Page 69 of Fire in Stone

She’d better. The last thing I needed was to starve in this world as I had often done in my own.

Isar nodded without a word. The light of the torches on the walls reflected in the golden swirls painted on her head. Her arms folded across her chest, she stared at the statue.

“Ertee told me about your goddess,” I said between spoonfuls of buckwheat. “She gave birth to the beginning of your people—”

Isar’s glare cut me short.

“What do you know aboutmypeople, human?” she hissed, her golden-brown eyes seemed to glow on her dark face.

The buckwheat stuck in my throat. The spoon froze in my hand. Fear seized my heart in icy grip. Isar looked angry, and I did not want to be on the receiving end of the wrath of this woman.

“I…” I stammered.

“Isar,” Ertee reprimanded softly. “She isn’t from here. She doesn’t know the history of Dakath.”

I released a breath. “I really don’t.”

Isar rolled back her shoulders, her temper cooling off.

“My people.Ourpeople…” she said, encompassing with her gaze all the women in the room. “We used to be the proud, all-female race of saurians. We lived in the valley, at the foothills of the Mountains of Dakath. We had our own army and our own government. We obeyed no laws but ours. Until her…” She glared at the statue. There was no reverence for the deity in Isar’s eyes but burning resentment. Her jaw moved.

“Back then, saurians and dragons lived separately.” Ertee took over the story. Her soft, lyrical voice was a stark contrast to the deep, powerful narration of Isar. “The women occupied the valley. The men nested high up in the snowy peaks of the mountains. The saurians laid eggs, from which only female babies hatched. The dragons…” She swallowed. “They reproduced by stealing and raping women from saurian towns. Once fertilized with a man’s seed, the egg would produce a boy. After she laid an egg for the dragon who took her, the woman was free to return to where she’d been stolen from. The man kept the egg and raised the boy to be just like him—cruel, wild, and heartless.”

“Was there just one egg laid at a time?” I asked.

Ertee nodded. “Always only one, if any at all. Children are rare among the fae of Nerifir. Some never have any at all.”

“But the Great MotherSalamandrahad seventeen?” I glanced at the pile of eggs at the feet of the lizard-woman’s statue.

“Which instantly made her divine, of course,” Isar scoffed. The woman clearly had no veneration for the goddess. I wondered why she was at the Sanctuary at all. Isar had proven she could take care of herself even when faced with a full-sized dragon. Why did she stay locked behind these walls?

“Is that how gargoyles reproduce?” I asked. “By laying eggs?” Elex never mentioned that.

Zenada smiled, taking my empty bowl from me. “Not anymore. We birth our children now, just like the other fae do.”

“The Great Mother was the last one to lay eggs,” Ertee continued. “The dragon who stole her didn’t release her after she laid the first one. When she laid the second one, he realized she was no ordinary woman. He kept her, making her lay an egg every year. As the boys hatched, their mother was there, taking care of them. She taught her children the saurian way of love and compassion. As their father trained them in warfare, she taught them mercy. After he made them fight until they bled, she healed their injuries, comforting them and singing them to sleep.”

“The dragon wouldn’t have it, of course,” Isar chimed in. “She made his warrior sons ‘weak,’ he claimed. After she laid the seventeenth egg, he told her to leave. That was when she killed him.” A smile played on the woman’s lips. Glee sparked in her eyes.

“She killed him?” I asked. “The father of her children?”

Isar shrugged. “He stole her from her family and raped her for years. Then, he wanted to take her children away from her. She shifted into hersalamandraform and bit him, finally getting her revenge.”

“She bit him,” I echoed. The image of the giant, golden-gray lizard ripping open the dragon’s neck on the mountain path to the Sanctuary rose in my mind.

Ertee took the empty bowl from Zenada. And Zenada lowered the blanket that was covering me.

“Let me treat your scratches.” She placed her warm palms on my shoulders, sliding them down my arms. Warmth radiated from her hands, relaxing my muscles. The edges of the long shallow gash on my upper arm tingled as if covered with gas bubbles.

Ertee continued with her story. “In the beginning, all women had poison in their bite. Now, only a rare few do.” She slid a furtive glance Isar’s way. “Those who do are hunted and exterminated.” She gave me a pointed look. “They need to hide, keeping their secret from everyone.”

“I understand,” I answered her unspoken plea. “Isar’s secret is safe with me.”

Ertee smiled, covering me with the blanket again as Zenada had finished with her healing touch.

“What happened then?” I asked, feeling invested in the story of the woman-salamander by now.

“MotherSalamandrareturned to her people in the valley. She brought her sons with her, and saurians raised the strongest men Dakath had ever seen. Because power grows stronger when it’s used with compassion. Hate is wiser when it’s countered by love. Patience tames aggression, forging true strength. The sons of MotherSalamandragrew into the true leaders that Dakath needed. The youngest son became the king, with his sixteen brothers taking the thrones of High Lords. Together, they united the saurians and dragons—”

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