I’m going to be a mom for real.

Her thoughts drifted for several minutes as she fully accepted the weight of that reality and responsibility. There was a piece of Darling inside her. Right now. A part that would grow into a baby she hoped looked just like him…

What are we going to name you, little one?

Yeah, that, too, was scary. What if she screwed it up? All of the Caronese aristos had unreasonably long names like Darling’s. Her full name was Escadara Marahn Zarya Clotile Starska.

What if her child hated the name she gave it as much as Darling hated his?

And with that fearful thought, she remembered what Darling had told her about Nero. “Are you really the one who named him Darling?”

He gave her a sheepish grin. “His mother technically, but I was the one who suggested it.”

“Why?”

“In Trisani, Darling’s the name of our north star. It’s what we use to guide us home and to find our way through the dark. When I suggested it, I wasn’t thinking about the Universal definition. As I said, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. But I don’t count that as one of them. Darling, however, does.”

Yes, he did.

Still, Darling didn’t have to go by it. “Out of all the names they gave him, why did his parents choose that one to call him by?”

“When he was a child, everyone used it as an endearment for him to the point that we thought nothing about it. It wasn’t until he was a teen that it became a source of ridicule. That is what I feel guilty about. I never intended him to be mocked for it. But it, like the rest of his past, is what has made him the empathetic ruler Caron needs.”

Darling certainly was that, but it made her wonder…“You said you can see multiple outcomes for people?”

He nodded.

She hesitated before she asked a question she probably shouldn’t. But it was one she had to know. “What would have happened to Darling had his father lived?”

Nero stared into space with a glassy look in his eyes before he answered. “He would never have been scarred. He’d have grown up very spoiled and happy.”

“Selfish?”

“No,” he said empathically. “That was never in him. But to address what you truly want to know, he wouldn’t have the bitterness that he has now, and while he would have been sympathetic to his people, he wouldn’t have the degree of understanding that he has.”

His next words stung her. “He would have married young, in his late teens, and been very happy.”

But Darling wouldn’t have married her. A part of her wanted to know who his bride would have been. The other part didn’t want her name for fear she’d hunt her down and punch her over something that hadn’t happened in this lifetime.

Either way, there was one truth she couldn’t deny. “He would have been much better off.”