Page 59 of The Eighth Isle

Even Grey who was behind me, holding me up, went perfectly still, muscles locked in place.

“What?” he said, just as shocked as I had been. As shocked as I still was.

“I was pregnant, expecting Hansil’s child.” Her beautiful eyes filled with tears again, but this time she didn’t let them shed. Instead, she brought her hands to her stomach and hugged it, just like she had done on that beach. Her voice shook when shesaid, “There are other ways to give magic to Ennaris, not only by eating flesh. That was the most convenient way for sirens because flesh tastes so good to us and it’s so much easier to manage. But if we fall in love and bear children, the magic grows naturally. An infant siren holds the magic of an entire land in a tiny body, which she then lets off into the world as she grows,” she said. “That’s what our baby was going to do.”

I shook my head again and again and again…

“But falling in love is hard and risky and it requires giving up power and control—not something my sisters were interested in—or worthy of. So, naturally, they hated me for wanting to live differently. They couldn’t stand to see that Hansil loved me despite who I had been and what I’d done. He loved me, and they couldn’t accept it.” Her hands pulled into fists and they were shaking now, but she didn’t stop. “So, they killed my baby while she was only just created mere weeks before. They killed her and they killed my Hansil.” Again, her voice broke. “They took everythingfrom me.”

And now her desperation, her rage made so much more sense.

“Then make them pay,” Grey said because he still didn’t see it.

Make them pay,as if that was going to change things now.

Tears slipped from my eyes as I looked at my body, at his hands over my stomach, where he held me on my feet.

God, the way it hurt…

“Well, I was going to kill all of them, but now I don’t think I have to,” Syra said. “Like I said, the universe has returned everything that was taken from me.” She raised her index finger toward us and smiled and looked down at my body…

“You, Hansil. And your baby boy that is going to be mineforever.”

If somebody had stabbed me through the heart it would have hurt less.

“I don’t have a baby boy,” Grey said, and he knew what Syra was saying, he knew very well. But he was still refusing to accept it.

“But you will. He’s growing in her belly—how wonderful!” She laughed. “Just like my baby was growing in mine.”

My legs let go of me and Grey caught me in his arms before I hit the ground.

No, no, no, no—I said it to myself a million times until the word was all I saw and heard and knew. I lost sight of the world around me, of Syra and Grey and everything else because the more I understood, the faster the darkness pulled me under.

All that power that had been inside me since Grey.

All that magic, thatchaosthat slipped from my hands every time I unleashed it.

Suddenly Genevieve’s face came before my eyes.You can’t imagine the power that comes with bearing an Evernight.

God, it was so hard to breathe, even though I was lying down and Grey was holding me, telling me that I was going to be okay. Even though Syra was still there, talking, laughing—happy.

A baby.

A baby was growing in my belly.

All that magic she’d grabbed me with—all that fucking magic. It hadn’t killed me because I was pregnant with Grey’s baby.

“Look at me, Fall. Breathe. Please, breathe,” Grey repeated over and over again, his face in front of mine, his hand on my cheek. It was easy to cling to his voice now that that thought had taken root in my mind, now that I’d put that feeling into words.Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant—it echoed in my head.

And now I wanted to drown it out until I heard my own thoughts again.

Grey’s wide eyes were in front of mine, and he was pale as a ghost and he was terrified. My beautiful Grey—terrified, panicked, in disbelief.

“She’ll be staying here for now, until she’s ready,” Syra said, and when Grey looked up at her, I saw her, too. I saw her hair, falling to her knees. Her dress. Her hands.

The blood that had come out of her all over the beach…

They’d killed her baby. With that blue magic, her sisters had really killed her baby.

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