Annie Temper had gone from her parents' kitchen to her husband's kitchen, never experiencing anything outside of cooking and cleaning for others. She was still within the first two years of marriage and already had a daughter laying in a basket on the kitchen table, watching her, and another child brewing in her belly.

Her husband was out in his forge working on a new commission from High Priest Alcon. They needed to reinforce the chandeliers in the chapel after an incident during last week's sermon, where a piece of metal had fallen from the sky and nearly hit Annie’s mother in the head.

Annie didn’t like to think about how she had wished it would have killed her mother. Those thoughts weren’t pleasant and just because her mother was a cruel old lady, didn’t mean she deserved to die. She was a servant for the dragons and Annie trusted the dragons knew best when someone’s time had come to an end.

“Ahh, gooo, gaaa,” sounded from the small basket on the table.

Annie snuck in her hand toward her daughter, and a tiny hand grabbed her finger. She smiled and looked at her baby with love in her eyes. Her other hand rubbed over her large belly and she felt happy and content over creating such a beautiful family. Even though her own mother had been harsh on her over the years, Annie prided herself in not letting her hatred into her heart.

The dragons had helped, of course. They had known what Annie needed to heal from her wounds as a child. She had needed to have a family of her own, children she could give all the love she’d never gotten. She would treasure them and look after them for the rest of her life.

Annie wiggled out her finger from her baby’s grip and grabbed the rolling pin beside the basket. She spread some white flour over the kitchen table and worked the dough over the powdery substance. The dough softened and Annie rolled her pin out from her center in wide motions, creating a smooth circle of beige goodness.

“Gaaaaa,” the baby said from the basket.

“Yes, Melissa?” Annie said. “Do you think he will like it?”

“Abhaaaa,” the baby replied.

“I hope so too,” Annie said.

She grabbed the edges of the flattened dough and lifted it into a baking tin. Footsteps sounded from outside, and then the squeaking of the door being opened. A moment later, Richard stepped into the kitchen and Annie regarded him in a hesitant manner.

Even though they had spent nearly every day together for the last two years, she still hadn’t fully gotten used to living with her husband. He was quiet and earnest, not like Annie, who loved to talk and make herself busy. To Richard, most things seemed to come at an effort. Speaking, working, even kissing had to be weighed as if to decide if it was worth his time and energy.

“You need to fix that,” Annie said.

“What?” Richard asked.

He cleaned his hands in the sink, and a brown liquid streamed down from them. The forge was a dirty place and Annie had never considered what it would be like to marry a blacksmith before she had found herself already married to one. Now she seemed to always be annoyed when his dirty fingers tried to sneak a cookie from the jar or caress her cheek. Even when he cleaned them for her sake, she was annoyed. She had just cleaned the sink and now it was stained with dark water drops again.

“The door,” Annie said. “It squeaks.”

“Yeah,” Richard said. “It’s always been like that. I like it. That way, you can hear if someone tries to sneak up on you.”

“This is Windbrook,” Annie said. “No one is going to sneak up on you. It’s the safest place on earth. And if it’s always been like that, it’s only because you haven’t fixed it.”

Richard dried his hands on Annie’s baking towel and Annie winced.

“What?” he said. “What have I done now?”

“I was going to use that,” Annie said with a sigh. “For the pie to rest under.”

“Can’t the pie rest somewhere else?” Richard said. “I have a lot of work to do and I missed Melissa. I wanted to come in to see how she was doing. But I need to get back to the forge soon.”

“Well,” Annie said. “She’s not doing anything. She’s a baby. All she does is sleep and poop.”

Richard sank down his big callous hands into the basket and lifted their little girl. He held her up to the sky and looked at her with love in his eyes. Annie knew she was lucky then. She knew Melissa had a father who loved her more than anything and that he would love their next baby, too. That was all she could really ask for. Wasn’t it?

A man who loved their children, a family who shared good times and bad times together. Somewhere stable and balanced for her kids to grow up. She was happy here. It didn’t matter that her husband wasn’t pretty to look at or that he always seemed to be dirty. He was a good father, and that was all that mattered to Annie.

“I’m going to take her today,” Annie said.

“Take her where?” Richard asked.

He pulled Melissa’s small body closer to his face, and he rubbed his nose against her head, smelling her hair. Melissa giggled in his arms.

“To the seer,” Annie said. “She’ll know if Melissa is the one or if we’ll need to try for more.”

Richard put Melissa down into the basket again and turned to regard Annie.

“You really want to know?” he asked.

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“Yes, it’s my destiny after all,” Annie said. “I want to know if I’ve fulfilled it or not.”

“Okay, ” he said. “But you know we can still try for more babies after the one you’re carrying. We don’t have to stop just because Melissa is the one.”

Richard put a hand on Annie’s belly, rubbing the large protrusion with a tenderness Annie had seldom felt from people when she’d been young. She put her hand over his and gave him a warm smile.

“I don’t know if I want more children,” she said. “Two seems just enough if the dragons don’t want me to carry more, of course. I will leave it up to the dragons.”

Richard pulled his hand away, a hurt look descending on his face.

“I need to get back,” he said. “I’ll be done soon, and you can take Melissa to the seer before it gets dark.”

“Thanks,” Annie said.

She felt a sting of guilt wash over her for not wanting more children than the dragons demanded. But she trusted their wisdom. She wanted them to guide her, to tell her what to do in life. More so than most others, and especially more so than Richard.

He was fully content with creating his own path, with just a little guidance from the dragons. But Annie wanted to know that everything she chose in life, every single step she took, was approved by those who watched over her.

#

Annie rushed down the stone path with Melissa wrapped in a blanket, tucked snugly like a caterpillar in its cocoon. She hurried across town and fled from the women in the market, calling her name and waving at her. She didn’t have time to hear about who Mr. Wickett would marry or be distracted by who got pregnant.

Today was important. She needed to get Melissa to the seer before darkness crept out and made the road home hard to see. She got to the chapel and banged on the two heavy doors. They had a metal ring that she crashed against the wood three times before Priestess Rue opened the door.

“Stop that noise,” Rue said.

“It’s Annie. You said you could take a look at my daughter today,” Annie said.

“Yes,” Rue said. “But it’s not today any longer. The day has left us, now it’s night.”

The thin old woman started closing the door, but Annie put her foot in the way.

“Please,” she said. “The sun’s not even set yet. I still have time.”

“Why don’t you come back tomorrow?” Rue said.

“No,” Annie said. “My husband works all day and I have to care for my daughter and my unborn child. I take care of the house too, clean and cook. I can’t come back tomorrow any earlier.”

Rue narrowed her eyes at Annie, and the old woman regarded her with suspicion. Rue wasn’t going to let Annie inside and she feared she wouldn’t get to know if Melissa was the one in years if she didn’t make this happen today.

“My husband,” Annie said. “He’s the blacksmith.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Rue said. “It’s a small town, my dear.”

“He’s fixing your chandeliers,” Annie said. “If you let me in and take a look at Melissa, I promise he will have them fixed before the next sermon.”

Rue let go of the door, one hand falling to her side and the other scratched at the back of her white hair. She was quiet for a while, thinking Annie’s proposition over, before she turned her back to the door and walked inside the chapel.

Annie slipped in and closed the door behind her. Melissa was asleep against her chest and Annie followed the old woman to the back of the chapel. Rue had her long blood red robes on and walked like a ghost across the stone floor. Her steps floated like she was a much younger woman.

Rue led Annie and Melissa into the backroom, one Annie had never seen before. It was small and stuffy, with only two chairs and a small table. Rue lit a candle and placed it on the table. She sat down and gestured for Annie to do the same.

“What do you want to know?” Rue said.

“I want to know if my daughter, Melissa, is the child I’ve been waiting for,” Annie said. “The dragons said my destiny would be to give birth to an important child. I want to know what Melissa’s destiny is.”

Rue gave Annie a wide smile, showing off her teeth or more the lack of teeth in her mouth. Her eyes were dark and hooded, like she had a secret Annie couldn’t be let in on.

“I can’t tell you what her destiny is before her sixteenth birthday,” Rue said. “But I can tell you if she’s important to the dragons or not. If the dragons so chooses, of course. I cannot see anything they don’t want me to see.”

Annie nodded.

“Okay,” Rue said. “Give me the baby.”

Annie handed over Melissa to Rue and the old woman grabbed her in her bony hands. Melissa awoke and first looked at Rue with wide eyes. Then she began to cry, a heart wrenching scream that filled Annie with regret. She wanted to steal Melissa back from Rue’s arms and tell her she was safe. Her mom was here and everything was going to be alright.

But Annie didn’t. She knew she needed to know if Melissa was the child she had waited for or not. She needed to know what the dragons wanted her to do.

Rue looked at the screaming child, her eyes narrowing and then she closed them. She held the baby like it was a bomb, far away from her body, and Melissa kept screaming. Her small lungs filled up with air and pushed it out repeatedly.

Annie fiddled with her hands in her lap, feeling like she desperately wanted something to do. She rubbed her belly and tried to hug the unborn child as a replacement for hugging Melissa.

Rue’s eyes flew open, and they were now wide and beady. Annie saw her irises were gray and a white film covered her pupils. She leaned over the table to get a closer look and if she didn’t know better, she would have said the old woman had gone blind in the few seconds her eyes had been closed.

A wind picked up inside the small windowless room and Annie felt a chill run through her spine. She looked around her and saw the small candle light flicker in the darkness.

Annie had been to the chapel’s sermons for what felt like a million times in her life. She had heard High Priest Alcon speak of what the dragons had told him and of people’s destinies. She had seen reverence and felt serenity, but this she hadn’t experienced.

It was not how she knew the dragons. There was no peace in this room, only an eerie feeling and terror creeping up along the walls. Rue’s mouth opened, and she stared sightless at Melissa.

Melissa kept screaming her lungs out and Annie stood up from her chair, knocking it over on the floor behind her. Did Rue really speak to the dragons or was this some kind of sorcery?

A voice filled the room, seeming to come from Rue and from everywhere. It overtook Annie’s senses and even Melissa’s, too. Melissa stopped crying and Annie held her breath like her life depended on it.

“This child is the one,” the booming voice said. “She is one with a great destiny. Send her to us when her time is right and you will be rewarded in this life and the next. She will become a hero among heroes. She will be eternal, like the sun.”

Annie shivered, her entire body filling up with dread. She had thought, when the dragons finally spoke to her, she would be filled with joy, but this was different. This wasn't what she had thought. She felt fear more than anything else and she acted on impulse.

Rue closed her eyes again, and the wind seemed to disappear just as mysteriously as it had come. Annie snatched Melissa from Rue’s hands and pressed the child against her chest. She stroked her head and rocked her back and forth until Melissa seemed to calm down.

She didn’t scream, but Annie thought that might be because she was so scared she had lost the ability to.

Rue’s eyes opened, they were black and hooded now. She regarded Annie and Melissa with a calm expression on her face.

“It appears you were right,” Rue said. “The dragons will be pleased.”