Page 36 of Enthralled

I drag my gaze from the babe back up to Khas then down again. “A boy?” I ask at last.

Khas grunts. A faint blush stains her cheeks.

“What is his name?”

“Sor,” Khas replies, then adds, “Soran. But Sor is more troldish.”

Soran. After Mixael’s father, Mage Soran Silveri. As if the red hair hadn’t already given it away! Once again tears prickle in my eyes. Gods, I can’t seem to help weeping at the least thing these days. “I . . . I’ve missed so much.”

Khas shrugs one muscular shoulder. “After the gates broke, everything was . . . very dire. We did not know how much time we had left.” She looks down at her child and strokes his glossy curls. “Every day has been a gift.” Then her eyes flash, catching and holding mine. “But now you’re here, maybe . . .”

The hope in her face is terrifying. Why does everyone seem to think I have the means to set everything right? Anj, the low priestess, now Khas. Do they really believe I’m some sort of savior? They don’t know what I really am. They don’t understand.

Worthless . . .

“What word do you have of the Prince, Miss Darlington?” Khas’s voice breaks through my thoughts, dragging me back to the present.

“Hush!” Lir says sharply, her eyes on my face.

“No, Lir.” I put out a hand, my throat constricting as I force back another sob. “No, I’m all right.” I turn to Khas again. “The last I saw Prince Castien, he cast himself through the gate to Vespre even as it collapsed. I hoped I would find him here.”

Lir and Khas exchange looks. Khas’s jaw tightens. They were both counting on the Prince’s return at Vespre’s darkest hour. Khas wraps a protective hand around her little one. “Well,” Lir says, glancing my way, a determined smile on her lips, “he must be on his way. Now that you’re back, I mean. He’ll be guided here straight away.”

“How?” Khas demands, her voice rumbling.

Lir shoots her a look. “Oh, come now, don’t be auggug,Khas. Their Fatebond, of course!”

“What?” I blurt, my eyes rounding. “You knew about that?”

“Now I do.” Lir laughs outright. “I merely suspected before. But it’s true, isn’t it?”

Helplessly caught, I can do nothing but nod. My hands once more press unconsciously to my stomach, a slight gesture, but both women notice. To my tremendous surprise, Khas reaches out and places her hand on top of mine.“Wut kharzug borugabah,”she says with surprising gentleness.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It’s difficult to translate,” Lir says. “I suppose it’s something like:Our lives belong to our children.It means we will give everything we must for their sakes.”

I meet Khas’s gaze, solemn and stalwart. “Thank you, Khas. Thank you for . . . for reminding me.” Stretching out my hand, I stroke little Sor’s soft cheek. He snaps, his diamond teeth chomping just inches from my finger, hard enough to break bone. Khas smiles proudly.

“Mar! Mar!”

Sis’s voice echoes down the stone passage. I whirl about, shocked all over again to see the girl, so tall and grown-up. A pang stabs through my heart . . . only to increase ten-fold when I realize she’s not addressing me. Sis skids to a halt in front of us, and though she tosses me a quick glance, it’s Lir to whom she pours out a stream of troldish far too fast for me to discern more than a single name:Dig.

“What’s wrong?” I demand. “What’s happened?”

Still speaking troldish, Sis turns to me, but Lir talks over the top of her. “Thegubdagoglirwho went with Dig up to the palace has returned without Dig. They were separated.”

My heart judders. “Dig is alone? In the palace?” A palace crawling with Noswraiths for which he is totally unprepared and defenseless. I don’t stop to think about my next words; they simply spill from my tongue: “I’m going.”

“Me too!” Sis cries.

“Don’t be rash, either of you.” Lir takes hold of Sis’s arm as though to prevent the girl from darting off that instant. “It’s dangerous.”

“I’mdangerous!” Sis snarls.

“Sis has a better chance of finding the boy than anyone,” Khas inserts. “She has the skill.”

“No!” I take a step forward, my fists clenched. “I don’t need agubdagoglir.I’m a librarian, remember?”

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