“I would never dare take someone’s pain any more than I would take their joy.” She sighed. “And I cannot talk to my children anymore. Not truly.”
“You could? Before?”
Quelia blinked down at him, and he swore he saw sorrow in her eyes. “I used to talk to many of my children. They used to listen. Now I only have one I can speak with.”
“What happened? What changed?” For the briefest moment Fox smiled, thinking of the rage his father would feel at him questioning a god. The rage his father would feel knowing the dragon mother was real.
Or perhaps Fox was just dreaming in his death.
“They killed my children. They are always killing. Every death drained me, little by little.”
“The dragons—the massacre.”
Quelia’s feathers rippled. “Not just my dragon children. The humans, too. The shifters. The faeries. Death is inevitable. I knew that when I made life. But this murdering—this constant war…”
She shuddered, eyes closing in pain.
“So many have died before their time.” Her eyes opened, their pale silver depths brimming with tears. “Like you.”
“I—I don’t belong here. I’m not one of your children. I’m one of those who keep killing your children.” He didn’t think one should be able to feel pain in the afterlife, but he did. His heart broke and his chest tightened. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what my people did to your children.”
She leaned down, blowing warm breath into his face.
“You are my children. My children kill each other. Kill themselves.”
“Why—why am I here?” Fox asked, and Quelia blinked. “Not in the afterlife. I—I know I’m dead. But why am I here with you?”
“They are crying for you,” she said, as if that answered his question. “They are praying for you.”
Fox closed his eyes, trying to push back his grief.
“You prayed to me, too. I could not do much, but I heard you.”
Fox opened his eyes. “Thank you. Isn’t there anything you can do? To make their grief hurt less? They’ve both been through so much.”
“You think it is only your mother and your heart that grieve? Eha is crying, and Chalia is yelling at me. Jobin is scared, and Aurelia asks that I look after you. Javi is praying you start breathing again.”
Fox blinked, and this time he couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
“I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve any of that.”
“Why not? You gave up everything for them. You have proven that their world could be different. That there is hope in something changing. In people changing.”
“So, what now?”
“I cannot let you stay here.”
He nodded. He imagined there was somewhere else—where the others would be. Leon. Ian.
“I cannot heal you. Not truly. Eha will have to do that if she has the power left in her. But I can bring you back just for a moment. Long enough that she might have a chance.”
“What?” Fox’s mouth went dry, his heart racing, as if understanding Quelia’s words before even his mind had. “Why—why me? I don’t deserve that.”
“Why not you?” Quelia said.
“There have been better—my brother—Ian?—”
“There will always be better. It is not perfection this world needs, but striving. Your soul yearns so much, even in death. I think we will need that. Something is changing. I can feel it.”