Caelix Serpienne's Arc

Chapter 8 of 10

Caelix carried the warm cradle home and did not sleep. He held the egg through the night, then the next, then the ones after. Weeks passed. Inbella lay near him, worn thin from laying the fragile egg. Her pink tail curled loose on the cushions. She barely lifted her head now. He had built courts and made snake kin bow. He did not know how to comfort a mate who bent to no command. "You should rest," he told her one evening. It came out flat, like an order. Inbella opened one eye. "That is not how you ask." A dry laugh. "You are worse at this than at courtship." He set the cradle down and reached for a blanket instead of a decree. He tucked it around her, clumsy, careful. She let him. That was the closest thing to a plan he had. But she should not have needed the plan yet. The egg wasn't due to hatch. So when the messenger from the nursery pounded the palace doors near dawn, Caelix already felt the ground wrong under his tail. He carried Inbella and the cradle both. He would not choose between them. Seraphine met them inside the marble halls, flowers crowding every corner. She did not waste a greeting. "The warmer worked too well. The shell hardened early. It is hatching now, and I have no warmer left standing by for after." Her voice went flat and final. "They come when they come." Caelix set the cradle on the padded table. The shell cracked. Then a second crack, three rooms down. Then a third. "Three," Seraphine said. "You had one egg. You have three hatchlings." They broke free wet and blinking. One had a white tail, one red, one gold. The white one wailed. The red one bit the air. Nursery mothers rushed with cloths. The gold one did not cry. She uncurled, looked past her brothers, and fixed on Caelix. Her small eyes held steady. "Cold," she said. Her first word. She pointed one finger at the empty warmer. "You waited. It came late." Caelix went still. A newborn should not speak. Seraphine's hands stopped moving. "Oracles," Seraphine said quietly. "Some hatch knowing things. I have seen it twice." She looked at the gold child. "Only twice." Inbella pushed up on her arms. Tired as she was, she reached for all three at once. "Bring them here." Caelix lifted the gold hatchling first. She weighed nothing. She had named his failure before she named her mother. He had wanted an heir to make the throne mean something. He had three, and one already saw straight through him. "You are warm now," he told her. "For now," the gold child answered. He held her against his chest and did not put her down. The egg was gone. Three children lay in its place, and the warmer that had saved them stood empty and useless, with three new mouths and no plan for any of them.