Athena’s POV
Days blurred together. I stopped counting. I couldn’t. Every hour felt like it might snap in half if I breathed wrong.
Axel was only two weeks old, but he was getting weaker. The warmth he should have had was slipping away, like trying to hold smoke in my hands.
His cries used to be loud and sharp. Now they were faint, sometimes not there at all. His tiny chest rose and fell unevenly. I kept him against my skin, close enough to feel my heart pound. I wondered if he could hear it.
“Mara,” I whispered one morning, my voice shaking, “he’s… different. One moment he’s hot, the next he’s cold. His hands just hang there.”
Mara didn’t answer right away. She knelt beside me, calm on the outside, but her eyes were sharp. She took his wrist, feeling for a pulse. My stomach turned.
