She cried out, body convulsing against his, and he felt her experiencing it—not just observing but living it as if she’d been there. The weight of Janusz in her arms. The sticky warmth of blood. The moment when breathing stopped and everything went silent.
“Stop!” She sobbed against him, shaking. “Please, I can’t—”
He slammed up a mind wall, ending her suffering, and horror set in. He’d wanted her to understand. To suffer along with him. But feeling her break under the weight of his pain brought him no satisfaction or relief. He’d thought he couldn’t suffer more,but he’d been wrong. Now he had to feel it twice, once in his memory and again in hers. He had to feel it break her, too.
“Forgive me.” He gathered his mate against him, wings wrapping around them both. “I won’t be so careless again.”
“Don’t apologize to me.” Her voice was raw but fierce. “I deserve to know exactly what I caused.”
“No one deserves that.”
“I do.” She pulled back to meet his eyes, and he felt that she meant it. “Every ambush, every death. I should know them all. You said it yourself: It’s the only penance I can pay.”
“It’s not penance. It’s torture.”
“Don’t try to protect me from this. From you.” He felt her anger bloom. She was so, so angry. Even angrier than he was. Not at him or at their circumstances, but at herself. She wanted him to punish her, to be the scour for her guilt and shame.
He studied her tear-stained face. They were both broken by this war, just in different ways.
“Tell me about our son.” He needed something pure between them. Something untainted by betrayal and blood. “Please. Everything. From the beginning.”
At the prompt, she relaxed, and so did the bond, transforming from a taut rope to a ribbon of light, warm and full of wonder.
“I didn’t know I was carrying him for two moons. It was Betje who noticed. I was sick every morning and evening, but I thought it was worry or exhaustion. She gave me a stomach remedy, and when it worked, she said, ‘I thought so. That gargoyle left you a gift.’”
“Were you happy?”
“Terrified.” Her honesty rang through the bond. “I was alone, carrying a half-gargoyle child. I was afraid to tell anyone. But also...yes. Happy to be carrying your child. At that time, I could feel you through the bond. I knew you were alive. I thought you’d be back soon.”
Something soured. He felt it before she explained, “That was around the time we began getting casualty reports. Soon after, Lord Wilkin pressured me for more blood, and Iknewhe had something to do with it, so I went to the Nadir. He didn’t believe me at first, but—”
“I want to know about our son, not the villains who kept us apart,” he reminded her. “I know their ugly story already. Tell me about Loïc.”
The rising panic in the bond subsided. She told him everything she could remember. The difficult pregnancy—gargoyle babies were larger, which was hard on a human body. The birth, attended by Betje, Ghantal, and a reluctant mason who’d only helped because Ghantal paid triple. Loïc’s first cry was loud and strong despite his early arrival.
“He tried to fly before he could walk,” she said, smiling at the memory. “Just spread those tiny wings and threw himself off furniture. I spent his entire second year catching him until he was old enough to understand that he couldn’t fly yet and needed to be careful.”
Through the bond, he felt her emotions from that time as she spoke. The exhaustion of long days and late nights. The joy watching their son grow and thrive. The bittersweet satisfaction she experienced learning the ways he was like human babies and the ways he was not. His first words, his obsession with moths. The pride when he’d mastered reading in two languages before his fifth birthday. Her worries that she was not enough.
“You’ve done well,” Brandt said, meaning it. “He’s remarkable.”
“He’s yours. He’s just like you.”
“He’s yours, too,” he reminded her.
“The weak parts.” Shame seeped through the bond. His delayed flight abilities. His soft hide. The bullies.
“No.” He shook her, not unkindly, just to stop her thoughts, and pushed all his pride into the bond. “Our son has no weak parts. Even if the rest of Tael-Nost can’t see it, we can. He is all strength. All our best parts and none of the broken ones. Don’t forget that. I don’t ever want to hear or feel differently from you. Do you understand me? He is what’s good.”
She nodded mutely, her brown eyes wide and earnest. She believed him. She trusted him. He could destroy her so easily if he ever felt the urge.
“Loïc will occupy my mother’s old chambers,” he said idly, toying with the end of her braid.
She went rigid. “You’re taking him away from me?”
“No. You will live here, too.”
“I can’t.” Her instant refusal stung. “I can’t live in the Tower. The gargoyles here know what I did. They hate me.”
