The gray-haired man opened and closed his mouth several times, wafts of decay souring the air between us. “Ada.”

I shuddered.

He knew my name.

Should that surprise me? Because it shouldn’t. After all, he also knew the size of my breasts and the lewd sounds of my pleasure, considering I’d groaned into his face on several occasions.

I pulled my knees against my chest as I draped the heavy train of my dress over the armrest of the throne. “I have questions.”

 Another stretch of his mouth revealed a tongue still moist enough to slither and curl as though it relished the rare taste of freedom. “And y-you shall… shall have your answers.”

“Why did Joah—”

“After you pledged me… your he… help.”

Internally, I groaned. “Or I might just peel your face off in layers until you talk.”

“Child, I have been at your husband’s mercy for… oh, for two centuries. Such threats mean nothing to me.”

Neither did I have the patience to wait this out with how Orlaigh often guarded the throne room like a dog its bone. Literally. “What do you want?”

“You will convince the god of my… my innocence, so he may grant me rest.”

A sad little laugh vibrated in my chest. “I can’t even convince him of my own innocence. Besides, why would I bother to help an old man rotting in this throne over something that is little more but a mystery to me and something to relieve me of eternal boredom?”

“Old, rotting man…” I sat at his eye level, yet he managed to stare down at me with all the arrogance of nobility, even in his state of decay. “I am a lord.”

“And I am a queen.” A tap against my crown vibrated all the way into my skull. “As it so happens, I’ve recently grown sick of helping others only for myself to end up worse than before. Like dead, for example. Now that I gave you your mouth back, you can convince him yourself when he wakes.”

“She will make certain he won’t believe me, as she always has.”

“Who?” When he tilted his head as much as the throne let him, giving me the weight of his stiff, milky stare, I sighed. “Orlaigh.”

“Yes, Orlaigh,” he said. “Dear child, my success stands and falls with yours. If you convince our Master of your innocence, my own might follow. In part...”

That piqued my interest. “What’s all this got to do with me?”

“Your pledge.”

“Fine, I give you my promise, for whatever it’s worth these days.”

“A great many things if I am correct in my suspicion. Now listen, and listen well.” He cleared his throat, sending me back half a foot with another puff of sour air. “It is true, the god and I had a disagreement over the amount of corpses he promised me for an army.”

“Enosh told me Njala came to talk sense into you.”

He laughed hard enough that the expanse of his chest let ribs crack against the ungiving cage of bone that trapped his body. “Yes, she came. And then she vanished, spirited away by the commander of my own forces.”

My guts constricted, and for once, I was certain it was neither hunger nor maggots churning my stomach. “So, Joah took her away of his own account?”

“Hmm, yes.”

I choked on a spike of shock as imaginary puzzle pieces reshaped before my mind. One after another, the echo of many accounts from different people distorted, only to rearrange into a grotesque picture that left me reeling for its meaning.

Yes, Joah and Njala had been lovers.

Always.

Forever.

Even before Enosh?

The shocking intensity of this possibility left me stunned and feeling rather stupid because the hints had all been there. Had Orlaigh not once mentioned how Njala had been found in the stables with a man? Had it been Joah? Why else would he have stolen her away?

I blinked myself out of my daze. “They had an affair, and you broke them apart when you gave her to Enosh.”

“As a lord with no son, no heir, a daughter’s reputation can carry the weight of alliances for generations to come,” Lord Tarnem said. “Stained as it was, no other man of nobility from neighboring parts would have her, but the god does not care about such things. Before Joah could put a bastard in her belly and render her worthless, I promised her to Enosh, silencing the damaging gossip while securing a powerful ally.”

“Worthless.” That word stung deep enough it poked a sense of solidarity toward Njala and how she’d shared in a woman’s plight same as I had. “Why keep Joah on as the commander?”

“Dismissing him would only have given credibility to rumors.”

“So Enosh didn’t believe that you had no part in her disappearance, which prompted him to accuse you of keeping Njala away from him so he would bend to your demand.”

“When he marched his corpses to my castle, I had no other choice but to capture him. To keep him my prisoner and my lands safe until I retrieved my daughter, contained the proof of her disloyalty, blamed Mertok, and returned her to the god as a sign of my goodwill. As you can see, child, gods make poor prisoners. He freed himself, and his corpses flooded my lands with the fury of their master without one more word spoken between us.”

 “But when Enosh closed in on Njala, she refused to return to him and instead, chose death.” My palm glided to my bodice, pressing against the braids of hair to soothe the sudden itch beneath. “And because she’d never wanted Enosh’s child to begin with, she chose death for the both of them?”

“Did she?”

A moment of brittle silence stretched between us, filled with the phantom beat of my heart and a dull ringing at the back of my mind that begged for my attention. Joah had shaken his head as vehemently as one might expect of a corpse this old, telling me they’d meant to save the child? From what?

I gulped.

Or from whom?

I pressed my hand against my parched throat. It started as a tremble in my chin, that moment when a startling question ripped the world out from underneath me, sending me stumbling off the throne.

Had Enosh even been the father of this child, or had Joah—

“No, this can’t be…” My mumbling faded into silence as I lifted my gaze to Lord Tarnem. “Njala was already pregnant when she left the Pale Court and ran off with Joah, is it not true?”

“Yes, she was.”

Njala came and left as she pleased, Enosh’s voice resonated in my mind before it shaped into Orlaigh’s odd lilt as it whispered, Chaperoning her was like herding a bunch of flea-ridden cats. Foolish, foolish girl.

The question pounded louder inside my skull, making me choke on a wave of dread. “Who was the father of this baby?”

The corners of Lord Tarnem’s lips twitched. “Child, you might very well be the only one capable of answering this question.”

“She saw him. All this time, she secretly met with Joah.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “If she continued her affair with Joah, he might have been the father of the child.”

A self-satisfied smile came over the lord’s face. “The mortal child.”

The one Enosh had sensed.

My mind wobbled somewhere between wary suspicion and wicked sanguinity as all strength left my corroding muscles. Pain stabbed me in the belly, sharp and cold. I looked down at myself, halfway expecting my bodice to stain red from wounds bleeding anew.

I sunk to the ground, trembling. Fought the heart-wrenching hope spreading through my core and how it might set me up for harrowing disappointment. No, I could not go through this again. But how could I avoid the impact and potential meaning of this revelation?

Enosh sensed all the dead.

All the living.

But not his brothers.

I pressed a hand to the wounds on my belly and circled them as overwhelming sorrow dulled my senses. Again. If Enosh could not feel his divine brothers, then what were the chances that he could feel our divine baby?

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