Chapter 318: 318: Eggs in the Essence Liquid
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Naaro’s strength wavered only once. Her hand slipped from his wrist and groped for his jaw instead, needing a different kind of anchor. He caught her fingers, pressed them to his face, and kept his other hand at the light.
"Look at me," he said.
She did. Her pupils were wide and bright with effort and something like wonder.
"Say it," she whispered, each word carefully made.
"I am yours," he said, and then added the missing half, "and you are only mine."
Her lips quivered into a smile that she could not quite sustain. "Good," she said, and faced the next wave. "I only want to be your woman. If another man tried to touch me I would rather die than let it happen."
The fourth cradle filled, then the fifth. Naaro’s breath turned to small, measured huffs. Sweat beaded along her hairline. Kai’s aura link stayed open, and he fed her steadiness each time a tremor tried to take it from her. When she faltered, he spoke, not loudly, but with a tone fashioned of iron and wind.
"You are not alone. Stay strong. I am with you."
"I know."
"You are doing this perfectly."
"I know."
"You are almost there."
She nodded once and set herself. The sixth cradle received the tide. Each egg settled with a sighing sound as the silk accepted and surrounded it.
[Ding! System Notification: Laying sequence at eighty-five percent. Recommend brief rest. Hydration suggested.]
Kai lifted the essence liquid again. Naaro drank. He wetted a cloth at the pool’s edge and brushed it along the join of skin and the lower lips, not because it was needed but because kindness sometimes works where strength cannot.
"What is in your head," she asked, voice hazy but curious.
"You," he said simply. "And the day they come and find a mountain that is not prey."
She laughed, breathless and fierce. "Let them try to chew stone."
He kissed her knuckles. "Let them break their teeth?"
The last set of contractions came with the inevitability of sunrise. There is a tone in the body that means only one word: now. When it sounded, Naaro closed her eyes, found his breath with hers, and rode it.
The final cradle received what the night had made.
Silence followed, the good kind, full of things that had not existed an hour before. The glow beneath Naaro’s skin softened from lantern to hearth. Her shoulders slumped, not defeated but finished. She let her head tip against Kai’s shoulder and stayed there.
He did not move for several heartbeats. He let the quiet show him how to stand, then pressed his palm one last time above the light. The answer under his hand was steady and numerous, many small pulses matching a larger one, like a choir following its conductor.
"Ready," she whispered, eyes closed.
"Ready," he echoed.
The system’s bell chimed again.
[Ding! System Notification: Laying sequence complete. Transfer to essence channels authorized.
Optional: Monarch’s Aura Sheath available for brood imprint. Apply now?]
"Yes," Kai said.
A faint veil of red gold gathered over his hands, then drifted like mist from his palms to settle over each cradle. It sank through silk and shell without resistance, leaving behind a transparent sheen that barely caught the light.
[Ding! Monarch’s Aura Sheath applied.
Brood imprint: Kai.
Projected traits: cohesion high, response time high, loyalty absolute. Begin channel fill?]
"Yes. Gentle flow."
The pool stirred. Tiny threads of essence streamed through etched grooves in the floor toward each cradle, curling around the eggs like slow smoke. When the liquid met the shell, a small glimmer answered and then went still.
Naaro’s voice was a whisper now. "Will they be strong?"
"They will be ours," he said, and the word carried both promise and warning. "That is strong enough."
He rose and helped her to sit more comfortably, then lifted her carefully out of the cradle and wrapped his cloak around her shoulders and lower body to cover herself. She was naked until now. The glow in her belly had dimmed to a warm afterlight, but it still pulsed in time with the chamber’s hum, as if answering the stone.
She rested her head against him. "I want to see them again."
"You will," he said. "Tomorrow. And the day after. And the day they wake."
"Then take me to the door," she murmured. "I want the last thing they hear to be your voice."
He carried her to the threshold and stood with her, watching the essence threads feed the nests. He spoke quietly, not in ceremony, but in the plain voice he used when the world needed to understand him.
"Grow. Learn. Listen. This is your home. These are your laws. Do not shame your father. Do not disappoint your king. The ones who come to our door decide who they are. You will decide who we are."
A soft sound answered from the cradles. It might have been the essence thread moving through channels. It might have been nothing. Naaro smiled anyway.
[Ding! System Notification: Brood acceptance registered. The chamber functions stable. Estimated time to hatch: thirty days.
System advice: Daily aura guidance recommended.]
Kai shifted his stance to take Naaro’s weight more comfortably. The chamber felt complete now, an instrument tuned and waiting for the first bar of its first song.
But his Predator’s Instinct flared.
He did not move at first. He let the feeling climb his spine and sit behind his eyes. There was something at the edge of the mountain, just beyond the arc of the entrance. Not heavy. Not close. Watching from the woods. The sort of presence that believes stone will keep its secrets if it holds its breath.
Naaro felt the change in him. "What is it?"
"Company," he said, quiet and even. "Stay behind me."
He turned without haste, placing himself between her and the unknown existence. The chamber’s warm light laid a hard line across the floor at the threshold. Beyond it, the tunnel was a slow river of shadow. The unknown one entered the mountain and now in the corridor.
"Come out," Kai said, voice carrying like steel under cloth. "If you are a friend, use your voice. If you are a problem, do not make me name you as one."
The mountain held its breath again. The glow of the cradles kept shining. The essence threads kept their swim.
Something shifted in the dark.
Kai’s mandibles clicked once, very softly. His aura expanded a finger’s breadth. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to.
"Choose," he said.