Daryn hopped in the bed beside her. Once he had tucked her nicely in the blanket, he cupped her face in his hands and stroked her soft cheeks with his thumbs. "Baby, you look so tired that I feel uneasy about it. Is it so necessary to undergo all that magic training? Why don't you suspend it till we deliver our babies? I am scared that the magic might affect their growth or development."

Dawn leaned her face in his warm, big hands and said, "If at any point I am going to feel that the magic will affect my babies even in the slightest, I am going to stop the training completely. But right now I think everything is fine."

​​

He took his hands to her hair and said, "You have more green hair than usual. Have you noticed?"

Dawn jerked her head back and looked at him with surprise. "Where?" she asked, picking her hair around her temples and seeing them for any trace of green color. It would be so awkward to have black and green hair. It would make her look like a punk.

"They are at the back side," said Daryn and gave the strands of hair, which already had streaks of green hidden in them. "Somehow I feel that over the last two weeks you have acquired those green streaks more than you ever had." He worried the strands between his fingers and then let them slide through, as his habit. "And I feel that the more your hair turns green, the more your magic increases, so that throws in the loop of my anxieties."

Dawn was examining her hair and she was very stunned. She ignored the last part of his sentence and said, "Will my hair become as green as Brantley's? That would look so crazy! How will I even go out in this world with a punk hairstyle?"

"That's the least of my worries, Dawn," he said.

Dawn looked into his eyes and immediately felt the pang he was feeling for his kids. She sensed his alpha's need to protect his kids. "Daryn, please dear… don't worry so much. The day I feel that my magic is affecting our babies, trust me, I am going to stop all this. However, right now I don't know why I feel that it is very important for me to learn it." She wanted to talk to him about his mother and get every detail about her but she didn't know how to initiate that conversation. It's not that he was close to her.

Daryn sighed and turned to face the ceiling as he took his arms below his head.

"Do you want to hear about my magic today?" she asked.

"Sure," he said but sounded bored.

Dawn narrated how she was able to pull out a figment of Quetz' nightmare and was able to turn it into an illusion. She also told him that she could enter his mind and what all she saw. By the time she finished, Daryn was staring at her as though he was looking at some rare bird—a phoenix.

"You will never try that magic again," he admonished her. "That sounds so dangerous! That's the worst kind of illusion one can ever manipulate. And I am very surprised that you could even pull that kind of dark magic. It is pure evil, Dawn!" His eyes were wide and the eyebrows had shot to his hairline. He had sat down on the bed. Fear skittered down his spine. "And who was that vampire woman?" Daryn had been one adrenaline junkie in his younger days and danger was like an aphrodisiac to him. However, now that he was sitting beside his wife, who was pregnant and talking about creating illusions out of nightmares and getting into the head of her dragon as if this was something extremely casual, he felt he was barely ever this close to danger.

Dawn looked at him intensely. She wasn't bothered that he scolded her but she pitied him. "Can you tell me something more about your mother?" she asked abruptly.

Angered to his limit, Daryn simply blasted. "Dawn! You will not create those illusions again. Do you understand me?" His face was twisted into a harsh expression and his neck muscles corded. "That is dark magic and that affects your body and soul! Damn it!"

Dawn tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "How do you know?"

At first Daryn glared at her for not taking it seriously. Then he turned his face away and raked his fingers through his hair. "Why are you sounding this surprised Dawn? When you were with me on our way to Ulfric, you saw so many different types of people right from pixies to dwarves. This is the world of Lore and its people are different from humans. I have been born and brought up here. Don't you think I will know everything about this place?"

She continued to look at him. What she didn't say was that perhaps he didn't know much about his mother or perhaps there was nothing to think about it… She eased out and didn't want him to worry more about it, so she simply said, "I am sorry baby," she said and stopped. What she didn't say—but I can't promise. I have to learn to control it because if I don't, I wouldn't know when it would go beyond my control. She didn't goad him further.

Daryn bit his lip and immediately pulled her in his lap. He wrapped her in his arms. "Baby, I got so scared for you." He rocked her and pressed her against his chest as if treasuring her, as if she was the most valuable thing in the world.

Next day when she woke up, she found that he wasn't there in the room. She looked at the clock and it was 10AM. "Shit!" she said and threw her blanket off. She was late for Ensmoire. Hurriedly, she took a bath and went down to have breakfast. Through the glass window she saw Cole and Gayle deeply immersed in a chess game. There were more chessmen on Gayle's side than on Cole's. She shook her head with a smile. After finishing her juice she went to ask Gayle if he knew about Daryn's whereabouts. He hadn't even left her a message.

"Oh, he had to leave urgently. There was a blast in one of our gold mines in Venezuela. He had to leave overseas to see that place almost three hours back. He didn't wake you up because he said that you were too tired," Gayle replied as he moved the queen two squares behind.

Dawn's skin prickled with goosebumps. "Are those mines near Amazon jungles?" she asked as her lower lip quivered.

"Yes," came the short answer.

When Dawn stood there as if she had grown roots to the ground, Gayle looked at her and said, "Don't worry, he should be back by tomorrow morning." Her face had become pale. "What's wrong Dawn?" he asked, his attention completely diverted from the game.

Her throat was desert dry. "N— nothing…" she managed to say. "B— but I want to g— go there."

"No!" Gayle said immediately in a stern voice. "You will not go towards that side even for once. Do you understand me? That place is full of dangers."

Cole was shocked to see Gayle so furious. His eyes darted to Dawn and he got up to hold her. She was shaking.

"Then why did you send Daryn?"