Chapter 442: They belonged to my six children

​My stomach did a violent, nauseating flip. The absolute contrast between my powerful, feral tiger body and this weak, fragile human shell hit me like a slap to the face.

As Arinya, dealing with high-testosterone beastmen felt as natural as breathing. But here? In this body? I felt completely defenseless.

​"Don’t look so horrified," he murmured, his voice sliding into that smooth, hypnotic silk again. "I am a benevolent creator. If the sight of my true form or this human disguise frightens you, I can easily take on the appearance of the one your soul currently craves. The silver-haired serpent. Damar, wasn’t it? I reckon he was your most beloved."

​A sharp pang of protectiveness shot through my chest at the mention of my husband’s name.

"No," I snapped, my voice cracking but firm. "Don’t you dare touch his face. Don’t use him for this."

​The Dragon God raised an eyebrow, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. "Fierce, even when broken. I suppose that is the tiger lineage I gifted you speaking through. Very well. I will remain as I am. So, what is your answer, Queen? The portal is waiting, but my patience is not infinite."

​I gulped, my hands sweating against the rubber grips of my crutches. My mind was a chaotic battlefield.

​On one hand, every single instinct in my brain was screaming at me to turn around and drag myself out of this basement. This guy was an ancient, terrifying entity, and my human body was weak. How could a girl with a shattered leg and atrophied muscles even survive the raw, overwhelming energy of a dragon spirit?

The mechanics of it alone felt like a death sentence. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

​But on the other hand... my babies.

​I closed my eyes, and the image of little Nadir’s silver hair and tiny tiger tail flashed behind my eyelids. I could still feel the phantom warmth of Kaito and Marina holding my fingers, the sound of Lyra’s little general voice, and the steady, protective warmth of Noah, Fenric, Damar, and Thalor.

If I walked out of this room, I was walking back to a gray, invisible life where my parents looked at me like a medical bill, and my extraordinary art talent was only a backdrop of water in a pond.

I would live the next sixty years staring at a gray sky, knowing my real heart was beating in another dimension.

​If this was the toll to get back onto that ship—if this ancient god was just another mate I had to endure to secure my paradise—could I do it?

​"I..." I opened my eyes, staring at his golden, iridescent gaze. My throat was completely dry. "I need time. I can’t just... look at me. I’m on crutches. My leg is literally in a cast. I don’t even know how my body is supposed to handle a dragon when I can barely walk to the bathroom without falling over."

​The Dragon God chuckled, the low rumble vibrating through the floorboards beneath my boots. He didn’t look angry; if anything, my hesitation seemed to entertain him even more.

​"Fair points," he conceded, waving a lazy hand through the air.

The suffocating pressure in the room eased just a fraction, allowing me to finally draw a full breath of air.

"I suppose ripping my protagonist apart before she can even return to her stage would ruin the entertainment value. I will grant you your time, little bird. But do not keep the mountains waiting for long. The winter in the West Way is progressing without you."

​He reached into his sharp charcoal coat, pulled out a sleek, elegant fountain pen, and casually scrawled a series of numbers across the title page of the paperback copy of The Ugly Duckling That Makes The World Better resting on his table. He ripped the page out and slid it across the wood toward me.

​"When you are ready to pay the toll and reclaim your crown, call me," he said, sliding his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose, hiding the vertical golden slits once more. "But remember, Stephanie... every day you waste here is a day your children spend wondering why their mother has not woken up still."

​With trembling, clumsy fingers, I reached out and snatched the paper, tucking it securely into the pocket of my oversized hoodie.

I didn’t say another word. I turned my atrophied body around, my crutches clanking aggressively against the floorboards as I pushed past the plastic beaded curtain and hurried out of the dim creator lounge.

​The freezing autumn drizzle hit my face the moment I emerged onto the city street, but the cold didn’t register. My heart was hammering a frantic, desperate rhythm against my ribs.

I limped heavily down the sidewalk, the freezing rain soaking through my oversized hoodie and matting my hair against my forehead.

The aluminum crutches clattered unevenly with every frantic step I took away from that basement studio, but the physical struggle was entirely eclipsed by the roaring clarity inside my head.

​Could I pay it?

​I stopped under the leaking awning of a closed storefront, my breath coming in ragged, white plumes in the autumn air. Shaking violently, I pulled the torn page out of my pocket.

The scrawled, elegant ink of the Dragon God’s number was already starting to smudge slightly from the moisture on my fingers.

​"Yes," I whispered to the empty, gray street. "I am going to pay it."

​I clutched the grips of my crutches so hard the rubber groaned under my palms. A dark, resolute heat flared to life beneath my ribs, completely incinerating the lingering helplessness of Stephanie’s persona.

​So what if this human body was fragile? So what if it was weak, broken, and atrophied? This flesh didn’t matter. It was temporary.

It was just a shell I had been trapped in for twenty-one years before the universe finally gave me a real home.

If the Dragon god wanted the virtue of a forgotten, invisible wallflower as his ultimate entertainment fee, he could have it. He could take Stephanie’s flesh, her untouched human vessel, and do whatever he pleased with it.

​Because the moment the toll was paid, Stephanie would cease to exist.

​My heart, my soul, and the fierce, unyielding body of Arinya belonged to the West Way. They belonged to the silver stone walls, to the lush meadow, and to the four powerful, fiercely devoted beastmen who were currently sitting by a silent bedside, watching the snow fall and waiting for their Queen to open her eyes.

They belonged to my six children. To Raiden, Phina, Lyra, Kaito, Marina, and little, silver-haired Nadir.

​Every day you waste here is a day your children spend wondering why their mother has not woken up still.

​His parting words echoed in my mind over and over. And he was right.

While I was sitting here overthinking the mechanics of a human body I didn’t even want, Damar was probably refusing to sleep, Noah was probably running himself ragged trying to hold the city together alone, Fenric was on guard duty, refusing to close his eyes one bit, and Thalor must be worried while taking care of the babies. And my babies were reaching for a mother whose soul wasn’t there.

​I stuffed the paper back into my pocket, a sharp, cold smirk finally breaking across my lips as I adjusted my weight on the crutches.

​I didn’t need time to think. I didn’t need to go back to my parents’ house and pretend to eat another silent meal while they complained about my medical bills. The sooner I got this over with, the sooner the curtain would rise on the next Chapter of the West Way.

​I dragged my broken leg forward, walking. My target was clear. I was going to dial those numbers, and I was going to demand the Dragon god open his portal, but not yet. There was still so much I had to prepare.

Over the next few days, the strange, cold weight in my chest wasn’t the only thing that changed.

By Tuesday, I noticed it while trying to limp to the bathroom. The throbbing, deep-seated ache in my shattered left leg had suddenly vanished. When I tried to put weight on it without the crutches, there was no sharp spike of agony, no warning click in the bone. Nothing. It felt perfectly solid.

Did that dragon do this? I thought, staring down at the heavy fiberglass cast. It had to be him. A god doesn’t demand a pristine offering if the vessel is currently held together by medical screws and plaster, after all. He was prepping his payment.

I didn’t waste the sudden surge of energy. I dragged my old laptop onto my bed and spent hours furiously downloading and memorizing every scrap of information I could find on metallurgy, crop rotation, and basic sanitation.

If I was going back to the West Way, I was going back equipped to make it a proper empire. But every time my eyes strained from the screen, I’d look out the gray window, my heart aching.

What are my babies doing right now? Is Nadir crying for milk? Is Noah holding the fort?

I missed my babies. And... I missed the hands that held me to sleep. I cried.

I didn’t want to, knowing I would see them again soon, but at night, cuddling my pillow, feeling cold, I recalled the voices that whispered love into my arms and the eyes filled with warmth as they gazed at me.

I missed them so much I couldn’t help but tear up, wracking in sobs as I muttered their names, as if they would somehow appear before me if I called out to them.