Anushka’s eyes flicked down, and I saw for the first time that she was pregnant and large enough that the child could not be far off. Dismay twisted in my gut, because in all that I had read, nothing had mentioned that Anushka had borne the King a child.

“What will we name him?” Her voice was dreamy as she twisted the all-too-familiar necklace dangling from her neck. And while she did not notice the discomforted way he looked away, I did. “You cannot know if it is a boy or girl, but either way, it will tell you what it wishes to be called in due time.”

She did not miss the it. “Alexis.” Her voice carried the weight of a hundred disagreements that had not gone in her favor.

“I must go.” He rose to his feet, but got no further before a deafening crack shattered the air. Pain lanced through Anushka’s skull, and she clapped her hands against her ears and screamed.

I screamed too, because never in my life had I heard something so loud, and I knew what it heralded. I knew what was coming.

The ground shuddered and her face jerked toward the massive peak looming above. Half of it was sliding away from the rest, breaking and crumbling, falling faster and faster, and the roar was that of the world being sundered in two.

“Anushka!” Alexis caught her up against his chest and flung a hand up. The mountain slid across the sky like a wave of rock and death, and then there was no more sun. And for some, there never would be again.

Chapter 57

Cécile

My heart fluttered in my chest like that of a wounded rabbit, and my hands pressed against my ears from the memory of the pain. Anushka had shown me the mountain, and I believed, as I always had, that its breaking was not her doing. I hated the feel of her mind, and wanted no more of this.

But she wasn’t finished.

I fell back under, and this time when I opened my eyes, it was dark and Anushka’s body was racked with exhaustion and pain. A candle burned in the lavishly appointed room, but she was alone. Alone and giving birth to a child. I ground my teeth against her pain, my gaze going to the ceiling with hers with every reverberating groan of shifting rocks. She pushed and screamed, and then a baby’s voice cried out. A girl, covered with blood but perfect.

“He will keep you safe,” Anushka whispered to the infant, clutching the girl against her chest. “He will change everything to keep you safe.”

And the words that went unsaid, but which I heard in her mind: I promise to protect you.

Anushka plunged me directly into the next memory. She walked through the streets of Trollus, her newborn clutched tightly against her chest. The city was not destroyed, but it had suffered much. Massive boulders rested on the crushed remains of homes, fountains and statues cracked and broken from fallen debris, and dust hanging thick in the air. Far above, the rocks shifted continually, the groaning and grinding incessant and sickening.