Page 58 of Queen of the Cursed Egg
Thauglor
I feelthe moment Mina loses consciousness. It’s a sudden void in our bond, like a candle snuffed out, leaving a cold emptiness where her vibrant presence should be. My heart seizes in my chest, a physical pain that steals my breath. I slip free of my descendant’s wing; the membrane making a wet, slipping sound as I wrench away. As soon as my feet hit the ground, sending jolts of impact up my legs, I shift. My bones crack and reform with the sound of splintering wood, muscles stretching and scales erupting from beneath my skin in a cascade of painful transformation. I breathe acid on the remaining mage, the caustic liquid hissing through the air before striking its target. The mage’s screams cut off as he burns instantly, the stench of melting flesh and boiling blood filling the air, acrid and sweet simultaneously.
I turn on the three that Mina electrocuted, their bodies still twitching from the aftershocks, the air around them crackling with residual energy. I cover them in acid too, the viscous green fluid splattering across their forms, sizzling as it eats through cloth, skin, and bone. The sound of their dissolution is like meat thrown onto ahot skillet, accompanied by the bubbling hiss of rapidly decomposing matter.
Rage makes my blood boil, a heat that starts in my core and spreads outward until my skin feels too tight to contain it. I want to take flight to where the mages live and wipe them from the face of the earth. I need to feel their bones crush between my teeth, to taste their fear as they realize their end has come.
“Mina.” I hear Abraxis yell, his voice cracking with panic, and I turn my head sharply, the tendons in my neck creaking with the sudden movement. I see my pale mate in Abraxis’s arms, her normally vibrant skin ashen, lips tinged with blue, limbs hanging lifeless like a broken doll’s.
Quickly I shift back, my form condensing with another series of painful cracks, and rush over to look at her closer. The ground beneath my feet blurs as I move, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caged beast. “I can barely hear her heart,” Abraxis says as he cradles her limp form, his voice trembling, the scent of his fear sharp and metallic in the air between us.
“Give her to me,” I command, my voice rougher than usual, scraping through my throat like gravel. Shaking my head, I stare down at my mate as he lays her in my arms. Her weight is nothing to me, but the heaviness in my chest increases tenfold as I cradle her against me. “My treasure,” I whisper, the endearment breaking slightly on the second syllable. I kiss her forehead, her skin cool beneath my lips where it should be warm, and channel some of my life force into her. The transfer feels like molten gold flowing from my veins into hers, a burning gift that leaves me momentarily light-headed. I gift her years to help her recover, centuries from my vast lifespan flowing into her diminished form. I would gladly surrender my life so that she would live. My ancient existence meaningless without her beside me.
Her color slowly improves, the blue tinge receding from her lips, replaced by a pale pink that gradually deepens. I finally draw in a deep breath, the air tasting of ash and blood and the metallic tang of spent lightning. She pushed herself almost to the point of burnout. Her human body can’t handle the amount of lightning her dragon can. She almost cooked herself from the inside, the scent of ozone still clinging to her skin, mixing with the more subtle fragrance that is uniquely hers—thunderstorms and wildflowers and something ancient that calls to my dragon.
“I’m taking her home,” I announce, pulling her closer to my chest, feeling her shallow breaths against my collarbone, each one a tiny victory. I hug my mate to my chest and take flight, the powerful push of my wings sending dust and debris swirling below us. The air grows cooler as we rise, the wind rushing past my ears with a constant roar. Mina is so exhausted she’s not even clinging to me, her fingers limp against my chest where normally they would grip with surprising strength. She took out the mages to protect us. My beautiful selfless mate, willing to risk herself for the safety of our nest.
Not even halfway back, I see Klauth’s dragon breaching the mountains ahead of me, his massive form silhouetted against the clouds like a living thunderhead. He roars, the sound reverberating through the valley below, sending birds scattering from the trees in panicked flocks. He flies straight for me, the beat of his wings creating currents in the air that buffet against my own. Carefully, he lines himself under me and slows to a glide, his massive body creating a living platform beneath me. I land in the middle of his back. My feet connecting with his scales with a dull thud, and sit down next to a ridge, holding our mate tightly. Her hair whips around both of us in the high-altitude wind, strands of silver and green tangling together like precious metals.
For the first time in my existence, I’ve known fear—not the momentary concern of battle or the wariness of a new foe, but true, soul-deep terror that freezes the blood and stops the heart. Gently, I press two fingers to her throat, feeling the steady thrum of her heartbeat under my fingers, the pulse weak but regular, gradually strengthening as my life force integrates with hers. She just needs to rest now and regain her strength. Her body is still limp against mine, her head lolling against my shoulder with each wingbeat of Klauth’s massive form beneath us.
I feel through the bond with my oldest friend he’s just as scared as I am, his ancient mind touching mine with uncharacteristic gentleness, like ice forming on the surface of a lake—gradual, careful, but undeniable. Mina came so very close to dying, and she’s probably not aware that she did, her consciousness still floating somewhere between life and death, tethered to us by the thinnest of threads.‘We must tell her more about the dangers of using our magic in human form,’Klauth rumbles as he flies, his mental voice vibrating through his scales and into my body, where I sit.
“I never would have thought that she would even try it,” I say loud enough for Klauth to hear, my voice nearly lost in the rush of wind and the rhythmic beating of his wings. The sound creates a backdrop to my words, a percussive underscore to my disbelief.
‘As she exists now, should not be. She shouldn’t technically have three breath weapons. I wonder if there were supposed to be twins in her egg and she absorbed the weaker one?’Klauth’s words strike a chord within me, resonating like a bell tolled in a silent chamber.
“You think she’s a chimera?” I stare at my mate in my arms and I see little things that I’ve overlooked before. Her hair is green and silver, not green fading to silver as I’d always thought. I run my fingers through the strands, feeling the different textures—some silken like the finest spider’s silk, others coarser, more wire-like, befitting an iron dragon. The scales on her neck, partially visible beneath the collar of her torn shirt, show a similar pattern. Some are blended green and silver, swirling together like oil on water, others are pureemerald or gleaming silver. Klauth may be onto something, the evidence literally in my arms, hidden in plain sight all this time.
‘Yes, I do. It explains a lot,’he rumbles as I continue to study Mina, my eyes catching new details with each passing moment. The temperature drops as we rise higher, the air thinning, but I barely notice, too focused on the puzzle before me.
“You’re more right than you know. Her hair is silver in patches and green in others. Her scales are the same way, some green, some silver, others a blend of the two.” I bite my bottom lip, the faint taste of copper filling my mouth as my fang pierces the skin, and a third option pops into my head, more extraordinary but somehow fitting for our exceptional mate. “As rare as it is, what if she is a triplet? I mean, there’s no way to know or test for it, but it rarely happens. Usually, the hatchlings die within minutes of being born.” I brush the hair away from Mina’s face, her skin cool beneath my fingertips, but warming gradually. “What if she was the largest of the hatchlings and absorbed them one by one?”
Klauth’s wing beats falter, the rhythm breaking for a heart-stopping moment, and he turns his head briefly to look back at us, one massive eye fixing on Mina’s small form, before facing forward again.‘It explains her immunities and her strength and how overpowered she is for her age,’he rumbles, his mental voice tinged with awe that ripples through our connection like waves on a still pond.
I look behind us and I see my descendant flying slowly far behind us, his wings working hard against the thin air, the distance between us growing with each passing moment. I guess he decided to come home instead of helping his father clean up the mess, the scent of battle and death still clinging to him, even from this distance. “We need to tell the nest what we think. Mina’s offspring will be stronger than the average hatchling no matter who fathers them,” I state, the implications of this revelation unfolding in my mind like the petals of a night-blooming flower.
‘I agree, what we discuss does not leave our nest,’Klauth rumbles as his wings pitch as we make the turn to head home, riding on the thermals, the warm air lifting us higher with minimal effort. The sun catches on his scales, sending prismatic reflections dancing over Mina’s still form and my skin, a beautiful counterpoint to the gravity of our discussion.
This is going to be a hell of a discussion, one that will reshape our understanding of our mate and potentially the future of dragon kind itself. As I hold her against me, feeling her strength slowly returning, I can’t help but marvel at the miracle in my arms—a being that should not exist but does, defying all odds, breaking all rules. Just like the bond between ancient enemies that now forms the foundation of our nest. The irony doesn’t escape me, and I find myself smiling despite the lingering fear, a tension in my chest finally beginning to ease as we fly toward home, towards safety.
We gatherthe entire nest in Mina’s suite as she sleeps in the center of her bed, her breathing shallow but steady, each exhale a whisper against the heavy silence of the room. The scent of her—ozone and wildflowers now tinged with the acrid bite of burnt earth—permeates the air. Outside, rain lashes against the windows, mirroring the somber mood within. Klauth spent the better half of thirty minutes explaining our suspicions, his ancient voice carrying a gravity that makes the very air feel heavy, like standing beneath the weight of accumulated centuries.
Together we turn Mina to show them her scales and what we’re talking about, her skin cool to the touch, still unnaturally pale. The movement causes the silk sheets to whisper against her limbs, a soft counterpoint to the thundering heartbeats of the worried matessurrounding her. We also show them the patches of color in her hair where we all thought it was blended, the strands catching the low amber light from the bedside lamps, revealing silver sections that gleam like polished metal beside emerald segments rich as summer leaves.
“This changes a lot of things,” Balor says as he climbs onto the bed with Mina, the mattress dipping slightly beneath his weight, springs creaking in protest. His eyes, normally sharp and assessing, now wide with concern, reflect the lamplight like twin flames.
“What does it change?” Abraxis asks a little harsher than needed, his voice cracking with tension, the scent of his fear and anger sharp in the confined space, like steel heated to the point of warping.
“Everything,” Balor says flatly, the word falling like a stone into still water. He motions to the twins at the foot of the bed, their matching amber eyes watching us with eerie intelligence, tiny claws kneading anxiously against the duvet. “Multiple births happen in her bloodline, apparently. So it’s something we need to be aware of in the future.” The realization hangs in the air, heavy as smoke.
“It’s true. It’s something to be aware of. We also have to understand that most times the twins don’t always live after hatching,” I mention as I glance over at Klauth, our shared ancient knowledge a burden at this moment. The taste of this truth is bitter on my tongue, a knowledge born of witnessing too many deaths over too many years.
“After every so many eggs, a female will birth an egg with twins or triplets in it. Think of it as multiple eggs getting squished together in one shell,” Klauth paces, his boots making soft thuds against the plush carpet, the temperature in the room rising noticeably with each pass as his agitation grows. The air shimmers around him, heat radiating from his skin in waves that make the nearby curtains stir as if caught in a breeze. “Most times they die before they hatch because they run out of room and crush each other. Rarely...” He motions toMina, his massive hand gentle despite its power, fingers trembling almost imperceptibly. “The strongest hatchling absorbs the weaker hatchlings. From what we can figure, Mina is a triplet.” Klauth says again, repeating what he had said earlier when everyone was more emotional, his voice now steadier, more controlled, though the faint scent of smoke that follows him speaks to his true state.
“It explains why our mate’s immunities and abilities are stronger than they should be for her age.” I thread my fingers through her hair and watch the strands fall, catching on my callused skin before slipping free. The silver of her hair coarser than the silken green, like comparing spun wire to the finest spider’s silk. The contrast is so obvious now that I’ve noticed it, as stark as night and day, as different as our two dragon species.
“So what do we do to help Mina?” Ziggy asks as he walks closer with a bowl of bone broth to feed Mina, the rich, savory aroma cutting through the tension, bringing with it memories of healing and comfort. Steam rises from the surface in delicate curls, carrying the scent of herbs and marrow. I move out of his way so he can sit in the chair close to the bed.
