The Last Dragon King (Kings of Avalier #1)(7)

She fell to her knees in front of me, tears streaming down her face. “I should have told you sooner, but it was never a good time, and I didn’t want you to think that you weren’t mine.”

I sat there in stunned silence for a full minute until she stood again and pulled up the chair before me.

“Who was she? The woman?” I asked, finally able to suck in a full breath and keep my panic at bay.

My mom chewed the inside of her lip. “A traveler passing through. Dressed like a highborn wearing bright colored silk, embroidered with jade. This was when I was still working at the tavern.”

I was a highborn? Was that what she was telling me? Highborns were at least half dragon-folk, maybe more.

“What happened?” I didn’t recognize my own voice. I needed information, and quickly. The hole in my chest was too big now and I needed to fill it with something or I was afraid I would disappear.

My mother swallowed hard. “She came to the tavern alone, heavily pregnant, pale as a ghost and speckled in blood. She looked shaken, like she’d seen a battle. Due to her obvious status, I didn’t ask questions. I just showed her to her room.”

I waited for her to go on. She glanced at my traveling pack and then at the door and leaned forward. “She went into early labor in the middle of the night. The entire tavern was awoken with her screams. Bardic sent me to tend to her and I did.”

Holy Hades!

A woman fleeing a battle was thrust into early labor in Cinder Village? I wondered where she had been traveling to. Cinder Village was at the very tip of Embergate territory, you didn’t come here unless you meant to. But highborns didn’t come here. Some people had been known to hide here. The ash covered life wasn’t desirable, and so not many people came looking. Had she meant to have her baby here? To have me and leave me behind where I wouldn’t be found?

My mom’s hands shook. “I sent for Elodie. She was the most advanced in laboring at the time, but word came back that she was sick with the black lung and couldn’t help.”

Elodie died of the black lung the year I was born, then my mother became the village midwife. This must have been the event that started her career! From tavern barmaid to village midwife. I’d always wondered how she made the leap.

“Go on,” I urged her.

My mom picked up my pack and walked it over to me, tears streaming freely down her face. “We don’t have much time.”

I stood, taking the pack and placing it on my back. “I won’t leave until I know the whole story. Why do I have to go? Did the highborn die in labor?”

In all my life I’d maybe seen my mother cry twice. Once when my father died and once when she delivered Mrs. Hartley’s stillborn. These were far more tears than I’d seen in my eighteen winters.

“It was a full sundown to sun-up labor. In that time we bonded. I told her stories of your father and I to pass the time or distract her. I told her of all the times we tried to get pregnant, where I grew up, anything to keep her from crying out in pain. She told me things too. Scary things.”

“What kind of things?” I gripped the straps of the pack tightly.

My mother stepped closer, lowering her voice. “I didn’t fully understand what she said. A lot of it sounded like a pain-induced ramble, but one thing I got very clear.” She brushed the curls away from her head. “Her entire family was murdered for some type of ongoing feud she had with the dragon king. Her magic was a threat to him she said. She… she said she was a full-blooded dragon-folk.”

My eyebrows drew together in confusion. A full-blooded dragon-folk would make her a royal and that wasn’t possible. The king didn’t have a sister.

My mother went on: “She escaped, but she warned me that if anyone ever detected this magic in her child, that child would be killed.”

Full-body chills rushed down every inch of my skin and I froze. “I’m that child?”

My mother nodded, reaching out to stroke my cheek as her tears intensified. “She died in labor—too much blood loss. But I saved you and took care of you and loved you and made you mine.”

A whimper left my throat as I found it hard to contain my own tears.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It was selfish but I didn’t want you to ever think that you weren’t wanted or loved.” My mom could barely speak.

It was an awful thing not to tell me, but in that moment I forgave her completely. I understood. When was it a good time to tell your child that they were the offspring of a woman whose family was murdered and on the run?

Never.

“I forgive you.” I rushed forward and our arms went tightly around each other at the same time.

I noticed now that where I was fair she was dark, and we really looked nothing alike. Not like the other girls and their mothers. Not like her and Adaline.

Wait.

I pulled back and faced her. “How did you have Adaline if there was something wrong with Father’s seed? I saw you pregnant, I was there at her birth.”

I was five when Adaline was born but I remembered it. It was one of my first memories. My mother’s screams had scared me.

Shame burned my mother’s cheeks and she stared at the floor. “After you came to live with us, your father wanted a second child so badly. He permitted me to… lie… with another man to see if it really was his seed that was broken.”