Becky


    Flying on a guvre went as well as Becky might have predicted. Terrifying and absolutely dangerous. “Are you all right?” she yelled to Lyssa over the piercing wind whipping through their hair.


    Lyssa didn’t speak, just nodded, her bravery burned out. All that remained was the fear that all children had when control was gone and the future was uncertain, the times when they turned to an adult, trusting they’d know what to do.


    Becky had no idea what to do.


    “Land!” she ordered.


    The guvre angled his long neck back, and Lyssa cried out in fear, digging her head into Becky’s shoulder. “Please?” Becky offered.


    The creature’s eyes shed, and then he nodded as if he understood. As if he knew he needed to let them go.


    So he did…


    With a graceful spin, upside down, until Lyssa and Becky had no choice but to let go. They were airborne, their screams blending as they hurtled toward the earth. There wasn’t time for thought, just shing images of Becky’s life and the intense stab of guilt as she reached for Lyssa—


    And then relief as they hit the back of anotherrge creature. Something scaly and—


    “Fluffy!” Lyssa cried, turning on her stomach to clutch at therge saddle strapped to the dragon’s back.


    “de,” Becky whispered, only seeing the dragon trainer at the front of the saddle, angling his head back toward them. The wound on his head had nearly healed over. He looked well and healthy, smiling his perfect smile at them through the drizzling rain and looming dark clouds.


    “Lovely Rebecka!” de yelled over the wind.


    Becky nodded, grabbing Lyssa’s hand, still not trusting that they were safe. “We need tond!”


    de didn’t hesitate, his careless charm gone, reced with seriousness and skill. “On it.”


    Fluffynded with a gentle but firm impact on the ground. Becky breathed a sigh of relief, sliding off first and reaching her hands up for Lyssa. The dragon lifted a wing, covering them from the waning dribbles of rain.


    de came underneath next, and Becky didn’t hesitate. Sheunched herself into the dragon trainer’s arms, leaning her head into his neck. de’s hands hovered for a second before closing around her and then running gently down her hair, loosened and damp down her back. “I’m all right, Rebecka.”


    “How are you here?” she said, not willing to let go. She no longer cared for embarrassment or the risk to her heart. Losing him would have been worse than anything else, and she hadn’t. Suddenly, anything seemed possible; suddenly, everything was worth the risk.


    “The beam of starlight magic. It flooded the manor, and I woke up stunned by it. By the time I made it outside, the guvre had taken off with you and Lyssa. I nearly had a heart attack.” de gently pushed her back, scanning the skies. “I have no idea why he brought you both all this way.”


    “He’s an animal. I don’t know that he had a reason other than escaping to find his mate, even if he nearly killed us in the process,” Becky argued, searching the sky for the animal anyway.


    de shook his head. “No, he saw I was behind you before he tipped. I think he knew I would catch the both of you.”


    Becky shook her head. “That’s hardly an excuse! What if you missed?”


    de shrugged. “Then you’d make a lovely pancake.” Heughed when Becky punched him in the arm, whiskey eyes growing concerned when he looked down toward Lyssa. “You okay, Lyssa?”


    But when they turned to assess the little girl, she was ten feet away, pushing aside bushes and trees until she found a veil of weeping willows. Different from the usual kind, they glowed with iridescent, colorful leaves, almost like the guvre’s scales.


    “Lyssa?” Becky called.


    “Come quick,” she replied. “I think… I think this is a nest.”


    When Becky and Lyssa pulled back the curtain of leaves, they all sucked in a breath. “My gods,” de whispered.


    Tucked behind the weeping willows, in a secluded and seemingly unexplored part of Hickory Forest, was a nest made of golden straw, and inside it…were two faded rainbow-colored eggs.


    “Guvre younglings… They aren’t born, are they?” Becky whispered.


    de shook his head. “No. It appears they won’t ever hatch.”


    Lyssa’s normally bright eyes were dull, faraway as she steadied herself, angling her torso toward Becky. “Why haven’t they hatched? They’ve been here for a while, haven’t they?”


    Becky swallowed. “Their mother was imprisoned for nearly a decade, Lyssa. They’re likely not viable any longer.”


    Lyssa blinked back tears as she leaned over the nest, her small hands glowing that silvery white again. “Then why did the guvre bring us here? And why am I glowing?”


    Becky shuddered. This was a job for someone with actual childcare experience. Becky’s extent was flicking her little brother with a stick.


    She didn’t think that would help here.


    Honesty was the only course. “I don’t know, Lyssa. Maybe he wanted us to protect the nest. Maybe he wanted to show us what his mate will go through again, imprisoned by the king. And as for the glowing… Maybe your mother’s magic has manifested in you?”


    “Does that mean… Am I like my mother?” There was real fear in the little girl’s eyes, and Becky knew that fear, knew what it was to worry if blood would take over, turning you into someone you never wanted to be.


    “No.” Wrapping a gentle arm around the little girl, Becky pulled her into her side. “No, you are like Lyssa Sage and no one else. No matter what happens, that is one thing that will always be true. We’ll sort the restter.”


    de’s warm hand closed over Becky’s shoulder. “We’ll call for a few Malevolent Guards to protect the nest until we know what to do with it.” But Becky didn’t look at him, because Lyssa smiled.


    And Becky did, too.