Baby From Frost by Ashe Moon
5
Delos
I saton the edge of the tavern’s roof, bag packed and ready to go. Everything was all twisted up, and I just wanted to get out of there. Back home, back to my sanctuary. It was like I was getting slapped in the face every five seconds—overjoyed because Raka was here, then furious because he was here. And then the realization that what he’d said was not something my mind had made up, that it was real, that I had a son—that Oli was my son—and then waves of emotions started their cycle all over again.
Seven years. Yes, I knew Raka’s situation now, but he could’ve done something to reach out to me. It was obvious he didn’t want or need me in Oli’s life.
“There are other librariums,” I said to myself. “I’ll go somewhere else.”
I stood, picked up my bag, and shifted. My wings were still really sore, but maybe if I just took it easy…
“Where are you going?”
I jumped in surprise. Oli was sitting cross-legged on the roof beside me, so tiny compared to my dragon form.
“You’re just everywhere, aren’t you?” I said.
“You’re not leaving already, right?”
“And if I am?”
“I guess I thought you’d be here longer,” Oli said, shrugging. He looked disappointed, and I tried not to be affected.
“Well, I got what I came for, so I’m out of here.”
“You’re the first dragon I’ve really been able to talk to,” he said. “I kind of hoped I could learn dragon stuff from you.”
“That’s something you should learn from your—” I stopped myself and felt my heart plunge to the tip of my tail. “You’ll be fine. Just stay out of trouble.”
I looked to the sky, gripped the edge of the roof, and then launched into flight—but my worn-out muscles cramped up and I fought to keep myself afloat, which worked for about three seconds before I dropped out of the air like a stone. I smashed into the ground, crushing my bag beneath my body, and the crunch told me I’d decimated my alchemy travel kit and my poor little potted plant.
“Are you okay?” Oli called.
“Fine,” I said, except it came out sounding like a pathetic whistle of air from a balloon.
Oli hopped off the roof, shifted out his wings, and fluttered down like a chicken trying to fly. It was a more controlled descent than I’d managed, at least. He landed next to me, poked my shoulder, and then said, “I’m going to get Dad. Hold on!”
“No, don’t,” I groaned, but he was already gone, scampering back to the Librarium as fast as his little legs would take him.
I returned to human form, rolled onto my back off of my flattened belongings, and stared up at the sky, feeling like an absolute idiot. I couldn’t just run away from this.
I was still lying there when Oli and Raka came running up.
“Delos!” Raka said, kneeling next to me. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, just watching the clouds go by,” I muttered.
“Let me help you,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I replied, but pain shot through my arms when I tried to sit up.
“You don’t look fine.”
“Okay, yeah, it hurts a little bit.”
“Let me help you. Are you staying here?” He turned to Oli. “Fetch some bandages.”
Oli nodded and ran, and Raka helped me to my feet. Thankfully, my legs were sore but otherwise worked fine. He helped me back to the tavern, where I sheepishly asked the landlady if I could have my room back.
“You were planning on leaving,” Raka said.
“I wasn’t jumping off the roof for fun,” I replied. “I think being here is just going to cause you trouble.”
“Me, or you?” he said.
“Maybe both,” I said.
“Well, speak for yourself. I’m glad you’re here.”
“You are?”
He nodded. “I’m sorry I never contacted you about Oli, Delos. But I hope you understand it was never because I wanted to keep him from you. Nothing like that. I was afraid of what might happen if I did try to find you.”
“I get it,” I said, looking at him. “I don’t know if I can forgive you, but I understand.”
“That’s fair,” he answered. “It makes me happy that I can see you again.”
I didn’t want him to know that I was also happy to see him, regardless of everything. I tried to keep it from showing on my face at that moment by looking away and wincing, playing up the pain a little. He gently took my arm and tiptoed his fingers from the elbow to my shoulder, lightly probing.
“Do you have any healing salve?” he asked.
“Check the bag,” I said. “It might all be smashed, though.”
He looked, and luckily my little jar of salve was undamaged.
“Come on, take off your shirt,” he said.
It was harder than I expected to get my shirt off. My arm seized up as I tried to lift it. Raka stopped me and said, “I think we’d better cut it off. You don’t want to make things worse.”
“Okay, okay,” I muttered, cringing as I lowered my arm. The pain was severe, and I was liable to agree to anything if it would ease it. “Just do something to get it off me.”
Raka pulled the collar of my shirt, grabbed it between his teeth, and yanked, splitting it right down the center over my chest. He spread the fabric and eased it off my shoulders.
“If it weren’t for my condition, I’d say you were just trying to strip me,” I said.
“By the Gods,” Raka said, seeing my back. “This is not just from a fall. What happened?”
“Oh, that,” I grunted. Spreading out from below my right shoulder blade was a varicose scar. “Nothing. I got struck by lightning. It’s fine now.”
I had probably overworked myself with the flying, and the reason why my wings were so weak was because of the injury. I reached for the jar of salve, but Raka got to it first.
“I can do it myself,” I said, holding out my hand. “Give it to me.”
He shrugged and handed me the jar. With one arm much weaker than normal, getting the lid off was not a simple task. I sat there fumbling with it, trying to use my teeth to twist it open, very aware that I was looking very stupid.
“You sure—”
“I have it,” I said, and I struggled for another minute before Raka sighed and plucked it out of my hand.
“Sit still,” he said. “I forgot how stubborn you were.”
I was used to doing things on my own, and that’s how I preferred it, even with my flight. We were a family, a team, but they knew when to leave me be.
Raka rested his palm against my left shoulder and rubbed his other hand, coated in salve, across my right shoulder blade. He massaged the muscle and worked his hand across my arm, down to my elbow, pausing every so often to reload his fingers with the ointment. It was my special recipe—the essence of dragon saliva mixed with several types of herbal extracts to make an extra-potent healing concoction—and I felt immediate relief, the pain becoming a tolerable dull ache. There was something else, too, the release of tension I hadn’t even been aware of. I hadn’t been touched like this since the last time we were together. I’d avoided physical contact, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed it. I closed my eyes and drifted, unwinding. My shoulders dropped, relaxed.
Oli came in through the door, announcing himself loudly. “Dad, I got the bandages. Whoa, what happened to your back?”
“A lesson never to fly in a lightning storm,” I said, and I got up to get a new shirt from my bag. I wouldn’t have any more left if I kept this up.
I tried pulling it on with one hand, but I got tangled up and it hung loosely over my head like a hood. “Raka… Can you give me a hand?” I mumbled.
He helped me, and then used the cloth bandages Oli had brought to fashion a sling. “Give it a couple of days’ rest and I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he said. “I hope you’re not in any hurry to leave. You never told me what you were doing here.”
“I need information on how human omegas deliver dragon hatchlings. Two of my flight mates are pregnant.”
“Well, coming to the Grand Librarium was the right decision,” said Raka, and he finished tying the sling with a bow knot. He stood up and took Oli by the hand. “It’s getting late, almost time for Oli to go to bed.”
“Aww,” Oli groaned.
“You’ve got lessons tomorrow,” Raka reminded him.
“Awwww.” Then Oli looked at me and said, “You aren’t going to leave yet, right?”
“No choice,” I said.
“Goodnight, Delos,” Raka said. “Will you be needing help with your research? Or will you be doing it on your own?”
“I could use some help,” I admitted.
He seemed pleased, and as they were leaving, Oli turned and gave me a wave goodbye. Without thinking, I tried to wave with my bad arm and winced. The door closed and it was just me and my thoughts again. I sat on the edge of the bed for a while and stared at a crack in the wall. I could still remember how hesitant Raka had been to accept my help seven years ago. Now I was the one refusing help.
I was still in shock over the whole situation, and I didn’t know how I was going to get used to the idea that I had a son. How was I going to tell Oli? Was I going to tell Oli? I had to stick around for a little while, but once I was finished, then I’d need to go back to Old Shore Port. What purpose would there be to telling Oli if I was just going to disappear from his life?
I dropped onto the bed and turned my focus to a stain on the ceiling. It seemed like there was a leak in the roof—the paint was discolored and yellow. I could hear someone coughing through the wall next to the bed, and the noise of the tavern drifted through the floorboards like a muffled dream.
Things would be easier for all of us if I just went back home after my work was done and secrets stayed as secrets. But could I do that? Could I live knowing Oli—my son—was here?
The next morning, a tap against my window knocked me out of sleep. I rose, wincing as I stretched my stiff arm, and went to see what the noise was. It was Oli, standing on the street outside. He tossed another pebble and it bounced off the glass.
“Hey,” I said, opening the window. “Some people are trying to sleep.”
He grinned and waved at me. “Good morning!”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in your lessons or something?” I asked groggily.
“They won’t notice I’m gone,” he said, shrugging. “I’ll go back eventually.”
“You’ll go back now. Go on.”
I shut the window and pulled the curtain, but the moment I was in bed, another pebble hit the window.
“Would you stop!” I shouted, opening the window again.
“It’s morning!” he said like I hadn’t noticed. “I know a really good place for bread, and they always finish baking right around now. Let’s get some!”
“I should tell Raka you’re skipping class,” I muttered.
“I’m gonna go back after,” he protested.
“Hold on,” I said with a sigh, and I shut the window, dressed, and went downstairs.
Oli was bouncing pebbles between his hands like he was trying to juggle, and I walked over to him and turned them all into ice cubes with a wave of my hand. They fell onto the ground and shattered.
“Well, come on,” I said. “Show me this bread you woke me up for.”
“You have to show me how to do that,” he said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Aw, why not?”
“Because I’m busy, and that’s not what I’m here to do. Ask your dad.”
We started up the street. A dragon flew over us, following the street and making the occasional hard dip to drop a pack of newspapers off at every corner, where a group of young kids divided them up and carried them away to deliver. At an hour when Old Shore Port would just be getting started, it seemed like Stonvale had never stopped going. We went through an alleyway and came to a street that was already noisy with traffic and hawker salesmen shouting on the sidewalks.
The bakery was an open storefront on a corner, with walls lined with shelves loaded with half-globes of golden-crusted bread. A large clay oven was stoked by a fire dragon, who stopped what she was doing when Oli came hopping up.
“Hi, Oli,” she said, and she turned to human form. “Who’s your friend?”
“He’s a friend of my dad’s,” he said. “I told him all about your bread. Do you have any unwanteds?”
“No, I’m afraid not. We had a good batch today, all of them are going to the shelves.”
“Oh,” he said disappointedly, and he turned to me and said, “Usually they have a few they give away to anyone who gets here early enough.”
“How much for one?” I asked.
“Twenty pieces,” she said, and I dug out a few coins from my pocket and paid for two loaves. “We’ll give one to your dad,” I told Oli, and he brightened.
We sat on the corner and pulled apart the bread to share. It crackled as we split it, steam rising from the soft inside. Both of us blew on the hot bread to cool it down and then popped small pieces into our mouths. Oli grinned at me, a bit of steam puffing out between his teeth. He could handle hot food better than I could—it was probably the human in him.
“Very tasty,” I told him. “I know someone who would enjoy this, back home.”
“Your mate?” he asked.
“A flight mate. His name’s Rainor, he’s an alpha. I’m not mated.”
“Oh,” Oli replied, and he took another bite of his bread. “Are you and Dad really good friends?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said.
“I didn’t think we had any friends outside of the Librarium. But you’ve gotta be friends, otherwise he wouldn’t have rubbed your back.”
A piece of bread got caught in my throat, and I hacked and coughed and pounded my chest with the side of my fist. “He was just helping me out. He would’ve done that for anyone, I’m sure.”
“No, I don’t think so. Dad doesn’t really like people. Just Uncle Shen.”
“Who’s Uncle Shen?” I asked. The first thing I thought was that Raka was seeing someone. If he had an alpha, it’d only make sense—but I felt a flash of miserable jealousy.
“He lives at the Librarium, too. Dad said he’s been there since he was little. He’s an omega, too, but he doesn’t have any kids.”
I felt foolish. There was no reason for me to be jealous, even if Raka did have an alpha in his life. He and I were strangers again. There was nothing between us.
“Your dad never talked about me?” I asked cautiously, and Oli shook his head. I took another bite of the soft, doughy bread. It was lightly sweet and very moist. I wished I could share it with the flight, and I wondered what Dalia would think about it. She liked baked things, and Rainor had been practicing making her little cakes and pies.
“You said you were on the same boat?” Oli said.
“Yeah. We came from the same place.”
“What was it like there?” Oli asked excitedly.
“Cold, empty. Perfect for an ice dragon, but not so much for an alchemist.”
“I want to go there.”
I laughed. “Do you? It isn’t very exciting, let me tell you that. Especially not compared to this place. Don’t you like it here?”
He shrugged. “I guess so. Dad doesn’t let me go very far from the Librarium. I sometimes go further anyway, but if he found out, he’d be really mad.”
“He has good reason to keep you close.” I cleared my throat and ate the last part of my bread. “You should be in class, shouldn't you?”
“Yes,” he said dejectedly. “I don’t want to…”
“I’m not going to be responsible for your truancy.” I stood up and held out my hand. Oli sighed and grabbed it, and I hoisted him up. He curled his knees to his chest, hovering in the air for a moment before I set him onto his feet. It was something Dalia also liked to do, and it made me smile.
After Oli had gone off to his class, I went up to the second floor of the Librarium and ran into Raka. He was kneeling in front of a shelf, counting books and making check marks on a pad of paper in his hand. A tall omega was next to him on a footstool, doing the same thing with books on the upper shelves. The tall omega saw me first, and said, “Ra, is this the guy?”
“Good morning,” Raka said, looking up. “Yeah, this is Delos. Delos, this is Shen.”
I nodded to Shen, and he said, “So, Ra does have a past. Never thought I’d meet anyone from it, with how tight-lipped he is. Where do you come from?”
“The south, same as him,” I said, not wanting to go into detail.
“Are all southerners so secretive?” he pondered, and I made no reply
“Hope you don’t mind taking care of the rest of this?” Raka said, putting his pad on the wooden cart between them. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
“Mm-mm,” Shen said. He gave me a look over before turning back to the stacks, and Raka gestured for me to follow him.
“Ra?” I said once we were on our own.
“That’s what they know me as,” he replied. “So, please, keep my real name to yourself.”
“Figured. Oh, here.” I held out the bag of bread. “Have you eaten?”
“What’s this?”
“It’s fresh bread. A place that—” I paused and decided it would probably be better to not tell him about Oli’s little breakfast adventures. “—I found nearby. Thought you might be hungry.”
“That’s nice of you,” he said, taking it. Then he smiled. “This looks a lot like bread from Oli’s favorite spot. He was sneaking again, wasn’t he?”
I laughed. “Don’t worry, I sent him back to class.”
“It’s been an uphill battle to get him to sit in that classroom. I know it must be awful for him to have to stare at a book all day. He’d much rather be out learning with his hands, doing things, being active.”
“So, let him,” I said.
“It’s not safe,” he said, and he gave me a quick look out of the corner of his eye that told me I should drop it.
“He needs guidance, not restriction,” I said, unable to let it go.
“And I wish there were another way. But there isn’t.” He sighed. “If only there were a way to get him to direct his curiosity and energy into his studies. I don’t think he’s even given it a chance. But who could blame him when his teachers are all dusty, ancient omegas?”
Raka led me to a records room, where he checked out three books that were as thick as my hand from palm to fingertip. He stacked them onto a pushcart, stamped a form at the door, and then we were off to somewhere else in the Librarium’s endless number of halls and rooms. Conversation, or any noise at all other than the scratching of pens, the shuffling of paper, and an occasional squeaky wheel, was absent here, and its grand size only accentuated the silence. It was peaceful, just my kind of place.
Raka unloaded the books at an empty table, and we both sat down.
“What do we have here?” I asked, running my fingers over the leather-bound volume in front of me.
“These are just the catalogs,” Raka said. He opened the book, and I saw it was a massive ledger, with endless columns and rows, each filled with tiny writing. He pulled out a magnifying glass that was tied to the desk and pointed to the first column. “These are titles. Scrolls, books, records. This is the wing location, the hall, the sector, the case, and finally, the shelf. The Librarium has five wings, each with three halls. Every hall has a number of rooms, and in each room, even more bookcases. You can see how finding things can become a job in itself.”
“And everything is in these three books?”
“Gods, no. There are hundreds of catalogs. But I think one of these will have what we’re looking for.”
“Wow. You really know your way around here.”
“Seven years to learn it all,” he said.
“You’re half human. What was it like… you know? With Oli?”
“It was the same as any normal dragon birth. I took dragon form.”
“So, you do have a dragon form,” I said. “I was starting to wonder.”
Raka looked annoyed, and I wondered if I’d offended him. “It’s not something I like to engage.”
“Because it draws too much attention?”
“It brings nothing but sour memories.” He flipped through the book, quickly scanning his glass up and down the pages.
“Wouldn’t someone here know? A midwife? A healer?”
“I’ve never met another half-blood,” he said. “Not even in Stonvale. And I don’t know how my mother gave birth to me. I barely remember her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t worry. The Librarium has records going back thousands of years. There’ll be something. I just have to find the right resource.”
There wasn’t much for me to do except sit there and watch Raka page through the catalogs. He was fast, his fingers moving down each column in a matter of seconds, eyes flicking back and forth. It was still strange to have him in front of me again. It’d been seven years, and even though we’d only known each other for a short amount of time, his face hadn’t faded from my memory at all. The Raka sitting in front of me was almost the same Raka that lived in my mind. Maybe a little more tired, though. And the intensity I’d taken as self-assuredness seemed different to me now, maybe because I’d changed. Gained a little more perceptive.
It felt like Raka was in a constant fight or flight mode, and intensity was his way of containing it. Or maybe he was channeling it. It made sense, and I finally understood why he’d made the choices he had seven years ago. Raka had been here for seven years, but he was still running.
He looked up at me, and his eyes flashed. A shiver went through my body, a surge of involuntary excitement. I’d never been able to forget that look. It was in my head every time I was alone in my bed, my fist wrapped tightly around my—
“See anything interesting?”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, turning my glance. “You still look exactly the same as when I last saw you.”
“So do you,” he said. “But you’re much more morose than I remember.” He smiled, and to my surprise, he reached out and adjusted my shirt. “Did you always wear all black?”
“Only after I met you,” I said, half joking. “Teach me how to search through these things. Give me something to do, or else I’m liable to sit here and stare at you.”
“Alright,” he said, and he moved his chair closer to mine.
It wasn’t too complicated, just a lot of information to juggle, but after a short explanation, I was scanning along with him. The three volumes he’d taken out didn’t seem to have what we were looking for, so we went back,got another three, and dove into those. The time slipped by, and admittedly, I was enjoying myself. Sitting quietly next to Raka, looking at books, his shoulder occasionally pressing against mine when I had a question—it was beyond a dream. I had to remind myself that he had broken my heart.
“Wait,” Raka said suddenly, stabbing his finger onto the page. He jotted some notes onto a piece of paper. “Yeah, here. I think we might have something.” His effusive grin sent my stomach into a happy knot—his excitement was lovely to witness. Broken hearts be damned. The only thing I wanted at that moment was to take Raka back into my arms and make him mine again.
