Page 7 of Winter's Dragons. Frozen Flames
In hindsight, I should have perhaps held off on the big soulmate reveal until after I had made the threat. "Soulmates?" Brigid squealed. "Oh, why didn't you say so outright? This is excellent news! We must celebrate!"
"That explains everything then," Kasumi said, her scales glowing in.... pride? Relief? Happiness? I didn't even know anymore. "Congratulations!"
Meanwhile, Jerika leaned in closer to me, eyeing me with a speculative glint in her gold eyes. "Tell me. Have you considered hatchlings?"
Dear gods, why?
****
Raijin
"You have a wonderful realm, Your Majesty. Once again, thank you for your generous welcome."
"Generosity has nothing to do with it. You are my soulmates' parents. The doors of my palace will always be open to you."
As she spoke to my mother, Cassia clenched her gloved hands around my crest. She was still upset over these new developments, but on the bright side, she mostly seemed upset with our parents, not with us. She'd even decided to mount me, instead of flying on her own, which was always pleasant.
That didn't make the trip to the palace any less tense. Our families might have set aside their misgivings, but we had not forgotten their words. I was certainly not happy with my father for calling my mating with Cassia a disgrace. Once he and I had a moment alone, I would be setting things straight with him, male to male.
In the meantime, all of our parents had agreed to join us at the palace and had promised to be on their best behavior, something which I did not believe for a minute. Their about-face made sense, up to a point, but I had no doubt that they'd keep poking at things, wondering how it was even possible for Emmerich, Kerryn and I to have the same soulmate.
Unfortunately, we had no choice but to accept the situation. And so, despite our skepticism and discomfort, we were making our way back the way we'd come, our extended group far less relaxed than me, my fellow dragons and Cassia had been even when we had thought Tou Cheimóna was under attack. Our mothers had gotten most of their enthusiasm out of their systems, but, as expected, the avalanche of questions and comments kept coming.
"What of your family?" Kerryn's mother asked as we flew over the frozen tundra. "What do they make of your new mating? I imagine they must've been surprised."
"It's only me and my sisters now and they trust me to make my own decisions in my private life."
I actually had no idea what Cassia's sisters made of us since we'd yet to meet any of them. Cassia had warned us that they'd eventually drop by, and she had been bracing herself for the unavoidable event prior to our parents' arrival. If nothing else, this visit would prepare us for meeting the avatars of spring, summer, and autumn. No matter how powerful Cassia's sisters might be, I doubted their reactions would be as bad as today's experience.
"That's quite open-minded," my mother prodded. "They don't have a problem with your mates being dragons?"
"Not at all, no. We have all kinds of creatures here, and while dragons are indeed rare, none of us are prejudiced."
Kerryn took his cue and stepped into the conversation. "Speaking of which, you'd never guess whom I ran into, Mother. Lerna! She's living here in Chronikos now. Did you know that?"
"I had no idea. I'd thought she'd moved to Terra Bestias. Oh, her mother will be so distraught." Brigid paused, realized what she'd just said, and then quickly added, "Not that Chronikos isn't a perfectly nice place to live in, of course. It's just so far. I never thought I'd get to see it."
"You did indeed come a long way," Cassia commented. "How did you even know Kerryn, Emmerich, and Raijin were here?"
"One of our elders succeeded in tracking down the source of the spell that had caused their disappearance," my mother explained. "It was not easy, but dragons are nothing if not stubborn."
Idly, I wondered if Elder Chang—or whoever had helped our parents track us down—had sensed the mildly demonic feel of the enchantment that had brought us here. I hoped not, because that had the potential of causing a lot of problems in the future.
For the moment, there didn't seem to be an issue, as my mother was completely relaxed when she continued to speak. "I must admit I was quite worried that considering the nature of your realm, we'd have more trouble flying through. I'm pleasantly surprised that it's not the case."
"That's because I cast a blessing to protect you from the cold temperature. It's fortunate we managed to intercept you so close to the border. The magic that helped you sneak past our barriers would have never held had we not done so, and you might have even died."
Cassia's warning was completely genuine, if somewhat blunt. The only real acknowledgment it received was a huff of laughter from Isebrand. "Well, this is definitely my kind of realm. I've missed living under the threat of imminent demise."
"I have to say I agree, Isebrand," my father mused. "Peace is charming and all, but it does get a little stale after a while."
Not for the first time, I wished we hadn't 'forgotten' to introduce Cassia at least a little more to draconic culture. We'd just never found a good time, and we had decided that it would be better to support her immediate priorities and worry about things like cultural differences if they became relevant. It hadn't occurred to any of us that said differences would manifest in corporeal form, through the highly unfortunate visit of our parents.
Damn our female-induced shortsightedness anyway.
"If you think peace is stale, you're clearly doing it wrong," Cassia drawled. "War is not something anyone should do for amusement."
Except we had been doing exactly that for as long as Terra Dracones had existed—well, sort of. We were a nation of warriors, and we always had been. The various clans had engaged in battles over everything from actual physical treasure, to females, prey, perceived insults, or simply just out of boredom. The largest war we'd had was because no one could decide what our land should actually be called. As of late, we'd focused more on increasing our numbers instead of decreasing them, but the warrior mentality remained, and it was particularly present among the older generations.
