Book 3. The saga continues. With her mating to Haku rapidly approaching, Chihiro has a number of new problems to face. But these are nothing compared to the plans a new foe has for her. Sequel to Enchantment of the Heart.
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Chihiro gnawed at her lip. She was thinking too much again, there was a warning echo of a headache between her eyes. She knew that meant she should guide her thoughts away from her mental blocks; her memories would never return. There was no point in trying to remember. As the days had progressed, however, one question was uppermost in her mind. Who was the father of her child?
It was the most pressing of the multitude of questions she had about her past, but no one seemed willing (or in her servant's case, able) to answer any of them. Their silence only added more questions to her already overburdened mind. Why were they keeping secrets from her? What could hiding the truth of her child's origin gain anyone?
Her grandfather had said the child was only half-human. That meant the father had to be like her grandfather; spirit kind.
She pushed the rice she was supposed to be eating around her bowl listlessly with her chopsticks. She had handled the news she was pregnant very well, in her opinion. It had certainly been a shock, but she had not slipped back into madness as her carers feared she would. On the contrary, she felt better than ever! As if a weight had been lifted from her mind.
She feared the reason she was being kept in ignorance was that the truth would damage her. There were various possibilities. The father could be dead; her grief manifesting itself as memory loss. She pursed her lips. It was a farfetched theory... unless she had actually witnessed something traumatic. He could have been slain before her eyes and her mind had protected itself from total madness by covering up the horrific things she had seen.
This was one of the more pleasant scenarios she had constructed as the days dragged on. In her more despairing moments, she imagined darker things. Her child might be a child of violence rather than love. That would account for everyone's evasiveness on the subject. She was sure they were trying to shield her from something! In one wild moment, she had even contemplated that the child was her grandfather's! She truly disgusted herself at times. She needed to stop thinking about the subject, she knew this... and yet how could she not think about it?
A hand fell on her shoulder. She looked up into the sad eyes of her servant. She smiled weakly at her and patted her hand. The woman was concerned for her. Even if she could not show it, Chihiro could tell. She ate her food under the watchful white gaze. She had to make sure she kept her strength up for her child's sake.
Her servant cleared away her empty bowl, leaving the room to take the crockery to the kitchen. Chihiro returned to worrying. Suddenly she felt very frustrated and swore to herself. She stood up from the table and glared around her room. It seemed to mock her in its anonymity. There was nothing to say it belonged to her. It could have been anyone's room. Crisp, white bedsheets, bare stone walls, stone floor, brown rugs scattered here and there and plain, functional wooden furniture. No clues at all to the person who inhabited these rooms. Nothing to aid her at all in trying to recall who she had been. It was as if the person she had been was dead, or rather she had only been born a few weeks ago and not yet lived long enough to impact on her environment.
