Bound to the Shadow Prince

Chapter 56

Chapter

Fifty-Six

T hat night, Nemeth gives me my potion, and I feel the effects immediately. My pounding head stops swimming, a cold sweat breaks out over my skin, and I want to throw up…but it goes away quickly, followed by a relief so profound that I fight back tears. I laugh instead, wiping the sweat off my skin with my chemise and stripping it off as I lie in bed naked. “This is my new favorite time of day.”

Nemeth chuckles, and instead of joining me in bed, he moves to the table stacked high with his books. “How is your stomach?”

“A little queasy, but it always is after my potion.”

“No aches or pains? No stabbing sensations on your side?” He picks up one book—one that I know is a medical tome he brought with him in case he needed to treat himself, and he begins to turn pages. “Any tingling?”

I run my hands over my stomach. Is it truly harder-feeling like he says? “I’m fine.”

He flicks a page, frowning down at the book. “I haven’t been able to find anything about a hard belly unless it’s a sick organ.”

“I think I’d feel that, wouldn’t I? Or something would hurt to press on?” I experimentally push my fingers into the soft rolls of my belly, but nothing feels unusual or painful.

“Mmm.” He sits down with the book, reading. “There must be something here.”

“I think you’re just panicking,” I tell him. “You’re stressed and now you’re seeing problems where there are none.”

“Possibly.” But he doesn’t sound convinced.

I cup my breasts, wondering if I should distract him with some sex before bed…and then pause. They feel surprisingly tender, even moreso than when I have my period. That’s…odd.

Out of nowhere, I remember a conversation my sister had with Nurse when she first got pregnant. She’d been unsure if she’d truly been pregnant.

“Are you ill in the mornings?” Nurse had asked her. “Tits sore? Does your belly feel different?”

Belly…different? Like hard?

I squeeze my breasts again and wince at the pain. They’re extremely tender, all right. But Nemeth could have been too vigorous with them earlier in our lovemaking. That doesn’t mean anything. Once he sucked on my nipple so hard that he left a mark for days and that made it extremely sore. I’d teased him relentlessly about it, too.

But I’ve also been sick in the mornings. I’ve rolled out of bed and vomited until I was weak every single morning for the last two weeks. I thought it was because we’d been doling out my potion every other day. That it was affecting my stomach like it affects all aspects of my physical person. What if it’s not that, though? What if it’s a baby?

That’s impossible. I’m not supposed to get pregnant. I’ve got cursed blood.

I must be wrong. I got my period recently. It was…

I pause, lost in thought. When was the last time I had my period? I remember having it prior to the solstice, when I’d had particularly bad cramps and Nemeth had made me a cup of tea. We’d joked that it was the last of that flavor of tea until we got our supplies in, and that we’d be glad to get new flavors, because we were down to our least favorites…

And one of my favorites prior to that had been one that had an herb that prevented pregnancy, and I’d sneered that I didn’t need it.

I can’t be pregnant, though. I’m the Vestalin with cursed blood. I can’t get pregnant, can I? That’s what I’ve always been told.

Or is it that I can get pregnant, but I can’t carry it to term?

The thought is a terrifying one, and I wish I’d paid more attention to what was written about the blood curse. I trail my fingers over my belly, worried. If it wouldn’t make Nemeth fret, I’d get up and retrieve my knife, ask it questions. As it is, Nemeth has enough to worry about. I’ll wait until I’m alone, and have my knife clarify what the truth is.

I can’t be pregnant.

Later that night, I slip out of bed.

Nemeth immediately reaches for me, stroking a hand over my arm. “Sick?”

“No, I just need the garderobe,” I tell him. “I’ll be right back.” I pick up my dressing gown, slipping it over my shoulders and wrapping it around my body. I hope he doesn’t notice the heavy pull of one pocket, where I hid my knife earlier. I hate that I’m keeping secrets again, but I need to know for myself, first. So I head to the garderobe and shut the door, and then pull out the knife.

“Am I pregnant?” I whisper.

It pulses in my hand.

Panic floods through me. How? It doesn’t make sense? I’ve been told all my life that a Vestalin with the blood curse cannot get pregnant. Haven’t I been told of relatives that had the same curse who lived their lives childless and alone? I want to ask if I’ll be able to carry it to term, but the knife can’t see the future any more than I can. Asking will get me no answer, which feels the same as a “no,” so I’m not even going to ask that. I’ll ask other things instead. “Is the baby healthy?”

Yes .

Hot relief floods through me, and I sag against the door, clutching the knife. “Does Nemeth know?”

No answer.

That doesn’t surprise me—I just figured it out myself. “Am I healthy enough to carry the baby the full nine months?”

No answer.

My lungs tighten. I close my eyes. Okay, okay. That doesn’t mean anything. My question might be too vague. I might not be healthy enough right now because I haven’t been taking my full dose of my potion. “If I eat properly and take the right dose of my medicine, will I be healthy enough to give birth?”

A shiver of affirmation, and I feel like I can breathe again.

I didn’t know Nemeth could make me pregnant. I don’t know what to think about the realization that I’m going to be a mother. I’ve never considered it. Never considered a life in which my blood curse wouldn’t prevent me from carrying on my bloodline. I’ve been told all my life that I can’t give a husband heirs. That because of my blood curse, I’ll remain sick and a burden all my days.

This seems impossible. But I think about my dark hair, and how everyone in Lios has the pale, blond hair except for those of the line of Vestalin. Of the stories that we have Fellian blood and that’s why our coloring is different. The rumor of Ravendor, the first Vestalin, giving birth to half-Fellian children that she hid away from the world. Everyone thinks that they’re garbage rumors. I’ve always thought that they were garbage rumors…but now I wonder.

“Is it true?” I ask the knife. “Do I have Fellian blood in my veins?”

The knife throbs in affirmation, and I gasp.

It seems my ancestor found a mate in this tower after all. But are the stories true? Did Ravendor hide her children away from the world? Or did she betray her Fellian mate and destroy him, as Nemeth’s people believe?

I don’t know what to think.

A week doesn’t feel like enough time to prepare. There’s endless amounts of work to be done.

Food must be cooked, and bread baked. Our meat is already dried, but any foodstuffs that aren’t portable must be made into something that is. We’ll only be able to carry limited amounts of goods with us, so we take the last of our stale flour and withered nuts and make a traveling bread that’s hard and dry, but will last a long time. We cook up everything that won’t travel and eat our fill, and Nemeth uses the last of my potion supplies to make enough doses to last me for two weeks if I take it daily after we leave the tower. Until then, as we prepare, I’ll continue on half-doses.

I sew adjustments to my clothing as Nemeth packs and repacks our bags, trying to see how much we can bring with us. He makes careful plans, determined to give us the best chances to survive. I know he’s miserable at leaving his books behind. I want to tell him that we can come back for them after we get my potion, after our futures are settled, but something in me knows we’re never coming back here.

Once we cross over the threshold, we’ve committed to our fates.

So I sew. My dresses are frothy, silly things with tight bodices and ribbon detailing and silken panels. They’re useless for travel, since I’ve only ever gone by carriage in the past. But when we leave this tower, there will be no horses waiting for us, no retinue to take us to our homeland. We’ll be crossing on foot, and we don’t know how long it will take, or how unpleasant the weather will be. For the entire week as we prepare, thunder crashes and wind howls so loud we can hear it even through the stones of the tower. I can only imagine what sorts of storms we’ll be pummeled with when we depart and invoke the goddess’s wrath.

I modify my dresses for travel as best I can. I’m not good with a needle, but I know how to make stitches at least, and so I raise the hems of my simplest dresses to above the ankles, so the skirts won’t drag in the mud. I remove expensive, flashy-looking ribbons and embroidery. I extend the laces in the bodice, thinking of the child growing in my belly. How soon does a Fellian pregnancy show? I still haven’t told Nemeth. I don’t know when the right time will be, but right now he’s frustrated and worried, and he doesn’t sleep at night. He’s anxious over leaving the tower—we both are.

In addition to angering the goddess, I’m worried there will be mobs of people waiting with pitchforks to tear us apart.

“We’ll go to your people first,” Nemeth tells me. “I’ll ask for asylum in their lands. I’ll tell them I’ve defected and I want to join your kingdom.”

I think of cruel King Lionel, who wants to destroy all of Darkfell. Of my sister, Erynne, who has urged me over and over again to kill Nemeth. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“It might not be, but it’s the surest way to get your potion in your hands quickly. This fenugreek herb? The aloe vera? They do not grow under the mountains. We must trade with outsiders to get such things.” He’s silent for a moment. “And…I am not sure I trust my people to get them for us. Not after they’ve abandoned us and left us to starve.” He holds me close. “At least if we go to your people, I know you’re safe.”

“But what about you?”

“I can take care of myself.” He presses a kiss to my brow. “If I am not welcomed, I will go.”

I shake my head. “If you’re not welcomed, I’m going with you.”

“We will take it one day at a time,” Nemeth promises me. “But first, we must get more potion for you. We’ll figure everything else out later.”

As the days crawl forward and our plans are almost to completion, I spend a lot of time at the altar downstairs. I’ve never been the most religious…or actually religious at all. But knowing that we’re flagrantly disobeying the goddess feels dangerous. I kneel before the altar and clasp my hands in front of me, and my prayers are full of apologies.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “We can’t stay, and I’m sorry. I know we’re not your children—I’m human and we’re the children of the Absent God, and Fellians are the children of the Gray God. I’m not sure you have children. But if you did, I can’t imagine that you would want us to starve to death in your honor. Back when you had names, the Golden Moon Goddess was supposed to be a goddess of love, a goddess of families and affection.” I hesitate. “And I’m pregnant. My baby doesn’t deserve to die here because our people have betrayed us. So please, please understand.”

The goddess on the triptych doesn’t answer. That’s not surprising. No one ever answers a human’s prayers, but I pray anyhow. I know Nemeth does, too, but if he’s answered, he doesn’t tell me. We pray, and we leave food offerings with the gods, because we know we’re going to be disobedient.

But we’re going anyhow. There’s no choice in Nemeth’s mind, and I’m not going to let him go without me.