Chapter 20 Blue Eyes
BLUE EYES
Amonth after our wedding, I told Dani I was with child.
If he suspected anything, he never let on.
His face broke into a wide, guileless smile, and soon his joy spread like fire through the village.
He told anyone who would listen that we had been blessed so quickly.
Maybe it was only my guilt, but I thought I caught the women's glances as I passed in the street—judgmental, knowing looks that made my stomach twist. Every day I feared someone might say something to Dani. But if they did, he never spoke of it.
I still worked alongside Buna for several hours each day, taking over her rounds when her bones ached or illness slowed her—something that happened more often as the years pressed heavier on her. Several times a week, I carried lunch to Dani at the forge.
Even before I reached the barn, heat spilled into the air.
Sometimes I lingered in the doorway, watching him stand before the fire, metal glowing in the flames, his broad hands steady on the long tongs as he drew it free.
With a single, practiced motion, he laid the iron on the anvil and lifted his mallet, shaping the molten metal into a sword, a knife—like the one that hung from my belt—or a piece of armor meant for a soldier, sparks flying with each strike.
The tools were heavy, but in his hands they seemed almost weightless.
There was always a small smile tugging at his lips as he worked, the expression of a man doing exactly what he had been made to do.
His life was simple. And he was utterly content—fulfilled by his work, our home, our child on the way.
I wished I could feel the same ease, the same satisfaction. But I was restless. Always restless.
I had settled into the same routine every married woman in the village endured—cooking, cleaning, then cooking and cleaning again.
At night, when the house lay wrapped in darkness, I gave my body to my husband.
If the days left me hollowed out, the nights with Dani were my only reprieve—the only time I felt truly alive.
As my belly swelled with child, my hunger for release only grew sharper, more insistent, and Dani was more than willing to meet it. My heart still clung stubbornly to Caius, but my body—my traitorous body—had become an instrument Dani knew how to play with practiced ease.
At least I could give him that.
My pains began one evening as I was clearing the table after supper.
Dani's face blanched when I doubled over, but I told him it would be a while yet, and he must fetch Buna when the time came.
I forced myself to finish the dishes, pacing the floor to ease the ache, Dani shadowing me, his worry etched so plainly across his face it might as well have been written there: too soon—the baby isn't due for another month. Yet he never spoke the words aloud.
Then, hours later as I paced, I heard the faint splash at my feet. I froze, the sudden wetness soaking my skirts and spreading across the floor. Another pain gripped me, sharp and undeniable. I met Dani's wide eyes and nodded. “It's time. Go—bring Buna.”
When Dani returned with Buna, none of the fear I had braced myself to see clung to her.
My mother had died giving birth, and I thought surely the memory would haunt her now.
But if it did, she hid it well. She carried herself like a general, issuing quiet commands with no room for hesitation or doubt.
When the moment drew close, she ushered Dani out the door, pressing a mug of plum wine into his hand.
“Bad luck for the father to watch a baby come into the world,” she said firmly.
And not long after, his absence perfectly timed, I gave one furious cry as the child slipped from me into Buna’s waiting arms.
“A girl! A beautiful, healthy girl!” Buna’s voice trembled with joy, tears glimmering in eyes that rarely softened. She swaddled the babe, laid her at my breast, then leaned to the doorway to call Dani back inside. “Come, meet your daughter.”
The giant of a man entered, stricken at first—but when his gaze fell on her, wonder overtook him. He sat on the edge of the bed with impossible gentleness, bent, and pressed a kiss to her tiny brow. At his touch, her eyelids fluttered open.
Cornflower-blue eyes. The same brilliant blue as Caius.
Not my dark-as-night eyes. Not Dani's brown, warmed with flecks of gold.
My gut twisted with certainty. Many babes were born with blue eyes, only for them to darken with time—but if hers did not, if they remained the blue of a cloudless summer sky, they would betray her the moment anyone truly looked.
I wanted him to say it. To admit that he knew. I wanted his anger—his rage—anything that might free me from the crushing weight of this guilt. Buna stood in the doorway, her perceptive gaze taking in everything; she knew exactly what was racing through my mind.
But Dani said nothing. Only that quiet, steady goodness of his—so gentle, so unyielding, it threatened to drown me. Fine. If silence was the game he meant to play, then I would play it too. I wiped my eyes and drew a steadying breath.
Dani looked up at me and lifted a hand, brushing my sweat-damp hair back from my face. “How do you feel?” he asked, his voice unsteady, thick with emotions too large for even his great frame to hold.
I nodded my head to assure him I felt strong, but it was Buna’s words that seemed to relieve his worry.
“She came through without trouble. An easy birth…Magda and the babe are both healthy, Dani. No need to worry,” Buna said, resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
Relief softened his brow. He bent and pressed a kiss to my damp forehead—just as he had to the child moments earlier—then turned back to her, wonder still etched across his face. “What shall we call you, little one?” he whispered.
“Anca. After my mother,” I said quickly, the words tumbling out before doubt could catch them. We had never spoken of names before this moment, and I prayed he would not question it.
“Anca Veró,” he repeated, shaping the syllables with care, letting them linger on his tongue. Veró—his family's name, born of the word to strike, a legacy of metalsmiths carried down through generations.