I was relieved to see Taryn standing in the shop as I hurtled through the door, but I was not expecting to see the two people standing beside him. In fact, I had hoped I’d never see the likes of them again.


    My mother-in-law stood to Taryn’s left, my father-in-law to his right. Seeing them was inevitable, as they were his grandparents. Still, they hadn’t seen him in several years, and their letters had faded to few and far between.


    “Rowena. Godfrey.” I tipped my head in their direction, neglecting a formal curtsy. Their nobility had no effect on me anymore; I’d been offered a taste of that life and been stripped of it by their hands.


    Rowena smirked, her plum-painted cupid’s bow sharp as ever. Her jaw looked long and slim in the shadows of the kitchen, and she somehow boasted an air of judgment without even speaking. Godfrey''s face was still as stone, his thoughts a cold enigma as always.


    “Look who has come to Windport, Mother! Grandmother and Grandfather!” Taryn beamed, his overwhelming naiveté intoxicating me at the moment.


    “What a joy,” I murmured as I removed my cloak and hung it on the hook by the door.


    “Aislinn, our Leopold’s… beloved.” Rowena cringed as she stepped forward, her face stretched tight with fake sincerity. “Though what he saw in you, I never understood.”


    She’d always resented me. She’d hoped her son, the heir to the Cruxwing lands, would have chosen someone within their clan. Though she and Godfrey hardly looked the part of dragonkin themselves, she had always vied to bring the bloodline back to its former ancient glory.


    “What can I do you for? You haven’t seen us in quite some time. Not that I’m complaining.”


    “Mother,” Taryn said with a sigh as I held up my hand to stop him.


    Rowena scoffed, pretending to be offended, as she shook her dark hair back off her shoulder. The umber tresses had become streaked with much more grey than I remembered.


    “Why, we’ve only come to wish our favorite grandson a happy birthday. That’s all. My, Aislinn, you look quite… bedraggled. Have you cut your hair? Or perhaps put on more weight?”


    Frowning, I glanced at the mirror adjacent to us. My auburn waves had been slicked to my face with sweat from my rushed walk home, and my brown eyes were wide and bulging from the unannounced arrival of our guests. My figure was as curvy and healthy-looking as it had always been, despite the city’s current lack of goods. I had my baking skills to thank for the nourishment. My cheeks and lips were round and full, and even with the slight fine lines creasing around my eyes, I thought I was pretty.


    “Jealousy isn’t very becoming,” I mumbled as I pulled Taryn from between the two of them. “Now, what are you plotting? Why have you come here?”


    The pair of them stood before me, their matching grey eyes swirling restlessly with mystery.


    “Forgive us for not writing over the last couple of years. Godfrey and I both were dreadfully ill with the smolder fever. We’ve both endured rigorous rehabilitation with the help of our healer, but it left us little energy or time to write for a long while,” Rowena said, her words surprisingly earnest. She looked as healthful as always, only slightly aged.


    “Some healer you must have. You look fine to me.”


    “Yes. He is a very talented man.” Rowena clapped her hands together.


    “Taryn is an Evenon, Aislinn. It’s time for him to come home.” Godfrey’s thin lips twitched into something that eerily resembled a smile.


    White-hot anger flashed through me as I protectively tightened my grip on Taryn’s shoulder, the dragonkin heat boiling beneath my touch. “This is his home.”


    Godfrey exhaled as he paced closer. “He is the rightful heir to the Cruxwing manor, my child. Rowena and I aren’t getting any younger, and our brush with death has made us fearful of our mortality. What would happen to Cruxwing without a rightful heir?”


    Rowena stepped closer to me, pinning me and Taryn between them. “Just look around, Aislinn. The current state of the capital is what we’d be dealing with at home if we passed without an heir. You don’t want that for our people, do you?”


    “Why should I care?” I hissed. “I don’t care a thing about your lands anymore.”


    “Because it is Leopold’s and Taryn’s home. And being twelve years of age, it is time for Taryn to train and learn the ways of our people. The dragons are calling,” Godfrey snarled.


    I blinked my eyes. The fact that the Cruxwing clan rode and fought on full-blooded dragons had always left me unsettled, since they were of the same blood themselves, no matter how diluted. Not to mention, their practices were primitive and ruthless, and I wanted Taryn to have no part of them.


    “Dragons?” Taryn’s face was alit with the news, and I involuntarily gripped him even harder. “Ouch, Mother.”


    Loosening my grasp, I drew a deep breath. “The dragons can wait. He’s just a boy, and he’ll have no part of this. I’m sending him to a prestigious academy outside the city in a few months.”


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    Rowena cackled. “An academy can never teach him the laws of fire and claw. Let him come home and be trained, Aislinn. That’s what the boy wants.”


    “If I let Taryn do everything he wanted, we’d be eating cake and custard for every meal and he’d still be in bedclothes with unkempt hair right now.”


    “Aislinn.” Rowena narrowed her eyes at me.


    Taryn looked torn, his eyes darting from me to Rowena; he was eager to please me with his compliance, but I knew he was practically bursting with excitement at the thought of lordship and dragons.


    “No,” I growled. “A war is coming, and my child will not be involved.”


    Godfrey stroked his neatly shaven jaw, his face calm and contemplative. And somehow unnerving. “If battle is coming, the manor is safer than Windport. Training for combat is more important than books and study. Let him come with us.”


    “Never.”


    “But, Mother! Please let me go! Please! I’ve always wanted a dragon.”


    It irked me when Taryn acted so childish and impulsive, and in that moment, I thought he sounded more like a four-year-old instead of being three times that age.


    “Exactly why I will not let you. You whine and cry like a toddler still on the teat. You are twelve, not a man. I won’t allow you to suffer the same fate as your father.” The words rashly took flight from my lips before I could decipher how hurtful or truthful they really were; I regretted it instantly.


    Taryn’s ears burnt red as his unfledged face twisted with disgust. I’d hurt him, wounded his pride before near strangers. I knew his next words before he uttered them.


    “I hate you.”


    I still winced as he said the poisonous words, even though I deserved them. Rowena appeared amused, her perfectly plucked brows flying to her widow’s peak hairline.


    “Taryn,” I cooed as he grabbed his iron from the mantel and took off outside. Where he was going, I didn’t know for sure, but I thought it might be to seek comfort from the cobbler’s daughter.


    His fleeing left things awkward in the bakeshop. I’d never had any sort of pleasant interaction with my in-laws, but I could physically feel the criticism radiating from Rowena as she scowled. For some reason, the perpetual silence of Godfrey was worse.


    “Aislinn, this can be painless for everyone if you would just kindly hand him over,” Rowena said.


    Painless? Hand him over? “Absolutely not.”


    “We can provide him with a life of comfort. It’s what Leopold would want. He’d be ashamed to see his boy sleeping in a one-bedroom loft over a dinky little bakeshop. He’d think you were emasculating him, neglecting his true calling.” Rowena inspected the dirt under her pointed fingernails, unfazed by the gut-punching sentences she’d spoken.


    “Perhaps you should just leave,” I suggested. “Because he’s not leaving, and that’s final.”


    “No one can say we didn’t give her a chance, Godfrey.” Rowena sized me up before turning on her heel.


    I squinted at her, confused and angered by her quizzical remark.


    Godfrey stalked toward me. “Don’t forget all I’ve done for you, girl.”


    His profound voice made hot tears of anger well up in my eyes. I would not cry before them, no matter how upset or furious I got. Swallowing hard, I simply nodded as they made their exit.


    Once I heard the slam of the door and the jingle of the bell, I slunk to the floor. Knees to my chest, I drew a deep breath, trying to calm myself. How could I be so blinded by my emotions that I’d hurt Taryn? Visits with my in-laws always opened up raw wounds. That was nothing new. But to hear the child I loved so much say he hated me? I knew it was likely just from anger, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it was true. I was keeping him from his destiny, forcing him to be something he wasn’t. Was it silly to think I could make a natural-born warrior into a scholar?


    I wouldn’t fold. Taryn was mine. I’d busted my ass to get us where we were, and I wasn’t about to let him go so easily. He’d learn to love the quill and paper, just as I loved baking. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. He’d at least be safe. And safety was more important than happiness.


    Malady pooled in my stomach at the thought of displeasing Leopold. I knew he’d be disgraced that I was holding our son back, but I thought he would be proud of how far I’d come with the small sum of money I’d inherited.


    Leopold had put back thrice as much for me as I’d been actually given, but I didn’t question it at the time; I was just too happy to leave Cruxwing. After he died in battle at Mettler Hill, the Evenons made it very clear I was unwelcome. They’d wanted me to leave Taryn with them to raise, but that was madness. He was only two at the time, not to mention the only piece of Leopold I had left.


    I hadn’t been of noble birth like my late husband. I was only a fatherless commoner. My mother had been an impoverished potter; she passed when I was ten years of age, leaving me to be raised by the streets. It was no easy life, but it had taught me many lessons. So while I wasn’t rich or royal, I was resilient and strong, and I didn’t fall victim to the plots and games the wealthy always played. Like my in-laws always played.


    After my husband’s passing, I fled Cruxwing and went back home to Windport with my toddler in tow and a skill-set I’d forged in the streets long before marrying Leopold. Then, I went by my maiden name, Lockmere, as I wanted nothing to do with Leopold’s coldhearted parents or the Evenon name anymore.


    Being only twenty-two at the time and a woman, even though I was the widow of a powerful warrior and lord, it wasn’t simple obtaining property. In the realm of Carafye, women were often seen as chattel and requiring ownership. Especially commoners. The slave trade frequently auctioned off unruly or unwed women in the streets to be purchased as wives or servants.


    Owning property as a woman wasn’t illegal, but it was no easy feat. I was thankful Godfrey had used my inheritance to purchase us the bakery and loft as a final act of kindness to his son. After Leopold’s death, Godfrey became my legal guardian by proxy. No matter how unfriendly he’d been, he didn’t wish to see me sold off to some brute, and I was thankful for that rare shrivel of kindness. Still, in the back of my mind, I’d always known it would come with a price. And apparently, that price was Taryn.


    They wouldn’t win. Even if they sold the bakeshop out from under me. We’d survive and thrive. Somehow, someway. I’d been born of nothing but soot and clay. I had no decorum or title to sacrifice. I was afraid of nothing.


    If they wanted my son, they’d have to pry him from my cold, dead hands.