Re:Ant Lord-Chapter 136: Opening Eyes

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"He’s not just building a kingdom," she whispered to the sleeping baby. "He’s building a legend."

Miryam twitched faintly, as if the soul within her had heard.

One day later...

A dusky hush still cloaked the Monarch of Mountain when Kai awoke from his sleep. Flecks of mica in the cavern roof glittered faintly, catching the glow of dawn creeping down the central skylight. He lay on his side, one arm curved about Luna’s waist while her hair spilled like molten gold across his shoulder. Their vine-bracelets pulsed with a languid rhythm. Moonbound heartbeat answering heartbeat. For a rare instant he allowed himself to lie still, breathing the scent of warm rabbit and star-milk that lingered in the cool air.

A gentle mental brush tickled his thoughts.

<<Father...?>>

Kai blinked fully awake. The touch was softer than any words, a ripple of awareness moving through the soul link he shared with Miryam the hatchling. She was still in her carved cradle, ten paces away, yet he felt a new flutter of curiosity from her dormant aura. Not awake, but stirring closer to the surface.

He freed himself from Luna with care. She murmured something dreamy—"...five more minutes..."—then curled into the nest of pelts. Kai smiled, pulled a beast skin blanket over her shoulders, and rose.

Across the chamber the miniature wyrmling lay coiled upon star-silk like a coil of newborn sunlight. For two full days Miryam’s body had remained utterly still save for the subtle rise and fall of breath, her translucent flesh glowed with slow moving currents of golden sand aura. Now her eyelids fluttered, revealing slits of molten amber.

He crouched beside her cradle, lowering a hand. Tiny claws, each as fine as a quill tip, flexed toward him. She tasted his scent, then the mental whisper again: <<Warm... safe... Father...>>

"You’re awake, little flame," he said aloud, though only the link carried meaning to her. Her head barely wider than his palm tilted, gill frills fanning open. At the sight a swell of pride filled his chest so sudden it almost hurt.

Footfalls behind him. Luna padded over, bleary eyed but smiling. She knelt, hands resting on her thighs. "Has she finally risen from deep sleep?"

Kai nodded. "First waking. She recognizes me."

Luna’s ears perked hopefully. She leaned forward, offering a fingertip. Miryam stared at it, unblinking, then turned back to Kai. No words. Not even a flicker of the link.

A pinch of disappointment crossed Luna’s face, but she masked it with serenity. "She is shy." She forced a gentle laugh. "It’s all right, little one. I am Aunt Luna. I am your father’s wife."

Miryam’s nostrils flared, she smelled Luna’s aura and didn’t recoil, merely observing her. Then her focus shifted to something behind Kai. It caught her new eyes. She rose unsteady onto four stubby limbs. The cradle edge came only to her shoulders, but she pressed claws against it, trying to stand. Her skinny tail whipped for balance, scattering motes of gold.

Kai reached to steady her, yet she hissed softly, more like a startled kitten than threat. She insisted on doing it herself. Inch by inch she climbed the cushion and tottered onto the stone floor.

Her limbs trembled. Sand aura leaked from her seams, sparkling before settling like dust. Kai kept his hands poised to catch her. Miryam took one uncertain step, then another, gawking wide eyed at the cavern’s towering columns, at the starlight siphoned through crystal ducts, at the boars lumbering beyond the arch hauling beams.

Kai’s chest swelled again with love, pride, and protectiveness blending with the practical part of him tallying new priorities. The lair modifications for a growing wyrmling, star-milk doubling schedule, hazard mapping for her aura flares.

A new impulse flickered in Miryam’s mind, jittery and bright. It was hunger.

He guided her gently toward a shallow bronze bowl brimming with warm star milk. She sniffed, dipped her snout, lapped clumsily. Droplets splashed and hissed into tiny white nebulae where they touched his armored greave.

Luna exhaled softly at the scene. The glowstone lamps cast halos about her new vine bracelet, and the faint bruises of their passion one night before were mostly hidden beneath her tunic, only the flush on her cheeks betrayed the lingering warmth of memory. She stood and began preparing a fresh batch of tonic root porridge for herself but kept watch from the side.

Miryam finished half the bowl, then sneezed with a burst of golden sparkles. Which puffed from her nostrils. Kai chuckled. The wyrmling blinked, surprised, then chirped with a sound like pebbles tumbling in shallow water. She looked at him as if to ask what now?

Before he could answer, Shadeclaw’s voice drifted from the entrance tunnel. "The patrol team returns."

Kai scooped Miryam easily, she weighed little more than a loaf of bread and set her back in the cradle. She wobbled but stayed upright, blinking with slow trust.

"I’ll be back in a moment," Kai told Luna. "Look after her." She smiled encouragement and bent to fetch the rest of the star-milk.

Shadeclaw awaited just outside the living chamber, lean form half merged with shadow. Blueloom clung upside-down under the skylight’s rim, wings folded like panes of violet glass. Grunt and Gore, the Iron Tusk brothers lugged a cart of ore ingots from last night’s smelt, dusty and steaming. Silvershadow, immense as always, guarded the main entrance.

Kai nodded greetings, then addressed Shadeclaw. "Status Reports."

"Patrol north ridge. It is clear. Wolf tracks end toward River Heart valley." The feline ant hybrid’s mandibles twitched in amusement. "They fear our mountain now."

"Good. Any sign of Roddick?"

"Gone." Shadeclaw’s tail flicked. "But I scented foreign ash carried on the upper wind. Not wolf, not deer. Something stirred far east."

Kai frowned. Blueloom unfurled, gliding down. Her soft voice quivered like lute strings: "I saw sky rip tears at the edge of the horizon in the east. A silver scar opening and closing."

Kai’s thoughts flashed to ancient book scraps of knowledge he’d learned from the ant kingdom. Legends of shattered realms, pocket shards drifting like broken eggshells on the world sea. Dangerous. Powerful. He filed the intel.