Archive of Our Own ^beta

Draven had heard that his brother had given birth to a blue child. 

Now, he didn’t know if that was true or not, since the circles the Glorious Executioner tended to run in weren’t exactly known for being immune to baseless gossip, but he figured it must have some kernel of truth behind it. A rumour had to be particularly juicy to get out this fast and this late at night. Plus, Darius wasn’t one that the rumour mill often played with. The Hand of Noxus-both when he served Darkwill and now as one of the three integral parts of the Trifarix-was simply too respected, and too feared, for that. Even the few members of the noble families that were still left after Draven’s spectacular culling of the traitorous bunch- heh, that was one helluva show! -wouldn’t dare talk about Darius like that. Not if they wanted to survive another round with Noxus’ best Reckoner.

The executioner smiled his typical greasy smile to himself. That was one of his best shows! Not only had Swain praised him for being one of the first to join his little coup against that lame duck Darkwill, but thanks to those prissy nobles, he was now one of Noxus’ most loved men. Which, of course, was the life he was destined for. It was simply his birthright, to have everyone shout his name in awe as he showed off his prowess. Darius could have his loyal legions-Draven had his arena, and the city, and, eventually, the world.

He huffed to himself. Oh yeah. Darius. A blue child. Rumours.

They had started as little whispers in taverns when a soldier got a bit too tipsy on Noxus’ famous wine after returning home from the grueling front that was the Freljord. The icy wastes had changed a lot of Noxians, and it seemed Darius had been changed the most. Not just because he was now part of Swain’s Trifarix; though that was certainly a big change for Draven’s beefy older brother. Darius being Darius, he took to his new position like a basilisk to battle, handpicking his Trifarian Legion with all the pride of a new father, but neglected to tell anyone about the other big change in his life.

Draven himself, brother extraordinaire, had only heard about it through those tavern rumours. All along the Winterspike Road, year after year, Darius had disappeared from his legions for a few hours each week. None of his soldiers knew where he went, not even his warmasons and top lieutenants, and he never seemed inclined to tell them. Still, not even the most loyal Noxians who worshiped at the mighty Hand of Noxus’ feet could deny that something was up.

Everyone knew that Darius was an omega. Second sexes were nothing to be hidden in Noxian society. As long as you served the empire well, no one cared if you were an alpha, beta, or omega. There was none of that prissy crap from Ionia about needing to protect the ‘delicate little omegas’ or the ‘alphas are the fighters’ shit from the dipshits over in Demacia. You did what you were good at and you did it well? Great! You’d go far in Noxus. Draven himself was a beta, and he knew that in some other place he’d be treated as nothing more than wallpaper, a background for the alphas to posture against and the omegas to ignore. Only in Noxus would people see him for his true, amazing, fantastic self. Soon enough, news of his legendary skills and charming personality would spread across all of Runeterra and no one would care about his second sex thanks to being absolutely overwhelmed by his sheer awesomeness, but still. The sentiment was there.

So Darius was an omega. Big whoop. He could beat the shit out of other people way better than most Noxians, so he was respected, loved, feared. He got to be the very embodiment of Might because he was strong and steadfast, not because his dick had a knot on it. And hey, maybe one day he would pop out some huge, imposing child who would go on to also be able to pummel people really well, and that would be great, but that wasn’t all that defined him. Draven would know. His brother’s shadow loomed large. 

Nevertheless, something was up. In all of Draven’s life he had never seen or smelled or heard of his brother going into heat. He was just never interested enough in another person, though he got pretty close with Quilletta, to have that part of him trigger. No one seemed to be worthy enough of being with him, so his body didn’t deem it necessary to try and entice a nonexistent person to jump him. 

That’s why the rumour mill started churning amongst his forces up in the frozen reaches of the Freljord. Some soldier with a particularly good sense of smell had gotten a whiff of their commander as he walked by one day and smelled, clear as the frigid sky, an omega in heat. Sure, Darius hadn’t looked like the stereotypical omega in heat-Draven didn’t even know if the man was capable of begging-but a smell’s a smell. No denying it there. Someone had gotten the disciplined, towering, fearsome Hand of Noxus all hot and bothered, and no one knew who it was. 

According to the extremely drunk soldier Draven had slithered up to in a tavern, hungry for some juicy details on his oh-so-lovely brother, everyone in the warhost had started placing bets on who they thought had set Darius off. The capable, intelligent warmason? The absolute tank of an infantryman in Company Seven? A berserker? Maybe, Wolf forbid, a troll? They were in the Freljord, after all. 

While a fine bundle of candidates were tossed about in the camp gossip circles, everyone pretty much agreed that, whoever it was, they were the reason for Darius’ little disappearing act every week. A few brave souls decided to try following the commander up into the snowy hills, sniffing as hard as they could for any potentially identifiable alpha scent, but that never ended very well for anyone. Alas, the secret paramor of the Hand of Noxus remained just that-a secret. 

Most soldiers had forgotten about the strange episode pretty quickly once the decision was made to turn back to Noxus. Darius’s weird heat had ended and everyone was too battered and frostbitten to really care about who was fucking who anymore,so it got dropped. Everyone, even Darius, was tired of the pointless war in the untameable (for now) Freljord, and upon coming home to find that a coup had happened, little things like speculating about their commander’s heat fell by the wayside. There were bigger fish to fry. Well, until now.

Draven lengthened his already long strides, his mind racing. Not many had been privy to the fact that Darius was pregnant until his condition had become a little too obvious to cover up with his armour, but Draven had been one of the very limited few his brother had told. He had to admit that it felt nice, being back in Darius’ good books. He knew that his brother was too devoted to family to ever leave him behind, but they had had enough spats to leave them stuck at an uncomfortable estrangement. Sure, his own drinking and gambling habits had played a big part in that, but Draven was convinced that his straight-laced brother just didn’t know how to have a good time unless that time was killing people. Well, that, and getting down with his mysterious alpha. Still, it was a good feeling, knowing that Darius still trusted him like that.

—--------------

It had been a nice day, warm and sunny, but with a refreshing breeze sweeping down from the Freljord into the plains of Noxus, when Darius told him. Draven had been over at Darius’ small home, a diminutive dwelling for such an important man, but Draven supposed that he spent most of his time marching around Runeterra with his warhost, so he didn’t really need anything fancy. He wasn’t there enough to justify it. Plus, he knew that Darius would never want to seem above his legions. Despite his position as the Hand of Noxus, he never let ego or grandeur get a hold of him. All he wanted was the triumph of Noxus, same as his legions, and so they were equals. If a soldier could be happy with a small house, so could Darius. Draven thought that was nuts, but Darius was Darius.

Draven had been over to tell his brother about the latest plot he and his promoter had been cooking up for the arena. His success as a Reckoner and his part in helping Swain bring Noxus back to its true glory had assisted in bringing the two estranged siblings back together, so Darius at least pretended to be interested in Draven’s wild stories about his entertainment empire. 

Draven was right in the middle of telling his brother about his brilliant idea for a sick finishing blow when Darius suddenly stopped his typical finger drumming on the arms of his chair and bolted. His footsteps boomed down the hall, only stopping once they were replaced by the unmistakable sound of retching. Draven had frozen, axes clattering to the carved stone floor. His brother, sick ? The man did NOT get sick, like, ever. If Draven hadn’t seen him bleeding so many times, he would almost have been convinced that his brother was made of iron. 

The retching got louder. Draven’s mind finally started chugging again, and he figured that he should probably go check on Darius. He would inevitably be fine, but it was something family should do, so yeah. He would go do that.

“Sooooo, you good?” he drawled, leaning against the doorframe of the washroom. Darius was hunched over the bowl, the spikes on his armour making it look like he was bristling. He spat before shaking himself like some big dog.

“What do you think?” he growled, glaring at his nonchalant brother over his shoulder pauldrons. Draven snorted, but he paused before he could fire back with a classic Draven retort. He smelled something weird. There was, of course, the delightful smell of puke, but Draven had smelled enough of it on the battlefield and in the area that it didn’t really phase him anymore. No, this was something else.

Draven, despite being a beta, had a particularly sensitive sniffer (just one of his many wonderful traits), and he easily picked up on the abnormal smell. It was interwoven with his brother’s scent, a bright, crisp note almost buried amongst the musk, leather, and iron that Darius normally emanated. Curious, the executioner started inhaling, leaning in closer to his brother. 

“What are you doing?” the larger man ground out, jerking back as Draven’s mustache ends trailed against his cheeks. 

“Sniffing,” Draven replied. “Now stop squirming.” Darius didn’t listen to him, instead choosing to swat his brother directly in the face with a gauntleted hand. 

“Ugh, what was that for?” Draven pouted. “You mighta messed up the moneymaker here!” He pointed to his face, beaming a huge, sharp toothed smile. Darius responded with a frown that could have made a Darkin cry. 

“Leave.”

“Fiiiiine.”

Draven sauntered back to the living room, flopping down onto the not very comfortable couch while he mulled over the smell. It was kind of familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He figured that trying to deduce the smell was too much work, so he just lounged back and waited for Darius to finish whatever he was doing. Sure enough, his brother returned in a few minutes, but even a bored Draven could tell something was up.

Darius was tense, his massive biceps clenched like he was going into battle, and he looked like he was honestly trying to burn a hole in the floor with how intense his gaze was. He had returned to drumming his fingers, but this time on the knee guards of his armour. Curiosity piqued, Draven hauled himself up from his slouch.

“What’s up? Figure out why you were heaving up half your guts back there?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Draven snapped his fingers, a bark of triumphant laughter escaping him. 

“HAH! That’s why you smell different! I knew I had smelled something like that before!” He stopped, blinking for a moment as the information finally burrowed into his brain enough to register. “Wait. Pregnant ? With child? A bun in the oven? Eating for two?”

“ Yes, Draven,” Darius snarled, bearing his teeth at his brother. “That’s generally what the word means.”

Draven threw his hands up in a placating gesture. 

“Just doing my duty, big bro.” He leaned forward, his eyes shining with curiosity. “Never woulda figured you to go the mom route though.”

Darius slouched back in his chair, running a gauntleted hand over his face. “I didn’t either.”

The room went silent for a moment. Oh. This was a whoops. Draven should have known. If Darius hadn’t gone the family route with Quilletta (well, intentionally, but Draven wasn’t about to open that can of yordles), then he hadn’t figured he ever would. His legions were his children, Noxus his charge. An actual, biological child didn’t really fit into Darius’ busy schedule of fighting, fighting, and more fighting. And yet, here they were. 

“You…gonna keep it?”

Darius sighed, eyes downcast. 

“I don’t know.”

Draven, feeling really uncomfortable at seeing his normally confident, assertive brother so vulnerable, reached a tentative hand out and awkwardly patted Darius on the knee. 

“Uh, it’ll be alright?” he hazarded. That sounded like something you’d say to a distressed person. He probably should have left it at that, but ultimately, Draven was Draven.

“Who’s the daddy?”

He got a solid punch to the face as an answer.

—-----------------------

Draven never learned who had been the lucky alpha to get his brother knocked up, but maybe he would tonight. After all, tonight was the night that the bun in the oven had finally decided it was finished baking. 

He stepped up to the imposing door of Darius’ home, carved with the symbol of the Trifarix, and slipped his key into the iron lock. Darius had given him a spare after he calmed down the day he found out about his condition, handing the sturdy thing over to Draven as the executioner had nursed his broken nose. It had thrown Draven for a loop, that show of trust, but he appreciated it. 

The key clicked to the side and the big door swung inward, revealing the darkened hallways. Night had long since fallen on the Immortal Bastion, but the utter lack of oil lamps only deepened the shadows in the home. 

Draven crossed the threshold, shivering ever so slightly at the chill. Stepping from the twilight streets into the house felt like walking into a Freljordian blizzard, his surroundings  plummeting in temperature. He knew his brother ran hot, but the house had never been this cold before. Drawing the wolf pelts stretched across his shoulders a little closer, Draven pushed on.

His footsteps rang through the too-quiet halls, echoing much louder than they should. Draven hummed in consideration. He figured that, normally, a baby was something to celebrate with lots of happy noise. Even his brother, not one to typically radiate joy and happiness, should be pleased. Right? He sniffed, smelling for the scent of either mother or child, but all he could smell was the coppery tang of blood. His eyes widened as an idea rooted itself in his mind. The few little rumours that had managed to work their way into the sleeping city so quickly had said that Darius’ child was blue. What if that meant that the baby had died? He had seen people with blue lips when they choked to death. Maybe that’s what the rumours meant when they gave the baby a very not-normal colour scheme. 

Not-so-happy thoughts rattling in his head, Draven was so preoccupied that he didn’t even notice the midwife until he basically ran into her. 

“Woah!” he exclaimed, trying to bend himself over her diminutive form so he wouldn’t bowl her over. “Didn’t even see you there, ma’am!”

Even Draven knew to be polite to midwives. Noxus had a certain respect for them; those witnesses of some of the greatest battles a person could go through. He had heard enough stories of harrowing births and been beaten up enough times by indignant omegas or women when he had dismissed their claims to glory through the trial that was bringing a new life into the world to know that it was as bloody and dangerous as any battlefield. To Noxians, dying in birth was as noble as dying in battle, another form of the ultimate sacrifice in the name of the empire. There was no doubt that the Wolf lurked behind every push and every scream. 

This particular midwife looked as hardened as any general. In fact, she almost looked like a tiny, female version of Swain, what with her long silver hair and sharp, flinty eyes. Draven wouldn’t have been surprised if her arm started glowing and a three-eyed raven alighted on her shoulder. She was holding a bundle of bloody towels in her small, yet well muscled arms, and her apron was equally stained. She narrowed her eyes at him, sizing the executioner up.

“Who’re you?” she hissed, suspicion colouring every word. “How did you get in?”

Draven scoffed, incredulous. She didn’t know who he, Draven, the Glorious Executioner, was?

“Uh, I’m Draven ” he postured, flexing. She was unimpressed, remaining rooted in the doorway that led to Darius’ room. 

“Y’know, the Glorious Executioner? Head Reckoner? Beast of the Arena? Best gladiator in Noxian history?” No reaction. Ugh.

“Darius’ brother?” 

Recognition finally glittered in her hard eyes, but she still didn’t move. 

“I won’t stay for long, ma’am. I just want to see how my brother’s doing.”

She stared at him for a moment longer before harrumphing and stalking off down the hallway, her bloody bundle dragging its tails on the floor. He watched her go for a few moments before he entered his brother’s room.

A few oil lamps flickered, sending shadows dancing across the stone walls and the bloody red tapestries that adorned them. The curtains of the small window on the far wall fluttered in the night breeze, the panes wide open despite how cold it was in the house. The elegant carpet, inlaid with twisting, angular gold designs, was bunched up in a few spots, most likely where the midwife had been standing as she helped Darius labour. Big fur throws had been cast about the room, but the largest pelt of all was still firmly in place on the sizable bed. There, pelt covering him from the waist down, was Darius, a small bundle in his arms.

His brother’s bare skin glistened with sweat, the lamplight almost making him glow. Draven had to repress a snicker. The ol’ sayings about the glow of pregnancy were true, not that he would ever tell Darius that he glowed. Still, the coating of sweat on him shimmered as the light flickered. 

“I imagine you’ve come to see if the rumours are true.”

Despite having literally just given birth, Darius’ voice was as strong and unwavering as ever. There was definitely an undercurrent of tiredness and pain in there, but his rough timbre was virtually unchanged. 

Draven froze in the doorway. For a second he thought that he might be able to get away with a lie, but he stopped himself. It would work with anyone else, but not Darius. Darius could smell a lie a mile away. He sighed and put on a smile.

“I’m impressed you’ve already managed to hear them,” he responded. Darius huffed, still not looking away from the bundle he was holding. 

“I haven’t. I just know people, and I know what was going around before she decided to join us.”

She . 

So. Darius had a daughter. That meant Draven had a niece. His smile got wider as he imagined all the things they could get up to once she was older. As soon as Darius had let him know his intention to have the child, the executioner had had his heart set on becoming the coolest uncle in all of Runeterra. She and him were going to burn the joint down!

“I wouldn’t take you for the kinda guy to keep up on the gossip,” Draven chuckled. “Doesn’t seem like your thing.”

“Soldiers are into gossip, and I’m into keeping an eye on my legions, so I keep an ear on whatever they happen to be blabbing to each other about. Alexia’s parentage was a hit topic.”

“Nice name for her.” Draven deftly ignored the last bit. He figured that Darius really shouldn’t know how much his brother had been invested in the rumours about the mystery alpha that had managed to woo Noxus’ most un-wooable omega. 

He stepped into the room, coming over to the bed. He stretched his arms out, making the universal gimme gesture, as he plopped down beside his brother. 

“Hand ‘er over, brother of mine!” he drawled. Instead of receiving a small baby, as his totally well informed opinion told him he should, he got a face full of snarling Darius. Draven promptly fell off the bed, a startled shout escaping him as Darius’ teeth barely missed the tip of his nose. Riiiiiiight, new mom instincts. Supposed to be the stuff of legends. Well, Draven could now attest to it, though he’d rather not experience the next step. He loved a good fight, but he wasn’t in the mood to become his brother’s new rugskin. 

“Hey hey hey! I’m not gonna chuck her out the window or anything!” 

Darius snorted, eyes as hard as Ironspike Mountain steel boring into Draven’s. Every muscle in his upper half had tensed, the dark scar on his left arm standing out as the shadows deepened its blackish-purple colour. He looked like a predator ready to pounce or, more fittingly, a mother bear defending her cub. 

A small cry finally broke the intense staredown, Darius’ attention immediately back on the bundle. 

“Shhhhh, it’s alright, it’s alright” he soothed, bouncing the bundle ever so gently in his massive arms. Draven was flabbergasted. It was the softest he had ever heard his brother be with anyone, even Quilletta. He actually sounded…. gentle . He shook his head ever so slightly. Nope. Didn’t work in his head. “Gentle” and “Darius” didn’t go together, and yet somehow, right now, they were.

The crying slowed to a trickle of sniffles before finally ending, the child soothed by her mother’s voice. Darius eased up a bit, tension starting to leave his body. He heaved out a great sigh before looking down at Draven, who was still sprawled out on the floor. He flicked his head ever so slightly. 

The executioner scrambled to his feet, knowing that this was the only chance he was going to get to even come somewhat close to his niece that night. Before he could set himself down on the edge of the bed again, Darius spoke up.

“Don’t tell anyone anything.”

There was a hard, dangerous edge to those words, a promise that, despite being his brother, Darius wouldn’t hesitate to disembowel Draven if he did anything that might put his daughter in harm’s way. She had supplanted him as the favoured family member-not that there were any others to begin with. Still, even someone as stupid as Draven knew his place. 

He nodded, putting on his best smile. He could tell Darius wasn’t fully convinced, but the commander relented and shuffled slightly to the side. Draven sat beside him and peered down into the bundle. His eyes went wide.

Sure enough, the baby was blue. A very light, soft blue, the colour of an early summer sky just after dawn. Tiny little spots of a darker blue freckled the skin under her closed eyes, pattering down the sides of her chubby cheeks like the stones of a creek bed. She had a delicate nose that Draven knew would sharpen into a strong ridge like her mother’s, while her lips were the dusky red of a rosebud. A little tuft of black hair curled down onto her forehead from where the rest was trapped in the swaddle, the same colour as Darius’. 

Draven leaned in closer to his niece, drawing in her scent. She definitely smelled of Darius, with his strong, earthy smell of leather prominent, but there were other notes to her as well. Most noticeably was the unmistakable scent of ice, its sharp, refreshing notes wafting out from her. Oh yeah, she was definitely conceived in the Freljord by someone from the Freljord. No exclusively Noxian pairing would ever make a baby that smelled like that.

 The child’s small brows scrunched up in displeasure as she felt Draven’s warm breath ghost over her skin and she started to murmur, only stopping once Darius drew her closer to his own familiar warmth. Her face relaxed back into that blissful baby look, soothed by the sound of her mother’s strong heartbeat.

“She’s blue.”

“Congratulations, you can see.” 

Draven would have smacked his shoulder, were it not for the fact that Darius would have most likely beheaded him immediately after. 

“ Why is she blue, though.”

Darius sighed.

“She’s part troll.”

If Draven had had a drink, he would have spit it out, but he didn’t, so he made do with screaming.

“ WHAT?!?! ” He stared at Darius incredulously. “You fucked a troll ? Aren’t they like, basically animals?”

“He is not an animal! ” Darius roared, eyes flashing fire. 

Draven immediately regretted every word that had come out of his mouth. Somehow, his first insensitive comment earlier hadn’t taught him not to piss off a protective, emotions-everywhere-because-of-hormones, new mom, especially one who also happened to be his brother, Hand of Noxus and literal embodiment of Might. While Darius might have been maybe willing to spare him that time, the sheer fury leaking from his brother didn’t really give him any wiggle room now. Draven had absolutely no doubt that Darius, only a few hours postpartum, would thoroughly tear him apart. 

The executioner made the smart choice to get up, backing away from the roiling body of animosity and protectiveness that was Darius. Luckily for him, Alexia started screaming in response to her mother’s distress, distracting Darius from his mission to annihilate his brother. Draven was going to have to thank the kid profoundly when she was older for saving his ass from a swift and painful death, multiple times, tonight. 

“Okay, okay!” he soothed, hands up in placation. “If you like them enough to make a whole ass baby with one, I’ll give trolls some credit.”

Darius deflated ever so slightly as he held his daughter tighter, gently rubbing his true ice-blackened thumb over her soft blue forehead. She whimpered a few moments longer before settling down.

“He’s the first person I’ve ever met who I actually thought could kill me.”

Draven started back. That was certainly a way to start a sentence.

“He nearly did. Almost ripped my head right off my shoulders. I still won the fight, but I figured that he deserved my respect after that. It’s not every day that you find someone who can take me on and nearly beat me.”

There was no arrogance in Darius’ statement, only fact. His confidence, combined with his sheer strength and skill, made him nigh unbeatable on the battlefield. Most opponents balked at how the Hand of Noxus never backed down from a scrap and was always willing to charge headlong into conflict with his legions. He was like a force of nature, indomitable and unafraid of anything that came his way, so to find an equal would have been like finding a unicorn. 

“I was impressed. He fought like a Noxian. I wanted to recruit him right then and there, but the other trolls dragged him off into the mountains before I could say anything. I thought I’d never see him again, but I did.”

A small, barely there smile ghosted over Darius’ lips. Draven blinked, multiple times. Mark it on the calendar, his brother was smiling! And not because he just killed someone!

“He wanted to know more. He wasn’t one to settle with being beaten, especially not by a ‘puny human’, so he sought me out. Wanted to see more of my style. I told him I would, if he accepted Noxus’ right to rule. He didn’t, and we fought. Again. And again. And again.”

Draven could see where this was going. Honestly, it read like some silly romance story. He couldn’t believe this is what had gotten his brother to go into his first heat since he had presented AND gotten him knocked up!

“Judging by your smirk, Draven, you know how this ends,” Darius rumbled. “No matter what you’re thinking, it was…nice. To be with someone like me.”

Draven snorted, looking down at Alexia again.

“Obviously.”

The child in question chose that moment to stir, cracking open her tiny eyes and peering blearily out into the world for the first time. Her eyes were a brilliant, icy blue, almost glowing. Darius leaned down over her, almost touching her forehead with his, as he locked gazes with his daughter. 

“Welcome to the world, little one” he intoned, voice laden with pride and severity. She cooed back, enraptured by her mother’s visage. 

Draven felt strange just sitting there, witnessing a side of his brother that virtually no one ever saw. Most knew Darius for his unwavering devotion to Noxus and all it stood for. He was a paradigm of loyalty, a symbol of iron-strong allegiance, to pretty much everyone who stood under the blood red banners of the empire, but that wasn’t all he was loyal to. He may not have shown it very often, but Darius loved his family deeply. Draven had seen the seemingly unflappable general squirm, ever so slightly, at Swain’s insistence that duty to empire stood above duty to family, when the demon-touched man had proclaimed the rule of the Trifarix. He had seen the many times that Darius had sacrificed everything, from a crust of bread back when they were street kids to his dignity when he had to drag Draven out of some situation he had gotten himself mired in, for his brother. Darius was devoted to his empire, but his devotion to his family was just as strong. When Darius gave his heart to something, he gave all of it. 

The executioner remembered how broken Darius had seemed after Quilletta was killed. While his loyalty to Noxus had ultimately won out in that case, Draven knew it still hurt Darius greatly to see her struck down by her own second-in-command and daughter. Draven wondered if Darius had thought about her, about her son and why she had rebelled against the tenets of Noxus, during his pregnancy. He had told her that she was not the only mother who mourned, that she should get over it, but would he say the same now? He wondered if Darius would have even said that to her, had he known of his condition when he confronted her. Draven knew the timeline. Darius would have had Alexia cooking up inside him when that happened. After all, Quilletta had decided to rebel post-Freljord because of the Freljord. Her son-whom Draven had serious suspicions was also Darius’ son-had died there, one of the many lost to the icy claws of the region. It was morbidly poetic, in a way; not that Draven was an expert on anything relating to reading. Darius goes into the Freljord, loses a child, comes back out with one kindled deep within. If only he had known. He may not have been in love with Quilletta anymore, but a mother would have understood a mother. Draven thinks Darius gets that now, judging by the look in his eyes.

Alexia’s shining blue gaze wandered over to Draven’s, looking up at him with nothing short of wonder. Oh yeah, she would be a force to be reckoned with when she grew up. With the strength of a troll and her mother’s steadfast devotion, she would be unstoppable. 

“Heyyyyy,” he drawled, smiling as his tone drew a giggle from the baby. “I’m your Uncle Draven, the coolest person in the whole world!” 

He looked at Darius, still stunned that such a radiant look could be on his battle-hardened brother’s face. He smirked.

“She’ll make a great Reckoner when she’s all big and strong.”

“Over your dead body.”