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I lock eyes with my husband. We must both thinking the same thing, and it turns the food in my stomach sour.
“Could she do it with trillions of souls and the Goddess Supreme?” Essos questions, beating me to it.
I rub my hands over my stomach, trying to soothe the nausea. It feels like the stomachache promised by parents to children who eat too many sweets. Only, it’s been brought on by the possibility of Octavia double-crossing us and working with Posey once she has her son back.
Xavier presses his lips into a thin line while studying his brother. “You’re thinking this is a long con? Get Galen back for Mom? Get all of us out of the picture, including Dad? You think Mom is capable of that?”
I hate the skepticism in his voice, the concern that their mother would betray them like that.
I realize that I never revealed Octavia’s secret, and now seems like as good a time as any.
“Titus isn’t Galen’s father. Lairus is.”
I’m startled by the reactions around the table. Everyone starts heatedly debating if they knew this or not. Essos seems dejectedly accepting of it. Finn and Dion are startled and surprised. Helene tries to put up a defense, but the quiet murmur of “Starfish” by Kai in her ear gets her to sink into him.
“How do you know?” Essos asks me, not because he doesn’t believe me, but because he does.
“Octavia told me. She said it was why Esmaray left. Octavia told me because, according to her, she was appealing to the heart of a mother.” I rub my belly again, hating the fist of anxiety that seizes my heart. All this stress and anxiety is not good for the baby, and the perpetual feeling of heartburn isn’t good for me.
“She always was a monster-in-law,” Callie says, trying to support me, but I can’t look at her, at this woman who got away from it all and barely wants to help now.
“I guess if this was a long con, the question is, was Galen in on it and was the goal to get to Callie and his sons?” Cat asks.
I don’t like where she’s going with this question, and we all look around the table as if someone will have the answer to how nefarious Octavia, Posey, and Galen were.
“I think Galen was a pawn. I don’t think Posey ever counted on Callie or Octavia,” Dion says.
“You lot sound like conspiracy theorists,” Finn groans.
"Doesn’t make us wrong,” I point out.
“I still don’t get what she’s hoping to achieve,” Xavier grumbles. I think it has more to do with his inability to see his ex-wife as anything more than who she’s been—a vapid, deranged bitch. Oh wait, nothing has changed.
“So, what is this spell to open the gates going to require?” Essos asks, looking to his former second-in-command. During my death, Sybil was the one who kept him together; they made sure the Underworld ran as smoothly as possible. The only good thing about losing them is that there hasn’t been an Underworld to manage. Our jobs are obsolete without souls to shepherd.
“It requires the near death of the monarch. You need to bleed out almost completely for the ritual to work,” they tell us solemnly.
I can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of me. Heads around the table swivel to me, and the laugh changes from a small giggle to full-out hysteria.
“Love, are you okay?” Essos asks, touching my shoulder, then my face.
“No. Yes. No. Don’t you think this is ridiculous? I haven’t had a moment of peace.” I stumble over my words. “There is no moment of peace for our child. Ofcourse,I have to nearly die. Of course, I need to risk my child’s life. I don’t know why that wouldn’t be the case! I don’t know why I let myself get attached to this life, or why I thought something was going to work out for me. Getting you, Essos, was the best thing to ever happen to me, but it feels like fate doesn’t want me to be happy.”
My laughter transitions to tears seamlessly. I’m alone on my chair as I lean forward, my face pressed into my hands while the tears come and come and come. A pair of strong hands encircles my wrists before pulling them from my face. Essos is kneeling before me.
“Fuck the Fates.” He glances over his shoulder at Estelle and Sybil. “No offense.”
“None taken,” they intone at the same time.
“Fuck the fates. They haven’t had anything to do with our love story. You were always meant to be for me. There was nothing in the world that could keep you from me, not even death.” Essos’s voice cracks a little, and I hate, Ihatethat my pain is causing him pain. But this is the way of love, is it not? Sharing not just joy but sadness.
Sybil helps to fill in the blanks. "Posey tried to keep you apart. She used her power as a Fate to read into Essos’s insecurities and placed Ellie in front of him. I believe the restaurant you went to for your first date flooded. She’s been trying to keep you from each other, and nothing has been effective.” Their words only make me feel worse.
“You know I can heal. I will help protect your child,” Callie vows, which only sends a fresh wave of tears from my eyes.
“We can always find another way to do this. We can wait to deal with the Underworld, zombies be damned,” Essos offers.
I remember the way he reacted after he had to destroy those souls when we were at Zara’s. I won’t make him do that again.
