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I thought back to last night, when I’d woken for a second, only to find her lying sprawled-out between Malyr and me, one toe wedged beneath a calf on each side. “They’re finding their way…”
“He adores her.” Marla poured some of the stew into a large clay vessel, which she clasped between her hands before she turned toward us. “I see it in many visions, the way he stole secret glances at her, utterly mesmerized by the girl.”
“Do you know if this… finding their way may result in a child soon?” Asker asked, a thick swallow trailing down his throat before he added, “Alegitimateheir?”
“Legitimate,” I echoed. “Malyr and I are taking measures, if that’s what you’re concerned about.” Rightfully so. Ambitious lords, be it human or Raven, lurked around every corner. “Aside from the fact that we know there can’t be a child with questionable lineage, I don’t think I would survive it if I lost another one. Doesn’t mean that I’m not excited about rocking the little thing, teaching it how to use a bow, or how to—”
Crash!
I startled, eyes first flitting to Marla’s empty hands, then down to the puddle of splattered stew and broken pottery pieces in which she stood. Fingers trembling, shoulders bobbing, her face distorting as thick tears ran down her face…
What the fuck is going on here?
“Anoaley…” Asker shot up. Clasping her shoulders, he carefully led Marla around the mess before he ushered her onto a chair. Then he sank his head. “I ought not have allowed this. This was a mistake.”
I clenched my fists, muscles coiling in readiness to storm out of here. And yet, something kept me in my chair—like a ghostly hand that settled on my shoulder, once more letting the hairs rise at my nape. Until Asker lifted his gaze to me, then that cold shudder spread across my entire body.
Because he was crying.
Nothing more but a lonely tear running down his cheek, that single drop holding an emotion I hadn’t seen in him since Ravenna’s death.
Sadness.
That shudder clawed its way into my stomach, gripping at my organs. My mind dizzied, going back to the way Asker had stared at me in the throne room. How his lips had parted, as if he’d meant to tell me something, only for him to choke it back down.
The burden of the fate who saw the future…
“I see,” I said on a scoff and leaned deeper into my chair, each heartbeat in my chest deafening; no longer a mere rhythmic function but the tick-tock of a mechanical clock. “I’m not going to Lanai this summer, am I?” Would never show Galantia where I’d grown up. Would never touch her growing belly. Would never watch her hair turn gray. “Neither am I going to hold their child. Ever.”
Marla cried harder.
Asker said nothing.
Combined, that said just about everything I needed to know. “Did you see how I die?”
Asker’s lips trembled. “Visions are… capra—”
“Just fucking tell me!” I shouted, a million fleeting pictures popping into my mind, from how a human soldier would shoot my unkindness from the sky to how I accidentally stumbled and hit my head on a rock, and everything in-between. “Stop beating around the bush when it’s damn obvious that you saw my death. How am I going to die?”
“A dagger to your chest,” he said, and damn, that was a fucking painful way to go, the idea alone putting a tremble into my bones. “The goddess showed me how you will throw yourself in its trajectory, taking the blade for Galantia.”
The tremble stopped, all tension fading away from my muscles as if, suddenly, death didn’t sound so bad anymore. “I… I save her?”
That was…
Yeah, that was a good way to go.
Asker pressed his lips into a grim line for a moment before he said, “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” If I had to die, I’d settle for nothing less. “The fuck is that supposed to mean? Do I save her, or do I not?”
“You have to tell him,” Marla said.
“Tell me what?”
“I have said too much already,” Asker choked out. “It should never have come to this. Knowing when one’s death is coming… it is a knowledge too heavy for us to burden.”
“Old man, I should have died on that winter night,” I said. “I’m not afraid of death, but at least let me make sure that it accounts for something.”
