Small R-18
The breakfast was gone. The bed was still warm. And my hand had found its way back to Yennefer's breast.
Not deliberately, exactly. We'd been talking—about the Lyceum curriculum, about how Lysara had already sent three students to remedial study for skipping ahead in their Spellbooks—and somewhere between "chapter one" and "she made them rewrite the fundamental exercises by hand," my fingers had drifted from Yennefer's shoulder to her collarbone to the soft weight of her breast, my thumb tracing lazy circles over her nipple through the thin sheet.
Yennefer had noticed. Of course she had. She arched into the touch without breaking her sentence, a low hum of approval vibrating through the link. Her skin was warm under my palm, and her nipple hardened against my thumb.
"You're not subtle," she said.
"I'm not trying to be." I kissed the curve of her neck, letting my fangs graze the skin there—light enough to make her breath catch without leaving a mark. The ozone-and-lilac scent of her was stronger this close, mixed with something warmer from sleep. "You were saying something about Lysara's remedial program."
"I was. And you're making it difficult to care about Lysara's remedial program." She turned her head to catch my mouth, and the kiss lasted longer than either of us planned. She tasted like fruit and sleep and the faint electric tang that was uniquely hers.
When we parted, her violet eyes were half-lidded and her breathing had shifted. My hand was still on her breast, squeezing gently, and the link between us carried a low current of arousal that was building toward something neither of us had time for.
"I have a question," she said.
"Mm."
"A real question. Stop that—" She didn't actually push my hand away. "—for thirty seconds and answer me."
I didn't stop. I did slow down. "Ask."
She settled against me, her back to my chest, my arm draped over her with my hand still cupping her breast. Comfortable. The morning light caught her midnight scales and turned them faintly iridescent.
"Since we talked about children last night," she said, "I've been curious about something. How does it actually work? The birth, I mean. I'm Draconian. You're..." She gestured vaguely at me. "A dragon. Daenerys is currently a Dragonborn. Are all Wyrmborne births the same?"
"No." I rolled her nipple between my fingers and felt her shiver. "Dragonborns and Draconians have different reproductive biology. It's one of the fundamental differences between the two types."
"Explain."
"Female Dragonborns lay eggs. Their bodies are closer to true dragon physiology—scaled, internally structured with the draconic template as the primary architecture. The reproductive cycle mirrors that. Conception, gestation, and then an egg. Smaller than a dragon's, obviously. Roughly the size of a large melon. The shell is tough but not stone-hard like a petrified dragon egg. Incubation takes about three months outside the body."
Yennefer processed this without interrupting. "And Draconians?"
"Live births. Your body retained the mammalian reproductive framework even after the conversion—the draconic modifications layered over it rather than replacing it. You'll carry a child the way a human woman would, with a few important differences." I kissed the top of her head. "The conversion strengthened everything. Your body heals faster, tolerates strain better, and your internal biology is more resilient than any human's. Draconian women can handle the physical demands of pregnancy and labor with significantly less risk."
"Less risk," she repeated. "How much less?"
"On the Continent, you told me once that one in ten women die in childbirth. Among peasants, worse."
"I remember."
"Among Draconians, the number is effectively zero. The biology handles most of the heavy lifting—the body's enhanced regeneration, the reinforced skeletal and muscular systems, the improved circulatory efficiency. And on top of that, we have healing magic. Proper healing magic, not the hedge-witch poultices and prayer that most women on this continent get. A trained healer can manage pain, accelerate delivery, repair any complications in real-time. The Draconian body was designed to survive combat against creatures that make childbirth look gentle by comparison. It can handle bringing life into the world."
Yennefer was quiet for a moment. I felt her thinking through the link—not the words, but the shape of the thought. Relief, old and bone-deep, that she'd been too cautious to feel last night.
"So when I eventually decide to have children," she said carefully, "it won't kill me. It won't even be particularly dangerous."
"No. It won't."
She exhaled and turned in my arms, pressing her face against my chest. I wrapped both arms around her and held her. My chest rumbled, and Yennefer's body relaxed against the vibration like it was something solid she could lean into.
"Good," she said. Just that.
I held her until the morning light shifted from gold to white and the sounds of the city below grew louder. Eventually, she pulled back, kissed me once more and reached for her clothes.
"I have training to get to," she said. "Triss will notice if I'm late."
"Triss will notice more than that."
Yennefer paused with her dress halfway on. "What do you mean?"
I let the silence answer for me.
Small R-18 End
The Arcane Lyceum — Midmorning
Triss noticed.
"Yen," she said, looking up from her Transmutation primer as Yennefer crossed the courtyard toward the study area the Witcher group had claimed. "You're glowing."
"I'm a Lightning-Shadow Draconian. I always glow."
"Not like that, you don't." Triss set her book down. A century of friendship made deflection impossible, and Triss wasn't trying to deflect. "Your scales are brighter. Your eyes are doing that—that thing, that violet pulse they do when you're channeling positive emotion through the link. And you're walking differently."
"I'm walking the same way I always walk."
"No you're not."
From across the practice yard, Ciri looked up from her Evocation exercises. Force bolts hung in the air around her like frozen stars, waiting to be shaped. "What's happening?"
"Triss is being invasive," Yennefer said.
"Triss is being observant," Triss corrected. "Did you sleep with Angelus?"
The force bolts evaporated as Ciri lost her concentration. "What?"
Geralt, who had been sitting against a column with an Abjuration text balanced on his knee, didn't look up. But his eyes stopped moving across the page.
Arya, cross-legged on the floor with her Illusion primer, did look up. Openly.
Yennefer weighed her options, then decided that lying to a room full of enhanced-sense Draconians and Witchers was a waste of effort.
"Yes," she said. She sat down, pulled her Conjuration Spellbook from her bag, and opened it to the page she'd bookmarked. "Last night. It was the final date I owed her."
Silence. Then everyone talked at once.
"Was it—" Ciri started.
"How was the—" Triss began.
"None of my business," Geralt said firmly, and went back to his reading.
Arya said nothing, but she was listening.
Yennefer raised one hand and the chatter stopped. "I'm not giving you a blow-by-blow. We had dinner. There was magic instruction. One thing led to another. She's attentive, extremely thorough, and the Soul Link does things to sensation that I'm still processing twelve hours later." She turned a page in her Spellbook. "There. Satisfied?"
Ciri was grinning. "The Soul Link amplification? That feedback loop she mentioned?"
"You knew about that?"
"I experienced it a little after the Hunt on our first date when she Marked me. It's—" Ciri made a vague gesture. "—a lot."
"It's a lot," Yennefer agreed, and left it there.
Triss was watching Yennefer's face with a softer expression. "You seem happy, Yen. Actually happy. Not your 'everything is going according to plan' satisfied. Happy."
"Don't make it a bigger thing than it is."
"It's exactly as big as it is." Triss picked her book back up, then paused. "Anything else happen? You have that look. The one where there's more and you're deciding how to say it."
Yennefer's fingers stilled on the page. The courtyard was quiet except for the distant sound of Lysara barking orders at a group of Battlemages on the far side of the compound.
"She told me I'm not barren anymore," Yennefer said.
This time the silence was different. Heavier. Even Geralt looked up.
"What?" Triss said.
"The Draconian conversion. It rebuilt my body from the foundation up. New cells, new architecture, new everything. The womb I sacrificed at Aretuza was my human womb. The one I have now is Draconian, and it was never part of any bargain." Yennefer kept her voice level, but the link—if any of them could feel it—was a storm of controlled emotion. "I can have children. Whenever I choose to."
Triss's book slid from her fingers and hit the stone floor with a flat slap that echoed across the courtyard. She didn't pick it up.
Ciri reached over and gripped Yennefer's hand. No words.
Geralt closed his Abjuration text with deliberate care and looked at Yennefer for a long moment. His expression didn't change much—it never did—but something shifted behind his eyes. "Good," he said quietly. "You deserve that."
Arya had gone very still. She looked between Yennefer and Triss, her brow furrowed. "Wait. You sacrificed your womb? Voluntarily? To learn magic?"
Yennefer turned to her. "Not to learn magic. To fix my body. I was born a hunchback, Arya. Twisted spine, dislocated jaw, a club foot. Every sorceress at Aretuza pays a price for the physical corrections—the magic reshapes you into something beautiful, but it takes something in exchange. For most of us, it takes the ability to bear children."
Arya stared at her. "That's—" She stopped. Started again. "On the Continent, that's just... normal? Sorceresses trade their fertility and nobody talks about it?"
"It's not only known. It's even accepted. It's considered a reasonable price." Yennefer's mouth twisted. "By the Brotherhood, the Lodge and every institution that benefits from having powerful, beautiful, conveniently infertile women serving their interests. Whether the women themselves consider it reasonable is a question nobody bothers to ask."
"That's fucked," Arya said flatly.
"Yes," Yennefer agreed. "It is."
Triss hadn't spoken. She was staring at her own hands, her crimson scales catching the light, her expression shifting as she worked through something.
"Triss?" Yennefer said.
"I went through the same thing," Triss said, her voice careful and precise. "Aretuza. The same process, the same exchange. I wasn't a hunchback—my corrections were smaller, cosmetic—but the price was the same. Fertility for beauty. I've been barren since I was seventeen."
She looked up. Her eyes were bright and her jaw was set.
"If the conversion rebuilt your body," she said, "it rebuilt mine too."
The words hung in the air. Yennefer met her gaze and nodded, once.
"Yes. It did."
Triss pressed both hands flat on the stone floor, and a small ring of fire bloomed around her fingers before she caught it and pulled the magic back. Her breathing was unsteady.
"Triss," Ciri said gently.
"I'm fine. I'm—" She laughed, and it came out thick and wet. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm going to cry in public and I'd like everyone to pretend that isn't happening."
"Already pretending," Geralt said, looking firmly at his Abjuration text.
"Didn't see a thing," Arya said.
Triss laughed again—cleaner this time—and picked up her Transmutation primer from the floor. She brushed the dust off its cover with shaking fingers. "Right. Training. We're here to train."
"We're here to train," Yennefer confirmed.
But under the table, Triss's foot pressed against Yennefer's. Neither of them moved it.
The training continued. Yennefer threw herself into the Conjuration exercises with renewed focus, and if her spells burned a little hotter and her portals stabilized a little faster, nobody commented on it.
Ciri shaped her first successful Magic Missile by midday—three bolts of force that tracked independent targets, curving through the air like hunting hawks rather than flying in straight lines. She whooped and punched the air, then immediately demanded to know the next spell.
Arya held her illusion for nine seconds before it dissolved. An image of herself standing six feet to the left, perfect down to the scar on her cheek and the way she balanced her weight. She watched it flicker out, already cataloguing where the spell had failed.
Geralt's Shield expanded to cover a five-foot radius and held against three simultaneous fire bolts without cracking. He dropped it, shook out his hands, and drank half a waterskin before attempting it again. Each repetition lasted a little longer. His Signs were already burning hotter than before, and the Abjuration framework gave him something he'd never had: sustained defense.
Triss worked through Transmutation theory with quiet intensity, pausing occasionally to wipe her eyes when she thought nobody was watching. She'd already identified three cross-references between the DnD framework and Drakengard combat magic that hadn't been flagged in the Spellbooks.
By afternoon, the Witcher group had found their rhythm. Spells snapped and crackled across the practice yard. Lysara's Battlemages gave them a wide berth after Ciri's Magic Missile took an unexpected curve and scorched the hem of a sergeant's cloak.
"Sorry!" Ciri called.
The sergeant looked at the smoldering fabric, looked at Ciri, and relocated his practice station to the far end of the compound without comment.
Another mage nearby who saw it said. "Yeah, I'm going to stay waaaaay over here..." Before moving to another location to practice.
Ciri blushes in embarrassment from their reactions but continues her magic training.
Late Afternoon
Raven. Come to the forge.
Yennefer's head came up mid-spell. The Conjuration formula dissolved, mana scattering like startled birds. She blinked, then closed her Spellbook.
"Angelus?" Triss asked.
"She wants me at the forge." Yennefer stood and brushed dust from her dress. A faint pulse of anticipation carried through the link—not from her. From Angelus. Whatever was waiting for her at the forge, the dragon was excited about it.
"Should I come?" Triss asked.
"She asked for me specifically." Yennefer hesitated, then: "I'll tell you about it later."
She crossed the compound on foot, taking the winding stone path from the Lyceum to the forge complex that Angelus had built during the first weeks of settlement. The forge was part smithy, part magical laboratory—a massive open-air structure of black stone and Wyrm-Forged metal where temperatures could be raised hot enough to work materials that would shatter conventional anvils.
Angelus was waiting inside, standing beside a long stone table. The forge fires were banked but still radiating waves of heat that made the air shimmer. And on the table, resting on a cloth of deep black silk, was something that made Yennefer stop walking.
It was a weapon.
A spear—or a staff, or something between the two. Long-handled, nearly six feet from base to tip, the shaft made of a material that Yennefer recognized immediately as obsidian. But not natural obsidian. This was dragon-scale obsidian—volcanic glass fused with draconic essence during the Wyrm-Forged process, producing a material that was cool to the touch and harder than steel. The shaft was pure black and unmarked, absorbing light the way Yennefer's own scales did. It drank in the forge-glow and gave nothing back.
The tip was something else entirely.
Shadow made solid. A material that looked like crystallized darkness, tapering to a point that seemed to bend the air around it. And arcing across the shadow-forged blade in continuous, living patterns, violet-white electricity crackled and spat. Actual lightning, bound into the weapon's structure, dancing across the dark surface in patterns that mirrored the electrical arcs that played between Yennefer's own scales.
"What is this?" Yennefer said.
"Yours." I stepped back from the table and watched her approach. "Pick it up."
She reached for it. Her fingers closed around the shaft, and the weapon responded. The lightning intensified, brightening from violet-white to a deep, rich purple that matched Yennefer's eyes. The shadow-forged tip pulsed once, and Yennefer's own shadow on the wall behind her rippled and spread as if something had moved beneath its surface.
"Oh," she breathed.
"I'm calling it the Umbral Stormbringer. You can call it whatever you want." I moved to stand beside her as she turned the weapon in her hands, testing its balance, feeling its weight. "Dragon-scale obsidian shaft, Wyrm-Forged with Mithril threading for magical conductivity. The tip is materialized shadow, solidified through a Transmutation process I adapted from the Drakengard defensive matrices. The lightning is self-sustaining—channeled from the ambient electrical charge that your body produces naturally."
Yennefer's eyes were wide. She wasn't trying to hide it. "What does it do?"
"Two aspects. Shadow and Lightning, matching your dual element." I pointed to the blade. "The shadow aspect lets you phase through solid matter for short intervals—walk through a wall, pass through an enemy's shield, step sideways through physical obstacles. It extends your existing teleportation range significantly. Dimension Door took you twenty feet. With the Stormbringer as a focus, you should manage two hundred, maybe more with practice. And it can project shadow constructs—tendrils, limbs, shapes that can restrain, bind, or hold targets. Think of it as an extension of your will made manifest in darkness."
Yennefer was already testing it. She pointed the spear at a nearby practice dummy and pushed through the shadow aspect. A tendril of darkness erupted from the tip, whipped across the gap, and wrapped around the dummy's torso. It squeezed. The wood cracked.
"The lightning aspect," I continued, "channels electrical strikes that aren't purely elemental. They're magical. The energy signature reads as both physical lightning and spell-force simultaneously, which means it can punch through anti-magic wards that would deflect normal elemental attacks. Same principle as Alzur's Thunder, but scaled up and with the penetrative quality built into the weapon rather than requiring the caster to structure it each time."
She released the shadow tendril and the dummy rocked back on its base, dented. "What's this?" She ran her thumb over a set of runes etched into the shaft near the base.
"Pact Synergy," I said. "The weapon draws on the bond between us. The closer you are to me, the more power it can access from that connection. Within a hundred feet, you'll feel a noticeable amplification. Within arm's reach..." I let the implication hang. "Well. You felt what the link does at close range last night."
Her cheeks colored, but she didn't look away. "So it's stronger near you."
"Everything in my harem is stronger near me. The Stormbringer just makes the effect quantifiable."
"And this?" She tapped a secondary set of runes, smaller, darker.
"Purification. It can absorb corruption—curses, blights, magical pollution, ambient darkness like what saturates Old Valyria—and convert that absorbed darkness into usable energy. Think of it as a weapon that gets fed by the worst magical environments in the world. Everywhere else is afraid of cursed ground. You'll walk through it getting stronger."
Yennefer turned the spear in her hands one more time, then planted the base on the stone floor. The crack echoed through the forge. Shadow pooled at her feet and lightning arced up the shaft.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome, my little Raven." I kissed her forehead. "But that's not the only reason I called you here."
Her eyes narrowed. "There's more?"
"There's more." I turned to the far end of the forge, where a cloth-covered shape sat on a pedestal that I'd set up earlier. "Come."
I led her to the pedestal and pulled the cloth away.
An egg.
Slightly larger than a human head, its shell dark and mottled—deep blue bleeding into black, with hairline cracks of amber light glowing from within like veins of trapped fire. It radiated warmth. A slow heat, deeper than any forge, as though something inside was burning at a frequency that conventional fire couldn't reach.
"That's a dragon egg," Yennefer said. "Modified. There's..." She leaned closer, and her eyes narrowed further. "There's a consciousness in there. I can feel it through the link. Something aware."
"There is." I rested my hand on the egg's shell. The amber veins brightened at my touch. "This is the reason I brought you to the forge instead of just giving you the spear in the courtyard. This requires context."
Yennefer crossed her arms and leaned against the spear. "I'm listening."
"You know the template for Mikhail—that she was modeled on a dragon from the world I lived in before I came here. The Drakengard world."
"Ciri mentioned it. Mikhail is based on a male dragon from a future timeline that you were never part of, and you adjusted the template to match what you needed."
"Correct. Mikhail's soul is her own—born fresh, shaped by the template but not beholden to it. She's her own person." I turned the egg slowly on its pedestal. "This is different. This egg doesn't contain a template. It contains an actual soul. Stored and preserved. Waiting for rebirth."
Yennefer went very still. "Whose soul?"
"A dragon named Legna."
I let the name settle before continuing.
"Legna was a dragon from my world. Powerful, intelligent, one of the last of the ancient breed. We fought each other at first—territorial disputes, ideological disagreements about how to handle the humans encroaching on our territories. But we shared a fundamental belief: that dragons were the superior race, and that our kind deserved to rule. Eventually, we found common cause."
I paused, choosing my words. Legna deserved an accurate telling, not a sanitized one.
"He was arrogant. Deeply, genuinely arrogant—the bone-deep kind, where he'd assessed his own capabilities, assessed the world, and concluded that he was superior to most of what he saw. And he was right often enough that nobody could argue the point. He was also brilliant. A strategist, a manipulator, and one of the most charismatic leaders among dragonkind. He held a low opinion of humanity in general—saw them as lesser beings, fragile and short-lived and prone to self-destruction."
"He sounds delightful," Yennefer said dryly.
"He was complicated. Because under all that superiority, he was capable of genuine loyalty and real affection. Not for humanity as a whole—he never lost his contempt for the species—but for specific individuals who earned his respect. He could be a mentor, a protector, even a father figure to those he chose to care about. The contradiction was the most interesting thing about him."
I ran my fingers along the egg's shell. The amber veins pulsed in response.
"When the Watchers came—extradimensional entities that attacked our world—Legna fought alongside me. We defended the Ancient Valyrians together. Our empire, our people, our way of life. He fought well. He fought with everything he had." I kept my voice even. "He died."
Yennefer said nothing. Waiting.
"Before the end, he asked me to store his soul. Dragon souls don't dissipate the way mortal souls do—they linger, and with the right magic, they can be preserved intact. Memories, personality, power—everything that made Legna who he was, compressed into a vessel and kept safe. He had one request: when I found a way to bring him back, I should find him a rider partner. Someone who could match him."
I looked at Yennefer.
"It took me ten thousand years. But I think I found someone."
Yennefer's eyes moved from me to the egg and back. "You're saying this egg contains the intact soul of an ancient dragon who shares your worldview, hates humanity, and wants a rider. And you think I'm the right match for him."
"I know you are."
"Why?"
"Because Legna is cold on the outside and fierce on the inside. He presents arrogance, superiority, and disdain to the world, but to the people he claims as his own, he's protective to the point of violence. He manipulates, he schemes, he controls—and underneath all of it, he loves with an intensity that he'd rather die than admit to." I held her gaze. "Tell me that doesn't sound familiar."
Yennefer opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"You're comparing me to a misanthropic dragon," she said.
"I'm comparing you to a brilliant, proud, impossibly stubborn creature who spent centuries pretending not to care about anyone because caring meant vulnerability, and who covered a capacity for deep, ferocious loyalty with a shell of sharp wit and calculated superiority." I smiled. "You'll either bond with him perfectly or kill each other within the first week. I'm betting on the former."
She looked at the egg for a long time. The amber veins pulsed steadily, like a heartbeat.
"What element?" she asked.
"Shadow and Flame. Dual element. What the old terminology would call 'Abyssal Flame' or 'Dark Sun'—shadow-infused fire. It suits him. He always operated in darkness, but his power burned."
"And if I bond with him, he'll hatch?"
"The egg needs a magical signature to anchor to. Your touch, your mana, will trigger the hatching process. His soul has been waiting for the right resonance. Given your dual element nature and your personality..." I gestured at the egg. "I expect it to happen fast."
Yennefer set the Umbral Stormbringer against the wall, where it stood on its own, shadows pooling at its base. She stepped up to the pedestal and looked down at the egg.
"You're giving me a weapon that grows stronger near you," she said, "and a dragon whose soul has waited ten thousand years for someone to match him."
"Yes."
"You don't do things halfway, do you?"
"Never have."
She placed both hands on the egg.
The reaction was instant. The amber veins flared white-hot, and a pulse of energy rolled outward from the shell—presence. Something old and vast and deeply, unmistakably aware surging toward the surface. Yennefer's mana flowed into the egg and the egg drank it greedily, the shell's dark surface beginning to crack along the amber lines.
The cracks spread. Shadow bled from them like smoke, thick and dark and alive, curling around Yennefer's hands and wrists in tendrils that moved with deliberate intent. And through the shadow, fire—a deep, dark amber, the color of light filtered through volcanic glass. The two elements twined together, shadow and flame braiding into a double helix that spiraled upward from the cracking shell.
The egg split open.
What emerged was small. A hatchling, no larger than a hunting hawk, shaking shell fragments from a body that was dark blue and charcoal-black, with hard overlapping scales that gleamed with a faintly oily iridescence. The head was broad and flat, armored with heavy brow-plates, with a blunt snout that housed rows of teeth already sharp enough to draw blood. Small, partially developed wings folded tight against a compact, muscular body. Thick legs ending in curved claws that scraped against the stone pedestal as the hatchling found its footing. A tail, ridged with spines, curled once around the empty shell before sweeping it aside.
And the eyes. Burning amber, set deep beneath those armored brow-plates, ancient and intelligent and completely, utterly aware.
A ten-thousand-year-old dragon waking up in a new body and taking stock.
The hatchling shook itself once. Shadow flickered across its scales like dark flame, and a pulse of heat radiated from its body—the Abyssal Flame element asserting itself, fire burning beneath a layer of living darkness.
Those amber eyes fixed on me.
Angelus.
The voice through the link was thin—a hatchling's body could only channel so much—but the personality behind it was unmistakable. Old. Precise. Carrying the faint edge of superiority that Legna had never been able to fully suppress, even when addressing someone he respected.
Legna. "It's good to see you again."
It has been... a considerable amount of time. He flexed his small wings experimentally. The left one extended properly; the right caught on a fragment of shell still stuck to his shoulder spike. He shook it loose with a grunt of irritation. This body is insultingly small. How long until it isn't?
"Depends on how quickly you adapt to the new template. Your soul is intact, your memories are intact, your magical reserves will rebuild as your body grows. Weeks to months before you're large enough to ride. Years before you approach your old size."
Unacceptable. But I assume unavoidable.
"Unavoidable."
He huffed. A small puff of dark fire scorched the silk cloth and nothing else. He stared at the tiny flame with visible disgust.
Then his attention shifted to Yennefer.
She stood beside the pedestal, arms crossed, watching. The Umbral Stormbringer leaned against the wall behind her, shadow and lightning still active along its surface. Her violet eyes met Legna's amber ones.
This is the one you chose for me? Legna asked through the link—but pitched so Yennefer could hear it too, since the bond had already begun forming the moment she'd touched the egg.
"This is Yennefer of Vengerberg," I said. "Sorceress, Draconian, Lightning-Shadow dual element. One of the most powerful magical practitioners on this continent and one of the most intelligent people I've ever met. In any lifetime."
Legna studied her. His head tilted. On a full-grown dragon, the gesture would have been intimidating. On a body the size of a hawk, it looked almost comical—but those old, old eyes ruined the comedy.
A sorceress. And a Draconian. He turned his head to me. She smells of lightning and shadow. And of you.
"She's mine," I said simply.
Obviously. You wouldn't give me to someone who wasn't. He turned back to Yennefer. You. Sorceress. How old are you?
Yennefer raised an eyebrow. "Old enough to know that a hatchling the size of a house cat shouldn't open conversations by demanding personal information."
Something flickered in those amber eyes. Not offense. Interest.
A century? Two? You carry yourself like someone who has survived things. Multiple things. You're angry about some of them and proud of others, and you hide both behind a wall of deliberate composure. He tilted his head the other way. I know the technique. I invented it.
She scoffed. "You didn't invent composure."
I perfected it.
Yennefer looked at me. "He's arrogant."
"I warned you."
"You did." She turned back to Legna. "My name is Yennefer. I'm a sorceress from a place called the Continent—a world that merged with this one through an event called the Conjunction of the Spheres. I've been a Draconian for several weeks, I've been studying magic that makes everything I learned in a century look like finger-painting, and I've been told that you and I are supposedly compatible." She uncrossed her arms. "Convince me."
Legna blinked. Slowly. The gesture carried the same deliberate weight that a full-grown dragon's would.
I don't convince. I am what I am. If you're what Angelus says you are, you'll recognize it. If you're not— A small puff of dark flame. —then she was wrong about you, and that would be a first.
The silence stretched.
Then Yennefer laughed—a short, sharp sound that surprised even her. "All right. I like you."
I haven't decided if I like you yet.
"Take your time. I'm told we have centuries."
I left them together after a while. Yennefer had settled onto the floor of the forge with Legna in her lap—or rather, with Legna perched on her thigh, because he had made it very clear that he was not a lap creature and was merely using her leg as a convenient elevated surface. Yennefer scratched the armored plates along his spine and he pretended not to enjoy it.
They talked. Or rather, Yennefer asked questions and Legna answered them with measured authority, occasionally correcting himself mid-sentence when he referenced something from the old world that no longer applied.
He wanted to know everything. The Wyrmborne. The territories. The military structure. The magic system. The fused world and its implications. How many dragons existed, how many Dragonborn, how many Draconians. What threats remained. What wars had been fought. What wars were coming.
I answered what I could before leaving, and told Yennefer the rest through the link as she relayed it to Legna.
His opinions came through clearly.
On the Wyrmborne as a concept: An army of draconic beings serving a True Dragon. This is how the world should have been from the beginning. Your predecessor civilizations—the Ancient Valyrians in our world, whoever held this continent before you—they had the right idea but insufficient commitment.
On Daenerys: A human elevated to draconic status through blood and fire. I withhold judgment until I meet her. But the fact that Angelus chose her as co-ruler suggests either extraordinary quality or extraordinary sentiment. Knowing Angelus, probably both.
On the fused world: Multiple realities merged into one. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Also fascinating. The magical ecosystem must be extraordinarily dense—competing frameworks layered over each other, interacting in ways nobody has mapped. I want access to the Spellbooks immediately.
On the territories: Five cities. Two thousand Wyrmborne. In a world this size, that's a foothold, not an empire. But the quality of the foothold matters more than the size, and from what I'm hearing, the quality is impressive.
He was particularly interested in Nerion.
A Lagiacrus, he said, and his amber eyes burned brighter when Yennefer described the sea dragon's origin. An actual Lagiacrus, alive and growing in this world's oceans. I fought their kind in the old world. They were among the very few aquatic creatures that could challenge a dragon. Their electrical capacity is— He paused. Formidable. I want to meet this one.
"You will," Yennefer said. "He hunts in the deep water beyond the breakwater most days."
A creature of the abyss, and he stays near a port city?
"He's bonded with Angelus. And he's young. Six weeks old, give or take."
Six weeks. Legna processed this. And already eighty feet long with electrical capacity sufficient to warrant respect. The True Dragon Bloodline accelerates growth to an absurd degree.
"You have the same bloodline now."
I'm aware. It's the only thing making this body tolerable. He flexed his wings again. They were already slightly larger than they'd been an hour ago. Take me to the others. I want to see the rest of Angelus's brood.
The Meeting
We gathered them in the open yard between the forge and the Hatchery—the only space large enough to accommodate the size differences involved.
Mikhail arrived first. She landed in a controlled descent that cracked the flagstones, her white-and-gold form filling the yard from wall to wall. At Level 4, she was massive—a Western Dragon in full, with scales like burnished snow and armor-plating of dark gold across her chest and limbs. Her golden eyes locked onto Legna immediately.
The hatchling sat on Yennefer's shoulder and stared up at her.
That is a Western Dragon, he observed. Level 4, ice-and-fire hybrid element, True Dragon Bloodline. Named after the Drakengard template but with her own soul. His amber eyes narrowed. She's young. A few months at most. But the power in her body is... considerable.
"Mikhail," I said, projecting through the link so both dragons could hear, "this is Legna. An old ally from my world, reborn. He'll be bonding with Yennefer."
Mikhail lowered her massive head until it was level with Yennefer's shoulder. Her golden eyes fixed on the tiny hatchling, unblinking.
He's small, Mikhail observed.
I'm aware, Legna said coolly. I'm also ten thousand years old, temporarily inconvenienced by biology. In a year I will be considerably less small.
Ten thousand? Mikhail's eyes flicked to me.
"He's telling the truth. Legna and I fought together before the Fall. He's the real thing."
Mikhail huffed. A gust of frost-tinged air washed over Yennefer and Legna. The hatchling didn't flinch.
Then welcome, ancient one. You're in Mother's territory now. Behave accordingly.
"Mother's territory." Legna's voice carried a note of dry amusement. You call her Mother.
She hatched me. She raised me. She made me what I am. What else would I call her?
A valid point. He inclined his head—just enough to acknowledge, nowhere near enough to defer. I'll keep that in mind.
Balerion arrived next, with Enoch gliding in from the east on green-gold wings. The two younger dragons landed on opposite sides of the yard, and the ground shook as Balerion's massive Level 3 form settled.
Legna assessed them both in silence.
The black one is fire-element, Level 3, rider-bonded. Aggressive temperament—I can see it in the way he holds his wings. He's ready to fight at any moment. A pause. Good. A dragon should always be ready.
The green one is more interesting. Versatile element, rider-bonded to a magic user—I can smell the shared mana channel. He's the support combatant. Less raw power than the other two, but more tactical flexibility. Another pause, longer. Also good. Armies need soldiers and generals both.
"Any critiques?" I asked.
They're all very young. And very loyal to you. The loyalty is genuine—I can feel it through the ambient link. That's... unusual. In my experience, dragon loyalty is either coerced or temporary. He looked at me. You've built something I've never seen before, Angelus. A draconic hierarchy based on affection rather than dominance.
"It works."
Evidently.
Nerion arrived last, and he arrived dramatically. The harbor water surged, foam cresting over the breakwater, and then eighty feet of armored leviathan hauled itself up the shoreline and into the yard's drainage channel. Electrical discharge lit up the evening air—blue-white arcs dancing between his dorsal spines, illuminating the yard in strobing flashes.
Legna went rigid on Yennefer's shoulder. Every scale on his small body flared with shadow-fire.
There, he said, and his voice had changed. The dry superiority was still there, but underneath it—underneath everything—was something that sounded almost like reverence. That is a Lagiacrus.
Nerion's massive head swung toward the hatchling. His glowing blue eyes studied Legna for a long moment, then blinked once. Slow. Deliberate.
Who is this? Nerion rumbled through the link.
"Legna," I said. "Reborn ancient dragon. Shadow-Flame element. He's bonded to Yennefer."
He is... very small.
And you are very large, Legna replied, unbothered. I've fought your kind before in the old world, the Lagiacrus were the only aquatic species that gave dragons pause. Your electrical capacity, your armor, your ability to operate in environments where flight was meaningless—you were the sea's answer to the sky's dragons.
Nerion's electrical field brightened. Interest. You know my kind.
I know your kind's ancestors. You are young and you are powerful and you are going to be magnificent. The hatchling's amber eyes burned. I look forward to seeing it.
The three hatchlings arrived together—or rather, Aethon arrived first, Sunfyre arrived loudly, and Auranthor arrived when he was good and ready.
Aethon landed on the stone railing and immediately sneezed lightning in Legna's direction. The bolt went wide, scorching a flagstone.
Energetic, Legna observed.
Sunfyre shrieked his presence from across the yard, his sunset-orange scales blazing with inner light as he scrambled over Balerion's tail and launched himself at the nearest elevated surface to get a better look at the newcomer.
Aggressive, Legna added.
Auranthor walked into the yard on four sturdy legs, his golden-brown scales gleaming, and settled himself beside Nerion's bulk. No rush. No fuss. He looked at Legna. Legna looked at him. Neither spoke.
Sensible, Legna concluded.
Yennefer ran a hand along the hatchling's spine. "What's your overall assessment?"
Legna was quiet for a moment, surveying the yard. A White Dragon. A Black Wyvern-evolved. A Green Wyvern. A Lagiacrus. A Lightning Dragon hatchling, a Sunfire Wyvern hatchling, an Earth Drake. Eight draconic creatures in one space, all carrying the True Dragon Bloodline, all bound to a single True Dragon through bonds of magic and loyalty and something that looked, from the outside, uncomfortably like family.
Angelus has built an army, he said. But that isn't what impresses me. Armies are simple—find strong creatures, point them at enemies. What she's built is a dynasty. A living, growing draconic lineage that will outlast any single war or campaign or political arrangement. These creatures will breed. Their children will carry the Bloodline. Their children's children will carry it further. In five generations, this world won't have a non-draconic power structure capable of challenging them.
He settled his wings and curled his tail around Yennefer's arm.
I chose well, he said. When I asked her to find me a place in the world she was building. This is worth waking up for.
"So you approve," Yennefer said.
I approve. A small puff of dark flame. Now feed me. This body requires an absurd amount of energy and I haven't eaten in ten thousand years.
Yennefer looked at me.
I shrugged. "He was always like this."
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End of Chapter Thirty-Seven