Chapter 33 #2
“It’s in process, but I regret to inform you that it’s actually numerous annexes.
I may have meddled. You will have Ashley’s property, Isaac’s property, and the land separating you from Ashley; those folks wanted to move somewhere bigger, so I gave them the incentive; I bought for the purchasing value of the home they wanted and agreed to be their real estate agent, thus removing the commission.
You will also have several properties on the other side. ”
I twitched. “That’s going to fuck with my homestead, isn’t it?”
“It’s not. I took care of the legal loopholes, and the order I’m annexing matters.”
“How many acres?”
“Five hundred and thirty.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Including mine?”
“Excluding.”
Sometimes, all a woman could do was cry, and I flung myself at Yuless. Had I been wiser, I would have warned him first. As I had not, I deserved falling on my face like some fool.
Thus was life.
* * *
If someone had told me someone could brush close with death from being an idiot and falling, I would have laughed at the absurdity of the thought.
Unlike my previous ventures to the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the world around me crystallized, and the darkness fell away to an eerie golden glow.
As promised, numerous beings joined me, with the Four Horses of the Apocalypse thundering over first and thrusting their heads against me for comfort.
Their distress amused me more than anything, but I did my best to hide that from them. “It’s all right, precious babies.”
The wall dividing the living from the dead remained a hefty distance away, a shimmering field that was the warp for everything and everyone, while life itself served as the weft. For a while, I admired the complexity of the weave, smiling at its infinite beauty.
Azrael came next, and I offered the archangel, who had his head for a change, a smile.
His flesh had a translucent tone, allowing me to catch glimpses of his skull beneath, which had a shape somewhat different from a human’s. “Azrael,” I greeted.
“I find it amusing, of all the things to bring you here, it was your failure to catch your balance in a moment of jest. Was the number of acres so startling?”
“At the rate I’m going, I’m going to own the entire lake and then some!”
“Yes, that is what my brother wishes for you. His remorse is a demon of its own, and the fate of the Fates bothers him significantly. It was a destiny he could not alter. Only you could. But now that you have chosen your fate and embraced all that it is to be among the divine, you can grow—and your growth will be the freedom of the dragons as well.”
“I have received hints about the lack of female dragons,” I replied in a rueful tone. “I do not know how me being able to shapeshift into a dragon will help with this.”
“Angels may mislead but we may never lie, and you learning to shapeshift into a dragon is the first key step in you becoming, in truth, the first female dragon. You will still be a hedge witch first and above all else, and Fate as well, but you will be changing the fate of the dragons, who have known nothing but the grief of loss.”
“I thought they formed mating groups, like with Ashley and her three men.”
“You have been misled. Yes, mating groups are formed, but they never produce dragons. They can, on rare occasion, produce a human fruit, but the unions have always been about the emotional and psychological elements, not the physical and reproductive ones. Now, dragons are quite interested in the physical and reproductive fruits, but they have learned to settle for love with healthy dashes of lust mixed in.”
“The Universe only made so many dragons?”
“Every rare now and again, she would plant the life of a new dragon to keep hope alive for them. But like us, she needed to wait for you. Even the Universe can make mistakes. Like most, it is a reversible mistake, one she addressed through gifting us with you.”
I crossed my eyes at the ridiculous circumstances. “Well, at least she understands I like my men tall, dark, and handsome.”
“And puntable.”
The Four Horses of Apocalypse whinnied and bobbed their heads, and I snickered. “It’s true. So, I fell, hit my head, and scrambled my brains?”
“The fall released a blood clot from your shooting, which formed after you had been treated. My brother knew the clot would form, but he needed to allow nature to do as nature would do—and nature decreed you would suffer complications from your injuries. Your dragon has bargained with my brother to make the damage survivable.”
I bowed my head, raised my left hand, and rubbed my temple. “I had a stroke?”
“Yes. The location of the clot is in the same vicinity as your ability to use magic and is why you will pass from the realm of mortality into the realm of the divine. It is, as you are, fate.”
I read between the lines: the Universe meddled, and she used my bodily functions to get the job done. “You’re serious.”
“I am serious, and yes, the Universe’s careful hand brought you to this moment.
Without it, you will never be able to reach your full potential.
You will not even suffer any lasting damage, and you will be able to ride your races as normal.
You are not divine as humanity defines us, and you will enjoy the same protections as humans.
Their scanners will not register you as a divine, but it will inform the user you have a higher than normal aptitude for magic.
You are in a class all your own.” Azrael considered me, tilting his head to the side.
“For a time, you will suffer, for Yuless will be intolerable.”
Near death experiences tended to make those around me rather clingy for some reason. “That’s reasonable. I won’t even punt him for at least two weeks, as brushes with death tend to stress out everyone around me. Speaking of death, if you don’t mind me asking, will my foal survive?”
“Yes, but only because one of my brothers is going to tend to that garden. The little one, without assistance, would have passed within an hour or two. I recommend that you do not breed that mare again, however. She is a good horse, but her genetics are problematic. She is healthy. There are high odds her foals will not be. The filly will be fine, but only because my brother is altering her body so that she is compatible with life.”
Outside of the obvious deformations in her legs, I hadn’t noticed anything amiss. “What else is wrong with her?”
“There will be nothing wrong with her, but many of her organs are malformed, as her base genetics were heavily flawed. My brother has decided to borrow Alligator Bait’s genetics to correct the faulty genes. That will correct the problems.”
I winced. “I normally allow nature to run its course in cases like that.”
“You did not know, and the vets did not know when they had given you the basic diagnosis. They now know, and had my brother not been assisting, they would have recommended a merciful end. My brother did not like that option.”
“Which brother?”
“Gabriel. He has a soft spot for the little horses, and he feels that he planted the seeds of burden within you, as he has already given you many burdens of sickly beasts requiring special care before heading to your home to enjoy their mortal paradise.” Azrael shrugged.
“I had even assured him the little one would not have found anything scary about the valley.”
I considered our surroundings, which while shadowed were a pleasant temperature and peaceful. “I wouldn’t mind kicking back and reading a book out here. It’s quiet.”
“Yuless would not appreciate you kicking back and reading a book out here in the slightest. I recommend you do that activity in the comfort of your bedroom. He can then serve you however you need while you enjoy the same activity. You can create the quiet with your magic.”
I would need to play with my wards, but I could see how I might be able to manipulate the world around me to give me the appropriate level of quiet needed to enjoy a book. “Or I could make him make me a reading throne in the castle, which is likely a great deal quieter than the house.”
“That would be an excellent option as well.”
“So, how does this situation result in other female dragons coming to be?”
“Yuless shares no actual genetics with any of the other dragons. They are unique beings. The Universe made them male, although I do not understand the reasoning as to why she, until this point, deemed they could not reproduce.”
I considered the problem, and then I realized, with a sinking sense of certainty, the dragons would not have thrived.
“It’s because of the nodes. They can’t sustain that many dragons.
They could barely sustain the ones here now.
If they reproduced, there wouldn’t be enough magic for any of them.
I’m going to be spending years fixing the nodes, too.
” I heaved a sigh. “Watch that be why I develop a severe case of scales; I’ll be playing with so much pure magic my body will adapt to it. Dragons are magic, aren’t they?”
“They are,” the archangel confirmed. “Your guess is an excellent one, and I must confess I do not know the truth to it myself. That is hidden behind the shrouds not even we can pierce through.”
“Please tell me Lucifer isn’t going to wallow over this.”