He hesitated, avoiding my eyes. “Yes,” he muttered.
My voice rose. “Why didn’t you tell me?!”
He threw up his hands, exasperated. “Because you’ve been moody and emotional this whole pregnancy—and if I evenhintedthat this might bethesolar eclipse, theEclipsarum Obscura, the one that could mark our baby’s birth as a Timeborne potentially—you would’ve lost it!”
I stared at him, stunned. “What?” I shrieked. “TheEclipsarum Obscura? The same mystical eclipse you mentioned in your dissertation? How do you know?”
His cheeks flushed. “I have my sources.”
“No.” My voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “I’m not having this baby today.”
I stormed toward the Jeep, adrenaline rising in waves.
“Let’s go.”
There was no way I was going into labor during the so-calledEclipsarum Obscura—the mystical solar eclipse Jack had theorized about for years. I wasn’t ready to prove him right. I wasn’t prepared for what that would mean.
I especially wasn’t ready to give birth to a Timeborne.
Clutching the map Omar had given me, I tried to breathe, to center myself.Stay calm. Don’t take it out on Jack.But the anxiety wouldn’t ease. If the Scholar showed up here, in the desolate wilds of Peru, he’d have a hundred places to hide my body. And no one would ever find me.
Jack approached the Jeep in silence, clearly wary of provoking another explosion.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted before he could speak. “I’m sorry, Jack. Sometimes I just can’t control it. I’m hot and miserable, and this baby is suffocating me from the inside out.”
I reached out and squeezed his hand.
His shoulders loosened slightly, and he gave me a cautious smile.
But before I could say more, another Braxton-Hicks contraction stabbed through me. I hissed and bent slightly, pressing a hand to my belly.
Jack’s eyes widened in alarm.
I shot him a look and held up my hand like a stop sign. “Not a word. This is normal.”
I gritted my teeth and rode it out in silence.
The drive was grueling. Jack didn’t speak. Neither did I.
We followed a jagged dirt road that eventually gave way to unmarked terrain. Dust clouded around us. I alternated between studying the map and scanning the landscape.
Finally, I pointed. “There. That ridge.”
The Jeep jolted up the incline, pitching side to side as it climbed the uneven ground. Jack maneuvered us between two towering boulders—massive, ancient things, weathered by time and looming like sentinels.
He threw the vehicle in park, grabbed his backpack, and slung it over his shoulders.
Without a word, we began the trek toward the cave.
The air between us was thick with unspoken tension—the kind that hung heavy and clung to your skin like humidity before a storm. Each step felt weighted, not just by the terrain, but by the weight of what we might find.
Above us, the sky began to dim—just barely—its edges paling into something unnatural. A shiver crept down my spine, the first true chill of dread settling deep in my bones.
Jack kept sneaking glances at his watch.
“What?” I snapped. “Are you timing something?”
He shook his head, too quickly.
