Unable to steady her on legs that continued to sway no matter how I willed them, I picked her up and cradled her tightly against me. “Shh…”

Her little fists pounded against my chest once more, but quickly died down, only to hang limp from her quivering body. Face contorted into a hundred wrinkles of pain, she cried without tears, each sniffle and sob like a bone blade digging between my ribs.

My blurred gaze shot to Yarin. “Do something!”

“Hush, hush, shh…” He placed his palms on her temples and brought his whispering lips to her ear. “Listen to my voice…”

It faded into nothing but hums and murmurs, unintelligible to my ear, though I sensed how Ada softened in my arms. Her stare lost itself in the nothingness of the arched ceiling and her muscles slackened. No more than a breath later, she stilled.

I commanded her lungs to expand and retract, focusing on an even rhythm so she may find comfort in it, then allowed her eyes to flutter shut. Together, Yarin and I placed her soul-bound body into a twilight state of subdued consciousness that closely resembled sleep.

“Her soul is in such anguish, it is fighting my bonds.” A rare glint of something other than amusement came over Yarin’s eyes, his voice void of his usual aloofness, stripped down to a growl. “What have you done?”

My stomach convulsed.

Where to begin?

I swallowed past a knot at the back of my throat, coiled in a tangle of emotions I had little experience with. “Most recently, I prepared a grave for her, lowered her into it, and had corpse children fill it with dirt.”

“Brother, when you try for the affections of a woman, you give her flowers,” he turned away on a scoff and slumped back on the daybed, letting another appear across from it, “not bury her beneath them.”

Excruciating sorrow strangled my guts.

Every inhale burned within my lungs, searing, scalding, charring its way straight into a heart I’d claimed I did not possess, only for it to bleed out all over again. A punishment I received gladly, for I had never deserved it more.

I stood there, a god shamed into silence, consumed by guilt and utter self-contempt. Oh, how I’d wronged my wife. My little one had not lied. No, she’d truly tried to return to me, and what had I done…?

What had I done?

I had driven her away. Punished her for a betrayal she’d never committed, causing her nothing but excruciating pain. Three times, she’d lost the child she always wanted. First to a blade, then to my blindness, and now to the truth.

And I had lost it, too.

For the second time in my cursed existence, I’d lost a child. Njala’s daughter might not have been mine, but I had grieved her just the same. Now I grieved again, yet my pain would likely never compare to the agony Ada must have carried all this time.

All by herself.

Because I was not there.

Had left her alone with her sorrows.

Instead of defeating the loneliness of my existence with her by my side, I had abandoned Ada to it. How could I ever undo the damage I’d caused between us in all my glorious ignorance?

“Pray tell, Enosh, how can this be?” Yarin pushed himself up to sit, formed a golden goblet in his hand, and took a sip. “My mind is utterly confused. Dazed, truly. How come we felt Njala’s baby, clearly mortal, but this one evades us in all its godly arrogance?”

Ada could likely not perceive it, but I sat on the daybed across with her and stroked the shell of her ear the way she enjoyed. “Njala—”

“Oh, I think I figured it out.” He chuckled, but even my brother failed to give it its usual air of cockiness. “My, my, my… Enosh. And here I thought you do not share your women. Not such a prude after all, I see.”

On any other day, I would have slit his throat and bled him out on his pillows, but I could barely bring myself to lift my head. “Orlaigh kept her reckless infidelity a secret, in all of mortals’ never-ending depravity.”

Trapping me in false grief for two centuries over the loss of a daughter that had not been mine. Oh, she’d concealed her betrayal well. Had riled me up against my wife the moment I woke, poisoning my mind with wariness and suspicion.

Where I expected fury and the urge to return to the Pale Court to weave her into my throne, I only found forlorn sadness.

Apathy.

Fatigue.

Two centuries of rage and distrust, and what had it given me? A dead wife full of justified anger, a child lost at the expense of my own, and a broken heart that beat ardently for both of them.

I loved Ada.

Loved her like I had never before, with no precaution over the pain it had already caused me, nor the pain that was certainly yet to come. I loved her with a ferocity that was not save for me or her. Certainly not for this world.

How to fix this?

I’d been so full of old hate and wariness, letting it snare me, corrupt me to such a degree that I’d hurt the most honest woman to walk this earth. The woman who had chosen to come to me. Might have held affection for me. Inklings of love?

But that was before…

Before I’d condemned to carry mortal’s viciousness carved into her belly. Before I’d refused her my warmth, even though I knew the harrowing coldness of death. Before I’d given her a crown of children’s fingers. Before I’d lowered her into a damn grave.

“An immortal child…” Yarin mused as he ran his thumb across his bottom lip, staring at the tip of his boot where he’d crossed his legs at the end of the daybed. “It just occurred to me that I might have sired thousands of those, unknowingly leaving them behind in the rotting bellies of countless whores. Not even I can find anything to laugh about that. You know full well how much I love children… such pleasant thoughts in their heads.”

I pulled Ada’s limp body tighter against me, taking another searing inhale until the lick of shame scalded my core. “It cannot die, or its decay would have noticeably affected her womb, but it cannot grow, either. This… void in her belly has not altered since her death, remaining the size of a pea at best.”

“Unless…” His nail tapped against the bottom row of his teeth a few times. “Unless you can convince our beloved brother to restore her. With her soul bound to her intact form, your woman is but a breath away from life.”

Eilam’s breath, for he was the god of life and its absence. Where most mortals spent their existence without ever crossing my or Yarin’s path, each one had met my brother at least once.

“Rebirth.” A capricious flutter came to my chest, rousing a hope that collapsed into despair but a moment later. “He will never agree.”

“Hmm… Yes… the drowning.”

And likely that one beheading six centuries back… “Among other things.”

“No, you are quite right, Enosh. He will refuse.” Yarin raked his fingers through his auburn strands, then propped his arm beneath his head. “Unless you leave him no choice but to agree. Nothing vexes him more than a good old sweep of annihilation.”

My shoulders stiffened.

If memory served, my last act of rage had devastated the lands beyond the Soltren Gate to a degree it had still not recovered after two centuries. Oh, what a mess that had been. Should that cause me hesitation?

Drowned lands, devastated towns, the decimation of entire bloodlines mortals valued so dearly… What was it to me? The Pale Court would forever endure, sheltering my wife and child within.

Yet one problem remained.

“My wife has a kind heart, carrying so little of mortal’s corruption.” What had gained her my admiration now proved an issue. “I shall have the high priest’s head, this much I vow, and I will destroy this false god they pray to. She will understand. But the rest of the retched lot…”

… needed to die, too.

How many?

Only my brother knew.

Ah, I’d told Ada that her hate did not bother me, so as long as I had her. Perhaps I was a liar after all, for I wanted little more than for her to love me back. Yet the moments where I showed mercy to the wicked had softened her toward me.