Kess
The mystic's chambers smell exactly asI remember—dried herbs hanging from smoke-darkened rafters, incense curling from brass braziers, the particular mustiness of old books and older magic layered beneath like sediment. Nothing has changed in the weeks I've been gone.
She's waiting when I arrive, standing beside her examination table with her hands folded and her ancient eyes already tracking my movements. Like she knew I was coming before anyone told her.
Probably did. Mystics are like that.
"Sit." She points to the same low stool where I sat months ago, back when I didn't know I was pregnant, back when I still trusted him. "Let me examine you properly this time."
This time.The words land like small stones dropped into still water. Because last time she examined me at his request, confirmed my pregnancy, and told him instead of me.
I sit anyway. Need answers more than I need to hold grudges.
My hand goes automatically to my belly—protective, possessive, a gesture that's become habit. The twins have been restless since the dragon flight, rolling and kicking like they're asunsettled by this return as I am. I can feel them both distinctly now, two separate presences sharing the same cramped space.
The mystic places her hands on my shoulders first, her touch surprisingly warm. Her fingers press into the tension knotted there, and something shifts—not physical exactly, more like she's reading something written in my muscles. Then she circles around and reaches for my belly without asking permission.
I let her. Her palms press against the swell, feeling, sensing, doing whatever mystics do when they look beyond the physical world. Her eyes drift half-closed. Her breathing slows.
When her eyes snap open, they're sharp with something that might be concern.
"The boy carries his father's curse." Not a question. A statement delivered with clinical detachment.
My breath catches even though I already knew. Read it in fragmentary texts at Yaern's cottage. Dreamed it in nightmares that felt more like prophecy.
"I know," I manage. "The village texts had references. Cursed bloodlines passing through male heirs. Feral instincts activating in the womb."
"Then you know what happens." Her hands pull back from my belly. "Month six. Maybe sooner. That's when the dragon nature fully emerges in male heirs. His instincts will see his sister as competition. A threat to his claim on the bloodline."
"He'll try to kill her."
"He won't try." Flat. Clinical. Utterly without comfort. "He'll succeed. Unless something changes, unless the curse is broken or transferred before it activates, he will eliminate her before birth. He won't mean to—won't even know he's doing it. But the curse doesn't care about intention. It only cares about survival."
The room tilts. I grip the edges of the stool, feeling rough wood bite into my palms, using the small pain to anchor myself.
"How long exactly?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "How long do I have?"
"You're just past three months along now." She studies me with those too-knowing eyes. "That gives you perhaps twelve weeks. Maybe a bit less if the curse activates early, if your daughter is unlucky." A pause. "The curse doesn't follow a precise calendar. It wakes when it wakes."
Twelve weeks.
Maybe less.
"There has to be a way to stop it." I force the words out. "A way to break the curse before it activates. Before he?—"
"There is." She moves to a cabinet against the far wall and pulls out an old leather-bound book that looks like it might crumble. She sets it on the table with a heavy thud. "Blood transfer. The curse can be moved from one host to another—drawn out of the child and placed in someone willing to receive it. But it requires the right ritual. The right words spoken at precisely the right moment."
"What words?"
"Lost." She opens the book, pages crackling like dry leaves. "When the War God's priests burned the old temples, destroyed the warrior omega texts, tried to erase any knowledge that might break their curses. They were thorough." She taps a page covered in faded script, half obscured by water damage. "But the restricted archives here contain texts from before the curse was placed. Texts the priests didn't know existed. The words we need might still be there."
His library. His knowledge. His help.
Everything I need to save our daughter requires working alongside the man who shattered my trust.
"And if we find the words?" I lean forward. "If we have the complete ritual?"
"You'd need to be the host." Her eyes meet mine, steady and serious. "The curse would transfer to you—all of it at once. Three hundred years of divine rage channeled into your body in a matter of moments."
