“I am asking you to be careful,” she corrects. “And to keep what I am about to tell you to yourself."
I stare at her, the pressure still pressing in around us, the air thick with whatever she has placed there.
“Keep what to myself?” I ask.
Jularin studies me quietly, then says, “You are carrying twins.”
“That’s not possible,” I say immediately.
“It is,” she replies, calm and certain. “Both are strong. Both are present. You would not have known. They have not allowed themselves to be easily felt.”
My hand moves to my stomach before I can stop it.
“That makes no sense.”
“It will,” she says. “But first, tell me this. Have you ever noticed that you can feel intent before action? Not what people say. What they mean. What they feel before an action.”
I hesitate. “I only ever use it when I’m fighting,” I say.
“I see.”
Her gaze sharpens slightly. “And who taught you to use it?”
“The Protector,” I answer, more quietly. “Teorin.”
“That would make sense,” she says.
“Why?”
“He is said to be very intelligent. Very calculating,” she says.
“So I have learned,” I say dryly.
“It makes sense he would learn your magic, making sure he understood it well enough that you would need him in a place like Veynar,” she says with a shake of her head.
I absorb that, though it does not sit easily.
“How do you know so much about intunars?”
Jularin smiles sadly. “Someone I care for deeply has the same ability.”
Before I can probe further, Jularin speaks again. “What you have is more than instinct,” she continues. “We call itintunar.It is the ability to feel intent before it becomes action. Some develop it in small ways. A few are born with it more strongly.”
I look at her. “And you think that’s what this is?”
“I know it is,” she says. “And I know you have not been using it fully.”
Before I can respond, she adds, “The children you carry have it as well.”
I go still. “That’s not possible.”
“It is,” she says again. “And they have already been using it.”
A cold unease settles in my chest.
“What do you mean?”
“They sensed danger,” Jularin says. “The undead are drawn to power. To anything that marks itself as worth taking. Your children understood that.”
