Meya regurgitated the contents of her stomach—mostly water—onto the tiny space by the wall fenced in by stalagmites. Torch in one hand, she clung onto the cave wall with the other as she coughed out the last dregs of diluted bile, then pressed her forehead to the icy stone, hoping to numb the piercing headache.

It's common knowledge that I'm impotent.

You'd have to wait in jail until you gave birth to a baby you didn't have.

Tears bubbled up in her eyes as his words echoed in her ears, heartless and uncaring. He didn't even pause to take her hint, didn't even consider the slimmest possibility. There was no joy, no fear, no shock nor disappointment. He was so sure of his death, it didn't occur to him that he could create life. How could she entrust their babe—their future—to a man who did not see one for himself?

Meya dug her fingertips into her middle, trembling from the effort of stifling a sob. Freda didn't allow her much time to grieve, however; footsteps echoed towards her.

Meya bounced back upright and wiped her eyes with her arm. She propped the torch up against a stone column, then strained her neck back for a glimpse of the intruder. Sure enough, the monstrous shadow that preceded him shrunk as it slid across the rough surface, then the elder Lord Hadrian emerged from the tunnel's bend. Meya hastily turned around.

"Don't tell me you're done shagging. I hadn't even found a good spot." She tossed a quip over her shoulder. Coris halted a few steps away.

"I'm sorry for what I said." He began. Meya shrugged.

"Dun have to be. Gillian's an enemy. You must keep your upper hand. You taught me that."

Another bout of silence. Coris left his torch leaning against the wall, then drifted a step closer.

"Arinel told me how she found you. What Amoriah did." His voice started to tremble, "I wasn't there. I was never there when it counts. I'm sorry."

Meya heard his guilt, his sorrow, and her heart lurched; yearning for his bony arms, his gentle smile, his clammy hand combing through her hair, but pride kept her feet planted.

"Ain't your fault. You were being grounded." She dismissed it with a tilt of her head. Yet, when Coris braved another step, she couldn't bring herself to edge away from his cold.

"I know where I went wrong." He continued, "You're scared. And I was a heartless monster when you needed someone who'd listen—"

He took advantage of her stunned silence to slide his arms around her waists, rubbing his cheek upon hers.

"And a hug."

He whispered, a puff of wind in her ear. He sounded—different. No longer the cunning, unfeeling Lord Hadrian persona he would default to, but a simple young lad begging for his fair maiden's forgiveness. And, just like that, her walls fell. Meya spun around and sank into his embrace, closing her eyes as their sighs chorused.

"You came for me. Dun think you would." She mumbled as she burrowed her nose into his chest.

"I always would!" Coris gave her an exasperated squeeze, "It was a bluff. An unnecessary one, as it turned out. I'm sorry."

"No—I started it." Meya shook her head, rubbing her overflowing eyes against the smooth fabric of his toga, "I pushed you away because I wanted to be strong. Rational. Independent. The way I used to be, but I was never that. I was arrogant, cold, lonely—"

Coris smoothed his hand down her back as she rambled,

"I saw Amoriah, Jadirah, that priestess, those wardens you had to seduce. They're everything I wanted to be—and they sickened me. So how should I be now? I'm not a good Latakian woman. Can't ever be one. But if I wouldn't be a Hyacinth woman—who else could I be?"

Coris's soothing hand never left her back. Meya scrunched her watering eyes against the shame. Hyacinth was a mirror—it showed her what old-Meya would've looked like had she been allowed to grow, and she was repulsed by her own ideal reflection. She was doomed to become like Mum, like Marin, like Arinel—weak, complacent, subservient women she had once scorned. Because she didn't have the stomach to become the fire.

"You once asked me what I saw in you. Loyalty, bravery, ambition, wit, I answered. I lied."

At long last, Coris broke the silence. Meya perked up, gawking. His eyes were distant, lost in the past.

"You have those qualities, of course, but so did I. And countless others. And you've seen the horrors we've inflicted upon these three lands. It's not a question of who has the most. You also possessed something else much rarer."

Coris gathered her onto his lap as he settled down, his back against a thick, aged stalagmite. Meya jolted at the feel of his icy fingertips resting on the uneven surface of her sunken scar. He bent down and pressed his lips to it. They were just as cold as his fingers.

"Seven years ago, you chose to save me." He murmured, his soft, ticklish breaths puffing onto her scar, "You were the most downtrodden, miserable soul in the whole of Crosset. I was a boy who lived a life of privilege, a despicable monster who was there to hunt you. Not to mention I was Crosset's only hope of survival."

"Us nobility only have so much room to consider matters outside of power, profit, and self-preservation. Everything was logical, cold and calculated—even my parents' love. When you saved me, I couldn't make sense of it." His taut lips unraveled into a bitter smile.

"You were battered and bruised, starving. In pain like living death. You betrayed your people and helped me escape to safety. Sung me a lullaby. Kept me warm as I slept in your arms."

He shook his head slowly, his voice choked with emotion.

"When dark times brought out the worst in man, you protected me and led me home, like a mother would. Persuaded rather than threatened me to save the very people who banished you. Whenever the odds seem bleak—remembering what you did—it's always given me hope. Urged me to do better. Because—even when violence seems to be the only way, you'll always strive to find another. You'd walk the path of the fool, if it meant doing what is good—what is kind."

"You saved Crosset the way you saved Arinel and her entourage, the Greeneyes in Jaise, and Zier, and me. You fought like a woman. And I believe the three lands—the parts we've been to, at the least—is a much better place than what it would have been otherwise."

"Lexi—"

Tears tumbled down Meya's cheeks. She'd never once thought of it that way before. She realized then, why she had often felt so lost—she had lost a dear memory, a crucial part of herself. The choice that would have just as easily doomed Crosset as saved it. It was who she was, who she wanted to be. She'd betrayed her own people, her dragonkind—often on impulse, and had no idea what it had been for. She realized now—she wanted to find a better, kinder alternative. Perhaps, that was something she could live with, something she could aspire to be.

Meya rested her head on Coris's chest. She pressed a kiss on his hand in thanks, then heaved a long, shivering sigh.

"I want to help Arinel. But I can't bear the thought of you lying with her."

"I know. Neither do I. We'll find another way." He caressed her hair in reassurance, "I love you."

His whispered words echoed in the stillness. Meya didn't realize until she felt her tears blazing a path down her numb cheeks that she was crying. A myriad of emotions overwhelmed her one after another in hot and cold flashes. She was touched—then in denial that she was touched—then annoyed he hadn't given her even a second to prepare, to remember this moment—then convinced she must have been hallucinating from the nausea—then relieved he felt the same—then worried he'd change his mind if she told him about the babe—then angry that Freda made her a peasant and him a dying nobleman and that nothing would ever come out of it anyway.

As she trembled, struggling to keep herself from bursting to pieces in the maelstrom, Coris tightened his embrace. Together, they gently swayed.

"I know we're still courting. I know I'm still lacking in various ways. I know I won't live long. I know I won't be able to give you a babe. I'm not proposing marriage or anything." He rambled in a fevered rush, then his voice became firm, grave— "I just want you to be sure that until my last breath, you'll be my priority. I'll always come after you, protect you with my life. I saw that look in your eyes—that night I almost died—and back there when I called my bluff. I can't bear to see you so scared like that ever again."

His voice shook as he buried his nose into her shoulder, his arms squeezing her ever tighter. He was still so convinced about his impending death, and despair poisoned her joy as she heard his vow. She realized she would deal with it later. She would revel in the present, for at least there was progress to celebrate. Amid the chaos, she held onto that one thought. A shaft of light, clearer and surer than she had ever been in her life.

"I love you, too." She breathed against the curve of his neck as grief choked out her voice, "I'm the big, bad, busty, fire-breathing dragon, and you're the prodigy, remember. We'll be together. For all time."

"No—Don't—Don't love me." Coris pulled away, fingers of ice digging into her cheeks, eyes wide and desperate, "Promise you'll forget me. Swear you'll move on. Please."

"No—!" Meya sobbed as she pressed her forehead against his.

"Find a new man. A good, strong man. Have a dozen children." Air from his lips caressed hers. Their mingled tears fell onto her lips. She urged herself closer, shaking her head to ward off his impossible requests.

"No. No—"

She kissed him and held on until he succumbed and reciprocated. She slipped her hands under his toga, learned every inch of him by touch, taste and smell, as he cried for the goddess to forgive his sin. She did her best to awaken him, to remind him he was alive, that this much life was left inside him. Even when his hands on her breasts were cold as the stones on her bare back, even as his protruding ribs grazed and stabbed at her supple flesh, even as tears tainted their kisses, making them bitter and salty, she ignored it and welcomed the familiar pain.

He caught her when her knees gave way and laid her down on his cloak, before moving in to stake his claim. Her limbs were still vibrating with aftershocks from the blissful release, and she was too sapped to do much aside from clinging on, sheathing him in her protection. She felt a throb, like a heartbeat, then a flood of warmth, before he fell limp atop her chest, his back heaving as he drew in huge gasps of breath.

Meya made sure to deposit Coris by her side first, just in case he'd accidentally nod off too soon. She tugged off her Lattis medallion, reached for his crumpled toga and spread it over them both, then blanketed it with her cloak to further insulate him from the chilly air.

"You're getting better." With a loving finger, she tidied away the streaks of damp hair stuck to his temple. Coris opened a bleary eye, and she greeted him with a sweet smile. "Is your lowly servant allowed to love you now, my liege?"

Coris creaked up a melancholic little smile, his eyes wavering with both guilt and joy.

"There's no stopping you either way." He feigned a troubled sigh, shrugging, "Couldn't be helped, I reckon. Irresistible as I am. I take it our courting period is over, then?

"Whatever suits you, donghead." Meya shot him a dour look, cheeks burning.

"You, more like. Seeing as you broke our contract both times." Coris's sly grin yearned towards his ears. Meya blushed deeper.

"You know I can't resist them loopholes." She griped.

"My contracts don't have loopholes. You're just plain old rulebreaking—"

Having no timely comeback for that irrefutable truth, Meya shut his smart mouth by smothering it with her pillows. Coris accepted his punishment with grace and glee. Cursing his ever-curious lips under her breath, Meya gazed out into the gloom beyond the torches' combined halo, pondering his words.

Walk the hard path of the fool, for what was good and right. Yes, there must be something Lord Crosset wanted that they could offer. A nobler, more pleasant solution. And she wouldn't settle for less. As her resolve crystallized from the raging maelstrom, the turmoil itself settled down to an uneasy truce, tempered by slight apprehension for the unfathomable future, yet also comforted by stubborn optimism.

As she toyed absentmindedly with the mop of tousled brown hair under her chin, Meya remembered with a jolt the dastardly deed she had commited, and she cringed in shame,

"Lexi?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry I lured you all here with my Song. Were you scared?" She bent down and whispered at the rim of his ear, kissing his temple in apology.

Coris shivered at the memory, nuzzling closer to her warmth in response.

"Gillian made you?" He asked, his level voice strained to bursting point with cold fury. Meya tightened her embrace as guilt tore at her heart.

"No. That was all me. Trying to be an arse."

Meya hitched up a sardonic grin, shuddering as she recalled the brief exchange in the prison tower. Embarrassed, in denial of who she truly was, how she truly felt, what Coris meant to her and vice versa, she'd suggested enchanting Coris with her Song to ensure he would appear at the negotiating table.

Then, as if to spite this baby she was carrying, she twisted a mother's lullaby into a weapon of war, warped Mum's voice of hope and love into its caricature of lust and manipulation. For nothing but foolish pride, she'd tainted the Song of May Day, and its poisoned aftertaste would linger on her tongue as reminder, as retribution.

"Well, in all honesty, it was an underhanded tactic, but it was beautiful, nevertheless. Not to mention efficient." Ever the pragmatist, Coris still tried to justify it. Meya snorted, shaking her head.

"Don't lie. You know it was the ugliest song I've ever sung."

Coris made no further attempt to refute, and Meya knew she deserved it. He shifted and pressed his ear to her strumming heart.

"Well, if you want to do it over," He began airily, surfacing to meet Meya's guilt-ridden gaze with his drowsy eyes and melancholic smile, "I could do with a lullaby. Stave off the pesky cravings, you know?"

Meya drew in a sharp gasp. Obviously, Coris hadn't had time to snatch his nightcap before her Song had him sleepwalking off to supposed doom. She only had a rough idea of what time it was, but it was surely well past laudanum time. Not to mention today's stressful dealings would've only served to hasten his symptoms. Just how long had he been ignoring his pain?

"Oh, Fyr!" She slapped her forehead, cursing her selfishness, "Your laudanum! I forgot—"

Meya scrambled up. She'd fetch Arinel and fly back to Hyacinth. If she flew at full speed, she could probably be back within the hour. However, before she could dash off, Coris tugged at her arm.

"No—I think I could do for one night. Just—stay with me. Sing me to sleep. Please?" He begged, panting, his voice choked with fearful tears.

Meya spun around, hesitant. Their eyes aligned, and their forgotten past burst to life, overlapping the present. Those same wavering, silvery eyes. Poor boy was cold and frightened. She remembered now—it'd been seven years since he'd last heard that song, in a mountain cave very much like this one.

And so, the embittered May Queen relented. She did her best and made herself comfortable on the cold, hard stone, and offered her lap so the shivering young man could rest his heavy head. As she rested her hand atop his hair, caressing his forehead with her thumb, she drew circles on her middle with her free hand, singing both father and child to slumber.

Over the peaks of Neverend Heights.

Where birds of a feather they circle up high.

I'll fly like an eagle, so graceful and proud.

I'll fly like a dove, so gentle and free...

🐉🐉🐉