EPILOGUE

Seven Fulnesses later

 

Taimon was waiting for his family on the rocky promontory that qualified as a pier on the isles of the Reef, bouncing from one rock to another on his way down to greet them at the water’s edge. Gone were the light blue robes of a noble wolf of the Isles, replaced with the more practical dark leather clothing worn by the wolves on the Reef. Still, a harsh change of wardrobe couldn’t quite erase the playfulness in his step.

He smiled down at the longboat as soon as it was close enough for the occupants to hear him. “What took you so long? I sent word west to the exiles three weeks ago!”

“News takes time, brother.” Destin smiled back at Taimon as he locked the boat in place and held it so the occupants could pile out of it. Kaia went first of course, but Leander and Marella weren’t far behind, leaving Destin and Adriana to climb up onto the rock after them. “We came as quickly as we received word, but we didn’t imagine Daiva or her pups would be going anywhere any time soon. Were we wrong?”

“No, I just like yelling at you for being late.” He hugged Kaia tightly, not letting go as he continued the conversation. “The pups were born almost a week ago. All but one of them have already opened their eyes. That’s how late you are.”

Kaia held onto Taimon as they made their way, though it certainly wasn’t easy making it across the rock. She looked back only once to see Miris staying back with the boat, but then she let Taimon drag her along toward Daiva and Hassir’s home. “We missed all of that already? Did they name them already too?”

“She says they have their names prepared, but they haven’t officially named them in the presence of the other council elders yet. She’s been waiting for you.” He picked his way over the stones with the ease of experience, since he’d lived on the Reef for more than half a year already.

It had been a long and quiet spring and summer for everyone, and the weather was beginning to turn cooler again after the heat of the year. Time on the Reef had passed in a vigilant blur, as Hassir set all manner of security measures in place to warn them of any kind of attack forthcoming from the Isles or the Genovin. For all their watchful anxiety, the months had passed in uneasy peace.

The Reef itself looked anything but peaceful. The path they took, such as it was, led over a vast expanse of exposed stone with very few landmarks to show the passing distance. The plain seemed to stretch on forever even when they reached the top of a rise and could see the folds and dips of it extending its arms toward the horizon.

The only break in the perfect stillness was a cluster of buildings far in the distance, perched at the edge of a circular depression in the ground half a mile wide. It was also clearly their destination, as Taimon led them on, accompanied by several other Stoneborn of the Reef who were assigned to watch him at all times.

“This place is terrible.” Kaia said softly as she looked around, since there was nothing that was even close to being alive, other than the wolves themselves. She already felt like she needed to run until she found a tree to wrap her arms around, but she kept herself tightly at Taimon’s side. “Do you really like it here?” Kaia noticed a few wolves looking at her from afar as they wandered through, but she didn’t think she could possibly be the center of attention just because she had green eyes. Adriana was human, for crying out loud.

“I admit, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” He shared some of his own abundant energy with her as they walked, since he knew Kaia would get none of her own in the barren landscape. “I’m the Lady’s little brother, though, so I know I get a lot of preferential treatment. I don’t think I would like it here quite as well if I had to fight for my own survival or my own food every day against wolves three times my size.”

“They are scary.” Kaia assessed as they got closer to Daiva’s house. “It looks like they want to eat me.”

Adriana couldn’t help but laugh as she listened to Taimon and Kaia’s conversation, and as much as she knew she should be nervous, she was so happy to be with Destin that it was hard to feel anything else. Her precious babies were back home with Shian and Elyra, and even though she missed them and their smiling faces, she was glad to have some time to simply be with Destin. “How did Daiva handle her pregnancy anyway? She does not seem like the motherly type.”

“I’m sure she isn’t.” Destin laughed to himself, keeping a tight grip on Adriana’s hand as they walked to make sure no one got any ideas about challenging him for possession of her. “The one time I saw her was right after the midpoint, so she was rather irritated about needing to be reliant on Hassir all the time. Otherwise, even if she was miserable, I doubt she complained much to anyone.”

“It is so different from anything I’m familiar with.” Adriana thought about what it might be like in the future, if she could actually convince Destin to turn her so that they could have a family together. It was further complicated by Shian and her daughters, since Shian wanted her to be able to stay and live with the girls, which would be difficult if she turned. “I’m beginning to worry that some of these Stoneborn are going to run across and snatch up your sister. Maybe we should have asked Miris to come up with us.”

“They’ll behave themselves.” Taimon looked over his shoulder, nodding at Destin. “They know who Destin is. I know you don’t do it on purpose, brother, but a lot of people around here are actually really scared of you. Apparently you won a reputation for yourself around here by, you know, coming back from the dead.”

Destin seemed more amused by that than anything else, but he shrugged without letting go of Adriana’s hand. “Good. If anyone does get any ideas, just warn me if you notice. I came here to see our sister, not kill other wolves, but it won’t really be out of my way if the situation arises.”

Daiva was sitting amongst her puppies when they walked into her home. She had just finished feeding them, and was barely tugging her robes back on after shifting back into her human form when her family entered. She stood up slowly and smiled when she saw Destin, since she truly was happier when her brother was around. “You decided you wanted to come by after all?”

“Autumn storms.” He said by way of brief explanation, moving to a seat near her where he could get a good look at all of her puppies. “And we took a route somewhat out of our way to come along the Reef. Just in case.” He hadn’t wanted to sail in any way close to the Isles, since they were never sure how far out Melyssa’s patrols would be sailing in any given season.

Rather than dwell on the reasons for his lateness, though, he looked down at the floor at the remarkably large number of puppies running rampant all over each other. It was incredibly rare for wolves to have a single child, though not uncommon to have a litter of two or three in which only one survived, depending on the wolf.

It was less common, but not unheard of, for wolves to bear a litter of four or five pups. Daiva had given birth to six, and all of them were still alive so far, though he noticed that two in the group were moving much more slowly and less certainly than the other four. “Does it feel good to be out of your wolf for a while again?”

“Yes, it feels excellent to have full control of myself again.” She looked down at her pups as they remained more or less around her. Daiva picked one up and walked over to Kaia and held out a little male puppy. “I am glad you’re here, Kaia. I think he could use your support.” Daiva was just as surprised as anyone else that she had birthed six puppies, and, even moreso, that all of them had survived. It was unheard of, really, for all of the pups to survive, though she knew that she could still lose one or more in their early days.

Kaia looked down at the tiny squirming puppy in her hands, and she smiled when his little snout turned up and she could see into his green eyes. He had been trembling when Daiva handed him over to her, but as soon as she released just a little bit of her power into his tiny body, he relaxed as if she’d given him what he was looking for since the moment he was born.

“I told her the gods gave her a Forestborn as a means of revenge for giving you so much grief over the years.” Taimon looked down at Kaia, glancing over at Daiva to acknowledge the glare he was getting for his comment. “She didn’t think it was funny. I’m still laughing.”

Destin grinned at the exchange, but he was looking over the others, picking them up one by one to examine the more rambunctious of them as they ran past him. There was a Stoneborn and an Earthborn, both male, who looked exactly the same. Destin nodded approvingly as he picked up another he managed to catch with Hassir’s red fur, and red eyes to match her father. “It looks like you both received an heir on the first try. Congratulations.”

Hassir was grinning from nearby with another of the pups sitting contentedly in his lap. “Her name is Sephessa.” He announced quietly as the little Fireborn pup ran after her brothers on the stone, all of them falling over themselves as they learned how to stay upright on their own. “She’ll rule the Reef one day if she doesn’t die of her own stupidity first. No Oceanborn, though. My sister will have to produce her own heir, it seems.”

Daiva nodded, though she thought it was only appropriate that Asira create her own heir, certainly. She watched as three of her pups chased each other, and she pointed at the one in Kaia’s hands. “That is Caipher, the smallest, of course, but he seems to keep up.” She moved her finger to point at the three growling and falling over each other. “The males with Sephessa are Raphis and Zephys. Raphis is the Earthborn, and Zephys is the Stoneborn.” Daiva couldn’t help but smile a little bit brighter as she looked at Zephys, strong and wild, even when he was so young.

“That one…” She turned to point at the female in Hassir’s lap. “Is Aphira.” She knew once she said the pup’s name that the little girl would turn her head, and the group went quiet as they looked at her eyes. Violet eyes. She looked at her mother first at the sound of her name, but then took in the rest of the group, and focused on Leander, who had been quiet the entire time.

Leander’s lips turned up in a smile, and he turned to bow slightly to Daiva. “My congratulations, Lady Daiva. It’s not often the gods bless the world with one of my kind.”

She nodded and smirked as she looked at her collection of pups, not a single one the same kind as any other. A Fireborn and a Heartborn in the same litter, though, was quite a lot. “She will be raised quite differently than Chiara, so it is my hope that she turns out more like you than she does the princess. An advisor to her sister.”

Lastly Daiva went to pick up the pup that was sitting close to Hassir but away from his other siblings, mostly because he had not yet opened his eyes and he was content to just wait for them to come back to him so that they could all snuggle and sleep together. She picked up the little male and then stroked his fur lightly before she ran her finger along his little snout. “This one seems to be quite stubborn. We have a name chosen for him, if he ever decides to open his eyes and introduce himself to the rest of us.”

The male nuzzled his mother’s finger as soon as he was in her lap, but when she settled into her seat, he moved a little to claw his way up on her robes, climbing shakily until he rested on her chest as she leaned back. There was a streak of afternoon sunlight coming down through a window nearby, and he pawed along the edge of her robes until he settled his body completely in the light, obviously relaxing at the feel of it on his fur.

“It looks like he prefers the warmth.” Destin volunteered, grinning at the small pup, whose coloring was nothing like the rest of his siblings. The others had either brown or red fur, but the stubborn male had a mixture of both in patterns that seemed almost to glimmer in the sunlight.

“I told her.” Hassir said with a confident chuckle across the room, still absently holding Aphira while everyone focused on the last pup with its eyes closed. “Another Fireborn, is my guess.”

“And what happens then? If there are two eldest Fireborn?” Leander asked with his eyes on the last pup, chuckling at its scattered thoughts.

“Well, historically, if there are two in a litter, one will typically kill the other to gain dominance and secure their birthright.” He shrugged. “We’ll see what they become when they get older. It’s conceivable they’ll be friends, and if that’s the case…”

“We don’t have to worry about that for a long while.” Daiva looked down at her pup again, though she was constantly glancing across the room to make sure the others hadn’t gotten themselves into trouble. Raphis was famously getting himself stuck in places where he shouldn’t be, and Sephessa often went running into the fire, tricking Raphis and Zephys into thinking that they could follow her. Zephys still had a patch of singed fur from the last time.

Adriana watched the little puppy in Daiva’s arms, finding herself fascinated as she watched him cuddle against his mother as though Daiva was the most important thing in the world. She did not think that any creature could find Daiva comfortable to be around, but he did.

The others were distracted by the other puppies running around, and so when the little unnamed pup sniffed at the air where the sunlight was hitting his fur, Adriana blinked a few times just to make sure she saw what she saw.

“Destin, he’s opening his eyes.” She said softly from beside him as Destin had reached down to give Raphis a scratch. “I can’t see what color, though, with the sun in his eyes.”

Destin moved to lean across Adriana so he could get a better look as everyone else in the room waited for him to declare what the last child was, what new element he might bring to the family or which of his siblings he might end up being in competition with.

When he met the pup’s eyes, though, he was just as confused as Adriana for a moment. The sun was, indeed, in the little boy’s eyes, but he wasn’t squinting or wincing at the brightness of it staring down at him. His eyes were fully open, drinking in the sunlight, and the shade of his irises was nothing that Destin had ever seen before. It was like the sun his eyes had seen in their first moments opened to the world had been drawn in and mirrored right back out. They were a brilliant gold that seemed to radiate their own light, shining out at Destin as the pup looked directly up into the face of the sun and seemed content.

The smile on Destin’s face faded as the reality of what he was seeing hit him in waves, stories and legends crashing through his mind. There were myths his parents had told them as children, of the single rarest kind of wolf, so rare and precious that they were universally believed to be something out of history’s imagination. Too powerful to truly exist, too rare for anyone to be certain they were even possible, and too precious to be anything but a closely guarded secret.

“Lightborn.” Destin finally breathed into the silence, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the golden irises of the puppy in front of him. “Daiva, your son is a Lightborn.”

“He…what?” She looked down at her last unnamed puppy and lifted him up to her face so that she could see for herself. Certainly Destin was wrong, there was no way she had a Lightborn among her children. She had never heard of one attested, much less met one. There was no way she could have given birth to one. When she looked into the pup’s eyes and he licked her face, she was speechless.

Hassir moved over beside his mate quickly at that announcement, looking to confirm the evidence with his own eyes, but he was similarly speechless. One by one, everyone in the room looked into the little boy’s eyes, and even when he was removed from the sunlight, the glow of his eyes and the brilliance of the gold within them was incontrovertible.

Leander was the one to finally break the breathless silence that fell over the room, but his face was somber as he looked back and forth between Hassir and Daiva. “No one can know of him.” He said quietly, the import of what had happened distilling on everyone present as their thoughts jumbled together. “Whatever else Melyssa and Cadmos want with the Reef, however much they wish to kill us all, the moment they learn that this boy exists, they will stop at nothing to claim him for themselves. Nothing.”

“He will be protected.” Daiva said softly but fiercely, since she was not going to let any harm come to her pups as long as she had control over it. When they were adults, their lives would be their own. Until then, their lives were hers to guide and protect.

She ran a gentle hand along his fur, and she knew all those present would keep the secret of the pup in her arms. They were family that she trusted, even Leander and Marella.

“Dephir. His name is Dephir.”