I Bore Twins for My Oathbound Enemy

My daughter had a knife under her pillow when Cael Rook knocked on my door. I knew because I had put it there myself, after she asked whether a person could cut a shadow off someone's feet. I had said no. Then I had shown her how to hold a blade. "Stay in the kitchen," I told her. "I can hear you from the kitchen." "Then hear quietly." The knock came again, measured and familiar. Cael had always knocked as if a door were a formality that other people needed. I crossed the entry hall of my house above the black cliffs of Bellwether Bay. Beyond the windows, rain turned the ocean into a sheet of hammered iron. The wards I had woven into the stone walls shimmered faintly, warning me that someone powerful had crossed the property line. I opened the door. Cael stood on my porch in a dark coat, rain beading on his shoulders. Five years had sharpened him. His black hair was shorter than I remembered, and there was a thin silver scar at his temple where the memory spell had broken. I had put it there, though not on purpose. "Rhea," he said. "Cael." His gaze traveled past me, taking in the hallway, the wards, the narrow staircase. "I need to speak with you." "Then speak." "Not on the porch." "You can speak here." His jaw tightened. He had once been able to make a room feel colder by entering it. Now he could do it from my doorstep. "I came for my daughter," he said. Behind me, something clattered in the kitchen. Cael heard it. His attention shifted toward the sound. I kept one hand on the door. "You came for the wrong child." "I came for both." "No." "I have a legal order from the Concordance Court." "Then you can show it to my lawyer." "I did. She advised me to come in person." "My lawyer advised you to come here?" "She advised me that if I wanted to see my children, I should stop sending letters through the court." The rain ran off the porch roof between us. I wanted to slam the door. Instead, I looked at the man I had loved while he forgot his own name, and who had left with our son the morning he remembered it. "Your son is not here," I said. "I know." "Then you came for the girl." "I came to end this." A small shadow crossed the floor behind me. My daughter, Lark, had disobeyed me and come to the hall. She stopped when she saw him. Cael looked at her. I watched his face change, not much, but enough. His mouth softened around the edges. His hands opened at his sides. "Lark," he said. She stepped behind my skirt. That hurt him. I could tell because he lowered his gaze instead of trying to reach for her. "Can I come in?" he asked. "No." "Mom," Lark whispered. I turned my head slightly. "Kitchen." She held my hand for one brief moment, then let go and went back down the hall. Her small footsteps stopped at the kitchen threshold. She stayed there, listening. Cael's eyes followed her. "She has your gift." "She has her own." "I didn't come to take her away from you." "You brought a court order." "I brought a court order because you stopped answering me." "I answered you. You sent letters asking to see her under armed escort, with your people recording every word." "I wanted a witness." "You wanted proof I was dangerous." "I already know you're dangerous." The honesty in that answer landed between us. My power stirred beneath my skin, dark and warm as a banked fire. I kept it still. "What changed?" "Someone tried to take the children." All the air went tight in my chest. "When?" "Three nights ago. At the school in Aster Vale." "My son?" "Rowan wasn't hurt." "Was Lark targeted?" "I don't know." "Then you know nothing." "I know the attackers carried a seal from the Hollow Court." The Hollow Court had been a story I told the Ash Court's youngest recruits to make them stay inside the wards. It had not existed in a century. If Cael was right, someone had brought it back. "Why would they want the children?" I asked. "Because they're heirs to both our lines." "They're children." "They're also the only living heirs who can open the Meridian Gate." I looked past him to the dark road. "The Gate is a dead ruin." "Not anymore." The old war had ended with the Gate sealed, each of our houses holding half the key. My family guarded the dark half. Cael's order guarded the bright. Neither half could open anything alone. Unless the children could combine them. I hated the thought. I hated that I believed him. "What are you proposing?" I asked. "A temporary truce. We move them somewhere safe. Together." "You want to take them to your fortress." "I want to take them away from this house." "You could have said that." "I did." "No. You said you came to end this." He looked at me, and for a moment the rain and the years disappeared. I saw the man from the mountain clinic, the one who had woken without a name and asked me to tell him what kind of person he had been. Then the memory closed. "I can't protect them alone," he said. Neither could I. That was the fact I had been refusing to face. "I'll think about it." "Rhea—" "Leave." Cael gave a short nod. He set a folded paper on the porch rail, then stepped back into the rain. I shut the door and leaned my forehead against it. Lark appeared beside me, gripping the kitchen knife I had shown her how to hold. "Was that my dad?" she asked. "Yes." "Is he the man who took Rowan?" "He's the man who raised him." "That isn't what I asked." I looked down at her. She had my dark eyes and Cael's straight, stubborn mouth. "No," I said. "He didn't take Rowan from me." I had given him the choice to go. That was the part I could never tell her without turning the whole story into a lie.