His child. Such a strange notion. In his arrogance, he had thought he’d understood the grief Alina had gone through when her son was taken from her. But as soon as Mera had told him of the child growing in her womb, he knew how wrong he’d been. That child was barely formed, a shell not yet ready to protect the soul within, and yet he would die for it. He would crawl across a field of shattered glass, let the flesh be burned from his bones, blacken his soul to the point that even the void would turn him away – all this he would do to protect that child. A child who had not yet taken a breath, a
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