“Breathe, Arlo. Come on, in.” His strong, good heart pounded fiercely under my palm. “Now out.”
He was unraveling beneath my touch, fraying at the edges. He didn’t deserve this amount of agony; he’d already endured far too much before. He deserved happiness.
“Breathe in …” I repeated, inhaling too. He tried to do the same through tremors that coursed through his body. “Good,good. Now out.”
I would get us out of Naiadon. Alive. Then I would go straight to Highthorn and warn my father of the sirens. They would be stopped.
“Come on.” I hoisted Arlo to his feet and to my bed. As he sat on the edge, I peeled off his leather boots. His skin was chapped and dirty under his yellowed stockings. It had been weeks since he’d last bathed. I worked off the other boot and walked to the bathroom, taking a basin of rose-scented water and a washcloth.
He stared out the window as I washed his face, his chest, and worked him out of his bloodstained shirt. He was lost at sea with his men, trying his best to guide their ship home. But he never would.
Autumn 5343 AT
When Aegir dusted off this little journal and brought it to me, it transported me to another time, to when my biggest fear was simply being apart from Aegir during the day. How I would long for such trivial worries now.
Looking back at the pages, I’ve realized just how much has changed in these three years that have raced past me. How ironic my last entry about motherhood was. Its beauty. I needed to read those words today. Because I’m sick with nerves about being with child once again.
We assumed it couldn’t happen, that something went wrong in the last birth that made me infertile. My husband had all but given up on the subject and wandered to other beds. For that I was thankful. He spent his nights with whomever he chose and so did I. But that’s exactly what places me in such a precarious situation.
I am past the quickening, and my stomach has rounded. My husband’s dark eye lingers too long on me. He has come to the same conclusion as I.
I’m pregnant and the child is not his.
Chapter 34
Arlo and I slept through the day, and then the night, needing all the rest in the world to summon the strength to survive.
The next morning, I stepped numbly into the routine I’d grown accustomed to. I needed to keep up appearances if I wanted to escape. I knew where the portal was. I had Arlo with me. Now I just needed a plan.
Training at least meant punching something hard and lifting my body’s weight in stones. I hoped it would stop the thoughts of Arlo, his bloodstained shirt, and his agony spiraling through my mind so I could focus on our escape. Arlo remained in my room, still asleep when I left. Not lulled. Not caged. He would never set foot in another cell. Not if I could help it.
Surprisingly, it was Raylik in the armory waiting for me. Arms crossed, his tight-coiled curls piled atop his head in a bun.
“Where’s Nixie?” I asked.
“She’s not ready to see you after your argument yesterday.”
I felt guilty, but maybe that was for the best.
“I’ll be training you.”
Perfect. Raylik was a muscle-laden warrior. He would train me hard enough to dull all thought.
“We’ll be stretching.”
After much complaining on my part, Raylik walked me through a flow of movements, stretching and reaching. Rolling our spines up slowly to the glass ceiling above as he spoke.
“When the world is hard and fast, you can always be slow and calculated,” he said as we both stood, our palms planted on the ground. My hamstrings burned. He was surprisingly limber for someone so large.
“Feel your body from the swirls on your fingertips to the soles of your fins. Be present.”
But I didn’t want to be present. Not here, not now. I wanted to be home at Granger House. I wanted the past. Tears pricked my eyes.
We sat on the ground and turned our legs into butterflies, fluttering in place.
I spent my whole life preparing to leave that sleepy country house, and now I desperately wanted to be banished back to it. Back to a place and time with no sirens, no war, and no broken Arlo. Even if that meant no Arlo for me at all.
“How is he?” Raylik asked, as if reading my mind.
