Kai Drakon's Arc

Chapter 18 of 30

Kai looked down at the baby on Azure's chest. The small hand was still wrapped around his finger. He tried to think of names and none of them fit. His father's name felt too heavy. His cousin's name belonged to somebody else. The names he heard in taverns on the road were strangers' names. "You," he said to Azure. "You should pick." "You should." She did not open her eyes. "I did the work." He laughed once, quiet. The baby made a small sound and settled. Kai watched the orange tail curl against Azure's arm and thought about the first time he saw her at the tavern, how her horns had caught the lamplight. Blue like deep water. The baby's horns were the same, only softer, only new. He thought about the road. All the years of it. The scorched fields he tracked. The nights he slept in barns. The morning he walked into Mosswood and stopped walking. "Ren," he said. Azure opened her eyes. "Ren," he said again. "It was the word my mother used for home. She said it when we came back from anywhere." Azure looked at the baby. Then at Kai. Her mouth moved into the small smile she used when she did not want to cry again. "Ren," she said. She tried it on the baby. "Ren." The baby yawned. "He likes it," Azure said. "He's asleep." "Same thing." Kai leaned down and kissed her forehead, then the baby's. Azure's hand found his and held it against the blanket. "Ren Drakon," she said. "Good." The midwife came back at midday to check on them. She pressed Azure's stomach, felt her pulse, looked at the baby's mouth and eyes. She nodded and said Azure had done well and would need a week in bed and broth every few hours. Kai walked her out and paid her with the coin he'd set aside months ago. He made broth. He made it again the next day, and the next. Azure slept in long stretches and woke to feed Ren and slept again. Kai carried the baby when she needed her arms free. He learned the difference between the hungry cry and the wet cry and the cry that meant nothing at all. By the end of the week Azure walked to the porch on her own. By the end of the second she was in the kitchen, slower than before, one hand on the wall. Her color came back. The circles under her eyes faded. She started humming again while she worked, something low he did not recognize. One evening she stood in the pasture with Ren against her shoulder and looked out at the rows of peppers she had not touched in a month. The plants were still standing. Somebody had weeded them. "Kael," she said. "Probably." She leaned into Kai's side. Ren slept between them. The farm was quiet and whole.