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“Yes. Because it is where you can best protect them. The room cannot be seen or heard.”

Kentan’s hand closed around his arm.

“And it is where you can reach what you need.”

Colsar looked at him.

Then he understood. The room was connected to the tunnels of Morrath. Perhaps Asharin would find it if she recovered. Perhaps she would one day come through those tunnels and see them waiting. Even if he was not there, she would be able to see the nursery through the glass. She would be able to see the children.

Something small and fragile inside his chest eased.

Colsar looked at his children.

Neither Saurin nor Cambra spoke. They looked at each other once. Then Saurin shifted Ari to one arm and pressed her free hand flat against her own chest. Cambra did the same with Fiorakis. The words they spoke were quiet and old, the kind that did not require witnesses to hold weight. When they finished both women's palms bore a thin line of red.

An ancient binding rite. Their lives bound to the children's. An act of loyalty.

Colsar did not need to acknowledge it. He nodded once.

Saurin met his eyes. "Go," she said. “Fix all of this.” She stared down at the children. “For them.”

Cambra said nothing. She pressed her marked hand gently to Fiorakis's back and rocked her once.

Colsar looked at Kentan. "I need a Wanderer kept here. In Urasal. One that can carry messages and provide protection should anything reach this place."

Kentan was quiet. Then he took Colsar's free hand, the opposite palm from the Urasal mark, and pressed his thumb to the center of it. The burn came quietly.

"You can only use it on one," Kentan said.

Colsar looked down at his hands.

"I know," he said.

He stood. His legs held.

He started toward the door. For a single, impossible instant, he found himself waiting for her footsteps behind him.

Nothing came. He did not look back.

He straightened.

He had work to do.

CHAPTER 2

Awake, Maybe

The first thing I know is pain. Everywhere. It is the kind that has been happening for some time and has only now found me conscious enough to register it.

I am on a bed.

The ceiling above me is low and damp. There are sounds I cannot immediately place. A low keening somewhere to my left. Something rhythmic and wrong. There is the sound of women moving, of fabric and footsteps and the scratch of something being written.

I turn my head.

The room is full.

Women in various states of undress. Some pacing, their lips moving around words I cannot hear. Some pressed against the walls with their knees drawn up. Some strapped to beds identical to mine, leather straps worn soft with use. Several are pregnant. Several are screaming. One is laughing in a way that has nothing to do with anything funny, a sound that goes on and on without pause for breath.