Chapter 48 Preparations
Preparations
Sleep does not last long. I wake to movement above, footsteps, more than before, and Colsar is already awake beside me.
He has not moved far. Both children lie against his chest, one along each side, their small bodies rising and falling with his breath, his arm around them, one hand still resting against my back.
A figure with silver hair and a young face appears at the top of the stair. He comes down and stops when he sees the children, alive and healthy against Colsar's chest, and something moves through his expression that he does not try to contain.
"They live."
"They do," Colsar says.
Arabar inclines his head toward me. “I am Arabar, the Fyrekin’s Sentinel. To finally meet you is an honor."
I reach inward before I answer, letting my intunar move toward him, finding nothing turned against us, nothing hidden that threatens the children, only purpose, loyalty, and a devotion so complete it feels almost ancient.
I relax, and smile once. "Then I am glad to meet you."
He sets the packs down beside the bed, then looks to Colsar. "Your things. They were left outside in the chaos. I retrieved what I could."
Colsar looks at them briefly. "Thank you."
"We scouted ahead," Arabar continues. "The Avanki forces are headed this way. They are not far."
"Good." Colsar adjusts the children against him. "Are you able to get a message to the Sovereign of Shalvar?"
Something like pride moves through Arabar's posture. "I am."
"Then listen carefully." The room quiets around the words.
"Tell him my children have been born. Tell him my wife requires safety and time to recover.
For now the children and their presence must remain secret.
" A pause. "We have troops with us. They will need accommodations.
Tell him we require use of the hidden kingdom in haste and to begin preparing it. "
Arabar's eyes lift slightly at that. "It will be done."
"Go," Colsar says.
Arabar turns and leaves and the room quiets again around everything that remains in it.
Shalvar. A hidden kingdom. Recovery and politics and children who must be kept from the world for as long as we can manage it.
The weight of all of it presses in and I let it, because it has a direction now, and a direction is something I can hold onto.
My eyes grow heavy. The warmth of the room and the rhythm of the children breathing against Colsar's chest pull at me from somewhere deeper than thought. I let my head sink back, and sleep finds me before I can think to resist it.