Epilogue Part Two
TEROLON
Four Lunars Later
My mate was writhing and screaming in agony in my arms, and I was sure my hearts were withering away to empty husks in my chest.
“You are doing well, Hazel,” Afelia said.
My emerald green sister was coiled in front of us, her upper body between my mate’s open legs.
Her hands were steady and her expression calm and focused as she carefully ran her hands over Hazel’s very round, rippling belly.
“It won’t be long before your basilings will be in your nest. Breathe, sister. ”
“Tero,” Hazel sobbed, her hand squeezing mine with astonishing strength. “Tero, I’m so tired.”
I smoothed sweaty hair back from her face and pressed my lips to her temple, wishing I could take every last bit of her pain and discomfort in her stead. “I know, my shelshi, but Afelia says all is well. She is the finest midwife in our kingdom.”
Afelia looked up at us, her head tilted. “Not the finest. Possibly one of the five finest.”
Hazel let out a pained half laugh and groaned. “Afelia, this is not—” She gasped and moaned. “Not the time.”
“Apologies.” My sister rubbed Hazel’s calves, which were braced on one of her coils. “I will not say there is no reason to fear, but I have delivered many basilings from human mothers. You are doing better than most.”
“I am?” Despite her pain, my mate looked astounded. And then she grimaced. “Oh dear—those poor women.”
“Indeed, the process is never easy, but I promise they are all healthy now and busy chasing their little ones all around the village.” Afelia gestured for one of her helpers to bring a cup to Hazel. “Time again for tea. It will help with the pain.”
Hazel groaned. “It tastes so foul.” But she obediently took the cup and drank it down in three gulps.
My mate’s birthing pains had begun in the night. I’d sent a neighbor with word to the palace. My sister arrived just before dawn, accompanied by two helpers who were midwives in training.
And now as the sun began to set over the sea beyond our front windows, I found it increasingly difficult to disguise how helpless I felt with my mate still in terrible pain.
Not long after the sun began to disappear, Hazel let out a particularly anguished cry. Afelia and the helpers went from quiet and still to a flurry of activity.
“It is time for your firstborn to make their appearance, I believe,” Afelia said to us, her tone brisk. “Terolon, sit her up a bit more and let her brace herself against you.”
I moved as instructed, holding my mate’s sweating and trembling body steady as she panted and cried out.
Afelia focused between Hazel’s legs as her helpers waited on either side. “Now, sister, bear down.”
With a groan that turned into a wail, Hazel did.
For what felt like an eternity, no matter how frantic or terrified I felt, I spoke quietly and calmly into my mate’s ear.
I told her I loved her, that she was strong and perfect and brave and the Goddess’s most blessed daughter, and I was the luckiest male in all of creation that she had accepted me as a mate.
I made many promises for our future. I vowed to do each and every chore around our home, no matter how difficult or time-consuming.
I pledged to redouble my efforts to find the lost second volume of memoirs of Princess Yrahli, and to take Hazel to see what remained of her ship the Heolcir, which belonged to one of our universities and could only be visited by scholars.
Surely my sister would grant us permission to go.
Our daughter was born first. Her hair was dark brown like Hazel’s, with the same golden strands blended in, and her scales were coral and lavender like her mother’s with crimson markings on her tail. Her eyes when they opened were a perfect summer-sky blue.
Minutes later, our son arrived, and he was almost completely crimson and black like me, but with chevrons of coral on his back. His hair was black like mine, and his eyes were amber. Both our children had serpentae pupils.
“Arelos,” Hazel whispered, gazing down at our son in awe, who was coiled up asleep with his head nestled in the crook of her arm. She looked at our daughter, who was awake in my arms and squeezing my smallest finger with a surprisingly strong grip. “And Yrahli.”
Afelia, who was busy cleaning and tending to my mate while her helpers rushed back and forth with sodden and clean cloths, chuckled. “How unsurprising that you selected those names, brother. Two heirs to the throne who chose their own paths instead.”
“They were my shelshi’s suggestions,” I said, gazing in wonder at our daughter’s tiny clawed hands and her dark lashes. “But I approve wholeheartedly.”
“If we’d had two girls instead, Yrahli’s sister would have been Afelia,” Hazel said softly.
My sister stilled, her hand going to her chest over her hearts for a moment before she roused herself and returned her attention to my mate’s needs. “I am honored,” she said, sounding choked with emotion. “That is a most kind thought, sister.”
“Perhaps, someday—” I began.
Every pair of eyes in the room turned to me, including the incredulous gaze of my pale and exhausted mate, and I realized my misstep.
“But that is surely a discussion for far, far in the future,” I amended quickly. “Or…perhaps not at all.”
My sister, beloved queen of Izaelon, patted one of my coils with a sorrowful expression. “I can only hope Hazel permits you to make amends for allowing your mouth to speak while your brain was clearly elsewhere.”
Hazel laughed and then groaned, her hand going to her stomach. “Afelia…”
“Apologies, apologies,” my sister muttered.
Hours later, long after nightfall, the front door finally closed behind the last of our visitors.
Like a small army, our neighbors had descended on our home to ensure every surface was wiped clean, our new nest was in place, and we had plenty of food for one full-sized serpentae male, a human female, and two newborns.
After promising our closest neighbor that we would request help if we needed anything at all, from advice to an extra pair of hands to a trip to the market, at long last, my mate and I were finally alone with our basilings.
Hazel dozed in my coils with Arelos sleeping on her chest. I held Yrahli, who unlike her brother didn’t seem to care much for sleep and instead apparently preferred to look either at me or around at her new surroundings.
“You are named for a great and adventurous female,” I murmured to my daughter. “She chose her own path, just like your mother, and she saw many of the great wonders of the world. I will read her memoirs to you beginning tomorrow. I think you’ll like her tales of life on the sea.”
“And hopefully someday she’ll get to hear the stories that are in that missing volume,” Hazel said without opening her eyes. “You know, the one you promised to find while I was screaming and giving birth to your children?”
I cleared my throat. “I believe I promised to apply myself with even more enthusiasm to the cause of locating the volume. It’s no easy task. It’s been lost for two centuries.”
“I have faith in you,” she murmured. “And I know you won’t disappoint me or our daughter.”
“Do you hear how your mother speaks to me?” I asked Yrahli. “As if I won’t have my hands full caring for her and you and your brother as well as opening our new bookshop in the square—”
Yrahli yawned and closed her eyes, her dark lashes breathtakingly beautiful against her light coral scales.
“Sleep, little one,” I said, using one fingertip to caress her silky hair. “It will be time for them to eat soon.”
“Soon, but not yet.” Hazel snuggled a little deeper into my coils. “You’ll warm their meat for them when it’s time?”
“Of course, my love.” I held Yrahli with one arm and stroked my mate’s hair with the other. “You will do nothing but rest and recover. I will see to everything.”
With a little sigh, Hazel opened her eyes and looked up at me with a tired smile as she gently stroked Arelos’s back. “In that case, I’ll let you take your time with the missing memoirs.”
“Many thanks, my shelshi,” I said wryly.
“Reading them aloud to our daughter would make a wonderful first birthday gift for her, though,” she said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “And as the village’s new bookshop owners, what a point of pride such a discovery would be for us.”
“Of course, my light.” I watched Yrahli wriggle on my chest, her crimson tail curling as she snuffled in her sleep. “You are right, as always.”
“As always,” my mate murmured, her eyelids drifting closed. “I love you, Terolon.”
“I love you, Hazel.” I reached over and turned down the lantern until only the faintest glow remained. “Rest, sweet mate.”
Later that night, as a warm sea breeze swirled through the window, bringing with it the scents that had once called Princess Yrahli away to her destiny, I looked over my family asleep in my coils and wondered if some first-born prince or princess, or any young serpentae of Izaelon, would someday read our tale in the annals of history and find it illuminated their own path.
It was a very pleasing thought, indeed.