Page 203 of Golden Queen
His assurances did little to overcome my unease as we turned to the left and threaded our way down the side of the cliff. I had always been afraid of spiders. For no reason whatsoever, the little bastards could drop in for an appearance and make me scream like a child.
It grew much warmer as we moved deeper into the cave. By the time we reached a large, flat area near the bottom, I had to remove my jacket. Io took it from my hands, slinging it over his shoulder.
The dragon nursery was cut into the wall of the cavern. Whether natural or man-made was impossible to tell. It was tucked back behind a grate of ornate metal bars that stretched from floor to ceiling.
I heard soft singing as Io pushed the gate open.
A woman looked up from where she had her two hands wrapped around a black egg. She smiled and rose, letting the song die on her lips. "Welcome home, My Lord," she said sweetly.
Her name was Eritre, and she was Master of the Nursery, as I came to learn while she showed me around the space.
She was beautiful, just like every other fae, with wide, expressive brown eyes and tiny, perfectly heart-shaped lips.
Her blonde hair was cut short, but it fell in stylish waves on top. It made her look younger than her speech and manners hinted at.
She showed me where it was safe to step and where my feet would sink into what I could now see was thick, boiling hot mud that belched little clouds of sulfur as it bubbled and roiled.
“We keep them in the mud so they stay warm,” she explained. “They need the heat they would get from their mother’s body.”
“Why don’t they stay with their mother then?” I asked.
“Dragons do not make the best mothers,” Eritre explained, laughing ruefully. “There is always great risk in her cracking them when she is not being careful enough. And many of them simply abandon their eggs, leaving them to the elements because they cannot be bothered to sit for so long.”
Eritre pointed to a door set back into the wall. She explained that nearer to hatching, the eggs would no longer need the heat. They would be taken to a more secure room where they could hatch without worry that the fragile hatchlings would get stuck in the mud or wander out into the lava lake.
Drowning—not burning, was the concern with the lake, I realized with wonder. Dragons could not be burned, after all.
We left Eritre in the mud room and Io took me through the door into the hatching chamber. Only a few eggs lay atop long tables, nestled in wooden crates filled with soft hay.
A young boy scrambled up from a cot in the back of the room and bowed to Io. He was thin and at the stage of life where his limbs looked much too long for his body.
"Good evening, Balthazar," Io said companionably.
The boy beamed. His eager face proved he was glad to see his lord. I thought perhaps Io spent a great deal of time with the hatchlings, and I found it very charming to imagine him with a newly hatched dragon in his large hands.
"This is Sera," he told the boy. "She is going to be Lady of Darkwatch very soon."
Balthazar looked surprised at the news, but he greeted me warmly, smiling a gap-toothed smile. His face was covered in dark, nearly black freckles, and his ears were slightly pointed.
"Who do we have here?" Io asked, studying the three eggs in the crates.
"This is Kantu's clutch," Balthazar said, proudly.
"All of them?" Io asked, surprised.
"Yes, My Lord," the boy said.
"That's rare," Io explained. "It's possible they'll be three identical dragons." He took my hand and guided it to the egg's surface. "Feel," he said.
My other hand joined the first on the side of the nearly black egg. It was rough like pumice with tiny holes all through the surface. "What am I meant to feel?" I asked.
"Just wait," Io said.
All I felt was the slightly warm egg under my palms. I gave him a look, and he responded with a roll of his eyes. "So impatient," he teased.
I was on the point of taking my hands away when I felt it, faint and barely discernible; the awareness of something moving inside the shell.
It was the oddest feeling, like I could actually feel scales and flesh gliding over my palm as the tiny creature turned inside the shell.
