"Hungry." The baby boy sighed, knowing there was no right answer.
The rest of the breakfast passed in strict silence, with Salaark keeping Shargein glued to her bosom to prevent another ss. The young Wyrmling had no idea what he had done wrong and wanted to go back to playing with his friends.
"I’m innocent!" He tried and failed to escape his mother’s steel grasp. "This is entrapnt! I want a lawyer!"
"What in Mogar’s na are you teaching our Featherling?" Salaark asked in confusion.
"What makes you think I’d use legal jargon around him?" Leegaain replied, offended by the allegation. "He’s too young to understand what entrapnt is. Unless..."
The Guardians turned to Kamila, who gave them an apologetic shrug.
"I’m keeping myself up to date with work, and Shargein might have found one of the court transcripts I left open in my office." She replied. "How was I supposed to know he can already read? Elysia and Valeron can’t do it yet, and Valeron is older than Shargein."
"She has a point." Leegaain pushed his glasses up his nose. "I didn’t teach Shargein how to read. It’s too dangerous, especially because he spends a lot of ti with in my library. I can’t risk that he plays around with Forbidden Magic or Guardian Tier spells."
"And I didn’t teach him either." Salaark stared at the Wyrmling, who cooed and kept his big eyes wide to look as dumb as he could. "I multitask while we spend ti in my office. I can’t have him read my spells, decrees, or how I sentence the criminals."
"Okay. I promise I won’t get angry, but be honest with , guys." Leegaain sighed. "Who taught Shargein how to read?"
He received only shaken heads and denials in reply. To make matters worse, no one looked guilty under Soul Vision. They were all as surprised as he was. So, like Silverwing, felt threatened by the Wyrmling.
"Shargein, did you learn how to read by yourself?" The Father of All Dragons asked and Shargein cocked his head to a side.
"What’s reading?"
"So that’s how you want to play it." Leegaain grunted. "Fine, son. Let’s have it your way."
He wrote sothing on a napkin and showed it to the Wyrmling. It read:
"Do you want ice cream for breakfast?"
"Yes!" Shargein nodded enthusiastically. "Chocolate! I want chocolate ice cream!"
"Good !" Salaark stood up so fast that she flipped her chair. "You really did learn how to read by yourself, young Featherling. How did you do it?"
Shargein gasped, realizing his mistake. Valeron and Elysia took a ntal note of Leegaain’s clever ruse to avoid being fooled the sa way in the future. They couldn’t read yet, but they planned to learn soon.
"I’m sorry! I’m sorry!" Shargein folded like a cheap shirt under his mother’s stern gaze. "Storybooks. You read them, then I do."
"What a brilliant little rascal!" Leegaain’s voice was a mix of pride and shock. "He morized the order of the words and learned to associate sounds with symbols."
"Not in front of the babies, you genius!" Salaark pointed at Elysia and Valeron, who had also reached enlightennt thanks to Leegaain’s explanation and were applauding Shargein.
"Yeah, right." Leegaain scoffed. "As if he wasn’t going to teach them how to read the mont we left the three of them alone."
"Shargein?" Salaark looked at the Wyrmling, who nodded enthusiastically in reply until he noticed his mother’s dour expression.
Then, he stopped nodding and started shaking his head.
"By you, if I hate it when you’re right." Salaark slumped on her chair.
"And we still have to assess the damage." Leegaain raised his hand, in a gesture that asked the Overlord to be calm and smile. "Daddy is not angry with you, Shargein. Daddy is proud of you, and so is Mommy."
"Really?" Shargein wagged his tail, moving his eyes from one Guardian to the other nonstop.
"Really." Leegaain said, and Salaark nodded against her better judgnt. "Show us how good you are."
The Guardian of Wisdom took various tos out of his pocket dinsion. Shargein proved to be fluent in Tyris’ universal language, magical runes, and Leegaain’s and Salaark’s encrypted writings.
"Am I good?" Shargein asked after reading out loud a docunt from Salaark’s office that even Leegaain couldn’t decipher.
"You are not just good. You are the best, my Hatchling." The Father of All Dragons wanted to cry, and not out of joy.
"I couldn’t be prouder of you, my Featherling." Salaark sniffled.
The idea of having to lock down everything and rewrite her secrets before Shargein could find and use them to play with his friends gave her a massive headache.
’What if he has read my Creation Magic notes?’ She actually thought. ’What if he’s morized Leegaain’s spells? We’ve never taught any of it to one of our children, yet Shargein might have studied it right under our noses.
’And the worst thing is he didn’t do it out of malice, only childish curiosity.’
"Shargein good!" The Wyrmling chirped in joy. "Shargein the best!"
The Guardians smiled, but Lith recognized the expression Rena and Senton had back when a young Leria had proudly shown them that she had learned to open all the baby-proofed drawers containing dangerous tools.
She had taken the restrictions as a challenge and studied her parents’ mix of movents and chore magic when they opened the drawers until she could do the sa.
She had explained it to them with the sa smiling face Shargein had now, not knowing it troubled her parents greatly.
"Good!" Valeron clapped, taking the Guardians’ words at face value.
"Wih! Wih!" Elysia joined Valeron, wishing she were as smart as Shargein.
The joy of the children wasn’t mirrored by the parents, who instead wore tense and worried expressions.
"You didn’t understand any of this, right, baby girl?" Elina asked Surin, who had ignored the fuss and focused on her al the whole ti.
"No." The baby girl replied, shaking her head.
"Thank the- Gods!"
***
The breakfast ended abruptly after that.
Elina and Raaz panicked until Lith reassured them that whatever bloodline Surin carried was still dormant and she wasn’t Awakened.
"There’s nothing to worry about, Mom." Lith explained. "Surin is a normal baby. She’s just constantly stimulated by Valeron, Shargein, and Elysia. I don’t think she understands you yet. She’s just mimicking what she sees and hears the other babies do.
"After all, no is a simple word. Maybe she said it without knowing what it ans."
"Let’s hope you are right." Jirni grunted. "I still don’t know how Dripha learned to speak only one word, but I’m not happy it’s her first one."
The baby girl cooed and babbled at her mother, unaware of Jirni’s distress.
"Let’s hope indeed." Elina sighed. "Surin, do you understand ?"
The other baby girl tried to catch the sparkles of light on her mother’s hair in reply. After one failure too many, she fell asleep.
"I’ll take it as a no." Elina sat down in relief.
"Do you want to stay, Mom?" Lith asked.
"No... gods, if I hate this word. I an, go with Valeron and don’t worry about ." She replied.
The only silver lining in that ss was that Valeron had completely forgotten about the grown-ups’ blunders. He had smiled and giggled the whole ti while everyone else despaired
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