Page 111 of Curse of Darkness
“She’s exhausted,” Thalia tells me wearily.
I’m not surprised. Midnight has come and gone.
“Climb into bed with her,” I whisper to Amaya. “Let her know you’re there.”
My daughter eases into the sheets, wrapping those thin arms around her mother.
“How is she?” Thalia whispers.
I glance toward Mariana, but she summons me outside our bedchambers with a tilt of her chin. I stagger after her, utterly spent after hours lending her my energy to work with.
“What is it?”
Mariana dries her hands on her apron. “She’s going to survive, I think. It’s not so much a wound as it’s a form of necrosis creeping through her. Left unchecked, it would slowly steal her life away. I can’t heal it. I can’t undo the damage it has caused. But I’ve managed to stop it and contain that damage to her womb.”
I don’t know what that means. There’s no answer in her face, and it’s like my brain refuses to add the pieces of the equation together.
“There is some residual Darkness left over from the sword.” Mariana swallows and tilts her chin up slowly. “She will never bear another child, my prince.”
I don’t know why it shocks me.
It’s what the Mother of Darkness promised, all those moons ago.
Amaya was to be our only child, and I knew that.
But it feels like losing that chance all over again, because until this moment I didn’t know therewasa chance.
“Your Highness?”
Mariana touches my sleeve, as if she’s said my name several times.
Breathe through it. Just breathe through it.“She will survive?”
“That sliver of Darkness will always be inside her,” Mariana says, “but I don’t think it will be able to break through the wards I’ve set.”
“Thank you.”
She hesitates. “You should get some rest too, my prince.”
“Perhaps.”
I know she wants to say more, but she finally leaves me alone.
I return to the room and stare at my wife, her dark hair spread across her pillow, and Amaya tucked in her arms. Grimm lifts his head from where he’s settled by their feet, a silent guardian watching over the pair of them.
“They’re beautiful together,” Thalia whispers, easing the blanket over Amaya. She’s finally succumbed to sleep.
In sleep, they both share the same features, and I’m grateful for that—that she will look like her mother.
“Is Vi going to be okay?” Thalia murmurs.
Rage flares within my veins, but it’s the rage of a glacier. The chill of death. “She will survive.”
“Thi?” Thalia captures my fingers, her brow furrowing as if she knows I’m not saying something.
My father is gone forever now, but even in death he’s still cast us a blow.
“Watch over them for me.” Leaning down, I press a kiss to Vi’s hair.
