“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
Despite herself, she laughed.
The sound was weak, but real.
Carefully, Leena adjusted the bundle and allowed Rhen to take the child.
Rhen’s entire body locked.
The heir weighed almost nothing.
Heat radiated through the blankets, startling in its intensity. One tiny fist escaped the swaddling and pressed against Rhen’s chest.
He stared down at it.
The child slept on, utterly unconcerned by the Charon holding him.
Leena watched Rhen’s expression with quiet understanding.
He hated that look.
“Do not start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was only thinking that he seems comfortable.”
“He lacks survival instincts.”
“He trusts you.”
“He cannot focus his eyes.”
“Perhaps he is an excellent judge of character.”
“Then he is doomed.”
Leena settled back in the chair, relief briefly softening her face now that the baby’s weight had been removed from her aching body.
Rhen noticed.
Something was wrong.
He could smell no fresh blood. Hear no failing heartbeat. Yet every instinct warned him that her stillness was not simple exhaustion.
He stood guard against an enemy he could not identify, fight, or kill.
The irony tasted bitter.
He had bound himself to a dying stranger because a corpse could give him no answers.
Now he watched the only person whose life had ever mattered beyond usefulness drift toward something quiet, mortal, and invisible.
Leena’s eyes closed.
