Shaessath was silent and contemplative as we made our way back. I said nothing out of a desire to avoid annoying her.

  The source of that desire was something I was feeling a bit conflicted about.

  Not too long ago, I would have put it down to nothing but fear, and continued happily with my day. Now, though, I couldn’t deny that a small part of me (or a not-so-small part of me) wanted to avoid annoying her because having her approval felt… nice.

  I shook that off, trying to focus on something a little more important: The Molten Expanse’s potential reaction to what I’d done with her granddaughter’s blood. All of the uncertainty bound up in the idea of feeding Alys her own blood still lingered, made only worse by the odd transformation that drop of blood had undergone.

  I wanted to explain a bit ahead of time. Broach the subject, at least. After so carelessly mentioning that I needed to consult her on something, I wanted to feel out whether I should quickly come up with something else to consult her about, or if I should proceed with my current plan.

  Yet I couldn’t seem to find the words. Before I knew it, we had reached the house and were walking into my shop, which Shaessath regarded with more than a little fascination.

  “It is impressive what my sweetling has managed to do here.”

  The pride in her voice was unmistakable, and I just couldn’t help myself.

  “You should tell her that.”

  Shaessath’s eyes narrowed on me. “Hrrrm?”

  “She was so stressed when she first heard you would be visiting.” I hesitated on how much I should say as we proceeded beyond the shop and down the stairs. “Not least because she tried to convince herself that she only got her spot in the settlement drive because of you. I did what I could, but she cherishes the idea of making you proud in her own way.”

  I could feel the weight of The Molten Expanse’s stare on my back, even though she said nothing. And I hadn’t even touched any of the upcoming, potentially sensitive topics. Like draconic cannibalism, for example.

  But I couldn’t delay any longer.

  “This might be a bit of an odd question…” Licking my suddenly dry lips, I forced myself to keep going. “Theoretically, how would you feel about someone feeding a draconian an alchemical product derived from their own blood?”

  “What an interesting ‘hypothetical’, Belladonna,” she said dryly. For a moment, I sensed a touch of the pressure she had exuded when I first met her. Then she huffed out a laugh. “The way I’d feel about the subject depends primarily upon how willing a participant said draconian is. You clearly adore my granddaughter, and she returns the sentiment, so I assume anything she gave you was willingly shared?”

  “Of course!” I felt insulted she would even ask, even if the outrage quickly faded. “I asked for some of her blood, both to see what I could do with it and to test the effects of the flower. The results were… well, odd.”

  We had entered my lab at that point, and she spared a moment to gaze around with vague approval as I ran through my typical gamut of preparation spells. She shot me a look of pure mirth when I cast the air breathability spell on her.

  “Odd how?” she asked.

  “As in, it no longer feels like it belongs to Alys.” Somewhat reluctantly, I retrieved the small bottle containing that single drop of blood and offered it to Shaessath.

  Not for the first time that day, the dragoness froze. When she reached out and claimed the bottle, it was with extreme care.

  “This…” She glanced between me and the bottle. “This is still my sweetling’s blood. Yet it feels more like the blood of a dragon than the blood of a draconian. The balance has shifted.”

  “The balance?” I kept my attention firmly on the question, because I felt a little dizzy at the implication of what my beetle’s flames had managed to do.

  The Molten Expanse sighed, suddenly looking incredibly weary. “Are you aware of the fact that draconians have not always existed?”

  “Yes, I am aware of that.”

  She nodded, still staring at the drop of blood. “We dragons have been mingling with the mortal races since the very dawn of time. Draconians are a comparatively new development. In the past, such couplings had wildly different results.”

  No matter how much I wanted answers, I didn’t rush her. The topic seemed to cause her something approaching physical pain.

  “Dragons have a natural affinity for shapeshifting spells. So much of our being is pure mana that we find it easy to shift into something else. For the same reason, we have quite a bit of freedom when it comes to how much of ourselves we want to share with any children we have with other races. Females of my species more so than males.”

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  I blinked, my mind awhirl. “You mean, you can choose how much of your bloodline a child inherits?”

  “I know about the creature you fought.” The dragoness snorted. “Whoever sired it did so out of hand, and refused to give the resultant offspring anything but the barest minimum of its draconic inheritance. Trust me, you would not have slain it so easily otherwise.”

  I had some doubts about that, considering how well Alys and I had fought together, but I chose to pursue a much more relevant subject. “Then, draconians…?”

  The Molten Expanse did not answer my question directly.

  “Of course, a dragon coupling with a mortal is not without risk, at least when the mortal is the mother. Choose to pass down too much power, and the result would be deadly for the mother, the child, or both. Not to mention such careless mixing of bloodlines has its side effects.”

  “The eel looked malformed,” I hedged, earning myself a nod.

  “Mutations. Bloodline instability. Madness. Crippling birth defects. Even trying to be careful, siring a child with a mortal carries considerable risk. Again, things have always been somewhat easier for the females of my species. We could affect our offspring more deeply. With enough preparation and invested power, our offspring would be born as proper dragons, inheriting only a few, predominantly positive traits from their mortal parents.”

  I didn’t know what to say. The sheer possibility of that blew my breath away.

  Fae had no such option, male or female. No amount of care or preparation would result in a full-blooded fae if the child was sired with one parent outside of our species. It simply didn’t work. The addition of a mortal bloodline inevitably ‘dirtied’ our connection to Nature. Some particularly old fae were allegedly incapable of withstanding the mere presence of common fae, simply because they could ‘feel’ the corruption of our species in such an offspring.

  I personally considered that nonsense. Yet knowing that one half of the draconic population could simply decide to say ‘no’ and produce ‘flawless’ offspring, no matter who the partner was, made me feel odd.

  The next question slipped out without me even meaning to say it.

  “Then why is Alys…”

  “A draconian?” The Molten Expanse did not sound angry at my insensitive comment. She sounded… tired. “Just because half of my species can have children with whomever they please, without consequence, doesn’t mean the males do not love their offspring. In fact, a powerful mage among their number was responsible for the creation of draconians.”

  I kept my mouth shut now, firmly set on avoiding another tactless remark.

  “He crafted a ritual that could perfectly stabilize the results of any union between dragons and other races, and then shared that ritual freely. It is simple and easy to perform, and promptly caused an explosion in the number of draconians.”

  Shaessath’s voice betrayed her mirth, though it was still tinged by melancholy.

  “That is impressive,” I ventured.

  “It is. And our race will forever remember him for it. Of course, the ritual is not without cost. In return for preserving the potential for growth which all draconians are born with, they are born weaker. Fragile. Vulnerable. I decided to let my daughter be born as a draconian, because I didn’t want to lose my mate entirely. She is the best of both of us, and so very, very precious to me. However… I am The Molten Expanse. Shaessath, The Incadescent. I have many, many enemies.”

  “And most of them are beyond the ability of a draconian to handle?”

  This earned me a sad smile. “Correct. All things being equal, a draconian will never match up to the power of a dragon of the same age. I tried, but… well, it seems neither of my descendants is interested in pursuing power to the same extent I want them to. The best I could do was protect them. And, when Alys decided to leave, to ensure none of my enemies would even consider going after her.”

  Her voice held such viciousness that I shuddered, even though it was not directed at me.

  “I heard about you before I came here, obviously,” she went on. “I thought you were some kind of trap. Even thought about taking the time to stalk you and tear you apart before revealing myself a few days later.”

  I definitely felt a shudder race through me at that.

  “Do you know what convinced me not to?”

  “No,” I managed hoarsely, my mouth parched.

  “I wanted to deal with the family that caused this whole mess first.” Her entire face lit up with vindictive glee. “Yet, when I started preparing to do that, can you guess what I discovered?”

  This time, I didn’t need to guess.

  “My plague.”

  “Your plague! The family is falling apart. Their enemies are only waiting to pounce because the entire territory has been placed under quarantine. Most, if not all, of their members have been crippled, even if remarkably few have lost their lives. The whole kingdom is terrified of what you unleashed.”

  She was practically purring at that point, her eyes fixed on me.

  “And you did it out of fury, didn’t you? That they dared to threaten my granddaughter?”

  “Yes.”

  I saw no reason to deny that. A mortal likely would have felt nothing but disgust for me, but neither dragons nor fae were mortals.

  “Good. If you are willing to go that far for her, then you are no spy, leech, or opportunist. Did you even know who her family was when you decided to seduce my granddaughter?”

  “No!” I replied, choking a little at her chosen wording. If anyone had seduced someone, it had been Alys seducing me! “I was terrified when I heard your name come out of her mouth. I don’t know what I would have done had I known from the start, but trust me, her family was not why I decided to pursue a relationship with Alys.”

  Shaessath laughed at me. The look in her eyes told me she knew I was still terrified of her, even though I was slowly getting to know the dragon behind The Molten Expanse.

  “You bought a chance with that. And I can say you’ve used it well, my child.”

  The change in appellation was shocking enough that my fingers twitched. A sort of buzzing energy shot through me. The words were no less possessive than when Alys had claimed me, though the underlying emotions were obviously far different.

  “Now, regarding what you’ve done here,” she went on. “I’d like you to show me how you did it. I cannot tell you how useful this drop of blood will be. Yet. But I can assure you that it will be beneficial to my granddaughter.”

  “Oh. Good. So, I’m not getting burned on the spot for daring to meddle with draconic bloodlines or the undertones of cannibalism?”

  Perhaps my tone was a bit cheeky, but it felt right, somehow. I was aware of a change in the air between us. Before, there had been a slight tension in the way Shaessath carried herself. A coiled readiness to strike. That was absent now as the powerful dragoness bent her attention back to the drop of blood.

  “No.” The way she scoffed at me was pure Alys. “Now, make yourself useful and get to work.”

  Harsh as the wording was, her tone of voice was playful. I hesitated, shrugged, and gave what seemed like the only suitable reply.

  “Yes, Grandmother.”