Collin’s heart hammered wildly as he swept aside the dangerous glass shards with a broom. “For heaven’s sake, Aries! Breaking an old jar is hardly a reason to scream like you’ve been decapitated!”
Aries shoved a crumpled stack of paper toward him across the flour-dusted floor.
It was Mother’s journal.
Collin quickly gathered the loose pages, shaking off the flour. The journal was open to the entry written after Aries’s birth. “Did you read this?”
Aries’s shoulders trembled. “Did you know?”
Exhaustion and frustration prickled at Collin’s skin. “Did I know what?”
Aries’s stormy gray eyes glistened with tears as he glared at Collin, as if somehow this was his fault. “My mother died. She died the night I was born.”
Collin’s breath caught. “No—Grandfather told us she died when you were a baby, from mountain fever during the epidemic.”
Aries’s voice cracked. He wrenched the journal from Collin’s fingers, shaking the fragile pages. “No! My mother died the night I was born. Grandfather lied to us. She never even held me. She died because of me.”
Aries’s grief broke loose, raw and unstoppable. He buried his face in his hands, and the sound of his sobs shook through the small house. Collin could only sit there, helpless, each shuddered breath carving the silence. There were no words for this kind of devastation. No comfort that wouldn’t be insultingly small.
Collin reached slowly for the journal, his hands tentative, reverent. His thoughts reeled. How could he begin to understand a betrayal like this? In one breath, Aries had lost both his mother and the story he thought he knew of her.
Without warning, Aries shoved to his feet and brushed past him toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Collin asked, startled.
“I promised to have dinner with Hadria. I’m already late.” Aries’s voice was low and distant, hollowed by grief. “Don’t wait up. I’ll be fine.”
And then he was gone—out the door before Collin could think of what to say.
He stood frozen for a long time, broom still in hand, the silence collapsing around him.
Eventually, he swept up the last of the broken glass and put the room back in order, but nothing about it was orderly. The grief still clung to the corners like dust that couldn’t be reached. When the house was quiet again, he knelt by the wash bucket, splashed water over his arms and neck, scrubbed until his skin turned pink. The shock of cold water did nothing to lift the weight pressing down on his chest.
With his hair still damp, he took the journal from the table and stepped outside. Beneath the old gnarled oak, the evening breeze rustled the leaves overhead. He sat cross-legged, thejournal open in his lap, flipping through the delicate pages with care.
He hesitated when he reached the entry—the one written the day after Aries was born. His fingers hovered.
He wanted to believe Grandfather’s version. Wanted this all to be some mistake, some misread line or missing page. But if there was truth here, he had to find it.
He exhaled and began to read.
January 4, 483
Finally, at long last—and after so many years of heartbreak—Izin and Zinnia have their baby. They’ve named him Aries, and he is perfect. Though he came several weeks early, the midwife says he’s strong. I will never forget the light on Izin’s face as he cradled his son. Zinnia was too weak to hold him after the long, grueling birth, but her eyes were full of joy just seeing him. A wet nurse has already been found until she is strong enough to feed him herself.
Jiah and I walk home through the snow, wrapped in joy. We lie in bed together. Jiah places his hand on my belly, wondering aloud when we’ll feel our second child move. He coos to my stomach, asking what its name is, what it looks like, when we’ll get to meet it. He rattles off names—some sweet, some awful. Finally, I laugh and hush him. “When our baby comes,” I say, “and looks at us for the first time, he’ll tell us who he is.”
Jiah wakes me after only a few hours of sleep. “Ismene, we must go,” he says, his voice tight with fear.
I blink awake, confused and still half-dreaming. Jiah is already dragging me out the door, leaving Connor asleep in his bed.
When we arrive, Izin is standing in the doorway, clutching Aries in his arms.
“Izin,” Jiah calls, breathless, “why has Doctor Fol been summoned?”
The look on Izin’s face turns my blood cold. “Is Aries alright?” I ask quickly, staring at the baby in his arms.
“It’s Zinnia,” Izin says, barely a whisper. “She’s still bleeding. The midwife sent for the doctor.”
