“You could you know,” she says, searching my gaze. “You could leave now. Before he comes.”
“Kal,” I sigh, pulling my hands away. “You know it’s not possible. He’d search the Sere for me and then what? Be put to death for trying to avoid this?”
She leans in close. “Isn’t that what you’re trying to do anyway?” I don’t answer her. The less she knows the safer she’ll be. “At least if you went there they couldn’t touch you.”
“And I’d turn into a monster and never be able to see you again. Or watch my niece grow up.”Or be myself, Ithink, which feels like a struggle enough as it is.
“You don’t know that.”
“We don’t know anything for certain about the Realm and I don’t intend to find out.” I close my eyes for a moment, trying to keep the images of Ninon turning into a monster at bay. “I have a plan.”
“I suspected as much.” She chews her lip. “What did she do for you?”
“You don’t need to know.”
Kalixta gives me a long, hard stare. She’s intelligent and quick. I’m sure she knows even without my saying.
“Enough,” I say. “I’ll take care of myself.”
She sighs, quiet for a time. “Yes, you will. You always have.”
I let my fingers drift over the top of the fine, dark hair on my niece’s head. I don’t want to talk about me or Ninon anymore. “The naming ceremony will happen while I’m gone.”
Kalixta doesn’t miss a beat. “Anila,” she says.
I look her straight in the eye. “You’re supposed to keep the name in your heart until the ceremony. It’s bad luck to share it before then.”
She stares at me earnestly, brows raised. “You are my heart. I’m not sharing if it’s something that’s already mine.”
My eyes burn with the threat of unshed tears. But if I start, I know she will too, so I hold them back. “It’s a beautiful name.”
She gazes down at her child. “I wonder what Thrace will name him.”
“Probably after the king.”
Kalixta’s mouth jumps into a grin, brief and fleeting, before her expression sobers. “He wouldn’t.”
“Thrace seems like the strong, traditional type.” I shrug, as if that’s answer enough to what he’d name the child, among other things.
“He’s more than that.”
I remember then what Thrace said to me before he stole her son to the sky.
“I’m sure the name he chooses will be as good as theone you chose for your daughter.”
She’s quiet for a moment before she says, “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.” I wrap her up in my arms and press a hard kiss to her head.
“Go, before mother returns and starts on you again. I’ll be there for your departure.”
I give her a final parting kiss, leave her room, and prepare for Alixor to take me.
Alixor arrives gleaming and resplendent against the clear blue sky outside the entrance to the great hall. And even though I expected everything, down to the final draft of air that his body pushes towards me, blood rushes through my veins and dread coats my tongue. My sister squeezes my hand, slick with sweat, even though I’ve bathed and the day is relatively cool despite the Sere’s usual heat.
My mother places a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Do your duty and you’ll be fine.”
I hate her hand on my shoulder and I hate that fine’s not good enough for me.
