THE DRAGONS WERE polite and came in through the front gate.
It wasn’t unusual behaviour for dragons, of course. Gryphons were the ones to watch out for, sailing like kites over the orchard’s hedges, making spectacular dives and loop-de-loops and landing wherever they pleased. And though unicorns had no choice but to walk in, they made every effort to be snobs about it. All in all, Sajar preferred his dragon clients—not that he would have told any of the other creatures that.
Tucking his pruning shears into his apron, he watched his customers ruffle snow from their wings and survey the rows of egg-laden summer trees, as green and vibrant as the grass beneath their claws. No trace of winter’s knee-deep drifts could be found within the Cradle’s walls, where the trees produced their own ideal growing conditions—useful, though alarming whenever Sajar left the orchard and had to face the temperature difference.
“Good afternoon!”
He wove his way toward them, pausing to give the nearest egg a gentle pat and earning himself a swat from one of the overprotective tree’s tendrils in return. The fiery sting, and his accompanying eye-roll, cleared away the last of the lingering melancholy he always felt when working with the eggs. A privilege and a curse, helping others attain what he could never have.
“My lady. My lord. It’s a pleasure to see you again.” Try as he might, he could not remember their names.
“And you, Master Sajar.”
In graceful unison they returned the bow he offered them, curving their necks until the ridges along the backs of their heads aimed skyward, and then the dragoness extended a claw and presented him with two thin, shimmering scales, one the dark grey of a threatening storm, the other tinted like the promise of spring amidst the snow.
“We are hoping to grow our family, if you have trees available.”
Grow our family. It was a phrase so common here that he’d almost succeeded in ignoring the guilty twist in his stomach whenever he heard it.
“Of course.” He collected the featherlight scales, each larger than his human hand even with his fingers spread wide, and surveyed them for imperfections as he prepared to ask an often uncomfortable question. “Before I draw up a contract for you, might I ask if you have any interest in adopting a child?” He gestured toward the hedge to his right. “There is a dragonet at the orphanage, hatched here recently, who is in need of a home.”
Their expressions softened, and the female’s wrinkled with curiosity. “For what reason?”
He brushed a calloused finger over her green scale. “Given that you have two children, I’m sure you are aware that this is an imprecise process, no matter how we try to guide it. In this case, her parents were gryphons.”
The magic of the summer trees at work—there was no other explanation for how a perfect graft of two gryphon feathers had instead produced a creature more dragon than gryphon. Already she was bigger than her parents and liable to burn down their nest throwing the mildest of tantrums, but Sajar’s heart had broken when they’d refused to take her. It always did.
Always a reminder of Kaj.
As if on cue, the gate in the hedge clanged and the object of their conversation came clambering over the ironwork, trilling excitedly, too young to put her euphoria into words or care that the keeper of the orphanage was shouting after her. Clearing the gate, the sunset-red dragonet toppled onto the grass in a tangle of feathered wings and flailing limbs and a little blast of fire from her aquiline nostrils. At last she scrambled to her feet and half bounded, half flew straight at the dragons.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry!” A rumpled phoenix alighted in front of Sajar, head twitching between him and his customers, her graceful crest swaying with the motion. “We tried to stop her, but . . .”
But no one was listening. Already the dragonet was sprawled on her back, pinned beneath the grey dragon’s snout. Her little talons clutched his muzzle as he rolled her back and forth, growling with comic exaggeration; with each rocking motion her broad tail slapped the grass and she yipped in delight.
The familiar combination of relief and envy struck Sajar, and he settled the dragon scales against one of the rocks lining the pathway. At this rate, they wouldn’t be needed.
“It’s fine, Tsiet. Seems it was for the best, anyway.” He hoped his smile didn’t look as sad as it felt. Another happy family. Another child grown at the Cradle, off to start a new life while Sajar watched from between the rows of trees, alone as always.
The orphanage keeper flapped her copper wings as though applauding. “Yes. And speaking of adoption . . .”
She peered back toward the hedge, and as Sajar followed her gaze his stomach churned again. A young man hovered on the other side of the gate, a pattern of sunlight and shadow scattered across a body that looked equally patched together. He balanced on two dragon-like legs, clutching at the bars with mismatched hands—one human, the other a claw at the end of a scale-covered forearm. A pair of folded wings rustled behind him, and his eyes were fixed on the dragonet romping around her almost-parents.
Sajar wanted to look away but couldn’t, not until Kaj shifted and glanced toward him, and then it was all too easy to turn away and settle his attention safely back on Tsiet. But though he blinked several times, the image of that misshapen silhouette remained, stinging his conscience like a snap from one of his trees.
“He will come of age this spring,” Tsiet said, voice quieter though the dragons were making too much noise for anyone to hear.
“I know.” Kaj’s hatching was so seared into his memory that he might mark time by it forever.
“I’m afraid he won’t be able to stay with us any longer, as much as I would like it to be otherwise.” She glanced up at him, her golden eyes round, earnest, hopeful. “You’ve always expressed an interest in his well-being. Might you wish to—”
“No.” The word spilled from his mouth on something that was almost fear, even as his heart and mind suggested a different answer. “No, Tsiet, I’m sorry, but . . . I can’t.” Won’t. Shouldn’t.
Another feather-fluff, what Sajar had come to think of as a phoenix-shrug. “I understand. Just thought I’d give him one last try at a family.”
He winced as the word prodded his thoughts into the past. The day Ensa had left . . . the day the egg had hatched . . . taking little Kaj to Tsiet . . . Clenching his hands, he shook his head. It was better this way. Kaj would be fine.
“I can’t,” he repeated, but even so his eyes drifted back to the gate, just long enough to see that Kaj was gone.
KAJ WAITED UNTIL the second moon had risen before shuffling through the snow and slipping over the hedge into the warmth of the Cradle, praying that his plan had any chance of success. It was a stupid plan, but it was the only one he had, his only hope of ever having a family, so he was going to do it anyway.
He’d left the gate—it had been foolish to stand there so openly after he’d failed to stop the dragonet from climbing over—and spent the rest of the afternoon watching the new family through a thin spot in the hedge, the place he visited whenever he wanted a look into the orchard, into a life he’d never know. Balls of gold and teal and silver graced the branches, eggs pale like water and others bright as dragonfire, some swirled with colour, others glistening with a single, perfect sheen. Dragons and gryphons, phoenixes and more, all little hatchlings waiting to break into the world and meet their families.
But tonight, rather than looking at the eggs, his dragon eyes instead scanned the pathway as he crept forward. They must be here. He’d seen Master Sajar set them against one of the rocks somewhere nearby . . . Somewhere—
His heart leapt as the moons’ light gleamed off his quarry: two dragon scales, one grey and one green, nestled in the grass just ahead.
He stooped and nearly collapsed under the bulk of his wings, which had doubled in size over the last few months. What else his body might have in store for him, he couldn’t imagine, but if it had decided whether to be human or dragon before he’d hatched, he wouldn’t be falling over every time his wings caught a draft. More importantly, he’d have a family by now for sure, one who wouldn’t return him a week later with some excuse for why “it simply isn’t going to work.”
It never worked, and after fifteen years, there was no more time to wait for the day it would.
He paused only long enough to gather grafting supplies from Master Sajar’s workshop before creeping to the far end of the orchard, clutching the scales like armour over his pounding heart. A single row of trees stood apart from all the others and always seemed to be bare. It was far enough from the house that he didn’t fear the orchard keeper hearing him, but even so he moved slowly, glanced across the yard again and again, and paused once or twice to check for movement.
Within the curtain of slender branches he loosed a sigh and deposited the tools and scales amidst the roots. The grey disc he put aside, the green he kept before him, a glimmer of light distinguishing it from the thick grass below.
Supplies ready, he rolled up his sleeve until his forearm was bare from elbow to claw and studied his own scales, pale gold against his earth-brown skin, not a third the size of the dragoness’s. An imperfect pattern, as though a spray of water had crystallized along his arm without concern for order or elegance. Despite his racing heart and mounting fear, they were only warm to the touch, not that the often-burned fingers of his human hand could much tell the difference anymore.
At last he selected one, large and oval, shimmering as though with eagerness for the task ahead. He closed his eyes and took a breath. Winced a few times for practice and bit his lip.
And then yanked.
SAJAR WAS OUT of bed and halfway to the window before he realized the cry had come from his dream, not the orchard.
It was the same wail he always heard, and by the time he’d kneaded his pillow back into the proper shape, it was already echoing in his mind again. The same wail and the same memory, fifteen years old but still fresh as spring.
Over and over he watched it happen, playing out in the patterned wood grain of the ceiling above his bed: Ensa, striding out the front gate with little Ixi in her arms, the squirming child too young to realize she would never see her father again. Himself, sitting motionless beneath one of the summer trees, listless and lost. Well-intentioned friends had offered meagre comfort, his customers even less—within days their wide-eyed anticipation had ceased to make him smile and their insistence upon visiting the eggs had become bothersome, a flutter of hope he no longer felt.
He rolled onto his side and kneaded the blankets as his mind echoed with Ixi’s laughter and faltering attempts at words. He recalled her first time in the orchard, reaching out from the safety of his arms to touch a tiny hand against one of the eggs, giggling and overcome with wonder.
Even then he’d pictured her standing at his side, learning the delicate craft. One day the hands that had touched the egg with such delight would cut careful wedges into the trees, grafting scales and feathers instead of scions. How ready he’d been to share his joy with someone, the beauty of bringing new life into the world. One family helping others grow.
He sat up slowly, drew aside the blankets, and brought his feet to the cool floor, grounding himself in the present, in the stillness, in where he was. Not staggering out from beneath a summer tree and dashing eagerly toward the workshop with a sudden new idea, but in bed in the dark of winter, fifteen years too late to stop himself.
With a heavy sigh he fell back onto the pillow, but still sleep would not return. Instead his memory pivoted around that moment of inspiration, around words he could never take back, vivid and sure.
If I no longer have a family, I’ll make another.
“OWWWW.”
Kaj hunched over his bleeding arm, digging at it as though new pain might distract from the old. “Ow, ow, ow, owwwww.”
The rhythm of his words merely called attention to the pang, rocking back and forth accomplished nothing but making him dizzy, and when he unfurled his wings he succeeded only in striking one against the tree trunk. Its gnarled tendrils swayed with displeasure.
He forced himself still, watching the tree through tear-filled eyes while the searing pain slowly faded to a throb, and after a long minute both his heart and the tree had calmed. At last he splayed and wiggled his claw, and the rest of his arm made no protest.
Again he surveyed the orchard master’s house for movement or light, but still there was nothing. A strange disappointment pooled in his stomach—that constant desire to be noticed, to cause someone concern. Anyone, even Master Sajar, who looked at Kaj like no one else ever had. The first and only time he’d spoken to the man, there’d been a caution in his eyes that was almost fear, and with it, guilt. Shame. It hadn’t occurred to Kaj until that day that he was probably the orchard master’s greatest failure, a graft gone so wrong it had produced . . . well, Kaj. It was no wonder, he supposed, that the man didn’t want to look at him—not then, not today.
No one else did, either. Once he, too, had gone barrelling outside to meet each new visitor, beating his little wings with excited hope. How certain he’d been that he would find a family. Just a little longer, if he waited, if he was patient.
Patience earned him only apologetic smiles from the dragons, but even those were better than the human families and their broken promises. And though “Next time” had become Tsiet’s mantra, repeated after every rebuff, every failed attempt, eventually Kaj had admitted the truth he’d always suspected: no one wanted him.
The thrum of bells echoed in the clouds and he swivelled, but it was only two qilin flying over. Kaj waited until they’d glided from sight and then struggled to his feet, scales in hand, nervousness squeezing at his heart. He’d watched the orchard keeper through the hedge so many times. He knew what to do. And if it went as planned—and it would—then in a few months when spring arrived, he’d never be alone again.
If no one wanted him in their family, he’d make his own.
I’LL MAKE ANOTHER . . .
Make another . . .
Sajar cradled his new child in his arms, but he could hardly see its misshapen form through his tears.
He’d spent all afternoon waiting for the egg to hatch. Months since Ensa and Ixi had gone, every day spent diligently tending the tree, talking to the egg, brushing his fingers over its smooth surface, imagining the little creature within—little Kaj, he’d decided.
Never had he imagined this, but now that it had happened he didn’t know how anything could have gone more wrong. What a fool he’d been to believe he could grow a human child as though it were a dragonet or fledgling. How completely blind not to have seen the absurdity of his plan.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, squeezing the child to his chest and dipping his head. It raised a tiny claw and swatted at his nose, but the gesture only brought more tears. “I’m so, so sorry . . .”
The little human-dragon squirmed and whimpered. It had barely made a sound yet, and in the silence between his sobs he heard his tears sizzling away as they dripped onto its skin. The pale scales on its arms and dragon-like legs scorched even through his clothing, but he didn’t care. He held it close, wondering how it was possible to feel such love and loathing at the same time. Love for the poor little hatchling, loathing for himself.
You’re so selfish, Sajar!
Selfish, arrogant. How could he have thought he had a right to make himself a child? A replacement for Ixi, a comfort created to end his grief and loneliness. A child to end his pain . . . by carrying that pain itself. Who knew how it would grow up, or whether it would even survive. Would its human parts be able to endure the heat of its dragonfire? Would all of its limbs grow at the same rate? Would it even be able to walk?
He’d done this.
You’re so selfish, Sajar! Ensa’s accusation rang again in his mind, voiced so often it could have come from any of their numerous fights. All you do is play at being a father!
The words cut like a shard of egg shell and he lowered the hatchling hastily into the grass, as though Ensa might return at that moment and convict him. She’d been right about him all along, and the longer he stared down at the little child, the more desperately he wanted to look away and the faster his heart pounded.
He couldn’t do it. He’d failed Ensa, failed Ixi, failed this little one before it had even hatched. He didn’t deserve to be a father, and the child didn’t deserve to suffer through his attempts. He would only hurt it more.
I won’t let that happen.
Drawing a shaky breath, he lifted his head and gave the tree a long look. He would return to grafting. Help others build lives and start families. Bring children into the world for parents who wanted to give love rather than take it.
And somewhere out there were parents who could give that love to Kaj.
He bent forward, brushing a trembling hand against the hatchling’s dark hair before lifting it into his arms and climbing carefully to his feet. “Come on, Kaj,” he whispered, giving the child its name even as he prepared to say farewell. “We’re going to meet Tsiet, okay? She’ll find you a really good family.”
Any family was better than Sajar.
THE NIGHT BEFORE his birthday, Kaj waited impatiently at the base of the tree, flicking his now-massive wings with every nervous heartbeat. He’d told himself he would give the egg a few minutes, in case his little sibling knew it was time to go, to come into the world with all the new spring flowers, meet its brother, and run away to something better.
Anything at all, so long as they were together.
But either it didn’t know or it was giving him a hard time, because the egg just hung there on the branch, swirling gold and white and perfectly happy to stay uncracked. And perhaps for a good long while, too—it was still so small, not half the size it ought to have been after a whole season of growth.
Fear singed his heart and tingled beneath his skin, though he tried to ignore it. It had to have worked. The fact that the egg was there at all meant he must have done something right.
And yet the fear kept burning the longer he stood there in the dark, weeks of increasing urgency and decreasing options all pressing in against him, whispering his doubts, his fate.
Tomorrow, tomorrow . . .
He clenched his claws and swallowed. No more waiting, no more chances. Only his future, empty without this egg. He brushed his hand against the shell, expecting to feel a heartbeat, a pulse of magic, heat, something. But there was nothing, and at last he couldn’t endure it another second. If Master Sajar saw him, it was all over, and with every passing moment he sensed the sunrise as though it were coming out from within him.
He reached for the egg, retreated, forced himself forward again. All he needed to do was grab it and pull, and yet it was so final. His one chance for a family, but somehow he felt that as soon as he plucked it from the tree, he would know whether it had worked or not.
And if it hadn’t . . .
The sheer panic behind that thought drove him forward, and without thinking he gripped the egg and gave it a firm tug.
Nothing happened. It held to the tree with something far more powerful than the resin Kaj had used to secure the grafted scales. Again he yanked, and then once more, pulling harder and longer as dread made way for frustration.
“Come on, little one,” he muttered, adjusting his hold so his claws wouldn’t damage the shell. Behind him the tree’s drooping branches swayed and snapped, hissing an ominous warning which only made him more desperate to get away. “We need to go.”
Still nothing, and now he was more anxious than ever. What if he couldn’t remove it? What if he was stuck haunting the orchard until it hatched on its own? Suppose he wasn’t there when it happened, and—
No. He had to get it free.
Extending a single claw, he settled it carefully against the stem, drew a deep breath, and sliced.
The egg snapped loose and the angry tree erupted in flames.
He yelped and whirled and stumbled against a root, wobbled for a horrible moment, and then fell, dragging the egg down with him, scrambling to raise it high enough to—
A sickening crunch made his heart stop, and through a swirl of panic he saw his future scattered on the ground in front of him, each little fragment shining in the firelight.
“No.”
Numb, he crawled forward and ran a trembling finger over the nearest shard. It was smooth and clean. They were all clean, inside and out.
There had never been anything inside the egg at all.
“No!”
He lifted the shard and cradled it against his chest as his lungs sought for air he could no longer find. Around him the branches of the tree thrashed and crackled; a tendril slashed his wings, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything now. Only this egg full of nothing, just like his future.
“N-no . . . No, please.” A well of tears spilled from his eyes, only to sizzle away in the heat of his skin, gone like everything else. “Please, please, you have to . . . You can’t . . .” With every plea his voice grew higher and thinner, his breathing more ragged. “Please, I . . . I don’t want to be alone.”
Choking on despair, he screamed, the sound swallowed up by the roaring flames.
SAJAR BOLTED TOWARD the burning tree, clutching a staff and wondering whether he’d need it for the blazing branches or the intruder cowering in a ball amidst the roots. Whoever it was, he was wearing something lumpy on his back. A pack of eggs, maybe, or—
Wings.
Kaj.
He stumbled, caught himself, and sprinted forward as if racing his heartbeat. As he neared he could more clearly make out the young man’s body, still unmoving despite the branches whipping at his back. No. No, he couldn’t be—
“Kaj!” He tore through the flailing vines, swinging the staff to ward them away and ignoring the heat that bit into his shoulder as he stooped. The only thing that mattered was the young man huddled on the ground and surrounded by the shards of a broken egg—but no time to wonder, only enough to dodge another burning whip before he gripped the young man’s shoulders and hauled him upright.
“Come on, Kaj, get up.”
“Master Sajar?” Kaj’s face was soaked with tears, his eyes red and hollow, and as soon as Sajar loosened his hold the boy began to sway. “I . . . the egg . . . I—”
A branch slapped his cheek and Sajar swatted it aside as his eyes began to water. “You can explain later. Up, now.”
Kaj clutched a shard of the egg all the way through the thrashing vines as though it were his last tie to life. He seemed completely unaware that the tree had it in for them or that Sajar was fighting it off one grasping tendril and searing sting at a time. Only when they were free of the branches and their swelter did Kaj emerge from his daze. His widening eyes flew from the tree to Sajar and then to the egg shell, and with every motion his shoulders shook harder and more tears spilled down his face.
Dropping the staff, Sajar pulled him close, relief and lingering terror smothering the last of his pledge to remain distant. Kaj’s skin was as hot as the tree, his scales searing through the light fabric of Sajar’s shirt, and like so many years ago, it didn’t matter.
“Master Sajar.” Kaj’s voice was weak and plaintive, barely audible above the crackling branches, and though he clung to the shell, he buried his face in Sajar’s shoulder nevertheless. “I’m so, so sorry. I never meant . . . He sucked in a breath and dissolved into tears while Sajar drew him closer. “I just wanted a family,” he whimpered. “And I can’t stay at the orphanage anymore, I’m too old, and so I thought . . . I tried . . .”
Understanding finally caught up with Sajar, a rush of horror that sent him reeling. Kaj hadn’t stolen an egg.
“You tried to grow yourself one.”
In a heartbeat he was back beneath the tree all those years ago, afraid to be alone and so desperate not to be. Even across time the misery enveloped him, or maybe it was Kaj’s pain he felt as the young man trembled in his arms. The same loneliness, the same fear, the same powerful need for the one thing Sajar had denied him.
“I just wanted someone,” Kaj sobbed. “Anyone. But now I . . . Now I’ll never . . .”
Kaj’s hands shifted around the shard, and for a moment Sajar hoped he’d slip. Slice its rough edge against Sajar’s chest and bleed away all the remorse pooling ever deeper within him. Over his son’s shoulder he could see the rest of the fragments, scattered in the grass beneath the swaying, faintly burning branches. He’d collected such pieces once for their beauty and the pride they’d fired in his heart, but now he kept only a single shard. Tomorrow he’d meant to take it down from its shelf, like he did every year, and remember.
Would he even be able to make himself look at it after tonight?
Against his chest Kaj drew a deep, shaky breath and raised his head, the fading firelight shining in his tears. “I’m so sorry, Master Sajar. I should . . . I should go and—”
“No.”
He pulled Kaj even closer as everything collapsed around him—his guilt, Kaj’s emptiness, and the painful clarity of the truth. All those years watching his son through the hedge, telling himself it was for the best. Telling himself it was for Kaj. Wallowing in his shame with each new egg, each new orphan, each new family. Focusing on how selfish he’d been so that he could continue to justify the most selfish act of all.
How could he have ever believed he was protecting Kaj?
You’re so selfish, Sajar. The echo of her voice was almost pitying now. All you do is play at being a father—right up until it actually matters.
He gave a mournful laugh. “Until it actually matters.”
“What?” Kaj sniffled, drawing back.
The tree had spent its energy and sat docile and dark once again, and in the light of the moons Sajar’s eyes swept over the young man before him—dark skin dappled with golden scales, wings shadowing him like sentinels, hand and claw together still clutching the shard. His breaths grew short as the urge to look away struck again, and he forced it down and instead stared harder than ever. Tangled hair curling around a face that matched Sajar’s; wide-set, dragonish eyes tinted silver in the moons’ light; a slender frame shifting back and forth in discomfort, but with an almost rhythmic grace.
Not a visible reminder of his failings, not a painful image of his long-indulged guilt and fear, not an excuse, but a son.
Drawing a shallow breath, he raised a trembling hand and brushed it through Kaj’s hair. The young man’s eyes followed the motion warily, but he didn’t move, and Sajar’s fingers slid over two lumps near his temples. A moment of alarm, and then he realized Kaj was growing horns.
Growing horns.
Strange though the idea was, it nestled in his chest and became a soft, encouraging warmth. For all the time that had passed, Kaj was still so young. Still growing. There was still time, time for it to matter.
And for everything Sajar could still take from him, there was just as much he could give.
He closed his eyes and imagined seeing Kaj every day, not glimpsed through a hedge but standing right next to him as they tended the trees together. One family helping others grow. He pictured them laughing, talking, fighting, reconciling. Smiling.
What would it be like to look in the mirror in the morning and see himself smiling? What would Kaj look like when he smiled?
As the thought crossed his mind, the expression settled over his face, and determination drove the last of the doubt from his heart. Sliding an arm around Kaj’s shoulders, he turned him toward the house. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
Kaj hung his head and his whole body seemed to wilt. “I don’t have a home anymore,” he murmured, rustling his wings. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
And still Sajar’s smile would not fade. “I think there’s something I can do about that.”