Wesley’s smile faded as the two men turned to look at her. Terilyn met their gazes calmly, not reaching for the blades strapped to her thighs and easily retrieved through the carefully tailored slits in her gown’s skirt, though she dearly wanted to. She’d dreamed, sometimes, of the way it would feel to carve a thin red line across their throats.
“Prince Lisandro, is it?” Bernard said as he cradled the still-crying baby close.
Terilyn stepped closer. “As blessed so by the Twilight Star.”
No king liked to be reminded of his failures in public, whether anyone knew of them or not. Terilyn knew her presence in the palace and by Eimarille’s side all these years was one Bernard hated. He had tried to banish her once before. He must have remembered that failure and what it cost him—a finger as a reminder of his insolence, but he kept his head and his life—because he offered the baby to Terilyn with a false smile on his face.
“It is, as you say, much too soon for mother and son to be parted. We shall celebrate his birth while my daughter-in-law rests,” Bernard said.
Terilyn accepted the baby into her arms. She dipped into a curtsy but didn’t bow her head. “I wish you much merriment, Your Majesty.”
She retreated back to the bedroom, feeling the weight of the king’s attention like a bullet to the back. But he did not demand she stay, and Wesley did not protest her leaving. Terilyn kicked the door shut, muffling the chatter that rose up behind her of men celebrating an effort they had no part in.
Eimarille still lay on the bed, face turned toward the door, her gray-blue eyes overly bright in her face. The magician had replaced the doctor at her bedside. Terilyn could only hope that meant whatever bleeding had been ongoing had finally stopped.
“Darling?” Eimarille murmured.
“I have him,” Terilyn said quietly.
Eimarille’s mouth curved in an exhausted smile. “I know.”
Terilyn settled on the bed beside Eimarille, ignoring the people moving around them. The only people who mattered to her were now safe within her care, and she placed Lisandro back into his mother’s arms with a gentle smile.
“Here,” she said. “He missed you.”
Eimarille hummed softly, staring down at her son with wonder on her face. Terilyn smoothed her hand over Eimarille’s hair, tucking the sweaty strands out of the way. Eimarille touched a finger to Lisandro’s round cheek, smiling sweetly at him.
“I’m going to give you the world,” she promised.
Terilyn leaned closer, wide-awake and unwilling to move from her own world’s side.
