Khai's pov
There are things that stay with you no matter how many years pass, no matter how many battles you fight or how many enemies you bury. Some wounds never fully close, they just learn to sit quieter with time.
Maya was one of those wounds.
I had spent two centuries watching surrogates fail, watching hope flicker out before it could take root. I had hardened myself to it after a while, told myself it was just a curse doing what curses do.
But Maya had been different. She was not a surrogate. She was someone I had chosen, someone I had let past the walls I spent decades building, and she had gotten pregnant and, for the first time in a very long time, I had allowed myself to believe that maybe the moon goddess had not completely turned her back on me.
I felt so much warmth with
