“Daddy said Leah and I get to pick where Mommy goes,” she said solemnly, her little brow furrowed in concentration, “But…. I want you to help. Is that okay?”
A sharp inhale caught in my lungs as my throat closed up. I reached for the urn to touch it. I allowed my fingers to graze the warmth of the glass, as if maybe I could feel Talli one last time. The coral orange fire behind the glass flared under my hand, curling under my fingertips like Dinah when she wanted affection.
“Yes, of course it’s okay,” I said, struggling to manage anything above a whisper.
Leah came forward quietly then, standing on Betty’s side. Her eyes didn’t leave mine, steady and a delicate blue. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. We both understood the creature of grief, having met it at a younger age than we should have. I gave her a nod, and she gave me one back. It was just one. Small. Certain. But it was enough.
We left for the enchantment soon after. Maisie, Teddy, and Everett had gone to set up the Homegoing Ceremony beforehand, so they were able to teleport all of us to the edge of it. The enchantment before us lay quiet at our arrival, the silence hitting harder than any sound should have. It was not the kind of peaceful silence you found in nature. No, this didn’t mute sound butdevouredit. No birds were singing, no distant rustle of wildlife, no whisper of wind moving through the trees. Only heavy and unnatural quiet that wrapped around your throat like hands.
Mom’s mountainside village stretched before us like a half-forgotten dream. The cabins, still standing in their neat little rows, were weather-worn and gray with age, their wood dull and splintering. The road and trails were dry and cracked. The once wild green grass now grew in sickly, dry, and brittle patches. In most places, the grass didn’t grow at all. It was mostly mud, cold and dead, and dirt. Even in the winter, the trees should’ve had more dignity than this, being bare but proud in their sleep. These looked like they’d given up, their bark sloughing inbrittle strips and limbs sagging or snapped completely off. A fog clung to everything, blanketing the ground and curling around the base of cabins and tree stumps. It blurred the line where earth met sky, turning the distant peaks of the mountain into watchful, unmoving ghosts.
The weirdest thing was the energy of the enchantment.
I felt it as soon as we arrived. It was not a jolt nor a pulse. It was just… an absence. The power was so weak that my scales didn’t even ghost or tickle down my skin. Instead, my heart stuttered along with my wings. My dragon tucked herself deep in the hollow of my chest, restless but eerily subdued, like she was mourning for more reasons than Mom’s Homegoing. Even when the enchantment was fading during Grandma’s Homegoing, it hummed beneath the earth. Quiet but constant, it was like a lullaby that had forgotten its melody but still remembered the rhythm. This place was supposed to hold magic, but now it was empty. It was so brittle and faded like one of the scraps of parchment that we had to read with magic at the Archive, otherwise it would crumble. It didn’t resist my or the others’ presence. It didn’t respond at all to my approach. It simply let us in, as if it didn’t care.
Or, as if it were too weak to fight back.
This place… it feels…Quinn squeezed my hand, pulling me away from the thickness building in my throat.
Dead?
I didn’t want to say it, but… yeah. It feels nothing like Chicago did. I don’t sense anything at all. It just feels so… abandoned.
I nodded, clinging to Quinn for some much-needed support.
“This enchantment is long gone now,” Aunt Titi noticed, shaking her head and echoing my and Quinn’s thoughts.
“What happened to it?” Maisie asked her.
“The magic of the dragon enchantments that exist on the outskirts like this was often connected to the dragon-shifters themselves rather than the land. So, whereas our enchantment uses magic planted into the land like a seed watered and cared for to grow and protect us, this one is connected to the people and the horde of magic. As long as they live, so will the enchantment. Since people are prone to dying faster than nature, these enchantments were often prone to disease and died out quickly. Most of the dragons here likely left for a supernatural city or an enchantment in a large city elsewhere instead of dying, but that seems like it was a long time ago.”
So, Mom will be the last one.
The thought hit me maybe too harshly, the tears finally breaking through the barrier I had built to hold back for as long as possible, knowing that today was going to be full of them. I thought about trying to stop them, but then I remembered Mom walking this same path to grieve her mother. She allowed her tears to flow freely. She saw them as almost sacred, as a power. When she cried, it spoke with so much more grace and beauty than any language. It showed her overwhelming grief, of course, but it also showed incompressible love. I realized then that mourning my mother wasn’t something for me to hold back on, especially not today. Despite the circumstances, there was honor in getting to walk in her footsteps. So, I straightened my spine and allowed the tears to fall.
The Homegoing played out just like my dream, just as Mom would have wanted. Our procession to the mountain overlook was smaller, but that didn’t mean that it lacked any gentleness or reverence. When we reached the site, the same spot where Grandma Sadie’s pyre had once stood, I saw her and couldn’t take my eyes off of her the moment I did. The obsidian pendant around my neck heated like it recognized her as well. I held it, seeking its steady presence and strength.
The final remains of my mom lay on a bed of deep red, freshly cut roses on top of a pedestal of branches. Her body looked different. The gold dusting her ruby scales seemed more vibrant and realistic than before. There was a warmth that had returned to them that I could feel without touching her. Her dark sard-colored eyes, once glossy with a slitted artificial pupil, gleamed with more shades of black and brown than I had imagined. Life returned to her, as if she knew that she was home at last and no longer a prisoner.
One by one, everyone walked between lines of rose petals to view Mom’s body. Most looked at her solemnly. Uncle Everett sobbed, saying how much he missed his best friend, and Teddy did his best to soothe him while tearing up at the sight of his mate so hurt. Izzy offered soft prayers for peace under her lips. Auntie Titi hoped that she and Forrest were happy and knew they were so proud of their baby Byrd, which made my tears stream even more. Ayrie kissed her fingers to press them onto Mom’s cheek, while Bryson pointed with a bereaved sadness beyond his years, “Dragon, sad dragon.” Betty cried in fear at first of the big, scary dragon. I didn’t fault her, knowing it was her first time seeing a dragon in real life. Rosso picked her up and whispered something softly into her ear that made her calm down and look with a trembling bottom lip at Mom again. Then, she started to whimper and cry again, so Rosso took her away. Thankfully, Clarkson was there to lick her tears and help her show off her smile with her missing front teeth. Leah clung to her father’s suit and the urn with her mother’s ashes the entire time. Out of fear or apprehension or something else, I wasn’t sure.
Quinn and I went up together. Tears streamed from her eyes, as if my grief had overflowed into her and was still too much for her to hold. While her left hand still held tight to mine, her other hand trembled as she reached out to gently touch Mom’s muzzle.For a moment, I swore the gold flared brightly, just once like a heartbeat. When Quinn spoke, it was soft yet resolute, her words barely louder than the breath that carried them.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that this happened to you. Thatmyfamily did this to you. I can’t undo what they did, but Iwillmake sure they pay. For every pain they caused. For every year they robbed you of. For every moment you didn’t get to hold your daughter.”
Her gaze fell to the flowers beneath Mom’s jaw before lifting again to her gleaming eyes, the ones that no longer blinked but still held some silent knowing.
“I’m grateful to you beyond words,” she said, her voice cracking around the edges now. “Thank you for raising Byrd to be who she is. For loving her enough that she could love me as deeply as she does. For giving her the strength to survive all this pain and still shine so bright.”
Quinn met my eyes with hers, glistening as brilliantly and fiercely as the gold of Mom’s horns. “Your daughter is everything to me, but first, she wasyours. You made her. You shaped her. You gave her every bit of that power, and I swear to you with my life that I will protect her. I’ll make sure she’s always safe and seen and celebrated. She’ll never shed another tear of sorrow. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure she thrives, rises, and keeps becoming the brilliant being you always saw in her. I promise that I will love her with everything I have for every day I have.”
I couldn’t breathe, yet I was taking in air as if my lungs didn’t know how to stop.
Quinn bowed her head as if in prayer. Her next words even sounded lower, heavier, and sanctimonious. “Descansen ahora, hermosa luz. Su lucha ha terminado. Está en casa. Es libre.Rest now, beautiful light. Your fight is over. You’re home. You’re free. May peace wrap around you like the sky you once soared in.”
Then, she kissed her fingers and pressed them to Mom’s cheek. The gold pulsed there again for an instant before fading away. She turned and kissed me on the temple, her lips so painfully tender I choked on a sob.
My love for Quinn truly had no bounds. It went so deep and far that my heart ached trying to find its limit. It was close to my love for my mother.
