To live.

Such a simple thing, on the surface. Heart to keep beating, lungs to keep breathing, but my father was not wrong when he’d said I faced a certain inevitability. The child would come, and while I hoped and prayed with all my heart that it would be many months from now, and that he or she would live, I knew that the more trauma my body suffered, the less likely I was to survive.

Which meant the less likely it was that Marc would survive.

The injustice of it, the unfairness, ground upon my mind as I paced through the house, trying and failing to derive a solution, but there was none. The sacrifice of one life for the chance of saving the other, neither of which would be at risk if I hadn’t made the choice to save myself. Rightly or wrongly, that was the worst part of it: that all of our woe had resulted from my fear, from my will to endure, my desire for love. From my selfish wish to have a life worth living. I’d gotten exactly what I wanted, but the cost… the cost was beyond what I’d ever imagined. And it need not have been, if only I hadn’t fallen prey to my father’s trickery, because I could have had nearly all those things without risking anyone other than myself. And Marc wouldn’t be on his way to a meeting where he’d give up a role I knew he cherished more than he ever admitted.

Depression dragged me into the darkest corners of my mind, visions of all the many ways our situation would play out circulating through my thoughts. Down and down, and with them came a regret that was crippling. And no matter how hard I fought it, unrelenting.

Which meant I had to do something.

Other than the time I’d spent in the galleries, I’d only on the very rarest of occasions visited the royal library, my leisure time dedicated to my art rather than to reading. Sadly, that left me woefully unequipped to navigate the enormous structure with anything resembling expedience, so I went in search of one of the multiple librarians employed by the crown.

I found one bent over an ancient-looking tome, scribbling notes on a scrap of paper as though his life depended on it. He was so deeply embroiled with his work that though I stood almost next to him for several moments, he did not notice my presence until I gave a soft cough.

He started upright, stool going sideways to clatter against the marble floor, pot of ink splattering in every direction, including all over the pages of the manuscript. He stared in undisguised horror at the stained pages until I stepped closer, using my magic to lift the ink from the paper, returning the tiny droplets to their pot.

“Incredible,” he said, touching the pristine pages. “The level of focus…”

I shrugged. “I learned as a child to clean up my messes or face the consequences.”