Author's Note: Thanks for following me, everyone!
Sorry for the short post today. It's what came out.
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Onlé names her son Berthen, claiming him as the legitimate son of his father. Nobody gainsays her, not that the father has any surviving family close enough to do so.
My own son is taken from me at birth and killed.
Evonalé hides in various crannies about the castle to cry about it, when she isn't being taught what I can hide and didn't already tie into her magic when she was an infant.
I have no tears left to shed and cannot remember the last time I did.
Gaylen doesn't rue me my silence, on the nights he has me. He strokes my head, not interfering with the daughter who sleeps at my side. I wonder, sometimes, if she even knows that he is my husband.
"I wish she were yours," I murmur once, in the deep of night when I know she's asleep.
His fingers pause in my hair. "I know."