Chapter 118

Lilae slipped out of the dining room, pausing just long enough to catch my eye.

“Dinner’s nearly ready,” she said, already turning toward the common room to the word along.

She was my first daughter.

A goblin girl - fourteen now. We’d found her in the mountains, taken by trolls after her parents were killed. Not out of cruelty. Out of recognition. Trolls were what happened when grief hollowed someone out completely - when sorrow carved away everything else. They had seen that same emptiness in her and brought her with them.

She’d been nine - too young to be done with the world.

I convinced their king to let her go. Mirri sealed the bond between us soon after with the Rite of Binding. From that moment on, Lilae was ours.

Now she stood nearly as tall as her mother - four foot one - and carried herself with a quiet, unassuming grace. Her long dark hair was carefully braided, her green dress neat and well-fitted, her dark eyes bright with a warmth that never seemed to fade.

But she was different from her mother in many ways.

Mirri was slight - petite in a way that stood out among goblins. Narrow hips. Small breasts. A body that marked her as different. As barren. It had been enough for her people to cast her out when she came of age - cut her loose and banish her from her tribe and the five villages without a second thought.

I never knew which came first - whether she was small because she was barren, or barren because she was small. Maybe they were unrelated.

It didn’t matter.

They had exiled her for something she had never chosen. That alone was enough to set my blood on fire. It had been resolved, eventually. She was welcomed back. Not just tolerated, but respected. Honored. Loved. She was shaman of the villages.

I’d forgiven them, but I hadn’t forgotten.

Lilae, though… Lilae was everything a goblin was expected to be. She had grown into herself with easy certainty - wide hips, a narrow waist, a full bust that would only deepen with time. She was still young, still changing, but already there was no question. She belonged.

And more than any of my children, she felt that belonging.

She loved this - family, closeness, the simple presence of others. She didn’t have many friends, but the ones she claimed she held tightly, carefully, like something fragile and precious. She nurtured without thinking, without effort. Like Mirri. Like it had been written into her bones.

Magic came just as naturally.

Light and earth answered her without resistance - steady, patient forces that mirrored her nature. She was becoming a healer. Not just skilled, but meant for it.

I watched her go. Then I watched the rest of the house assemble for dinner - the slow, inevitable migration toward food.

I caught Elise again as she ed and kissed her, soft and familiar. Ashlara got one too, though hers came with a grin.

Then I scooped Briva up before she could dart past me and tossed her into the air. She squealed, arms wide, laughter bursting out of her as she rose and fell.

Like her mother, she had green skin and small tusks, though hers weren’t as prominent. Maybe it was because she was still young. Maybe it was because she was half human. Her short hair was a soft brown - lighter than Ashlara’s, darker than mine - and she had my eyes. Bright, blue, and always moving.

She was four and a half - the same as Morien - their birthdays barely two weeks apart.

Where Morien was quiet, Briva was a storm. Noise, motion, laughter - she filled whatever space she was in and then demanded more. Magic had already begun to stir within her, though it was too early to say what it would become or whether she would pursue it.

I set her down, and she was gone in an instant.

Brinja and Torvek followed behind.

Brinja was seventeen now, which meant she had perfected the art of being present without actually being present. Too cool for family unless required. Artistic. Sharp. Funny, when she let herself be, which wasn’t often these days.

She moved past me without so much as a glance, her long blonde hair braided in intricate patterns and showing her pointed ears, her dark blue dress flowing with quiet elegance.

Torvek came after her - an orc of twenty now - solid and grounded in a way that only came from work. Real work. At six-two, he was built from labor and routine.

He had family back in Wolfsend, in the Iron Nation. He could have gone back - been with his own kind. But he didn’t. He stayed.

He’d been there from the beginning - protecting the orphans after the cultists fell, providing as well as a teen could for a pack of children, helping build something out of what was left. Somewhere along the way, he’d become the big brother none of them knew they needed.

And once the little ones were born - Morien and Briva - he threw himself into it.

He adored them. Played with them. Taught them. Hovered over them like it was his purpose in life.

Issa came in from outside, fading sunlight trailing in behind her. Her boyfriend, Sszarik, followed close at her side.

He was a naga like she was - his scales a soft seafoam green against her deeper blue. His family had only recently settled in town. His mother wove baskets. His father had ed the guard. They were finding their place.

He seemed like a good kid.

A little undisciplined. A little too willing to test boundaries. He’d gotten into trouble more than once - but nothing beyond what I could chalk up to being young and a little stupid.

For Issa’s sake, I held my judgment. Besides - what father ever truly approved of his daughter’s relationships?

Mak came down next, her boyfriend, Nok, practically orbiting her.

They were an odd pair at a glance - she being an orc and he being a goblin. She stood a head and a half taller than him. Both sixteen - they’d been together almost eight months now - a lifetime at their age. Long enough that he’d become a fixture here at home.

He looked at her like she hung the stars. It was impossible not to notice.

Polite, respectful, careful with his words - some of that was him. Some of that was the reality of where he stood.

I was a god. Mirri was the shaman of six villages. Serah was a dragon. Ashlara was… the strongest warrior I’d ever met.

And then there were her siblings - six of them being gods in their own right - children of carnage, risen into something more.

By the time the last of them filtered into the dining room, the house felt full in that particular way it only ever did on nights like this.

Then Faith shifted again.

A soft echo of footsteps. A flicker at the edge of vision. The whisper of breath where there shouldn’t have been any.

Vel stepped into existence before me.

Ashlara’s and my daughter.

Copper hair fell in thick, unruly waves around her face. Her red eyes were sharper now, clearer, the dark ring around her irises giving her gaze a focused intensity that never quite relaxed.

She wore a fitted dark tunic with a high collar, sleeves rolled up for movement, paired with reinforced pants and soft boots. Every piece was deliberate. Measured. Designed for motion and control. Even the fabric seemed to adjust as she moved, shifting to maintain balance.

At her wrist, a small braided cord hung - frayed with time. A gift from Brinja before Vel left.

She smiled.

It didn’t seem **** or out of place, even though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. It was practiced, perfected, crafted to put people at ease, even if it wasn’t genuine.

She was the goddess of coordinated **** - the pack leader of my ascended children.

“Velgra,” I said.

“Thren,” she replied.

I raised an eyebrow. She’d never called me father before. Honestly, I didn’t any of my bloodchildren using my name or any honorific when they addressed me.

She studied my expression. “Is that not appropriate?”

I smiled, softer this time. “I didn’t expect it,” I said. “But I like it. I will always be your father.”

I pulled her into a hug. She returned it immediately - firm, practiced. It felt… natural. Like something she’d learned well enough to almost mean.

I ran a hand through her hair, then cupped her cheek. “Any word from Tansy?”

Her expression didn’t change - that same carefully crafted warmth - but her answer did.

“She’s not coming.”

“She’s still mad at me,” I said.

Vel nodded once.

I let out a slow breath, then gave her a small, steady smile. “Everyone’s gathered,” I said. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

* * *

Mirri and Grams had outdone themselves again.

The table was a banquet - roast pheasant and venison from the hunt Torvek and I had made the day before, chevon glazed to a shine, a bright vegetable medley, savory cheese pies, mashed potatoes piled high, stuffing rich with herbs, and a fruit glaze that seemed to find its way onto everything whether it belonged there or not.

The bloodchildren went straight for the meat, as they always did. No hesitation. No debate. Just instinct. Moss was the exception - she sampled everything at least once, though “sampled” was a generous word.

The others filled their plates more traditionally, though no two of them ever seemed to agree on what that meant.

Torvek favored the venison. Mak leaned toward the pheasant. Elarion and Brinja made a noticeable dent in the vegetables, though they compensated by drowning nearly everything in glaze. Lilae took to Mirri’s stuffing like it was sacred. Tib and Morien built small mountains of mashed potatoes and cheese pie. Issa and Briva attacked the chevon with enthusiasm and nearly buried it under glaze in the process.

It was chaotic. Loud. Familiar.

We laughed. Talked over one another. Told stories we’d all heard before and laughed at them anyway.

Mirri shared bits of gossip from the villages. Ashlara told a story about her younger years - reckless, foolish, and so vividly told it left me laughing to tears. Serah spoke, briefly, about draconic politics - something she clearly hated but could never quite escape. Orrik ed along rumors from Northgate and Dumrath Kol-Varn, where his roots still ran deep.

Elise drifted into a tangent about Khuldren runes and their parallels to Elithae glyphs - fascinating, detailed, and entirely disconnected from the conversation that had come before it.

No one stopped her. No one ever did.

Despite her social awkwardness, she was one of us. Loved and accepted by everyone present.

The warmth of it all settled into my chest, tight and steady. A quiet reminder of just how much I had. How much I had been given.

My family. All of them, gathered together again.

It pulled me back to earlier days - when everything was louder, messier, uncertain. When we were still figuring out who we were, what we were meant to be. When the chaos had been constant. When it had all still felt… fragile.

They were all here. All of them - except Tansy.

Her absence sat heavy. A hollow space I couldn’t ignore no matter how much noise filled the room. A quiet, persistent reminder that I wasn’t perfect. That there were things I couldn’t fix, no matter how hard I tried.

Tansy had always been the hardest.

My last bloodchild. Now the goddess of **** without restraint.

Even before her ascension, she had been difficult - more than the others. Rebellious. Stubborn. Quick to anger. And Faith had only sharpened those edges, turned them into something harder, stronger, more dangerous.

When she was younger, I could guide her. With Vel’s help, we could steer her - redirect the storm instead of standing in its path.

Now… Now she couldn’t stand me.

Every conversation turned into a snarl, a shout, a challenge. We’d fought - more than once. Not arguments. Fights.

And it broke something in me every time.

She was still part of the pack. That much hadn’t changed. She stayed in with the others. Showed up when it mattered to them, if not to me.

But even that made me wonder.

The bloodchildren weren’t like the rest of us. They didn’t feel the same way. Not truly. No guilt. No comion. No empathy - not as we understood it.

They were a pack. Each of them held a role. Fixed Instinctual. Something deeper than choice. Something that didn’t bend for convention or expectation. There were no second guesses. No question of identity or belonging.

They didn’t need to understand each other. They simply were.

The only one who came close was Vel.

As the leader, it fell to her to observe. To interpret. To guide. She didn’t feel the way we did - but she understood it. Recognized it. Knew how to respond, even if the emotion itself wasn’t truly hers.

It made her the bridge between two worlds.