Chapter 46: My Vengeance

Not since the great war, when the dragons united to fight Aithne and her followers, had so many nests gathered in place for a conference. And once it again, it was war which had brought them all together. Not their war, but that of the mortal who called himself dragonslayer, fighting against his own kind, ravaging the lands that had once belonged to dragons and fae alone in long gone time before mankind had arrived.

Ailidh, an elder dragon who brought only three of her dozen mates to sit with her in council, is first speak, "I have grown used to seeing your fairies by your side, Aymeri, but are we now giving those fae that are not of you nest their own seat by our fire?" she asks, nodding at Auberon's group seated across from her.

"Auberon is here by my invitation," Aymeri say, his tone throwing down a challenge to anyone who would defy his decision.

"I remember a time when my kind and yours held separate places in these lands, and we went years, even centuries, before our first face-to-face encounter," Auberon answers in a gentler tone, smiling at the dragon who asked him here, "Those times are long gone, the forests shrink with every year, and it is our magic as much as yours that protects what little we have we have left from human encroachment."

Ailidh shrugs and makes no further objection to the presence of the fae at their council.

"I remember those days as well," Aeaea says, "There were hundreds of nests in a forest that stretched for miles. Now our kind are spread far, our nests driven apart by the human villages and towns that have grown up here. We've lived away from their kind, and let them take more and more land, and stayed well-hidden from them. But now this dragonslayer has come, making war on the town nearest to my nest, taking our trees, burning our forests. And killing my youngest, who had only just learnd to take his form and fly as a dragon."

"He took my son, too," Aymeri growls, "The humans can kill and make war on each other all they like, but this dragonslayer must die for his crimes against us."

"If that were an easy task, he and all the dragonslayers who came before him would be dead already," Inira says, "This one killed my son, and long before that, a dragonslayer from a previous generation killed my Second. There was not a nest in the lands around the Landgraab's holdings who hadn't lost someone to one dragonslayer or another. That is why Fearghus and I came back here, to the land we were born in. hoping to be finally done with the dragonslayers."

"We will have vengeance for our dead, and we will put an end to this dragonslayer," Aymeri promises, "He attacks us singly, but he has never faced us in our numbers, or tasted the wrath our united nests can bring."

"The war that rages now has already wrought devastation on the land, and has even touched our forests. And you answer to that is more war?" Jennicor asks, rising to speak, with Auberon at her side.

"We mean to put an end to the dragonslayer and his war," Aymeri counters.

"Then you should be aware, he has brought more of that strange metal here, in vast quantities, and has armed all his men with it," Jennicor answers, "Our magic, dragon or fae, is useless in its presence."

"We are dragons; we do not fight with magic, but with our strength. I have no fear of this strange metal," Ailidh declares.

"You should," Morvyn counters, "Our strength in dragon form comes from magic. And that metal is what allows the dragonslayers to take us down. I've felt its effect myself."

"In the northern lands, we arm ourselves as the humans do," Kelyn adds, "And fight them with their own weapons. It's the only way."

Their advice is met with the scorn of the elder dragons. "We fight as dragons, not as men," Ailidh scoffs, and even Aymeri, who Morvyn believed was the greatest hope they had of seeing reason and being willing to change, dismisses the idea of dragons fighting with weapons.

The council ends with the dragons declaring war, planning to attack the dragonslayer's army as a group, in dragon form. Kelyn and Morvyn insist they will fight with weapons, and try to get close enough to the dragonslayer to kill him personally. Ceyrth chooses to stay out of the battle, and remain with Riain, Shayeleigh and Ametair to defend their forest home if need be.

"I fear many more of our kind will meet their end in this battle," Kelyn whispers to her mate, who can only share her worries.

Their worry for their kind and the war looming ahead of them brings Morvyn and Kelyn a sleepless night.

"If I hadn't stupidly killed his brother, the dragonslayer wouldn't even have an army," Kelyn sighs in regret, "Before he took Odet, he only had his his personal guard. Now he rules a whole town and gathers an army."

"It was an honest mistake," Morvyn tries to soothe her, though he knows what she says is true.

"Don't do that," Kelyn says, rising up to look her mate in the eye, "Don't try to comfort me and tell me I meant no harm. In my rush for vengeance, I did cause harm, and I must own it."

"All right," Morvyn agrees, "You did a foolish thing. But you know I've done my share of foolish things as well. Talfryn died because of my my mistakes, and I survived being imprisoned by the dragonslyer. I've wasted enough time brooding over what I cannot change. Now I, we, must find a way forward."

"We must slay the dragonslayer," Kelyn answers.

"Before he slays any more of us."

Kelyn falls on him, kissing him passionately. A sudden cry comes up from the room below them. "That's Evie," Morvyn murmurs, "We should check on her."

They find Evie sitting on the bed they'd made for her in the house they built for their nest, groaning and crying as she holds her belly. Ico had explained to him that pregnancy goes faster for fairies than it does for dragons, but Evenfall's pregnancy has defied even fae standards. Though she must have conceived close the the same time that Ico had, her belly had expanded at a far greater rate, and now she seemed ready to deliver far ahead of the expected schedule.

Morvyn rarely has the chance to make use of his skills as a healer, and this is the first birth he's ever attended.

After only an hour of labor, Evenfall delivers a daughter, who she names Paerys. She has Talfryn's coloring, but the sparkling lights, the same dark red as her father's hair, belie the fae nature she inherited from her mother.

Morvyn senses his mate's regret and sorrow as they leave Evie asleep with her daughter and return to their own bed in the loft, and he knows that isn't the war she's thinking about.

"We are immortal," he reminds her gently, taking her hand, "We have a long time to have our own child."

"But the older I get, the less chance I have of another fertility cycle," Kelyn reminds him.

Fertility has been on Morvyn's mind much of late, with both Evie and Ico falling pregnant so close together, after thousands of years of being childless, as though to make up for Talfryn's loss. Fairy magic follows no rules he or any dragon can understand, but his parents had told him of the sudden increase in fertility among dragonkind after they returned from war. That was how Seirian and Arienh had become mates, how he had been conceived and born. But as the centuries passed and the human villages spread further and became town, the dragons declined, so that even the young females no longer bore as many children as their elders had before him. 

"There is a balance to everything," Morvyn muses out loud, "The world perhaps can only sustain so many dragons. Our numbers are held in check." What he doesn't say aloud is that this upcoming war and the deaths that might follow, might spur a new rise in fertility, and give them the chance to have their own child.

"Let the others go to war, beloved. Your place now is with me, and with our child," Ico pleads.

"The dragonslayer killed my son, Ico. I have to do this."

"Is vengeance more important than me, my love?" Ico asks, "I know you grieve for your son, just as Evenfall does. He left their child without a father..."

"And you fear I will leave our child fatherless as well," Aymeri finishes her unspoken thought, "I promise you, beloved, that I will have my vengeance and come home to you."

"And how can you make that promise?" Ico demands, "You cannot see the future. You cannot know what will happen..."

"I will not allow any man to take me from you," Aymeri says, "I can promise you that."

Ico's fears are not assuaged, but she knows there is no convincing him to stay when he's so determined to go.

"Such rapid growth is unusual, even for our kind," Auberon observes, meeting his granddaughter Paerys, who had been born only the night before, for the first time.

"When I went to sleep, she was still an infant. And when I woke, she was as she is now."

"And she has not spoken?" Auberon asks.

Evenfall shakes her head, caressing her daughter's hair, "Not one word. I fear her mind may not have matured as fast as her body."

Morvyn and Kelyn awaken and join them by the pond, as puzzled by this mystery as the fae.

"Is she fully fae?" Morvyn asks, thinking of Ametair, the only other person to be born of fae and dragon parents, and who is himself neither truly fae or dragon, but something else altogether.

"I think only she can tel us who she is,' Auberon replies, 'She will be powerful, I can sense that much."

A dark scowl forms on the child's face as she speaks her first words, "I am a dragon," she says, "And I will have vengeance for my father."

"She's Talfryn's daughter, all right," Morvyn says, "And she has a dragon's spirit, even if she is fae."