General Odom tipped his head. “Won’t. Because we are planning to free you after I am gone. Just a few days, Mistress Cel—forgive me, Kimber.”
“You never answered my first question, General. Who is she?”
He became thoughtful again. “Before the Spine, before my head rose from my ass, I was an accomplice of sorts to Savion. I ran his dungeon, hidden in plain sight from the kings.
“There was a woman, captured as a teenager who lived in the cells. For some reason, Savion took a liking to her. Her blood was sweet, perhaps. Her name was Celine. We fell in love on either side of those bars. But we could do nothing about it because if Savion ever caught a hint of me on her, he would kill both of us.
“He took her blood and her body most times.
“When all hell broke loose, the vampire king disappeared, the Three went mad, the druid queen murdered—there was just a small chance for me to get her out of there. Just one and I took it.
“We rode like the primeval themselves were on our hides, stopping only to change horses. And finally, we reached Winter Keep, and I was able to get her on one of the last boats to North Landing before the Spine rose. I had nothing of her but a kiss as they pulled the walk back on the ship.”
By the look in his eyes, I could tell he was back there, back at Winter Keep, watching the woman he loved and couldn’t have as she sailed away forever.
I kept my voice quiet. “What was her name?”
“Cely. Celine Stormbreaker.”
I went cold.
My stomach twisted, and I could feel my teeth starting to chatter from the ice in my veins.
“Mistress?” General Odom was quiet.
“You’re sure of her name?” I managed to whisper.
“Of course. We flirted and spoke through the bars for eight years. Why do you look ashen again?”
My lip trembled. “Celine Stormbreaker was my nanny.”
General Odom went ashen this time. “I…”
“You’re sure.”
“You never forget the one you knew was your soul mate, even if we never did more than hold hands.” He stared at me, and swallowed hard, clearly something else on his mind. “Tell me?”
“She was the First in Rest. She came back to West S’Kir and couldn’t…handle life. She’d slept since the Spine rose until ninety-three years ago—and the sleeping sickness took her when I was five.”
“Sleeping sickness…”
“If you take Rest more than a thousand years, you die from it when you do wake. She fell asleep and never woke up.”
His face contorted once more. “Kimber, Mistress Breaker. You look like her. Identical, save your eyes.”
I shook my head imperceptibly, quietly begging him to say nothing more.
“When I put her on the boat for North Landing… she was pregnant.”
Everything swirled around me. The dizziness was uncontrollable. I drew a hard breath. “It’s not possible. You know that it’s not possible.”
Odom shook his head. “I know. But I know she was pregnant.”
“Vampires and druidscannothave children. It doesn’t happen. It can’t happen. That’s been established since…time began.” I put a hand on my forehead. “There must have been someone else… someone snuck in and…”
Odom sighed heavily, nodding. “It’s what I’d always thought. Because you are right. We cannot conceive between the species. There were a lot of us, foolish and young. Someone might have convinced Savion to let them have her for a night.”
I choked back tears. “He would have done that?”
