“Ellard has distanced himself.I-I don’t know how he’ll react to the news.”
“Let me get confirmation, and we can go from there.”Mogens squeezed her shoulder, a ribbon of black bleeding into the gray of his countenance.“You have family, friends.No matter what happens, Gweneth, you will have our support.”
She nodded dumbly, her mind full of shock, disbelief, and if she was honest, a trace of excitement because she didn’t doubt Mogens’s diagnosis.He seldom made mistakes.
A baby.
She watched Mogens depart, her vision focused on the solid door as he closed it with a soft click.
A baby.
Her hand went to her flat belly, and she rubbed lightly.“I wonder how your father will react.”
Two cycles later.
Ellard arrived in the communal dining room to find his brother and Ry.
“How is Camryn?”he asked.
Ry yawned and rubbed his blood-shot eyes.“Mogens says she’s improving, but she sleeps most of the time.She lost so much blood.”
“The kittens?”Shiloh asked.
Ry smiled briefly.“My son and daughter are thriving.”
Lynx arrived with a pregnant Jannike.Nanu and Kaya strode in a few secs later.
“I’m starving.”Kaya sat at the table and helped herself to a wedge of Polis melon.Cubes of the delicate pink flesh disappeared into her mouth with rapid efficiency.
Mogens arrived, his black satchel clasped in his left hand.
Everyone grabbed their normal seats and started to break their fasts.
Gweneth didn’t come, and the lump of unease sitting in the pit of Ellard’s stomach grew.He hadn’t seen Gweneth for cycles.She didn’t join them for meals, and he hadn’t seen her around the castle.Not that he’d been around much.He’d spent three cycles out at Jarlath and Keira’s farm, and the rest of the time, he’d kept busy putting his soldiers through rigorous training and tests.
Still, he would have expected to catch glimpses of her throughout his cycle.
His conscience urged him to talk to her again, to explain why it would be best for her to move on with her life without him.Tension bled through his limbs, bringing his feline to the surface.His hand tightened around his vessel of tay, claws protruding from beneath his fingernails.
This cycle, he decided.
Putting this meeting off was cruel to both of them.
“Does anyone know where Gweneth is?”he asked.
“She isn’t feeling well,” Mogens said.“She is in her suite.”
Ellard stood.
“Take her this,” Mogens said, handing him a plate bearing two slices of hardtack biscuit.
Ellard started to add quigly spread, a fruity green concoction, and the traditional accompaniment, but Mogens shook his head.
“No, just the hardtack.Tell her to nibble on it,” Mogens instructed and calmly returned to his meal.
Ellard frowned at Mogens, frowned at the squares of crisp hardtack, and shrugged.Mogens was the medic.He supposedly knew his art.
At Gweneth’s suite door, he paused, hampered by the plate in his one hand.In the end, he kicked the door.Soft voices came from within and an instant later, Leeam opened the door, a vision in green and red.
