Seren stared at Cael like the firelight might reveal more than his words.
"You've seen it before?" she asked quietly.
Cael didn't look at her. His eyes stayed on the flames. The silence stretched, but she didn't push. She was learning how he worked—slow, cautious, like an animal used to being hunted.
She waited.
He finally spoke.
"Not the child itself. The magic."
Seren shifted slightly. "What kind of magic?"
His jaw tightened. "Old. Broken. It doesn't belong to any bloodline."
That scared her more than she let on.
Because her baby wasn't just strong. It wasn't just fast-growing. It had stopped the rejection rite for a heartbeat. It had pulsed with light when it should've been too small to even move.
And now Cael was saying he'd seen signs of something like this before.
"Where?" she asked.
Cael didn't answer.
The next morning, the sky opened up.
Rain fell hard and fast, pounding the roof of the cabin, turning the clearing to mud. Inside, the heat from the fire kept them dry, but the air was thick, full of smoke and damp wood.
Seren pressed her forehead to the window.
She'd dreamed again last night.
The same child standing in a burning field. A boy, she thought. Black hair. Silver eyes. Not crying. Just watching as everything around him fell apart.
He looked calm.
Too calm.
She rubbed her belly.
"You're not even born yet," she whispered. "But you're already pulling the world toward you."
Cael watched her from the corner, silent as ever. She'd grown used to it now—how he listened without interrupting. His presence was quiet, not cold. She didn't feel judged by him. Just seen.
That alone was new.
Lucan had always made her feel small when she spoke.
Like her voice was something that had to be managed.
Cael didn't ask her to shrink.
Around midday, the cabin shook.
Not hard. Just enough to rattle the bottles on the shelf. Seren and Cael both stood at once.
She braced herself on the table. "Was that an earthquake?"
"No," Cael said, already moving to the door.
He stepped outside, bare feet sinking into the wet dirt, nose lifted slightly to the air. His eyes narrowed.
"What is it?" she asked.
He didn't answer right away.
Then: "Magic."
Seren's stomach turned.
She stepped outside, too, the cold rain soaking her cloak instantly. The air felt charged—thick, like walking through fog made of static.
Then she saw it.
A ring of moss at the edge of the woods had turned gray. Ashy. Dead.
The plants inside it were shriveled and twisted. Blackened.
The pattern was perfect. A circle. Unnatural.
Cael stepped toward it and crouched down, fingers brushing the edge of the ring.
"Is it a ward?" she asked.
He shook his head. "A scar."
"What kind?"
He stood slowly. "A memory left by something that shouldn't exist."
Seren looked at him. "You're saying something was here?"
"Not just here," Cael said. "It was watching."
She wrapped her arms around herself.
The baby inside her shifted.
She felt it this time—not just movement, but awareness.
The baby wasn't scared.
It was… responding.
As if it recognized whatever had left that mark.
They stayed inside the rest of the day, warding the cabin with salt and crushed root. Cael taught her how to spread it across the doors and how to anchor it to corners with iron pins. She didn't ask where he'd learned all this.
She already knew he wasn't just a rogue.
He was trained.
He was hiding.
And whatever had destroyed his old life… it had touched hers now too.
That night, they didn't talk much.
But before she fell asleep, she whispered, "Thank you for staying."
He didn't reply.
But when she opened her eyes briefly an hour later, she found him still sitting there, near the fire.
Watching the door.
Not resting.
Not blinking.
Just guarding.
The next day, her pain started.
Not contractions.
Not cramps.
Something deeper.
Her bones ached. Her skin felt too tight. Her teeth throbbed in her jaw like her blood was changing speed. She tried not to panic. She'd already had strange flares of discomfort during the pregnancy, but this was worse.
Cael noticed immediately.
"You're pale."
Seren sat on the floor, legs stretched out, trying to breathe evenly. "I don't know what's happening."
He crouched beside her. "Tell me everything."
She couldn't focus. Her thoughts blurred. Words felt too heavy.
Then the heat hit.
A sudden burst of warmth surged from her belly through her limbs. Her fingertips glowed faintly, little sparks dancing between them. Her eyes burned.
And then—
The room shifted.
She wasn't in the cabin anymore.
She stood in a dark space with walls made of fog.
In front of her: a woman. Tall. Eyes like moonlight.
The woman reached toward her belly.
"Don't be afraid," she whispered.
Then Seren blinked—
—and she was back on the cabin floor, gasping, sweating.
Cael knelt beside her, holding her shoulders.
"What did you see?"
Seren shook her head. "I don't know. A woman. She knew the baby."
Cael's face darkened.
"I need to take you somewhere."
She looked at him. "Where?"
He didn't answer.
But the urgency in his eyes told her everything.
That night, she stood outside the cabin with her hand pressed against the wooden frame. She didn't want to leave. It was the first place she hadn't felt like prey.
But she knew she couldn't stay.
The circle had changed.
The air had shifted.
And the baby was no longer just growing.
It was calling.