship,” the Grand Admiral decred. She held onto her title like armour against the unwanted feelings, the unwanted truths. “We can… we can get the stupid, arrogant, maniputive Council to give us whatever we need… they set us up. For this. They wanted this. It has to be why everyone was so squirrelly around us!”

  “Can you get us back to the shore?” Nereida asked, concern heavy on her features. “We don’t know how far we moved, where we moved!”

  “We know the beach was at the easternmost tip of the isnd,” Ael replied. “And the sun is still rising. We know east. Help me rig up the cloaks around the egg, so it stays warm and safe. If we aren’t smashing it, then we are protecting it.”

  “We could give it the other sirens,” Nereida said ftly, “if we are looking for third options.” But she was staring at the egg again, in a way that made Ael’s heart break. Nereida already saw this as her child. If she asked Nereida to push the child away, their marriage would be over before it truly began.

  “No.” The word burst out of her, and Nereida looked up, her eyes wide and full of tears that she was refusing to shed. “They don’t get to have a dragon after all the shit they pulled on us yesterday. They don’t get their prize. Not when… not when it's ours.” Her voice broke. “It might well be the closest thing we have to a child, love. I can’t…. I can’t give it up.” She was not sure if the need to protect the egg was real, or a remnant of the magic… and she was not sure she cared.

  They made a makeshift rucksack, tying the cloaks together and wrapping it around Ael so she could carry the extra burden against her skin. They made their way east, cutting a trail through the dense underbrush. The ferns grew thick here, but worse were the mosquitos that were out in full force. Nereida swatted at them, mumbling under her breath in exasperation.

  “We didn’t feel any of these things,” she swatted another, “st night!”

  “We were a little caught up in ourselves st night,” Ael recalled with a cheeky smile. Think of the positive, think of the good memories, push down her hate and anger at the other sirens. She let herself picture the very good, before she kept talking, keeping her tone light for her wife’s benefit. The feelings couldn't drown her if she pushed them down.“Once we are on the beach their number should thin. They will have more people to choose from, so won’t be so interested in us.”

  For three hours they trudged through the woods, the bush-wacking far more difficult because neither of them had weapons or shoes. Ael had dozens of small cuts on her feet by the time they reached the beach, and hundreds of bites from the dragons-cursed bugs. They had no energy to chat, the reality of having no food or water settling on them. Ael knew nothing of pnts, saw no fruit she recognized. Her back ached from waking on the uneven ground and then carrying the egg, which had to weigh at least a stone, possibly more. She was miserable, Nereida was miserable, the air itself was muggy and miserable.

  But after a grueling three hours, they stepped out onto white sand.

  There was no ship on the horizon. There was no sign of the festivities from the day before; the sand looked untouched by human feet. The sky in the distance was grey and cloudy. Nereida colpsed and began to cry. It wasn’t the wracking sobs from the night before, just a quiet, empty cry of someone on the verge of their end. Ael knelt at her wife’s side, holding her.

  “Where are my children?” Nereida whimpered, her tone broken, her armour falling away to the broken, hurt survivor. Her face filled with fury, and she repeated the words, her voice hard, angry, the waves crashing against a ship hard enough to tip her over.

  “Safe with your brother,” Ael promised, keeping her voice calm. She took Nereida’s hand. “Do you have the strength to sing love? As much as I am angry at your people… we may need them now.” Her mouth was dry as she spoke. She hated the admission. She really, really wanted to find a member of the Council and punch them in their stupid mouth until they apologized for maniputing her and Nereida. But the horizon was empty, and so violence would have to wait.

  The princess stood with a curt nod. She was steel wrapped in silk, a beautiful storm. Ael smiled at her wife, offering what encouragement she could. Nereida walked into the water to her knees, staring out at the horizon, and she began to sing as the ocean crashed into her. The ocean is not tame. The memory came unbidden, and caused Ael to smile a predator’s smile. The ocean was not tame, but neither was her wife. The melody that lifted out of Nereida was haunting, powerful and full of her pain. She sang no words, just clever melodies that made Ael feel as if she were standing in a thunderstorm. Her small hairs all stood on end, her skin felt wet despite the fact she was well and clear of the ocean. The sound echoed over the vast distance in an almost ghostly way. Tears of anger and hurt streamed down Nereida’s face as she sang, and while Ael wanted to comfort her wife, she knew that the woman needed this, the release of anger and hate and fear. The storm clouds above began to thunder, as if in answer to her song.

  And then Nereida went silent, her power and her pain both spent. She came back ashore, wet from the knees down, and leaned into Ael sideways, cognizant of their egg that Ael carried.

  “And now we wait,” Nereida whispered. “After I nap, if they haven’t come, we can get some leaves and I will capture us some fresh water.”

  “Anything you want, love,” Ael replied. She sat down in the sand cross-legged. Nereida y her head down on Ael’s p, their strange egg bound in cloaks tucked beside them both. “I’ll be here when you wake, I promise.”

  FionaRobinsong