A Shade of Dragon 3(4)

“Whose orders?” I asked, surprised. I’d thought that harpies would just kill anyone, and didn’t need special reason.

The harpy glared. “No one,” she lied. “It would seem that you have been discarded, and are no longer of worth to either side in the dragon battle, as my sisters and I have not seen or heard from fire or ice in many nights. Yet here you are. In a territory for which the dragon people show little concern. And you need my help.” Her eyes gleamed and she fluttered closer. I clutched my pepper spray tightly, preparing to loosen the nozzle. “My young will not eat the fish from the sea. But perhaps they would enjoy some human meat, stripped fresh from the bone.”

I held my pepper spray in front of her, but did not break eye contact, and did not waiver in my aim. “I need to be taken back to the portal at the rock island,” I said. “I’m sure there is something of worth that I have… an exchange I could make. You say the ice dragons haven’t been back, nor the fire. Well, then. I’m here. I could do business with you. What is it that you want? Just to kill me, a stranger, an innocent, and another woman? Is that really all you can think of?”

My words gave the harpy pause, though her glare did not relent.

“I am well-fed,” she eventually admitted. “I have no need of your meat. But my children—they will not eat.” Her eyes strayed from mine to the fledglings. “They cannot see. They will not eat. One could not breathe and died. And they will never fly. But this is the plight of the harpy. It’s none of your concern, woman.”

Of course. A breed solely comprised of females. They couldn’t reproduce. Not naturally.

“There is nothing to be done,” she added.

“What’s your name?” I asked her. Perhaps she had endeared herself to me after her attempt to feed her dying offspring, ill-gotten by the seed of mismatched men. Maybe she had tried to mate with a gnome, or a troll, or something.

“My name is Parnassia. Parnassia Thundercliff.”

I frowned at her mention of a last name, a lineage. “If you’re a Thundercliff, and your sister is a Thundercliff—”

“It is the name we share with all our sisters who make use of this shore,” Parnassia spat. She was certainly a temperamental thing. “I have no father, no mother.” Her face twisted with bitterness. “I was crafted as a harbinger. A demon creature.” She gazed away from me—out toward the tumultuous black Atlantic. “We were never meant to bear young. Not like the mortal creatures do. Some wish they could live forever, but all things have a price.”

Stranger things.

“What if…” I swallowed, considering my next words. In my heart, I believed that I was infertile, but even if I wasn’t, this harpy could never follow me throughout my life, ensuring that I kept my promise—could she?

Not like the mortal creatures do.

She probably could follow me throughout my life and ensure that I kept my promise. But I would cross that bridge when I came to it… if that bridge even existed. For now, I saw the route ahead.

“What if I could promise you my own young?”

“What?” the harpy hissed.

“My own young,” I repeated. “I am the mate of Theon, fire dragon. Our children will be winged. My firstborn… male or female… is yours to take. No one needs to know. It would be an accident. Just an accident. You could cross the barrier between the worlds in the dead of night and steal it from its crib.” The words hurt to say, knowing how unlikely they were, what a horrible fate if I did manage somehow to conceive. But I would need to consider all these things later. Right now, there was only one task in front of me: return to The Hearthlands. And then I would uncomplicate the mess of my life I had made back on Earth.

I took a deep breath and spoke again. “Take my firstborn, Parnassia. And raise it as your own.”





Theon





The ogres’ beach was dark, lit only by the glow of our torches. The sea rolled in all around us, the sky was eerily quiet. To an outsider it would seem peaceful, a vacation for the lot of us. But this was not the case.

We had been forced to congregate on this beautiful beach, as our homeland was unlivable… all because I had foolishly trusted a woman alongside whom I had briefly fought. I couldn’t forget my rage with her; I could hardly understand her reasoning in doing such a thing. My mood was as dark and icy as The Hearthlands had become. “Everwinter,” the ice dragons had christened it. Everwinter.

And my father, King Erisard, had been publically beheaded only days ago. The knowledge hummed through my body, a great vacancy felt to the tips of my fingers. My brother, Altair, was certainly dead as well. He had been unaccounted for since last month. I had witnessed death in a way I had never experienced before this bloody battle began; I had seen my friends ripped apart before my very eyes. Khem. A member of my court and machinist to our people. I had seen him gutted and thrashed.