2021-2022 Cambridge Road Literary Magazine

Runs in the Family

By Kathleen "Red" Delaney I remember when my parents presented me with my ring. To anyone else, it appeared to be an ordinary ring. A basic silver band that was bent to look like mountain peaks. But that ring was anything but ordinary because nothing in Kalios Kaa ever was.

As was tradition I was fourteen years old, and on a rare visit home, when my parents had presented that ring to me. At first I didn’t think much of it until I noticed that it was glowing.

“This is a very special ring,” my father had said to me as he slipped it onto the center finger on my left hand. “This ring is not only a symbol of Iekeinorarth but also of your destiny. This is a band of the War Gods, the Gods who have favored my family for generations but who have selected you for something great. These bands are not just gifted to anyone, the Death Gods must approve of who the War Gods choose, and even the Death Gods recognize that you hold fate in your hands.”

That ring hadn’t come off since. Forty-nine years later, I found myself in my father’s place for the tenth time. My husband of forty-five years stood beside me, behind us the royal family of Souroal were seated on the dias, and stretched before us was a hall filled with esteemed Supreme High Commanders and their personal staffs from across Kalios Kaa. Our nine older children sat off to the side with my parents, matching rings adorning each of them except my mother who wore the Souroalian’s version of the bands: a necklace. My heart throbbed with the realization that this truly would be the last time we were going to have a ring ceremony. The Gods had blessed my family with a plethora of gifts, all of which had eventually begun to spread us throughout the Dragon World.

One final ceremony, one last gift to the world that I call home. The final personification.

A prophecy had been received, a short, cryptic thing that stated the thirteen Draconic Philosophies of War would one day be personified.

The first to personify will be a Queen of War, Her inferno of blue shall know no weakness That first personification had proven to be the Queen of the Dragon Empire herself: Akistra Silvertalon. But hints of who would personify the twelve other Philosophies of War were nonexistent… until fifty-four years ago. When I had proven to be Ataraxia. After that, over the course of my marriage, my husband and our ten children steadily proved themselves as 41