A bird calls from the oak nearest the wall. Then another. I haven't heard birdsong at this hour from outside in longer than those birds have been alive. For six centuries, dawn was the threshold I stopped at.
The sun reaches my hand first. The left one, resting on the bench beside my thigh. The warmth is immediate, arriving from outside my body the way dormancy used to arrive from inside it, except dormancy was a closing and this is the opposite.
I turn my hand over. Palm up. The light fills it.
The light moves up my wrist. I observe it with the same precision I'd give a threat assessment. The angle. The warmth. How it catches the M and C crest on my ring.
My father wore a ring. Heavier than this one. The same warm metal, catching the same morning light.
My hand is steady. My breathing is controlled. My face, if anyone were watching, would show nothing.
But no one is watching. The compound is sealed. The garden is empty. And I close my fingers around the sunlight as I closed them around Celeste's hands last night when I asked her to marry me, and I hold it, and I do not let go.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Elena's hands are steady on the ultrasound wand.
My fingers grip the edges of the exam bed, knuckles white, while the screen fills with gray static and Elena adjusts the angle against my stomach. The gel is cold. The machine hums.
Maximus stands beside the bed. His hand is on my shoulder.
Elena moves the wand. The image shifts. Gray on gray. Shapes I can't read.
"There," Elena says.
She stops moving. The screen holds.
I see it. A profile. Small, but unmistakable. A head. A body tucked tight. The curve of a spine. Arms drawn up. Inside the chest, a flicker, fast and rhythmic.
"That's the heartbeat," Elena says. Her voice is careful. "Consistent with approximately twelve weeks."
"Twelve weeks." My voice comes out flat. "You said seven to nine."
"I was estimating from marker levels without imaging. Twelve weeks is more accurate." She pauses. "Conception aligns with early March."
The hand on my shoulder tightens. Once. Then releases.
Elena moves the wand. The image shifts again. She stops. Goes still.
"Elena?"
She doesn't answer. She adjusts the angle. Presses down slightly. Moves the wand two inches to the right and holds it there.
The screen shows a second profile.
Same size. Same curl of spine. Same flicker in the chest, fast and steady and perfectly in time with the first.
"Oh," Elena says. Very quiet.
"There are two," she says.
I look at the screen. Two babies. Two heartbeats. Two.
Two.
My hand goes to my stomach.
