Chapter 3 The Hatchling's Choice

Knox

They are green. Every single one of them.

I am immediately regretting my decision to bring Asher here.

I had heard about Cubs, Pups and Bubs from one of the maids who works in my kingdom. She came to replace the drapes Asher had most recently set alight and, while taking in the scorched fabric hanging from the wall, laughed and told me children do love to make a mess.

At that point, I had gone three days without sleep thanks to Asher’s incessant crying and was delirious enough to find myself in need of adult conversation, so I indulged her.

I asked if she had children.

She told me she had one. A little phoenix named Ember who attended this very daycare while her mother worked within my kingdom. Her father had died in battle before her birth, leaving the two of them alone, and she had taken the position at the castle to support them.

I remember looking at the burned drapes and wondering how any establishment could possibly care for children of multiple species in one place. Surely they would require powerful magical figures capable of containing whatever abilities happened to emerge.

She had laughed again.

Apparently, they had staff from several species with plenty of experience between them, but one name came up more than the others.

Freya Valentine. A Hearth witch.

According to Ember’s mother, Freya was the source of much of the magic used throughout the daycare, which is why I specifically requested her when arranging this walkthrough.

Now I see her. Green.

There appears to be food in her hair, and she is sitting in the grass surrounded by twelve equally green children who are jumping, squealing and scattering magic in every direction. One has wolf ears and a tail. Another floats several feet off the ground. A little troll lands with enough force to shake the earth beneath my boots, while a phoenix sends sparks flying from her hair.

Ember, presumably.

This is chaos. Pure chaos.

I tighten my arm around Asher and prepare to leave. My heir will not be subjected to this.

“Waterfalls,” the green Hearth witch calls, and everything stops.

The music cuts off, the floating child returns to the ground, and twelve small bodies immediately become still. Their hands lift above their heads before their fingers begin fluttering downward, every one of them making the rushing sound of what I assume is supposed to be a waterfall.

I stop too.

However, I will not waterfall.

“Good job, everyone!” Freya claps, and the children lower their hands. “Free play with Marge and Stella. If you manage to keep your shoes on your feet, your hats on your heads, and your magic and teeth to yourselves, when I get back, we can blow bubbles.”

The response is twelve children squealing at once.

I cringe, and Asher jerks against my chest, but instead of joining them with the screaming I have become accustomed to, he twists in my arms and stares.

Apparently, bubbles are a grand prize.

I will acquire some for him.

The green slowly fades from Freya’s skin as she crosses the grass towards us, combing her fingers through her hair along the way. Whatever food was tangled through the strands disappears beneath her touch, followed by the stains across her clothes until, by the time she reaches me, there is little evidence of the chaos I just witnessed.

She is smaller than I expected. Much smaller.

I straighten as she stops in front of me, waiting for her to introduce herself properly, but her eyes pass straight over me.

They settle on Asher.

Her entire face softens.

“Hello, little man. You must be Asher.” She leans slightly closer, smiling at him. “I’m Freya, and I hear you have fire.”

I frown.

Little man? This is the heir to the dragon kingdom.

Asher stares at her. Usually, this is the moment his face crumples. He dislikes strangers, dislikes being approached and particularly dislikes anyone entering the small amount of space he has decided belongs solely to him.

Freya waits, Asher’s cheeks puff, and I brace myself.

A tiny burst of flame shoots from his mouth, to which Freya’s eyes widen dramatically.

“Wow!”

Asher blinks and tilts his head.

“That was a big one.”

It wasn't.

I have seen him produce flames three times that size while refusing to sleep.

Asher, however, appears to believe her.

His little legs kick against me as another puff of smoke escapes his nose, and Freya laughs, lifting her eyebrows as though he has performed some extraordinary feat of dragon magic.

Then something happens that makes me forget the chaos behind her entirely.

Asher smiles.

I stare down at him.

He looks back at Freya, his tiny mouth open around a gummy grin while another curl of smoke rises from his nose.

Eight months.

For eight months, I have fed him, clothed him, protected him and filled his nursery with everything a dragon hatchling could possibly require.

Yet I cannot remember the last time I saw him look at someone like that.

Freya reaches out, stopping before she touches him.

“May I?”

I look at her hand, then her face, realising she is not asking me.

Asher reaches for her, both arms stretched, practically leaping from my side to get to her.

Strange.

Maybe she does have considerable power, though I have never once heard of a Hearth witch possessing much of it.

I decide I am willing to test her abilities, mainly because I have done all that I can do.

For eight months, I have provided the very best of everything for my son. He was left on my doorstep after a one-night affair, his mother deciding she did not want to be tied down by a child and wanted compensation for carrying my blood instead. I paid what she asked, took my son into my arms and have given him everything I know how to give him since.

Yet he does not sleep easily, will not eat without an argument, seems determined to burn my kingdom to the ground and is slowly sending me mad with insomnia.

I have to admit it.

I need help.

And if this witch can get my child to smile, then she may just be the woman for the job.