“Another child means nothing to me. Why should I care for two?”
I cast a look at the tiny shack that I’d already started to extend in the last few nights—without help from my mother-in-law. “Owu is meant to be here.”
“Because his father was an idiot who entered Tiers.”
I was also an idiot who entered Tiers. Just the most powerful one. “Because his destiny is tied with Adeuto’s.”
Carmine’s mother blew out a breath. “More human nonsense.”
Magus.“He will be my son’s most treasured and trusted friend for immortality, Athira. I can tell this as I can tell what children Gratia will have.”
“You can see the future.”
“I interpret destiny.”
“And what does destiny say about my answer?” she sneered.
“I don’t need to look. You will agree.”
She snorted.
I added, “You will agree when you see Adeuto’s joy at having a companion. And Owu’s joy. Because he has had no playmate in life either.”
Athira sneered her way through that too. “When will he arrive?”
“I’m going to get him now.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
A loud bellow interrupted us, and I scanned the sand for the nismus. She was burrowing into the sand. “Looks like we’ll have two new additions soon enough.”
She was birthing her calf.
Adeuto came out. “What was that?”
“The noise? Our friend is having her calf.”
He ran to push a wooden chair up to the fence, then peered out. “She’s going into the sand.”
“That is how nismus birth.”
“Why is she moaning?”
Athira threw me an ironic look, and I couldn’t prevent a grin. “Because bringing life into the world feels like it must be earned.”
I joined Adeuto, dropping a kiss on his head. “My love, I will return very soon. There is something I must collect.”
“Mm’kay,” he said, squinting over the fence.
Athira stormed inside, as I opened a portal to the Pinnacle and strode through.
The yellow lowered his hands from his face, his back to the stone wall. “Hello again.”
I grunted. “Where’s red?”
“Here,” said the red, entering from another room.
He and the yellow were both rooming at the very top now. An alliance formed by chance, and perhaps fate.
